Does anyone goto arcades anymore? I know they are popular in Japan, they've ceased to exist here where I live (mid-east). Just wondering, are there any arcades left in the US?
Few and far between. The used to be in every mini-mall, but now hte closest things most communities have is a franchise called Dave and Busters which is a bar / theme restaurant / arcade type place targeted at generation x yuppies (like myself).
The only one that is a good sized arcade near me is like 30 miles away. It's a decent arcade though, mainly just have fighting games. I guess they also have a chucky cheese about 20 miles from me. But I wouldn't consider that a true arcade. But the bowling alleys around here and the movie theaters have decent small arcades. Not many good games but I guess their decent. But the main problem I find is all the games cost like $1.00 just for a play. Whatever happend to just paying a quarter?!? I remember one of the last ones I went to was inside a casino. And we played one of the House of the Dead games the most.
There is a small one at the airport in my town. Other than the movie theater having a few arcade machines there ain't much. I remember the golden days when stand-ups were crammed side by side down 30 feet walls, with the pinball section and the pool tables...ahhh...the good old days of inhaling heaps of second smoke and getting beat up for quarters by the arcade bully.
My local walmart also has one of the "family fun centers" which is pretty much just a place for parents to dump off their kids while they shop. But they do have a pacman/galaga machine in there. But other than that they got some crappy racing game, deer hunter game and another racing game. I remember when they used to have like ACTUAL good arcade machines and not crap ones. Yeah it's sad these days all arcade machines totally suck..........!
When I used to live in Indiana there was a big Gameworks arcade in Indianapolis that was an entire 3rd floor of a mall there, had all the classics plus the newer games and even some simulators like 5 person Dayton USA car pods and this Mech Warrior game which you sat in these hockey puck looking capsules, totally enclosed from the public with all the switches and toggles and like 5 monitors to play the game with, think of Steel Battalion control wise with total VR simulation
It's sad that the beloved consoles have managed to kill the arcades! I guess it's not just here but everywhere in the world that arcades are being killed! I went to Dubai and went to one of the big malls there, the arcade place which is called Magic Planet, sucked. Had all these baby arcade machines of yogi bear and such, air hockey, Street Fighter EX 2 (which is horrible), 1 Tekken 5 machine, and all other racing games! Not to mention games were like 8 Dirhams to play, the normal ones. 8 Dirhams is about 3 USD!! It's ridiculous, just seems as if the corporations want arcades to disappear. Ahhhh when will I goto Japan!! Btw, I'm planning a MAME arcade machine, to build it for my room!
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