Arcades! Who goes to them?

[Dark Jaguar]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Kart_Arcade_GP

There are games like THIS that actually exist. So, my question is simple enough. How long has it been since you went to an arcade? Myself? Probably going on 3 years now. Part of it is the fact that arcades are shutting down left and right. Part of it is the few arcades I find myself in proximity to (the ones you see inside movie theaters for example) have NOTHING NEW. Every game is at least 5 years old, if not a LOT more, with "classics" like Time Crisis 1 and Mortal Kombat 3 sitting around.

So hey, Nintendo might release a Mario Kart game for the arcade with Pacman in it, but if I never once see the thing what good is it?

[The Former DMiller]

Well, if you count places like Dave & Busters, ESPN Zone, and GameWorks I was in an arcade over the winter for my friend's bachelor party, but I haven't gone out of my way to visit an arcade in a looooong time. I actually can't remember the last time I went to an arcade strictly to play arcade games.

[Great Rumbler]

Dave and Buster's is one of the greatest places in the world and I fully endorse it as being an "arcade".

[Dark Jaguar]

Dave and what? Never heard of it.

Anyway, I'm just surprised there are still new arcade games being made, it seems. That Mario Kart game was released last year. They don't advertise them, and almost no one I know goes to the arcade, and the few times I've been in an arcadian atmosphere, there's nothing new at all anyway. As such, I only hear about them through a stray link on some unrelated web page and am surprised.

The worst is, for example, F-Zero AC has a lot of stuff it can unlock in the home version through it's memory card port, but of course that requires actually having access to the arcade version. They shouldn't do stuff like that.

Anyway, the arcade isn't dead, yet, but I think the only thing keeping the idea alive is children's parties.

[Great Rumbler]

Dave and what? Never heard of it.

It's Chuck E. Cheese, but for adults.

[Dark Jaguar]

Still not clear. Basically like some sort of pizza dance club with rides?

[Great Rumbler]

It's a restaurant with billiards, arcade, and bar.

[Dark Jaguar]

Oh... Oh wait I'm not thinking of Chucky Cheese, I'm thinking Celebration Station, with the miniature golf course and the bumper boats and the go kart track and two floors of arcade games. That's a nice place that I haven't been to in a while, clearly made for kids but I find it highly enjoyable. If only the food was any good...

[EdenMaster]

There's an arcade in the big movie theater here and I spent quite a bit of time at it last year. I used to go there in my free time and I only played one machine: Soul Calibur II. Not sure if any of you played an SCII arcade machine, but it offers a huge "Conquest Mode" wherein there are four armies vying for control of a continent. You fight 8 battles per 50 cents, and depending on how many battes you won or lost, you would gain or lose land for your respective army. PH3AR M3:



The image quality is bad, but my record is 3082 wins and 953 losses. I should also note that RILEDO (3rd Place) and SPOON! (5th Place) are also my characters. Two more (DIEDRANNA and MEATBALL) are top ten, but not top 5. They both have about 400 or so wins. Bearing in mind that every 8 battles costs 50 cents. Yeah, I know...sad.

I havent gone for a few months though. I think my infatuation is over. For a while there though...I reached a whole other level of nerd.

[The Former DMiller]

So you've spent close to $500 on that game. I salute you good sir. It does sound like a fun game mode for SCII, though.

[Great Rumbler]

That's dedication right there.

[EdenMaster]

That's dedication right there.

No, that <i>compulsion</i>, <i>addiction</i>, and <i>boredom</i> all rolled into one.

Best part of it was, you played against other people's characters too. The more you played and the better you got, so would your character. So a good, maybe, 20% of those wins/losses are from my AI character playing challengers. My AI doesn't lose too often (note the 99999 experience). There are only 4 Edgemasters of the Dragon on that machine (out of about 600 unique characters), and I'm one of them :D.

[Weltall]

Wasn't RILEDO one of your alternate names?

Cause if so, your addiction is worse than it seems.

[EdenMaster]

I should also note that RILEDO (3rd Place) and SPOON! (5th Place) are also my characters. Two more (DIEDRANNA and MEATBALL) are top ten, but not top 5. They both have about 400 or so wins. Bearing in mind that every 8 battles costs 50 cents. Yeah, I know...sad.

:D

[Paco]

the last arcade I went to was about two years ago. It's not that I don't want to go, I do, but they're scarce these days. The closest to me is a Dave & Busters about 45 minutes away.

I've had the urge to try out one of those Dance Dance games.

[A Black Falcon]

I've been to arcades various times over the years, but never regularly or often...

[Dark Jaguar]

Yeah, about the one thing left for arcades to provide are add-ons that would otherwise be prohibitevely large/expensive to get at home, like a bicycle thing or a jet ski mount or giant metal dancing floors. That's the reason left to go to them. So, they'll probably still be around with just games like THAT for a while to come, until holodecks become all the rage. Then companies will release "classic game compilations" with all those old games on the new tech, and mothers will scare their daughters with how evil these new video games are and that story on the news about that guy that lured a friend into the holodeck and turned off the safeties in "Resident Evil 42", which by then has been updated with the new tech, slowly and subtly, so that no one even really notices how much of a major tech change the future has, like how people today don't seem to realize how super advanced we are compared to just 20 years ago. And like, zombies will seem about as silly as the giant metal robots of the 1920's shouting "destroy" and doing a Frankenstein's monster walk and firing "death beams". So, zombies will be done in campy half parody games in that time.

[TheBiggah]

The last time I walked through an arcade was about 11 months ago. The last time I shelled out coinage to play an actual game in an arcade was before GoldenEye 007 came out in 1997. Since I bought my N64 (graphics that could finally be better than the arcade in my very own home), I've spent all my 'gaming' money on games I could own...since trying to become a responsible citizen who contributes to society, my time limit that I can devote to gaming has continued to dwindle.

-TheBiggah-

[Great Rumbler]

The Dave and Buster's in Frisco has this one arcade called Tokyo P.D. where you chase criminals through various Tokyo disctrics. The seat tilts and bounces around as you drive. It's pretty awesome.

[Dark Jaguar]

Yep, as I said the one great thing about arcades, the only reason left to go to them, is those super expensive add-ons you'll never own. Same reason people still go to the theater.

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, arcades in the US these days pretty much only exist for the big 'you can't do this at home' games...