What was your local arcade machine as a kid?

[Glebe]

It was the arcades on Bray seafront, Co. Wicklow, for me. There were Sunday family outings, where I'd be begging my parents for extra 10/20ps, then later bunks off school with me mates. All the usual suspects... Super Mario, Bubble Bobble, New Zealand Story, Rastan, Karnov, Warden... I had a mate who was a bloody legend, think he won Golden Axe.

[NoSleep]

Are there any places like Arcade Club nearer London? There's not really much info about arcades in the UK anywhere online (at least without spending time looking further than a quick DuckDuckGo search). The only list I found, and one thread in another forum didn't mention Arcade Club either. The last time I saw a load of classic (playable for free, too) arcade machines was at an exhibition at the Barbican around ten years ago.

[Gurke and Hare]

Ironman Ivan Stuart's Super Off Road. At the bowling alley, in Bury of Arcade Club fame.

[Phil_A]

Not exactly local, but I do remember gazing longingly at the Shinobi cabinet whenever we went to the long since departed ice-rink at Stevenage. It was painfully obvious how better it was than the terrible version I had on my Atari at home.

[Brundle-Fly]

This medieval contraption.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0OBn-xPIrk

[Shay Chaise]

What about an Arcade Club CaB Meet?

[maett]

There's a pokey little area next to the computer shop with some arcade games, and some hard lads. They initiate me. They show me how you can take a piece of wire, heat it up with a lighter until its red hot, and then shove it in the coin slot. Wiggle it about a bit and - boom - free mother-fucking credits! I could never get it to work.

Ah we called them strimmers on acount of them being made by heating up the plastic wire found on garden strimmers around the shape of a 50p piece. Bit tricky using them in arcades as the owners weren't best pleased, so we used to go over to Heathrow Airport and strim (for that was the verb form) the buggery out of the machines there. You could also flick a 2 pence piece up the reject slot of the 50p slot and that'd get you 3 credits, too. The gas lighter thing was tricky, one of us had one and it sometimes worked but on numerous occasions it just fucked the whole screen up rendering the game well and truly knackered.  Christ we must have been a massive pain in the arse over that airport, robbing the games was only the tip of the iceberg, but great times!

[Barry Admin]

Oh wow, I remember the "flicking a coin up the reject slot" thing too! I loved all these wee secrets and bits of knowledge that would get passed down in the days before the internet was a thing. Be a good thread that, too. The secret numbers you could dial from call boxes, and being shown how and where to kick them so that a shower of 10ps would spurt out. Actually I might have that wrong, I think it was that you'd boot it when the call connected, and you'd get your money back. Free phone call, wahey.

[TheWoodenSpoon]

Oh wow, I remember the "flicking a coin up the reject slot" thing too!

When I went to Malta back in 2003 there was a House of the Dead 2 machine which had been abused by such trickery to the point where giving it a light tap (or a mighty boot depending on some arbitrary factor inside the machine) would bark out free credits. Got really good at that game :U

[kngen]

There was a lad that hung around the corner shop that was so good at Defender he'd beat everyone's high scores in his first life, and would have so many wee guys collected on his ship at once that the sprites started to severely distort and the screen would go a bit mad. First time I'd seen anyone clock a game too. If he was around now, he'd have Youtube videos dedicated to him. Fucking terrifying ned though, and his eternal query - 'Gonnae Gie Us Yer Last Man?' - was always acceded to, and then he'd hog the game for the next half an hour on that one fucking life.

[Mr Banlon]

Afterburner and Tron at the Airport Bowl
Q*Bert and Robotron at the takeaway gaff on the Uxbridge Rd

[confettiinmyhair]

Operation Wolf. It was the closest thing to being Rambo when I was a kid. Shooting baddies with this Uzi. Being raised in Norwich I used to enjoy trips over to Great Yarmouth and play it avidly. It's weird that in the eyes of a kid that place was a place of so much fun and joy.

It wasn't really an Arcade Machine. But I remember this outdoor game when you controlled a gun that fired plastic balls at ships in this big outdoor pool. Anyone recall this? It was a bit like the tennis ball gun used in the TV show Gladiators.

[Mr Banlon]

Ah we called them strimmers on acount of them being made by heating up the plastic wire found on garden strimmers around the shape of a 50p piece. Bit tricky using them in arcades as the owners weren't best pleased, so we used to go over to Heathrow Airport and strim (for that was the verb form) the buggery out of the machines there. You could also flick a 2 pence piece up the reject slot of the 50p slot and that'd get you 3 credits, too. The gas lighter thing was tricky, one of us had one and it sometimes worked but on numerous occasions it just fucked the whole screen up rendering the game well and truly knackered.  Christ we must have been a massive pain in the arse over that airport, robbing the games was only the tip of the iceberg, but great times!

I'm reckon you're either a Hillingdon or Hounslow borough person. If Hounslow, I'm guessing Cranford CC or St.Marks. If Hillingdon, I'll bet on Harlington HS or Townfield.
They were the only ones I know who had the 'strim scam' going on at the Queen's Building at the airport.

