Seaside Arcades

[Brats]

Has anyone here visited a Seaside arcade recently?

As a spur of the moment thing, my family and I went to Hunstanton on Sunday to enjoy a sunny day by the sea. Whilst my wife and the nipper were making castles in the sand, I sneaked off to check out the many seaside arcades.

To my surprise, they were all excellent. Clean, well lit, friendly and with most machines in fully working, decent order and without large cigarette burns on the fascias (a far cry from most city arcades).

I wasn’t expecting to see VF4 Evo and Initial D there, but I was pleasantly surprised with the selection and the prices. Compare the following:

Three Hydraulic Scud Race cabs (including 1 twin cab) in fully working order - 50p per credit
A Rave Racer twin cab (the one that never received a home conversion) - ?1 for five credits!
Original Outrun cab in fully working order – 20p per credit
Time Crisis 2 – 50p per credit
Point Blank – 20p per credit
Silent Scope 1 and 2 - ?1 for three credits
Daytona four player cab - ?1 for five credits!
Virtua Tennis 2 - ?1 for three credits

Bare in mind that the first two are amongst the best arcade racers ever and not that common, I was pretty chuffed and spent well over 2 hours clocking up faster lap times. I think I spent about ?5 in that whole time.

To be fair, Hunstanton is one of the nicer seaside towns, but before we all say last rites for the death of the British arcades, note that all of these places (and there were many of them) were doing a rip roaring trade.

Something to learn for the future of the arcade industry maybe?

[AllYourBase]

I went to Hunstanton a month or so ago and didn't see any of that. But I had a nice game of air-hockey at an arcade near the beach. The rest was mostly fruit machines, 2p sliders and time crisis clones.

Blackpool has some good arcades still, if you like the retro selection!

[Siri]

The only thing memorable at Brighton (the local arcades to where I live) in terms of arcade machines is the two KoF (I think it's '99 and 2k) machines that are ?1 for three credits

Other than that, There's a VF4 cab (not evo), and a Tekken 4 cab, complete with a cocked-up button layout. fantastic.

But then again, they opened a spiffing new arcade with all the latest games. Only sports titles and lightguns mainly, though. I hope they'll put in some decent beat-em-up games there in the future.

Until then, there's always VF2 on the pier.

[C']

Three Hydraulic Scud Race cabs (including 1 twin cab) in fully working order - 50p per credit
A Rave Racer twin cab (the one that never received a home conversion) - ?1 for five credits!

Where is Hunstanton? A Rave Racer cabinet for 5 credits for ?1 is a major find and one I'm willing to travel a great distance for

[rjpageuk]

I have been to Clacton, Great Yarmouth and Felixstowe a few times over the past year and they are all pretty grotty arcades.

Most of them had one or more (esp. in the case of Yarmouth) recent machines but the prices were certainly higher than those you quoted Brats.

I expected to pay ?1/go for any Time Crisis (1 was sometimes 50p/go). Point Blank was 50p/go.

The only bargain I managed to find was a HOTD with 3 goes for ?1.

Most, if not all of the racing games were ?1/go.

Pretty sad really.. I was all ready to spend ?20 odd quid, but with those prices I spent hardly anything.

I ended up putting 20p into Hyper Sports which was only 10p a go, gave myself the biggest blister I can remember in living memory, and went away happy complete with the 3rd best record for the long jump

[SharkAttack]

Seaside arcades are underatted. As a kid I always put seasides and arcades in together - I was surprised when I saw my first non seaside arcade!

Southend isn't too shabby. Got some pretty up to date machines and some classics.

[PeteJ]

I was in Newquay last week and the (many) arcades there seemed quite good. The biggest one I went into had Time Crisis 2 & 3, Scud Race (2 player), GTI Club, Police 247, a number of DDR machines plus the usual Sega Rally\ Daytona setups. Was fairly dark, but at least it was mostly smoke free.

Scud Race was only 30p a credit, but after two 2-player games I wasn't very impressed. I remember seeing it in Edge all those years ago and thinking it was the best looking thing ever, but having now seen it in real life...meh. It's no Daytona.

[Brats]

Scud Race was only 30p a credit, but after two 2-player games I wasn't very impressed. I remember seeing it in Edge all those years ago and thinking it was the best looking thing ever, but having now seen it in real life...meh. It's no Daytona.

What car did you use? The easy car (the Porsche I think) is fairly slow and dull and grips the road too much. I use the F40 = powerslide-o-rama 8).

I think its a very similar game to Daytona in many respects except the handling is even more out there. The Model 3 graphics have obviously lost their sheen now, but when it came out (remeber this was around the same time as VF3) this was .

Where is Hunstanton? A Rave Racer cabinet for 5 credits for ?1 is a major find and one I'm willing to travel a great distance for

In Norfolk, about 20 miles north of King's Lynn. The Rave Racer can was in the arcade near the fun fair. As someone has already said, there are loads of fruit machines and other chaff, but enough arcade machines to keep this punter happy .

[Ghost]

Hayling Island's arcade is pretty good, here are some of the games I remember

Scud race
star wars trilogy
Lost world
Outrun
Metal slug
Metal Slug 2
Virtual On (although I think that has sadly gone now)
Sega Rally
Time crisis 2
Silent scope

Thats all I can think of off the top of my head and the prices are good too, usually 30p a go or 5 for a ?1, newer machines though are ?1 a go though.

London is the best place though.

[jezzace]

I agree Hayling Island is a pretty decent arcade, but I spend most of my time on the star wars game there. Its much better then the crazy-money southsea arcades where its ?1 for one credit on Time Crisis 2. However they did have an excellent two player game in one of the arcades there I forget the name of it. Maybe someone can help...It was a robot shoot 'em up where you hold the gun and push it in the direction you want to move, in other words you steer by moving the gun. It also took your picture and displays it above your character so you can pick out your mate and just go after him.

[superkully]

Wouldn't it be cool to have a website where you put in your postcode and it showed you any arcade cabs nearby, how much they cost and comments on their functioning etc. etc.....

Even a sticky topic would be good.

[Ghost]

I agree Hayling Island is a pretty decent arcade, but I spend most of my time on the star wars game there. Its much better then the crazy-money southsea arcades where its ?1 for one credit on Time Crisis 2. However they did have an excellent two player game in one of the arcades there I forget the name of it. Maybe someone can help...It was a robot shoot 'em up where you hold the gun and push it in the direction you want to move, in other words you steer by moving the gun. It also took your picture and displays it above your character so you can pick out your mate and just go after him.

Yeah the Southsea one is dreadful, at least they do have F355 Challenge.

[Miyamoto_San]

Southsea does have a Pump It Up machine though!

[Smeghead]

I find most seaside arcades well priced I was chuffed to bits to find Sega Rally 2 at 30p for 3 credits in Scarborough (dunno if machine was borked but I was gettin 15mins outta 30p!!!! ur looky to get 5 for a quid normally

[Neon Ignition]

Blackpool has gone awful for arcades. Nearly everyone has been taken out for stupid Millionaire machines and the like totally killing them dead. Some strong hunting let me find Metal Slug 1 and 2 but that was it.