What early arcade memories do you have? (arcade games played when you were young)

[gamemaster14]

When I was young we used to go to Seaside Heights, NJ every year. Back in the day there used to be mostly arcade video games with of course some point/token skeeball and slot machines (not winning real money). I remember playing games like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Simpsons and even Street Fighter II Championship Edition now and then.

We also played a great deal of Skeeball, little would I know that it was cheaper just to buy those cheap prizes you would get with your points.

My grandmother would play a game called Joker Poker, it was another ticket game.

I still have a Nintendo Game & Watch (Squish) I had won at Sonny and Rickey's Arcade

Just wondering, what arcade games did you play when you were young? Have you tried playing them again today? Do they bring back the same feelings you had back then?

 

[Kasumi-Phase-X]

When I was young & around My teens is that there was a restaurant at Minnesota where it had all these classic retro cars, which there isn't too much Arcades but I played Skeeball & Cruis'n World (which I wasn't too good back then, I'm ok but sometimes I get free game for coming in 1st Place or end up paying tokens/coins for another go). But from the past and all the way of today (assuming I'm traveling or if there is a arcade game of some sort) I would always want to play in the Arcades. There use to been an Arcade at the mall that I know which sadly closed down which when I was young won a Cortex plush (Crash Bandicoot) from a crane machine & gotten an Amy Rose plush (Sonic), when I was in My teens there was Tekken 5 Dark Resurrection, Marvel vs Capcom 2, Initial D, House of Dead, & Soul Calibur II.

Arcades are places that I do love to go there the most, but sadly since the console generation has becoming so big in the US that I will rarely have any sort of chance playing in the Arcades, and the only ones I can have that arcade experience is either a Dave & Busters, Tekken Revolution (which getting the premium tokens is like getting tokens to play the arcade games), & heading to EVO for Tekken 7 (plus entering a Tekken 7 tournament). When I do see that there are Arcades in Japan, I kinda feel left out especially what I enjoy going to the most and going to Arcades for Me is getting pretty rare.

 

[Goarmagon]

When I was a kid in the mid to late 90's I played A LOT of MK3/4. I would sit there trying to find new combos and find out ways to get the most damage without hitting that dumb ass "MAXIMUM DAMAGE" limit. MK4 would be great if they had just implemented damage scaling and hitstun decay.

 

[ACSeraph]

I remember when I was quite young my dad would take us to an arcade in the mall in St. Louis which was pretty huge. MK had a big impact on me (as it probably did for most kids of the 90's) and I'll never forget seeing that Sub Zero decapitation fatality for the first time. I never had a good grasp on how to play at that age though, so Fatalities may as well have been some kind of voodoo magic to me.

My dad was big into light gun shooters (still plays whatever beat up old machine he encounters in Wal-Mart or wherever). Back then his big thing was Lethal Enforcers, and later on Area 51. I have fond memories of both.

Capcom's 1943 also had a huge impact on me as a kid, and I continue to play similar shmups regularly even now, at a much higher level. I'm fortunate to live in Japan, so I can still experience the arcade scene regularly, but these days it's almost entirely dominated by fighers and music games. Luckily All.Net and Nesica have their shares of interesting single player focused games to keep things varied.