After a night of showering, sleeping, and watching cartoons, it was time to set out.
Ocean City is a small boardwalk town located somewhere in the middle of the Delmarva Peninsula. The entire town is built on a stretch of land just off the mainland coast, surrounded by ocean and beach on every side. When I crossed into town last night, I passed by ten or twenty fishermen casting their lines off the side of the connecting bridge. Several high school-aged kids and younger were riding their bikes toward the beach. I had the feeling that this was everyday life for the people living near the coast.
A murky day like this one puts me in the mood to explore some arcades. This entire boardwalk is lined with tacky gift shops, food places, and other tourist-grabbing facilities. It was exactly like I’d always imagined. I’ve been wanting to come here since I was in high school, but I’ll save that story for a time when it’s more relevant. For now, let’s explore the boardwalk.
Cheap souvenir shops like this make up the majority of the boardwalk. Take this Cool Topics store, for example. If you walk about ten shops down, there’s another Cool Topics T-shirt store nearly identical to this one. Tourists don’t care where they’re buying their cheap T-shirts from, so the only way to compete in this business is to have so many of them on the walk that people are more likely to wander into your business than someone else’s.
This is what we came to see. The very first boardwalk arcade we’d encounter would end up being a pretty good indicator of what they’re all like. They have that kind of minimum budget feel that you don’t get from any other arcade. They can’t do anything fancy with the building, so they saturate it with signs, gaudy paint, and loud noises. I’d love to give you some detailed history of this specific arcade, but a lot of the local arcades move and change hands so often that many of them don’t have any idea how long they’ve been around. For all I know, this place could have been built last year.
Arcades visited: 1
The first thing you see when you approach the building are a couple of plush machines stuffed entirely with Pokemon toys. As I’m sure you know, it always warms my heart to see Pokemon prizes at the arcade. 20 years ago everyone swore that it was just a passing fad. Once something manages to cross the generational gap like Pokemon, it’s here to stay.
Also, holy crap it’s Togepi. I love Togepi. These claw machines are probably some of the tightest you’ll see anywhere, otherwise, I’d have probably blown 30 bucks trying to win it.
Here’s another sight that’s strangely common in these arcades: The ominous hall of claw machines. It’s exactly what it sounds like. Instead of spreading these things around the arcade, they just line them up in a hallway like this. I think the claw machines are something of a local pissing match between the local owners, each wanting to have more than every other arcade in the area. I don’t know why else they’d all need ten or twenty of them.
Going through my photos, I realize I didn’t get a good establishing shot of this place, so you’ll just have to piece it together in your imagination. If the outside shot doesn’t give it away, these boardwalk arcades are big. Most of the games inside are just ticket fare, though. I like the Speedway sign here trying to make it look like the arcade has actual sections. It would make even more sense if it wasn’t closer to the Transformers game than the actual racing games.
The one I have to mention is Cruis’n Blast there on the left. You’ll find that game at nearly every single boardwalk arcade on the East Coast. This one has the volume turned way up, so that the attract screen music can be heard throughout this section of the arcade. It’s tradition for every Cruis’n game to have cheesy title screen music that repeats the name of the game over and over, but giving the newest entry a dance-pop theme seems to have been the right call. This arcade REALLY liked using it as background music.
Here’s another variant of the “coin pusher that drops cards” machine that was just released this year. This one’s a bit different than you’d expect since it plays more akin to a pachinko machine than a coin pusher. The entire game is played in that circle on the back. Depending on the number you hit, the machine drops a few coins into the pusher part and gives you a few tickets. From what I’ve heard, this game has multiple sets of collectible cards going at once, with new sets released regularly. It sounds like a pain in the butt to collect seven specific cards when there are 14 or more that can drop. This is why I don’t play coin pushers anymore. Also because I have no self-control when it comes to them.
