What was your 1st Arcade Experience?

[BLUEVOODU]

Thinking back... a long time ago or even more recent times... what was your 1st arcade Experience?

For me... it was awhile ago.  I cannot say it was my 1st experience, but it was the 1st and most profound experience.  I was on a trip with my parents and happened across a new Super Mario Bros arcade machine.  I was hooked.  From this point on, I was hooked to arcades.  I had played other games on older home consoles, and enjoyed them.  There was something about Super Mario Bros that just resonated and clicked well.

What about you?  Thoughts ... comments... Post it up!

[retro junkie]

I have a slightly different experience at the arcades than, I think, everybody on this forum. 

I remember pinball machines lined up. There was the pitch the ball into the basket, pitch the ball into the hole sort of stuff.

And I remember the driving game. It seems that it was sort-of like pole position. The screen was lit up by a light bulb in the back. You had a steering wheel to control your car, which you could see the shadow of the stick that the car was attached to. You had a pedal for the speed. You simply had the movement of left to right. Cars would pass by in a definite pattern. When you hit a car, there was this violent heavy bump, intense vibration, you could feel in the steering wheel. Something actually hit something inside that stand-up. Enough to make it feel like you actually hit something. It was all mechanical. On screen you could see the projection of ground, road, and other cars moving that gave you a "feel" that you were going forward.

I remember the time it got a video game, it was pong. You could not play it by yourself, you needed someone like a friend or some stranger that was there in the arcade.

Pinball dominated before the era of the video game cabinets. I saw the change. By the time that video game cabinets became the dominating force, I had a job and was living in my apartment, still single. Shmups was first before the fighters in my local arcade.

[targetrasp]

Showbiz Pizza was my first and most favorite arcade experience. Mid 80's birthday paradise. Ball pits, bubble hockey, air hockey, skee ball, and all the Ms. Pacman, Qbert, Pole Position, etc. you could play. The animatronics were an afterthought, just something you got to watch while scarfing down pizza too quick so you could get back at running around like a crazy person playing everything.

Pinball was prevalent as well and I probably enjoyed it a little more than most my age. It was always cool when your favorite movie was made into a machine but Pinbot stood out over most others.

There was also the Williams Slugfest. It was a pinball like machine set up like a baseball field. It was a quarter an inning and it pitched a pinball and where you hit it determined the results of that at bat. The coolest part was when it was released it dispensed baseball cards. later they were converted to dispensing arcade tickets, but the freaking baseball cards were the draw.