Until this month, there hadn't been an arcade in my hometown of Milwaukee for some years. The last was an Aladdin's Castle I frequented as a youth that was not only closed, but razed to the ground sometime in the last half decade. I didn't hear about it when it happened, and was quite surprised when I went to play a couple games one day. Apparently, it'd been gone for nearly a year by that point.
Now, there's Dave & Buster's. If you're not familiar, allow me to edify you. Dave & Buster's is essentially a grown up version of Chuck E. Cheese's. It's big and loud and there's booze and food. You have to be 21 or over to get in, or accompanied by someone over 25 before 9pm. After 9pm, you must be over 21.
I'd been to the one in Honolulu before, and wasn't terribly impressed, but that was years ago, and now there was now one close to my house. Besides, a friend was having her 30th birthday party there, so I had to go. So, last saturday, off I went to see the shiny new arcade.
I'm still not impressed.
Dave & Buster's is filled with claw machines (including a comedically huge one with appropriately sized prizes), skee ball, racing games and light gun shooters, mostly with film licenses and Dreamcast-quality graphics attached. There was also a Guitar Hero Arcade cabinet or two and, if you looked really hard, seven retrogames separated into three combo cabinets (being Mario Bros./Donkey Kong/Donkey Kong, Jr., Qix/Space Invaders and Galaga/Ms. Pac-Man).
I was disheartened to say the least. Chicago has, or at least had the last time I looked into it, at least two arcades worth frequenting. One is Nickel City, which is owned by Capcom and is filled to the brim with old school goodness, all available for a nickel a credit. The other is Sega's GameWorks, which, if I were to describe it in basic terms, is a lot like Dave & Buster's, but has an area separated for retrogames, and includes slightly more obscure fare like Moon Patrol and Burgertime.
I was hoping for something more in line with GameWorks. Last time I was at GameWorks, they had SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos on a large projection screen. More obscure than anything I reasonably expected to see at Dave & Buster's, but I certainly didn't think a Street Fighter II cabinet would be too much to ask for. Clearly, I thought wrong.
Which made me start to question how what I want from an arcade differs from what other people want from an arcade. You might think with all my grousing that the place would be empty, and if it were, deservedly so. Alas, faithful reader, it was packed. To the goddamn gills. There was a 2 1/2 hour wait to eat, if you wanted to. 2 1/2 hours and not a single Street Fighter cabinet in sight.
It seems that the arcade, at least in America, is little more than a novelty. You go, you get drunk while you wait 2 1/2 hours to eat mediocre food, then you play some racing games with your frat buddies, then you go home and maybe come back in two months. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but an arcade should be about choice. God knows this place has the floor space for it. Literally, no exaggeration, 90% of the floor space is ticket games, racing games and light gun games. The rest is a couple rhythm games and the limp selection of retro titles I mentioned earlier.
Clearly, this is what the people want. It's a casual place filled with casual games. I'm not casual, so I guess Dave & Buster's isn't for me, but I'd like a bit more of a concession that what was offered. The people who were there on Saturday aren't going to be regulars, but me? With a very few of the right titles, you got me in there once a week. Of course, I don't drink, either, and I'm sure much of their revenue comes from mediocre food and booze, so maybe they don't care about people who would come solely to play games. Maybe I'm that much of a dinosaur. And maybe that's why there's a vacant lot where Aladdin's Castle used to be.
Things have changed. We can game socially from our couches with XBox Live and Playstation Network, and I'm all for those things, but nothing's like meeting a total stranger (face to face so he can't call you epithets without getting punched) and challenging his/her skills. Nothing's like teaming up with five strangers and pummeling your way through Konami's X-Men arcade game.
I didn't see any of that. I saw people with groups of their friends, all playing the same games with the people they came with. Not branching out. Not being social in the true sense of the word.
I'll admit this is kind of getting away from me. It's 3am, and I'm exhausted, but I guess what I'm saying is that I just want a real arcade experience. Is that too much to ask?
Showing posts with label arcades. Show all posts
Showing posts with label arcades. Show all posts
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Jumping on the Bandwagon with Street Fighter Nostalgia
1Up's Retronauts blog spent all of last week reminiscing about Street Fighter. Many other sites/blogs/what have yous have been doing the same. Street Fighter was a big part of my youth, so I figured I'd just go ahead and jump on the bandwagon.
I don't remember the first time I played Street Fighter. I do remember where I was, though. I was at a small malt shoppe in my hometown. I must've been about six years old, which would've made it 1989, and, at the time, the aforementioned malt shoppe was about two blocks from my house. We lived in a safe community, so my mom let me ride my bike or walk down there by myself. This was good, because it required me to get a little bit of exercise before playing videogames.