This is another coin pusher from last year that I either haven’t seen or haven’t paid much attention to. Unlike most modern coin pushers, there are no collectible cards. Instead, your objective is to push over those colored chips you see hanging off the edge. Each one has a specific point value, etc. I’m mostly getting these out of the way early because every single boardwalk arcade is loaded with coin pushers of every type. As fun as coin pushers are, they eat up your cash fast.
Over in the back corner of the arcade is this strange little area. The rest of the arcade is so dense with machines that they probably couldn’t find anywhere else to fit the air hockey table. The haphazard superheroes stuck on the wall give a lot of personality to what would otherwise feel like a storage area. If there’s one thing I can say about this arcade, it’s that it can do a lot with a little.
Look, it’s an American 18 Wheeler! There’s nothing particularly rare about it, but I don’t know of any in Minneapolis (or do I…?). There are a few games, like this one, that I will end up running into a lot throughout the trip. If it feels like I’m not talking much about any specific game, it’s probably because I’m saving it for the next time I see one. I’ve got to spread the commentary out a bit, you know?
In the meantime, I’ll share an interesting fact: Three different versions of this cabinet exist. Look forward to seeing the other two soon.
No matter which arcade you go to, you can’t escape Time Crisis.
What do you mean, “this isn’t Time Crisis”? Look, Time Crisis 4 is right there in the back!
In all seriousness, this is Razing Storm. You’d never know just by looking at it, but it is part of the Time Crisis series. The home port even calls it Time Crisis: Razing Storm. The main reason it’s not considered a mainline Time Crisis game is that it uses machine gun-style light guns instead of the standard pistol shots. I guess they figured it was too much of a departure to classify as Time Crisis 4. Or maybe the Time Crisis franchise is the only light gun series Bandai-Namco can get to stick, so they shoehorned an otherwise unrelated game into the series? Either way, this isn’t the only Time Crisis spin-off. I’ll need to add the other one to the list of games to keep an eye out for. (EDIT: Haha, it turns out I already made a post about an arcade with Crisis Zone)
Arm Champs II, from 1992. This is easily the oldest game in the arcade by at least half a decade. This arcade isn’t very old judging by the selection of games, so it’s not a relic of an older era that somehow stuck around. It’s a machine that they actively chose to buy, despite their age. I guess the novelty of an arm wrestling game was enough to overlook the 16-bit graphics. This game’s probably changed hands four or five times in the last 25 years, but it’s still kicking. Hang in there, Arm Champs II.
Snivy is waving hi in the background.
Assume that this game is at every arcade from here on, even if I don’t take a picture of it.
I don’t know why I bothered to take a picture of Nascar Racing, but it also has a clear shot of the prize shelves above. The whole arcade was filled with these.
No, really. The whole arcade was filled with redemption prizes. If there’s one defining trait of boardwalk arcades, it’s the redemption prizes. They all use every inch of extra space to cram in more and more ridiculous prizes. Standard toys, vinyl trash, Ocean City souvenirs, bikes, blenders, and who-knows-what-else. This is only the tip of the iceberg. These arcades will shove anything into their prize wall. Even though I began getting burned out on beach arcades near the end, seeing all of the ridiculous stuff you could exchange for tickets kept me going.
I take back my earlier comment. This is the oldest machine in the arcade. It’s so old that nearly every result I get when searching for it turns up videos of people using this machine in this arcade. I did manage to find one other image of this thing. Given the box’s ugly brown colour, I’m going to go ahead and guess that this machine is from the 70s. As I mentioned earlier, Ocean City has such a long history of arcades that there are a ton of ancient machines floating around. This is the first of many.
To commemorate my trip’s first arcade, I grabbed a tacky souvenir. I love the enthusiastic advertisement for free pennies. This machine ate my quarters AND my penny. I got a refund but didn’t get my penny back.
Back down the boardwalk, we go. Way at the very end of the beach is a pier containing a small amusement park. This pier is one of the most iconic parts of Ocean City. You can even see the Ferris wheel on their pressed pennies.
