Be Excellent To Each Other

It's very sad seeing them gradually slip away. Growing up near Blackpool we were overwhelmed with arcades, all the latest and greatest at our finger tips all the time.

There still the Ferry Arcade in my hometown of Fleetwood, I'll have a mooch about this weekend and see what's left.

I went to Devon a few weeks ago and was left really sad at the state of the arcades there. We went in 3 or 4 and they were all full of cranes, coin pushers and ticket winning machines.

The only real games I saw were Time Crisis 3 and a pap looking racing game. That was it.

Compare this to when I used to go to Wales as a kid, I realise now that the arcade on the caravan site spoiled me. It always used to have the latest games and still carried a wide range of the older games too. I remember when they first got Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter 2 and the arcade owner told me that Mortal Kombat was the more popular game. He reckoned it was because of the graphics.

Pretty much fuck all mate, there's a load of unplugged stuff in the back, though. I was amused the last time I was in there by the penny falls machine. Remember when the star prizes were something really good e.g. twenty Regal with a fiver taped to them? Well they had a packet of araldite epoxy sat on there.

Here are a few pics of the place from the last time I was there, just the creepy stuff rather than arcade cabs though:

I've just bought some Epoxy!

The last time I was in there they had most of it sectioned off so you just had the small area in the 'main' part of the arcade - you could look over the barriers and see lots of old stuff but it was all off and gathering dust (this was a few years back) - in the same way that main arcade in Ryde has went through periods of being totally closed / one small part (the middle of 3 arcades really) open and then the main part with other bits blocked for access which is more of a tease as you can see all the old machines but just cant get to them.

For anyone on the south coast there is obviously a lot of old pinball tables (in various states of repair) on hayling island and as recently as 3 / 4 years ago they also had a small collection of old arcade machines - they just had one left the last time i was in (although it was a sit down star wars cabinet so worth the coins to play).

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.78488 ... 56!6m1!1e1

http://funland.info/

I never managed to get to the Arcade Barn while it was open :

http://www.arcadebarn.co.uk/

I would like to get to the Arcade Club at some stage :

http://www.arcadeclub.co.uk/

And i'll dump this link in here as well

https://arcadeblogger.com/category/article/

Great site , run by the current missile command world record holder , a lot of long detailed posts about finding and restoring old arcade machines.

Other old arcade areas that may or may not still exist.

In Blackpool at the very front on the outside of the Pleasure beach (just at the split where the road goes in) is a small arcade which the last time i was in had some realy old fruit machines and some old arcade machines including a Track n Field (in an original defender cabinet) a Turbo Outrun and other stuff (no idea if its still there).

The bowling alley at Cheshire Oaks near us has a surprisingly decent arcade. I traumatised the kids on some panoramic shooter. Maybe try that again when they're a bit older

And I have no idea if anything in here is left (I doubt it) - but around 6 or 7 years ago this small arcade in Mablethorpe

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.34266 ... 56!6m1!1e1

Used to have the most amazing collection of old fruit machines mostly all working , mostly the old 2p ones so they had 3 Rat Race's side by side with a 2p Black Hole (MPU3 redone Exchanges unlimited) and a large number of other old BWB and PCP machines

The arcade changed hands (I think the original owner retired and their family took over) and over the course of a year or so virtually all of the old stuff vanished - the last time i was in there was still a Rat Race and some older machines but the vast majority had gone and that was a good 4 or 5 years ago so i doubt there is anything now :-(

Zaphod... what was that link you posted to that film similar to King of Kong? I vageuly remember reading it. Was it in Bits n' bobs?

And again on fruit machines rather than arcade machines

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.21324 ... 312!8i6656

This arcade in Chapel St Leonards has a small room at the back with some reasonable old machines (not the really old ones but a reasonable age with JPM Popeye / BWB's Reno Reels , Cops n Robbers (the blue/red original £4.80 one upgraded to £6) and a lot of the old Barcrest machines on £6 like Andys Great Escape / Snakes and Ladders / etc

Worth a visit if your in the area and like early 90's fruit machines

Used to have a GTI Club in there many years ago.

Next time I'm up there I'll take a look and get some pics.

