[Arcade] Do Arcades still exist?

Kaelin, you must be in Springfield, VA; I'd recognize that mall anywhere.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

The only arcades in my city have movie theaters attached to them. There's a single standalone arcade square in the middle of the downtown area, but it's quite small and unvisited and they just got Tekken 4. It doesn't even look like an arcade, either. It's run by several bored old men and looks entirely like a storage room (mainly because it is).

They still exist, but just not in this shitlousy country anymore. Lousy North American fucknuts can't appreciate anything...

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Anyone who says arcades are dead is talking out of their ass. Games like Tekken, Marvel vs Capcom 2, any SNK fighter, DDR, ITG, Virtua Fighter, etc... I have Chinatown Fair near me. Pretty much the most popular arcade in NYC. As long as there's fighting games, Racing sims, and DDR, there will always be arcades. Just because it's not popular around where some of you guys are, doesn't mean it's a dead thing. Trust me on that one.

Most amazing jew boots

Originally Posted by Manny Biggz

Anyone who says arcades are dead is talking out of their ass. Games like Tekken, Marvel vs Capcom 2, any SNK fighter, DDR, ITG, Virtua Fighter, etc... I have Chinatown Fair near me. Pretty much the most popular arcade in NYC. As long as there's fighting games, Racing sims, and DDR, there will always be arcades. Just because it's not popular around where some of you guys are, doesn't mean it's a dead thing. Trust me on that one.

Unfortunately for Chinatown Fair, it's also one of the more expensive arcades in NYC... For my tastes anyway... So I consider $1.50 for one game a lot to spend on one game... Sue me. When I went there the past couple of times, I always thought that.

But did they get rid of that PPP machine there?

Most amazing jew boots

Around here, Arcades are pretty much dead. The only thing keeping my local arcade in the mall alive is the inclusion of DDR at the front door. Besides that, it seems pretty deserted for the other games. The only game I played in arcades was Time Crisis anyways. TC3 is still there, but I haven't seen anybody play it since like a year ago.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by nuttyturnip

Kaelin, you must be in Springfield, VA; I'd recognize that mall anywhere.

Hehe, yep. Or at least I was. Just at the end of the past year I moved up to MD, but since I lived in VA for so long, I still think of it as my local mall and town and such.

FELIPE NO

I have a few around (I don't relly go to them, but they are there.

I have a D&B a ways away from my house and a boomers all the way in BFE. I also know of a small Arcade/movie theatre witch is a lot closer, but they don't rlly have anything good (or sometimes work )

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Kaelin

Hehe, yep. Or at least I was. Just at the end of the past year I moved up to MD, but since I lived in VA for so long, I still think of it as my local mall and town and such.

Where in MD did you move? There are some OK arcades in some of the movie theaters near DC. I don't know much about the Baltimore area.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by parKbench

I think this is becoming the norm in our society.

Anyway, I remember back in the 90's going to this arcade in a mall by my house. They had this game called "Gal Panic" which was basically a Breakout-type game that no one, and I mean no one,ever played. One day, the arcade was so busy and I was jonesing to play anything, so I plopped a quarter in "Gal Panic"

Well, as you knocked out the blocks on the screen, a digital picture of a girl was slowly revealed underneath. When I finished the level, a nude pic of a "high-school" Japanese girl was revealed. Each level hid a different pic of a Japanese girl. It was the single best arcade day in my life. Now I know how Indiana Jones felt when he found the Ark of the Covenant. Needless to say, half the arcade stopped whatever they were doing and started watching me play this game. That game suddenly became the most popular game in history!

The next day, when I went to that arcade, the game was gone.

I absolutely know the game your talking about but it was so long ago I totally forgot what it was and puzzle games weren't my speciality. Our arcade had it for quite the longest time, and it actually did relatively well, especially what teenager wouldn't want to play a gme in which if you beat a level you got to see a hot japanese girl naked.

I always enjoyed the arcade experience and I still continue to enjoy it despite being 27 years old. I do agree to a point that the arcade scene is dead because these days the console machines are just as powerful as the actual arcade versions.

