ARCADE PERFECT

RIP DoctorC

2023-12-23T12:15:00.000-08:00

Hello friends, I'm sorry to have to make this post, but my friend DoctorC has passed away this week. Today is his birthday. DoctorC was a great friend and a great player. He helped start this website all those years ago. When we first set out to discover where all the arcades went, DoctorC went on all of our early missions, that first trip to California Extreme where we met Walter Day from Twin Galaxies and Seth and Michelle from 8 Bit Weapon/ComputeHer, going to SouthTown Arcade for the Final KOF XIII tournament the weekend before it was released to console, various flea markets, including some wild goose chases to arcades that were rumored to be around, especially trying to track down KOF XIII machines in California.

It is safe to say that arcades are no longer "dead" and we definitely found them, but those first years of searching for them were pretty unforgettable and DoctorC was an integral part of that dream. So many ridiculous times and memories with the Doctor. All the inside jokes that only DoctorC would get...Spiderman serving balloons at the flea market, wolverine and all his little cronies, the game cave, a whole new world... I GOT MORE JACKETS. Just total shenanigans. DoctorC inspired me to learn Tekken again after humiliating me at Brooklyns' house that one time (I never got that rematch). He was an Asuka main and just a totally amazing player.

DoctorC on the Cyber Lead

DoctorC vs BBZ

I'll miss you brother, happy birthday friend and rest in peace.

Coin-Op Game Room Sacramento

2019-03-03T10:16:00.003-08:00

So I went to a barcade in Sacramento, California recently. By recently I mean almost a year ago.

We went up to Sacramento to see Slayer on their "final tour" in 2018. Before the show we stopped in at the Coin-op Game Room. Here's some pictures:

Entrance and outdoor drinking/smoking area.

They have monthly IFPA pinball tournaments.

Love these change machines, but which one do I like more?

Lot's of places to sit.

Some good classics, TRON wasn't working :(

They have a 10-player Killer Queen.

The building is pretty big, they had cool stuff on the walls on the way to the restrooms.

House pinball rules.

Lot's of good pins in great working order!

Houdini, I'd never seen this one in the wild before. I like the playfield art.

They have a beat up SFII. It's crazy how weird octagonal gates on fighting games feel to me now. Love it.

Great mural outside.

So this arcade has a pretty good atmosphere in the daytime, I really wanted to go back for the IFPA tournaments, but it's pretty far from where I live (90 miles) so I never got around to it. No cover charge, you don't have to drink to play, but you do have to be 21.

Great modern pinball selection and awesome hours. They open at noon on weekends and 4PM on weekdays, open till 2am every night!

Last sunday of every month they have the games set on free play (not sure if this applies to pinball, I'd be surprised).

It's worth checking out if you are in the capital.

Retrovolt Arcade

2018-01-13T12:35:00.000-08:00

Welcome back arcade lovers! This time around we are going to take a look at a newish arcade in Calimesa, California... the Retrovolt Arcade! Retrovolt opened it's Calimesa location in 2017 and I got a chance to give it a visit on my recent SoCal vacation.

Retrovolt Arcade

Retrovolt uses a pay by the hour with games set on free play model, I paid for an hour for $10.
I knew that I was really going to like this arcade immediately, when I walked in on a blazing hot December day, it was dark and well ventilated with fans and tinted windows. Siouxsie and the Banshees Happy House was playing on the stereo! In fact, the music selection was amazing the whole time I was there, it was all good songs from the 70s/80s. They had the whole arcade done up with Christmas lights for the holidays. The atmosphere of this arcade cannot be oversold, it was incredibly comforting to be there and enjoy some arcade goodness, I'm sure it is even nicer at night.

This Nintendo Popeye cab looks really good ^^

Nice layout and neons

They have a Neo Geo Gold

Haven't seen one of these in a while, 4 player Gauntlet.

Zaxxon

I love this Rolling Thunder cab ^^

WHO dunnit...I spent some time with this machine, I'd never seen one before (it's good).

Pac-Man Pinball. I love the soft glow of those lamps in the pop bumpers

Such a nice arcade, I wish I would have had more time to hang out, but an hour visit was still very good. They had a few questionable things going on, like the multicart in the Neo-Geo red 2 slot (eww) and some of the video games had LCD monitors, I'm sure most people wouldn't notice or care, but I found it a little off putting...like I wanted to play Karate Champ, but I couldn't bring myself to play it like that..why I don't know. I'm sure having the games always set to having credits on them would cause massive burn in problems on CRT monitors since the attract mode isn't running, maybe that's why they have LCDs in some games.

My final rating for this arcade is an A+++. I really loved this arcade and you should go check it out if you are anywhere nearby.

Retrovolt is open Thurs-Sun

Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Global Arcade Championships

2013-08-09T14:40:00.000-07:00

Namco is sponsoring a really big Tekken Tag Tournament 2 competition with some insane prizes. This competition is ARCADE ONLY, for a welcome change!

Qualifiers are being held in various arcades around the world, with the one or two winners from each country being flown to Korea to compete in a country vs country world tournament and a $10,000 grand prize.

For USA:

The tournament qualifiers are being held at the Puente Hills Round 1 in SoCal.
Hella details on the USA qualifier HERE.
I was just at (Moreno Valley) Round 1 at the beginning of the summer. When I went for the second group of visits, the arcade was re-arranged and they had some new games. One of them was Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Unlimited. Not only did this machine have a working Bana Passport reader, with cards available to buy at the counter, but it was also set on free play for some reason.

It was probably a mistake of some sort, but I'd like to think that they secretly set random games on free play every once in a while for fun (I would). When I came back the next day, free play was not set. We got to play tons of TTT2 during that last set of visits. So, long story short, I fully caught Tekken fever. I haven't really played any Tekken games since Tekken 4 and I had no plans to buy the PS3 version of any Tekken game. Thanks to the arcade, I went out and picked up TTT2 and Tekken 6 for PS3. It just shows that arcades are important in driving console sales (duh).

I think it's a super rad move that Namco is hosting an arcade only tournament. I've heard some people complaining about it, but seriously, console tournaments are a dime a dozen. Arcades need to have some special love. Thank you Namco!