The one i posted thats new is 'man vs snake' - there are a few others including Chasing Ghosts and High Score - give me a sec and i'll sort out the IMDB links

King of Kong : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0923752/

Chasing Ghosts : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0479879/

Man Vs Snake : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2933794/

High score : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0808299/

The King of Arcades : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2395228

Tilt : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0918519

I like those pictures, Zardoz. I love those horse racing games, because they remind me of my grandad.

Because he was a tiny, tiny man.

On a tiny, tiny horse.

I imagine he means the talk on getting a perfect pacman game which was linked.

Around Skegness - pinball tables :

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Cha ... 69!6m1!1e1
The Lord of the Rings / Elvis

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.20092 ... 56!6m1!1e1
Original Adams Family (that generally works)- this arcade also has some JAMMA cabs at the back - often turned off but Double Dragon and a few others

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.19282 ... 56!6m1!1e1
Another early Adams Family table although this one is almost always broken in some way

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.14492 ... 56!6m1!1e1
Another Adams Family (also always broken in some way) and a Pirates of the Caribbean

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.14281 ... 56!6m1!1e1
A Spiderman / CSI / Shrek

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.19266 ... 56!6m1!1e1
Shrek / Elvis

Ah - okay that was here https://arcadeblogger.com/2016/07/22/pa ... erfection/

I missed that completely... Thanks for the tips! I'll take a look later but I imagine it's going to talk about patterns and such like. I can do the first screen of Pac-Man with a perfect score but to do the whole game? That's a lot of practicing...

As for the films, I've seen King of Kong and chasing ghosts and very good they were too. I'll see if I can find the others to watch.

Actually although patterns are mentioned its not the main focus - this is maybe around 40 minutes or so of a talk at one of the retro events and its well worth a watch

Interest spiked! Ace.

The unique thing about that guy is he can do it 'freestyle' and doesn't rely on patterns.

Everyone else who gets perfect scores uses patterns and also arguably 'cheats' in that they practice using rack-advance and suchlike, whereas this dude didn't do any of that. So for everyone else, if they mess up a pattern, they lose the perfect score as they can't improvise, whereas this guy can get out of a hole with quick thinking and still move forward towards a perfect score.

More detail here - https://arcadeblogger.com/2015/08/23/pa ... fect-game/

And one last 'oh it was good but isn't as good anymore' - there is a traveling arcade - i don't know where else it goes but it comes to Abingdon for the annual Michaelmas fair

http://www.abingdon.gov.uk/witness-livi ... elmas-fair

Around 7 or 8 years ago , one of the arcade units was just full of 90's JPM machines - Roller Coaster / Big Bucks / Monopoly / Casino Crazy / etc etc

The arcade parts in there are shrinking down and down , the only JPM left now is Casino Crazy and instead of about 4 little arcade sections the last time there was just 2 :-(

King of Kong is fantastic.

Man vs Snake at least is readily available on a multitude of platforms for streaming and purchase, I'll be treating myself to that when I've got a couple of hours to myself and can sit down to really enjoy it without interruption. (Google Play and Steam both have it.)

On the random nostalgia part two of Ashen's recent videos opening random boxes at the computer history museum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apx4qBaucIM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOGd2FySB2M

My imagining was wrong Bad imagining.

It seems the only arcade games you see are the ones that can't easily be replicated at home as I guess home consoles have killed off any interest there.

I'd love to visit Galloping Ghost in the US one day. $15 to play all day in a place with 530 arcade machines. The video tour on there is quite a lengthy one but is a great watch just to go 'I remember that!' a number of times.

I'd like to visit Funspot and the Pinball hall of fame in vegas

http://www.pinballmuseum.org/

John's arcade visits Funspot : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAtdvWpnzIw - if you havent watched other stuff on his Channel then have a look round a lot of classic machine stuff

As I've probably mentioned before, Four Quarters in Peckham is a decent bar with a load of arcade cabs. Also has/had Addams Family Pinball.

Living in Brighton now, I regularly go to the pier with mini Fop and am unfailingly distressed by the fact most arcade games are now things that started life on mobile, such as Jetpack Joyride, Fruit Ninja or Temple Run. Who really wants to spend 50p a pop on such things? I guess plenty of people do. Broken Britain etc.

20 'coolest' arcades in the world

http://mashable.com/2014/09/28/arcades- ... .S_a_0Iuqu

Cheers, Mimi. I really need to take my 'big' camera out more.

Yeah Zardoz, those pictures are great!

I was stood on the moon when I took those.

Incraterble!

