Arcade Stuff

[Castille7]

I'm sure many of us have been to the Arcade and played many games and had much fun with stories to tell so I decided to start this thread. The idea here is to keep the Thread on track with the title "Arcade Stuff" Examples: Tell us a story of an Arcade Game you played years ago or recently or post pictures of your favorite Arcade Games. Now we have the jest of it I'll start with my little story.

At a near by grocery I visited often Arcade Games where brought in and taken out to be replaced by the more popular one as many of us seen. Well Asteroids arrived one day and this one was a blast! I loved this game and it became my favorite. After playing many times with many quarters I was getting really good at this. Here are some tips along the way of how I got to this punch line. My first tactic was destroy one large Asteroid at a time without hitting others in the background. Often this would happen anyway but it was a good way to keep the amount of Asteroids to a minimal on the screen and boy did we want to do that! Next the annoying Flying Saucer, the large slow moving one wasn't too bad to shoot but that little one was a real pain. Keeping things honest here I don't remember if I discovered a way to take that little one out quickly or if I saw someone else do it but hey whatever works right? Because this little dude was worth a lot of points, what I would do is leave one tiny Asteroid on the screen and keep waiting for the Flying Saucers to come out, also while doing this I was flying often at a high rate of speed upwards through the top of the screen and coming in from the bottom so when a Flying Saucer would enter the screen I would place a stream of bullets just ahead of him so that he would hit them. After a few points were being made eventually the last Asteroid would get hit and oh wow here comes those huge Asteroids filling the screen once again! As I said before I was getting good at this, and now for that punch line. The big plan when playing an Arcade Machine is to see your name at Number One .....Numero Uno!! of course. So now I am reaching 999,999 and as an ignorant young child having fun in life, I did not know the Game would start over?? Back to Zero?? Are you telling me after all these hours of playing I will not have my initials on the top??? Number One?? for all the World to see?? Well it was a lot of fun and for those of you that would like to know......the initials you would have saw would have been CAC. 

Edited August 20, 2017 by Castille7

[pxi]

I'm old enough to remember when arcades were actually arcades, and not 90% claw machines and coin pushers.  It was rare that I had the cash to spend any significant time in them though.

I don't really have the space for one but I'd love to get hold of a Capcom Z-back cabinet - basically the iconic Street Fighter 2 style cabinet for anyone that doesn't know - good looking and designed for day-to-day operation, board swapping etc. to be performed from the front.

It's nice to see that barcades are now beginning to fill the gap left by traditional arcades, the overwhelming majority of the games are easilly available for play in various forms, but the cabinets themselves are pieces of computing history that needs preserving.  People like John Jacobsen (http://www.youtube.com/user/blkdog7) are doing sterling work in that regard.

[qzgy]

I'm young enough to not have gone to a proper arcade. Sounds like the pre-2000s were awesome. (I was born post.)

[cubinator]

Arcades now are more like casinos than proper gaming rooms. Luckily we have emulators and mimic hardware! I've been getting better at Donkey Kong lately.

[RoadRunnerAerospace]

When we were visiting some friends in washington, there was a actual arcade there, with restored games and stuff (I guess... Its the only one I`ve seen), and we (as in, my dad, me, my friends dad, and my friend) had a great time. It was great to play 1942 with my friends dad.. And have a lack of communication with my friend playing it, we didn`t get too far, we were laughing too hard at each other. I messed around with donkey kong for a while, and failed, played pac man, and failed, got some of my money absorbed in a machine, and generally failed at most things I tried, It was a great time anyways.

Edited August 19, 2017 by RoadRunnerAerospace

[Castille7]

1 hour ago, RoadRunnerAerospace said:

It was great to play 1942

I forgot about that game, it was a bunch of fun but I was never good at it

[Vanamonde]

I don't even want to know how much money I spent on these. 

[StupidAndy]

I have a Raspberry Pi, and I played Galaga earlier

I still haven't gotten 30,000 for the machine to record my high score, I think my high score is, I think, 22,500?