Namco posted the tourney news on the Tekken-net, but I heard about it on the Avoiding the Puddle show.
If you care at all about Tekken, fighting games in general, or arcades you should definitely check it out. It's pretty super.

The World finals are going to be held on October 26th 2013 in Korea. Cafeid is going to be streaming the event on their twitch.tv channel.
Good luck!

Discovering the Lost Ark

2013-05-10T10:13:00.000-07:00

According to InThe80s.com, the average price of a new car in 1983 was $6,100. Thirty years later in 2013, it's $30,000. Despite the fact that inflation drives prices higher every single year, for some reason people still associate playing arcade games with a single quarter. In today's economy it is almost impossible for quarter-based machines to be profitable; in an attempt to survive in today's marketplace, arcades have been forced to evolve and adopt new business models. There's the "pay a single fee and play all day" model which has been successfully implemented by the 1984 Arcade and Arkadia Retrocade. There are places like Dave and Busters and Gattitown that lure you in with games and make their profits from food and drink. Another model involves combining arcade machines with console video game sales. Nashville-based Game Galaxy has been successfully doing this for years. Another retro arcade that has implemented this business model is Lost Ark Video Games in Greensboro, North Carolina.

What catches your eye first most likely depends on what you're in to the most. The center of the floor is filled with racks of video game cartridges, with everything from Atari 2600 carts to Xbox 360 games lining the shelves. In a large glass case near the entrance is the shop's museum area. You can practically smell the nostalgia dripping off of the boxed Atari 2600 games.

Pushed out against the exterior walls are the Ark's cabinets -- 10 classic arcade games, 10 Japanese-style candy cabs, and 10 pinball tables for a total of 30 machines.

Of the ten classic arcade games that were up and running, I only saw one (X-Men) being played. A couple of the machines (including the 60-in-1 machine) had monitors so dim as to be borderline unplayable. Many of the machines featured on the Lost Ark's website were not on site when I visited. Like many arcades, non-working machines are often swapped in and out of service for working ones.

Unlike the vintage machines, the store's candy cabs were bustling with activity.

The candy cabs consisted of fighting games and SHMUPs and were busy all day. The Lost Ark is only a token's throw from the local college, and I suspect it has become a popular hangout for students. I know if I lived anywhere nearby, I would be a frequent Ark patron.

Last up were the store's pinball tables, and what a collection of tables it was.

Tron. AC/DC. Whirlwind. Earth Shaker. Dirty Harry. Family Guy. X-Men. Iron Man. The list (and row of machines) went on and on. While I consider myself to be an "arcade" guy, the Lost Ark's selection of pinball tables is outstanding -- phenomenal, even. While I don't consider myself to be a huge fan of pinball, between the flippers is where I spent most of my tokens. I particularly enjoyed the range in games, with tables spanning at least 25 years in age. I came for the arcade machines and stayed for the pinball; for me, that's definitely saying something.

Smaller in scale than many of the other modern retro-themed arcades I don't know that the Lost Ark has enough draw to warrant out of state gamers in; that being said, every retro gamer in the triad area or simply passing through North Carolina on I-40 should make an effort to stop by. Whether you're in to classic arcade games, modern fighters, pinball action or console games from every generation, you may find what you are looking for at the Lost Ark.

(Rob O'Hara is the author of the arcade-themed book Invading Spaces: A Beginner's Guide to Collecting Arcade Games and the host of the popular retro-themed podcast You Don't Know Flack.)

BlackBeards

2013-03-12T21:37:00.000-07:00

Ahoy! This time around we're going to talk about BlackBeards! BlackBeards has a very special place in my heart. A true 80s arcade that is still standing, I used to go here all the time as a kid (in the 80s). The arcade is set up to look like the inside of a pirate ship and it does a good job of it, with skulls, jewelry, chandeliers, and pirate flags everywhere.

In the 80s it was a long hallway lined with classics, flanked by another level on each side, filled with more classics and pins. Another BIG room off to the side housed even more games. I'm not sure how it happened, but I was under the impression that BlackBeards was long gone. Surprisingly, it is still around in Fresno, CA.

It has changed obviously, but the layout is still familiar. It was pretty amazing seeing it again and climbing the stairs to the upper levels once more. I couldn't find Strider, but there were some other games worth playing in attendance. Here's the pictures then.

When you first walk in, a little alcove to the right with the name 'Gasoline Alley' holds some racing games.


Including a Hang-On!

Gasoline Alley

Gasoline Alley pins

Some guns an boxers.

Part of the main hallway.

Some pins and a Centipede on one of the upper levels.

DrumMania

A loud DDR Extreme, notice the working ceiling fan.

In the Groove 2 on the other side of the DDRx. Two working fans.

A Banpresto prize machine! Too bad the prizes are garbage though.

A long shot of the right side upper deck, this is where my Strider machine was....crazily, there are like 5 photobooth machines here now.

A cute little multi-cab with the ugliest marquee I've ever seen.

More crane machines than anybody could possibly need are now here in BlackBeards. In contrast to the zero cranes on my last visit.

You got your Stacker, taking up too much room as usual.

The next room over has some more games and a big ol' ride in the middle of the room.

This little guy is sitting awkwardly by the stairs for some reason.

Some good stuff mixed with some bad stuff. Do you see the Puzzle Fighter II?

MVC2 and CVS2 seemed pretty popular that day.

More pins shoved in the corner. Theatre of Magic is working great. This area could use a fan though!

Out back, a creepy kid ride from the days of yore. I was happy to see this guy.

BlackBeards has a lot going for it, an interesting style and layout make it a memorable arcade. There are other things to do there if you're so inclined, mini-golf, paintball, waterslides?, batting cages, etc etc etc.

The arcade isn't nearly as glorious as it once was, but it still has quite a bit of charm. They have a large amount of pinball, but except for two or three tables, they are all suffering from neglect. A few simple repairs to get them all running smoothly again would do wonders for the pinball in this arcade. Everything else seemed to be in good working order.

In my opinion, the insane amount of UFO catchers, redemption, coin pushers, and photobooths, should be scaled back to make room for other (better) stuff as well.

In any case, I was thrilled to see one of my favorite childhood arcade hangouts still around. If you are close to Fresno, go check it out.

