Anyone in the older gen-x to millennial crowd of hexbear have fond memories of playing a game in the arcades?

I lost a lot of quarters to Time Crisis and I have zero regrets about it

I grew up in the sticks, but we did have some arcades. Most were relegated to pizza huts, although occasionally we'd take a trip out to the mall. They had an awesome arcade, the kind with ski ball, every street fighter, that one Area 51 light gun game. I was part of a regular Soulcalibur 1 tournament they'd do every month. I'd go bowling with my grandma as a teenager too. The bowling alley had a very small, but extremely well curated arcade. Whoever was in charge of the arcade selection there really knew what they were doing, and I should have asked. Metal Slug, Street Fighter Alpha 3, Crazy Taxi, NBA Jam, etc. Just hit after hit.

I occasionally go to the retro arcade near me, although it's aimed at a slightly more retro vibe than I'm into. It mainly has games from the late 70s to late 80s, but it's still a cool time. I used to have the high score on the Bubble Bobble cabinet (trust me, jump a bunch of times in place on the first few levels, it's important).

I've been to a bunch of arcades in Japan and a few in China. It depends on where you go these days. In Japan a Taito or a Gigo are always good bets. There's only one Sega left, so that's a shame. Namco centers are also pretty good. They're harder to find, but little tiny arcades are always the best, but what can suck is people in there will absolutely be smoking. Every Japanese arcade I've visited that had Street Fighter III: Third Strike also had ash trays and permanent yellow stains everywhere.

Also, heads up, very large arcades in Japan will be set up on multiple levels. If you actually want arcade games, you'll have to find the floor you want.

• First floor is always claw machines (or UFO catchers).
• Second floor is often photo booths, or some kind of odd hobby-game like confusing card games or those simulators where you're a train conductor. Sometimes there will be VR stuff set up on the second floor too.
• Third floor will be rhythm games. Japanese arcades absolutely love rhythm games and you will see someone blasting their hands all over some buttons to a bouncy Hatsune Miku song or dancing like crazy on DDR
• Fourth floor will be stuff like airhockey, multiplayer stuff like the taiko drum game, etc.
• Fifth floor and above are what I call the otaku caves. They're where the nerds are pushed. That's where you'll see fighting games, more action oriented stuff, retro games, whatever.
• Top floor will be something like a place to play collectible card games or maybe even something like a theater for some local idol group, if you're into that kinda thing.

Hope you can visit a game center someday! There's really nothing else in the world quite like them. Shout out to that lady who destroyed me in Street Fighter 6 at the Taito in Nipponbashi a few months ago.

X-Men, Pac-Man, The one with the space centipedes that you have to shoot, Mario

Old ass hexbears lol. I was still able to play some all time classic games with ppl at arcades when I was a kid in the mid/late 2000s and early 10s. Plenty of street fighter, mortal kombat, soul calibur, local ones had carnevil, tmnt, it was great. Will 100% agree that arcades have become shit though. Ever been to a dave and busters? Most disappointing mobile game scam shit possible

My parents didn't have money to spare like that, and we didn't go out much, so in those brief moments I would watch others play arcade games. Cringe as it is one of my best memories growing up was watching some college kids play those simulated race car games with the actual steering wheel and everything. Was young enough it was just fun to sit there and watch the demo too.

I'm right around the millennial/zoomer gap, and I have fond memories of playing a shitload of time crisis and tcII at my local arcade which also had a dope go-kart track.

The six player X-Men was indeed so cool when you actually had the whole team going on it. Street Fighter 2 was absolutely my game, I remember putting my token in a line of them that we put on the cabinet to call next game at the arcade by the grocery stores my parents often went to. One time we were playing winning sits at Street Fighter II, I was on such a tear that I played for almost two hours straight and there were literal cheers when someone finally beat me.

My friends and I would all have our birthday parties at that arcade (the only one for like forty miles in any direction).

A lot of places had a few machines here and there though. I can remember going to a wedding venue for some people I honestly don't even remember, but I do remember stealing quarters from the bar tender's tip jar to play more games and when he caught me he was very cool about it and just put Pac-Man on free mode so I would stop.

My grandfather had no idea how to bond with us (first gen Eastern European immigrant) and so he would just take us to a local hotel that had some arcade machines and let us run wild with a roll of quarters. He'd taught us to pretend we were staying at the hotel if anyone asked us.

There was a laundromat that sold beer and had a 3D well type Tetris game called blockout. Played against my friends, competition got pretty intense. Would leave the mat late at night doing rotations is my brain, so fun

golden axe. only arcade game i ever played to the end.

i had a stack of quarters and other kids jumped in for co-op until one who was decent enough i just funded him until we beat it

went to a birthday or two where the parents rented one of those "free arcade rooms" where you got pizza and unlimited plays on like 20 cabinets

i really do think we need some kind of third space for social gaming again. obviously not designed to just rob you of money

Snow Bros is my jam! Used to love playing that as a kid, got lucky on holiday once and found an arcade machine of it at the hotel I was staying at. I spent all my time (and all my money) playing that game. It was a great trip.

