Share you most memorable arcade stories

[TheWanderer]

Now tbf we didn't have arcades per say ,just a place where you pay the owner to play on consoles ,mostly PES BUT we did have 1 arcade machine which contains Tekken 5 ,
Oh boi the memories,my most memorable stories about this one arcade machine are
1-When i was in highschool me and like 12 other dudes will gather on that machine to play Tekken 5 but once my turn came up I picked up Christie because my stick freaking sucked so I had to play dirty and beat evey single person in there ,the bus was about to come but I can't leave my streak like this until some dude offered me money to leave ,I was like aight bet and left but that feeling of triumphing is so sweat
2-The second story is I think I ended up losing but I was playing a Tekken game and someone challenged me and he beat me ,aight I challenged him back and beat him but he did the same and beat me again and we went at it ,he wins ,I win ..and it continued like that for like 20 rounds or something .it was the best rivaly I've ever seen I'm not sure who ended up losing at the end but I think it was me but I'm sure however that I missed the bus.(Oh yeah I mained Paul the time and he mained Asuka)

 

[Merchant]

Now tbf we didn't have arcades per say ,just a place where you pay the owner to play on consoles ,mostly PES BUT we did have 1 arcade machine which contains Tekken 5 ,
Oh boi the memories,my most memorable stories about this one arcade machine are
1-When i was in highschool me and like 12 other dudes will gather on that machine to play Tekken 5 but once my turn came up I picked up Christie because my stick freaking sucked so I had to play dirty and beat evey single person in there ,the bus was about to come but I can't leave my streak like this until some dude offered me money to leave ,I was like aight bet and left but that feeling of triumphing is so sweat
2-The second story is I think I ended up losing but I was playing a Tekken game and someone challenged me and he beat me ,aight I challenged him back and beat him but he did the same and beat me again and we went at it ,he wins ,I win ..and it continued like that for like 20 rounds or something .it was the best rivaly I've ever seen I'm not sure who ended up losing at the end but I think it was me but I'm sure however that I missed the bus.(Oh yeah I mained Paul the time and he mained Asuka)

going to Amsterdam where they got an arcade called "blast galaxy" full of the best ones ever, I been there once when it was the original location, then when it moved. It has one of the best collections of arcade machines I have ever scene. It got me into rhythm arcade games, the ones with the discs that you spin and push. They all great. It also made me realise how good shmups are with the proper vertical screen. I'm going there again for a third time very soon by myself this time; and am going to spend an entire getting really fkin high and playing all of the coolest ones... a real outrun machine is just, insane.

 

[Evaccaneer Doom]

My most memorable arcade moment was finding a single arcade that actually had stuff like Outrun SP, House of the Dead, and Mario Kart GP when I was so much younger. I didn't know the other two ofc, so I only played Mario Kart without knowing I passed up on peak.

 

[prnzoDraGoonZweiOrta]

growin up in South Jerzee - the 2 baddest-ass local arcades were one in this super-dim-lighted bowLing aLLey n the one at the Berlin Auction's interior part which had me runnin back n forth in a trianguLar nexus between the arcade, the PC/archaic computer store with bargain-bins with a veritable ubiquity of floppy-disk games, n the comic book shop which had stacks of rare comics in hills that could've avalanche-piled across the main walkway...

n the Wildwood boardwalk arcade. spent about 5 min at the crappy beach n the rest of the cumulatively-numerous hours in its massive, labyrinthine arcade... only leaving it to grab more quarters or any change that could add up to increments of 25 cents. the loudest cabinet was by far Punch-Out! ..."LEFT! LEFT! BODY BLOW! BODY BLOW!"

 

[DunkeyKong]

Haven't been there in awhile, but whenever we're in the arcades, we'll always play something like Street Fighter IV, Metal Slug 1 and 2, Racing games like Outrun, Initial D and the others. The most memorable though, maybe those arcades with a bigass guns

 

[prnzoDraGoonZweiOrta]

oh, and... in the 90's I was heavily into the SoCali pro fighter scene since we were close friends with Apoc (Jason Gonzales) who was based in Vegas like mehself n other close friends who practiced n challenged comp several times a week at mostly Mary K's [RIP] but sometimes other short-lived local arcades. SHGL (Southern Hills GolfLand) in Costa Mesa was a pretty amazing place to play or spectate at high-lvl play with players who were, at the time, some of the best players in the worLd. I was at SHGL when they received an advance test-cabinet of MvC2 for the 1st time in USA - n I stood there next to Justin Wong puttin it through its paces (strangeLy, there was only 1 other person watchin Justin play besides me... I think this was mostly before he hit his stride n became one of the most important names in the scene, period. shit like this makes my memories n even current exponentiaLLy tamer/uneventful life feeL a bit surreaL. stiLL it's good to stay off 'the grid' a bit n not risk the chance that I'll get wild again n pay fuckin dearLy for it...)

