Hmmm

I really didn't grow up with lots of arcades, but the one memory I have with an arcade machine was in Buffalo New York at a a wings place called "Duff's"

I remember being 5 or 6 and always begging my dad for some quarters to go play Donkey Kong. THtas the game that was one of the main contributors to my Mario obesession. Otherwise... not so much.

As i am only 16 i really havent had a chance to really experiance the experinace of an arcade the closest ever being was disney quest which if your ever on vaction like i was in florida go there it is worth the 50 bucks to get in they have loads of arcade games old ones and some slightly newer ones when i went back in 2008.

On to my answer as a kid i always loved the as i called it the Crane Game the claw thing picking up prizes.

MAn if i had all of the money i blew on them i could fund my way through college with all thoughs qurtars.

 It was always exciting wvery time you did happen to win but you lost more times than not.

Oh and there's always the feeling of Elation when you snag more than one at a time ah that was the best.

From eighth grade up to tenth, my lunch hour was spent at the arcade playing Gunslingers 2.  I live in a small town, where pacman games were never really found anywhere; this arcade was set up in a video store, and would come and go as ownership changed and the new owners weren't making enough on the machines.  Because of the low demand, there was always at least one of the two guns free for me during that time, and it wasn't surprising for me to spend upto five bucks on the machine.  My most notable memories were of others hitting the second player button to waste one of my quarters, and leave the second gun empty on the screen, forcing me to try and dual wield the two guns, to poor effect most of the time.

Arcades really didn't have much in a small town and the one place that had them didn't have anything special except for Area 51. Area 51 was the only game that you put money into and didn't die 5 seconds later, I now miss that game.

I was at a hotel can't remember where but they had a Ms. Pac Man (the table top one) and I spent a lot of my spare time, (only spending about $5 in quarters) playing that game in a chlorine filled room. Question: Why are arcade machines put beside the pool in a hotel? After kids are done swimming they play the machines dripping wet.

Later after moving to a city one bowling alley have some of the more classics games but the joysticks are not that responsive.

My favorite arcade game is definitly Dance Dance Revolution! The first time I had played it was at the Gameworks in the mall connected to Gen Con about six years ago. My friends were already pretty good at it, and once I learned how to play it, I loved it. I never was the greatest DDR player, I played on expert/heavy but I could never AAA songs or beat the Maxx songs, but I really enjoyed going to the arcade and playing it. I did buy the home versions, but nothing compared to playing the game in the arcade. Meeting people who played, a wider varietey of songs, having people watch you play, and much better pads all made the experience much better. I was lucky that there used to be two machines in the area, one at a mall and one at a local mini-golf place. Unfortunatly, the arcade in the mall is closed, and the mini-golf place got rid of their DDR machine in favor of a Guitar Hero one =(. Another thing about DDR is it really helped me lose weight. I used to weigh a lot more than I do, and having a video game that I was interested in that actually got me off my ass and got me some exercise helped me a great deal.  I don't play the game much anymore, butI have a lot of fond memories of playing DDR. I still have to play it whenever I find a machine in a mall, or whenever I go to Gen Con. =P

When I think of favorite arcade games or arcade experiences, 2 games instantly pop into my mind: Space Harrier and After Burner 2. I cannot count how many hours I spent growing up playing both of those games. Seriously, it is ridiculous how many quarters I put onto those 2 machines. Both are special games to me, but if I had to choose one it would have to be Space Harrier.

Growing up, the nearest arcade to me was in a mall located right in the middle of an area my mother would get most of her errands done. Whenever a long shopping day would pop up, I'd ask that she would drop me off at the arcade and I would spend 2-5 hours there. and it was the summer of either 6th or 7th grade that I discovered those games.

My Mom was frequenting the mall area on a  weekly basis due to Doctor's appointments for her MS, and she would bring me to the arcade so I would keep my mind occupied and not worry about her health. It was this summer I was COMPLETELY DEDICATED to getting the high score on both Space Harrier and After Burner 2. I would spend around 2-3 hours at a time each visit dedicated to these two games. I had always liked them and I was pretty good at both games, but now I really wanted to win. I swear, OCD does not describe level of attention I put into them. right before school started up again and I knew my arcade visits would become fewer and fewer, I managed to get the second high score and that was good enough for me.

I don't really know why I worked so hard on those games that summer, I think part of it was I needed to stay extremely focused on a set goal so I wouldn't worry about my mom's MS relapse, but by the time i beat my record in space Harrier, she had recovered a lot and i became less dedicated to the games.

