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Arcade Gaming: Is it dead in your neck of the woods?

 
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Ryan - SuperWes' Bane
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 8:12 pm    Post subject: Arcade Gaming: Is it dead in your neck of the woods? Reply with quote

I've been seeing this topic appear a lot more recently in the last few months at gaming websites like kotaku.com, and I know that around where I live in Indiana, gaming at arcades is pretty much all but dead. Games like DDR had been bringing kids into the arcades up to a few years ago, but with fads like Guitar Hero capturing a huge portion of the rhythm game crowd, it has pretty dried up. Most of the arcades around here are a generation behind (Tekken 4 instead of Tekken 6, for example, or Time Crisis 3 instead of 4, etc), and I really wonder if we will ever get the likes of Street Fighter IV, Taiko No Tatsujin, or the Mario Kart Arcade games over here. So if you don't mind, please comment on your last trip to your local arcade and what the best 5 games they had there were.

I'm also wondering if it's our job as gamers to turn our backs on gaming at home at least half of the time and turn our attentions BACK to arcades. If enough of us make a pilgrimage back to our roots (I know I was playing games at arcades LONG before I had a Atari 7800 or NES), perhaps arcades can enjoy a second renaissance . Is this a fools cause? Or is it possible? I may have just got back from Japan, but I'd like to see what my arcades have now.
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Cycle
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 8:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

What a coincedence, I was going to post pictures of my local arcade when I get my camera back off my friend! I wanted to make my own thread though Sad I'll post my thoughts with those.

We have Time Crisis 4, though! But NO FIGHTING GAMES, WHATSOEVER. I'm not surprised shooters and fighters aren't in arcades anymore. You can get virtually the same experience with home versions, where as lightgun, driving, ddr games etc are harder to emulate, atleast for the price of a regular game (you have to purchase a steering wheel for the same arcade racing experience, etc). Seems like a natural evolution, really...
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Harveyjames
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 9:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Man, my experience with playing arcades in Japan makes me want to live there. I could play Street Fighter IV all frigging day.
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Winged Assassins (1984)
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 10:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Timezone that I haven't been to in years was slowly being taken over by ticket machines. I don't really want to go back, it could be worse now. The whole area is shitty anyway, fuck that place.
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Shapermc
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 10:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

When I was in New Orleans it was really alive (that was about 3 years ago) even though most of the rest of the country was long dead with arcades.
Then when I moved to St. Louis there were a couple of small ones and even some pinball machines, and then the commercial stuff like D&B.
Now that I'm back in Chicago all the places I use to know are dead. There's still the commercial stuff like Game Works and D&B. There's probably some around here, or downtown, but I don't know where. There is this bar that has large screen TVs and plays games (like a sports bar, but for games) and holds tournaments, but these are all console.
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daphaknee
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 11:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

even golfland is slowly being consumed by redemption machines, its all that makes money
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Scratchmonkey
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 16, 2008 8:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Daph, is the Nickel City off of 85 still rollin'?
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daphaknee
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 12:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

oh shit is that the one near like senter? way way way south san jose? the last time i went there (at least two years ago) half of their machines were broken so i doubt its in better shape now
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Scratchmonkey
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 12:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yeah, I only remember that to get there from Santa Cruz you went over 17 and then two exists south on 85. So I guess that's fairly fair south. We'd drive over after dinner around '98 or so to play the free machines in the back until they closed. We'd play all the way through either the Simpsons arcade game or the original D&D arcade game every time we went. I was always Cleric or Dwarf.
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daphaknee
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 12:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

yeah i loved their free section, id play xmen, galaga and ninja turtles until they kicked us out
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 3:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Guys, I drove to Walnut, CA today and played Street Fighter IV for five hours with a stranger.

They had it running on two SD screens and one of the monitors had no sound.
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 10:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

This place is opening in Austin later this month. If their games list is to believed, it should be awesome. We're talking SF IV, Espgaluda 2, Garou, Kof 98, and many more. I'm less than two hours away and will definitely be checking it out.
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Ryan - SuperWes' Bane
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 12:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hey James, remember that GIANT Gundam cockpit game we saw at that one arcade? They need those here too.
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 3:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The arcade scene in Iowa might as well not exist. My most recent arcade trip was in Iowa City, nothing worth playing and not much of it worked right.

The Tilt in the Oglethorpe Mall here in Savannah has a pretty good fighting game scene. They've always had multiple capcom and snk machines, and a really nice guilty gear display. I might pop in when I can spare the quarters.

I hear Georgia Tech campus, up in Atlanta, also has a really sweet arcade. Next D*con (or trip to my dad's) I might stop in, see what's what.