 

[Bakuma1997]

As a kid my parents OWNED one Arcade

It wasn't something great, like a local in a mart, but a bunch of Slot machines and two multigame arcades, we still had a blast, meeting people that went to my house in droves to play KOF 2002 with the Worshipped in LATAM Magic Plus mod, i played myself but being 10 years old i sucked, still had lots of fun

 

[Advil Lavs]

It's not really about the arcade, it more of a story connected to the prize I got from it.
So, a couple of years ago a friend of mine and me were left in an arcade while our moms went shopping and we tried getting as many tickets as possible. We only got a few hundred so he got a key chain and I got a wind-up mouse I named Misho the mouse.
After we returned to the hotel we met some other kids that were there and I decided to put my mouse to a test. We climbed on top of a staircase and wound-up Misho. Everyone thought a toy rat going down the stairs and spinning a few times until it hits the ground was epic so we tried a few other stuff like jumping across a gap obstacle course we made from tables.
We had a very fun time but unfortunately the wheel inside that kept the wind-up mechanism from breaking got out of its place and I didn't have a screwdriver to fix it. Good thing it was fixable, and I witnessed the birth of a legendary mouse.

 

[_Lorenzo_]

The arcades of yesteryear were all the rage in my town...I remember the first game I tried was Shinobi, followed by a fighting game called Violence Fight that was pretty awful, but I liked the sound a lot because it could return a good impact of the blows.
The arcades were regarded by my parents as places of moral perdition, populated by marginal people. Well, well, it wasn't quite like that, but the air was certainly unbreathable because of the cigarette smoke that permeated the rooms.... I remember that in the one I frequented near my house there were even a couple of pool tables.

 

[miguk miguk]

• Young me found some place called an arcade that had these things called video games. Played Rampage and Operation Wolf. Walked away ridiculously excited at having discovered what felt like a door into another world.
• Local convenience store had multiple arcade games (rotating over time): Mortal Kombat, Super Street Fighter II, MK2, and Martial Champion. Played the whole way through most there except for MC, which played pretty badly for a game that had the aesthetics down.
• Purposely went to Pizza Hut regularly just to play the Neo Geo machine. Played quite a bit of Magician Lord and Fatal Fury.
• Went to the mall with a friend of mine who was obsessed with some new game called Killer Instinct. They hadn't played it before, but were studying up to play it once they found a machine. We found one there, and they played it until they won — spending over $100 dollars in the process.
• Played a game of KOF (don't remember which one) against a pair of Korean teens (or young adults, don't remember) who could play in sync. That is, one used the joystick, the other used the buttons. They trashed me like a competitive gamer against an amateur (which was probably the actual case).
• Took a pair of Japanese clients to a barcade. Of the games we played, one was House of the Dead 2. They were surprised that I was so good with a gun that both tapped out several minutes before I had used up my 2 tokens for a single play. I felt both proud and embarrassed of myself.

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

Here are mine:

Teenhood's Last Hurrah: Memories Of An Arcade Junkie & A Mallrat

Ever-since my dad dropped me in Kindergarten for the first time, I had wanted nothing more than to be done with school for good, to exit those hallways for the last time and move on to the next big chapter of my life. I had almost marked the days on my mental calendar, crossing out the months as...

retrogametalk.com

 

[Taukyrie]

Last year my bf came to visit me irl and we went to an arcade and played through all of Moonwalker. It was the funniest thing ever.

I know there's another bigger arcade I found, and we talked about going to when he visits since it has a lot more games. One of which is Virtual On, which he only played once in an arcade years ago so he's excited.

 

[Deleted member 25310]

I finished The House of the Dead 4 in one sitting.
The arcades where empty so I could dual wield the submachine guns, my arms where tired by the end of the session and I blew all my credits on the machine, but it was worth it to finally finish the game I have been playing since I was a kid.

 

[Prism_Red]

Oh man I got plenty of memories, I'll start with the earliest one, eps 1 you might say, may post another later.

So I met my best friend at the arcade. Practically we are classmate, just never talked and we hate each other's guts from day 1, he is complete 180 from me, he is a yes man, always has a flat derp face, joined student council for no reason, total tool, a chick magnet for some reason, I hate it.
One day I went to my usual arcade spot and I saw him playing Wangan Midnight 3, well whatever, I went ahead and play House of The Dead to kill time and try to do another no continue run. I'm doing well until I'm facing Magician, heard someone talking in a flat tone behind me "you don't need to track his fireballs, aim at the center since the hitbox will line up eventually, moving around too much will make you tired." Who the heck is this bozo? I'm ranked 1 and 2 in this damn machine I thought, I glanced on my back and well, it's him.
I'm suddenly pissed for no reason, after I'm done I felt like humiliating him somehow so I challenged him to a game of Tekken, he just answered with simple OK.
And damn I made a huge mistake, he is fucking good at Tekken, we played for 2 hours or so, even drew a large crowd and people start cheering for us, I lost 19-23. We became close since.
Fun fact, he main Asuka and I main Lili, another fun fact, coincidentally that day I was wearing Asuka (Eva) shirt, he was wearing Rei. We're still complete 180 from one another to this day.

 

[VampireLord1024VampireLord1024's icon]

A Pizza Hut had a Hydro Thunder arcade machine that I liked to play years ago.

