FAVORITE ARCADE MEMORIES?

[sabre2922]

Let the geekness begin! WHAT ARE YOUR FAVE ARCADE MEMORIES FROM THE 70's/80's/ or 90's? you know when the arcades were more than dancing freaks looking stupid on the newest DDR machine and lost children ;)
My first memory of ever even playing a real arcade game was when my cousins put me on a stool to play MS.pacman for the first time i had no idea what i was doing but i knew it was fun.
Then I remember being on vacation in colorado and spending more time playing SF2 and the then new SF2:champion edition and competing against other kids from all over the U.S. than spending on the slopes and actually skiing LOL
MY FAV MEMORY OF THE DAYS OF OLD ARCADE GEEK HEAVEN was when I would spend almost every day after work at the local arcade when i lived in Kansas playing MK2 and KILLER INSTINCT! there would literally be two big groups of grungy uncleansed teens and 20 somethings surrounding both machines nothing esle was touched except maybe the old original SF2 cabinet that was in back that a few of us so called "hardcore" gamers would place bets on after a heated match of MK2 or KI damn life was so much simpler back then or so it seemed :D

[MegaDrive20XX]

the 1980's...best memory....finishing TMNT the arcade with three of my friends during my 8th birthday...that rocked...had $5 in quarters and finished it

[sabre2922]

oH yeah if anyone has any true funny arcade stories throw those in too.
I remember a kid throwing a fit at the arcade in Kansas once because he lost at Mortal Kombat2 funny as hell!
he walked in maybe like 12 years old and told everyone that he was the best videogame player ever because he beat so many "nintendo" games you could tell he was a rich spoiled brat then he tried to play MK2 and new nothing about it got his ass handed to him by a 10yr old that destroyed him with L.Kang he then proceeded to throw a fit in front of like 30 ppl and kicked the employee of the arcade when he told him to leave we never saw that kid again LOL

[DTJAAAAMJSLM]

Mine would be meeting the girl of my dreams at my old local arcade.

[ubersaurus]

With the recent passing of my, well, local arcade, I have a few good memories. I think my favorite was the 2nd big tournament I was in there. Not only did I end up getting 7th, but I got to play a guy called "shingoukimaster", who was just SO BAD. This was in CvS2, and apparently his big strategy was jump back, shinryuken, with Ken. Not only did I destroy him, but after the match, my buddies were talking trash about him, when they realized-he was right behind them LOL needless to say, they didn't stop.

I also remember my buddy Jen and I trying to go through Pipis & Bibi on the ultracade, which was hilarious, since whenever we'd beat a stage, and the scantily clad girl would pop up, she'd yell at this one kid to look away.

[YoshiM]

Ho, boy...hard to think of anything really memorable beyond excitement at seeing a new game.


I do remember a time when I was at a Chuck E Cheese's in Vegas. At that time they had people in the animal costumes meandering about, interacting with the kids. In this situation, the purple guy (Munch I believe his name was?) was playing Centipede. I watched over his fuzzy shoulder as he pawed at the trackball and tried to fire with those big mits. His game ended and he didn't have an impressive score (though some younger kids and a couple adults cheered him). I said "I think I can beat that score." Munch cocked his head, stepped off to the side and motioned his paws in an offering yet challenging manner. Unfortunately, and I stated it out loud, "Oh, man, I'm outta tokens." And at that time it was time to go so I could not challenge Munch at his mediocre Centipede score.

In a small town I lived in a guy started up a small arcade with a gift shop. Had a decent selection of titles and I became friends with him. Anyway, one day he got a new pinball machine: Space Shuttle. For the rest of the day and maybe even for the rest of the week, every adult that came in made the comment "so when you reach a certain score, does the shuttle blow up?"

One time I spent 30 minutes at K-mart playing Galaga trying to invoke the "no shooting aliens" cheat with a handful of people gathering waiting to play the machine. Normally they'd see one is playing and they would walk away but since I was sitting around waiting for a couple enemies to stop firing, people started to pester me. Finally I whipped around and said "I'm trying to cheat, okaaaaay!" On "Okay" I heard my ship blow up and the people cheered. I shrugged and gave my game to another kid.