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Round 1 Moreno Valley

2013-01-02T22:37:00.001-08:00

2012 saw a second Round 1 opening in California, this time in the Moreno Valley Mall. We decided to go check it out. Having just opened in September, it has a kind of a "new arcade" feel to it. I think it still has room to grow.

When you first enter the mall, a fancy sign greets you.


It's a pretty large presence.

Dark Escape 4D. A fun shooter, but it's $2.00 a game. It's loud and nice looking though.

Dark Escape 4D side view.


The famous Round 1 UFO catchers take up massive amounts of floor space.

A good mix of new and old fighters running on modern HD candies.

A pair of working DJMax Technika 3's, with working card readers.

Round 1 has a Pop'n Music Fantasia! Super fun!

Pop'n Music Fantasia sits between the Technika 3's and a employees only door that seems to have heavy traffic.

A Blast City and a New Net City stand proudly near the modern candy section.

A wild ReRave appears! I personally think (the cabinet) looks a bit silly, but it was loud at least!

Dance Dance Revolution X2

Pump It Up Fiesta 2 - They had the volume up to 11 on this one ^^

Lots of deluxe ticket games are around waiting to take all your credits. Here is a Bejeweled.

I don't know what this is, but it looks crazy. I think it's a pachinko type game.

Some Skee Ball

Winners Cube

Private Karaoke rooms make up the back wall of the arcade, near the Bemani/music game section.

A giant Purikura booth sits near the entrance.

This Round 1 sports an entire room for ticket prizes. GOOD prizes abound, making the ticket games tolerable.

A Pac-Man Battle Royale! Not quite as fun as I'd hoped, but it still looks impressive.

The mandatory Initial D racers. (they had lot's of racing games)

Some Dead Heat I think...

doodle jump........I have no idea.

KOF XIII (arcade, not climax) is in the house.

Some older favorites are lurking about; Let's Go Island 3D.

View the rest of the pics on our flickr page.

Overall it's a nice arcade and we had a great time during both visits. I finally figured out the pricing system and I'm not sure why I was confused before as it's pretty simple. It is possible to spend quite a bit of time in this arcade without spending very much money if you have any skills at all and stay away from the ticket games. If you come with the kids, better be ready to drop some funds though.

When you go, I'd recommend staying away from the unlimited credits for an hour pricing deal, the games that are set for unlimited play (green swipers) are games that don't cost much and take a good deal of time to play anyways if you are any good.

This arcade is a winner and I will certainly be back. If you are in Southern California, do yourself a favor and pop in for awhile. Now if only Round 1 would open some of these up north more....

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Southtown Arcade is Closed.

2012-11-26T12:19:00.002-08:00

Unfortunately it looks like Southtown Arcade in San Francisco has closed, yesterday was their last day open and DoctorC and myself went down to say goodbye. There were a lot of people there playing, but with having to come from far away, we didn't make it in time to enter the final King of Fighters ranbat.
Luckily we can watch the final showdown thanks to Iplaywinner.

Watch live video from IPLAYWINNER on TwitchTV

I'm sure you've all probably seen it by now, but here is the original post announcing the close:

"All good things must come to an end. And, unfortunately, that time has come for Southtown Arcade.

Due to a number of circumstances, Southtown Arcade’s last day of operation at its current location will be Sunday, November 25th, 2012. We’re really sorry for the sudden nature of this announcement, but we were hoping that we would be able to resolve a number of outstanding issues in order to continue normal business operations, and, unfortunately, our optimism did not bear fruit.

Between our lease expiring at the end of the year, increased demands on our time from work and home (we have families and/or full-time jobs outside of STA!), and increased demands on our time to grow the business and maintain day-to-day operations at the Arcade, we’ve decided that the best thing for us to do is cease operation of STA at this time.

Are we going to come back? Never say never; we’d love to continue doing what we’re doing, but, as it stands now, we’re in no position to do so, given the circumstances we find ourselves in. However, we are going to continue our partnership with Iplaywinner and run events in the San Francisco Bay Area; Season 6 of our Ranking Battles will be played out, it just won’t take place at STA, sadly. We’ll have more information on this and future events, like Season 7 of our Ranking Battles, very soon.

We’d also like to take a moment to thank everyone and anyone who has ever supported STA in any way, shape or form, even if it was as little as a Facebook “Like” or just stopping in to take a look around. We also want to thank all of our sponsors and partners who’ve supported us in the past, including, but not limited to, CAPCOM, SEGA, EightArc, Mad Catz, Namco and ArcadeShock. We especially want to thank everyone who showed up, day in and day out (you know who you are!), everyone who ever came by for a Ranbat (you know who you are too!), and everyone who came by just to tell us how much the place sucks (we know you who are!). We’d just start rattling off names, but we’re sure we’d forget someone, and that wouldn’t be fair, so, if you’re thinking to yourself, “You’d shout me out… RIGHT?!”, you are one of those people. Thank you.

Lastly, we wan to tell everyone to support the community. Support events that support the community. Support businesses that support the community. Don’t support scumbag tournament organizers and don’t support businesses who’ve shown themselves to be incapable of conducting themselves professionally. This is the most important thing you can do to keep the community alive and make sure we continue to grow. If we don’t support the real honest supporters of this community, then they all go away, and this will make the community weaker.

Please feel free to send us comments, words of love, proclamations of hate, or whatever you need to get off your chest via Twitter, Facebook or email. We always love to hear from our fans. We will not be granting requests for interviews nor will we be providing comment for news stories, so, please, kindly refrain from sending us media requests.

Thanks again to everyone for your love and support, and we’ll be back sooner than later, one way or another. We’ll always bring the hype, as we always have.

#RIP #RIP BibleThump Kappa

Love,
Southtown"

A great arcade that has done so much for the arcade scene and the fighting game community, as well as hyping KOF and SNK worldwide. We can't thank you enough for everything, good luck in whatever you do next. You will be missed.
GG.

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California Extreme 2012

2012-08-04T11:01:00.002-07:00

Last weekend was California Extreme XVI, AKG and myself went to check it out. They had it at the Hyatt Regency again this year, but the layout was slightly different. If you read the post about last years show, all the same sentiments apply here, except we stayed for both days this trip. We made lot's of friends, played tons of games and had a great time! I took more pictures than it would feasible to show, but you can see the whole set on our Flickr page if you're interested.

