Weird places to find good arcade games?

[Arkhan]

I was at Chuck E. Cheese for a birthday party, and they had Metal Slug 5 and King of Fighters.


what the f*ck.

[BlueBMW]

Best place I've found local to play arcade games is my garage.... seems to be the only place with a plugged in cabinet!

[Tatsujin]

Best place I've found so far:


Le

[guyjin]

I was at Chuck E. Cheese for a birthday party, and they had Metal Slug 5 and King of Fighters.


what the f*ck.

you mean what the awesome!

Best place I've found so far:

I haven't seen an arcade that full in years. brings a tear to the eye.

[Arkhan]

The topic is "weird places" not "best places"

like, why is Metal Slug 5 in a place designed for 6 year olds to flail around in?

It's kinda like that time I found Black Tiger in a bar full of hillbillies.

[A_Locomotive]

I was at Chuck E. Cheese for a birthday party, and they had Metal Slug 5 and King of Fighters.


what the f*ck.

Haha It happens. I took my nephew to a birthday party at a chuckee cheese like place a number of years ago and tucked away in a corner away from most of the crap games they had 3 awesome machines set up. I can't recall what they all were but one was a Neo Geo MVS and I dumped like $20 bucks into it and the other two while the kids ran around screaming.

:edit:

Oh just remembered a great WTF one. I live near San Diego and in Balboa Park there is a great aviation/space museum. It has an amazing collection of planes as well as an Apollo capsule and many other aviation related odds and ends. One of the stranger ones is tucked away in a corner of part of the museum, its fairly close to the section dealing with naval aviation. Its an After Burner machine!

[Arkhan]

Nice.

A seedy donut shop by me used to have a Tempest cabinet. 

[SignOfZeta]

There was a time when every Chuck E Cheese had a Geo. There is really nothing odd about that.

The best weird places I know of are the megasized truck stops, particularly the ones on I-80/90. That's where you'll find stuff like Family Guy pinball (very good, btw), functioning MoCap boxing, and other high end stuff. They are about the only places left with any kind of budget to buy games. It used to be that laundromats were a pretty good place to find a working Vanguard or POW, but eventually every arcade machine dies if it doesn't get repairs once in a while.

These days arcade stuff is either condensed to the few specialty arcades like Galloping Ghost, Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum, and Pinball Pete's or its in someone's house. Most "arcades" only have redemption, and because of this today's 10 year olds actually think redemption machines are the definition of "arcade game"...which is so damned sad.

[Arkhan]

I worked at CEC when I was 16, and there were zero games that didn't spew tickets at you.

When I was little, I didn't bother with anything other than Ski-ball and pizza.

Their pizza is still good at least.  Thin, not doughy, burnt as f*ck pepperoni.  A step above frozen pizzas.

[TheClash603]

Chuck-E-Cheese near me also has Metal Slug 5, but no KOF.  Though it does have the Mario Kart sit down, which is pretty rad too.

[Tatsujin]

The topic is "weird places" not "best places"

like, why is Metal Slug 5 in a place designed for 6 year olds to flail around in?

It's kinda like that time I found Black Tiger in a bar full of hillbillies.

LOL, but this is ALSO a weird place

OK how about this? its' called U.S. Land and it is a basically only playground in a shopping mall for kids. you pay 100yens for 15 minutes and can be in there as long yo want. if you stay over 4 hours you just pay the daily stay fee of 1280yens in total.

but now comes the interessting part of this story, because they also have dozens of game cabs staying around there, all set on free-play. from stuff like lucky & wild till guwange or dodonpachi cabs, which you can use for as long you like.

[guyjin]

The best weird places I know of are the megasized truck stops, particularly the ones on I-80/90. That's where you'll find stuff like Family Guy pinball (very good, btw), functioning MoCap boxing, and other high end stuff. They are about the only places left with any kind of budget to buy games.

yeah, the truck stops near me all have a room that was built for arcade games... but all they have these days are UFO/crane catcher type games, a golf games with a trackball, and some deer hunting light gun game.

The hotel my brother works at has a couple of arcade games, including an MVS with Bust-a-Move on it. for some weird reason, it's just outside the pool. I guess that's kinda weird.

LOL, but this is ALSO a weird place

OK how about this? its' called U.S. Land and it is a basically only playground in a shopping mall for kids. you pay 100yens for 15 minutes and can be in there as long yo want. if you stay over 4 hours you just pay the daily stay fee of 1280yens in total.

but now comes the interessting part of this story, because they also have dozens of game cabs staying around there, all set on free-play. from stuff like lucky & wild till guwange or dodonpachi cabs, which you can use for as long you like.

free play for as long as you like for $16.50? Get out of the way, kids, I've got a high score to make!

[Samurai Ghost]

It's probably gone now but there's a laundromat in U-city, St. Louis that had a Dynamite Cop cab in there. I love that game so I go there with a friend to play it sometimes. I guess it makes sense to have a game around where people are sitting around killing time. Great selection though!

[Arkhan]

There used to be a Total Carnage at the ice skating rink, lol.

That was hilarious.

[Mishran]

I once saw Hit the Ice at a ice rink. Seems fitting.