Edit: just thought of another story just after I clicked Submit. Not too long ago the local Alladdin's had a "game" based on Uncle Fester from the Addams Family. Basically you pay your tokens, grip both metal bars and get "electricuted" and if you could hang onto the bars until the machine stops you got a high score. It also mentioned that you could have a friend hold onto a bar with you holding the other and the both of you holding each other's free hand to "pass the charge". My sister in law and I (as my wife wimped out) paid our tokens, each gripped onto a bar, clasped hands and let it rip. Basically, the bars vibrate. Really vibrate. The game then detects to see if you are still holding on. We held on, faces sweating and teeth clenched through the whole damn thing. We looked like grinning idiots, further solidifying that by shouting encouragements over the sound of the machine. For the rest of the day the hands and arms used to grip the bars were pretty much useless and everytime one of us made mention or rubbed the arm both of us would giggle. Like the idiots we were.

[Cauterize]

Mine would be meeting the girl of my dreams at my old local arcade.

and im guessin you are with her now, right? married? game loving children?

[farfel]

I was about 10

I saved every quarter I got

I drooled over amazing stuff like Dragon's Lair & Crystal Castles & Zaxxon and wished I coulld bring that beauty home.

Now I can

No more arcade

[captain nintendo]

While I loved gaming in the early 80's , it wasnt until around 86 - 92 that I had a ton of fun and great stories. Most of my fondest memories involve a game called Cyberball. Me and about 109 friends would play a season and write down every stat and then have a play-offs and championship game.
Needless to say I won alot of the championships. I also won a state tournament here as well ;)
San Fransico Hitmen were my team in the first Cyberball version.
Then
California Crush were my second team when Cyberball was "upgraded".

My best moment was beating one of my friends on the last play of the game and watching him kick the game and yell "BULLSHIT" :evil:
And if he were to ever read this little blurb on the internet I would say to him..... " I owned you Globie" (nickname short for Jason Globokar)

Second best memories involve playing for more than 7 hours on Gauntlet on 1 quarter !!!!! Level 426 I think @_@

[RockyRaccoon]

Playing "Sunset Riders" for the first time ever at the campground we'd go to as kids.

Most Games I had played up to those points were stupid little "Fly around and shoot'em games" .... just get points...

Sunset Riders proved to me games have strories. and are more about just getting points....you had objectives...and bosses! :eek 2:

Not to mention it had an awesome soundtrack and rare theme (Wild West.)

~Rocky

[Chainsaw_Charlie]

beat this odd arm wrestling game down in Virginia on a middle school trip of course i cheated using both hands and at the end the help of a stranger
________
Yamaha FZR400 (http://www.cyclechaos.com/wiki/Yamaha_FZR400)

[Kroogah]

Most of my favorite arcade memories involve being a "dancing freak looking stupid on the newest DDR machine"

Like the first time I ever played DDR Extreme, on a roadtrip with 7 or 8 of my friends.

Or playing RetroYoungen at Nickel City in San Jose.

Or the dozens and dozens of slack-jawed looks I've gotten...the ones from people I know are the best.

[SKVermin]

A couple stand out in my mind.

The first was when my father was working in Toronto a lot, and one week the rest of the family went to stay for a couple days. In the lobby of the hotel was a small arcade, and twice the guy came in and emptied out the coin boxes, running a quarter through a few times to test the slot and providing us kiddies with free credits on Phoenix and Galaxian. We also discovered that if you flipped the power switch on the bottom of the cocktail Missile Command a few times, it would make a lot of noise and siren-like sounds (keep a watch for hotel personnel) before it booted up with about a dozen free credits. I got really good at Missile Command that summer.

I also remember running down to Corny's Arcade with a friend that was determined to try the thread-on-the-quarter trick to pull his money back out after getting his credit. Well, he did a sloppy tape job, and the quarter and thread got stuck in the slot, and he didn't even get a credit. Rather than just walk away (like any intelligent person would), he complained to the arcade operator that the machine ripped him off. So when the guy opened up the coin box, he found the thread and all jammed into the machine. Needless to say, we were escorted out pretty quickly. What really burned me is that it wasn't even a good game. The name escapes me right now, but I remember it was the only one far enough away from the operator's booth to risk using the thread-coin.

[-hellvin-]

The first time I played Golden Axe in the arcade. I love that game. One day, I'm gonna pick up the cabinet at a nearby store. God that would rule.

[davidbrit2]

Orbit in Pacific Mall, near Toronto. If you've been there, you know what I'm talking about.

And being the hairy white guy in the middle of a Chinese mall, and also the only one capable of beating the shit out of Pop'n Music had a certain amusing aspect to it.

