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Does Indianapolis have an arcade?
Posted: Feb 01, 2008 in Things to do
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A good one...with Centipede?
I cannot believe I just sat here and watched The King of Kong: A Fistfull of Quarters...and loved it!!
My kids have never been to an arcade (nor have I since about 1985). We've always had Nintendo, Playstation, Xbox, etc. I suddenly have a desire to show them what a REAL video game is. I suddenly have the desire to kick their butts on Centipede (my video game of choice).
Does Centipede still exist? Does it exist in Indy? And the big question...is it still a quarter a game??
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Centipede is a retro game...and I have scene arcade machines around Indy that had 10, 100, or even 1,000 retro games on one machine. I can't off hand say where I've seen Centipede though. I think Jillians downtown had a couple retro multi-game machines in their arcade. For the most part, video games in arcades these days are similar to your Xbox 360 and PS3 games, only a little more high tech and interactive. And they cost around $1 per game.
I actually go to Chuck E Cheese sometimes to play pinball, skeeball, or Big Buck Hunter (shooting game). All the games there are still 25 cents per game, which is the only place you're probably going to find 25 cent games. You can usually print coupons from their website to get tokens for around half price too...so 12.5 cents per game. I've never seen any class 80s games at a Chuck E. Cheese though.
You can always do a Google search and find a free online version of Centipede.
Aaah, I love that word...retro...such a beautiful replacement for OLD!!! Yeah...it's retro, I haven't played it since I was a teenager and I'm so NOT that now. I'm not confident that I could kick my children's butts at anything BUT Centipede...and that's only because I'm sure THEY'VE never seen it! :-)
I'm a big fan of retro gaming as I grew up in the 80s, also known as the golden age of video games. From arcade to home consoles, we had it great.
I actually started collecting all the games I had as a kid a couple years ago (mostly Nintendo games) and now have 600 or so different games for the NES alone, not to mention games for a bunch of other vintage systems. I also have a video game blog (http://www.gameroomblog.com).
For a while, I had a full-size arcade cabinet in my living room running MAME (http://www.mameworld.net/), which is basically a computer program that lets a PC emulate vintage arcade games. I had over 5,000 games installed on my MAME machine. My wife hated it because it took up a lot of space and it was an eyesore, so I sold it on Ebay. Now I keep my 5,000+ games on an external hard drive. I can plug the hard drive into any PC, then plug in my X-Arcade (http://www.x-arcade.com/) 2-player joystick and trackball combo, and I can enjoy games like Centipede, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and pretty much anything else you can think of.
A decent blog to read more about Retro Gaming is Retro Blast (http://www.retroblast.com/).>
I would kill play Silent Scope again. If there's not an arcade, I would definately think one could do well! We need one of those game-zone places that have bars/restaurants and are like grown-up adult arcades!
I would kill play Silent Scope again. If there's not an arcade, I would definately ...
We have one of those bar/restaurant/arcade places...it's called Jillians. http://www.jilliansbilliards.com
I've got the Xbox version of Silent Scope Complete. It game with a huge light gun assault rifle. Fun stuff.
Top floor at Circle Center Mall has a pretty decent arcade, lots of recent games. Not much of the Centipede / Golden Axe / Whatev. variety. The best chance you'll have to get your fix on those games is checking out the links from rictor.
Man, I miss going to the arcade. Can't say I really miss parachute pants or zits though.
I miss Block Party. I was there every weekend in middle school.
"King of Kong" is awesome. Great movie.
Just wanted to mention that/agree with Dawn. Sorry, I'm not privvy to where any good arcades are. There are a few cruddy ones around local malls still (excepting the one at Circle Centre, which I haven't been to for a long time but was pretty darn good last time I went 10 years ago).