Current Events > Was it actually fun playing arcades in the 90s?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I did enjoy ones like X-Men, but towards the mid to late 90s when there was Tekken and Capcom vs games, it became more frustrating. I hated when people kept spamming moves. There'd also be like 30 people around wanting to play, so you'd have to wait a long time to try again.
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Area 51
Dino Crisis
The Simpsons
Battletoads
Cruisin' World

Were my shit.
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Eh-Eh-Eh-Eh
Eh-Eh-Eh-X-Men!

reload reload reload

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Man, I miss 90s arcade games. Especially when a new machine dropped and there were crowds of people watching. Especially with fighting games like tekken or MvC.

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Yeah, and I did play those fighters some, but usually only if it was a slow day in the arcade and no one was really hanging around. I dug the shooters like Area 51 but I always loved beat em ups and stuff like Sunset Riders.
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Vicious_Dios posted...

Dino Crisis

Time Crisis?

If you were good, it was awesome. Good players were regulars and we would all try to get better 25 or 50 cent at a time. It felt as awesome going on a 10 or 20 game winning streak, but it felt much better to be the person who broke that streak. There were no home console of the games to practice online on, so you'd do all your learning playing against other people and on busy nights you'd have dozen of people just watching you and another person duke it out, waiting for their turn and the occasional gasp if a game came really close.

They were always awesome. And they still are!

Yes it was.
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Arcade games were mostly shit.
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yes it was fun.
arcades had exclusive games. it was its own thing like

nintendo 64
sega genesis
turbografx 16
playstation
arcade games
pc games

i liked playing the games alone though. like i wanted to play and beat a mortal kombat arcade game to see endings but rarely did because someone is always a better player than i am lol

i flew to vegas in the 90s with family and the circus casino had a floor of arcades and games like the ones you see in piers. that was pretty cool.


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Go experience it now. Arcades have made a come back. Barcades are huge. Just came back from San Diego was playing MVC2

Theres a place called galloping ghosts in Illinois you pay 15 bucks for the whole day and get to play arcade games all day
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Yeah, arcades were great. Unless you didn't have any money. The best was when places had a cover charge and everything was on free play, which is the way things work today.
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It literally was the best time ever. Its not just nostalgic talking. Its not just trying to remember or lying and saying it was great. It really was fucking great.

And even when you had very little change you could find the games with a free game after a win and just chill for hours.
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Yes

i was a kid so yes
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I used to live by this pizza place where once a week they would give out free unlimited quarters to kids for the arcade. those were great nights.

DAAAAAAY TOOOO NAAAAAAAAAAAA Let's go away!

Repeat x1000
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My brother and I probably spent so much on Area 51 we should have just bought the damn arcade cabinet.
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I was done with arcades by the 90s but I had a hell of a time in the 80s. I could make $5 last all day in the arcade. The best guys could go all day on a couple bucks. Chicks hung out there sometimes too (not that I knew what to do what them at the time). Pretty much the junior high hangout in my part of Los Angeles. Older kids hung out at the mall, like in Fast Times at Ridgemont High - unless there was an arcade in the mall.

I was good at Defender (real good - always in the top 10 names), Space Invaders, Qbert and Donkey Kong. Frogger and Dig Dug always kicked my ass. I was pretty good at pinball too. By the mid 90s I had stopped major arcade playing except for an occasional visit to the Santa Monica pier where they had a very busy shop with some of the best players in the city.
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yes

Wish I went more often

Vol2tex posted...

when there was Tekken and Capcom vs games, it became more frustrating. I hated when people kept spamming moves. There'd also be like 30 people around wanting to play, so you'd have to wait a long time to try again.

Kind of the point. You're one of the best there, and you earned it, everyone else has to get better at dealing with the "spam" (it wasn't) and try to take you down, or conversely, you are the one trying to take the win streak down by figuring out how to beat him and talking with others on how best to do it.

Sure, losing and going to the back of the line wasn't what you wanted but it had its own entertaining aspect.

The point of a fighting game is massively on this competitive aspect. Not the single player vs cpu. The single player mode was a waiting lobby to wait for a new vs player, not the point of the game at all.

Back when arcades were dying I could keep my token vs the cpu going for 15+ minutes by losing rounds and going for time outs waiting for someone.