[maett]

I'm reckon you're either a Hillingdon or Hounslow borough person. If Hounslow, I'm guessing Cranford CC or St.Marks. If Hillingdon, I'll bet on Harlington HS or Townfield.
They were the only ones I know who had the 'strim scam' going on at the Queen's Building at the airport.

Ooh you got Hillingdon right, but slightly further afield for the school. Unfortunately at 10 years old I chose Evelyns in which to pursue my education. Though I will grant you the 5 of us that used to run amok over the airport and occasionally in the hotels never met a fellow pupil there. Did meet some breakers from Harrow way once though.
I remember that Tron game at the Airport Bowl, we didn't frequent the place often as there was little potential for thieving, but I did like that game.

[Bhazor]

Never had a proper arcade but the nearby pub had an original R-Type machine. That I never played because I was too short to reach the buttons at the time. Then we moved and there were no arcade machines at all.

[Barry Admin]

It's the non-arcade arcade machines that are really interesting, and take you back to a bygone age. It's so odd to think now that I would travel to a specific newsagent or pizza shop just to play NBA Jam or Karnov (I think.) Although you'd have to go to the seaside for the real arcade action, it's actually stunning to remember how many different arcade machines there were dotted all over the place.

Sometimes you'd stumble on them in weird places, like in a part of town I'd never really been into as it was, you know, the other side. There, in the market, I found this run-down old place I never knew existed, and it had all the games which by this point in time were considered really old, like Robotron 2084. This was I think around the time Llamatron became a smash hit on the Amiga and Atari ST, so it was wonderful to be able to play the game that inspired it. They had those shitty, awful old shooting gallery games too (Carnival Gun), but you had Tin Can Alley at home under the stairs anyway:



Whereas kids nowadays have to make do with quad bikes, which you can buy from Asda, for 3 - t year olds. BASTARDS.

[NoSleep]

Chuck "The Rifleman" Connors, there.

[hewantstolurkatad]

There was a Point Blank 2 machine in the chipper of the town nearest me (still like 5 miles away so I was rarely in it). One of the things about secondary school that excited me most was the prospect of going there to play it some lunchtime.

Machine was removed sometime that summer and replaced with some poker thing.

[Rolf Lundgren]

My local electrical appliances shop had an arcade machine that would change every 6 months or so but often it would be Cadillac's and Dinosaurs which was fantastic. 2 player scrolling beat-em-up's were always my favourite type of arcade game.

As for sneaky tips, at a hotel I stayed at as a kid we used to play on a Ghosts and Goblins arcade. One day an old woman showed us a small, thin button on the back of the machine which you pressed for free credits. G&G being bloody impossible, it still took hours to complete but my brother eventually did it. From that point on we used to check every machine in the arcade for a similar magic button but never found one.

The arcade in Bury makes me wonder why there aren't more of those places. I was in Great Yarmouth a few months ago and thought I'd stop by an arcade to see what they have in there and it was virtually all 2p machines, grabbers and games with tokens. These must be where they make their money but where have all the arcade machines gone? Into private homes?

[Brundle-Fly]

It's the non-arcade arcade machines that are really interesting, and take you back to a bygone age. It's so odd to think now that I would travel to a specific newsagent or pizza shop just to play NBA Jam or Karnov (I think.) Although you'd have to go to the seaside for the real arcade action, it's actually stunning to remember how many different arcade machines there were dotted all over the place.

Sometimes you'd stumble on them in weird places, like in a part of town I'd never really been into as it was, you know, the other side. There, in the market, I found this run-down old place I never knew existed, and it had all the games which by this point in time were considered really old, like Robotron 2084. This was I think around the time Llamatron became a smash hit on the Amiga and Atari ST, so it was wonderful to be able to play the game that inspired it. They had those shitty, awful old shooting gallery games too (Carnival Gun), but you had Tin Can Alley at home under the stairs anyway:

Whereas kids nowadays have to make do with quad bikes, which you can buy from Asda, for 3 - t year olds. BASTARDS.

This was quite a dark cowboy arcade game of my youth. Boot Hill

Why do teenage boys revel so much in murder and death?

[Steven]

Strider was the shit:



But I also for some reason had a penchant for early rail-shooter type games like Dragon's Lair 1 - 3:



And also pissed money away on Hologram Time Traveler which was a similar one-wrong-move-and-you're-dead-a-thon but using mirrors to create holographic looking sprites:



There was multi-player fun with Moonwalker:



But The Simpsons arcade game was the star attraction, managed to finally finish it with a couple of mates taking turns as we periodically ran out of change and had to nip to cash what little pocket money we had, and depending on which characters you were you could pair up and perform special moves:

[NoSleep]

I thought Marge was vomiting there for a sec.

[kngen]

I played a driving game at a seaside resort once in the late 70s/early 80s that was basically just grainy film footage from a camera strapped to the front of a car. The steering wheel panned across the image to give you the sense that you were actually driving, and the accelerator sped up the film. I don't think you could crash or even leave the 'track' (a gravel road if memory serves) but if you strayed too far on either side, some sort of screen interference took place (which, I presume, was supposed to be grit or dirt or something).

