What was the name of your childhood arcade?

[PutUrQuarterUp]

Yellow Brick Road.. torn down many years ago during a mall remodel.. now theres a Sbarro in its place.

Metropolis.. same mall.. torn down years later during yet another mall remodel.. today.. bathrooms and a changing station.

However, I would have to say that my fondest arcade memories are of family trips to Las Vegas.. hotel/casinos back in the early to mid 90's had the best arcades period.. Street Fighter 2, WWF Wrestlefest, Title Fight, a nice assortment of shmups and ridiculous amounts of 4 player beat em' ups.. I miss those days..

[Hardcore]

There was Starlite Skate Center, first. My father ran the arcade there as well as managed the place. It's where I got my intro into game maintenence, as well as where I learned what a slug was.

Then there was Bally's Alladin's Castle, in our mall. It was an amazing place, when I could convince my parents to let me go.

Lastly, there was Putt-Putt. Rarely went, never really had a good selection.

As of now, Starlite became Stardust, and is a stagnant arcade. Father only repairs the games on a freelance basis.

Our mall no longer has an arcade(unless you could Chuck E Cheese).

Putt-Putt became All-American Fun Park, and isn't a good place for an arcade.

[Haoie]

I seem to recall reading that back in the early 80s [the Golden Age for arcade gaming], everyone was installing cabinets practically everywhere. Places you'd never expect to find a coinop.

If anyone has some first hand memory on this, do share, it's appreciated.

[MissingNo_1231]

the closest things to an arcade in Norcross, Georgia were, and actually still are, a Chuck E. Cheese's and some place called "Coin Laundry".

The Chuck E. Cheese's was great. When I was younger it had a really cool Simpsons arcade game. Sort of a side-scrolling beat-'em-up.

And an awesome Jurassic Park arcade game, with the joystick and the moving chair. Not sure what it's actually called.

The "Coin Laundry" place had some arcade games to keep me occupied while my parents did the laundry.

Galaga, which I think is the first game I've ever played, video or arcade.

Pac-Man and Time Killers. Man, that Time Killers was insane.

[Game Freak]

Not growing up in the 80s, theres not much around me here. Joes Playland in Salisbury, MA and Chuck E. Cheese are just about it. By the way, do any of you guys remember this game?


I loved that game at the local CEC, unfortunately they took it out and most of the games have sucked ever since. Thankfully they added a pinball machine (The first ive ever seen in a CEC ^_^)

I also go to FunSpot in Weir's Beach, NH every summer.

[Daft Punk]

Aladdin's castle ,putt putt, and Treasure palace. All long gone.

[treismac]

There was The Gold Mine inside the Oglethorpe Mall, which later became a Tilt. Also, there was the Starcastle at the old location which has now moved into a faux-castle complete with a skating ring and laser tag.

[treismac]

Aladdin's castle ,putt putt, and Treasure palace. All long gone.

Our Putt-Putt disappeared about a year ago.

[SpaceHarrier]

Golfland, Camelot, and Bullwinkle's. Bullwinkle's became Boomers!, Golfland became over-priced housing development, Camelot was still there last I checked, though now over-stocked with M.A.M.E. cabs.

[xelement5x]

Aladdin's Castle for me, I've even still got some of the tokens sitting around. When I was kid and we went up to Wisconsin though there were also arcade games at the dirty bar, I think it was called Witt's End. Not a lot of games, but there's not a lot in Wisconsin anyway.

[Lerxstnj]

Fun N' Games
Game Town
The Purple Room

[Jim]

Funland Arcade along Yonge Street in Toronto. Many, many hours (and countless quarters) spent there during spares in high school. Always hung out at the back with the old Galaga and Ms Pac Man machines. Unfortunately the place shut down a few years back...

[retroman]

I live in Maryland, and ours was called Flickers. It finally closed down in the early 90s

[BydoEmpire]

My favorite was Fantasy Isle.

It was a role playing game shop on the first floor, and a winding wrought-iron staircase leadi up to the 2nd floor which was a full-blown arcade. The walls were all done up to make it look like a cave. The place was just awesome. I remember playing a bunch of games that have become favorite (probably because of the good memories playing them at Fantasy Isle): Frenzy, Frogger, Venture, Warlords, Gyruss, Space Fury.

There was an Alladin's Castle in the mall which outlasted Fantasy Isle by about a decade, but it didn't have the atmosphere.

