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"Prepare to Qualify." A Place to Talk about Arcades and Arcade Games

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  • "Prepare to Qualify." A Place to Talk about Arcades and Arcade Games

    Piggybacking on HFN's post (welcome back, HFN!) and the discussion it generated, we need a place to discuss the place we used to go to get our video game fix. I'm actually surprised we don't have a thread dedicated to this already, but there's no time like the present.

    I come by my love of the Arcade honestly. My dad was a pinball addict. Many times I heard my grandpa (RIP, Grandpa Don) tell the story about how they would go to Lagoon and within 30 minutes of walking through the gates, my dad would go missing. They could always find him at the pinball machine, either playing the game or in line waiting his turn. When he became an adult, his profession took him all over the country. Many times he would travel by car from place to place. Since he didn't drink and he didn't go whoring (we think) his favorite place to kill time became the arcade. Sounds creepy now, but it was slightly less creepy then. I digress. Sometimes we kids would get to travel with him, and if we had time between destinations, we'd always stop in any city we were passing through to hit up the arcade. Tilt, Aladdin's Castle, or some local mom and pop arcade. We played them all. I've probably played in arcades in 30 states. It was one of the best things about traveling with dad.

    And dad was an arcade baller. I could easily burn through $5 in quarters re-upping for life in Altered Beast or Gauntlet before dad lost his first ball in pinball. He could make a single game of Tetris last for over a half hour. Dad sort of feels like he discovered that game, since he would play it in the arcade before anyone even knew what it was. It was actually the reason he got us our first Nintendo, because he was banking on them making a Tetris game for that console.

    When the Red Cliffs Mall was finally built, it had a Tilt. Soooo many summer hours spent in that place. I pretty much had a paper route to pay tithing save for my mission and pay the rest to Tilt. The mall was a 45 second bike ride from my house, so I was there whenever I could be. Favorite games included:


    Galaga
    Star Wars
    Qbert
    Gauntlet
    THe Golden Axe
    Altered Beast
    WWE Wrestemania (Ted Dibiasi was freaking impossible to beat)
    Street Fighter II (Sho Ryuken)
    Mortal Kombat (I never got as good at this as I did at SFII)
    The Simpsons

    The arcade is vestige of days gone by. And while our kids certainly understand the video game itch--they know it all too well--they will never understand how, before we all had a video game console in our house--let alone multiple consoles--that itch was still there. And the arcade was pretty much the only place we could go to really scratch it.
    Prepare to put mustard on those words, for you will soon be consuming them, along with this slice of humble pie that comes direct from the oven of shame set at gas mark “egg on your face”! -- Moss

    There are three rules that I live by: never get less than twelve hours sleep; never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city; and never get involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body. Now you stick to that, and everything else is cream cheese. --Coach Finstock

  • #2
    My mom was sure that nothing but drugs and satanism could come from hanging out at arcades. That they were forbidden made them all the more enticing.

    But the place we spent most of the time was a console that JCPenney had set up for two players for customers to try. Much cheaper than pumping quarters into machines we didn’t know how to play very well. And then we could spend our allowances at the candy counter instead.

    We did hit up the Circle K a few blocks away when they got a Karate Champ game. Karate was huge at that time, since it came out almost the same time as Karate Kid. Lots of allowance and later paper route money went into that machine.

    Later, a new gas station opened a mile from our place that had a Nintendo machine. It had multiple games on it, and your quarter bought you time, not lives. We thought that was great, until we started getting pretty good at Super Mario or Zelda, then realized what a rip-off it was.

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    • #3
      You should have used a quote from gauntlet, not pole position in your thread title. SJBH.

      The UofU student lounge had a Gauntlet machine just outside the entrance to the pool hall ("Shots do not hurt other players, yet!).

      We played a ton of Joust at the local pizza place (Round Table) up in Olympus Hills.