I don't remember if you could even win or lose at it - just pretend to drive - but I fucking loved it in the short time I played it.

Think this might be it: http://www.pinrepair.com/arcade/kdriver.htm

[Glebe]

I forgot about the aforementioned Ghosts 'n Goblins, actually. Oh yeah, and Temple of Doom, featuring that wonderful 8-bitted John Williams slave children theme!

I have no clue why I never attempted to play Dragon's Lair... I was always fascinated by it having actual cartoon animation. Oh, and dunno if it's been mentioned already, but Splatterhouse, lads, Splatterhouse...

[Cuntbeaks]

Arcades were my life, i would travel up to 25 miles down to Largs on the bus of a weekend to revel in the 3 arcades they had. One of which, The Big Cumbrae, was the biggest arcade I'd ever seen, before i went to Blackpool.

Notable highlights were Time Pilot, Marble Madness, SiniStar, Spy Hunter, Tron, Gorf and sit down Star Wars. The decline of arcades with actual video games is a real loss to society although there is a new place in Glasgow called Super Bario that has some arcade games and pinball, which i really must check out.

[Glebe]

Arcades were my life, i would travel up to 25 miles down to Largs

Eddie Largs?

[buzby]

This was quite a dark cowboy arcade game of my youth. Boot Hill

Ah, Boot Hill. My auntie had a caravan on a small camp in Towyn (just down the coast from Rhyl) that had a tiny arcade and bingo hall. Being a small place, they had mostly older games that had been taken out by the bigger arcades. I put loads of 10ps into Boot Hill - mianly so I could hear it play the booming monophonic Death March when one of the players died. It also had 1942, Sky Kid, Fire Truck, Tank Command, Rally X, Atari Sprint (the black and white precursor to Super Sprint), Space Invaders (natch) and my other favourite beside Boot Hill, Kung Fu Master. You had to walk up to the Black Cat at Towyn Crossroads to get the more modern stuff like Spy Hunter, Star Wars, Asteroids, Dragon's Lair, Tron, Gauntlet and another of my favourites, Pac Land.

I went back there last Bank Holiday to have a look round - the camp arcade has been demolished, and the the Black Cat is almost all crane machines, coin pushers and one arm bandits now apart fron a couple of driving and shooting cabs.

A few years ago I built myself a Supergun (the name for the test harness arcade techs use to test boards with the standard JAMMA edge connector) and a nice wooden-cased stick with Sanwa stick and buttons so i could build a small collection of my favourite games. The list of PCBs I've got is:
Pac Land (bought broken, needed the audio amp IC replacing and a Namco to JAMMA adapter building)
Gaelco World Rally Championship (x2 - one Gaelco and one Atari-licenced. The Gaelco one needed to be desuicided as the battery on it's protection chip had died)
Pang (again, needed to be desuicided as the protection battery had died)
Kaneko Mille Miglia (Gtreat 1000 Miles Rally) 1 and 2 (neither has needed to be repaired....yet)
A Neo Geo MV1FS 1-slot and a 161-in-1 pirate cartridge (the MV1FS backup battery had leaked and corroded a load of the traces on the PCB that needed to be cleaned up and repaired)
A modern 19-in-1 horizontal multigame PCB (runs a 16 games, but bought mainly for Defender and  Ghosts N Goblins)
Par Types - this was an Irem Major Title golf game that has hardware similar enough for a very clever person to work out how to convert to run R Type 1 or 2. I took these instructions and combined them so I could dual boot the board to either R Type or R Type 2 - all the ROMs needed to be desoldered and replaced, some logic chips needed to be piggybacked and a load of cuts and straps applied. All this is because genuine R Type boards cost a fortune now due to their desirability.On the back of this conversion becoming available the previously-worthless Major Title now costs a fortune too.

[biggytitbo]

Even thinking about the music from Spy Hunter gives me a Proustian rush back to the 80s arcades in Withernsea. Never played the game though, weirdly.

[Hollow]

We had a Cafe in the village, we called it 'Fred's Cafe'...no-one knew why.

Anyway in there was a veritable wonderland of two player Jamma compatible games...stuff like Double Dragon, Pacland, Snow Bros, Dark Seal...P.O.W...sure you got cancer from all the tabs being sucked up by the older kids but I for one did not care about that.

You got a pound for your dinner so you sacked school off went down Clowne and bought 50p chips and five goes in Freds...bliss.

I'm starting to get very nostalgic about my childhood...must be nearly dead.

[Hollow]

Even thinking about the music from Spy Hunter gives me a Proustian rush back to the 80s arcades in Withernsea. Never played the game though, weirdly.

Hey Biggy...yeah it's that music...Ghosts and Goblins is the same...or the womans cry from Jailbreak...sounds of the arcades in the 80's...the coin activation of Space Harrier.