Gizimnoic did a really nice walkthrough pointing out some of the more unusual games:

We picked up some killer schwag as usual:

Our sweet press badges.

Here are a few pictures from the show:

Some X-Men tables

AC/DC

Spectrum

Eight Ball Deluxe

Gigi

Corral

Foxy Lady cocktail pin

Star Castle cocktail

Star Trip cocktail pin

Electric YoYo

Cleopatra

Rollergames

Comet

Space Shuttle

A Pac-Man pinball game

Space Harrier

Pole Positions

Cosmic Venus (working movie prop)

Royal Guard

Thayer's Quest

Thayer's Quest control panel

Time Traveller

Genie

Jungle King

No one escapes the Black Hole

Joust cocktail

Heavy Metal Meltdown

Mini Pool

Thank you to everyone that helped make this show possible! Long live California Extreme!

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Farsight Studios and The Pinball Arcade

2012-05-26T20:24:00.002-07:00

Normally a game like The Pinball Arcade is something that I wouldn't find out about until it's already been out for years, but I got lucky on this one. Farsight Studios made a game in 2009 called Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection. I just recently got a copy of it for the PS3 and was pretty amazed by it, I thought it was a game that would do really well in the DLC department, but I couldn't find any tables to download for it. After looking into it, I discovered The Pinball Arcade.

Farsight Studios has made a new download-only pinball game with four tables to start with (Black Hole, Tales of the Arabian Knights, Ripley's Believe It or Not, and Theatre of Magic.) Farsight is claiming that they will release two new tables every month for the next several years, which is incredible. These pinball games that they make are so well done, that it's hard to describe.They are easily the best video pinball tables I've ever seen.

Check out a making of video:

...and the trailer:

I brought all this up to let you know about it, so that you don't miss out and also to mention that certain tables that they want to make have such high licensing costs that they can't really afford to make them.
Twilight Zone is an example. Farsight Studios has started a Kickstarter campaign to help raise funds for licensing the Twilight Zone table.

If you can afford to, please consider donating a little money to Farsight Studios for this project. I think it's important to chip in to help make things that are awesome.
That's all for now!
Play Pinball!

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King of Fighters '99 Character Portraits

2012-04-29T13:15:00.000-07:00

I ripped the character portraits from The King of Fighters '99 for a project I'm working on, but I figured other people might have some use for them too, so here they are. I'm not used to making sheets and it looks pretty messy, but the sprites are all there so....yeah. Enjoy!

The King of Fighters '99 character profile sprites.

If anyone has any tutorials on putting sheets together so they don't look like #$*%!,that would be helpful :P

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Flynn's Arcade Closing and the Death of the Starcade

2012-03-27T14:44:00.001-07:00

I finally made it inside Flynn's Arcade when I was down in Disneyland last month. I'll say that the arcade was just ok. It's a good thing I got in there when I did, because I just got word that Disney is closing Flynn's (and ElecTRONica) down on April 15th. It is being replaced by The Mad T Party, a (Tim Burton) Alice in Wonderland attraction.

Flynn's Arcade had a definite 80's vibe to it, in that a lot of the games would eat tokens, buttons/joysticks didn't work, etc. The TRON Pinball game was turned off with an out of order sign on it, same with the air hockey table. I actually chuckled when things didn't work well, it was almost too authentic. Overall it wasn't bad though. There was a good amount of classics to choose from.

The arcade was waaaay off in the corner of California Adventure. ElecTRONica was pretty cool and although the arcade closed at 10:00, the cast members working there locked the doors and let everyone stay as long as they wanted after. It was good to hear people exclaiming "Whoah I haven't seen this game in soo long!" "Duuude, check it out!!!" etc. Some couple was playing Gauntlet when I left and they were on level 90 or something, pretty dedicated I'd say.
Here some pics of Flynn's Arcade's final days.

Flynn's Arcade

Good lighting.

Lots of people were playing.

Mr. Do and Donkey Kong Jr.

They had some great neon on the walls!

Space Paranoids is MUCH easier on the computer!

Space Paranoids side art.

Asteroids and Solar Fox.

Home of TRON

Meanwhile, over in Disneyland.....

The Starcade used to be one of the best arcades in California, two stories and in Tomorrowland, it was on a completely different level than Flynn's arcade, you kinda had to be there to understand how awesome it was. It's had a steady decline over the years due to poor management. It was pretty terrible the last time I was there, but it was still at least trying to be an arcade. The writing is on the wall for the Starcade.

If this sign is still there a year from now it will be a miracle.

Inside the Starcade.

That's right.....it's a gift shop now. :'(
They still have a handful of games, pushed way into the back. The Mini Neo-Geo is still there and there was a kid playing Spinmaster as usual, but this arcade is doomed.

What's left of the Starcade.

The Pirates of the Caribbean Pinball game was shoved over into a corner, with tape over the dollar bill acceptor and both coin slots. I removed the tape and the pin worked perfectly. I must say, it's one of the funnest modern pins I've ever played and it was in beautiful condition :)

Pirates of the Caribbean Pinball.

I took some pictures of the Grizzly Game Arcade at the Grand Californian Hotel this time also:

Grizzly Game Arcade

Arcade 102

That was a long post, but it's probably the last time you'll have to hear about arcades in Disneyland on this site. If you go down there, play some games while you still can.

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Gemini Arcade Palace

2012-03-20T10:53:00.007-07:00

The next stop in Las Vegas was the Gemini Arcade Palace!

The Gemini Arcade Palace is dark, cool, and popping with throbbing beats and flashing lights.
It is a Bemani/rhythm/dance focused arcade. I could tell they care a lot about their arcade, aside from the games, they had all kinds of neat pictures on the walls, lots of nice soaps in the bathroom, and baby powder/paper towels at the machines. They had comfy couches for chilling and some modern console systems to play if you just want to hang out. Gemini has fighting game events on the consoles pretty regularly it seems. It should be obvious, but I'll say that they have a giant selection of rhythm games to play, including some very modern titles.