 

[prnzoDraGoonZweiOrta]

Here are mine:

Teenhood's Last Hurrah: Memories Of An Arcade Junkie & A Mallrat

Ever-since my dad dropped me in Kindergarten for the first time, I had wanted nothing more than to be done with school for good, to exit those hallways for the last time and move on to the next big chapter of my life. I had almost marked the days on my mental calendar, crossing out the months as...

retrogametalk.com

IMO, that was heart-breaking n hope-conjuring on equaL turns in a beautifully balanced tandem... wrapped expertly with an endearing bow of touching happenstance n modesty tying together a profound, poetic eloquence of the tippy-toppest shelf of envision/execution. great, evocative stuff! if there's a question of 'would I like to read your other works" gets an emphatic Y E S cuz I put my quarter up by the 'start' buttons signifying 'I Got Next!' ok that was me losing the plot cuz fLattery wiLL get me... elsewhere xD *3 enthusiastic thumbz up* ^_^

 

[Merchant]

I finished The House of the Dead 4 in one sitting.
The arcades where empty so I could dual wield the submachine guns, my arms where tired by the end of the session and I blew all my credits on the machine, but it was worth it to finally finish the game I have been playing since I was a kid.

i cant beat that one , i can beat 2 and 3, have not tried to beat 1 yet. always found the bosses in 4 so hard.

 

[Deleted member 25310]

i cant beat that one , i can beat 2 and 3, have not tried to beat 1 yet. always found the bosses in 4 so hard.

Really? I think that the ones in 3 are bs lol. The Fool is by far the worst of the series. Period.

 

[Merchant]

Really? I think that the ones in 3 are bs lol. The Fool is by far the worst of the series. Period.

i dont have a way to play it outside the arcade, my pc emulates it poorley, maybe if i fiddled with it perhaps. I have a gun4ir rifle, but i have yet to test it because i got autiscally really angry that you have to get a paid licence to use it. There is no way to pirate it. I will do it eventually tho.

 

[pr0xy]

Okay this isn't really a memorable experience (it's anecdotal at best) but you made me remember, so here goes nothing:
Back when I was a kid, there was a rumor going around about arcade cabinets with fighting games. The rumor said that if you pressed the player two buttons during a single-player run, the CPU would go nuts, and the difficulty would ramp up heavily. I haven't read or heard anything similar on the internet or from other people online, so my guess is that it was a local thing that someone made up and we just ran with it.
So, to make a long story short, what my friends and I used to do was hang around the arcade machines (it was common to find them in places like bars and restaurants back then, at least here), wait until the older kids started playing (we were 6 or 7 and the older kids were in their teens), sneak around them, press as many buttons as we could and run out of there like bats out of hell. We got our asses beaten a couple of times, but we mostly made it out unscathed every single time.

 

[Bakuma1997]

I finished The House of the Dead 4 in one sitting.
The arcades where empty so I could dual wield the submachine guns, my arms where tired by the end of the session and I blew all my credits on the machine, but it was worth it to finally finish the game I have been playing since I was a kid.

Isn't that the saga where playing Co-op makes the game harder to compensate?

 

[Deleted member 25310]

Isn't that the saga where playing Co-op makes the game harder to compensate?

...Mmmmmaybe? Some light gun games add extra reticules for game balance since there is more firepower to go around.

 

[TamagotchiTamaHero24's icon TamagotchiTamaHero24 TamagotchiTamaHero24]

I shared the story of me duel wielding the player 1 and player 2 guns for the entire game of House of the Dead II, but I have some more.

Donkey Kong 3. Tabletop machine. I'm at this arcade called Arcadia. They have this machine in the back. I see the high score is high. Now, I've not played DK3 before, so I play some and I play some more and I get really into it and I beat the high score! Sweet! I leave and come back and my score has been beat! BY THE SAME GUY!

We battle for the top score like five times and I eventually top it all by the time the place closes that evening. A true, old school high score battle. I've treasured that memory ever since. Love ya, Donkey Kong 3.

 

[Merchant]

I shared the story of me duel wielding the player 1 and player 2 guns for the entire game of House of the Dead II, but I have some more.

Donkey Kong 3. Tabletop machine. I'm at this arcade called Arcadia. They have this machine in the back. I see the high score is high. Now, I've not played DK3 before, so I play some and I play some more and I get really into it and I beat the high score! Sweet! I leave and come back and my score has been beat! BY THE SAME GUY!

We battle for the top score like five times and I eventually top it all by the time the place closes that evening. A true, old school high score battle. I've treasured that memory ever since. Love ya, Donkey Kong 3.

never got to play a real house of the dead 2 machine and its my fav one

 

[Prism_Red]

Isn't that the saga where playing Co-op makes the game harder to compensate?

Yes, in House of The Dead case, co-op throw you more enemies to shoot and bosses' health that you need to deplete before they can hit you is increased somewhere between 50% to 70%, in some cases the amount of projectiles they shoot increased too.

Really? I think that the ones in 3 are bs lol. The Fool is by far the worst of the series. Period.

Maybe it's because the shotgun in 3 feels heavy for me and it impacted my aiming, another is I feel the camera work during Sloth battle makes you feel like it's weakpoint is always out of range to the top screen most of the time. But yeah it's the most bs indeed, Fortune too.