Las Vegas Pinball Hall of Fame

Recently, a trip to Las Vegas Nevada was made by your humble narrator, so of course I had to stop by the Pinball Hall of Fame.

Pinball Hall of Fame

This unassuming building houses big fun out in the desert. It was dark, loud, and no one was smoking! Lots of people were there playing pinball on a Thursday afternoon. They had a large amount of games that were all set on FIVE balls per game. Most of the games were 25 cents, some were 50 cents, and a very few were 75 cents (TRON Legacy).

Here's a short description from their website:
"The Pinball Hall of Fame is an attempt by the members of the Las Vegas Pinball Collectors Club to house and display the world's largest pinball collection, open to the public. A not-for-profit corporation was established to further this cause. The games belong to one club member (Tim Arnold), and range from 1950s up to 1990s pinball machines. Since it is a non-profit museum, older games from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s are the prevelant, as this was the 'heyday' of pinball. There are no 'ticket spitters' here (aka kiddie casinos or redemption). It's all pure pinball (and a few arcade novelty games) from the past. And since it's a non-profit, excess revenues go to non-denominational charities."

As usual I took lots of pictures, here are some of the better ones and you can view the entire set HERE.

Some modern pins.

Batmans.

Big Buck Hunter Pro. Why can't THIS game be in every venue that has games, instead of the gun version!

Star Trek.

KISS

Gottlieb Street Fighter II

Street Fighter II playfield.

Fight again.

Popeye.

Wizard!

 

Say NO to Drugs. Users are Losers.

 

MIBS.

The Pinball Hall of Fame has lots of well maintained classic arcade games also.

The X Files pinball was super fun!

A Gottlieb Challenger!

The Pinball Hall of Fame is great spot to hang out in Las Vegas, while having actual FUN inexpensively! Recommended!

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Special When Lit

"I would hate to be 95 years old and look back on my life and say, 'You know, what I really wanted to do was play pinball, but gee my mom told me that I should get a career.'" - Rick Stetta

In getting myself hyped for my upcoming trip to the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas, I picked up this little documentary, Special When Lit.



It's pretty rad and well done, it covers the whole history of pinball up to the modern day. It talks about the Las Vegas Pinball Museum, the Paris Pinball Museum, the tournament scene and PAPA. Lots of interviews with manufacturers and collectors.
I must say, having grown up in the 80's, I didn't fully realize how big pinball was in the 70's. This film gives a good view of that era.
Here's some pics of the DVD that arrived from London a mere four days after I ordered it!

I like the way the DVD looks, it has a commentary track on it also, I'd say it's worth grabbing. Although if you don't feel like shelling out the cash for it, Hulu has the whole thing online!
Enjoy!

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Arcade Perfect Contest #1

This contest is closed! Thanks for playing!
 
It's time for our first contest! We are giving away some cool prizes, all you have to do to enter is follow @Arcade_Perfect on Twitter and tweet:

"@Arcade_Perfect I want to win free stuff from http://www.arcadeperfect.net/"

Or you can follow us and click this tweet button:
Tweet

Once we reach 100 followers, we will chose two winners at random, the first winner will get to pick his/her prize out of the two prizes and the second winner will win the other prize. The contest is open to everyone worldwide.

Prizes:
Prize 1: 
SNK Characters 2 - All About Illustrations - Japanese import art book. Published 2001.
Full color - 125 pages.
This is a fantastic SNK book with art from King Of Fighters, Samurai Spirits, Garou: Mark of the Wolves, Metal Slug, Last Blade, SVChaos, etc.

Prize 2:
Capcom Illustrations: GAMEST MooK Vol 17 - Japanese import art book. Published 1995.
Color and B/W - 160 pages.
This is a nice Capcom book with illustrations from a large selection of games including Street Fighter 1 & 2, Street Fighter Alpha, Final Fight, Darkstalkers, Cyberbots, Captain Commando, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, Quiz of Dragons, and a whole bunch of other random art. Lots of interesting stuff for a Capcom fan!