The manager Juli was super nice and genuinely cares about arcades and the whole scene in general. Overall the arcade had a very nice community feel to it and I would spend a hell of a lot of time there if I had to live in Las Vegas!

Anyways, here's some pictures of the Gemini Arcade Palace!

DjMax Technika 3

Billiards!

Notice the fresh disco ball!

City cabs with some emulation action.

Vending goodness!

They had a big selection of DjMax Platinum Crew cards, I only bought two :)

I love this arcade and (as usual) I wish I could have stayed longer. It's 100% worth checking out if you are in Las Vegas!!!

Long live Gemini! Support your local arcade!

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Las Vegas Pinball Hall of Fame

2012-02-28T12:59:00.003-08:00

Recently, a trip to Las Vegas Nevada was made by your humble narrator, so of course I had to stop by the Pinball Hall of Fame.

Pinball Hall of Fame

This unassuming building houses big fun out in the desert. It was dark, loud, and no one was smoking! Lots of people were there playing pinball on a Thursday afternoon. They had a large amount of games that were all set on FIVE balls per game. Most of the games were 25 cents, some were 50 cents, and a very few were 75 cents (TRON Legacy).

Here's a short description from their website:
"The Pinball Hall of Fame is an attempt by the members of the Las Vegas Pinball Collectors Club to house and display the world's largest pinball collection, open to the public. A not-for-profit corporation was established to further this cause. The games belong to one club member (Tim Arnold), and range from 1950s up to 1990s pinball machines. Since it is a non-profit museum, older games from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s are the prevelant, as this was the 'heyday' of pinball. There are no 'ticket spitters' here (aka kiddie casinos or redemption). It's all pure pinball (and a few arcade novelty games) from the past. And since it's a non-profit, excess revenues go to non-denominational charities."

As usual I took lots of pictures, here are some of the better ones and you can view the entire set HERE.

Some modern pins.

Batmans.

Big Buck Hunter Pro. Why can't THIS game be in every venue that has games, instead of the gun version!

Star Trek.


KISS

Gottlieb Street Fighter II

Street Fighter II playfield.

Fight again.

Popeye.

Wizard!


Say NO to Drugs. Users are Losers.

MIBS.

The Pinball Hall of Fame has lots of well maintained classic arcade games also.

The X Files pinball was super fun!

A Gottlieb Challenger!

The Pinball Hall of Fame is great spot to hang out in Las Vegas, while having actual FUN inexpensively! Recommended!

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Special When Lit

2012-02-04T09:45:00.000-08:00

"I would hate to be 95 years old and look back on my life and say, 'You know, what I really wanted to do was play pinball, but gee my mom told me that I should get a career.'" - Rick Stetta

In getting myself hyped for my upcoming trip to the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas, I picked up this little documentary, Special When Lit.

It's pretty rad and well done, it covers the whole history of pinball up to the modern day. It talks about the Las Vegas Pinball Museum, the Paris Pinball Museum, the tournament scene and PAPA. Lots of interviews with manufacturers and collectors.
I must say, having grown up in the 80's, I didn't fully realize how big pinball was in the 70's. This film gives a good view of that era.
Here's some pics of the DVD that arrived from London a mere four days after I ordered it!

I like the way the DVD looks, it has a commentary track on it also, I'd say it's worth grabbing. Although if you don't feel like shelling out the cash for it, Hulu has the whole thing online!
Enjoy!

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Arcade Perfect Contest #1

2011-12-21T15:34:00.000-08:00

This contest is closed! Thanks for playing!

It's time for our first contest! We are giving away some cool prizes, all you have to do to enter is follow @Arcade_Perfect on Twitter and tweet:

"@Arcade_Perfect I want to win free stuff from http://www.arcadeperfect.net/"

Or you can follow us and click this tweet button:

Once we reach 100 followers, we will chose two winners at random, the first winner will get to pick his/her prize out of the two prizes and the second winner will win the other prize. The contest is open to everyone worldwide.

Prizes:
Prize 1:
SNK Characters 2 - All About Illustrations - Japanese import art book. Published 2001.
Full color - 125 pages.
This is a fantastic SNK book with art from King Of Fighters, Samurai Spirits, Garou: Mark of the Wolves, Metal Slug, Last Blade, SVChaos, etc.

Prize 2:
Capcom Illustrations: GAMEST MooK Vol 17 - Japanese import art book. Published 1995.
Color and B/W - 160 pages.
This is a nice Capcom book with illustrations from a large selection of games including Street Fighter 1 & 2, Street Fighter Alpha, Final Fight, Darkstalkers, Cyberbots, Captain Commando, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, Quiz of Dragons, and a whole bunch of other random art. Lots of interesting stuff for a Capcom fan!

Here's a little video showing the books off. It's a little sea-sickness inducing, beware ^.^

Good luck to everyone! If you don't win this time, don't worry, we have more contests coming!

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USA Tekken Net

2011-12-05T11:59:00.000-08:00

Namco Bandai has revealed the sites for upcoming Tekken Tag Tournament 2 location tests in the USA.
The locations are as follows:
Funworks in Honolulu, HI
Super Arcade in Walnut, CA
Round 1 in City of Industry, CA
Arcade UFO in Austin, TX
Next Level Arcade in Brooklyn, NY
As of today the USA is also connected to the worldwide TEKKEN NET.
You can register here: http://exam.tekken-net.jp/tag2/

Tekken aside, this is important news for arcade enthusiasts in the US, as Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is the first arcade game to be networked worldwide. We almost didn't get it. It was thanks to much complaining and arguing with Namco that we are being included in the worldwide Tekken Net. Arcade games in Japan have been networked for years now and it's a big part of why they are still popular there.

Namco is a huge player in the arcade scene and if they make money off of networking their games here, we, (in the US), might see more networked arcade games in the future. Which, in turn, can only be helpful in the arcade revival (not to mention the future of US Tekken). Wouldn't you like to play arcade games with a worldwide high score table? I would! Even if you don't live close to a location test, or care about Tekken I think it's a good idea to at least sign up!
That's all for now! Support your local arcade!