It was always funny when I played vs a player who was about to beat the boss, like a sliver of health left to the boss and the player was clearly about to win... so I help him by VSing him at the last moment... and rarely, the player would get mad. Like I ruined things (by preventing his obvious win vs the cpu)... when actually I gave him some extra time to play VS.
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When I went to Japan for work in 1991 there was an arcade place called Sega House in Shibuya, Tokyo. The rumor was that they were test marketing games for their arcade division. I was particularly fond of a horse racing game where you sat around a huge table made to look like a racetrack. It even had mechanical horses. If you won, tokens would shoot out like a slot machine in Las Vegas (or the metal balls in pachinko parlours over in Gotanda). There were a ton of other games too but that's the only one I can remember.

I used to go there 3X a week sometimes.
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My favorite arcade game was Die Hard Arcade. 2D brawlers are awesome and DHA was the perfect mix of ridiculous and badass. The weapons were nuts, you got anti-tank rifles and grenade launchers and they'd send guys flying only for them to get up and keep going. They were literally less powerful than the deadly spraypaint and lighter combo. Too bad the end boss was such a bullshit quarter eater, but still worth it.
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Arcades are the biggest thing I miss about the 90s. I kinda believe that online gaming is what killed it.
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Dance dance revolution<333
Area 51
Mortal kombat 3

Oh yeah. Ohhh yeah
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Arcades were on their way out till sf2 hit and they made a comeback, big time but it was very fighting game centric, not that I complained about it as it's my favorite genre. Late 90s early 00s they were in their death throws. Dance dance got popular and it was the last gasp before completely going away. Sure there are a few still around but it's not the same at all. Now when the kids wanna go somewhere like chuckecheese I'll go for the galaga machine or straight pinball.
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Hell yeah, I loves going down to Dave and busters on the weekends and spending all my allowance/paper route money there on games and pizza
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Point Blank baby
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Two words....
ULTRA COMBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Yes, it was fun.
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I met two cute Italian gals (like literally from Italy, only spoke Italian) in the arcade at LAX (IIRC, or McCarran?) in '94, they were fascinated by my SamSho technique, we attempted to communicate a bit before having to head off for our flights... I love arcades.

(also almost saw someone get shot at one in Vegas!)

Arcades went through different eras tbh and they all were fun for different reasons. My favorite times were the coop era where it was about playing together to beat a game stuff like Tmnt, sunset riders, alien vs predator, etc. Second favorite was the vs phase where everything was comparative and it's like what you described where a dozen plus people would stand around waiting there turn. Nothing like dethroning someone and feeling like a fucking badass for it. Only close feeling is where your holding it down in a coop game while someone ran to the quarter machine to break a bill. You gonna die or survive until they get back.
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Was awesome, no cell phones or social media, back when you'd see a pretty girl, go actually talk to her.

TMNT
The Simpsons
X-Men
Mortal Kombat
NFL Blitz
Tekken
Cruisin' World

Those were my favorites
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They kind of making a comeback now, with barcades now being a thing. We got at least 4 or 5 of them in my city.
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Tag
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Didn't see turtles in time. I'm disappointed in you. But yeah arcades were the shit back then. Do they even make new arcade games anymore?

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yes the lines for mk2 and street fighter 2 were insane. everybody wanted to take out the local champ. no internet back then so if you wanted to play the best competition you had to hit the road and go to the next town over. i miss it dearly.
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I first played Cotton in the arcade same with Twinkle Star Sprites, half of the STV games I want for Sega Ages, the first Puyo Puyo, Raiden all except DX (played the PS1 version way before I touched the cabinet). I also remember how gimped some arcade games were in the states compared to their ports I end up buying on console, Puyo Puyo being one of the worst of all although some of those STV games got shafted to oblivion outside of Japan.
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Getting tickets for prizes was

DarthDemented posted...

Didn't see turtles in time. I'm disappointed in you. But yeah arcades were the shit back then. Do they even make new arcade games anymore?

Yeah. Its mostly music games and mobile game adaptations though.
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Hell yeah, especially with a friend.

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I was more of a pinball and skee ball kid so I rarely played arcades until the 2000s in an infamous shady Chinatown arcade.

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I remember there was this extremely dead mall from Dan Bell's Dead Mall series that had only one lively business left, an old arcade. It was called Arcade Legacy and you could play unlimited games for an hourly flat fee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBQiWHEudZg" data-time="

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Yes.

Yes it was.
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