I grew up in the 70s. Gaming systems were uncommon and expensive, and none of my friends had one. Rather, we would take our quarters down to the local pizza parlor, where they would have one arcade game in the corner (Pac-Man or Donkey Kong, or similar) where we would all take turns playing and watching — mostly watching, since there were usually a few of us and 25 cents was a fair amount of money at the time.

For a rare treat, such as a birthday, our parents might take us to the nearest Nathan's Famous, which served (among other things) hot dogs and crinkle-cut French fries (what you would call chips, I believe). They had a true indoor arcade, with a choice of three or four dozen machines to play (if you still had money left) or marvel at (if you didn't).

I also went to a day camp one summer, in which there was an indoor arcade for lunchtimes and rainy days. The games were free — or rather, covered by the cost of the camp itself — but the popular games had the longest lines, so I would usually play something with less of a wait.

Wow some great post and really intresting reading seeing how to determine peoples ages approxdue to teh age of the games they played.

Love the few comments about Pinball (always wanted one in my house sadly lack of funds and a wife who has lack of design.. surely a massive Pinball machine in the kitchen looks good doesnt it?)

To expand on my orginal post about my arcade addiction during my younger years, my time had come and gone when ganes like Timecrisis where back to back in the arcades. I did still play them but by then they just ate money at a disgusting pace.

As said previousley i was the 2D man pacman space invaders donkey kong,, One of my all time faves has to be MoonCresta think was also called Terra Cresta elseware. oh and lunar lander!! i think maybe the biggest factor back then wasnt "did you complete the game" as you never did but did you get the high score.. hell yes that was tthe thing to see your initals or name at top of leaderboard. :)

My local arcade was named Snjet to be honest really do not think that was the name they just never did replace the old sign and the name kinda stuck. It housed approx 25 to 30 machines in its heyday with approx 8 pinballs and a coupe of really bad pool tables.

This place smelt bad cigarette smoke spilt drinks onto the really old and worn carpet but even thou it was bad on the eye and the nose it was bloody awesome on every other sense!!! and more.

Looking forwad to seeing more replies and your nostalgic memories.

Shmups are a great genre. ironically, not one I enjoyed more when I was younger but really grew into them when they grew out of the mainstream.

What are your favorites?

Also, I can't believe I forgot some others like Donkey Kong, Rampage, Arknoid, 1943. Ghost N Goblins and Wonder Boy,

Between the excellent games by Raizing, Cave, Psikyo, and maybe also Capcom it is difficult to pick favorites really :) I usually pick 2-3 games and play them to death for a few months, trying to clear them and master the scoring system. My recent rotation of arcade games included Battle Garegga (which I'd ignored for such a long time, shame on me) and Dangun Feveron (old Cave is rather interesting!). Now that Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu is available on PC, it's going to be my next target.

Tons of other games on other platforms too! Some of the recent highlights were Gradius 5 (PS2), Lords of Thunder (PC Engine), StellaVanity and Eschatos (PC). Right now I am working on Thunder Force 4 on the Genesis and having a blast, another one I'd ignored for a long long time!

PS. I almost cried today when I saw that Caladrius Blaze was coming to GOG.

I spent many quarters and afternoons in a corner store which had 2-4 games at any point. ("Kowalski's" in Winnipeg, if anyone else knows that). I loved it, but as for "arcades", I don't think I really liked them. Dark and dirty and a bunch of noisy losers around.

I used to spend a lot on Donkey Kong Jr, Asteroids, Joust, Defender (oh my goodness, Defender), Time Pilot, Spy Hunter, Centipede, Spiders, Q-Bert, Qix, and whenever I could, Tron. Later on I played "Iron Man" Super Off Road, Rampage and... I can't think of the name... (You were one of three players, on a spaceship with face hugger aliens and one of the characters was a duck).

Any of you ever have one of these?

Xenophobe. Atari made really good arcade games back then. APB, Paperboy, and Escape From the Planet of the Robot Monsters were among my favorites, too.

Xenophobe!! Yes! I loved that game. (Dr. Kwack was the character) I think I blew $20 on it, easy, in one session. I kept telling my friends to keep playing *and don't die* while I got more quarters. I bought it for the NES later, too... it wasn't as fun or as impressive of course.

Yup. I have two Q*Bert machines. One is brand new, never opened and still shrink-wrapped in the box. Not my most expensive gaming piece (excluding consoles, I have some expensive rare games), but this is probably my favorite piece of gaming paraphernalia.
My brother has the Frogger machine.

I sucked at Q*Bert on any machine. :P I was the dork who immediately when flying off the entire platform never lasting more than two seconds.

Speaking of Retro, has anyone heard anything about Nintendo restocking any more of their Mini Classic machines?

This is beyond fucking stupid. It's like they deliberately left themselves open for scalpers.

Asteroids and Crystal castles at the Dentist now thats my kinda Dentist!

Yes, they are restocking, but at the moment only in select markets and select retailers. So you pretty much have to live in a large city and go to the right retailer to get one - not saying you can't get lucky here and there, but that is what they are doing right now

The good news is that Nintendo hasn't made this a limited edition item, so eventually everybody should be able to get one.

I've just never really been big on items like that. I mean they are neat, but it only comes with what, 30 games? For that price? Maybe if it included hundreds of games, I'd be interested... but as it stands, a person can (Illegally) own every single nintendo game ever made with an emulator on computers, tablets or phones. For me, emulation made items like that fairly irrelevant. Remember the little Atari joysticks you could buy that had a handful of Atari games on them? Same deal.

I'd buy them if they included a huge library of games.