I also have Space Invaders, Centipede, Pitfall, Adventure, River Raid, and a few others. I like Galaga the most though

[Castille7]

8 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

I don't even want to know how much money I spent on these. 

I enjoyed the Karate Champ and BattleZone games but never could play those too well 

[Castille7]

8 hours ago, StupidAndy said:

I have a Raspberry Pi, and I played Galaga earlier

I still haven't gotten 30,000 for the machine to record my high score, I think my high score is, I think, 22,500?

I also have Space Invaders, Centipede, Pitfall, Adventure, River Raid, and a few others. I like Galaga the most though

Galaga was my wife's favorite, Me and one of my friends found this Rip Off game while waiting for a concert in New Orleans. My friend was the one sticking his money in for us both to play and I wasn't stopping him . This was probably my second most favorite Arcade Game to play at that time. Very simple graphics yet the task was easy and so much fun. Others I enjoyed similar to this was Space Wars and Space Duel.

Rip Off

Space Wars

 

Space Duel

 

Edited August 20, 2017 by Castille7

[NSEP]

21 hours ago, qzgy said:

I'm young enough to not have gone to a proper arcade. Sounds like the pre-2000s were awesome. (I was born post.)

Same here, i would really like to go to an early arcade but at the same time im lazy and wants do everything at home 

[pxi]

47 minutes ago, NSEP said:

Same here, i would really like to go to an early arcade but at the same time im lazy and wants do everything at home 

umm... http://store.steampowered.com/app/465780/New_Retro_Arcade_Neon/

[TheSaint]

There was an arcade about ten minutes walk from my house growing up. The Enterprise. My go-to was Defender, although I was also partial to Missile Command and Battlezone. I remember when Gauntlet came out we were there every Sunday after church with literally rolls of quarters in our pockets. Although I have to say, my all-time favorite arcade game was the sit-down version of the Star Trek Strategic Operations Simulator, but the only place I ever found one was at the arcade that was at the exit of Space Mountain in Disneyland.

[pxi]

Given that we're discussing Arcade Games, games arcades, high scores and the like, it occurred to me that some might be interested in the documentary "The King of Kong".

 

[LordFerret]

Long before there were 'video games', there was PinBall. I grew up on PinBall. I spent my second childhood playing video games however. Asteroids, Defender, and Centipede. I was truly good at those three. It wasn't about score; It was about game play duration. How many minutes of play could you get off of 1 quarter? How many hours? I'd been booted out of many an arcade for 'hogging the machine', play all night on a dollar's worth of quarters. They (the owners / managers) hated me, because they didn't make any money off of me.

If you ever get to visit Asbury Park in NJ, make sure you take a trip up to the boardwalk and visit the Silverball Museum! There, you can check out and even play vintage pinball games of every kind imaginable. Some of them date back to the 1930's and earlier.

[Castille7]

7 hours ago, pxi said:

Given that we're discussing Arcade Games, games arcades, high scores and the like, it occurred to me that some might be interested in the documentary "The King of Kong".

 

This would be interesting to me but the Video is blocked in the USA. Maybe we can find a substitute? I'll try when I have a chance 

6 hours ago, LordFerret said:

Long before there were 'video games', there was PinBall.

Love this stuff, thanks for posting! 

[Nikolai]

I fondly remember arcades.  It didn't take long to develop a trained ear so that you could know which games an arcade had to offer as soon as you walked in the door.  (Some of them were easier than others.  Spy Hunter, for example, was alone in its thumping bass for a long time.)

Unfortunately, when I was a kid, the city where I lived passed an ordinance that kids under 12 could not play arcade games without adult supervision... and my parents had no interest whatsoever in them, of course, so opportunities were very rare.  Before that law passed, I sank far too much money into Space Invaders and a handful of others.  I waited impatiently to hit 12, which I did just in time to move elsewhere.

[pxi]

3 hours ago, Castille7 said:

This would be interesting to me but the Video is blocked in the USA. Maybe we can find a substitute? I'll try when I have a chance

There's plenty of copies uploaded to youtube, likely you can find one that isn't blocked.  It's not a 100% accurate retelling of events from what I gather - some of the footage was edited in such a way as to ham up the antagonism between Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell - but it's an interesting glimpse into the culture nonetheless.

