My trip to Chuck E Cheese

[Darklighterx]

Astounded to see such expensive and relatively new arcade units in a Chuck E. Cheese!

 

[TonK]

Coincidence?

I was at Chuck E. Cheese last Sunday with my wife, daughter and my father-in-law's girlfriend and grand kids... (Christ, that sounded like Boog )

Anyway - The only game that I could play that didn't have a black kid on it was NASCAR pinball.

The O.G. Chuck E. Cheese from like '85 was MEGA BOSS.

I remember LINES of arcade machines.

And the motherfucking cheese slide.

 

[Shawn Carr2o]

Coincidence?

I was at Chuck E. Cheese last Sunday with my wife, daughter and my father-in-law's girlfriend and grand kids... (Christ, that sounded like Boog )

 

[NeoTheranthrope]

Dammit, you bastards made me go and remember the Circus Circus casino's upstairs mezzanine fucking uber-arcade, circa-1990. Quite possibly, the best arcade in the western hemisiphere at the time and one of the few things that made growing up in Las Vegas not completely suck.

Shit, I just want to go and get blind drunk now.

Bastards

 

[andy251203]

Oh man, I remember that ghost game. It had different colored ghost and they went from room to room and you had to shoot them in a certain amount of time. I have no idea what it's called, but I played the living crap out of that game. From what I remember, it got pretty balls hard later on in the game.

Now I'm going to be on google all night trying to find out the name of that game.

I think the game you are talking about is namco's Golly! Ghost: http://klov.com/game_detail.php?game_id=7980

 

[ki_atsushi]

After Burner Climax is dope... even though I have no idea how to play it very well. I tried it out in Tokyo last month.

I had fond memories of Chuck E. Cheese back in the day, where I played Gorf, Leprechaun, Tugboat and Gyruss... but I think the most fun I had was at my other local pizza places in town. One was called Pistol Pete's Pizza (been gone for a while) and another is still around (Peter Piper Pizza).

Did you guys have the puppet band setup? It was cool to watch that at Chuck E. Cheese back in the day... was my favorite part when I went there.

Holy shit, you still have a Peter Piper? That's great!

The one in my area was bought out and changed to "Pizza & Pipes" (LOL stupid fucking name), and a year or two later it completely ceased to exist.

 

[SSS]

the mini neo 2 slot I bought at auction recently had quite a few CC tokens rolling around inside. surprisingly the cab is in excellent shape like no ones played it. yet the credit counter says otherwise

 

[Jedah Doma]

Definitely have. Much more kid safety conscious than ever before, with people trying to sue anyone at the drop of a hat. Are there even any 2-story Chuck E Cheeses around any more? I see most these days are one story.

Jedah, that's cool man. Glad you enjoyed the evening. Yeah, it's funny how an innocent "why the hell not" night often turns out more memorable than those heavily planned evenings. Ironically, last month I too hit CEC for the first time in years. It was my niece's 4th Birthday bash and ya know what, all in all it wasn't bad. Caught up with the cousins, played hoops, etc.

Have you ever walked into a Toys R Us today? Def. not the same. Long game and toy aisles been replaced with lame "hubs." I stopped by over the holiday season and couldn't believe the state TRU is in these days. Even just 4 years ago, they weren't so bad. Hell, you could still get Dreamcast stuff back in 2004 at TRU. Nowadays, they are a far cry from the TRU of old. A la EGM.

The TRU near my old house shut down and got renovated into a Babies R Us.

We've got one left out east, but it's just not the same.

Children's Palace > Toys R Us

I think the game you are talking about is namco's Golly! Ghost: http://klov.com/game_detail.php?game_id=7980

HOLY CRAP! THAT'S IT!

You're the Robert Stack of NG.com.

 

[LoneSage]

I think the game you are talking about is namco's Golly! Ghost: http://klov.com/game_detail.php?game_id=7980

you're my hero.

 

[GregN]

The one in my area was bought out and changed to "Pizza & Pipes" (LOL stupid fucking name),

+

People who eat pizza usually don't work out. Most restaurants don't allow pipe smoking, either.

 

[chris1]

I'm going to Chuck E Cheese today..Fuddruckers first since the one I go to also has an Arcade in it..

The Chuck E Cheese I usually go to was so messed up the last time I was there,they were renovating the place but kept it open while doing so..(stupid)

I'm curious to see what it looks like now since it should be finished..