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Southtown Arcade

2011-11-22T10:26:00.000-08:00

This past Sunday was our first trip to Southtown Arcade in San Francisco. Southtown opened in May of this year and I was very happy to go support a NEW arcade in Northern California!
Southtown is a fighters-oriented arcade with a lot of good titles running on Japanese candy cabinets. It's pretty small, but it is in San Francisco, so the rent is probably outrageous. The vibe is chill and everyone there was super friendly. They had some cool beats on the stereo system, but not too loud. Even though the focus is fighters, they also have puzzlers, platformers and at least one shmup. I didn't see any beat em ups, but aside from that they seem to have something for everyone if fighter's aren't your thing.

The main attraction of the arcade is their King of Fighters XIII machine. Southtown has been running tournaments on it all summer and the day that we showed up was the last one. Iplaywinner.com has been streaming the events and they had a nice setup with a TV on the wall showing the stream.

Here's what the tournament looked like on the day we were there, if you watch long enough, you can see myself and DoctorC getting pwnt by some locals. I think I did pretty good considering it was my first time playing XIII, it's too bad we didn't have time to stay for the losers bracket though.
(The whole tournament is in three parts. This is part one.)
Part 2 Part 3

Watch live video from IPLAYWINNER on Justin.tv

Here are some pictures we took of the arcade.

Southtown Arcade

Some Namco Noir style cabinets.

The King of Fighters XIII!

New Astro City's

An IREM Madonna!

Some Namco Cyberleads.

A Jaleco Pony Mark IV cab.

A Namco Exceleena II running some crazy version of Street Fighter II.

NEO-CANDY......Aww yeah.

This is the stream/commentator desk, the TV is showing the stream.

They also sell shirts...

Quarters.

They had a Puyo Puyo game! So awesome!

From what I can tell, they run the arcade in the traditional way, switching out games frequently.
They maintain a list of games currently in the arcade HERE.
Southtown Arcade gets extra points for having the best name ever. If you don't know, the name comes from the town in the SNK universe, Southtown.
I found this interactive map of Southtown while I was writing this. It's rad, check it out.

It takes guts to open a new arcade in the USA these days, the next time you're in San Francisco, drop in and show some support.
Oh, and btw, everyone that says "arcades are dead"....that place was packed, so stop spouting memes.

Support your local arcade!
Long live Southtown!

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Round 1 USA

2011-08-15T16:36:00.000-07:00

(This post is for AKG ^.^)
I took a little trip to Round 1 in City of Industry, California last week.
Round 1 is a large amusement company in Japan, with over 100 arcades in that country. The California location is the first one in the USA and only opened in 2010. Hopefully there are more coming.

Aside from the arcade, Round 1 also has bowling, darts, karaoke, billiards, ping pong, and a restaurant. It's inside the La Puente Hills Mall and it is massive.

Round 1 entrance

The arcade itself is a Japanese style arcade, with lots of candy cabinets, super deluxe games, super deluxe UFO catchers, purikura photo/sticker booths, air hockey tables, and tons of redemption games. They have quite a few games that are hard to find elsewhere, including Technika 2, Raiden IV, Tatsunoko vs Capcom, Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion, Elevator Action Death Parade, and Super SF IV.

Everything runs on an overly complicated card swipe system. Some games cost credits, or you can buy unlimited games by the hour. Bemanistyle.com has a pretty good explanation of the pricing HERE.
I'm not a fan of card swipe systems, but the system at Round 1 works surprisingly well. I went ahead and bought the club card for an extra $5 and it looks classy, plus they gave me an awesome Round1xHello Kitty keitai strap!

Round 1 Club Card

Club Card rear.

Hello KittyxRound 1 keitai strap.

Anyways, here are the rest of the arcade pictures :)

The redemption center has lots of GOOD prizes!

UFO catchers galore!

A 100" super deluxe Terminator Salvation.

Super Street Fighter IV cabs.

Some candy cabinets.

A mega Mega Stacker.

Initial D Arcade Stage 6

Dead Heat

More candies.

Some shooters.

They have DJMax Technika 2! I didn't get a chance to play, because I was kinda short on time and the line was long, but it looks awesome!

Technika 2 cabs!

An alternative to putting your token up.

Technika 2 again.

Even MORE candy cabinets :)

Smart Smacker.

Round 1 has some serious UFO catchers, some of them cost $5.00 USD to play! It's a casino for kids!

Kitty catcher.

Rilakkuma catcher.


	Snack catcher.

Ice Cream Catcher

Wonka Sweetland.

More UFO catchers.

There's a lot more going on at Round 1 than I could get pictures of, the place is seriously gigantic. I really hope they build one of these in northern California soon!

Here's your list of games :)
Fruit Ninja FX
Mega Stacker
Smart Smacker 50
Pump it Up 2011 Fiesta EX
Dance Dance Revolution Extreme 2
Guitar freaks XG
Drum Mania XG
Pump it Up PRO
Super Street Fighter 4 Arcade Edition
Guitar Hero Arcade
Terminator Salvation
Sega golden Gun
Typhoon
Galactix (redemption)
The fast and the Furious Super Cars (4p)
Initial D Arcade Stage 6 (4p)
Midnight 3 EX Plus
Hummer Extreme Edition
Tank! Tank! Tank! (4p)
NASCAR Team Racing (4p)
King of the Road Harley Davidson (2p)
Mario Kart Arcade GP 2 (2p)
Nirin (2p)
Dead Heat (4p)
Elevator Action Death Parade
Pump it Up 2010 Fiesta
Dance Dance Revolution Supernova 2
Sega Rally 3 (2p)
Need For Speed: Carbon (2p)
H2Overdrive (2p)
Let's Go Jungle
Let's Go Island
Ghost Squad Evolution
Razing Storm
Outrun 2 SP (2p)
Nicktoons Nitro
Panic Museum
Big Buck Hunter: Open Season
Big Buck Hunter Safari
RAMBO (the shooter)
Deadstorm Pirates
Metal Slug 5
Guilty Gear xx
DJMax Technika 2
Raiden 4
Shikigami No Shiro episode 3
Virtua NBA
SVChaos: SNK vs Capcom
Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike
Marvel Vs Capcom 2
Tatsunoko Vs Capcom
AfterBurner Climax
House of the Dead 4
Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion
The King of Fighters '98 Ultimate Match
BlazBlue Continuum Shift
Street Fighter 2: Hyper Fighting
Hammer 2

That's all for my review of Round 1. I thought it was an absolutely wonderful arcade and would recommend it highly! I wasn't able to get any tokens this time, if anyone has any they want to part with, please let me know!

