http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qst ... FlZUVFeXk3


Sad....I remember in the early 80's spending all day in the local arcade....a couple of rolls of quarters would last me all day.....I think my favorite game was GORF.....good times....good times.....

Not in my house. Got the daughter a Ms. Pacman machine for Christmas that has a lot of the classic games on it. All the various Pac-man's, Donkey Kong and the rest of his family, Frogger, Space Invaders, a bunch of others, and my favorite - Galaga. And she is currently kicking my ass on it.

Absolutely none of my friends under the age of 25 have heard of arcades. I brought up Mortal Kombat once, and they were like, "Wait, why didn't you just play it at home on a console?"

My first (and favorite) arcade game was Asteroids.

We have places that are kinda like arcades but far more, combining bowling, video games, prize games (like skeeball), air hockey, restaurants, dance clubs, and more.

That's what the arcades around here have evolved into, at least the few that exist. Often, they're connected to sports activity centers.

Oddly enough I bought an X-Box version of Midway Arcade Treasures this weekend. I have been missing the arcade version of Rampart. Many a quarter was spent by me to beat that game. And now I'm starting all over using the crappy X-Box controller.

I loved going to arcades as a kid. We had plenty open and close all over. You'd get word of mouth that a new place was open with some hot game that everyone wanted to play. People would line up and plug away at the machines.

Over the years the games shifted to convenience stores. I can remember friends and I being chased out of the local 7-11. Which was kinda silly. We spent many a quarter there playing Street Fighter 2.

Arcade games are fun. Definitely a great part of my youth.

I am an arcade game buff. I have all the arcade classics for my Xbox, and I have a genuine Contra arcade game in my basement.

Oh, the hours (and quarters) spent at Aladdin's Castle.

I was the undisputed mamma jamma KING of Elevator Action. There was Tron and Popeye and the vector graphics Star Wars and Karate Champ and...

Okay, I may have to cry now.

"Pushee playor buttun. I-ee am the Gorfian Em-pie-oor. My-ee Gorfian robots will gongker uh-noh-thur gu-LAX-ee, ga ga ga ga."

I loved that game.

FULL POINT!

There is an arcade at the local mall here in Newport News. The most popular thing there (at least judging by the activity aroung it whenever I walk by) is not even a video game......it's that DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION thing. You know the game.....young men who have probably never danced with a real live girl, busting their asses to keep up with a series of flashing lights.

As far as old school arcade goodness....I liked Centepede, Asteroids, and Q-Bert, but my favorite thing was pinball.

It's the way of the world.

Galaga, Ms. Pac-Man, Dig Dug, Donkey Kong, Centipede, Pole Position, Donkey Kong Jr., Dragon's Lair, Burgertime, Spy Hunter, Punch Out, gauntlet, Ghosts and Dragons,Mario Bros., Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom, Marvel Superheroes, Goonies 2, Arkanoid, Rampage, Double Dragon, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat Super Bomberman 2, Captain America and the Avengers, X-men, NBA Jam, Karate Champ, Marble Madness, WWF Superstars, Super Pac-Man, Balloon Fight, Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles

were all games I spent many quarters on and i remember with fondness

NBA Jam was a big favourite of mine. Also loved Galaga. If I had invested all those quarters back then I would be a rich man now.

Most of my quarters have been lost to Wizard of Wor, Gyruss, Robotron 2084, and Galaga although I played a myriad of other games.

My friend and I would play Gauntlet 2 until we didn't have any more money back in the 80s.

I could never get past the light-cycle part of the game...always got boxed in.....

Time Crisis! Or any light gun game is fun. But the combination gun/pedal can't be beat for arcade entertainment.

I was a big fan of Golden Axe 2, as well as the original Street Fighter - Guile wasn't a marine, but an English punk rocker whom you fought in front of a graffitti laden brick wall (with Big Ben visible in the distance). I think Sagat was the final boss in that one as well, not M.Bison.

Yeah, Edward...I always got boxed in on that stage as well. Nothing could beat the stage with the frisbees of death, though. That was awesome.

http://www.pinballmuseum.org

Last year I'd finally stopped by the Las Vegas Pinball Museu and was immediately hit with a tidal wave of nostalgia! Over 200 playable pinball machines. Not a modern video game in sight! Only a handful of the early video games were represented like Asteroids, Centipede, and that cube-shaped Football game where you roll a stationary ball to make the dot run. (I despise video games!)

The pinball games going back to the 1950s up to today. Most of the machines I'd played dated from the late 1960s to early 1970s. Every single machine was in better playing condition than the ones I'd played as a kid. I played for 8 to 10 hours at a time. Some much so that my wrists ached.

As I touched the machines a flood of memories came back to me. I remembered having a rolled up comic book in my back pocket while slurping an Icee at a Circle K convenient store and opening pack after pack of Wacky Packages and Marvel Super-Heroes stickers. It was a daily stop after school when I was a kid in the early 1970s.

If you grew up before the surge of Pac-Man, Space Invaders and Asteroids pushed out the metal ball, I highly recommend you stop by there if you're planning a Las Vegas trip in the near future. I hope the place is around for years to come, but I'm not counting on it. The handful of people there (on a Tuesday afternoon) were mainly interested in more modern pinball machines (like South Park and Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith).

I'd totally forgotten about the separate manual plunger needed to push up the ball into the chute on pre-1970s pinball. And getting 5 balls instead of 3 balls!

All for a quarter!

It's sad, really. The developers for Arcades switched over to console games and no one seems to be making those really hot pinball machines any longer.