Loved it as a kid. Gauntlet, Rampage, Arkanoid, TMNT, Cruisin' USA, the boating version. Obviously pacman+ms, qbert, galaga, I think there was a Terminator game with a gun, mortal Kombat, street fighter, X-Men. And of course plenty of pinball.

Surprisingly enough, I'm not much of a gamer.🤷

It was the tail end of the era, but many of my friends were deeeeeply into the DDR scene.

There's a pizza place just down the street from me that has a working old timey Donkey Kong. I have the high score and will probably keep it. I'm good at Donkey Kong and no one else plays it

What y'all know about that Bucky O'Hare tho 👀 also when I was in high school they still had DDR machines at the arcade at the mall I used to frequent that was right across the street from my school

I got so good at it my friends and I started drawing crowds lol

DDR was GOAT, we played the shit out of that. My friend even bought pads for his house lol.

House of the Dead 2 we played a lot of too as well, but DDR is the one we played the most. Like before DDR we would just play whatever was around, but that's the first one we would really look for, or go to certain arcades for

Me and my kid are really into claw machines now. My hit rate is pretty good but I am on a bit of a cold streak

Time crisis 2 was my shit back in the day! There's a "barcode" near me I hit up with my lady friend on occasion for some drinks and digital violence. It's a cool place

In the mid 90s when I was really young I remember playing Galaga somewhat regularly in a diner near my parents house

Also later when I was older (mid 2000s) my class in school went on a day trip to an amusement park with an arcade, and towards the end of the day I got bored of rides and played Joust to the point where I got multiple high scores on the machine

Cadillacs and dinosaurs all the way.

Doing some deranged digital violence on the Mortal Kombat 3 cabinet at the Pizza Hut is a favorite memory of mine. The experience was, of course, made much worse by capitalism; those things were just designed to devour your allowance money. I think what I liked most about it was just that it was a third place where you could have fun with other people, and I was a lonely kid who craved that.

• Getting older kids (and adults) to rage-quit at the OG Street Fighter II was always good for a laugh. My own uncle had a meltdown because he couldn't figure out how to counter the Blanka flying claw-into-face chomp-into electric shock combo. As Ryu. Yeah.
• The original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade with the 4-player cabinet was awesome, too. I think I only ever made it past Bebop once, though. I remember being super excited for the NES port when it finally came out, because the other TMNT game on NES (and home computers) was such a disappointment compared to the arcade.
• I wish we'd had the X-Men and Simpsons ones; those looked like they were in the same lane as TMNT.
• There was a version of After Burner where the "cabinet" was a giant recumbent pilot's seat on a set of force feedback motors, and it would jolt you around when you banked the jet. That was pretty cool.

Double Dragon, Golden Axe, Spy Hunter and (forgive me) NARC.

Three:

Playing MvC 2 by myself was interesting, but I don't like arcade controls or just standing like that.

Playing Virtual On was amazing with the cockpit layout. I wish it had a first-person option. But it was so cool piloting mech.

Finally the Simpsons game for the arcade. I played as Marge and loved how she swung her vacuum cleaner as a weapon in the beat'em up

My mom would go to bowling league and she would watch me by handing me a pile of quarters and let me play fighting games. I didn't have a console for the longest time, so stuff like Marvel vs Capcom 2 and Ms. Pacman would be my main exposure to video games.

Cruisin U.S.A. is where it's at

Also Crazy Taxi if you can find it

Also... arcades are having a major comeback, along with pinball machines. See if there's an arcade in your area, you'll be surprised!

When I was a kid, my dad would take me to the arcade in the mall and we would play House of the Dead 2 together. It's one of my most treasured.memories

Oh man, and that's not even getting into all the elementary school roller rink trips/soccer team pizza parties where I and the other bad children would slink off to the back play Metal Slug.

Shout out to Time Crisis, up there with HOTD for hilarious voice acting. Actually, pretty much every arcade game had that

There was this arcade game which was a time attack sort of game except you started as a tiny dinosaur amd the more you ate you became cooler and cooler dinosaurs. Iirc the final form was a T-Rex and right before that was triceratops. No idea what it was called, but as a dinosaur obsessed young kid it was magical.

The four player gauntlet arcade game stands out because my two best friends were moving abroad and the last time we got to hang out our parents took us all to an arcade where we spent the entire time on that game with a 4th mutual friend.

My friends used to go to the mall near our school on our lunch breaks and they'd play lightgun shooters (jurassic park was what they played alot of). I didn't have any money so I just watched them play.

When I was younger I have one time my dad took me to the movie place in a lake town, and we played through the entire Simpsons arcade game together. One of my few good memories with my dad. I don't think we actually finished the game, but we got really far in at least.

I remember a lot of places like walmart had arcade machines in the front lol, I remember pretending to play one (no monies) once in a while.

I remember older teenagers (mostly boys) playing them at the roller rink, I wasn't so interested.

I did played in the arcades but it was just Moon Patrol everywhere and i hate it

Old millennial and I loved playing Altered Beast and Golden Axe.. later I really liked the x-men side scroller.. always played as Jubilee.

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also remember the roller rink and getting in a fight there