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EVO 2011 Results and Other Goodness

2011-07-31T23:44:00.000-07:00

Here are the final EVO 2011 results.

King of Fighters XIII (side tournament)

1. BALA
2. Romance
3. Mr. KOF
4. Reynald
5. El Rosa (Mex)
6. Xian from Singapore

Tekken 6

1. DMG|Kor (Bob)
2. Fab (Bob)
3. Reepal (Law)
4. JustFrameJames (Law, Baek)
5. Crow (Bob)
5. Mr. Naps (Bryan)
7. LLL|Ryan Hart (Kazuya)
7. MCZ|Tokido (Bob)

BlazBlue: Continuum Shift

1. Spark (Hakumen)
2. Lord Knight (Makoto, Litchi)
3. MCZ|Tokido (Noel)

Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition

1. Fuudo (Fei Long)
2. BrokenTier|Latif (C. Viper)
3. Poongko (Seth)Poongko (Seth)
4. MCZ|Daigo Umehara (Yun)
5. eLive|Kindevu (Yun)
5. MCZ|Tokido (Akuma)
7. WolfKrone (C. Viper)
7. Flash Metroid (Zangief, C. Viper)

Marvel Vs Capcom 3

1. Viscant (Wesker, Haggar, Phoenix)
2. DMG|PR Balrog (Dante, Wolverine, Tron)
3. EG|Justin Wong (She-Hulk, Wolverine, Akuma)
4. cc.coL|Combofiend (She-Hulk, Taskmaster, Spencer)
5. UVG|Noel Brown (Wolverine, Wesker, Akuma)
5. cc.coL|Filipino Champ (Magneto, Sentinel, Phoenix)
7. Mine (Wesker, Taskmaster, Phoenix)
7. X-Ray (Dante, Amaterasu, Magneto)

Mortal Kombat 9

1. DMG|Perfect Legend (Kung Lao)
2. vVv|REO (Mileena)
3. JOP (Johnny Cage, Raiden)
4. LB|ChrisGNY (Reptile)
5. Denzell Terry (Johnny Cage, Liu Kang)
5. 16-Bit (Katana)
7. FR|ATL Redd (Liu Kang)
7. OnlineTony (Kabal)

For all the crap that I talk about current Capcom fighting games, The SFIV was actually quite fun to watch, it's hard not to get enthused with the crowd and all, even if it was a Yun/Fei Long fest.
Marvel Vs Capcom 3 is still garbage though :D

They had a Street Fighter 3 Third Strike Online Edition exhibition and it's looking really good. It definitely looks better than Street Fighter IV does.

The best part of the EVO stream was the Aris and Kayo Police Tekken 6 commentary.
(lolz)

Balrog : Behind the Glory was awesome too.

Here's the final SF IV matches, where you can see Latif totally choking :/

Tekken 6 Grand Finals.

BlazBlue Grand Final.

Here's was* the final hour of MvC3.

*Video has been removed by shoryuken.com?! Way to go Shoryuken.

Good times :)

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EVO 2011 Streaming Video Feeds

2011-07-28T15:20:00.000-07:00

EVO 2011 is starting tomorrow morning, Friday 7/28/11. I wanted to post the live feeds here for everyone.
(These) feeds are being run by Shoryuken.com

Feed 1 is covering Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition on Friday and Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 on Saturday.

Feed 2 is covering Mortal Kombat 9 on Friday. Tekken 6 and BlazBlue Continuum Shift 2 on Saturday ^.^

There's a LOT going on at EVO this year, here is a schedule of events.

Orochinagi and Dream Cancel are holding a King of Fighters XIII side tournament and Kei Yamamoto (KOF XIII producer) is challenging the winner of that contest!

More later.

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California Extreme 2011

2011-07-12T13:01:00.000-07:00

This weekend the good DoctorC and I went to Santa Clara for this year's California Extreme.
California Extreme is like a giant arcade game and pinball convention that is held every year in northern California. This was my first year going and it was hands down the best arcade I've ever seen in my life!
The scale of the thing was just completely massive and the sounds......the sounds were overwhelming :)

I took a bunch of pictures. You can view the entire set HERE.

Our press passes ^.^

Pins

A homemade Video Pinball TRON mod.

Missile Command...is it the fast cursor or the slow cursor?

PONG Doubles

Spy Hunter pin

Punch-Out's!

Gold Neo-Geo

Baby Pac-Man

Big Six

A happy, bustling arcade :)

Finally got to play TRON Legacy :) It has steep ramps.

They had like this whole section of auto playing ragtime instruments that was mind boggling!

Ragtime Piano

A row of Candy Cabinets.

A deadly Berzerk game :)

A deluxe Super Sprint?!

A cockpit Star Wars and a Spy Hunter.

They had lots of merch tables selling all kinds of cool stuff!

There was a huge amount of vintage pinball games at the show. They all looked SUPER classy and were really fun to play!

The oldest pinball games were all very pretty with great sound!

Alice in Wonderland
The vintage pins ended up being my favorite part of the show I think :)

Most impossible games ever :)

Aside from the arcade itself, they had a bunch of bands playing in the hotel!

Playing were:
Jean Baudin
Survival Guide
Gnarboots
A_Rival
The Phenomenauts
ComputeHer
8 Bit Weapon
The Megas
crashfaster
Awkward Terrible

Here's part of 8 Bit Weapon's set

DoctorC shot some video footage which has yet to surface. In the meantime ccyrus77 shot some video of the show for everyone to enjoy.
This video isn't even half of the arcade though, the place was seriously huge.

We also picked up a copy of Doctor Kong: Cutting up the Competition at the show. Although the movie is only 18 minutes long, I thought it was very good and worth the ten dollars I paid for it. Hank Chien is very funny in the film.

Overall, California Extreme was one of the funnest places I've ever been to and it is now a mandatory annual show for me :) If you haven't gone yet, you're missing out on the coolest arcade ever.
THANK YOU to everyone who put the show together! See you next year!