[TheSaint]

11 hours ago, LordFerret said:

Long before there were 'video games', there was PinBall. I grew up on PinBall. I spent my second childhood playing video games however. Asteroids, Defender, and Centipede. I was truly good at those three. It wasn't about score; It was about game play duration. How many minutes of play could you get off of 1 quarter? How many hours? I'd been booted out of many an arcade for 'hogging the machine', play all night on a dollar's worth of quarters. They (the owners / managers) hated me, because they didn't make any money off of me.

If you ever get to visit Asbury Park in NJ, make sure you take a trip up to the boardwalk and visit the Silverball Museum! There, you can check out and even play vintage pinball games of every kind imaginable. Some of them date back to the 1930's and earlier.

Oddly enough, I ran into very few pinball machines when I was growing up. By the time I started frequenting the types of establishments that had pinball machines, they were well stocked with video games. However, there is one place I remember playing them. One of my father's best friends was a gentleman by the name of Joe. Back in the late 1960s, Joe bought a 99-year lease on a lot in the town of Wawona, California, which is actually inside the boundaries of Yosemite National Park. And on this lot he built this enormous two-story cabin, three-bedroom, two-bath. We vacationed up there at least once a year all through my childhood. It was about a 10-minute walk from the cabin to the Merced River, and right along the way was the local restaurant/general store/vacation rental shop called Redwoods. And in their little rec hall they had a couple of pinball machines. So part of my brother and I's daily routine while we were vacationing there was to bum a couple of bucks off of our parents, walk down to Redwoods, buy some candy bars and comic books, play a couple games of pinball, walk down to the river and swim in the swimming hole, hang out eating candy bars and reading comic books, walk back to the Redwoods, play a couple more games of pinball, etc. It was a very liberated life for an elementary school kid.

[Castille7]

1 hour ago, TheSaint said:

Oddly enough, I ran into very few pinball machines when I was growing up. By the time I started frequenting the types of establishments that had pinball machines, they were well stocked with video games. However, there is one place I remember playing them. One of my father's best friends was a gentleman by the name of Joe. Back in the late 1960s, Joe bought a 99-year lease on a lot in the town of Wawona, California, which is actually inside the boundaries of Yosemite National Park. And on this lot he built this enormous two-story cabin, three-bedroom, two-bath. We vacationed up there at least once a year all through my childhood. It was about a 10-minute walk from the cabin to the Merced River, and right along the way was the local restaurant/general store/vacation rental shop called Redwoods. And in their little rec hall they had a couple of pinball machines. So part of my brother and I's daily routine while we were vacationing there was to bum a couple of bucks off of our parents, walk down to Redwoods, buy some candy bars and comic books, play a couple games of pinball, walk down to the river and swim in the swimming hole, hang out eating candy bars and reading comic books, walk back to the Redwoods, play a couple more games of pinball, etc. It was a very liberated life for an elementary school kid.

This would have been a very fun and relaxing vacation for me also,.........Now who doesn't want to go to a Rental Shop called Redwoods? 

[TheSaint]

2 hours ago, Castille7 said:

This would have been a very fun and relaxing vacation for me also,.........Now who doesn't want to go to a Rental Shop called Redwoods? 

Funny, went and looked on Google Maps, and it's still there!

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

The arcades... I'm fortunate enough to remember them. I spent hours and hours in there with "the boys" (and occasional girl ) They were both a playground and a social gathering place just to hang out. The social part probably due to the lack of money.

Samurai Shodown I and Mortal Kombat I were my most played, along with pool and foosball... Toki maybe if I felt like I wanted to throw money away, 'cos that thing was haaard.

Pinballs were also popular, Lethal Weapon and Adams Family... boy I played those a lot.

But at the end you played whatever, Sunset Riders or the occasional Snowbros, even Wonder Boy if I felt bored. The one I never touched was Street Fighter... because back then "Mortal Kombat rules and SF is for little girls" was a thing.

