During a particularly slow day at work, I started compiling a list. I approached it from two directions… first I thought of my stomping grounds, and remembered what games were there. Then I started thinking of random video games, and trying to place where I’d played them. This list is pretty much off the top of my head.
Safeway: I’d come here with my mom. While she shopped, I’d watch the video game demos, and if I was clever enough to bring a quarter from home (or steal one from her car), I’d play a game.
- Asteroids (I remember finding a quarter and putting it into the machine, only to find that the single player button was missing, so I couldn’t start the game. Later, some kid (who had the button) was playing my game. I think my mom explained that it was my quarter, and the kid moved aside and let me play. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t see much of the screen).
- Slalom skiing (don’t remember the exact name)
- Pool game (ditto)
- Alien Syndrome
- Yie-Ar Kung Fu
- Jungle Hunt
- Q*Bert
- Punch Out
- Spy Hunter
Beef Shoppe:
- Karate Champ
Bellasarios:
- Bubble Bobble (noteably, played this with NBA player Scot Pollard in junior high school)
- Raiden II
- One of those 4-in-1 NeoGeo things that I never liked or played
7-11 was a great hangout on the way to and from school
- Gauntlet (I remember playing this with a guy who was later caught as a serial rapist)
- Street Fighter 2 (I spit Slurpee all over the machine when Jon Yarris called Chun-Li “Chin-Lu” (not really that funny now, I guess))
- Black Tiger (great game)
- Moon Patrol
- Shinobi
- Bad Dudes (I think Iwan and I beat this together)
- Double Dragon
- Donkey Kong Jr.
- Elevator Action
- Some “Wild West” game
- Ninja Gaiden
Bioys and Girls Club:
- Pengo
- Gravitar (both games only 5 cents!)
Yellow Brick Road: A classic, classic arcade. I mourned the day that it was turned into more food court.
- Virtua Fighter 4
- Tron
- Star Wars
- Red Baron
- Battlezone
- Street Fighter 2 (Mike Stup would frequently school me on this game at Flower Hill... even when he'd play the big russian wrestler guy and I'd play Blanca)
- Pole Position
- Popeye
- Kangaroo
- Front Line (I liked this game)
- Pit Fighter
- Marble Madness
- Rampage
- Xevious
- Time Pilot
- Track and Field (I remember playing this on a skiing trip with Joel Brown. It was in a little rec room where the Jacuzzi was. One of us did the “run” buttons while the other did the “jump” button. That worked pretty well)
- Marble Madness
- Rampage
- Gauntlet II
Best-a-Wan Pizza
- Vanguard (This game came out in 1981. I was 6 years old)
Surf and Turf. I remember we went here for Scott Hall’s birthday party one year, and his dad handed out platic baggies with quarters in them.
- Jackal
- Front Line
- Ikari Warriors
- Dig Dug
What’s a little scary to me is that this isn’t just a list. Each of these is pretty much a distinct memory. As I write this, I can think of more (the Family Fun Center, the FunSpot arcade in New Hampsire, the Del Mar Fair (beating Golden Axe with Iwan)). I have no idea how or why these have stuck so firmly in my head, but there they are.
Phew. It feels good to get those aired out a little...
3 comments:
Excellent!
That was one of my favorite unplanned benefits of having the MAME cabinet at my house. Almost every guy that came over had some similar memories/flashbacks to specific games/locations and they'd go search for those games.
Fun stuff. I remember very clearly standing next to my brother at the Del Mar Fair while he played Dragon's Lair all day until he beat it.
Crazy stuff Adman.
At what age will you start introducing Allie to video games?
"At what age will you start introducing Allie to video games?"
Dunno. Later. When you're a kid, you should be outside running around doing stuff (which is how I remember my childhood, actually).
In spite of how it might sound, I didn't spend much time in arcades at all. It's just the memories of when I did are very intense.
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