Last one I went into was in Newquay in June.

Popped in with my son as he was acting up in the fish and chip place we were in and my wife wanted to eat in peace.

It had no arcade games in at all aside from 3 sit on things at the front, all that was inside was a huge over 18's slot machine area and a load of pushers and slots with £5 jackpots.

Didn't stay long as all the pusher prizes (that needed lots of hard to get tokens) were the Thomas train sets my son loves and he was kicking off as he didn't understand why he couldn't have one!

More recently we went to eat in the local cinema complex, my son ran straight into the local bowling ally, which is full of ticket pushers and expensive 1 life arcade ticket games. He was running around looking at everything and asked me for money for a pusher! Didn't even know he had a concept of money at his age. So straight out of there. These places are just setting kids up to like gambling from an early age.

Mostly just a copy and paste from Bits and Bobs before Zardoz started this thread, thanks Zardoz

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We don't have a single arcade left on the Isle of Man now, when I first came here in 1994 there were three big arcades in Douglas alone (one of which was really sizeable), with a very generous number of fruit machines and pinballs as well as fruit machines.

The bowling alley had a decent line-up too, and lots of big 'marquee' machines like that jetski one, big Daytona USA sitdowns, four player Manx TT Superbike and so on. (Manx TT Superbike was very popular here for obvious reasons, loads of pubs had them as well.)

On top of that pubs routinely had videogames and pinballs too, you could almost go out for an 'arcade day' just by touring the pubs of Douglas.

Over the years they've all gradually been lost and the last arcade closed, oohhh, maybe four or five years ago, and in tandem with that the other small arcades and locations with games around the island have been lost too.

There is still a cafe in Ramsey that has what could be called a 'games room' attached I suppose, but it's almost all just shitty old fruit machines (mostly on £5 jackpot) and a couple of videogames in the back. I'm barred from there anyway for 'winning too much' so it's sort of a moot point. That said it was a half-decent arcade back in the day, I remember there being a Data East Star Wars pinball in there, a Crazy Taxi, and a reasonable selection of other videogames. (You're going back to the late 90s there though.)

It's great that videogames still exist out on site in reasonable numbers, although I wouldn't make a trip to the Isle of Wight out of it, the ArcadeBlogger site is a wonderful read too, at least there are people out there committed to preserving these things.

A mate at work went over to Hungary earlier in the year for a holiday with his missus, they've got a pinball museum place in Budapest, flat fee to get in and then all the pinball you can eat. I could easily go there for a week and just spend the entire time in that one place.

http://www.flippermuzeum.hu/en/

No worries mate, I'm here to help.

Arcade Club is fantastic. I'm always up for a return trip.

We went through Sandown and Ventnor today, and the sea front arcades were both boarded up and looked to have been for some time.

Wow that's got loads of my old faves including Assault!

Have to get myself there.

Last time i was there there was a few good arcades there - checking on google maps this one in Shanklin

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.63115 ... 56!6m1!1e1

there was also one down at the needles (with the fairground)

Didn't realise how old some of them were.

http://www.arcadeclub.co.uk/games/black-widow

The one in Shanklin had precisely one video game - Time Crisis 3.
And it was turned off.

Might sneak down to The Needles tomorrow to check.

The last arcade in Barcelona closed down a couple of years ago. I passed by it every day on my way to work and witnessed the day they shipped all the machines off to Mallorca.

Here's a fabulous long read about Pac-Man if you really want to know everything about it. (Which I did!)

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3 ... hp?print=1

I went to Arcade Club for my birthday this year!



This makes the room look kinda small. It's actually really big and there's at least fifty machines set up.

Ooohhh new high score on Chase HQ this evening, 10.9M. (That's a five stage clear on a single credit.)

I'm sure I've had over 11M in the past but my MAME high scores were lost at some point over the last few years, or not so much 'lost' as the .hi file stopped working from one version of MAME to the next IIRC.

I love Chase HQ, it's one of those games I can just play again and again and again, and more often than not I'll fail to complete it, so it's always nice to get the full clear off one credit (I never use continues on this game).

When I was at college an arcade close-by - (I much preferred the arcade to the college) - had a stand-up Chase HQ but at some point the turbo boost button stopped working, and they would never fix the bloody thing, so it then became an extra 'game within a game' to see how far I could get without turbo boosts. I could clear three stages but stage four appeared to be impossible.