I guess, no I don't guess, I know, that arcades being an important part of my youth, as an adult I bought this:

(Maybe I should have invested on a phone with a proper camera, but well...)

Original refurbished cabinet, with original CRT screen, except that it's a computer inside running emulators.

I've been buying lots of those games in Steam or GOG out of moral principle, and while trying them on the 'puter... I have to say, there is no way in hell a PC can compete with an arcade for this type of games. It just doesn't cut it, the feeling is not there. When I stand in front of the arcade I'm 14 again, I have homework I'm not doing, I know my mom will ask why I'm late... but I'm not paying for the tokens this time around.

... and there are no pretty ladies neither.  

and with that said, I'm off to play... whatever I want, quarters or not. 

[Castille7]

3 hours ago, Rosco P. Coltrane said:

as an adult I bought this:

 

and jealousy seeps in......

[pxi]

3 hours ago, Rosco P. Coltrane said:

I've been buying lots of those games in Steam or GOG out of moral principle, and while trying them on the 'puter... I have to say, there is no way in hell a PC can compete with an arcade for this type of games. It just doesn't cut it, the feeling is not there. When I stand in front of the arcade I'm 14 again, I have homework I'm not doing, I know my mom will ask why I'm late... but I'm not paying for the tokens this time around.

You need one (or more) of these:

Model shown (Hori RAP V3-SA) is the one I have (actually I have 2, and I'm still kind of kicking myself that I didn't buy the other two that the local Gamestop were selling off cheap @ €40 each) all Sanwa parts internally which is what you'll find in the majority of Japanese cabs.  For fighting games they do take a little getting used to when you're used to gamepads, but once you get it, there's no going back.

[Joseph Kerman]

On 8/19/2017 at 7:56 PM, Castille7 said:

I'm sure many of us have been to the Arcade and played many games and had much fun with stories to tell so I decided to start this thread. The idea here is to keep the Thread on track with the title "Arcade Stuff" Examples: Tell us a story of an Arcade Game you played years ago or recently or post pictures of your favorite Arcade Games. Now we have the jest of it I'll start with my little story.

At a near by grocery I visited often Arcade Games where brought in and taken out to be replaced by the more popular one as many of us seen. Well Asteroids arrived one day and this one was a blast! I loved this game and it became my favorite. After playing many times with many quarters I was getting really good at this. Here are some tips along the way of how I got to this punch line. My first tactic was destroy one large Asteroid at a time without hitting others in the background. Often this would happen anyway but it was a good way to keep the amount of Asteroids to a minimal on the screen and boy did we want to do that! Next the annoying Flying Saucer, the large slow moving one wasn't too bad to shoot but that little one was a real pain. Keeping things honest here I don't remember if I discovered a way to take that little one out quickly or if I saw someone else do it but hey whatever works right? Because this little dude was worth a lot of points, what I would do is leave one tiny Asteroid on the screen and keep waiting for the Flying Saucers to come out, also while doing this I was flying often at a high rate of speed upwards through the top of the screen and coming in from the bottom so when a Flying Saucer would enter the screen I would place a stream of bullets just ahead of him so that he would hit them. After a few points were being made eventually the last Asteroid would get hit and oh wow here comes those huge Asteroids filling the screen once again! As I said before I was getting good at this, and now for that punch line. The big plan when playing an Arcade Machine is to see your name at Number One .....Numero Uno!! of course. So now I am reaching 999,999 and as an ignorant young child having fun in life, I did not know the Game would start over?? Back to Zero?? Are you telling me after all these hours of playing I will not have my initials on the top??? Number One?? for all the World to see?? Well it was a lot of fun and for those of you that would like to know......the initials you would have saw would have been CAC. 

That was the problem with older games and the 8-bit programming. That is called integer overflow. The same thing happens on Pac-Man when you hit level 256, where the screen is split in half; left side had the left side of the map, while the right side was just a flurry of numbers and invisible walls.