yeah the arcade scene in the uk (and pretty much everywhere) took a sudden nose dive =(
there are still a couple of good ones though. Seaside resorts used be really good but they are just filled with gamblers and shit now
cant say ive been to these but read lots about them...
Casino arcade has always been the best for fighters<<, has been since the mid 90's. Very hardcore. Even today.
its not much good for anything else, but who cares!
For everything else go to Trocadero, on the way down from Casino you can pop into Play2Win on oxford street and las vegas in soho, before arriving at Troc. Its almost as the crow flies.
Go on Saturday. Get a tube to goodge street and its right next to the entrance exit, and there's a CEX next to it too which is good for nosing.
I actually went in there many years ago when I was about 17, they said they did IQ tests on the sign outside (as you might know), so I go in with no idea its some fucking cult thing.
Within 5 minutes I realise its actually not an iq test, but some elaborate attempt to lure me with a thematic apperception test designted to extract my deepest thoughts from seemingly innocent "answers", so I humour them.
At the end of it, some creepy woman, spent about a fucking hour trying to convince me that there was something deep and lacking in my life and it had naff all to do with IQ.
I was like, I just skipped school and did a 400 mile round trip to play a bunch of home boys at Super Turbo. You don't say!
The only way I could leave was to agree to buy a Ron Hubbard book. As soon as I went outside i threw it in the bin and went back to raping on Super Turbo.
For the next 4 fucking YEARS they spammed my home with letters about joining them.
i miss the arcade days.. games were so exciting to play in a social environment (although it was pretty bad around here, lots of gypsies and hoodlums in the arcades).
my main regrets are that i wasn't a bit older back then to begin understand some games like Street Fighter. also we were really poor and we would mainly play singleplayer to maximize the time for each coin/credit.
i remember when some guy unlocked Reptile in Mortal Kombat 1 for the first time, we went outside and started yelling at random kids on the street to come and see that.. everyone in the arcade abandoned whatever they were playing and flocked around the MK machine.. so hype! :D
i'm sad that by '98-'99, PC gaming totally crushed the arcades. they couldn't really coexist, because arcades turned over into internet cafes
Edited by Aquashark at 08:29 CST, 13 November 2010
yeah its really quite sad, many of my gaming memories are from the arcades, watching some guy complete time crisis with 100% acc, watching the fatalities when mortal kombat 2 came out.
my dad used to take us to the seaside arcades in the winter when they were cheaper and empty, always be new games.
one day when i have a house i WILL have an arcade room haha ridge racer, virtual on, street fighter alpha 2, ferrari 355 challenge, smash tv, star wars (cockpit version)... one day =)
The parents of my best friend used to be owners of two arcades. One was in our neighborhood and all we did was play basketball and games. I remember when they installed pcb of Street Fighter 2 for the first time. They had to relocate the machine in a separate room just because there were so many kids next to the machine waiting their turn.
I was never a fan of consoles, I think my only box was a NES. I went straight from arcade to pc games. Ironically these days the only games I play are arcades emulated on pc. I guess I've gone full circle.