My arcade game memories

I was a child of the 80s and 90s so arcades were a big thing then.I was born in 1979 so gaming literally grew up with me

The earlier memories i have was during the era of games like superman the arcade game and r-type i only had computers like the spectrum and arcade games were just so much better then anything they could do. I always remember the smokey environment and loads of cigarette burns and ash trays everywhere. But then the 16 bit era came and console games started looking more and more close to the arcade games.Back then my dad would play fruit machines and when he won i would help my self to his winnings :)

But then in the early and mid 90s you had games like final fight and the game that probably changed my life which was streetfighter 2 one of my fav games ever and still remember practicing.

But then things moved on you had tekken/killer instinct/aliens vs predator some really classic arcade games but i found with arcades it is not only what games they have  but how they took care of the machines ....far far to often i would come across games which had a dodgy stick or buttons and it used to really annoy me.

So i loved arcades as mentioned in a previous blog they are a shadow of there former self but i still believe they could come back but in a different form and i would love to do that ...and if i had the money i would.

Think i should mention the games that had a big impact on me.

R-type i remember seeing this in a pub and thought wow i just loved the detachable part of the ship it was so unique.

Streetfighter 2 ...amazes me that at the time i struggled to do a dragon punch but still i first saw it when we had a stop off from a school trip to london i was amazed never saw a 6 button layout and after that i saw it in every arcade.

Final fight saw this at the same stop as i saw streetfighter 2 was just amazed how satisfying the fighting was and the look of the game.

Virtua fighter first time i ever saw 3d graphics like that and it just felt so unique

Aliens vs predator i never realised there was a crossover and what i loved is there was some scope for combos so you could string some special moves together.

Metal slug i had never seen animation like that before and had great sound

Samurai showdown heard a bit about the neo geo but seeing this game in person i was blown away but how good it looked and was great fun to play

Killer instinct 1 and 2 i think as far as arcade games that had a big impact these two were the ones that affected me most it looked just so far ahead i was amazed plus i love combos so this was awesome.......also was the games i bunked off college to play