What was your favorite cab at your local arcade?

[Digmac]

Even though I didn't personally grow up during the golden age of the arcade, we still had some decent ones nearby that had some cabs that I enjoyed playing. My favorite was the arcade by the seaside over here in Oregon, all because of the deluxe F-Zero AX cab that they had with the moving cockpit. These things were so rare, and it's still the only English deluxe F-Zero AX cab I've seen. Every time we went to this arcade, that was the one cab I always played first and right before we left. I grew up on this cab, having first played it in elementary school, all the way up to early 2020 when they removed it due to too many parts failing. I'm glad I got some video of it back in 2016.

How about for you guys? What was the one cab that you were always drawn to in your arcade?

 

[Mai_Lover]

Daytonaaaaaaa!!!
And Ridge Racer

 

[SouthtownKid]

What's a local arcade? A local what you say?

 

[BlackaneseNiNjA]

Before the arrival of the big red MVS’s in the 90’s and my subsequent Neo Geo obsession, I was constantly dropping quarters in the Ninja Gaiden and Renegade machines in the 80’s.

 

[@M]

TMNT the arcade game. I had trouble getting past Bebop when I was a kid and thought I was hot shit when I could beat Rocksteady on one credit.

 

[Gremlin]

I barely caught the tail-end of arcades, besides random cabs at roller rinks or pizza places I think I only stepped foot in like 1 or 2 ACTUAL dedicated arcades before they were dust in the wind so I never really played much.

As a babby I have fond memories of Taito's Space Gun. I remember my older brother finishing it on one credit while a crowd of random kids watched behind him, and when he got the good ending everyone cheered like some shitty movie, it was great. I probably played House of the Dead more though

 

[sylvie]

The local pizzeria had a Neo Geo cab with Aero Fighters and Metal Slug.

Galaga.

At the mall, I was obsessed with Soul Edge & Tekken 2.

Nowadays I think my favorite common cab is Tekken Tag Tournament.

 

[norton9478]

When I was a kid at Chuck E Cheese, I would spend most of my money on moppets and the cartoon-booths. Occasionally..... Baby-Pac.

 

[LoneSage]

When I was around 6 years old, there was a sit down Road Blasters at the movie theater. It was positioned right next to the wall in a dark part of the theater's hallway. By enclosing me in this space with a wall next to me and darkness on the other side, this helped create the illusion that I was really in a futuristic car. The bright graphics grabbed my attention.

One of the levels, in the background you can see a city. It's a futuristic-looking city, with spherical domes and towers. I always wanted to get to the city to see what life was like there and how people lived. As the timer counted down and my fuel ran out, I knew I would never make it. There is definitely a time in our lives, for a few short years after gaining sentience, where some things are like magic.

Truly wonderful, the mind of a child is

 

[fake]

Virtual-On

 

[sylvie]

Truly wonderful, the mind of a child is

thats why i chose to keep mine

 

[NeoSneth]

I put a lot of quarters into Killer Instinct and MKI, II, III.
Non-fighters, I probably put the most into beat em ups like Final Fight, Tower of Doom, and AvP.

 

[Ralfakick]

Some of my best arcade memories
When I was very young I liked playing Champion Baseball at one of the Wildwood NJ arcades many of which were around. I was upset there was no Phillies team though and played as the Pirates instead. They had so many games and everywhere you looked even the restaurants had Neo Geos later on. The Boardwalk arcade had a mini and Snow White Hot Dogs had a woody. When Strikers came out it was everywhere.

The swim club I belonged to when I was around 4th or 5th grade Hidden Hollow had a Donkey Kong machine inside the snack bar. I would get whatever that days’s Rosatti Water Ice flavor and play the cab to cool off from the sun. I don’t know how we never got shocked as we were all wet playing in a pool of water since we just got out of the pool.

When I got my first job at Chick-fil-A around 15 years old I used to get paid twice a month. One paycheck I bought a genesis game. The other paycheck I used to go to Aladdin’s Castle (I had a few birthday parties there around 4-5th grade as well) and play Smash TV and Wrestlefest with my own money that was a big deal to me at the time.