I wish i went back to that arcade more after that...before I was a junior in High School, the Arcade was shut down.

Well I think I need to split this up a bit based on my younger Arcade experiences and older ones.

Old school it's Galaga... hands down.

Moving into some of the more modern games (around mid-late 90's) it's hard to say, but probably Virtual On. Kick ass booths with the double joy stick layout it had really kinda made it feel like I was piloting some kind of anime mecha. 

Either that, or DDR Max 2 (probably my favourite one to date)

the only arcade game I ever played was the simpsons arcade game.

That was pretty good as I remember though

Ever since I was a kid my favorite arcade game has been Star Wars Trilogy Arcade. That game was amazing! It was all 3 movies with 3 different areas in each and 2 lightsaber stages (vs. Boba Fett and vs. Darth Vader). I think everyone who played it would agree that that game was addicting and awesome to play! Of course as a kid I grew up on the original trilogy so that's probably why I loved it so much. 

Growing up, my family was too poor to spend much money on arcades.  Whenever I did get to an arcade I only had at most $1 to spend on games.  This is back when they were only 25 cents per game.  To get the full bang for my money, I would look for a racing game that you could sit in.  I wasn't just playing a game, I was driving the machine.  If they didn't have one of those, and If I had a lot of time,  I would look for a pinball machine. 

Most of the time the only arcade I could get to was on my birthday.  The family would take me to Showbiz Pizza. (like Chucky Cheese)  I would almost always only play skeet ball.  It was pretty fun to me and I got tickets to get a toy. (Win/Win scenario)

BTW I definitely think the Commodore should go to Gen Con with Boomer and Roo at least once!  You might have fun.  If not, then you will know without doubt that you don't like it.  At least try it once. You might be surprised!

That's what i get for posting at 4 am...

Pinball.

I was thinking it when I was writting out about VO, then it slipped my mind before I hit submit. I do love me some good pinball as well.

In grade school, I popped possibly hundreds of dollars in the local Pizza Hunts Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles machine.

In junior high, I burned money for House of the Dead....the shotgun was awesome.

In High School I discovered Gauntlet Legends. Fun Fact: Gauntlet tells you how much money you've spent on it every time you beat it (Because of the profile it saves for you)... Let's just say I could have bought the cabinet for what I put into it.

I have 2 arcade games that stick out in my head as being great experiences.

The first would be Street Fighter II.  It was in a small arcade within a local mall when I was an early teenager.  I would drop quarters in there for hours on end playing on my own, or against anyone who would challenge me.  I would often play as Chun-Li, and would have much older people challenge me figuring the small boy playing as the girl would be an easy win.  They were very wrong, as I would proceed to mop the floor with them.  I wasn't a bully but as someone who was often percieved as the little unassuming kid, it was great show others not to underestimate those who are seemingly weaker.  The best comment I remember from that was having a challenger's friend proclaim in laughter "you were beat by a kid AND a girl."

The other game would be the 6-player version of the X-Men Arcade game.  A dedicated arcade close to my grade school had this arrive one day, and it became the instant centerpiece in my friend's and my arcade visits.  We had just enough time at lunch to run from school (a 10 to 15 minute run if you were running hell-bent for leather) play the game and run back to make the afternoon bell.  It was always a challenge to get there first to claim Wolverine as your player, but unfortunately running like mad in the hot sun usually had me burn out before reaching the arcade, and I was stuck with Dazzler.  Like Chun-Li before her though, I perfected the character and was able to do better with her than any other character.

Unfortunately, the punishing game and the time allotted to play it didn't allow us to beat it easily.  We often had to leave before the end, sacrificing our continues because we just didn't have the time.  One day towards the end of school, we decided we had to beat it now or we never would have the chance.  We got ready to leave directly from our last morning class and had the fastest runners start without the rest of us, who would join in as we got there.  (Normally we would wait until all arrived).  That day, we finally managed to beat Magneto, the instant we landed the final blow we had to book out of the arcade and power-run back to school as not to be late.  So, no one actually saw the ending in the one time we beat the game, but at least we did it.  We were a few minutes late getting back, but it seemed that we were silently forgiven for our tardiness when the teacher found out we'd finally accomplished what we set out to do. 

I haven't kept in touch with my X-Men team unfortunately, but I recently bought the game when it came to the PSN, and beat it solo with Dazzler (of course).  It wasn't the same I'm afraid, but it was nice to finally see the ending.

