Oh boy, arcades. Man, do I have stories!
-My very first encounter with an actual setup of arcade machines was around '86 or '87 I believe when I was 4 or 5 years old. This was in a downtown movie theater and my folks took me to see
Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Before we went in the theater, I spotted a whole row of arcades in the lobby that had games like
Arkanoid,
Pac-Land,
Pitfall II, and
Super Mario Bros. Needless to say, I was more interested in hanging around the machines than seeing Roger Rabbit.
So, I left the theater a quarter of the way into the movie to hang around the arcades.
Arkanoid was the one game that really grabbed my attention as I
loved to see that little ball make the bricks disappear. Unfortunately, I didn't have any money to play the games so all I could do was stand around gawking at the colorful game screens. Before I knew it, the movie was over and my folks were strong-arming me out of the lobby because we had to go home. I begged them to take me back but they refused.
-Other encounters with arcades happened semi-frequently when I used to go to
Zellers at the downtown mall where I live. I remember the different types of machines they had there. A few of which I clearly remember was
Ghosts 'N' Goblins (to which I never played because I thought it was too hard
),
Arkanoid,
Pitfall II, and
Pac-Man Jr.. I remember seeing a guy at the store who got
very far in
Pac-Man Jr.. So far, that when we had to go, he was still playing. Man, that guy rocked.
Future machines that got put up were
Dead Angle,
Shinobi,
Dr. Mario,
Blades of Steel, and
Gunsmoke.
-In '90 or '91, in the same downtown mall, I remember one of the single greatest arcade centers was established. It was called
Laser Illusions and boy, did it
rock! Three whole floors of machines with a spaceship boiler room atmosphere complete with neon lights! It was incredible! The front entrance had a ticket arcade where you played ticket games and redeem them for crappy prizes (just like carnies at a carnival where you think you can win the big stuffed animal but only get a crappy dollar store toy instead). I had fond memories playing
Captain Commando,
X-Men (with dual screens!),
Aliens,
Smash TV,
Dragon Spirit,
Hologram,
Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp, and
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time. There were way more arcades there but I couldn't have time to play them all!
Some pinballs they had there were
Batman,
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,
Terminator 2, and
The Addams Family. Good times, good times. Needless to say, I was
crushed when they shut it down. I honestly wanted them to stay open forever.
-In '92 to '95, there was an arcade that opened at our local community mall called
Magic Mikes. It was small but cool for what it was. Good variety of machines and ticket games. I remember playing games like
Turtles in Time,
Captain America and the Avengers,
The Simpsons (I remember this game drawing a big crowd when it got put in),
Columns,
Volfied,
Tetris (what arcade center
doesn't have this game?
),
Mortal Kombat (also drew big lines),
Killer Instinct (drew big lines),
Bust A Move (just as frequent as Tetris),
Pang!, and
WWF Wrestlefest. Pinballs I played were
Pinbot,
Jokerz!,
Indiana Jones Pinball Adventure (which rocked!),
Super Mario Bros. Pinball (surprisingly fun!), and
The Addams Family. The games rotated frequently and the only ticket game I ever played there was the bowling game which involved rolling a ball on a ramp in order to get it into the rings. The arcade's name was changed to
Topo Gigio in its final year before it got shut down for good. I used to throw a tantrum and beg my parents to take me to this arcade when I was a kid. Sometimes they conceded, other times they gave me a good spanking for it.
When the arcade did get shut down, I was first in denial thinking they were going to remodel it but afterwards, reality sunk in that the center just had really really bad business. After that, I developed a level of skepticism to any future arcades that opened up thinking that they would go out of business after one or two years of operation.
Part 2 of my arcade adventures will come soon as I gotta go deliver papers now.