Back in 80's arcades were always the best social time to experience even if you were a kid or a teenager. Back home in newfoundland, arcades were very common even in small communities; at one point my small community that only had 500 people living in it had its own arcade much like a lot of the other smaller communities. These places were always full and managed to bring in a lot of money. By the time the early to mid 90's had hit the arcades had started to die out and they moved to the larger areas. Thankfully the larger town in my area was only a ten minute drive away to get the the arcade fix. In late 1990's the arcade in the larger area had closed down because it wasn't getting enough interest and now these days the only way you can find an arcade is only in he capital city of the entire province even though there are probably a fewer smaller arcades that nobody knows about.

I think the one of the reasons arcades have died out, is a result of the evolution of the times. People sometimes think arcades are a waste of money and time, in which thanks to massively multiplayer online games and other factors they can have just as great of an experience without having to spend a lot of money or having to leave their own home.

I just think there are just some games, that a home experience can never replicate in any way, shape or form. I think one of those types of games are pinball. Sure there are console versions of pinball. My favourite pinball game has not changed in over 13 years despite it being quite old it was called The Machine by Williams where you had to bring a robot woman to life and I recently found it a pool hall, working perfectly. I also loved playing Demolition Man Pinball its kind of unfortunate the pinball scene died out.

I also think the other types of arcade games that consles will never be able to replace are the four player or six player beat-em up game such as TMNT, TMNT II: Turtles In Time, G.I. Joe, The Simpsons, The Avengers, Spider-man and X-men. These were always my favourite kind of games to play when I went to the arcade as a child and a teenager. I also loved playing the top-down sky shooters, there were always an abudance of those even though I never remember the name of them.

I still go to the arcades now if I ever get the chance. I more these days go to the arcade to play DDR/ITG these days, but if I ever see an older game especially from the 80's to mid 90's I'll definetely play that. I typically play the scatter fighting game as well but other than that I don't really play much else. Kids these days i find are never interested in playing games that were before their time and I think thats the reason why arcades have suffered. It would be nice, if there was a retro arcade chain that focused its games on the older fans. Just recently I was at the bus station and they had a little arcade and a few classic games, and I really enjoyed myself. It seems like the older arcade games still exist but they are in the most obscure places.

In closing, I hope the arcade scene never dies because there are just too many games out there these days that can enjoyable now as what they were back then.

Most amazing jew boots

Originally Posted by ramoth

Where in MD did you move? There are some OK arcades in some of the movie theaters near DC. I don't know much about the Baltimore area.

I'm north of Baltimore up in Sparks. There are a couple of local malls that I know of, however neither of them have any stand alone arcades. I haven't had the chance to see if the theaters have anything yet though.

How ya doing, buddy?

Baltimore is passable for arcades. The one in White Marsh closed recently, although they moved the DDR machine to the theatre across the street. There's an arcade and laser tag at the Eastpoint Mall in Dundalk, an arcade in the Harford Mall north of town, a small arcade with a DDR machine in a Brunswick bowling alley in Ellicott City (across from where I live), a small arcade (not really worth mentioning) in the Owings Mills Mall. There used to be one in the Towson Mall but it closed. And of course there's a Dave and Busters in Arundel Mills. Oh, and there's Cyberden in Columbia, one of those pay-to-play places with console games, but I think they have an ITG and DDR machine as well.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Thanks for this thread, parKbench - it was a nice trip down memory lane

Zorro, firmly rooted in the eighties

I was speaking idiomatically.

It feels weird to be reminising about arcades. They were so much a part of life in the 80's. Makes you wonder what the teens of today will be reminising about 2020's.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Arcades are dead but in USA, in Latin America are still kicking asses (SNK Playmore releases The King of Fighters series here at the same time with Japan) and in Japan is a religion.

How ya doing, buddy?

You know thinking about this, makes me realize the best arcade that's around here is probably only in business because it's attached to a golf course.

Most amazing jew boots

We have one arcade near us, well something like 8 miles away. I don't know what games it has, I'm sure the likes of DDR, Time Crisis and Street Fighter are held within its walls, and doing well, but I haven't gotten around to going for a while. Back in the early to mid 90's I was always down the arcade playing one game or another, you couldn't keep me away.