[JSoup]

Tilt! in one of the local malls. Was closed in the early 90s due to finding a bunch of teenagers getting high in some kind of geodesic arcade machine that was in the middle of the arcade.

Golf Land, till that closed too.

Wimsey's which opened in the other mall when I was a teenager. It never made much in the way of money, being that it was a family arcade and refused to have violent games of any kind (although they had a SegaSonic the Hedgehog set). Eventually, they shrunk down to half their original size and traded out all the games for Street Fighter and DDR. Gone now.

As an aside, the first page of this topic keeps setting Chromes 'we detect malware' function.

[Griking]

There were two in Bridgeport Connecticut where I grew up and they were both on the same street believe it or not. Spanky's came first and was a larger, brighter, cleaner arcade of the two. Wizard's was smaller, darker and generally attracted more trouble however they also gave you 10 tokens for a dollar at the time which attracted them a pretty nice following.

[Emperor Megas]

I went back home to Metairie, LA for Thanksgiving weekend. On the way back out of town, I noticed the Fun Arcade, my childhood hangout, is up for lease. I don't really know the full details, truthfully. In fact, if you go the website you can see via live cameras they're still very much alive and kicking. This place has been around for over at least half a century, if you can believe it. They even had a "Fun Arcade West" during the arcade's heyday. It wouldn't surprise me if they're on the way out, what with a declining arcade industry and Katrina's sucker punch.

Man, I loved Fun Arcade! I use to go there all the time back in the day. Especially around the time that Super Gem Fighter Mini-Mix (Pocket Fighter) was out.

In New Orleans my main arcade hangouts were:

• Fun Arcade was on Lake Forrest blvd. in New Orleans East, and there was another one on Veterans blvd. in Metairie, that the poster I quoted mentioned some years ago. Unlike all of the other arcades I frequented, Fun Arcades were stand along buildings, not connected to other buildings in a strip setting, or in a mall. They were pretty clean and spacious inside, and had windows all around them so they didn't have that dark, claustrophobic feel that most arcades have, and they were also pretty huge. The games were usually all current ones, with a decent mix of shoot 'em ups, fighters, and light gun games.
  
  
• Fun 'N Games was one of my all time favorite arcades. It was located next door to the Super Dome in the New Orleans Centre Mall. They NEVER got new games in at that place, but what made it so awesome was that they had a ton of my all-time favorite games (Shinobi, Rolling Thunder, Victory Road, OutRun, etc.) that use to be in corner and convenience stores and other arcades all around town all in one place. The arcade was also at the end of the food court, near Sbarro's Pizza (awesomeness). Man, I loved that place so much I eventually got a job there, and became the manager for a little while. Good times.
  
  
• Game Land I'm not 100% sure this was the name of the place, regardless, it was one of the last great arcades I'd been to. It was uptown, off of Carrollton Ave., near Xavier Universary. TONS of modern games, all the time. I use to play Toobin' there with a friend and it was always a blast. There were just so many awesome games there, I think it had the highest concentration of quality machines in one place of any arcade in the city. Almost NO filler at all. There was Galaga '88, Guerrilla War, Twin Eagle (sit down version), Narc, Tecmo Knight, Rastan, Shinobi, Altered Beast, Toobin', Street Fighter (original small 6 button), Ninja Gaiden, Heavy Barrel, Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja...almost everything was a pearl.
  
  
• Gameroom was the only visible title of the closet-sized arcade upstairs in Poydras Plaza. It was on the commercial level of the Poydras Hotel which was connected to the New Orleans Centre Mall and the Super Dome. It only had about 10 games, but it was always vacant in there, and it was a nice place to hangout alone, or with a friend. You always had the whole place to yourself.
  
  
• Mardi Gras Games on Canal Street blvd.. This was the 'main' arcade we hung out at. I use to play Rygar there from the time it was released until the arcade finally closed around 2000. They also had one of the latest hot fighting game of the day, up until the late 90's, but the place was mainly stocked with aging classics like Galaga 3, Sky Shark, and 10 Yard Fight.
  
