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Anyone miss that old arcade feel?
- Thread starter B4mv
- Start date
I can't state how much I miss arcades and how much better gaming was back then for me, so yeah, I definitely miss the arcades. Actually drive to where one used to be today and a couple weeks ago. Arcades and the feeling of seeing the future, random in person competition, the deluxe racing/flying cabinets, and having random people stop come into the arcade and watch me play ddr, man I'd like it back.
tbh not really, they opened up an arcade around my house 2010-ish and while it was hype AF at first everybody was like "y'know.... the 90s weren't really that great, lets play games at home" though the SFIV crowd hung in there for a hot minute
i can spent hours and hours at a barcade but those usually shut down quick or they get rid of the cabinets after a year or so
i can spent hours and hours at a barcade but those usually shut down quick or they get rid of the cabinets after a year or so
I never visited a real arcade. Despite being 35, I only remember movie theatre arcades and mall arcades. We went to the movies earlier to hang out in the arcades there. I remember playing Tekken and Tekken 3 for the first time in an arcade and fell in love with the franchise. I miss hanging out with friends in the mall arcade playing Virtual Cop and Die Hard Arcade. I never been to a walk-in real arcade though.
Where I live more and more retro arcades are popping up, some with genuine Japanese arcade machines which we never saw around here for the standard, sit-cabinet type of games. It's cool but it doesn't feel the same without the junkie trying to steal from the kids, the older guy always bullying you at the lastest 2D fighter and with everyone trying to smoke at a non legal age.
well to split hairs mall arcades are really arcades, they're just in a mall
most standalone arcades died out early as the mid/late 80s... (well, that's anecdotal. but last one i went to was like 1988 or something)
Shit, I'm just glad that some arcades were doing well enough in 2007 to justify anyone in 2021 feeling nostalgic for them.
My favorite arcade growing up was the Penny Arcade at Kennywood Park in Pittsburgh, PA. It had a bunch of modern arcade cabinets in the front (the newest and hottest games like TMNT, The Simpsons or Street Fighter II got a front and center position right at the front middle of the entrance bay), with pinball tables off to the side, and everything arranged so the machines got older the farther back you went, past the electro-mechanical wooden pinball tables to the ancient & crumbling turn-of-the-last-century silent flip book reels that cost a penny to crank (assuming they were still in order and that the 80+ year-old machinery hadn't busted)
My favorite arcade growing up was the Penny Arcade at Kennywood Park in Pittsburgh, PA. It had a bunch of modern arcade cabinets in the front (the newest and hottest games like TMNT, The Simpsons or Street Fighter II got a front and center position right at the front middle of the entrance bay), with pinball tables off to the side, and everything arranged so the machines got older the farther back you went, past the electro-mechanical wooden pinball tables to the ancient & crumbling turn-of-the-last-century silent flip book reels that cost a penny to crank (assuming they were still in order and that the 80+ year-old machinery hadn't busted)
I miss showing up and seeing brand new fighting games show up, or secret characters finally being unlocked in existing one.
There was a guy I met back in the Mortal Kombat 2 days that I had a friendly rivalry with through pretty much every major fighting game release after that, then I stopped seeing him for a while before discovering we had both gotten into DDR after I was brave enough to go play in the arcade after learning at home. We never really talked to each other aside from hellos or good byes but it was kind of cool that we had that little thing going on for like eight years.
There was a guy I met back in the Mortal Kombat 2 days that I had a friendly rivalry with through pretty much every major fighting game release after that, then I stopped seeing him for a while before discovering we had both gotten into DDR after I was brave enough to go play in the arcade after learning at home. We never really talked to each other aside from hellos or good byes but it was kind of cool that we had that little thing going on for like eight years.
The arcade is dead. The brightly-lit, family-friendly indoor amusement centers that remain are just sad, hollow shells of what once was. But, in the distant past, when home consoles were limited to 4K carts and 16 colors, the arcade reigned. There were no costumed animals juggling for screaming birthday boys; no coin-op carousel, ball-crawl or Whack-a-Mole. There was instead a darkness illuminated by nothing but lighted marquees and monitors, a deafening mix of rock n' roll and sound effects, a stale odor of sweat and flat cola, and smoke-- lots of smoke.
The arcade was bliss; a sensual paradise of electronic over-stimulation. It was there I learned my most valued lessons; how to smooth the wrinkles out of a dollar bill so the change machine will take it, how to mark your turn on an occupied game by placing a quarter on the control panel, and how to place your gun under a column of mushrooms and continually massacre that wily Centipede. Atari 2600 and Intellivision were great fun, but the arcade was the real deal; cutting edge graphics and sound, unique controllers, spirited competition among perfect strangers, and the immortality of your initials in the top ten.
