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What is your best ARCADE memory?

At quisco beach (chile)
i played snow bros 1 and 2/mortal kombat 2/ punisher/ captain commando/ MK3/ three Wonders/ street fighter 3rd strike.
 
the bday parties I used to go to. we would get to play at an oldschool dark arcade. with teh cliche 80s/90s carpeting and eat Roy Rogers next door to it in the mall.

:(

then traditional arcades died out and were replaced by the massive funhouses, which had videogame arcade machines, ticket game machines, massive indoor playgrounds, etc. all in one
 
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Too many memories

Beat 21 Gamers in a 1 Row in Marvel vs capcom 2 at day launch. (Not using Storm, Cable, Magneto and this kind of broken Characters), my team was Ryu, Ken and Guile.
 
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Seeing and playing a Street Fighter 2 arcade machine for the first time as a kid was magical. I didn't know anything about systems and arcades back then, I was just a kid with a Nintendo who loved SF2 and somehow ended up in the arcade. Of course it was a little different from the SNES version, which made it all the more exciting. It inspired me as an adult to make my own arcade machine, though it is not finished yet because I suck.
 
KageyK said:
I have so many.

My absolute fav was a 2 player arcade game where we had dual sticks and ran through a 3D maze. I made it there first and my friend took so long my guy fell asleep waiting for him. I can't for the life of me remember the name right now, but man it was so good.

1 credit clearing Double Dragon, Ninja Gaiden and Strider. I could walk into my local arcade and spend 3 hours on less then a dollar.

Holding MK2 and Street Fighter machines all day, while people lined up thinking they had what it took. I used to take random or let them pick my fighter just for double humiliation,

Lastly was just being in the Arcade. It was an environment you had to be in to understand just how special it was. Unfortunately now it's a tough environment to try to recreate. Those that were there know how great it was.
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Sure buddy.. Anything you coudlnt do...lol
 
TeamGhobad said:
1. i was in the canary islands went to an arcade and with 1 coin i completed street fighter 2 turbo using blanka and spamming his electrical attack

2. my dad had a restaurant like a summerplace with an arcade he had a beatem up arcade dont remember the name but u have to rescue ronald reagan from a helicopter on the final boss. with 7 coins that i got from my dad i completed the game.
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Bad dudes
 
All of them! I miss arcades (and smoking in arcades) more than anything.

My first memory was playing the Atari Star Wars arcade game. I remember "winning" and getting a big boost from my family, but years later, I'm pretty sure I just died and it saved us all a lot of grief. Still, I felt like The Wizard before that was a thing, so I confidence to step up to these cabinets with the older boys and girls my whole childhood.

I'll never forget the first time I saw a self-organized 'put your quarter up, winner stays on' SFII game. One, that we all just figured it out, and two, the feeling of being initiated on the sticks, having 10-20 people watch you play and talk shit- there's nothing like that in gaming anymore.

The most memorable was beating this dude's ass in SFIICE in a casino/arcade on St. Catherine in Montreal around '97. After the 3 or 4 convincing matches, my friend from the city told me he was pretty sure the guy was a low-level Triad and we were going to die (we were 16-17 at the time). We later all bonded over this porno Qix clone and it was all good.
Have no idea if it was true or not, but we still laugh to this day.
 
Sneaking into the city centre when I was young and going to an arcade and being amazed by all these sounds and sights and cabinets sitting there.

Used to just watch people play the games at that age.
 
Twin Cobra, in the little arcade next to the swimming pool in Crowtree Leisure Centre, Sunderland.
Always red hot from the pool with a gentle hint of chlorine but brilliant for a young lad with coins in his pocket.
As soon as you opened the door from the cafe down to the arcade, you could hear the music blasting away.

 
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In general there was the dark neon arcade in a mall in a nearby city a couple hours away, and the atmosphere of that place in general is maybe the strongest memory as a kid... dark with flashing lights, big arcade games at the front that I normally ever saw in GamePro or EGM, cool stuff like seeing some hologram game for the first time or a line-up or Daytona USA or Cruisin' USA kiosks, or the sort of taboo feeling of seeing violent games like Time Killers or Mortal Kombat as a kid.