The videogame I played most often at that little malt shoppe? Street Fighter. Not Street Fighter II. Street Fighter. Two playable characters, Ryu and Ken, Sagat (sans scar) as the final boss, not a female character in sight. Street. Fighter. No numeral.
Street Fighter blew my six year old mind. The characters were so big, so detailed. There were secret moves. Urban Champion was the closest thing to this I'd ever witnessed, and, lemme tell you, that was pretty damn far away from Street Fighter. You couldn't even kick in Urban Champion, let alone throw magic fire. Perish the thought of having a garbled voice tell you "You've got a lot to learn before you beat me. Try again, kiddo! HAHAHAHA!"
There was a fair amount of vs. play, but mostly I seem to remember all the kids who played trying to come up with strategies to beat Adon. Man, we hated Adon. Adon was a bastard. It was enough that we had to figure out that the best (and to us, only) way to beat Mike was just to fireball him once, then turtle in the corner (no one called it "turtling" in those days, but still) until the time ran out, but Adon? Most of us figured Adon was the final boss, because, man... was he tough.
Eventually, one of us (it might have been me, as I did eventually beat Adon once or twice, but it probably wasn't) beat Adon and found out that, no, sorry, there's one more guy. And that guy made Adon look like a complete wuss by comparison. Sagat. Sagat was huge. Even huge-er than Birdie. And tough. And he could throw fireballs, too. And they hurt. Suffice it to say, none of us ever beat Sagat. I did eventually beat Street Fighter almost two decades later on Capcom Classics Collection, Vol. 2, but it seemed a hollow victory. Also, the game has aged terribly.
It was some years later that I first encountered the sequel. Now, the first time I played Street Fighter II is as fresh in my memory as what I had for lunch yesterday (Culver's, it was delicious). My dad used to bowl in a Friday night league. He sponsored the team, as well as bowling on it, and some Fridays, he'd take me with him. "Why," you may be asking, "would your dad take you to the bowling alley?" Well, because he loved me, and he knew that I, in turn, loved videogames, so he'd give me a roll of quarters (This was shortly after he'd aquired his own business, and suddenly had more money than he'd ever had before. We weren't rich by conventional standards, but by our previous standards, we were wealthy, and my dad was generous with me.) to play in the massive arcade housed within the bowling alley.
Now, this was back in the days when bowling alleys housed some of the best arcades around. In fact, this bowling alley, Olympic Lanes on 27th Street, had an arcade that, quite frankly, shamed the local mall arcade (sadly, though the bowling alley still stands, the arcade is a shadow of its former self at best). It was HUGE. And it was there, on one fateful day in 1991, that I saw it. Street Fighter II. It was opposite a Street Smart cabinet, which made Street Smart look even worse than it does on its own.
A kid had just finished a game. No one else was playing (in retrospect, this must've been very close to the release of the game, because I don't remember seeing no one playing a Street Fighter II cabinet again for some years). I had to play. I dropped two quarters into the slot and continued. I naturally assumed I'd be Ryu. Imagine my surprise when the character select screen appeared. Again, my eight year old mind was blown. Now, as an eight year old, I'll give you one guess who I chose in my first ever game of Street Fighter II. If you think like an eight year old boy, the answer can only be Blanka. He was a monster! I was playing as a freakin' monster!
Now, as I said, I continued from another kid's game, so imagine my further surprise when I get completely mollywopped right out of the gate. I mean, I'd had two solid years of Street Fighter experience by this point, and even though I still couldn't beat Sagat, I figured I couldn't suck this badly. Naturally, I couldn't give up. I put another fifty cents into the machine, and I quickly realized that the character who'd just mollywopped me wasn't selectable. I didn't really know what to make of it, but I'd wanted to try him out for two reasons. One, he'd just handed me my ass on a platter, and, two... it sure looked cool when he threw his cape off at the beginning of the first round.
That's right, the kid abandoned his game at Bison (probably because what had just happened to me had happened to him enough times that he was out of quarters). I had no idea he was the final boss! I thought they'd just totally jacked up the difficulty! Well, I got beat by Bison a few more times, and then started over from the beginning. I tried a few other characters, beat some guys, and got beat, but eventually I ran out of quarters and my dad finished bowling and we went home, but I was hooked.
And I still am.