The arcade is dead, and I miss it.
Nice. You can take the boy outta Jersey, but you can never take the Jersey outta the boy.
The arcade was bliss; a sensual paradise of electronic over-stimulation. It was there I learned my most valued lessons; how to smooth the wrinkles out of a dollar bill so the change machine will take it, how to mark your turn on an occupied game by placing a quarter on the control panel, and how to place your gun under a column of mushrooms and continually massacre that wily Centipede. Atari 2600 and Intellivision were great fun, but the arcade was the real deal; cutting edge graphics and sound, unique controllers, spirited competition among perfect strangers, and the immortality of your initials in the top ten.
The arcade is dead, and I miss it.
Nice. You can take the boy outta Jersey, but you can never take the Jersey outta the boy.
I'm glad we still have a couple in the area (Another Castle in Washington).
I guess if you had PC VR and a good computer, you could always try something like New Retro Arcade:
I thought it simulated an arcade pretty well, though using something like Vive Wands don't work too good for traditional controls. It's great though for playing light gun shooters.
I guess if you had PC VR and a good computer, you could always try something like New Retro Arcade:
I thought it simulated an arcade pretty well, though using something like Vive Wands don't work too good for traditional controls. It's great though for playing light gun shooters.
It greatly helped that there was a lot less to do in the 70s, 80s and 90s.
Entertainment is so abundant now that a lot of things problem suffer due to the overload as you can only consume so much.
I even liked arcades even as an adult. A 4+ Daytona player setup is something you will always remember where and when you played it the first time. Fighting games were still really relevant on arcades and consoles when I was in college in the 90s. And badass adventures like the Capcom Dungeons and Dragons games or the 4 player beatem ups were a pretty legit experience with your friends. Once that doesn't really exist anymore.
I was kind of hopeful that VR and AR might be able to make some really cool experiences that you have to go to the mall or arcade for, but a lot of people don't even want to leave their house anymore so that time may have passed.
Have you seen The Lost Arcade doco? I think it captured slightly more recent versions of those days you talk about, although it does end in the arcade ultimately closing :/ Great OST, too.
Yeah somewhat, primarily when it comes to fighting games though. Online isn't the same experience at all (especially concerning lag). My best friend misses it so much that his basement is wall to wall Arcade1Up cabinets, although they really are not remotely the same as the original cabinets.
I've been there very recently and feel that it's really overrated. Primarily just because it has so many cabinets, but the way its arranged leaves much to be desired, and the condition of a large portion of their cabinets is really bad. Who cares if you have the most niche arcade cabinets if the screens and sticks are in disrepair? The way my friend described it made it out to be so much better in my head than it actually turned out to be. It's basically like a city block sized garage that someone crammed as many cabinets into as they possibly could. It doesn't represent what arcades used to be. The main reason to visit it is for the novelty, but that's about it.
Yep. As I was growing up, I would play games like Space Invaders, Joust, and whatever else they would have at the movie theater whenever we would go to see a movie, and my mother would take me to one of the local arcades every now and then on the weekend (sometimes Showbiz Pizza too), and I'd also play sometimes at a local gas station, but I wasn't really that involved with video games until 1991.
Once Street Fighter 2 hit, everything changed for me, and every day I was playing the game at that same gas station as well as the arcades, and then at home once it arrived on the consoles. From '91 - '97 aside from playing various other genres at home on my consoles, it was fighting games every day, and more often than not with friends at home, and at the arcade. Those were the funnest years of my life too in terms of entertainment.
I've been there very recently and feel that it's really overrated. Primarily just because it has so many cabinets, but the way its arranged leaves much to be desired, and the condition of a large portion of their cabinets is really bad. Who cares if you have the most niche arcade cabinets if the screens and sticks are in disrepair? The way my friend described it made it out to be so much better in my head than it actually turned out to be. It's basically like a city block sized garage that someone crammed as many cabinets into as they possibly could. It doesn't represent what arcades used to be. The main reason to visit it is for the novelty, but that's about it.
Yep. As I was growing up, I would play games like Space Invaders, Joust, and whatever else they would have at the movie theater whenever we would go to see a movie, and my mother would take me to one of the local arcades every now and then on the weekend (sometimes Showbiz Pizza too), and I'd also play sometimes at a local gas station, but I wasn't really that involved with video games until 1991.
Once Street Fighter 2 hit, everything changed for me, and every day I was playing the game at that same gas station as well as the arcades, and then at home once it arrived on the consoles. From '91 - '97 aside from playing various other genres at home on my consoles, it was fighting games every day, and more often than not with friends at home, and at the arcade. Those were the funnest years of my life too in terms of entertainment.