Strangely enough, and this is true, when I first discovered arcades growing up in Vermont (cultural mecca that it is), I gravitated toward Super Mario Bros.  Sure, I would play pinball and Rampage, but I couldn't get enough of that game, which was especially sad considering how long it took for me to learn how to jump over the second pit... so many quarters.

But that led to my Nintendo fascination, since I played that game for months before going to a friend's house and seeing him pull out an NES to play SMB on that.  I was shocked.  You can play Super Mario... on YOUR TV!?!?!?!

You can guess what my #1 choice was among Christmas gifts that year, and I haven't looked back as a gamer since.

I have two games that are my favorite arcade games

Metal Slug Series:

I played this numerous places during my childhood, Ci-Ci's, grocery stores, restaurants, you name it, my brother and I would always tag team it up and play on a few dollars, I would pick Marco and he would pick Tarma, and when we played we'd be unbeatable (except running out of quarters) but all in all this is my top pick for my favorite arcade game tied with my second choice.

It is so much fun, filled with more action then a Schwarzenegger film and more explosions then a Micheal Bay film, the controls are simple to use yet the game makes you go through hell each Mission (Specially MS:X), this series also has humor, like when you eat to much food you get fat and also your grenades and bullets for each gun as well, small stuff like that makes a game for me, it's the little things that count, but the greatness doesn't stop there it also boast a great sound track that has amazing music

Such as:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI2NDJ6TxBg

That ^^^^^ Is my favorite theme from ALL the games

the graphics are nice on the eyes to look at also, you know what everything is and won't be asking "What is that?" everything is clearly made to look like what they intended to be, it is a great drop in and drop out game to play, it works better with another person because the feeling you get when you take down a giant Boss is priceless

My next pick is: 

Marvel Vs. Capcom

You can't go wrong with this classic arcade fighter, it's got it all, great music, stunning visuals, humor, nice controls, tiny details, it's a GREAT game over all

Controls - with any fighter everyone each has their own combos and fighting style, while playing this game on the arcade and also on the PS1, I never felt anyone was a clone or a pallet swap, each fighter was nice constructed to fight like they would do in their respective mediums.

Music - Each character has a great theme for them that plays in the arcade mode when you fight them and their partner that is matched up with them,

My Favorite is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsGJ92Pb92M

he has the BEST theme in the game, everyone of them sounds unique and fits their characters well

Graphics - The fighters are all hand drawn, they look and move smothly through the screen, the special attacks are awesome to look at especially Spiderman's Crawler Assault

Misc. - When you win as Spidey one of my favorite things he does is tie his camera with a web shot, make a big thumbs up and say "One for J.J.", the tiny details and humor all in one 

Those are my pics for my favorite arcade games 

Arcades and me... I probably don't have a "normal" history with arcades.

When I was a kid, of course I loved the arcades at Chuck 'E Cheese and Bullwinkle's, but my mom would refuse to let me go to any dedicated arcades. She was afraid I'd be abducted or something silly like that. I think at one point she even said that "arcades are the devil," which is rather unlike her (to say so directly). At some point, I actually did challenge her logic on it: her insinuations that games were worse than normal people. Even though she didn't exactly win the argument with me, she still wouldn't let me go to a dedicated arcade. Even if she had, I rarely got allowance, so I usually only had actual money to spend on arcades when I was given it on special occasions like birthdays. Still, I spent a decent amount of time with arcade games because not only did we go to Chuck 'E Cheese, Bullwinkle's, laser tag, pizza joints, bowling alleys, malls (which at some points had arcades), other family fun centers, Shakey's, or "ball pit" places, but my dentist actually had arcade games in his office... many of them! Set to FREE PLAY!!! Tiger-Heli, Bucky O'Hare, TMNT, The Simpsons, some strange free-roaming SHMUP, a tug-boat game, and a couple of others.  There was also this restaurant we used to go to that had a table Mrs. Pac Man above the bar - it seemed like the most relaxing thing to me, looking below and seeing the activity and neon lights (no I don't drink), looking out the window in this loft and seeing the planes go by, looking down and seeing a video game, looking around and seeing family, and eating good food... So with all those different games combined, I'd say my favorite arcade games from ages 1-10 were TMNT, The Simpsons, X-Men, Bucky O'Hare, Golden Axe, Altered Beast, Knights of the Round, U.N. Squadron, Sunset Riders, Street Fighter 2, Star Wars (the vector graphics one), or Terminator 2. If I had to pick one... that'd be really hard, but I'd probably go with Bucky O'Hare by just a smidge! But, it's not like the other games no influence on me. :-P Take a look at my screen name.