It seems that the attraction of the arcade is no more for me. I just don't think the same of the arcade that I did back then. Back then I thought that it was a great place to hang out and play games, but nowadays the arcade is full of kids that have no respect for the games, and generally end up vandalising the machines. Meaning that most of the better games get replaced with newer games that aren't as good as the one it is replacing.

I remember one time that we had a Time Crisis machine that got busted up, but rather than replacing it for the same, they went and replaced it with some crappy tennis game.
Who goes to the arcades to play tennis?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Domino

It seems that the attraction of the arcade is no more for me. I just don't think the same of the arcade that I did back then.

Same here. No matter how powerful this generation of consoles and computers is - little impresses me much these days, whereas the 8- and 16-bit eras held one revelation after the other for me. Oh, those were the days... *sigh*

Zorro

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Seriously, I remember the Intelle-voice for Mattel's Intellevision system.

"They are talking in a video game? OMG!!"

..and the Sega CD

"They have full motion video in a video game? OMG!!"

There hasn't seemed to be anything lately that has made me say OMG like they used to back in the 80's. Now we just take all the technology for granted.

How ya doing, buddy?

Exactly. The first voices I faintly remember croaked out of my C64. (Was it Impossible Mission? I'm not sure.) What a sensation that was in those days. Or the oh so smooth and crisp graphical display of the Vectrex. The life-like motion-captured Mortal Kombatants. The fuss that was made about the first leaked "No, seriously, that's exactly what they'll look like because we have a killer console on our hands, you'll see" Killer Instinct screens which made us feel we had to expect a technological sensation with the advent of what was then called Ultra 64 *g* The OMG effect of the first rendered models converted to 2D sprites in the SNES adaptation, and the pre-rendered 2D backgrounds that put every real 3D game of the time to shame.

When was the last time I was really wowed? I think the REmake on the GC did a pretty good job, but compared to past experiences...

Zorro

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Chaotic

Unfortunately for Chinatown Fair, it's also one of the more expensive arcades in NYC... For my tastes anyway... So I consider $1.50 for one game a lot to spend on one game... Sue me. When I went there the past couple of times, I always thought that.

But did they get rid of that PPP machine there?

If you're talking about the music game where you gotta use your arms, then yes. The only game that's $1.50 right now is Time Crisis 4. Maybe also DDR supernova, but not sure. Off the top of my head, here's their current games list along with the prices that I know.

2 Marvel vs Capcom 2 machines at 50 cents (of course the game is gonna be super popular here when some of the top players in the world go there regularly)
A SNK machine with KOF 96 - 99 at 25 cents
Arcada Heart JPN version at 75 cents
2 Tekken: DR machines at 50 cents (Card purchasing included)
Street Fighter 3: second impact, and third strike at 25 cents
Street Fighter Alpha 3 at 25 cents
Street Fighter 2 Turbo at 25 cents
Soul Calibur 2 at 50 cents
The Rumble Fish 2 at 50 cents
Capcom vs SNK 2 at 50 cents
KOF 2k1 at 25 cents
KOF 2k2 at 25 cents
Samurai Showdown 5 at 25 cents
Super Puzzle Fighter at 25 cents
DDR Extreme at $1
DDR Supernova at $????
In The Groove (don't know which one) at $????
Giga Wing at 25 cents
Tekken Tag Tournament at 25 cents (note: it's bullshit that they replaced NGBC with this, and i'm still VERY pissed at how anti SNK they are over there)
Pacman, Ms. Pacman, Galaga, Centipede, and Space Invaders all at 25 cents
SVC: Chaos at 25 cents
another SNK machine with Metal Slug 5 (boo) and KOF 2k
some Bust a Move game at 25 cents

there's a few more, but that's all I remember at the moment. Main reason I really go there is for Tekken. I used to also go to wreck everyone in NGBC, but they replaced it with Tekken Tag, which isnt even as popular. Go figure.

I was speaking idiomatically.