Life & Death of Amusement Arcades

[L00b 441]

I need a decent sized house to dedicate to a gaming room!!! I could buy the odd machine or two, but no place to put them.

Ah well, that's a personal choice (to have many, with a game room).

 

I have two atm, both in my home office. Lordsvale MVS and a generic 19" Jamma. They don't take that much room, floorspace dimensions are similar to a kitchen carcass (W 600 x D 800). Depends on the cab type, really.

 

Just after replacing the 19" Jamma with a Naomi now, then I'm done/happy (with 2 cabs).

 

---------- Post added 24-01-2013 at 09:25 ----------

 

The things I loved most about defender were - lot of people couldn't play it at all, because of the "physics" and the sound effects were bang on.

It is rather glorious, isn't it?

 

It came out in arcades before my time, but it became a staple regular for me for years and years (decades, really ... via MAME, and now 'emulated' on Jamma in a multicart).

 

What a piece of game design!

But the eerie perfection of BattleZone, its smooth, hidden wireframe vector graphics, and especially with the periscope view, it was the closest thing to "being there " you ever got in a games arcade, until the 90s at any rate.

As I understand game development lore, DARPA called on Atari at that time, to build a training simulator for the US army on the basis of Battlezone.

 

Various ex-Atari devs have testified to that over the years, and the/one of the original dev allegedly walked from Atari, not wanting anything to do with or for the Army. So the legend goes, anyway (IIRC, it's never been officially confirmed that a sim was actually produced/delivered)

 

---------- Post added 30-01-2013 at 21:41 ----------

 

One word - BattleZone. Nothing else ever came close.

A linky just for you, Phanerothyme, as I chanced upon it tonight

 

The asking is out of order by approx £400 IMHO...but then again, this dedicated cab in this kind of condition is getting pretty rare (expectedly it's one of less than a handful left in-country) and only ever comes up FS once in a blue moon - if that often

[GreenManWalk 10]

Gauntlet - flat cabinet / table - 4 player epic - spent £100's on it at 10p a go.....to be fair also used to like shark attack, battlezone, and that game with the uzi's

 

today they are 2p penny shove machines or cash guzzling bandits ......or grabber machines with rubbish grips and ridiculous prizes it can never lift...

[L00b 441]

Gauntlet - flat cabinet / table - 4 player epic - spent £100's on it at 10p a go.....to be fair also used to like shark attack, battlezone, and that game with the uzi's

. Going rate for one of them, in working and decent-ish nick, is £300 atm.

[PlayStation 10]

in the late 90s when I was a kid I use to go to ingoldmells with my auntie and uncle and my cousins for the weekend. I use to go in the BJ's Big Top arcade and play OutRun. that was a brilliant arcade racing game.

 

use to love the Namco time crisis type games with the blue and pink light guns.

 

also use to go in the arcade that joined onto fantasy island aswel, loved playing the air hockey table with my cousin.

 

last time I went was 2002 when I was 12.

[Waldo 96]

When I first started going in the arcades, must have been before Space Invaders come out! I remember games like Boot-Hill and some really ropey black and white driving games. They also had mixed in mechanical games with the video games IIRC. Definitely remember Space Invaders coming along, was a very big thing at the time.

 

Also remember the likes of Galaxian, Defender, and many other really cool old games; Defender Stargate, Gorf, Vangard, Star Force, Flicky, Mad Planets, Marble Madness, Star Force...

 

Gauntlet - flat cabinet / table - 4 player epic

 

For the first Gauntlet, you could memorise all the levels, and play through really quickly, just nabbing the food and exit ASAP to next level. For a single 10p, your health just goes up and up (think they call it 'marathoning' a game where you basically last forever). Remember playing it all day, one day in Stories (on Matilda street), and some chap came in and put 10p in the wrong (my) slot; added about 0.1% of my current health level, and instantly halved my final score (which was divided by number of coins used).

 

Very happy memories.