Actual Arcade Thread

[Vaxkiller]

Went to an arcade this weekend, first time in years!

What are some of your favorite machines?

[Vaxkiller]

I'm a pinball nerd. I own a few machines, some are broken still and I need to find some time to repair them (its been many years....)

I got to play TMNT 4 player arcade machine this weekend for probably the first time in over 25 years! lol! Was fun to play with kids/nephews/nieces

Played twilight zone once, one of the top ten pins IMO.

[Isis]

I like the simpsons

[Vaxkiller]

I like the simpsons

Yea, that was a classic too! Pumped alot of quarters/tokens into that game as a kid.

[MURDERCAT]

Nfl blitz is still great

[Ythan]

The Ocean Hunter was always my favorite.

[Vaxkiller]

Nfl blitz is still great

Oh ya, that was a blast! I didnt really like football games, but that one was fun! I liked NBA jam too (as long as cheats were enabled)

The Ocean Hunter was always my favorite.

I've never played this game, looks neat tho!

[Gamma Emerald]

I went to an arcade earlier this year as a reward for good grades during spring break
I probably could have gone regardless but I got a ride + admission paid for by my parents

[Iprobablysuck]

i have a small obsession with retro arcade games

pac-man for life

[Vaxkiller]

I went to an arcade earlier this year as a reward for good grades during spring break
I probably could have gone regardless but I got a ride + admission paid for by my parents

What did you play?

[Vaxkiller]

i have a small obsession with retro arcade games

pac-man for life

Any particular version of pac man? I'd like to get my hands on one of those sit down pac man games that are a table. Reminds me I need to get Q-bert running again.

[Gamma Emerald]

I went to an arcade earlier this year as a reward for good grades during spring break
I probably could have gone regardless but I got a ride + admission paid for by my parents

What did you play?

I played some Punch-Out games, and then Super Metroid and Smash Ultimate (it’s a modernized arcade)

[Iprobablysuck]

i have a small obsession with retro arcade games

pac-man for life

Any particular version of pac man? I'd like to get my hands on one of those sit down pac man games that are a table. Reminds me I need to get Q-bert running again.

About any version I can get my hands on. I used to sit on my mom's lap and watch her play a flash version of Ms. Pac-Man

[shaft.ed]

7-8 year old shaft.ed shoveled my entire life savings into the Bad Dudes arcade game and got severely grounded when my parents found out about it (not for the money, but because I lied and was telling them I went to the park and instead went to the arcade, repeatedly. Yeah in the 80s kids could do stuff without parents. Crazy shit).

I played it again later as a teen and, my god what a horrible game. I have no idea how me and the kid next door got hooked on it. There were definitely better options available

[Ythan]

Many times I've been sucked in by flavor only to play a game again years later and realize it's a bad game.

[shaft.ed]

OMG
I'm so disappointed in my child self
the plotline was rescuing Ronald Reagen

In the English version, after the Bad Dudes defeat the Dragon Ninja, they celebrate by eating hamburgers with President Ronnie. At the very end, President Ronnie is seen holding a burger while standing between the Bad Dudes.

also wtf is that foreshadowing?

[Ythan]

Ronnie and the Bad Dudes

[Vaxkiller]

Lol! Never played this game.

In my experience data east is mostly middle of the road in quality. I wouldn't be too surprised to hear that game has a couple cool features that are fun to do, but everything as a whole is just kinda "ok"

I have a Jurassic park pinball game made by Data East. There is a plast T-Rex that eats the ball sometimes and the machines shakes when the Trex is active. It also has 6 ball multiball!

Buuuuut... the game has terrible progression, the angles on the shots you have to make are awful. 6 Ball multiball doesnt work on the playfield layout. Still fun tho, just not the best.

