What's your 1st Arcade memory?

[Gamester]

Hey guys,

I was just wondering, what is the first arcade game you saw as a kid?

My first gracing of arcade land was the arcade game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! As a huge Nintendo junky, of course I had all of the NES versions of TMNT and practically worshiped the TV show. I thought I had the coolest TMNT games of all time. However, that all changed the day my parents took my younger brother and I to a larger town with a mall and that is when we discovered the dazzling existence of arcade. As soon as my brother and I stepped into that arcade our eyes locked on the big green TMNT arcade machine and our jaws dropped. We were absolutely astounded at the amazing sound and graphics of the arcade TMNT. We revisited that arcade several times throughout our childhood to later play games like Time Crisis 2 and House of the Dead in which we were also amazed, but nothing could match the incredible feeling we got from playing our first arcade game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

It is kind of sad how arcades are getting phased out these days. I went back to that mall a few years ago and where the arcade used to be is now a lobby for the movie theater with no arcade games in sight.

Ah, memories

Later,
Gamester

 

[OMFG]

Asbury Park: 1983: The old carousel arcade.

 

[BigTinz]

Donkey Kong in a Laundry Mat....1992 I think.

 

[not sonic]

afaik, mine is the simpsons 4 player that was at united skates, a roller rink. people always had birthday parties there and shit, and all i wanted to do was play the arcade games. specifically simpsons. i know they also had marvel vs sf at one point too.

theres probably something older but this is the only one that really sticks out, other than the pinball we've always had in the house.

 

[OmegaSaber]

I had played some arcade games before it but my first major memory was with SF2 when it first hit. I walked into the arcade at the local waterpark and that game just called out to me. I was only able to play a couple times but I was hooked from that day forward. After that every time I saw an SF machine I had to play it. Then I remember driving past a Toys R Us that had a huge banner out front that said "Street Fighter II for SNES - coming soon." and almost shitting myself. That Christmas I got an SNES with SF2 and Contra 3, freaking awesome.

 

[madman]

There were a couple of arcades near me when I was real young during the arcade heyday of the early 80s. I don't remember a lot about those, most of my memories are of the arcades in the malls in the mid to late 80s like Aladdin's Castle and such. It's a shame we'll never see those days again. Most places with arcade machines like a Gameworks or Dave and Busters are mainly focused on redemption games and are too well lit to feel like a real arcade.

 

[payment_due]

Karate Champ at a car show that my dad took me to. They had a whole section with like 30 arcade cabs there. Still got a pic of me playing one of the games. First true arcade experience was probably, 87, 88? Going in with my $5 allowance and blowing it on Spy Hunter, Tron, etc.

 

[Moon Jump]

Of going to an arcade, it would be when my dad would bring me into Time Out at the one mall, but the two malls my folks wouldn't let me in because they had that whole stigma of bad kids hung out at the arcades.

I think the first arcade game experience would be the pizza parlor across from Pathmark would always have two arcade games, so Ninja Gaiden, played it there along with a lot of older games.

Can't really remember the exact first arcade game I played, but I do know the first game I ever did play was Mario Bros on the 2600.

 

[FAT$TACKS]

I can't say that it is my most early, that would be space invaders, but the one that left the impression would have to be Centipede.

I don't think I can even explain what it made me feel like back then. I'm not even sure now as it's been so long and memories change with age, but I guess it was kind of like unrequited love at first sight. It was a monolith of endless wonders, a treasure beyond words, and at the same time a horror of horrors. Everything you ever wanted your whole life, right there before your eyes and for a quarter you get just a few moments where you could touch it, feel it, live it, and then its gone and you are left hollow and wanting. There is a void inisde that a child so young can't even understand but knows only that it needs filled and no matter what you do there is only ever one way to do so. You live in slow motion, as days drag on as you die a little more inside waiting and wanting so hard. Oh how it hurts when you meet again but without a quarter, to know that you could have had that moment, to know what your life could have been, but will never be.

Needless to say this was one of the first arcade games I ever owned... and never really played much after that. Some how the magic was gone. Had the game changed, had the world, or maybe I had. I don't know, but it just was not the same. The sweet sounds and lure of lights lost their luster to me somehow over the years and no matter how many times I tried I just could not make it be what it was. I've gotten ride of it for some time, but still some part of me wishes I still had it, even if never played it agian, just to see it sitting there and knowing that it was once was. Kind of like an external memory I guess. I can never be happy without you, yet I can never be happy with you.