 

[aria]

That was G-Lock.

What he said. I remember playing it at the Luxor.

Chuck E Cheese, Showbiz and Atari's Nolan Bushnell all have an intertwined and interesting history --I recommend reading up on it.

We had both, then just Chucky Cheese. I loved that place as a kid. My dad would lift me up to press the buttons as he would control the ship or guy or whatever. Those are my first memories of playing a video game.

 

[aria]

Dammit, you bastards made me go and remember the Circus Circus casino's upstairs mezzanine fucking uber-arcade, circa-1990. Quite possibly, the best arcade in the western hemisiphere at the time and one of the few things that made growing up in Las Vegas not completely suck.

Shit, I just want to go and get blind drunk now.

Bastards

w3rd, I remember they had arcades in several other locations (like the small one in the middle of that big staircase)

I remember playing so many games for the first time, the right way (with all the players being used, with lots of people watching): Rampage, TMNT, etc...

 

[GregN]

I remember at the xband gatherings in the mid 90s we would go to Circus Circus in Brooklyn Park, MN. Bumper cars, and tons of awesome games like Double Dragon II, Ninja Warriors, In the Hunt. Quality times.

 

[Kunai]

Holy shit, you still have a Peter Piper? That's great!

The one in my area was bought out and changed to "Pizza & Pipes" (LOL stupid fucking name), and a year or two later it completely ceased to exist.

Yeah, they're still all over Arizona. My sister, who lives in California, always wants to go to eat there because they just don't have any where she lives. It's been called "cardboard pizza" from some of my friends, but I still love the way it tastes.

I do miss Round Table Pizza, though... last time I had that was when I visited friends in San Jose.

Hell, I miss pizza in general. Pizza in Japan sucks, mainly because they don't use tomato sauce, and they put weird stuff in pizza... like mayonnaise, corn, squid, shrimp and other strange stuff.

 

[Arcademan]

After Burner Climax is dope... even though I have no idea how to play it very well. I tried it out in Tokyo last month.

I had fond memories of Chuck E. Cheese back in the day, where I played Gorf, Leprechaun, Tugboat and Gyruss... but I think the most fun I had was at my other local pizza places in town. One was called Pistol Pete's Pizza (been gone for a while) and another is still around (Peter Piper Pizza).

Did you guys have the puppet band setup? It was cool to watch that at Chuck E. Cheese back in the day... was my favorite part when I went there.

Peter Piper Pizza (based in Scottsdale, AZ) bought out the Pistol Pete's Pizza chain a few years back for a song and a dance (about $160,000 per location) and converted most of them to their own stores. Pistol Pete's had carousels and many of them had gotten the rights to Billy Bob and the Rock-a-fire Explosion shows, which Piper took out when they bought the stores.

The last of the old Pistol Pete's in Arizona is in South Phoenix, now known as Pepi's Pizza. Same classic pizza and many of the old games and stuff. How do I know so much about it? I worked for Pistol Pete's and continue to work at Pepi's Pizza, now going on 19 years

 

[Moon Jump]

I haven't been to the newer Chuck E Cheese that opened up by me. Even if I did I doubt they'd let me in. My brother went with his friends a few years ago when he was in his early 20's and they told them to leave.

My friends and I just went to a Nathans by me that has a FunZone attached to it. It's got one of the only Rock-A-Fire Explosion bands in use on the east cost. They needed work. Most of the characters didn't move at all, they just moved side to side with the music. It was so disappointing after seeing the YouTube videos.

The thing that sucks with the FunZone is how they upped the prices. It's still 4 tokens for a buck, but they made all of the games two tokens or more. A game of ARKANOID is 3 TOKENS. The coolest thing they have is this Shootout Hockey game where you use paddles instead of the little hand puck thingy.

Other then that, most of the games don't work, but they keep them on so you dump money in them and the place is crawling with tons of people and it's hard to move in there.

 

[NeoTheranthrope]

w3rd, I remember they had arcades in several other locations (like the small one in the middle of that big staircase)

I remember playing so many games for the first time, the right way (with all the players being used, with lots of people watching): Rampage, TMNT, etc...