After I was 10, I really only went to a couple arcades... at first! I really wasn't going to Chuck 'E Cheese and ball pits anymore, but I did occasionally get to play at a laser tag (where my favorite was Virtual On, and a second might be Area 51) or DisneyLand (where my favorite was  Star Wars Arcade, a very rare game). I figured I might only rarely see arcades for the rest of my life when I found out that most laser tag businesses were shutting down, but that wasn't the case. My sister went to a high school with an experimental curriculum (no, not a "special" school), and because of that I had to also. Well, it was on a college campus, and that college had an arcade. So nearly every school day for three years (one year they were renovating), I'd at least peek in at the arcade. There were all sorts of games. Lots of fighters, shmups, puzzle games, rhythm games (DDR, Guitar Freaks, Drum Maniac, etc.) a few sports games, rail shooters, etc., even one FPS ("War." It was cool). At that arcade, I especially loved Metal Slug 2, Gauntlet Legends, GunBird 2, and Power Stone, but all of them were awesome! After that, I went to college. And lucky me, an arcade was right across the street! This arcade even had lots of imported arcade games, so I got to try some games I'd have no way to otherwise. Favorites here were Sengoku 2000 (aka Sengoku 3), Street Fighter 3: Third Strike, and Mobile Suit Gundam: Renpou vs. Zeon.  And during this time, I found a "Big E" that played many, many arcade games and found a bunch of new favorites, like Eco Fighters, Armored Warrios, Top Hunter - Roddy & Cathy, Street Fighter Alpha 2: Gold, and two Dungeons and Dragons games. And a bit more recently, I had a chance to hang out at a different nearby arcade with a few gamer friends several times. And now I work in a mall that has two arcades, though I rarely visit them because they aren't very good (GameWorks and Dave & Busters).

But which is my favorite that I played in an arcade...? Very difficult question! Too difficult! Bucky O'Hare, Virtual On, Star Wars Arcade, Metal Slug 2, GunBird 2, Power Stone, Mobile Suit Gundam: Renpou vs. Zeon, Sengoku 3...? Grraahhhh...! I guess I have to answer... I'll go with Power Stone, I guess. :(

I will say that there is a whole hidden world of good arcade games out there that most gamers have never even heard of; even I have barely touched any of the early-mid 80's arcade games, and that era was by far no slouch! I'm fortunate that even though I never really had much money to spend on arcades when I was a kid, and even though my parents didn't want me anywhere near dedicated arcades, I still have been able to keep in touch with the arcade scene for almost my entire life! I can't have been more fortunate in that regard! If I were born a few years earlier, I could have seen another aspect of the arcade scene, but at that time I don't think there were any "ball pits," so I might not have seen them at all anyway.

I used to go to a small house my grandmother had in the mediterranean coast here in Spain and I used to go to the local arcades there and that's where I really enjoyed myself with all kinds of great games like House of the Dead 2, Time Crisis, Virtua Tennis and many other but the ones that really made me come back year after year were the capcom fighters. 

The arcade wasn't very big so every year they kept changing the cabinets, and the capcom fighters kept changing to the latest hit so thats how I ended up playing all of them , SF II, SF alpha series, Marvel super heroes, street fighter vs marvel, marvel vs capcom 1 and finally marvel vs capcom 2 (they skipped street fighter III sadly).

Every summer I would start playing each game from scratch and by the time I had to go back to Madrid I had already mastered every character move and figured out the game mechanics. 

As an absurd fact, it's true that arcades used to be kind of shady places depending on the time and place you decided to go and play and I speak from  experience here, as my first couple of fights and the first time I got literally punched in the face happened in an arcade XD

When I was little I would go to the arcade with my little brother.  We would challenge each other in fighting games to see who was the "supperior gamer."  The two games that stick out in my mind are tekken4 and street fighter alpha2.

Have to echo Arkus' sentiments with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles the Arcade Game being number one on my list. As largely I didn't have a strong arcade background growing up. As I was a bit late for the scene in general. Still, there were birthdays at Chuckie Cheese to be had and that is almost exclusively where the coin-op play was to be had.

