Coin-Op Gaming

[msremmert]

TL;DR : My friends and I in Wales want to play retro coin-op games. Tell us where to find some.


Bit of a random one this - I was out with a couple of friends this evening. Just an impromptu gathering of local mates and after deciding we could not be arsed with going out and joining the crowds tonight, we thought we'd jump in the cars and do something else.

We found ourselves at the local bowling alley and after getting no strikes and my ass kicked (I've never won f**king game of bowling in my life ) we headed over to the small arcade they had in there and after getting shooed away at 1am, we headed over to McDonalds to have a bite to eat. I am forced to admit I haven't had that much fun playing video games and air hockey in years and it was a considerably cheaper night out.

It took me back to the early/mid 90s where my dad would give my cousin and I a quid or two just to shut the nagging up (my mum refused to fund video gaming of any sort) and knowing that was all the money we would be getting, we played hard.
You took that quid, broke it into 10p's and entered the room of pounding music, screaming kids and flashing neon and played Street Fighter or Metal Slug as hard as you could to make it last before hitting the dreaded 'Continue' countdown.

With the growth of the high-spec PC and games console, understandably video amusement arcades have taken a hit and have now all but gone the way of Blockbuster, but I was wondering if any of these such arcades you saw in the movie Tron exist anymore or if anybody knows of any going strong with a decent sense of community? Can anybody actually afford to run one of these anymore?...
I know there's a few in London but I can only think of a couple of small ones around me that sit in bowling alleys.

I know the easiest way to get fun old-school multiplayer is to just download an emulator and plug a few controllers into the PC, (or buy a console) but if you want to play a local game, there's nothing quite like putting these £50 games with their expensive DLCs behind you and standing at an upright box with a joystick and your mate.

I live just outside Cardiff so if anybody knows of any in Wales that would be awesome as I'm coming up empty.
I know this is arguably a total waste of time and money but each to their own! :rasp:

 

[SharkyUK]

Sadly the 'amusement arcade' died a long time ago (or at least as I used to enjoy them). Like yourself, but 10 years earlier, I used to love walking into the arcade with a pocketful of 10p's to play NAMCO's, Sega's or whoever's finest and latest cabinet. I'm not aware of any arcades that hark back to that bygone day; they are mainly filled with fruit machines these days (or a couple of horribly expensive cabinets at £1 a pop, for 30 seconds of gameplay). I can remember playing 1942 on many occasion and making that 10p last for a good half hour plus.

Even arcades at a lot of UK holiday resorts don't have the cabinets like they used to. Now and again you find the odd gem (although it's been a while since I last found one) but, far too often, when I do find an arcade with some 'classic' games in they are often faulty or not working at all. The cost of the traditional arcade machine simply became too much due to the custom ROM's and PCB's used to create them. Optical-/disk-based systems never really took off and slowly the market died.

 

[SharkyUK]

Used to love playing this game and would like to have a go at writing a remake one day...

 

[msremmert]

It was all about Metal Slug for me. Such a bloody hard game too. Unless you had lots of cash, which I didn't have.

 

[Eliganza]

Metal Slug was my favourite too. Love Street Fighter and MK as well.

 

[JON13S]

They're still about seem to be the further south west you go.

 

[Ray Gin]

I was playing Street Fighter a couple of hours ago, lol. Awesome game. I vaguely remember a futuristic ice hockey type game too, can't for the life of me remember the name!

 

[SharkyUK]

They're still about seem to be the further south west you go.

Road trip?!

 

[JON13S]

Weston Super nightMare and beyond, in all honesty it's the seaside towns that are holding onto their arcades. Think we're down to a couple now, places like minehead (especially butlins, butsins, slutbins or whatever we refer to it when were on the over 18s binges) there's still the seasonal alcoholic market to cater for.

 

[SharkyUK]

That's a couple of drives sorted for next year then, mate! The "Run to the Coast" or something... for chips on the prom and arcade games. Perfect.

 

[msremmert]

I'm ashamed with the amount of time that I lost to Street Fighter IV during my university years. My friends and I got rather good at it. Made drinking games more interesting.

That's a couple of drives sorted for next year then, mate! The "Run to the Coast" or something... for chips on the prom and arcade games. Perfect.

Talk about the ultimate man day out. Silly cars, chips and arcade games. Definitely up for that. We should definitely do something like that when the weather improves.

 

[SharkyUK]

I think there may be a group of us doing that next year mate. It was talked about this year but then a fair few of us (myself included) decided to get work done on the cars instead. Hence we missed a lot of the good weather months as a result. We'll be making up for it next year Well, I will for sure.

 

[MrDave]

Theres a pretty big one near me right on the sea front still doing well has a ridiculous amount of fruit machines in it as well as old school type games.

 

[The Fatty]

We still have these in the SW As mentioned, int he seaside towns.

 

[SharkyUK]

Time to plan a trip down to Devon then I reckon... actually quite fancying a good old arcade session now it's been mentioned. I'll wait until the better weather though.

 

[sn00p]

Ghost n goblins is one of the best of all time. I built an arcade controller about 10-12 years ago to use with mame.

 

[SharkyUK]

MAME... I really need to check out where it's at these days as I haven't used / seen it in years. I expect it supports a shed load of games these days.