The closer you get to the amusement park, the fewer tacky souvenir shops you’ll find. In their place are carnival games, eateries, and other such amusements. The seagulls are restless. That means a storm is brewing.
The Ripley buildings look so cool. I wish I had gone to one of them, but I had an entire beach to walk down before the downpour started. I’ll just have to settle for this picture of a shark tearing through the building.
Here’s our next stop: Sportland Arcade.
Arcades visited: 2
On the surface, it looks pretty similar to the last one. That’s because it is pretty similar to the last one. If I had to guess, this arcade was probably built a couple of years after Fun City, since the games feel much more recent overall. This arcade does have one striking feature that you can’t see from the outside…
The ceiling in this arcade is really, really high. You could easily stack three or four of those claw machines on top of each other and still have space. They don’t let this extra wall space go to waste, thanks to these massive glass cases covering most of the walls. It gives the arcade a strangely futuristic look to balance out the fact that it’s built in a crappy warehouse.
Sometimes I take pictures of machines I haven’t seen before at random, just in case I learn something interesting about the machine after the fact. That’s why my posts often contain those image dumps at the end. You see, I’m very deeply regretful that I didn’t get more pictures of Circus Circus’ arcade when I was there. There were loads and loads of rare machines in there that I didn’t bother to photograph. I swear, one of these days I’m going to pay someone to photograph the rest so I can do a proper blog post about it. I did NOT do that arcade justice.
Hollywood Reels is a case of my just taking a picture without any idea what I was going to say. After thinking about it for a bit, I decided to look up who the hell was still making token-rolling games in 2008, long after most arcades had switched to swipe cards. It turns out that this game was made by a fairly obscure company known as Jennison Entertainment Technologies. Keep this in mind for later.
UPDATE: This paragraph originally rambled about the racing game articles I briefly attempted. Those no longer exist on this blog.
The one and only DDR machine in Ocean City. From what I hear, Fun City and the next arcade we’ll be visiting both had machines until earlier this year, but both were removed around the same time. Dance machines and beaches don’t get along well, because the sand tends to get into the pads and ruin them. It’s a pretty easy fix, but a lot of arcades don’t have mechanics who care enough to keep them maintained.
This arcade also had a small corner dedicated to air hockey. Those vending machines in the back make this area look like one of those crappy game rooms that hotels and rec centers usually have near the pool. It reminds me of a bit of Pinball Hall of Fame too, for some reason.
That’s also one of the coolest-looking air hockey tables I’ve ever seen. I’m a sucker for neon lights.
Oh right. Time Crisis 5 was released in late 2015. The other games in the series are so common that I completely forget that the fifth game exists. I’m not as knowledgeable about light gun shooters as I feel I should be. Maybe I should do a write-up on them once I get bored of writing about racing games.
The wall of light gun games. That’s House of the Dead 4 in the back and the original up in the front. I feel like I’m back in Vegas.
I love how half of the Pokemon branding in town is “Pokemon GO”. I hate to keep telling you what to expect later in the trip, but a few arcades down the road take it to a hilarious extreme. I’m also a big fan of gen 4, so seeing Turtwig in there makes me happy.
Wait, is that My Little Pony in the other one? Is that show still around?
Sportland puts that gigantic ceiling to good use at the prize counter. I don’t know if it’s the biggest redemption wall I’ve ever seen, but it’s certainly the tallest. If I owned this arcade, I’d put a castle tower on either side and dub it “the prize fortress”.
This is perhaps the only arcade I’ve ever been to that has room for this game. It’s a very, very, very big version of Hot Shot Basketball. For size reference, that thing next to it is one of those hurricane simulation booths, so it’s a few feet taller than an average person. I think this machine is primarily meant for amusement parks.
That’s everything of note from Sportland. The rest of the arcade is so modern that it’s full of the same machines you see everywhere else. With nothing of interest here, I decided to start searching for the next arcade.