I don't remember the first time I played Street Fighter. I do remember where I was, though. I was at a small malt shoppe in my hometown. I must've been about six years old, which would've made it 1989, and, at the time, the aforementioned malt shoppe was about two blocks from my house. We lived in a safe community, so my mom let me ride my bike or walk down there by myself. This was good, because it required me to get a little bit of exercise before playing videogames.
The videogame I played most often at that little malt shoppe? Street Fighter. Not Street Fighter II. Street Fighter. Two playable characters, Ryu and Ken, Sagat (sans scar) as the final boss, not a female character in sight. Street. Fighter. No numeral.
Street Fighter blew my six year old mind. The characters were so big, so detailed. There were secret moves. Urban Champion was the closest thing to this I'd ever witnessed, and, lemme tell you, that was pretty damn far away from Street Fighter. You couldn't even kick in Urban Champion, let alone throw magic fire. Perish the thought of having a garbled voice tell you "You've got a lot to learn before you beat me. Try again, kiddo! HAHAHAHA!"
There was a fair amount of vs. play, but mostly I seem to remember all the kids who played trying to come up with strategies to beat Adon. Man, we hated Adon. Adon was a bastard. It was enough that we had to figure out that the best (and to us, only) way to beat Mike was just to fireball him once, then turtle in the corner (no one called it "turtling" in those days, but still) until the time ran out, but Adon? Most of us figured Adon was the final boss, because, man... was he tough.
Eventually, one of us (it might have been me, as I did eventually beat Adon once or twice, but it probably wasn't) beat Adon and found out that, no, sorry, there's one more guy. And that guy made Adon look like a complete wuss by comparison. Sagat. Sagat was huge. Even huge-er than Birdie. And tough. And he could throw fireballs, too. And they hurt. Suffice it to say, none of us ever beat Sagat. I did eventually beat Street Fighter almost two decades later on Capcom Classics Collection, Vol. 2, but it seemed a hollow victory. Also, the game has aged terribly.
It was some years later that I first encountered the sequel. Now, the first time I played Street Fighter II is as fresh in my memory as what I had for lunch yesterday (Culver's, it was delicious). My dad used to bowl in a Friday night league. He sponsored the team, as well as bowling on it, and some Fridays, he'd take me with him. "Why," you may be asking, "would your dad take you to the bowling alley?" Well, because he loved me, and he knew that I, in turn, loved videogames, so he'd give me a roll of quarters (This was shortly after he'd aquired his own business, and suddenly had more money than he'd ever had before. We weren't rich by conventional standards, but by our previous standards, we were wealthy, and my dad was generous with me.) to play in the massive arcade housed within the bowling alley.
Now, this was back in the days when bowling alleys housed some of the best arcades around. In fact, this bowling alley, Olympic Lanes on 27th Street, had an arcade that, quite frankly, shamed the local mall arcade (sadly, though the bowling alley still stands, the arcade is a shadow of its former self at best). It was HUGE. And it was there, on one fateful day in 1991, that I saw it. Street Fighter II. It was opposite a Street Smart cabinet, which made Street Smart look even worse than it does on its own.
A kid had just finished a game. No one else was playing (in retrospect, this must've been very close to the release of the game, because I don't remember seeing no one playing a Street Fighter II cabinet again for some years). I had to play. I dropped two quarters into the slot and continued. I naturally assumed I'd be Ryu. Imagine my surprise when the character select screen appeared. Again, my eight year old mind was blown. Now, as an eight year old, I'll give you one guess who I chose in my first ever game of Street Fighter II. If you think like an eight year old boy, the answer can only be Blanka. He was a monster! I was playing as a freakin' monster!
Now, as I said, I continued from another kid's game, so imagine my further surprise when I get completely mollywopped right out of the gate. I mean, I'd had two solid years of Street Fighter experience by this point, and even though I still couldn't beat Sagat, I figured I couldn't suck this badly. Naturally, I couldn't give up. I put another fifty cents into the machine, and I quickly realized that the character who'd just mollywopped me wasn't selectable. I didn't really know what to make of it, but I'd wanted to try him out for two reasons. One, he'd just handed me my ass on a platter, and, two... it sure looked cool when he threw his cape off at the beginning of the first round.
That's right, the kid abandoned his game at Bison (probably because what had just happened to me had happened to him enough times that he was out of quarters). I had no idea he was the final boss! I thought they'd just totally jacked up the difficulty! Well, I got beat by Bison a few more times, and then started over from the beginning. I tried a few other characters, beat some guys, and got beat, but eventually I ran out of quarters and my dad finished bowling and we went home, but I was hooked.
And I still am.
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