And when I wasn't throwing away precious seconds of my life on lousy redemption games I loved playing TMNT. The four player mode sold it for me and my friends. As well as my siblings, since there were four of us (all guys), it was the perfect game to unite an otherwise divided contingent, haha. TMNT was fan friendly, easy to swap players in and out, solid gameplay, and had a relatively forgiving learning curve. All of which made every time playing it fun, versus frustrating. Which I can't say for all the games I came across at good ole Chuckie Cheese. 

TMNT Arcade Game, one vote!

I must admit I haven't played many traditional arcade games, but I do have a distinct memory of playing against my mom in some fighting game when we were vacationing in New Jersey once. I was about 7, and thought it looked really cool, so I convinced her to play it with me, and I won, almost too easily, really. (I'm not sure that she understood the controls, the only game she'd ever played before was Space Invaders.)

One arcade game I have come to appreciate much much more over the past few years is, in fact, Pac-man. I always thought it was mind-bogglingly dull. Like, you just get dots. So boring, right? Not to mention incredibly difficult. Then I found out about using patterns, and after using slightly modified ones for a GBA version of the original game for hours on end, I got to try out the classic patterns on a machine at.. Somewhere. Anyway, after a few tries, the highest level I could get to was 17, but that was substantially better than the 3 or 4 levels I was able to clear when I actually thought the game was boring.

Oh, and I have been dying to play the original Dragon's Lair. I've had the GBC version forever, and while it has proven incredibly ridiculous and frustrating, in the past I have spent days playing no other video game besides that. And from what I have seen of the original arcade version, it has much better graphics and more content, so it would be so so so so cool to play it, even just a few times.

This week's wringer inspired me to pick up a Sega Arcade Collection of After Burner 2, Space Harrier, and Outrun. I'm glad I decided to participate in this weeks wringer, I wouldn't have thought to pick it up otherwise. :)

...Pac-man. I always thought it was mind-bogglingly dull....

Regarding Alatar's comment about Pac-Man, this is why I like Ms. Pac-Man more, the level is not the same layout in every level. As for patterns I found that out while playing Ms. Pac-Man that you can get pretty far by doing the same thing over and over.

I know that this is your favorite arcade games but want to say why I don't like Pinball machines. I don't like how the ball goes straight down the middle, and the last three machines I tried this happened when the ball is first launched and goes straight down the middle three times in a row.

Though I never played that many games on a consistent basis in the arcade, I do have a few favorites when it comes to arcade play.

Mario Bros. - I played this in the arcade in the early '80s and it was awesome!

Donkey Kong - I loved the arcade version, but I don't think I ever even beat the first level.  I was maybe 6 or 7 when this was originally in the arcade.

Donkey Kong Jr. - I could get through a couple of levels but not real far.

Ms Pac-Man - We had Pac-Man for our Atari 2600 so I didn't really play it in the arcade that much, maybe a couple of times. But Ms Pac-Man I played the hell out of.  I played both the stand up and the table versions, And the table version was more fun, I thought.

However, my all-time favorite experience in the arcade was playing pinball.  Just about any machine.  Hell, I still love to play pinball and I even have a friend that puts on a pinball convention of sorts here in Southern Illinois.  He gets people from across the country to bring their new and exteremly vintage machines (close to 150 by my estimation) to his show so that the masses can play them for free (after paying an admission fee that goes toward a charity).  Watching my daughter playing games older than both of us combined and having fun with it was great! Unfortunately, there was not a Supershow last year.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=92061783172 

http://supershow.popbumper.com/ 

TMNT the Arcade Game is also one of my favs.  It's perhaps the one arcade cabinet I could actually conceive of purchasing.

I totally missed this WR, but I abolutely have to "ring in".

Ms. Pac Man is my all-time favorite arcade game.  I spent COUNTLESS hours as a young child pumping quarters into this machine at various backwoods bars as a kid while my parents sat in barstools getting drunk.

The Simpsons Arcade Game was another great arcade experience that I spent a lot of time with.  Same with Street Fighter II... damn did I pump a ton of quarters into that machine.  Others include Rastan (played this game at many a Holiday Inn arcade as a kid), Hard Drivin' (that loop-the-loop was RAD) and X-Men Arcade.  I also loved Nightstalkers and X-Men: COTA; they had these machines at the bowling alley down the street from my house when I was in high school, and my best friend and I would ride our bikes there almost every day after school and waste our lunch money on those games.  AWESOME memories...