I know it might seem strange to you but you have no idea how much I miss those dark cramped arcades of the late Eighties and early Nineties. Where the only lights were the flickering of the screens. The bare cement floors or that red patterned carpet that seemed to come standard in every arcade. Not an inviting place for families but I used to have so much fun in these places. I remember playing games like Final Fight, Vendetta, WWF Wrestlefest, TMNT and so on. Getting to play Super Mario Bros 3 on the Playchoice 10 before it came out for the consoles. Placing a quarter on the cabinets to be the next challenger in Street Fighter II. Around the mid Nineties the arcades started to become more bright and family oriented like they are in Japan after Namco bought Bally's Aladdin's Castle but it just wasn't the same.
I recall the dark places of the early 90s/late 80s as well - thing is, they used to have new games, lots of good stuff. Many were even two stories high! My theory was the economic collapse of 1995 had killed arcades here - but I realise now it's worldwide. Now arcades look almost derelict... that sucks ass. And yeah, here we also have the games in very crappy condition, and the arcades that try to pander to the "hip" crowd or family image are more expensive, have less games, much less. Those dance machines have brought new crowds to the arcades, though, and Neo Geo games like King of Fighters are a staple. Now the best arcades are outside of the movie theatre - they got an F-Zero GX and everything - and most machines are japanese.
Yeah i know that playin in a dark place its cooler than in a freckin red and yellow playroom, but the problem is that thats the kind of places that the mainstreams tries to avoid. I say, a disco/night club convined with an arcade would be the ultimate businnes. Anyways, here the arcade cenit was in the 2nd half of the 90, when daytona came in. Man, the money they expend on those park: he small twin cabin daytonas were hard to find, cuz every joint had those deluxe pneumatic machines with bigscreens and even a live feed of everyplayer in a central tv. But then the LANs came in, and suddenly all the arcades went bankrupt. The problem was that LANs could be spawned everywere, mostly becos they merged with the cybercafes (you know, those internet bars from the early .com era) Plus an arcade cabinet was around 5K a piece: With that money you can buy 5 ready-to-use PCs. Then there was the tournaments, and the fact that the fees were low as hell: 1 hour=1 buck. That, and the worldwide lack of new and cool games became the bullet in the arcades head.
Arcades mostly suck here, too. There's like one in Limerick - i haven't been in it for a couple years, mainly because it's shit. They used to have an 8-player Daytona set-up, but they replaced it with some crap Atari racer. They don't have a lot of games, and the remotely new stuff there was pretty generic - DDR, 18 Wheeler, some form of Silent Scope, and that was about it. Arcades used to be pretty good back when i was younger - well at seaside places anyway. I used to go to Kilkee (some crappy little town on the west coast) every summer from about 1994-2000, and there used to be 3 arcades there. There used to be the old classics - Out Run, Hard Drivin', Super Sprint (and Championship Sprint... in german for some reason), SF2, Metal Slug, at least 4 Sega Rallys and 8 Daytonas between the 3 arcades, Tekken 3... but then they slowly went away, and were replaced with crap and non-video games. One of the arcades because the scummiest scum hole that ever scummed, and then was turned into a pub the last time I was there (2002). The other one got rid of most games (incl. some of my favourites - Super Sprint, Neo Turf Masters, Point Blank and Puzzle Bobble) and replaced them with slot machines. The last remaining half-decent arcade didn't have a lot of games left in '02, but the few they had were pretty good Sega ones - Crazy Taxi, Virtua Tennis, 18 Wheeler (and/or maybe the sequel) and maybe still good ol' Sega Rally (they had SR2 for a while before then). I haven't been there since.
Man i can remember the day when the latest street fighter would come out and id try to get to the arcades to play it, it was so exciting. Even then thered always be good neo geo cabnit with some of the latest and oldies mixed. Man those were the days.Belive it or not theres a mall here in sd that has an arcade that suprisingly has a mix of old and new. The last newest arcade i played they had there was tekken 5, which despite not being as good as virtua fighter, looked damn good on an hd moniter. Plus that was also the place i went to go play svc when it first came out in the arcades. But maybe theres hope. I mean the arcades were in a rececsion before, and of course its harder now that current consoles easily can surpass the technology in arcades, its possible to bring them back, its just gonna take time.
I heard of some company in the US that sell used arcades pretty cheap. A friend of mine saw a daytona2 for a little as 3000$ Does anyone here know about that company? I hope they ship overseas :-D
My Bowlplex updates its games with some regularity, its quite some gift that in recent times we had the Namco Wagan game, the latest is Segas Ghost Squad........which suprisngly adds new features to the gun game genre & weve had Battle Gear 3 for ages......which is awsome However the actual local arcade, despite there being 4 together at the fair just doesnt get new games.....ever. Has a decent classic selection tho.
Can't believe arcades died that bad in the USA. There's about 10+ arcades in the area I live alone and they all have most of the newest games from Japan. (Although most of the shooters aren't brought here though. :angry) Another nice thing about them is two of the arcades around here have a lot of SNK, Capcom, Namco competition which is fun to watch. Plus there are 3 arcades that are called Nickle City that has games for 5 cents and has old Sega, Taito, SNK games in Candy Cabs for free. :happyhap:
You are lucky living on the west coast. One of the best arcades in the east is near my apartment, and all they have now are dancing and shitty racing games. The only redeeming factor is this arcade is one of the first around here to get new games, so I visit every few months to see what has trickled over here from Japan. There is also a small arcade in Chinatown/NYC that has tons of old games, including a slew of vertical shooters, fighting games and some vintage (all original setups) Pac-Man, Galaga and other classic cabinets. ^_^_^
HotZone, the closest decent arcade near by has: Indy 500 DX Special (x4) Daytona USA 2 DX (x4) Sega Rally 2 Twin Cab (x2) Crazy Taxi High Roller Twin cab (x1) Ferrari 355 Challenge DX (3-screen) (x1) Ferrari 355 Challenge International (3-screen) (x1) Airline Pilot (3-screen) (x1) Sega Strike Fighter (3-screen) (x1) 18 Wheeler DX (x1) King of Route 66 (x1) Emergency Call Ambulance (x1) Wangan Midnight Twin Cab (x1) Sega Super GT DX (x2) Police 24/7 (x1) Police 911 (x1) The House of The Dead III DX (x1) Time Crisis II Twin DX (x1) Time Crisis III Twin DX (x2) Ninja Assault (x1) Warzaid (2-screen) DX (x1) Confidential Mission DX (x1) The House of the Dead II Special DX (x2) Cruis'n Exotica Twin cab (x1) Dolphin Blue (x1) Demolish Fist (x1) Tekken 5 (x2) Tekken 4 (x1) Super Monkey Ball (x1) Tokyo Cop (x2) OutRun 2 (x2) Jambo Safari (x1) Virtua Tennis (x2) Virtua Fighter 2 (X1) Wave Runners GP (x2) Air Trix (x1) Club Kart Twin Cab (x1) Club Kart (Cycraft cabinet (x1) Soul Surfer (x1) Virtua Striker 4 (x1) Velozes e Furiosos (x2) (= The Fast and The Furions. The one Yakumo mentioned) The King of Fighters Neowave (x1) F-Zero AC (x2) Ollie King (x1) Para Para Paradise (x1) DDR Extreme (x1) DDR Max 2 (x1) Samba de Amigo 2000 (x1) Magical Truck Adventure (x1) + some other stuff i don't remember. As you can see, most stuff are Sega, which is good. Anyway, i gotta go there this week to check the new stuff (Out Run 2, ...)