      Also, Front Line was up at the old Smith's in Olympus Hills. SUPER HARD GAME.
      You're actually pretty funny when you aren't being a complete a-hole....so basically like 5% of the time. --Art Vandelay
      Almost everything you post is snarky, smug, condescending, or just downright mean-spirited. --Jeffrey Lebowski

      Anyone can make war, but only the most courageous can make peace. --President Donald J. Trump
      You furnish the pictures, and I’ll furnish the war. --William Randolph Hearst

      Comment


      • #4
        "Prepare to Qualify." A Place to Talk about Arcades and Arcade Games

        Originally posted by Walter Sobchak View Post
        You should have used a quote from gauntlet, not pole position in your thread title. SJBH.

        The UofU student lounge had a Gauntlet machine just outside the entrance to the pool hall ("Shots do not hurt other players, yet!).

        We played a ton of Joust at the local pizza place (Round Table) up in Olympus Hills.

        Also, Front Line was up at the old Smith's in Olympus Hills. SUPER HARD GAME.
        I thought about “Warrior Needs Food Badly” but I knew more people would recognize the PP quote. Hell, I remember that quote and I think I only played PP a handful of times ever.
        Prepare to put mustard on those words, for you will soon be consuming them, along with this slice of humble pie that comes direct from the oven of shame set at gas mark “egg on your face”! -- Moss

        There are three rules that I live by: never get less than twelve hours sleep; never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city; and never get involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body. Now you stick to that, and everything else is cream cheese. --Coach Finstock

        Comment


        • #5
          There was a 7 Eleven down the street from my house. It had a Street Fighter II machine. Every afternoon after school for quite sometime, all the neighborhood kids would be there. We'd line our quarters up for who had next. I got pretty good but there were two kids who were basically unbeatable. Edwin and Jose. Jose's dad owned an arcade in the San Fernando Valley and he spent his weekends there so he had an unfair advantage. Those two kids would put together combos that would have you dazed before you could blink. Then they replaced it with Mortal Kombat. I couldn't get into it. I was never a fan of the graphics.
          "Nobody listens to Turtle."
          -Turtle
          sigpic

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Surfah View Post
            Then they replaced it with Mortal Kombat. I couldn't get into it. I was never a fan of the graphics.
            Agree 100%. Plus, having to block with a button instead of the joystick was super lame.
            Prepare to put mustard on those words, for you will soon be consuming them, along with this slice of humble pie that comes direct from the oven of shame set at gas mark “egg on your face”! -- Moss

            There are three rules that I live by: never get less than twelve hours sleep; never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city; and never get involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body. Now you stick to that, and everything else is cream cheese. --Coach Finstock

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Donuthole View Post
              Agree 100%. Plus, having to block with a button instead of the joystick was super lame.
              Yes! Blocking with a button was lame.
              "Nobody listens to Turtle."
              -Turtle
              sigpic

              Comment


              • #8
                "Prepare to Qualify." A Place to Talk about Arcades and Arcade Games

                The Circle K near my neighborhood had Street Fighter II and 720. The amount of kids there was crazy. Looking back, I feel for the workers there.. It’s the place I remember the most and where the kids would steal candy bars too..


                Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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                • #9
                  My first memory of playing a video game was PacMan, in a Shakey's Pizza in Rock Springs, Wyoming. I was hooked pretty quickly.

                  My Circle K memory came about a bit later. They had Asteroids, which is weird that I hadn't seen it before PacMan. I spent many a quarter in that corner in the store at Green River. I think Asteroids became my favorite game, just because I was half-way decent on it. I loved playing Robotron, Defender, and Qbert, but I could never get past the first couple of levels.

                  My High School in Colorado had two video games in the lounge area; Galaga and 1942. Didn't care much for the latter, but I played Galaga regularly. That's a solid video game right there.

                  I absolutely loved the idea of Dragon Slayer. But after that first 10 dollar roll of quarters that my friend's dad gave me to play it, I never really returned to it. What a glitchy game.