  
• Muffin's Corner while not a true arcade, was a corner convenience store and snack shop that had a pool table, and 3-4 video games, and a pinball machine. It was just down the street from my house, and was run my a friendly older guy who used to like to bust my best friends chops a lot. I mean he did it all the time...they were always going back and forth ribbing each other, for years. The mainstays there were the original Donkey Kong, Mario Brothers, Stargate, and Arkanoid. I remember the high score on Stargate was NEVER beaten in all the years I went to that place. I don't recall what the score actually was anymore, I just remember the name; 'Troy Fuck Duck Williams'.
  
  
• Penny Land on Royal St., on the outskirts of the French Quarters. This was a little farther down the way and was usually the arcade that hung out at later in the day after making the rounds. This was the arcade to play all of the competitive fighting games, From the original Street Fighter, to Marvel vs. CAPCOM 2. It also closed sometimes around 2000.
  
  
• Space Port This was one of the first arcades that I frequented as a kid. It was located in The Plaza Mall on Lake Forrest blvd., across the street from where a Fun Arcade would be a decade later. It was a really cool (albeit tiny) mall arcade that was designed to look like a space station. It had port holes on the entry wall, and cool psychedelic decor. It sort of looks like a Space Aliens Restaurant, if you've ever seen one of those. I was really young when I went there, like between 4-10. I'd always spend some quarters there when my folks went to the mall. Mainly the typical stuff from the era, like Pac-Man, Joust, and Space Invaders. In fact, I believe that this was the first arcade I saw Pac-Man in. Space Port was near the mall's movie theatre, so it was always packed between showings. It was great for family outings, because adults could also see their 'boring grown up films' and just drop their kids off in the arcade for 2 hours. Win/Win.
  
  
• TiLT! was another arcade in the Lake Forrest Plaza Mall. I'm pretty sure that this was the name of it. It's almost hard to imagine that video arcades were so popular that some malls had multiple ones. Technically, TiLT! was a better arcade than Space Port as it had more and better games, but it was much darker, more crowded, and didn't have awesome decor like Space Port. It was near the food court though, so it was always packed to the gills. I remember the first time I saw The Ninja Warriors cab here. I'd never seen anything like it. It was a double wide cab with an inset screen that was actually a mirror which reflected the actual monitor, which was mounted horizontally inside the display window. I thought it was pretty weird, but amazing.

SIDESTORY: There used to be a Columns cabinet in the Poydras 'Gameroom' arcade. It was the first Columns game I'd ever played and I use to really enjoy it and loved the music, then when the Genesis version was released I noticed that the music was different. When I told a friend he asked if I was sure, because he didn't notice that it was different. Later, we played a game of columns in another arcade (the Columns cabinet in 'Gameroom' was gone by then) and the music was the same as the Genesis port, and I thought that I was going crazy. Years later, I played the sequel Columns II: The Voyage Through Time for the first time, on MAME, and on the classic Columns tile stages, THE MUSIC I REMEMBERED WAS BACK!

I figured that maybe it was an early release, or the Japanese arcade game that I played in the gameroom all those years ago, but when I play the Japanese version on MAME of the original Columns, and earlier versions, they still don't have the original music I heard. I don't understand it at all.

[jwmollman]

TiLT! was another arcade in the Lake Forrest Plaza Mall. I'm pretty sure that this was the name of it. It's almost hard to imagine that video arcades were so popular that some malls had multiple ones. Technically, TiLT! was a better arcade than Space Port as it had more and better games, but it was much darker, more crowded, and didn't have awesome decor like Space Port. It was near the food court though, so it was always packed to the gills. I remember the first time I saw The Ninja Warriors cab here. I'd never seen anything like it. It was a double wide cab with an inset screen that was actually a mirror which reflected the actual monitor, which was mounted horizontally inside the display window. I thought it was pretty weird, but amazing.[/list]

You explained Tilt perfectly! It was always near the food court and very dark. That's the arcade we had at Northgate Mall here in Cincinnati, OH. That place closed up sometime in the late '90s if I remember correctly.

[JSoup]

The Tilt! I mentioned was similar. This particular mall didn't have a food court, but it did have a large downstairs area, which was where Tilt was. So, you'd have to go down this small flight of stairs to get there. You could see the flashing lights and piercing darkness from the top of the stairs, and hear the music all the way through the mall.

The old Chucky Cheese in this city used to have a pretty good arcade.

Edit: BTW, shouldn't this thread be in Arcade Alley?

[RPG_Fanatic]

The Tilt at Fashion Place Mall. At christmas they use to put all the games up for sell, I use to dream of getting one for christmas but never got one.