Your favorite Arcades

[Wyatt_Derp]

The actual places you went, not the game genre. Any nostalgic places you went to play Donkey Kong or Mortal Kombat?

At Crossroads mall we had Le Mans, an awesome arcade that had tons of arcade machines (including original Pacman and Mario Bros), plus ski ball, air hockey, and even rifle target games way back.

I remember playing the original Punch-Out, Bad Dudes, Golden Axe, Combatribes, and a ton of other 80s/early 90s arcade games in there. The mall closed a couple of years ago. Back around 2009 or so there was a gang shooting right outside the arcade in the downstairs lobby. The mall was in decline for years, mainly from southside gangs fighting and stealing shit. As with so many other malls, it finally went belly up. The Federal Reserve bought up the lease for a while on it. Not sure what they're gonna do with the property now. RIP Shopping mall arcades.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I think the last true dedicated arcade hall here in snowniggerland went under around 1991. Arcade machines have since then lingered in scant numbers in places like the bowling alley (note the singular), an indoor children's amusement park in our penis mall, and occasionally in cybercafes.

The only one worth talking about was the arcade hall in Eden, a one-in-all park located just outside of Reykjavík in the 1970s/1980s. That's all gone now, of course.

 

[anvi]

Fuck I miss arcades. The smell of cigaretttes and freedom, and cheese. I had a few good ones I would go to. One of them was serious business and you could strap into a mech type thing with 2 joysticks and play an amazing Mechwarrior battle that was like team deathmatch. It was as fast as Quake 3 but you had multiple weapons all at the same time. Really good. The others were just normal arcades, but I loved the games. Yeah Streetfighter 2 and MK were a big deal but I really loved a Superman game and there was some sort of R Type sequel or clone that was one of the most satisfying things ever. Also I loved the driving game with the wheel and gear lever and it let you do loop the loops and things. Then I became an adult and everything went horribly wrong. That first awesome place is now a beauty salon.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

One of them was serious business and you could strap into a mech type thing with 2 joysticks and play an amazing Mechwarrior battle that was like team deathmatch.

This?

 

[Melcar]

Over here we still had arcades well into the mid 90s. When I was in 10th grade and lived in a big town near Guadalajara, there was this big mall that I used to go to after class and on Saturdays where I would play SFII and some obscure NeoGeo games. When I moved to Merida (I was like 12), there were some small arcades at a few of the malls around the city, but the biggest one was downtown right in front of the Cathedral were I played Killer Instinct, MK1&2, KOF '96, Virtua Fighter and various Samurai Showdown releases. I mostly played alone or with my kid brother (our favorites were beat em ups). When I moved to L.A a few years latter I remember there was one still sort of operating at the Santa Monica peer.

 

[anvi]

One of them was serious business and you could strap into a mech type thing with 2 joysticks and play an amazing Mechwarrior battle that was like team deathmatch.

This?

Similar! But the one I played was more modern, faster, better graphics. It was one of the last arcade machines I ever played. Probably something like 1993. At the time I thought omg gaming in arcades is going to become incredible! And then the next thing I knew, the whole concept kinda died. I think it was because SNES was getting so good. And then the Playstation came along.

 

[Siveon]

There was this arcade right next to the movie theater, think it still is. Had a bunch of stuff, Time Crisis, House of the Dead, even that 12 drum game and the punching one too. A few Japanese import shmups as well. It was a really cool place. I should check to see if its still around.

 

[Wyatt_Derp]

Oddly enough, while going through some of my old coins the other day I found a Le Mans Arcade machine coin in my collection. Forgot all about it. It's a little gold coin with 'Bally's Le Mans - Playground for your mind' inscription on the front. Doubt it's worth much $ but it's gotta be rare. Can't imagine many old 80s arcade coins are still in circulation.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

in italy we hardly had any proper "arcade", most of the times we just had bars and pubs dark and filthy backrooms with a bunch of coin-ops, almost always stuff so old it'd make dust blush in shame, but that one time a bar bought a new game you could notice by the lines in front of them.
of course they were the worst dens of scum and villainy on earth and often we kids took a great deal of risk going there just to waste some money. damn, good times.

 

[Beastro]

The theme park outside of my hometown's still going. Checking their site it looks like they're still using the second floor specifically for arcade games with some pics of kids playing modern ones (Star Wars Battle Pod).

The one that surprised me was coming back from the mainland on the ferry. Bored I wandered around a bit and realized they still had their arcade section up an running full of late 90s, early 2000s games that had been sitting there ever since. I guess the running cost of them is minimal enough on a ferry there's no point in taking them away given what return they might still bring.