Lot of smaller vacation memories...
- stayed at some big lake campgrounds that had an arcade in this open arcade lodge of sorts, and spend the nights playing some side-scrolling RPG hack & slash similar to Wizards & Warriors called Cadash...
- used to take an ocean ferry to the island every summer to go on family vacation salmon fishing trips and one of my favorite parts was the arcade on the ferry 2 hours both ways haha Cruisin' USA or the Terminator 2 one with the gun...
- playing arcade games near the K-Mart entrance every time my family went into the city and my mom had to go shopping haha I'd just chill and wait there with a stack of quarters and usually seemed to play SHMUPs ... K-Mart always had cheap old kiosks haha never the latest fighters or racers. I think the main one was Aero Fighters ... always played as the ninja but I think it was the one with the viking and robot, but no dolphin or baby yet... so a quick youtube check and I think it was Aero Fighters 1 not 2 haha
- and, I went to Disneyland as a kid and stayed in a hotel nearby, and played that side-scrolling TMNT game... think it was the second one Turtles in Time. Those were always my faves haha I was never very good at Mortal Kombat but I became pretty decent at games like TMNT, X-Men, Knights of the Round, and D&D Tower of Doom.
 
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There was this little arcade in a pizza joint ( Pinocchios ) I used to go to with a girl and her family, I must've been 9 or 10... there was Joust, Metroid, Donkey Kong... I only ever had a few quarters and we sure tried to spread it out! Lol. I really fell in love with her and gaming back then...

I moved away and everything changed over time. I think shes a kick ass biker now, I still game, but now with my kids when I have them.

To this day I still think about her when Arcades come up and I wonder what happened to her... the Arcades aren't around much either lol
 
- My brothers taking me to arcades
- Getting to Earth for the first time in Gyruss
- Being able to indefinitely play Mat Mania (maybe set on easy?). I'd quit after a while
- Operation Wolf
- Playing this at $1 per play! Awesome

1121348193.jpg
 
One funny story my bros would tell was when they'd go to arcades with their older friends, one guy got labeled Sweatman because the joystick would be an oil slick after he played. Had to wipe it down. lol
 
When I was a kid, I would gravitate to the arcade anytime one was around and beg my mom to let me go play for a bit. Loved the atmosphere, playing with an arcade stick and buttons, the cool/different types of cabinets (ex: timecop games). Best arcade memory: spending many many quarters with my brother and sisters at a KOA campground near Sacramento on a trip to disneyland around 1991. Beat the game, first arcade game I'd ever beaten. Worst memory: left my wallet, containing around 40 dollars, on top of a cabinet in my local mall's arcade when I left. Realized my mistake and went back a few hours later, of course it was gone. Was super bummed.
 
All the fights that used to break out at them. Those were great.

Getting threatened by someone 20 years older than you for beating them at Tekken 1 was hilarious looking back.

Or the certain arcades downtown you didn't want to go to because of gang members hanging out there and reports of stabbings.

Good times!
 
Outrun because of the music, Blood bros. With my cousin, Street fighter 2 with any group that was crowded around the machine at the moment, Virtua Racing because it was "virtual reality", and Daytona USA because it was and still is all around fantastic. Bonus mention goes to operation wolf.
 
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I love versing strangers in fighting games like Marvel vs. Capcom 2, like you could be playing by yourself and then they see you and challenge you...I miss that about arcades, and the arcade atmosphere in general... :[
 
Countless hours of Tekken3 at the arcade saloon on my home city railway station. :)
They have this special machine, with pro sticks, and awesome chairs.
 
You kids, get off my lawn.

This is where the real action where:


The two player cabinets were the bomb. I spent so much of my allowance there it is not funny.

EDIT: I think there were three different tracks to pick from. It was so epic.
 
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I was probably 12-13 and I remember two 16 year olds between my arcade machine and the next getting extremely intimate with each other. Sus hand actions and all. Needless to say I was dropping in alot of coins so I could keep watching the show.
 
Playing Virtua Fighter 2 in a Tokyo arcade, with a line of Japanese people waiting to dethrone me. I lasted about 5 players before getting destroyed.

It was one of those big sit down cabinets that took a prominent spot on the floor (google: super megalo 2)

Good times.
 
I have 2 that are pretty close. First would be My dad would always take me and my brother to Red Sox Opening day and we would always go to this arcade that was in downtown crossing in Boston after the game and I would spend hours playing pinball, I friggin love PInball.