But yeah, I think these days there are some arcade meccas that you can trek to, and aside from them options are really slim.
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aderack
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 6:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I remember going to an arcade in Times Square around 2000 or 2001. It was big and glamorous and loud. First I'd seen that used smart cards instead of coins or tokens. Someone put a lot of money into this place.

And... I was flummoxed. I remember complaining to my friend, who I was with, that all they had was fighting games, driving games, light gun games, and DDR.

He gave me the strangest look. What else did I want? I fumbled a bit. I dunno, something... else? Something I hadn't seen before? An interesting platformer or concept game, or something?

A platformer? Puzzle game? He scoffed. When he went to the arcade, he wanted to play something he couldn't play at home!

I didn't disagree with that, but for the life of me I couldn't seem to explain my concern.
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daphaknee
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 7:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

aderack wrote:
When he went to the arcade, he wanted to play something he couldn't play at home!


man, remember when this was actually POSSIBLE

when killer instinct and mortal kombat made your super nintendo/genesis versions look like CRAP
when the screens at the arcade were HUGE AND AMAZING

i guess thats one of the major reasons arcades are totally dying, becuase you can get the whole arcade experience at home for super cheap

the only thing that works at arcades are ddr and driving games, and i mean you can still simulate that at home pretty well now too

boo hoo
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extrabastardformula
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 7:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You can't simulate the creepy asian girl in a deerhunter jacket who smells like a methlab and waits for you to start playing para para paradise just so she can jump in and school you.
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daphaknee
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 8:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

arcades will be full of nothing but para para machines

and flamin finger

LIGHT EM UP


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Np_x2RtQoE&feature=related

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when i went to vegas for my 21st birthday instaed of gambiling i fucking spent all my money on margarias and flaming finger

GET YOUR FLAME ON
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aderack
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 8:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Flamin' finger? Is that the sequel to Boong-Ga Boong-Ga?
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aderack
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 9:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Why was there never a Boong-Ga Boong-Ga Online?
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aderack
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 9:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kancho#

"poop needle"?
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aderack
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 9:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Kancho kudasai!!
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aderack
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 9:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPn_oaEr7WE
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daphaknee
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 9:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

aderack wrote:
Kancho kudasai!!


my ex did this and i totally kanchoed him and the resturant even gave us a discount oh those silly gaijin

aderack wrote:
Why was there never a Boong-Ga Boong-Ga Online?


because if it were online youd have to have a comptuer with a hole in it and a giant mickey mouse plastic glove
goddamnit soemone make this i want to upload pictures of my friends and their butts and INVADE THEM
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Harveyjames
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 11:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You know, pretty much all the arcades I went in in Japan featured games you couldn't play at home. Like a game where you whack onscreen ghosts with a real-life mallet you hit the screen with! Or a fishing pond game with a HUGE digital fishing pond projected from the ceiling. Or this crazy RPG-looking thing where you each you play on a screen positioned around a huge, rotating 3D real-life model of a castle which you all have to invade!
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aderack
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 1:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

You mean like a real-life Nethack?

Oh God. Wouldn't that be amazing? Why hasn't some MIT nerd come up with this yet?
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Intentionally Wrong
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 5:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi, I'm Jason, representing Wichita, where We Don't Really Matter (Unless You're Affiliated With Aircraft Manufacturing). It's kind of a one-track city.

In 2004, I knew of only one dedicated arcade in town: Aladdin's Castle, located in the Town East shopping mall. Most of its business at the time came from the DDR machines and probably Time Crisis. It had a scattershot collection of fighting games, racing games, old-school arcade classics (Galaga, Ms Pac-Man, a couple others I can't remember), and the usual skeeball/basketball/ticket dispenser challenge machines. It had been subsisting for a long time, but it closed within a year.

The situation has actually improved since then.

While you can usually find a small collection of (often terrible) arcade machines in random locations--CiCi's Pizza, Wal-Mart, the Warren East theater--the two main arcades that I'm aware of are each affiliated with an auxiliary attraction. One's connected with a golf course/amusement park complex, while the other's attached to a bowling alley and an indoor racing track. The last time I was at either, it seemed like they had pretty much the same cross section of games that Aladdin's Castle had, with particular emphasis on the "spend lots of tokens to try to gamble on getting a whole bunch of prize tickets" machines. I'll have to revisit them, maybe take some pictures.
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Intentionally Wrong
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 5:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

aderack wrote:
You mean like a real-life Nethack?

Oh God. Wouldn't that be amazing? Why hasn't some MIT nerd come up with this yet?


It's not QUITE the same, and it's a Carnegie Mellon nerd instead of MIT, but still.
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