DISCLAIMER: These early Las Vegas entries were the first blog posts I ever did. They’re VERY antiquated compared to the rest of the blog.
Some people, who will remain unnamed, are more interested in things like “scenery” than all of these beautiful arcade games. Since this is a training retreat, I need to get back in shape. What better way to do that than by walking all the way down the Strip?
Here’s as good a place as any to start. This is SLOTS A FUN. It’s about the size of a large bar. “Large-ish bar” is an excellent way to describe this place. It’s not much of a casino.
I think SLOTS A FUN is owned by Circus Circus since the two buildings are basically attached. Back in the day, they handed out pamphlets full of coupons here, but now there’s just a half-price ticket booth. At one point, they once had Las Vegas’ biggest slot machine. It was a small slot machine whose display was wired into a giant electronic billboard, so it was only largest by merit of “biggest screen.”
I can’t remember what used to be here other than a fountain. Whatever it was, it’s gone in favor of a flashy Mcdonald’s.
Here’s all that remains of the Riviera. This place had a long history of financial problems that finally caught up to them. I didn’t even realize it had shut down until I took this picture. It was kind of a raunchy place compared to Circus Circus, but we still wandered in here because it was across the street.
I know where most of Riviera’s arcade games went, but we’ll get to that another day.
This church is in a weird spot, but this picture doesn’t do it justice. I think this place used to have the “Pray or become prey” sign from BECK’s opening.
Speaking of which, the lot right across the street is where Stardust used to be. With Stardust and Riviera gone, Circus Circus and Slots a Fun is in the middle of nowhere with this Church.
There are two parts to the strip: An older part (mostly just Circus Circus these days) and a new one with everything else. Between them is a Mexican shopping district, a wall, and a Trump casino looming ominously in the distance. Of course, the “wall” here is just a construction lot fence barring where Stardust used to be. Trump’s building is just sitting behind an empty field now.
Along this end of the strip are a bunch of advertisement stands for escorts. I’ve noticed that Asian hookers don’t appear on the covers anymore. Maybe tastes have changed since the last time I was here.
I couldn’t get a good photo of this place, so I had to pull one off the internet. The name of this place is Fashion Show. It took me a while to realize that it was just a gimmicky name, not an actual fashion show. Let’s see what’s really inside:
It’s a mall. It’s an ordinary mall. They do a thing where they have models walk on a runway that comes out of the ground in the middle of the building, but it’s a lot less impressive than it sounds. It’s just an ordinary mall with a poor theme. Fashion Show is proof that you should never judge a building by the outside.
This is the most impressive-looking CVS I’ve ever seen in my life. Moving on.
Yohoho! After an eternity of walking in the blazing sun, we reach the first themed Casino since Circus Circus! This is Treasure Island, a casino with a pirate theme on the outside. The inside is far less committed to the gimmick. Why does a pirate casino have a wild west gift shop? As we’ll find out later, the actual old west-themed casino doesn’t even have one of those anymore.
On the bright side, the outside is impressive. They have a big pirate show on this boat, but I was never around at the right time to see it. I did see a water show at some other Casino by chance, but it wasn’t impressive. Water just splashed around for 10 minutes.
By the way, the entire sidewalk in front of Treasure Island is a wooden boardwalk.
Senor Frog loomed over the pirate ship.
An Italy-themed Casino. Google says it’s called the Venetian. You wouldn’t even notice the casino if not for this vast pool full of boats because it’s built into a bunch of other casinos. I’m honestly unsure where it begins and ends since I just used their walkways.
This is the Paris. You can’t take pictures of the gaming floor, so I couldn’t get a picture of the inside, but the legs of the tower “break into” the Casino. Hang on; I’ll see if I can google a pic…
Cool, right? There’s a restaurant at the bottom of each leg. There was an elevator into the tower, so there must have been something in there too.
The Flamingo. As you can see, this was taken later in the day. I wrote this place off as an unremarkable casino with a pink theme, so I didn’t bother getting a shot of it the first time. I decided to wander in to see if they had an arcade…
HOLY SHIT!
OH MY GOD!
YES, YOU ARE THE BEST CASINO EVER!
There’s a giant bird room in the center of this casino! They usually have Cockatiels in the lobby, but there was a sign saying they were on vacation. Look at that bird proudly eating the moth he snatched out of the air: Godspeed, tiny bird.
This is The Mirage. I’m not entirely sure, but I believe the name is because the building is a giant optical illusion. The casino is built into a giant Y-shape. The windows of each side reflect the rest of the building, making it look sorta-kinda like two intersecting buildings.
Or it’s just supposed to look like a desert oasis mirage. I don’t know. I didn’t build it.