The Second was also How I got my Screen Name and I mentioned it before but playing in Mortal Kombat tournaments at my local pizza shop my brother was hands down the best player out of all of us and was insufferable about it, but for some reason If I played as Jaxx I could beat him so When I Randomly got Jaxx when playing against him in the tournament and won I have never let it go and have used this screen name for everything since.
 
Lots of memories as I grew up at a seaside resort in the UK. Summers were spent on the beach, in the sea and running in and out of the 4 main arcades we had on the seafront. Going from bright sunshine into those dark neon arcades and waiting for my eyes to adjust is a real vivid memory.

More specifically, one time at school my mate kept going on about a new game at the pool arcade. He was so hyped we biked down there in our lunch break and I saw Gauntlet for the first time. It was stood next to the Haunted House pinball and it blew my mind. All the stuff he had been jabbering about turned out to be true. 4 players, ghosts, Death and money giving you health. Plus it spoke!?!

Seeing the local punk get to sheet 97 of Mr. Do! - we called stages sheets back then. A record I have yet to match.

Finding a Pacland machine in our supermarket. Pretty savvy business practic as kids often got bored going around with mum.

This seems a bit dodgy now, but one old fella owned a jeans shop on the high street and he had a little back room with two arcade machines... Yie Ar Kung Fu and Shaolins Road. Amazing, though there were kids from other schools in there and it could get a bit agro.

Seeing Space Harrier for the first time when we had a swimming class at the town pool. We could see it in the arcade room from the water. No one was interested in swimming.

Darkstalkers had quite an impact. We thought it was a cel shaded game. It looked so much better than Street Fighter.

In the 90's arcades weren't the same with more dedicated machines taking over, though the Namco Park at the bottom of Great Windmill St in London was one of the last really good arcades with a mix if both. HotD2 drew a crowd so big it was out on the street. I also remember seeing Star Wars Trilogy Arcade in there for the first time. Down stairs is where all the fighters were and I played a bit of Street Fighter 3 marvelling at the animation.

The most recent wow moment was at the now long gone Casino Arcade in London. That's where I first saw Mushimimesama and a few years later Deathsmiles Black Label. We had a pretty great community there for a few years.

Long post, sorry.
 
I've loved arcades my whole life, but no time was more magical than the late 90s for me. I used to live very close to a bowling alley with lots of great games, and I went there all the time just to play them. House of the Dead 2, Time Crisis 2, Star Wars trilogy, Marvel vs. Capcom, and a Neo Geo cabinet with Samurai Showdown, Aerofighters, Metal Slug, and Bubble Bobble. There was more but those are the ones I remember most. I used to love playing Time Crisis 2 the most and duel wielding in House of the Dead 2 was awesome...
 
zombie_gamer87 said:
Mortal Kombat
Final Fight
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First saw this in the Trocadero in London when I went to visit my Auntie as a child, and was blown away by it. 50p a game though! A King's ransom in those days!

They also had that Mech simulator game with multi screen that you sat in (I forget its name) but the queue was massive and it was about a £5er a pop.
 
It's not an Arcade but growing up, a lot of Pizza stores in my city had Street Fighter 2 machines.

There was also a Chinese buffet that had Marvel Vs Capcom and Marvel vs Street Fighter.

I have no idea how they all ended up there. Did an Arcade go out of business and all the local restaurants snatched them up? Ha. :LOL:
 
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So many games to list.

Street Fighter II
Pit Fighter
Mortal Kombat I & II
Virtua Fighter
720°
Dragon's Lair
Super Mario Bros
STUN Runner
Gauntlet
Both 1942 and 1943
Spy Hunter
Joust
Star Wars
Tron

I could probably go on for hours, I pretty much lived in the arcade when I was a kid! I remember one game that I poured so much money into as a kid at Aladdins' Castle at the mall was a game called Freedom Fighter, it was a laserdisc game that I always played when I went there, apparently it's considered a really rare game which I had no clue as a kid!

 
Flapples said:
Playing Big Buck Hunter in the back of the local pub while my family gets mildly drunk for the night.
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That reminds me of going out to eat and playing Golden Tee Golf. That and finding Hyrdo Thunder and Crazy Taxi at a bar.