                  The next generation of games like Street Fighter and Mortal Combat passed me by, but they hit my younger brother hard. He became (and is still) obsessed with Street Fighter II. He won a couple of arcade tournaments when he was still ~15. Even now when he gets the chance, he goes to Grinkers in Eagle to find unwitting suspects to beat. But he now knows his place in the arcade hierarchy; he's been humiliated by Billy Mitchell-types at some of those tournaments.
                  "...you pointy-headed autopsy nerd. Do you think it's possible for you to post without using words like "hilarious," "absurd," "canard," and "truther"? Your bare assertions do not make it so. Maybe your reasoning is too stunted and your vocabulary is too limited to go without these epithets."
                  "You are an intemperate, unscientific poster who makes light of very serious matters.”
                  - SeattleUte

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Surfah View Post
                    There was a 7 Eleven down the street from my house. It had a Street Fighter II machine. Every afternoon after school for quite sometime, all the neighborhood kids would be there. We'd line our quarters up for who had next. I got pretty good but there were two kids who were basically unbeatable. Edwin and Jose. Jose's dad owned an arcade in the San Fernando Valley and he spent his weekends there so he had an unfair advantage. Those two kids would put together combos that would have you dazed before you could blink. Then they replaced it with Mortal Kombat. I couldn't get into it. I was never a fan of the graphics.
                    Originally posted by dabrockster View Post
                    The Circle K near my neighborhood had Street Fighter II and 720. The amount of kids there was crazy. Looking back, I feel for the workers there.. It’s the place I remember the most and where the kids would steal candy bars too..
                    Originally posted by Northwestcoug View Post
                    The next generation of games like Street Fighter and Mortal Combat passed me by, but they hit my younger brother hard. He became (and is still) obsessed with Street Fighter II. He won a couple of arcade tournaments when he was still ~15. Even now when he gets the chance, he goes to Grinkers in Eagle to find unwitting suspects to beat. But he now knows his place in the arcade hierarchy; he's been humiliated by Billy Mitchell-types at some of those tournaments.
                    On the heels of this discussion, I busted out Street Fighter IV this past weekend. Last Christmas my MIL had cleaned up at a Hastings-type store that was going out of business near her, and she bought a bunch of XBox One games for super cheap. One of them was SF4, which we hadn't even played yet. So I introduced my kids this weekend. I was rusty at first, but it came back pretty quickly. I noticed that some of the moves are easier to perform than back in the day (RyuKen's Hadooken and ShoRuyken moves, for example) while others are more difficult (Blanka's flying somersault is really tricky on the timing, Chun Li helicopter kick, as well). Still, my son, who is a video game whiz and pretty much kicks my butt at any video game, was impressed. I gained some street cred for the weekend.


                    Originally posted by Northwestcoug View Post
                    I absolutely loved the idea of Dragon Slayer. But after that first 10 dollar roll of quarters that my friend's dad gave me to play it, I never really returned to it. What a glitchy game.
                    I think I was a bit too young for this game. I remember seeing it in the Arcades when I was younger, and it usually had a pretty decent group of teenagers around it. I remember liking the idea of rescuing the sultry blonde on the side of the machine. But the few times I played it, it was clear that it was too advanced for my skill level. I lost hard and fast. By the time my skills had come around, the game was no longer in most arcades. Perhaps this is an apt metaphor for my crush on the blonde girl in my ward who was 3 years my senior.

                    Sidenote: wasn't the game Dragon's Lair? Is there a different game called Dragon Slayer, of is that just a fun malapropism?
                    Prepare to put mustard on those words, for you will soon be consuming them, along with this slice of humble pie that comes direct from the oven of shame set at gas mark “egg on your face”! -- Moss

                    There are three rules that I live by: never get less than twelve hours sleep; never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city; and never get involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body. Now you stick to that, and everything else is cream cheese. --Coach Finstock

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      slightly related to all this, I have been thinking of building a MAME cabinet.

                      There are tons of roms out there. You can run them on a raspberry pi. My friend had one built for him and it has just about every game ever from every console.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Donuthole View Post
                        [COLOR=#800080]I think I was a bit too young for this game. I remember seeing it in the Arcades when I was younger, and it usually had a pretty decent group of teenagers around it. I remember liking the idea of rescuing the sultry blonde on the side of the machine. But the few times I played it, it was clear that it was too advanced for my skill level. I lost hard and fast. By the time my skills had come around, the game was no longer in most arcades. Perhaps this is an apt metaphor for my crush on the blonde girl in my ward who was 3 years my senior.