Found it.
This is Marty’s Playland, the biggest arcade in the city. This isn’t just any arcade; this one is special.
Arcades visited: 3
Marty’s Playland has been operating since the 1940s. It’s one of the oldest arcades in the entire country. You wouldn’t know it by the front of the arcade though, since it looks more or less the same as the last two. Let’s have a quick look through before getting to the back area.
I got kind of fixated on the back area and forgot to take a good establishing shot of the front. It looks exactly like you’d expect, but with a bit of a tiki theme. Here’s a picture from Google images if you’re curious. I link that picture with a disclaimer: It doesn’t look nearly as impressive in person.
Also, this is Operation G.H.O.S.T, the sequel to Ghost Squad.
Here’s a slight update to NASCAR Racing called “NASCAR Team Racing”. I think it was EA Sports’ last attempt at entering the arcade market before they gave up. I wonder what the arcade scene would be like if they took off.
It’s hard to tell what this is at first glance. It’s a coin roller game based loosely on the old “Let’s all go to the lobby” advertisement. The condiments, straw dispenser, and napkin holder grabbed my attention. They don’t do anything, but they make the machine so much more memorable than it would have been otherwise. Again though, I had to wonder who the hell would produce a token roller in the late ’00s.
If you guessed Jennison Entertainment Technologies, you’re right. Both this game and Hollywood Reels were JET’s doing. What’s surprising is that these two games somehow share a continuity. According to the official description of Intermission (the name of this game), the plot of this game is that snack mascots have taken over Hollywood Reels’ theater lobby. I’ve got to admire their attempts to introduce lore to a pair of games where you try to roll a coin into a hole.
The cola bottle she’s holding on the sign is the same one floating around in Space Ballz (the arcade game, not the movie), another of Jennison’s games. I guess interconnected “plots” were their main gimmick?
With those aside, let’s see the back of the arcade. Although this arcade is ancient, it keeps its games so up to date that it’s mostly indistinguishable from any other arcade on the beach. However, they do still have a handful of ancient games in the back that have somehow managed to stick around.
Did you think I meant 80s video games? We’re going back quite a bit further for these. I can’t find an exact date on them, but they’re pre-digital so they were made sometime before the 70s. This machine was first produced in the 1930s, so they could be from any year between. These are the sorts of games arcades had before video games were a thing.
Back before they could utilize complex electronics, crane games, or digger machines as they were called, were purely mechanical. A simple claw would lower itself, close, raise itself, then open. The only input a player had was a turn crank that would rotate the crane-like digger claw. I’m not going to pretend like I can accurately date these machines either, but they’re probably from around the same period as Pokerino.
The vintage Skeeball machines were the only other antique games they had laying around. I think these machines are from the late 60s, just after ticket dispensers were first invented. They could also easily be older machines that had ticket dispensers added to them. Marty’s Playland has a website displaying information about all of its vintage games, but it’s broken. You’ll just have to trust my vague estimates.
That was a fun diversion, but I don’t like trying to talk about games from eras I’m not versed in. Let’s look at a few other, more modern games tucked away in the back before moving on.
This one’s Final Furlong, one of those large interactive machines that were popular in the 90s but take up a lot of space and are hard to find replacement parts for. Stumbling upon one is always exciting because most arcades just threw them out after breaking enough times. Somehow, Marty’s has managed to keep this one around.
I didn’t take this photo for the air hockey tables, but for that crazy 80s wallpaper. It feels like an 80s arcade in this corner. My first reaction to the Time Out boxes up top was “wow, I haven’t thought about Time Out in ages.” Then I remembered we have one in a local mall. And I’ve written a post about it.
The last thing of interest was a set of arcade bowling lanes. These things have always fascinated me. They’re not the kind of game you’d see in a normal arcade, but there are so many versions that there must be a big market for them.
I had planned to do a few more arcades, but these three went on a lot longer than expected. Let’s continue in part 2, alright?