I am beauty beyond words, cruel beyond imagination, and I was put on this earth for you to love, but I will never love you in return and yet you will still seek me out. Because it is I who consume your thoughts. It is I who hold your heart. It is I who shall take from you all that I can and give nothing back save only a moments attention and distraction from the mundane world of pain, toil, and sin. Then after your time here is done, I shall live on with never a so much as a thought of you or a tear for your passing for to me you are less than nothing. Knowing this you will still come to me. Though you may leave at any time as your will is your own, I know that you will always be back for more. Because I am your alpha and omega, your hopes and dreams, the only light in the darkness of your life, and the promise of something greater than this world that you shall never see.

I am Centipede.

 

[OldSchoolGamer]

My first arcade memory, at least the one that sticks out, would be the simpsons arcade cab in a local department store now out of business called Ames(they are now out of business). they had a couple cabs and a crane machine, but the game I would always go to was the simpsons. It made being a kid great as I could waste $1 or 2 in quarters while my mother shopped around for clothes or what-not(not exactly exciting stuff for a kid). I remember actually being pulled away from it a couple times. What I wouldn't give to play a simpsons arcade machine again.... Ahhhhh, memories.

A 2nd early arcade memory I have is also from an old Papa Gino's pizza place. Back when it was new. they had a Street Fighter II arcade machine, and whenever I would go there...the 1st thing and last thing I would do was play the cab. The game was sooo much fun, especially when you ware waiting for your pizza!

 

[cgbartek]

I think my earliest memory was watching my dad play Dig Dug at the Skate Inn East in Tallahassee when I was 3 or so. But my fondest memories were playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at age 4 or 5, as I was a huge Turtle fan and the game was awesome with 4 people around. Come to think of it, those were some of the first arcade games I bought, besides the Neo-Geo of course.

 

[demirichris]

The first arcade game I ever played was Karate Champ. I was probably 4, so it was around 86'. I was too short to see the screen and get to the controls, so my dad had to pick me up and hold me there while I played.

I remember when Double Dragon first hit and I used to have to have my dad get me up on a stool so I could play. The funny part is that I was too short to get down, so I was worried about falling off the entire time I was playing.

One time, as a present for cleaning my room - my dad brought in this old tonka drump truck. I thought he was joking, because I had owned that toy for years, but when I took a closer look the entire back was filled with quarters! I remember beating double dragon for the first time that day. Some kid was watching me and my dad play, (pumping in credit after credit) and asked how "many quarters do you guys have?". I remember saying something like "a billion-million". haha. So many good arcade memories.

Anybody else remember the day SFII dropped? I hit up my local put put and there was a line going out the door! They had two machines at the time, you had to wait like at least forty five minutes to get a game in. I remember being almost too nervous to play when my turns would come up.

 

[Arcademan]

First arcade experience...hmmm. Hard for me to remember so far back but there used to be an arcade in a mall which is long gone that had about 25 pinballs and a handful of pong-type and old style driving games. Mind you that this was around the mid-70's, before video games were commonplace in the market. As far as a specific video game...probably Asteroids, Spcae Invaders and Galaxian...all games pre-80's.

 

[scgon]

Mine was I think the CN Tower in Toronto around 1980 I think.... they had an arcade and games room I remember some vector graphics games and thinking they were the coolest thing ever.

 

[cannonball]

Christiana Roller Rink I believe around 1985. The two games that I remember from the beginning were Ghosts 'n Goblins and Paperboy, although there were at least 8-10 games in that little arcade section of the rink.

 

[Arcademan]

Anybody else remember the day SFII dropped? I hit up my local put put and there was a line going out the door! They had two machines at the time, you had to wait like at least forty five minutes to get a game in. I remember being almost too nervous to play when my turns would come up.

I do remember that since the arcade I worked in at the time set up 2 cabs and they played non-stop. I can go back farther to 1983 and the day Dragon's Lair came out. Everyone went ape-shit over that game. Common was seeing over 100 quarters lined up as people literally waited that long in line to play the game.