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As a fighting game enthusiast, I will lament their passing forever.
I wish I could explain what it was like to walk into an arcade and discover a brand new game you never heard of before. But that brand new game was Street Fighter II or Mortal Kombat. These incredible games would seemingly materialize out of nowhere and be in your neighborhood one day. It was a magical time to be a kid.
I wish I could explain what it was like to walk into an arcade and discover a brand new game you never heard of before. But that brand new game was Street Fighter II or Mortal Kombat. These incredible games would seemingly materialize out of nowhere and be in your neighborhood one day. It was a magical time to be a kid.
This was the first thing that jumped out at me, haha.
By then arcades were long dead and I would hunt down revival arcades for the nostalgia.
I've been lucky enough to have access to genuinely good barcades every now and then (well, pre-pandemic anyway) and they can still be fun, but yeah, I definitely miss the feel of a legit 90s arcade, grime and all. Japanese arcades are still a blast to this day, especially the rhythm games.
I've never really had an arcade locally. Only places that had arcade machines growing up where bars and places where kids couldn't go. I've been to a few real arcades, some in Japan, and sure, it's a good time. That said, I'm not an arcade stick person as I've never really gotten used to the feel of 'em, so my nostalgia for the arcade environment only goes so far.
Ah, I remember those nostalgic old days. The days of 2019, when I would go to my local arcade, Round 1. I should go there this weekend.
That looks a bit too bright and clean for my taste. Where's the sticky carpet and cigarette smoke, huh!?
I have my own VR retro arcade in my house, it's amazing: https://store.steampowered.com/app/465780/New_Retro_Arcade_Neon/
I have a 2 player arcade cab with a track ball, spinners, pinball buttons, and every arcade game ever released. It has attract modes for each game along with high rez art and a digital marquee for every game.
I still miss an actual arcade.
I still miss an actual arcade.
8 On The Break was where I went for my DDR/ITG/rhythm games in general. Very convenient that the train was right across the street. I remember the tournaments every summer, quarter nights, ITG tournaments on Fridays. I had such a great time there.
In regards to the video you posted, FnG was also a great spot, again, for my DDR needs, haha. I remember when 6th mix came out and we were trying to pass Max 300. That 1.5 Reverse was some crazy shit back then! Cool hangout spot since the mall was right there.
Chinatown Fair was probably where I spent most of my time, especially after Broadway City closed down.
I do miss arcades in regards to meeting up with people and hanging out. I don't miss the long wait times to play, haha. Would love to build a simple arcade machine but for now I'll stick to using my arcade stick with some Steam games.
Agreed. Haven't been to Leeds, but going to get there soon. Their Blackpool location will hopefully be superb.
I'm the same as the previous poster, if I have a big lottery win I'm going to open a classic arcade in Redcar, fingers crossed.
My plan if I win the lottery is to open a barcade with a ton of classic games. I won't have to give a shit if it turns a profit lol100000%
;_______;
It's a dream of mine to open something like this if I ever like win the lottery or anything like that.
What kids don't realize today, is that back then, every time you went to the arcade, it was like going to E3 on steroids. You'd see games on hardware far more powerful than anything you had at home by a very long shot (usually the next generation of hardware couldn't even run it properly) and in flawless quality.
Like, you had Virtual Fighter in the arcade when the most common console at the time was SNES or Genesis. Then the Saturn finally came out years later and still couldn't match the arcade machine. You'd need to wait at least 10 years to get hardware that can truly handle arcade-perfect ports of these games (in virtual fighter's case, the Dreamcast) even then, the vast majority of these titles never got ported properly.
Yes, there were exceptions to this - Saturn handled 2D arcade quality almost perfectly and Neo Geo AES was a thing, and then Dreamcast came out later on with hardware that synced up well to the capabilities of arcade titles across the board.
But in the 80s and early 90s, the arcade stuff really blew everything else away.
We have a handful of barcades in the area that see decent traffic. Yeah, the screens all have burn-in, the joysticks and buttons are sticky and smell like beer, and you can't hear shit because of the noise bouncing off the concrete floors/walls and open ceiling, but at least the games are free now.
I've never been to an arcade. I don't really get it tbh, doesn't seem to be a fun place to be in at least for me.
What's funny is, I've been to a "barcade" long before they were called that. Ever hear of Block Party? Those were around in the '90s, but then sunk along with Blockbuster. My first time to one, we drove an hour and a half to get to it and I had left my wallet at home somehow, so I ended up having to sit in the car for two hours (no ID). Fun times.
For me, Bury is a little dingy, not particularly well lit—it reminds me of some of the rock/biker venues I used to frequent and because of that I love it. Love the vibe, the feel, the underground-scene feeling of it (if that makes sense?). Feels like a venue for adults.