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The King of Fighters XIII Arcade Game Has Been Dumped.

2011-06-16T13:03:00.000-07:00

It looks like another Taito Type X² arcade rom has been dumped, but this time it's the King of Fighters XIII. The game that everyone has been waiting for and almost nobody (in the US at least) has played, despite it being released over a year ago in the arcades. There's a lot of people crying about this on various forums saying "Oh boo hoo! Now no one will buy the console release! We are all teh doomed!"

My response is this. I don't want to play the console version, I want to play the arcade version, (in an arcade preferably). If it was around here, I would have already spent more than the console version costs on it two or three times over by now and been happy about it.
For the record, the console versions are set to be released in North America in October.

If you want to try and get the arcade version running on your PC, you can grab the files HERE or get them off Demonoid. (I haven't had a lot of luck getting it to run, but others have pulled it off.)

I'll probably buy the console version when it comes out because I'm KOF obsessed, but I'll have to play at a friends house, because I don't own a modern home system at this point. Given the choice I'd rather have the arcade version every time though.

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Good Game Peace Out

2011-05-29T18:00:00.000-07:00

I think it's time to talk a little about online arcades. I don't mean those cheesy flash "arcade" sites that are all over the internet, I mean playing MAME against other people online. We'll start with my personal favorite, GGPO.

GGPO (Good Game Peace Out) is pretty much only for fighting games, but it works really well for them. People from all over the world come to play and there is some serious talent around.

Getting GGPO to run isn't really hard, but it's not dead simple either. I'll try to cover some of the more common problems people have with it.

(The official instructions can be found here.)

Step 1 and 2 are pretty straightforward. Download and install Adobe AIR and the GGPO client.
Step 3 is a little more difficult. If you are behind a router you need to forward the following ports to your computer:
UDP ports 6000-6009 (inbound/outbound)
TCP port 7000 (outbound)

Port forwarding sounds harder than it actually is.
Here is a pretty simple guide.

Basically you just need to get into your router and tell it not to block connections to your computer from the GGPO server.

Step 4
Find the folder you installed GGPO to and create a new folder called ROMS. This is where you will put your MAME roms.

Step 5
Launch GGPO.exe and you will come to a login screen. Click on where it says create account and follow the instructions to recieve your username and password. Enter your info on the login screen and click Login.

(Here is where things may get weird.)
If everything is working well at this point, great! If not, you may have to do one more thing.
You may click Login and have nothing happen at all. If that is the case, you need to download this .zip file,
and make a new folder on your desktop. Name it whatever you want, but DON'T name it GGPO. Extract the contents of the zipped file you just downloaded directly into your new folder. Create a new ROMS folder and place your roms in it. Run GGPO.exe to launch GGPO.
Now it should be (hopefully) working for you.
If you still have problems, visit the forums.

After you are in, you need to configure your controller. As far as I can tell you can only do this while you are in a match. I'd suggest playing a friend first, or challenging yourself and then taking a look at all the options available.
5 is insert coin and 1 and 2 are player 1 & 2 start respectively.

It sounds difficult to get GGPO running, but it's well worth it. Once you get to beating up a total stranger while others are watching a lot of that arcade excitement will come back!
GGPO has other neat features, like being able to watch others play so you can just chill and watch if you don't feel like playing.
Lots of people regularly set up tournaments for different games on various forums and spectators can watch and record the matches.

Here is a list of games that are currently supported:
Breakers Revenge
Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystara
Fatal Fury Special
Final Fight
Garou: Mark of the Wolves
Hyper Street Fighter 2
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
Karnov's Revenge
King of Fighters 2000
King of Fighters 2002
King of Fighters 97
King of Fighters 98 (by far the most popular game, it has three rooms.)
Last Blade 2
Marvel Super Heroes
Marvel Super Heroes vs.Street Fighter
Marvel vs. Capcom
Metal Slug X- Super Vehicle-001
Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge
Samurai Shodown 2
Samurai Shodown IV
Samurai Shodown 5 Special
Street Fighter Alpha
Street Fighter Alpha 2
Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold
Street Fighter Alpha 3
Street Fighter II Koryu
Street Fighter II: Championship Edition
Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike
Super Gem Fighter: Mini Mix
Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo
Vampire Savior
Windjammers
X-Men Children of the Atom
X-Men vs. Street Fighter

One last thing...GGPO seems to go down all the time, if it's not working for you then try again later or check the forums to see what the issue is.
I hope that was helpful for everyone, if you want to play sometime or need any help with it drop by the chat or our forums and we'll see what's up!
Peace out!

I made these vids of some people playing today while writing this post :)

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TRON Legacy Pinball

2011-05-12T09:07:00.000-07:00

Ahhh I love hearing about new pinball games and this TRON Legacy pin from Stern is looking damn hot! I was really hoping that the TRON Legacy movie would spawn at least one actual arcade game and not just the usual console nonsense!

From the promo material:

"Our TRON pinball puts the players in the middle of TRON movie and video game action battles. This is a fast moving game. TRON has 3 flippers, including an upper flipper to shot one of the two fabulous fast action ramps. We have not utilized a 3rd flipper in a while, and players will enjoy it. In the center of the playfield, near the top, there is a motorized 3 bank target assembly the player must hit and lower, to gain access to the illuminated, motorized spinning disc, representing TRON's Identity Disc. The spinning disc shoots the ball randomly across and around the playfield. Ramp shots take the player to an exciting Light Cycle multiball. The player shoots at the miniature TRON video game to start exciting features and collect big points."


Click for a larger view.

It's sad to see a 75 cent per game tag on it though, I hope you get more than three balls per game.

In other "news"....
We're just kinda sitting around waiting for CAX in July, but here are some movies to get excited for that are out now, or will be out in the coming months.

Doctor Kong
About Hank Chien, the current Donkey Kong world record holder and plastic surgeon.

Arcade: The Last Night at Chinatown Fair
A documentary about yet another historic arcade closing, this time in New York City.

100 Yen: The Japanese Arcade Experience
Pretty self explanatory, I'm really looking forward to this one!

That's it for now!

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