Here's a little video showing the books off. It's a little sea-sickness inducing, beware ^.^


Good luck to everyone! If you don't win this time, don't worry, we have more contests coming!

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USA Tekken Net

Namco Bandai has revealed the sites for upcoming Tekken Tag Tournament 2 location tests in the USA.
The locations are as follows:
Funworks in Honolulu, HI
Super Arcade in Walnut, CA
Round 1 in City of Industry, CA
Arcade UFO in Austin, TX
Next Level Arcade in Brooklyn, NY
As of today the USA is also connected to the worldwide TEKKEN NET.
You can register here: http://exam.tekken-net.jp/tag2/

Tekken aside, this is important news for arcade enthusiasts in the US, as Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is the first arcade game to be networked worldwide. We almost didn't get it. It was thanks to much complaining and arguing with Namco that we are being included in the worldwide Tekken Net. Arcade games in Japan have been networked for years now and it's a big part of why they are still popular there.

Namco is a huge player in the arcade scene and if they make money off of networking their games here, we, (in the US), might see more networked arcade games in the future. Which, in turn, can only be helpful in the arcade revival (not to mention the future of US Tekken). Wouldn't you like to play arcade games with a worldwide high score table? I would! Even if you don't live close to a location test, or care about Tekken I think it's a good idea to at least sign up!
That's all for now! Support your local arcade!

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Southtown Arcade

This past Sunday was our first trip to Southtown Arcade in San Francisco. Southtown opened in May of this year and I was very happy to go support a NEW arcade in Northern California!
Southtown is a fighters-oriented arcade with a lot of good titles running on Japanese candy cabinets. It's pretty small, but it is in San Francisco, so the rent is probably outrageous. The vibe is chill and everyone there was super friendly. They had some cool beats on the stereo system, but not too loud. Even though the focus is fighters, they also have puzzlers, platformers and at least one shmup. I didn't see any beat em ups, but aside from that they seem to have something for everyone if fighter's aren't your thing.

The main attraction of the arcade is their King of Fighters XIII machine. Southtown has been running tournaments on it all summer and the day that we showed up was the last one. Iplaywinner.com has been streaming the events and they had a nice setup with a TV on the wall showing the stream.

Here's what the tournament looked like on the day we were there, if you watch long enough, you can see myself and DoctorC getting pwnt by some locals. I think I did pretty good considering it was my first time playing XIII, it's too bad we didn't have time to stay for the losers bracket though.
(The whole tournament is in three parts. This is part one.)
Part 2 Part 3

Watch live video from IPLAYWINNER on Justin.tv


Here are some pictures we took of the arcade.

Southtown Arcade

Some Namco Noir style cabinets.

The King of Fighters XIII!

New Astro City's

An IREM Madonna!

Some Namco Cyberleads.

A Jaleco Pony Mark IV cab.

A Namco Exceleena II running some crazy version of Street Fighter II.

NEO-CANDY......Aww yeah.

This is the stream/commentator desk, the TV is showing the stream.

They also sell shirts...

Quarters.

They had a Puyo Puyo game! So awesome!

From what I can tell, they run the arcade in the traditional way, switching out games frequently.
They maintain a list of games currently in the arcade HERE.
Southtown Arcade gets extra points for having the best name ever. If you don't know, the name comes from the town in the SNK universe, Southtown.
I found this interactive map of Southtown while I was writing this. It's rad, check it out.

It takes guts to open a new arcade in the USA these days, the next time you're in San Francisco, drop in and show some support.
Oh, and btw, everyone that says "arcades are dead"....that place was packed, so stop spouting memes.

Support your local arcade!
Long live Southtown!

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Round 1 USA

(This post is for AKG ^.^)
I took a little trip to Round 1 in City of Industry, California last week.
Round 1 is a large amusement company in Japan, with over 100 arcades in that country.  The California location is the first one in the USA and only opened in 2010. Hopefully there are more coming.