By comparison Leeds is very bright, open, and airy. It feels more like a traditional family arcade, rather than a drinking venue like Bury. Still outstanding, but for me it's no Bury.
Growing up in the 80s, the home computer/console scene was way behind arcade technology—especially when Sega introduced hydraulic cabinets and the like. For cutting edge, arcades were the place to be.
Nowadays, unless you're after that retro fix, home consoles have far exceeded what arcades can offer imo (when it comes to graphics and gameplay). But, there's still some amazing experiences to be had that can't be replicated at home. I remember Ridge Racer full-scale in London; they had a Mazda MX-5 you sat in in front of a massive screen. What an experience that was.
I used to live a mile from this place and I don't know how this dude that owns the business keeps expanding.. he must be doing well because on the same street within a 1 mile stretch he has the OG arcade that has expanded to 2 storefronts that are there, a graphics design shop next door, the pinball spot in another building a couple blocks away, another spot that is their office/workshop, the small gym/martial arts center and dude bought out an auto repair spot. The locals joke that he's gonna buy up the entire street. Happy for his success tho, didn't think the arcade would be around for as long as it has been.
There have been more and more barcades opening up all over the place. Some of them are overpriced and have small/boring collections, but there's a few in/around Metro Detroit that are worth the time.
One of them is basically in a basement with a cool retro vibe, loaded with 50 or 60 classic cabs and some pinball tables. All you can play for free, you order a beer and they throw you a cup full of tokens. Much better than the chain ones.
One of them is basically in a basement with a cool retro vibe, loaded with 50 or 60 classic cabs and some pinball tables. All you can play for free, you order a beer and they throw you a cup full of tokens. Much better than the chain ones.
RIght, exactly, this. The feel of walking around an arcades from the 80s and 90s can never really be replicated because of this. In the 90s especially, everything you looked at was the fucking bleeding-edge, ridiculously expensive future tech that was years off of coming home, and it inspired a kind of awe that you just can't get anymore because technology in general has caught up. Virtua Fighter 2 (or 3!), and other Sega Model 2 and 3-era tech on a 50" rear projection screen was special, but less so now.
I'm very fortunate enough to live close to Arcade Club in Leeds, so (when Covid isn't too bad) I go fairly regularly. I'm so happy they're doing well overall and these days I treat arcades as more like a museum. But sometimes you can also drink in them today. Still great.
Look, if this was 1995 it would be entirely reasonable to reminisce about the old arcade feel of 1981. Exactly the same amount of time has passed here.
Something that is often overlooked is that, yes, arcades were awesome, but in the 80s arcade machines were EVERYWHERE!!!
Pizza parlors, bowling alleys, movie theaters, laundromats, grocery stores, discount stores, hotel lobbies, shoe stores, beaches, auto mechanics, delis, convenience stores, Dr offices, restaurants and bars.
Arcade machines were ubiquitous. One of these places NOT having a few machines was unusual.
A quarter in your pocket was more valuable than a $10 bill if you couldn't get change. Mom would do the grocery shop and I will sit at the front of the store and drop a few quarters into Berzerk or Gorf, or watch other kids do it when I ran out of quarters. When we went on vacation down the shore, the selection at the game room of the hotel was an essential consideration.
That is why it was the Golden Age; not just of arcades, but of arcade machines. I sure miss seeing them tucked into every little corner of the world like they once were.
Pizza parlors, bowling alleys, movie theaters, laundromats, grocery stores, discount stores, hotel lobbies, shoe stores, beaches, auto mechanics, delis, convenience stores, Dr offices, restaurants and bars.
Arcade machines were ubiquitous. One of these places NOT having a few machines was unusual.
A quarter in your pocket was more valuable than a $10 bill if you couldn't get change. Mom would do the grocery shop and I will sit at the front of the store and drop a few quarters into Berzerk or Gorf, or watch other kids do it when I ran out of quarters. When we went on vacation down the shore, the selection at the game room of the hotel was an essential consideration.
That is why it was the Golden Age; not just of arcades, but of arcade machines. I sure miss seeing them tucked into every little corner of the world like they once were.
Absolutely not the same thing, especially considering how arcades were around 2007, at least in the US. Arcades hardly changes from the early 80s up until the late 90s when they started dwindling down. Once the DC was getting Naomi ports (which, I mean, a few MB of ram separated them, which was still a good amount back then) and then we saw Tekken 5 on PS2 a mere month after the arcade board was in our local mall, we knew it was the end. Add that DDR was ruling the revenue and...
I've been to an arcade at that mall but it was a LONG time ago and the video isn't jogging my memory. Guess I must have been there earlier.