 

[Gamester]

I think my earliest memory was watching my dad play Dig Dug at the Skate Inn East in Tallahassee when I was 3 or so. But my fondest memories were playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at age 4 or 5, as I was a huge Turtle fan and the game was awesome with 4 people around. Come to think of it, those were some of the first arcade games I bought, besides the Neo-Geo of course.

Same here bro! I just started purchasing PCBs and the first one I have bought was of course TMNT and I got a Neo-Geo board and Metal Slug 3 coming also. Metal Slug 3 is my favorite Neo-Geo game mainly because it is like a super advanced Contra, lol. Man, I can't wait to play TMNT again and I am just about done building my supergun too

 

[Neo Alec]

I remember I played very few arcade games when I was really little because my parents said they were a waste of money. However, a friend of the family had a Baby Pac Man machine in his basement and he let me and my brother play. I remember when they put the baby to sleep they said we could keep playing but we weren't allowed to go off the screen and start the pinball part of the game anymore because it was too loud. After that I remember games like Zaxxon and Q-Bert at the roller rink. It was a while before I came to an arcade very often.

 

[ratson]

Moon Cresta(space war) in 1980 i think at the local cafetaria.

 

[bendor]

Dig Dug

 

[Testocules]

For me it was Moon Patrol at the 7-11 corner store in 1982. As a little kid, I remember trying to scrounge up enough change and exchanging for one or 2 quarters. I tried to make my play time last as long as possible. I still recall the first time I made it from point A to Z on a single quarter. They had a Dig Dug that set right next to it as well.

I also remember the first time I laid eyes on a few other games. Here are the ones that stick out in my memory and my initial thoughts
Dragon's Lair - 50 cents to play? Why
Street fighter II - Let me try this. Wait...Why do I keep getting my ass kicked so hard?
Samurai Shodown -
Mortal Kombat II - After you perform a babality, can you then execute a fatility? If so...that just seems wrong.
Killer Instict 1/2 (Thats awesome! Is this what the Ultra 64 will look like?)
Street Fighter III - that is the smoothest animation ever!

 

[Gamester]

Street fighter II - Let me try this. Wait...Why do I keep getting my ass kicked so hard?
Samurai Shodown -
Mortal Kombat II - After you perform a babality, can you then execute a fatility? If so...that just seems wrong.
Killer Instict 1/2 (Thats awesome! Is this what the Ultra 64 will look like?)
Street Fighter III - that is the smoothest animation ever!

O'yea, those great fighting games had a great impact on me as well. I always had a thing for Mortal Kombat, I just love the feeling of throwing Scorpion's spear grappling into your opponent and dragging him over to you and uppercutting his ass while screaming "Get over here!".

Ah, doesn't get much better than that

 

[Koopa64]

The first arcade game I really remember playing was Rally Bike, I never got very far in it but I loved playing it anyways. Sadly, it's been many, many years since I've ever played an arcade game that wasn't a lightgun game (that game was Area 51).

 

[bustedstr8]

I have a few memories from 82-83 that seem to be all bunched together.

The local mall had a small vending area with a Defender.
I can remember that Sheraton had a game room with some
pins, Asteroids and a sit down Pole Position.

Kosta's pizza had a Mr Do! stuffed, in the corner of their tiny dinning area.
I guess they are doing something right, they are still here 25 years later.
Damn....I need to stop in there again for a Hawaiian sometime

 

[DeadPixels]

Christiana Roller Rink I believe around 1985. The two games that I remember from the beginning were Ghosts 'n Goblins and Paperboy, although there were at least 8-10 games in that little arcade section of the rink.

I have a lot of early arcade memories Christiana Roller Rink as well, though they were more from the early nineties. Hard Drivin', Alien Storm, Mechanized Attack, and Time Killers are games I killed plenty of time with at CRR.

My earliest memories though are mostly from the boardwalk arcades at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware and Ocean City Maryland. I swear I spent every year of my childhood just waiting for Summer to come so I could spend weeks in my arcade Mecca. Cadash, Final Fight, Mercs, Shinobi, and Rastan are some of the earliest memories I have of a youth stolen by the JAMMA standard.

If only I knew the addiction would be just as bad twenty years later..