Yeah, at one time (95'? 96'?) they had arcades in four different places, the uber-huge one upstairs in the mezzanine (which is a sad shadow of it's former glory), on the centerpost of the spiral ramp leading up to the mezzanine (Long gone. Mostly it specalized in multi-player stuff: TMNT, Simpsons, ect), the secret one downstairs next to were the buffet used to be (It was pretty decent for a lot of years, even after the others went to shit, until they closed it. Mostly it had fighters and gun games), and the one in the Adventure Dome (which is still there, now an example of the "typical" casino arcade).

 

[SouthtownKid]

What he said. I remember playing it at the Luxor.

I must be wrong, and I know I've played G-Lock as well, but I could have sworn when I was in Japan there was a gyroscope Afterburner II as well.

 

[Arcademan]

The totally enclosed R-360 cabinet used the G-Loc program in the United States and Strike Fighter program in Japan, later released as After Burner 3.

A round satellite version that went around 360 (but not eclosed and upside down) was Galaxy Force. In retrospect, Sega made some rather cool moving sit-in games while their upright counterparts of those games weren't too terribly impressive.

 

[mainman]

Nowadays, they are a far cry from the TRU of old. A la EGM.

You made me cry with that reference because its so true. I want gamefans and gamers republic back too. I guess the truth here guys is that we are all dinosaurs slowly turning into our parent with our once upon a time stories.

 

[Poison Sama]

You made me cry with that reference because its so true. I want gamefans and gamers republic back too. I guess the truth here guys is that we are all dinosaurs slowly turning into our parent with our once upon a time stories.

I always found EGM to be pretty terrible review-wise, even back in the day (their review of AoF3 is the first thing that comes to mind). Their rumors usually turned out to be true though.

Now on the other hand, GF and GR were pretty much spot-on with most of their reviews, at least when compared to my personal tastes. GF/GR is still around, but they go by the name of "Play" now.

 

[Mushiki]

It's G-LOC, as in "G-force Induced Loss of Consciousness".

 

[chris1]

ChuckE Cheese tonight( rte 23 totowa NJ

WOW! did they add alot of Awesome (some huge) Arcade machines that I never saw before..Some huge ass Light green Car Racing machine with like a 40 inch flat screen....All top of the line shit,pinball,dual seater car racing games..Some new type sit in Afterburner machine ...
and I'm hapy to see the Blast City cab was still there fully fixed up..
BUT the place was so crowded that you could not walk 1 foot without bumping into someone..think Sardines or front stage at a concert..I could not even get a good look at the games without climbing over someone..
..There were no seats available and half the place had a party going on..(forget about trying to order a pizza/you had nowhere for them to bring it to)
We got some tokens from the machine and we didn't get to play anything..
..Everything basically had a hoard of people around it to play it..There was no order,once someone jumped off someone from the pile jumped on/pushing shoving..inwhich sadly there were a lot of Rude ass teanagers and Adults playing/cutting off people to play the machines..)I hate seeing an adult on a game with a pile of little kids waiting to play..
Alot of Ghetto ass Mofos that just go there for cheap gaming/no kids or family with them.Playing the FN kiddie games on top of it...

One kid just stood on the afterburner putting in token after token..My Son wanted to play it but the kid was locked in this game,he wasn't getting off...
I was getting steamed,I could not even move around..It was INSANE!!..We just packed it up and left...and there was a line to get in..We could't even get out,
I just tore that FN movie blocker thing and pushed my way out.

This place was way past it's legal amount of people in one building ..(hot as hell inside too with all those people)

Remind me no to go to there again on a Saturday afternoon..

 

[Kunai]

Peter Piper Pizza (based in Scottsdale, AZ) bought out the Pistol Pete's Pizza chain a few years back for a song and a dance (about $160,000 per location) and converted most of them to their own stores. Pistol Pete's had carousels and many of them had gotten the rights to Billy Bob and the Rock-a-fire Explosion shows, which Piper took out when they bought the stores.

The last of the old Pistol Pete's in Arizona is in South Phoenix, now known as Pepi's Pizza. Same classic pizza and many of the old games and stuff. How do I know so much about it? I worked for Pistol Pete's and continue to work at Pepi's Pizza, now going on 19 years

Wow... that's cool. I didn't know about the fate of Pistol Pete's. When I come back to visit in AZ, I'll try to find a Pepi's Pizza. I lived in Tucson, and my family and most of my friends are there, but I want to try and visit Phoenix for a couple of days to see a few friends I haven't caught up with in a while.

And yeah, I plan to eat a lot of pizza. *lol*