 

[terry.330]

Sam Sho 2
Turtles in Time
Bust a Moove 2
Virtua Fighter 2
Virtua On
AvP

 

[racecar]

Sega gt. And racing jam . Super buster bro

 

[max 330 mega]

Xmen
G.I. Joe
Daytona
Virtual on

 

[Arcademan]

The arcades were my personal playgrounds growing up. I've estimated that I had visited well over 100 different arcades during the 'golden age', not to mention all the laundromats, convenience stores and places that harbored a set of cabinets. Suffice to say, two cabinets will always stand out for me: a sitdown Firefox that I only got to play a couple of times before it was pulled due to constant breakdowns (the joys of laserdisc technology) and the rarely seen, ultra rare sitdown Sinistar at an arcade I first frequented, then worked at. That cabinet was an absolute thing of beauty.

 

[Lastblade]

Outrun sitdown, that is one cab I wouldn't mind buying for my new house.

 

[ShaolinAce]

Holy hell I have to remember last time I was in a real arcade was 2001 I believe. Atleast my local one.

X men vs Street fighter and Marvel super heroes vs street fighter
Lucky and Wild
Golden Axe
The mvs cab
Offroad
Captain America and the avengers
Terminator
Raiden
In the hunt
Die hard arcade
Umk3
Killer instinct
Wonderboy

I'm forgetting some I know. Games kept changing at my local arcade every year. There was a compilation cab that had Pang and a version of tetris that let you use a bird that added blocks and shoot a laser. No idea now what the name of it was. We generally all had competitions on x men vs street fighter and it was no doubt the most popular machine. The mvs was aswell. But it only had king of fighters 95, burning fight, super spy and nam.1975 in it. It eventually got kof 98 and 99 at the end and that was awesome.

Also saw a super mario bros cab at one point and I saw ms pacman cabs everywhere along with space invaders and galaga. The double black.gun Terminator cab was damn popular too.

 

[Arcademan]

I'm forgetting some I know. Games kept changing at my local arcade every year. There was a compilation cab that had Pang and a version of tetris that let you use a bird that added blocks and shoot a laser. No idea now what the name of it was.

That would be Bloxeed, Sega's twisted version of Tetris. Bombs, Flicky the bird that added bricks and a satellite that shot away bricks.

 

[daskrabs]

Ms Pac got me interested. TMNT got me hooked. SFIICE kept me hooked for life.

 

[redfield0009]

House of the Dead
House of the Dead 2
Carnevil

I like shooting zombies and monsters

 

[jro]

TMNT the arcade game. I had trouble getting past Bebop when I was a kid and thought I was hot shit when I could beat Rocksteady on one credit.

Easily the same game that comes to mind for me. I was 8 or 9 when it came out. The four-player cab, the TMNT theme music, the graphics, some days I'd literally just hang out and watch older kids play through it. Once or twice I convinced my parents to give me $5 to spend on it, and I loved it every time.

 

[@M]

I went to a dying mall with my younger brother several years back and we just about shit ourselves when we found a TMNT machine in one of the halls and we immediately plunked in quarters and made it to Bebop and got our green asses handed to us again. Some things never change and I hate that fucking pig.

 

[joe8]

Even though I didn't personally grow up during the golden age of the arcade, we still had some decent ones nearby that had some cabs that I enjoyed playing. My favorite was the arcade by the seaside over here in Oregon, all because of the deluxe F-Zero AX cab that they had with the moving cockpit. These things were so rare, and it's still the only English deluxe F-Zero AX cab I've seen. Every time we went to this arcade, that was the one cab I always played first and right before we left. I grew up on this cab, having first played it in elementary school, all the way up to early 2020 when they removed it due to too many parts failing. I'm glad I got some video of it back in 2016.

How about for you guys? What was the one cab that you were always drawn to in your arcade?

Street Fighter 2 (in Australia the most common cabs were World Warrior, Turbo and Super), as you could usually play for a long time on one credit. And credits cost $1 for 1, or $2 for 3 in Australia, as opposed to the 25c per play on cabs in the U.S. Most arcade games in Australia had these prices for credits, even games that were a few years old, the only exception was very old games like Galaga and Pac-Man, which were 60c a go.