                        Sidenote: wasn't the game Dragon's Lair? Is there a different game called Dragon Slayer, of is that just a fun malapropism?
                        Oops you're right. I must have been thinking of that early 80's movie, or a hundred other pieces of popular culture that dealt with fantasy and magic that I ate up at the time.

                        And yeah, I also remember the sultry blonde!
                        "...you pointy-headed autopsy nerd. Do you think it's possible for you to post without using words like "hilarious," "absurd," "canard," and "truther"? Your bare assertions do not make it so. Maybe your reasoning is too stunted and your vocabulary is too limited to go without these epithets."
                        "You are an intemperate, unscientific poster who makes light of very serious matters.”
                        - SeattleUte

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by BigPiney View Post
                          slightly related to all this, I have been thinking of building a MAME cabinet.

                          There are tons of roms out there. You can run them on a raspberry pi. My friend had one built for him and it has just about every game ever from every console.
                          My brother has done this. It's a labor of love. He has been updating it for a couple of years now. Thousands of games from multiple platforms. He has all the classics and then some, and he's found a few gems that never really made it when they were first released. He also ordered a custom console that is pretty cool to look at. It's fun to play around with, but I'm neither good nor obsessed enough to get one myself.
                          "...you pointy-headed autopsy nerd. Do you think it's possible for you to post without using words like "hilarious," "absurd," "canard," and "truther"? Your bare assertions do not make it so. Maybe your reasoning is too stunted and your vocabulary is too limited to go without these epithets."
                          "You are an intemperate, unscientific poster who makes light of very serious matters.”
                          - SeattleUte

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Donuthole View Post
                            On the heels of this discussion, I busted out Street Fighter IV this past weekend. Last Christmas my MIL had cleaned up at a Hastings-type store that was going out of business near her, and she bought a bunch of XBox One games for super cheap. One of them was SF4, which we hadn't even played yet. So I introduced my kids this weekend. I was rusty at first, but it came back pretty quickly. I noticed that some of the moves are easier to perform than back in the day (RyuKen's Hadooken and ShoRuyken moves, for example) while others are more difficult (Blanka's flying somersault is really tricky on the timing, Chun Li helicopter kick, as well). Still, my son, who is a video game whiz and pretty much kicks my butt at any video game, was impressed. I gained some street cred for the weekend.

                            Sidenote: wasn't the game Dragon's Lair? Is there a different game called Dragon Slayer, of is that just a fun malapropism?
                            Yes, it was Dragon's Lair. The one at Tilt in Cottonwood Mall was a hefty 50¢ to play.

                            Originally posted by BigPiney View Post
                            slightly related to all this, I have been thinking of building a MAME cabinet.

                            There are tons of roms out there. You can run them on a raspberry pi. My friend had one built for him and it has just about every game ever from every console.
                            We had one in the employee lounge at a company I used to work for. It was a lot of fun, but some games just didn't work with the button layout.

                            For example, the MAME machine was situated right next to a Marble Madness console. That was a fun game, but too easy to master. You finish the final level and then... well, that's it. Game over. Insert another quarter to try and beat the best time.
                            You're actually pretty funny when you aren't being a complete a-hole....so basically like 5% of the time. --Art Vandelay
                            Almost everything you post is snarky, smug, condescending, or just downright mean-spirited. --Jeffrey Lebowski

                            Anyone can make war, but only the most courageous can make peace. --President Donald J. Trump
                            You furnish the pictures, and I’ll furnish the war. --William Randolph Hearst

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              I get the pull to the MAME consoles...but it kills some of the nostalgia for me at the same time. I was in talks with a guy recently to purchase a Galaga/Ms. Pac-man console standup. Guy tells me it is the original wrap and everything. As we are finalizing on a price he says "Nice thing is...this think is loaded with like 60 other games as well." What? Well...what someone did was drop a PI setup in on old console. Needless to say, I cancelled the purchase. Dude was pissed but he wasn't selling what he was selling.

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