Your Best Arcade Memories

[Bob_McMillan]

I've only ever bothered to play Time Crisis in the arcade. At least two people have been kidnapped from the arcade of the mall closest to us, so my mother never let me go there till I was 14.

But my best memory was when my uncle took me to a go-kart place and it turned out I was too short and too young, so we spent the money (a lot of money) on getting maybe 75% done with Time Crisis 3.

 

[FPLOON]

Chuck E. Cheese's and Dave & Buster are the shit!!

...

Unfortunately the Chucky Cheese that I visited as a kid. And loved for their one token per game policy, now sucks big time. They got rid of practically all the good arcade machines they had. My sister and I had more fun playing this spinning metal game where the circle thing your holding can't make contact with the moving metal (some theme park prize stands have it). Than the other stuff they have there.

Can't believe they're still in business last time I went there.

Yeah... The formal's taken an "interesting" turn especially in the one closest to me to the point that it's becoming its own mini-Dave & Buster, which the latter used to be considered "Chuck E. Cheese's for adults" by comparison... Ironically, the Boomers near me is still the Boomers I went to when I was younger with a "scattered" arcade section within the two-story building of the area...

OT: I just remembered this one time in Elementary school when I combined all of my quarters with three (or more) other [random] kids at the arcade just to beat both The Simpsons arcade game and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game... (And now I regret missing out on buying the latter off PSN...)

Other than that, I also really want to relive my days playing the shit out of Wave Runner because I can still do that with Arctic Thunder!

 

[HybridChangeling]

Lived in a small town that was basically lost in time. Had a bowling alley arcade with fun pixel style games, none of the late 90's 3D polygon stuff. My friends HATED playing for a high score in Galaga with me. Every time I got on the top ten, I would put "ACE" after one of my favorite Classic Who companions. The last week I loved there, me and some pals got on our best games and spent around 3-4 hours trying for top ten on all ours. Towards the end, I reached number 2 on the arcade, and I walked out of there satisfied with 5 different "ACE" places on the top 10.

 

[Catfood220]

Midways on rails lightgun shooter Revolution X was the thing that got me into Aerosmith, it wasn't a great game. In fact looking back in was kinda cheesy, but there was something to be said for blowing guys away to the strains of "Eat the Rich" that was an amazing experience at the time.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Beating Time Crisis II and Metal Slug X are definitely up there.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

God I used to love Arcades. I mean, I really used to fucking love them. The social aspect of them was massive, and that whole feeling of walking into that noise infested, flasing light environment. Anyone who'd ever been to Skeggy knows what I'm talking about........

Afterburner - Me & my nan used to make the trip from Nottm to Darlington on Barton buses several times a year to see my Aunty. A 4 hour ride, but one which stopped off at a cafe which had Afterburner. I'd save up for weeks before and rush straight to the cabinet to get as much game time as possible on it before eveyone had finished their kunch and had to re-board the bus.

Street Fighter 2 - When this was in the arcades I was 11. The lads who used to hog the machine were 15-16, and would not only beat you up on the game, but if you dare beat them on SF2 they beat you up in real life. So when the Famicom version was released some friends & I all chipped in to get it on import at the then extortionate price of ?68 (we loved it and would have got it then anyway). After practicing on it for weeks on end Rocky-montage stylee, we then bribed our elder siblings & their mates however we could to "bodyguard" us for a day as we lay waste to the 15-16 y/o's. It all went swimmingly until, over a woman of all things, a mini-riot erupted between the groups, and we legged it out the place buzzing at the chaos we'd caused and our "victory".

Arcades were a major contributor to my becoming a gamer in the first place, particularly fighters. No console could compare with how flashy and loud some of the games in those cabinets were, and at the time that impressed me.

My first ones were Rampage and a simple beat 'em up called P.O.W. (complete with soldiers screaming when defeated) at the beach club, and that was also my first taste of Street Fighter II. I would generally gravitate towards multiplayer cooperative games like X-Men, Final Fight, Time Crisis and TMNT IV since I was usually there with my brothers or friends and consoles were still developing good multiplayer. X-Men was the only one with a 6 player option, but most of them were capable of 3 or 4 players such as Golden Axe and The Simpsons.

One odd beat 'em up I only ever saw at one place was Die Hard Arcade. It has absolutely nothing to do with the movie except it takes place entirely in a giant office building and the bad guys are trying to steal a vault full of money, probably the game that introduced me to quick time events.

Even now I might visit that beach club arcade if some dick hadn't burned it down.

Ah, great choices

 

[WindKnight]

Finding the Aliens scrolling shooter, and wasting many a coin on it... and memorizing the pattern on the first boss so I could get it without taking damage. The elevator sequence, where you stopped every other floor to shoot enemies coming in left and right, as well as shooting them off the as theu tried to cut the cables, and the noise made when they did cut one, and the way the loose end flapped...

The awesome music on Rastan Saga always getting me pumped up.

Discovering the Star Wars arcade game, and doing the trench run in wireframe.


Afterburner, and galaxy force, which was afterburner IN SPACE, which to me at the time made it automatically better than afterburner by default.

 

[Brandon Lowdermilk]

I like Joust on the easiest difficulty setting. That's fun for me

 

[remnant_phoenix]

Playing the X-Men arcade beat-em-up in the big six-player cabinet with all six spots occupied.

It's also where I first encountered my favorite X-Men character: Nightcrawler.

EDIT: Also, Time Crisis. I love me some Time Crisis. 2 was my bread and butter, but 3 and 4 were just as fun.

EDIT EDIT: Why did Namco never port Time Crisis to the Wii? Seriously, that game would practically make itself.