The inside looks like a tropical paradise. There’s also a dolphin habitat in the back that you have to pay to get into.
My camera hates taking pictures of things behind glass, so I had to google this picture too. That’s a real fish tank behind the hotel registration desk, full of saltwater fish. They had a bunch of clownfish, blue tangs, and something that resembled an ugly discus fish. I get the “desert oasis” thing they were going for with the trees, but the exotic fish don’t seem to tie into the theme.
There are 4-5 rows of these tiny one-room shops outside the Paris. It was like walking around the front booths at an Arizona swap meet, except without the bootleg merchandise.
Right in the middle of everything, there’s this row of kitschy-looking versions of popular restaurants. It’s hilarious, but my photos don’t do it justice. I especially like the bright pink Outback Steakhouse.
Here’s M&M World and World of Coke. Didn’t there use to be something in the middle? We’ll worry about that tomorrow. Just know that M&M World isn’t nearly as fascinating as it looks. It’s just a giant M&M gift shop. World of Coca-Cola is similar, except…
For eight bucks, you get two trays containing 16 foreign coke-produced drinks. Now they’re speaking my language.
Most of them tasted terrible. The Japanese drink tasted more like sweet orange juice than soda. On the other hand, the Korean “Sprite Ice” was the devil’s work. Imagine if you took normal Sprite and added an acidic burn to it. Why would they make this? It doesn’t taste different from normal Sprite outside of the horrible over-carbonation.
The New York, New York, is one of the most infamous casinos in Vegas. There’s a lot going on inside. There’s a roller coaster, a Reese’s World store, and a whole lot of other stuff. It’s one of the most over-the-top casinos in Vegas.
After walking into every blasted Casino on the strip, I finally found one with an arcade. Let’s see what they’ve got.
As soon as you walk in, the first thing that draws the eye is Jurassic Park: The Lost World, Jurassic Park III, and the New Jurassic Park right next to each other. They tied the machines together by putting a bunch of dinosaur wall clings above them—A for effort.
Broken ITG. Judging by the buttons, this was a Supernova machine at some point. Let’s move on.
I like to think whoever decided on the pinball lineup just asked himself, “What’s hip with the kids these days?”
These two needed zombie wall decorations.
Two machines from the early 2000s. These two were among the most common ticket games at the time. While you still see Titanic occasionally, Austin Powers is so culturally irrelevant that most arcades have sold them off. Then again, this is the same arcade with a Metallica pinball machine.
I was worried that my trip down the strip wouldn’t leave me with anything interesting to talk about.
Okay, you all know the story of In The Groove, right? There was a DDR simulator called “Stepmania” that was popular in the early 00s. That simulator was turned into a commercial game called ITG, which eventually got sued by Konami.
From what little I know about Re-Rave, it’s made by at least some of the creative talent behind ITG. This time, instead of cashing in on DDR’s popularity, it’s a clone of the button-tapping simulator, OSU. Re-Rave plays identically to OSU but differentiates itself enough to avoid a lawsuit. Even things like the dragging notes are carried over to this game. The only new feature I saw was that notes would sometimes float around for a bit after you hit them, then require hitting again after a few seconds.
If this whole bit sounds strange, I’ve had to rewrite it four or five times. I’m trying not to offend anyone here.
Whatever, let’s go to the final stop on the strip: The Excalibur. Most Casinos keep their theme confined to their exterior and lobby, but that’s not the case here. The Excalibur goes all out with its castle, giving everything silly names like “The Fun Dungeon.” This is a fun place in general.
Something tells me this is a Namco arcade.
Oh yeah, it’s a Namco arcade. You can tell because their DDR Extreme machines have notoriously awful pads.
This is the first Pump It Up machine I’ve seen since getting here. We have too many of them in the Twin Cities, but it’s refreshing seeing one here. The attract screen for this version of PIU was advertising a Pump It Up trading card game. I wonder how that worked?
It’s a bit hard to see from the pic, but they shoved a tiny TV into this machine, so the graphics only take up a fraction of the screen. What’s most astounding about this is that they had TWO of these. Both are running the same game. Both with an undersized monitor shoved in.
A real-life Whac-a-Mole machine. I think you can customize the music on these since the last time I saw one, it played MC Hammer’s “Can’t Touch This.” This arcade was pretty big, but it mainly was ticket games like this.
So with that, I decided to head home to rest for the end of the first day. I had walked to Excalibur and back. Sure, it’s only three and a half miles, but it’s a lot longer when you keep getting lost in various casinos along the way. I made sure to finish sightseeing on the strip in one day since I’ve got more important matters to attend to.
