Couple stand out to me:

  • Seeing Virtua Fighter for the first time back in what 1993 or so at an amusement park and being wowed by the graphics, thinking it was photo realistic.

  • Seeing Mortal Kombat 2 on a big screen CRT cabinet and thinking I was going to go to hell because of the violence (lol).

  • Playing X-Men with my dad and his friend and his kid on a 6 player machine that had widescreen, very cool for the time.

  • Pumping endless quarters into Aliens vs Predator (one of my favorite arcade games).

  • Seeing some dude beat Tekken Tag which I could never clear and thinking he was the coolest.

Arcades were great. A dream of mine is to visit a game center in Japan and play some of the classics on an actual machine.

  • NapoleonBlownApart [he/him]
    ·
    1 month ago

    Sure do! In fact, my mom worked in an arcade when I was pretty young. She would hook me up with the quarters painted blue that they use to placate kids whose quarters were "eaten" by the game.

    When my mom was dating my stepdad, we went to the arcade often.

    When I was a young teen, I figured out you could eke out a few extra tickets if you gently pulled on the tickets that you won.

    I liked the shooters the most. Driving was pretty cool too.

    Side note, does anyone remember an Aerosmith themed shooter where you were the band, and you shot nondescript thugs? It was the kind of console that had the plastic gun. Pretty sure they were uzi style. I also remember the special button shot gold records.

    • SorosFootSoldier [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      1 month ago

      In fact, my mom worked in an arcade when I was pretty young.

      That's awesome.

      Side note, does anyone remember an Aerosmith themed shooter where you were the band, and you shot nondescript thugs? It was the kind of console that had the plastic gun. Pretty sure they were uzi style. I also remember the special button shot gold records.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_X never played it though.

    • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
      ·
      1 month ago

      Oh arcades do the blue quarters thing too? I guess that sense. My grandpa owned a bar and he had a stack of blue quarters to put in the jukebox whenever a song wasn't playing. It was since he didn't own the jukebox and the guy who emptied the quarters knew not to take the blue ones.

      • NapoleonBlownApart [he/him]
        ·
        1 month ago

        The only time I've ever seen that was back in the day at that arcade. Pretty slick system though