[shaft.ed]

On a family vacation, my parents sent me to get ice. Next to the ice machine was an Addams Family pinball machine. I checked the machine in case someone had left credits on it. See, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents growing up. Since they came of age during the great depression, the majority of our interactions involved saving money in any way possible. My grandmom would go through the circulars and clip coupons. She'd shop at the grocery store on Monday when they honored triple coupons. We'd sometimes buy soda and cereal for free. (there's a whole other story in here about the evaporated cans of cream soda). Being a fashionable lady, she didn't like wearing her reading glasses in the grocery store, so I'd sometimes go with her to make sure she was picking out the right brands for her coupons. Driving was also an activity Grandmom didn't like wearing her glasses for, so on Saturday morning (in lieu of watching my cartoons mind you), she'd take me yard saling so I could read the street signs for her. I'd watch her haggle over a nickel in price for a piece of pottery marked 25 cents that would just go in a box when we got home never to be seen again. With my Pop-pop, we'd go down to the boardwalk on Sunday mornings and walk the pier. You'd think we'd be enjoying the views of the early morning sun up over the beach and ocean. But no, we had our heads straight down at the ground, visually sifting through litter and cigarette butts the entire walk. We were hunting for loose change people dropped and abandoned in the darkness and the hustle and bustle of Saturday night at the boardwalk. We'd even collect arcade tickets that we planned to cash out for a big stuffed animal or maybe even a bike one day. There were thousands of arcade tickets and tokens in their closets that when we cleaned out the house after my Pop-pop passed. The arcades were long closed down or had changed hands, so we never did do anything with our fortune. Let this be a warning to all you bitcoiners out there. Occasionally we'd even score a bill walking the boardwalk on Sunday mornings. What we did with the haul was unusual. My grandparents weren't big spenders. Most of their money stayed in the purse or went to Atlantic City to fund the casinos. But we'd use the change towards our weekly Dunkin Donuts. These and occasional Slurpees were the indulgements granted during the summer. I guess we'd sometimes go miniature golfing where I'd get hit on the head by the windmill but that another other story. This was back when they had the long cream and Boston cream donuts. Think they call them Long John's now, but they're different. They used to be almost baggy, like a sack made out of dough and 'cream' pouring out of them. There was a toothsomeness cutting your incisors through the dough. We'd get a bakers dozen for the week, three for me, three for my brother, three for my grandma, three for my Pop-pop, and I don't really remember what happened to the thirteenth donut. We'd make fun of Pop-pop because he liked the old school dry donuts that to kid me were nearly inedible and had to be rehydrated in his coffee prior to every bite. So what does any of this have to do with the Addams Family pinball machine? Well, once a year we actually went to the boardwalk when you were meant to go, at night. The arcades were after the free samples of saltwater taffy or fudge. Of course we hit those coming and going. In the arcade, whenever you passed by a machine, you checked it for an unused credit. The joy of finding a free game or a life or an unhurled skeeball for free was better than playing the games themselves. Cause we weren't really allowed to play any of the video games. We'd get a game or two of skeeball and that was the arcade. So that fateful day in Orlando, next to the ice machine, I walked up to the Addams Family pinball machine, hit that credit button with a small bit of hope noticing it illuminated. And all those years of training paid off with the launch of that chrome sphere. I obviously ignored my quest for ice at this time, there was pinball to be played. The previous player had a left a pretty good score. I quickly hit a free ball and I remember the multiball being quite straightforward to trigger. I played that first ball for a good 30 minutes or so. By this time, my brother had been sent out to check on me, but he would remain next to the ice machine, watching the action. I think I let him play one of the free balls I accrued. In the end I played for around 40-60 minutes, and we had set a high score (probably largely due to the points already on the machine when I found the extra ball). For the rest of our vacation, I'd check that machine for unused credits, but the magic was never recreated.

EDITORS note: The Addams Family pinball machine was released 5 years after our family vacation, so some of the details in this story might not be entirely accurate.

[Vaxkiller]

Wow! That story was a wild ride! I can remember checking pinball machines for credits too as a kid!

Adams Family is one of the best pins out there. It's easy to understand, but still has depth to it with the game progression, and parts of that progression do get difficult, but not too difficult to make it not fun. I'm not an "Adams Family show/movie fan, but the theme is very well done on this machine, incorporating most of the characters in thier own mini game for the machine.

Solid 9 outta 10.

Really cool to hear you had such a long game! Even if some of the details aren't entirely accurate... its more about the good memory! Fun to think about!

[shaft.ed]

So your post got me to read up on the Addams Family extra ball situation and it reads as though extra balls are pretty generous on it and its conceivable to collect an infinite loop of extra balls unless the machine is modified.
That might explain why there was a credit left on the machine