Our mall had a few awesome cabinets. CarnEvil and Mortal Kombat 4 were two machines everyone could hear going down the escalator to Tilt (an arcade that crossed the entire basement of Westroads mall). They had all the versus games, Ehrgeiz, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, WWF, multiple MvC2 cabinets (including MvC), and Samurai Showdown. They even had 3-4 Mortal Kombat machines. I tend to remember the arcades I went to as a kid. CarnEvil's intro will always bring back memories of the arcade.

Another memory was going to Casa Bonita and playing Mortal Kombat 3.
 
Oldest arcade memory is playing through the entire Simpsons arcade game with a friend. His mom dropped us off there for some reason; cant remember what she was doing. Pretty sure it cost us around $10; but it was totally worth it.

Favorite memory is hitting the same arcade every summer at the boardwalk with my brother and playing whatever they had available. Our go-to was Ninja Turtles. I always liked playing the OG Pacman too because it was way cheaper than the newer games.

The arcade machines they have today are nothing like the classics. Most are rip offs of cell phone games or ticket hoarding scams.
 
Beating Double Dragon for the first time.
Playing M.A.C.H 3 for the first time.
Gauntlet was great also use to play Time Machine and Dungeons & Dragons pinball machines a lot as a kid.
 
Bigfroth said:
Beating Double Dragon for the first time.
Playing M.A.C.H 3 for the first time.
Gauntlet was great also use to play Time Machine and Dungeons & Dragons pinball machines a lot as a kid.
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Double Dragon, going back to back throwing elbows

Guantlet up until 'Your Shots Now Hurt Other Players'..... damnit Todd, that was my last quarter!
 
I have a lot of fond memories so its hard to choose.

Street Fighter 2/Mortak Kombat 2 was definately a highlight.

When I was older there was an arcade near my apartment we would walk over and play Soul Calibur 2 conquest mode that was great fun.
 
Too many to count but the oldest was probably playing Gladiator at the movie theater. So awesome to see pieces of armor flying off and having to use your shield high medium or low while attacking high medium or low.

I would love for a new version like Soul Calibur but with pieces of armor flying off.
gladiator-10.png


Other games like Rastan, Space Harrier, Double Dragon were all awesome.
 
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Probably my cheapest birthday, but unforgettable, was when my mom bought $25 in quarters and turned my best friend and I loose upon the local arcade to play to our hearts content. Having only spent $1 max in a day on arcades until that moment, it was like a dream come true. Still remember it fondly.
 
Playing Donkey Kong at the local Velvet Freeze, spending hella quarters on Dragons Lair at the local bowling alley and finally beating it. Playing Asteroids at a local restaurant. And a funny one.....playing Gorf at our local mall's Woolworths.......I still remember a kid playing it and his pants in the front were completely wet (yes piss). I guess he was so engrossed he couldn't leave to pee.
 
Playing, and more importantly *finishing* the G.I. Joe arcade game. It cost roughly $10 (I was a kid playing largely by myself, I wasn't that good at it!), but dammit, I saw the ending of an arcade game that was clearly designed as a quarter-munching beast.

Other arcade highlights tend to be technical wonders: Sega's Time Traveler (holograms!), Star Wars Battlepod (it's surprisingly immersive and thrilling). BattleTech centers if you remember those... surprised I got to try it given that I was a kid on a family trip to Chicago.
 
AngularSaxophone said:
Outrun because of the music, Blood bros. With my cousin, Street fighter 2 with any group that was crowded around the machine at the moment, Virtua Racing because it was "virtual reality", and Daytona USA because it was and still is all around fantastic. Bonus mention goes to operation wolf.
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i still remember the Outrun song note for note, and I haven't heard it in years, if not decades. 👍
 
Evil Calvin said:
Playing Donkey Kong at the local Velvet Freeze, spending hella quarters on Dragons Lair at the local bowling alley and finally beating it. Playing Asteroids at a local restaurant. And a funny one.....playing Gorf at our local mall's Woolworths.......I still remember a kid playing it and his pants in the front were completely wet (yes piss). I guess he was so engrossed he couldn't leave to pee.
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:messenger_frowning_
 
I grew up in the 80s and loved arcades but my favorite memory is when I was given $10 in quarters for my $5 bill by mistake.
 
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