[Duncan]

Best all-around memory was when I played lead role in an effort (among four or five friends) to beat the Simpsons game. Then later on, with two or three people, we did the same for TMNT Arcade. Never was able to get the same momentum going for X-Men, though.

My favorite moments are the ones in which I have totally destroyed previous records in sit-down Pole Position, Out Run or Cruisin' USA cabinets. Oh, yeah, and RoadBlasters too.

My earliest arcade memory was of absolutely falling in love with an obscure game called Peter Packrat (by Atari) at Showbiz Pizza. Haven't ever played it since, and I can't find the ROM online. Memories will have to suffice for now.

[Gapporin]

Getting a good electrical shock from a Bubble Bobble machine at a hotel. Swimming pools and electrical equipment don't mix.

EDIT:

beat this odd arm wrestling game down in Virginia on a middle school trip of course i cheated using both hands and at the end the help of a stranger

I've played that game as well. I think I beat it, also.

EDIT, PART DEUX: I forgot to mention this one time when I went to Six Flags and me and my brother played some DDR. We even had some people clap after we were done (which I thought was amazing, considering we sucked it up majorly. Guess they didn't see the guy before us who got an AA on Heavy mode. ^^; ).

[Lord Contaminous]

Capcom 3-4 player Final Fight clones as well as Saturday Night Slammasters. Those games were made for Friday and Saturday Nights at the 'cade.

As mentioned in another thread, when Samurai Shodown 1 first came out, a Japanese girl with the accent (much older than I was (I was 11 years old then) busted out a streak of 10 wins on my Haohmaru with Tachibana Ukyo. I remember she told me she had a crush on Ukyo that's why she was so good with him. in time surprisingly, she was nice enough to teach me how to properly use him. Before I ran into her, I used to have trouble doing the midair Swallow Slice move.

[GrayFox]

Grabbing handfuls of change before going on vacation, and then proceeding to put them in a bag. That was the beginning.

We got to the hotel, and oh yes, there was the Simpsons arcade game and the TMNT arcade game. I looked at my little bro, and we decided to buckle down.

It took a few hours, but we ravaged through both of those games just by ourselves, and damn, was that ever fun.

[Aswald]

The arcade in Goes, the Netherlands.

1982.

[Habeeb Hamusta]

When I was younger I was always amazed with Pinball machines at the arcade. They were so much fun and I would play hours...or until I ran out of money. I know it's not a video game, but I sure do love Pinball machines. :)

[aegis]

Several great memories hanging out in the Tilt and Alladins Castle.

Remember my best friend playing that stupid Journey game for hours on a single quarter. Blown away by the "music" during the concert stage. Then one day the music changed to ACDC, that's when we found out about the tape recorder.

Waiting to play Tron for the first time, with the monitor on the top so everyone could see.

Ditto on Dragons Lair.

Getting my butt kicked by my step-sister on Galaga.

Playing hockey (Russia vs USA Stick Men) every Friday night with a friend from school. I see him about every 2 years and he still calls me a Commie!

Getting busted keeping a few (~100) tokens from a church party at Alladins. Not good. Hey, they should have placed a bunch of credits on the machines to begin with. Too tempting for a 15 year old with very little funds.

[Promophile]

My favorite acrade of all time isn't in the US. It's in Ankara, the capital of Turkey. It's the best arcade I have ever seen. Think of a Walmart superstore. Imagine they took out EVERYTHING in the store and filled it with games. Thats how enormous it is. Whenever I visit Turkey I usually spend 2 or 3 days in that place. I've been going since I was a little kid. I have very fond memories of playing The Punisher, Air Hockey, and any other game you can think of there.

[RetroYoungen]

Most of my favorite arcade memories involve being a "dancing freak looking stupid on the newest DDR machine"

Like the first time I ever played DDR Extreme, on a roadtrip with 7 or 8 of my friends.

Or playing RetroYoungen at Nickel City in San Jose.

Or the dozens and dozens of slack-jawed looks I've gotten...the ones from people I know are the best.

That was a fun round, we're really gonna have to do it again.

One of my favorite memories in an arcade was probably about two years or so ago, my local bowling alley finally got an SNK multi-cab and, with it, a copy of Metal Slug 2. And I played that thing like crazy. I dropped probably 27 tokens in it that first time to beat it straight through, and I worked at it until I could do it in less than 20 (19, y0!). Really, a pain in the ass, but what a game... what a game.

They've since gotten rid of it, and replaced it with Fatal Fury 2. Oh, the humanity!