Aside from the arcade, Round 1 also has bowling, darts, karaoke, billiards, ping pong, and a restaurant. It's inside the La Puente Hills Mall and it is massive.

Round 1 entrance

The arcade itself is a Japanese style arcade, with  lots of candy cabinets, super deluxe games, super deluxe UFO catchers, purikura photo/sticker booths, air hockey tables, and tons of redemption games. They have quite a few games that are hard to find elsewhere, including Technika 2, Raiden IV, Tatsunoko vs Capcom, Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion, Elevator Action Death Parade, and Super SF IV.


Everything runs on an overly complicated card swipe system. Some games cost credits, or you can buy unlimited games by the hour. Bemanistyle.com has a pretty good explanation of the pricing HERE.
I'm not a fan of card swipe systems, but the system at Round 1 works surprisingly well. I went ahead and bought the club card for an extra $5 and it looks classy, plus they gave me an awesome Round1xHello Kitty keitai strap!

Round 1 Club Card

Club Card rear.

Hello KittyxRound 1 keitai strap.

Anyways, here are the rest of the arcade pictures :)

The redemption center has lots of GOOD prizes!

UFO catchers galore!

A 100" super deluxe Terminator Salvation.

Super Street Fighter IV cabs.

Some candy cabinets.

A mega Mega Stacker.

Initial D Arcade Stage 6

Dead Heat

More candies.

Some shooters.

They have DJMax Technika 2! I didn't get a chance to play, because I was kinda short on time and the line was long, but it looks awesome!

Technika 2 cabs!

An alternative to putting your token up.

Technika 2 again.

Even MORE candy cabinets :)

Smart Smacker.

Round 1 has some serious UFO catchers, some of them cost $5.00 USD to play! It's a casino for kids!

Kitty catcher.

Rilakkuma catcher.

Snack catcher.

Ice Cream Catcher

Wonka Sweetland.

More UFO catchers.

There's a lot more going on at Round 1 than I could get pictures of, the place is seriously gigantic. I really hope they build one of these in northern California soon!

Here's your list of games :)
Fruit Ninja FX
Mega Stacker
Smart Smacker 50
Pump it Up 2011 Fiesta EX
Dance Dance Revolution Extreme 2
Guitar freaks XG
Drum Mania XG
Pump it Up PRO
Super Street Fighter 4 Arcade Edition
Guitar Hero Arcade
Terminator Salvation
Sega golden Gun
Typhoon
Galactix (redemption)
The fast and the Furious Super Cars (4p)
Initial D Arcade Stage 6 (4p)
Midnight 3 EX Plus
Hummer Extreme Edition
Tank! Tank! Tank! (4p)
NASCAR Team Racing (4p)
King of the Road Harley Davidson (2p)
Mario Kart Arcade GP 2 (2p)
Nirin (2p)
Dead Heat (4p)
Elevator Action Death Parade
Pump it Up 2010 Fiesta
Dance Dance Revolution Supernova 2
Sega Rally 3 (2p)
Need For Speed: Carbon (2p)
H2Overdrive (2p)
Let's Go Jungle
Let's Go Island
Ghost Squad Evolution
Razing Storm
Outrun 2 SP (2p)
Nicktoons Nitro
Panic Museum
Big Buck Hunter: Open Season
Big Buck Hunter Safari
RAMBO (the shooter)
Deadstorm Pirates
Metal Slug 5
Guilty Gear xx
DJMax Technika 2
Raiden 4
Shikigami No Shiro episode 3
Virtua NBA
SVChaos: SNK vs Capcom
Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike
Marvel Vs Capcom 2
Tatsunoko Vs Capcom
AfterBurner Climax
House of the Dead 4
Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion
The King of Fighters '98 Ultimate Match
BlazBlue Continuum Shift
Street Fighter 2: Hyper Fighting
Hammer 2


That's all for my review of Round 1. I thought it was an absolutely wonderful arcade and would recommend it highly! I wasn't able to get any tokens this time, if anyone has any they want to part with, please let me know!

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