Jason and the Argonauts. Berserk. The Legend of Zelda for the Nintendo Gamecube. What do all the greatest adventure stories have in common? They have boats.
Yes, it’s not a proper adventure until you’re forced to cross a body of water. That’s why I had to choose a trip that would require crossing the ocean to get to the next town. And by “Ocean,” I mean “The Edge of the Delaware Bay.”
As I was preparing to take to the seas, I heard a kid’s voice behind me exclaim, “I want to play Guitar Hero!”
…you can’t be serious.
Arcades visited: 15
Yeah, they actually had an arcade at the boat pier. Not only did it have the standard Fast and the Furious and retro Pac-man machine, but also Big Buck World and BAGS. It’s not too rare to find the Big Buck games at arcades, but these bowling games are usually reserved for pubs and laundromats. The game lineup here was both very standard and very strange at the same time.
Also, Golden Tee Unplugged another classic pub game. It was unplugged.
They also had a surprisingly upscale multicade machine. This particular one is Global Arcade Classics, produced by Global VR. Global VR is another America-based arcade manufacturer best known for partnering with EA Games for a while and making the short-lived EA Sports arcade adaptions. Other games they’ve produced that will probably sound familiar to anyone following this blog are Welcome to FrightFearLand, Paradise Lost, and one of the recent Aliens arcade games. I say “one of” because Raw Thrills produced a similar Aliens game a few years later, so I’m constantly mixing the two up. Aliens: Extermination is Global VR’s, while Aliens: Armageddon is Raw Thrills’.
Other than those, Global VR hasn’t done much as far as arcade games go. From what I gather, they’ve shifted over to making slot machines.
While I was in the arcade, some guy and his girlfriend were playing the Guitar Hero machine. She kept looking for a specific Queen song that she couldn’t remember the name of. She swore up and down that she knew the song by heart and could pass it easily, but she couldn’t find it on the list without knowing the name. She even went as far as singing a few bars to her confused boyfriend. While leaving the room, I finally took pity on her and told her it was called Bohemian Rhapsody.
She’d have to find out for herself it wasn’t in the game.
With that diversion out of the way, it was finally time to board the boat! It’s been years since I was on a ship. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before, but I grew up in Michigan. The Great Lakes are a big part of our “culture” out there. A couple of my relatives even owned their boats that we’d occasionally go out on. Since there’s nothing else going on, how about I reminisce for a while?
One of my aunts was a nurse and had enough money to keep a motor home permanently parked at a beach-based campsite (it was our old motor home, so it was depressing seeing it become a giant closet). My cousins essentially lived in it during the summer, but my family would come to visit them for around a week every year. While I was largely an outsider, it was always interesting to see the “culture” of the kids who had nothing to do but hang out at a beach trailer park all day. The teenagers would mostly just sit around doing who-knows-what, while the younger ones were free to do whatever the hell they wanted.
When they weren’t running around using the entire park as a giant toy gun field, they’d have to find other ways to occupy their time. Sometimes they’d do random work for the park owners, like picking up cigarette butts for a penny each or burying washed-up fish (that smell will NEVER leave my mind). Other times they’d get a big group of 10-12 kids to sit around in the park owner’s living room and lop around playing Zelda with his kids. There was even a fort up in the woods that was perpetually half-built. They kept talking about how they would improve it but never really got around to it.
Since traveling down the beach, I’ve been waiting for a good opportunity to share my history with it. While I was never at home there like those kids, I’ve still spent much more time at the beach than most people. That same aunt and cousin also lived in Flordia for a while, but that’s a story for another time.
And this sign was a lie.
If you couldn’t tell from that tangent, the boat ride was uneventful. It’s been well over a decade since I’ve been anywhere near the ocean or even the Great Lakes, so getting to travel by boat was one of my top priorities. Being surrounded by nothing but the ocean is a nice feeling. It reminds me of driving through Iowa. I miss having a car.
The clouds suddenly vanished when we crossed the state line into New Jersey. I completely understand why everyone hates New Jersey so much. I’m pretty sure I ended up with a minor sunburn by the end of the day.
Before we hit the shore, I have a warning: This is, by far, the day I’ve been dreading writing about the most. Although I’ll be bitching about Cape May, too, it’s not the reason. No, the real nightmare will be the next post. In the meantime, enjoy listening to me ramble about how much I hate Cape May.
Here it is. We’ve made it to New Jersey. I wonder what we’ll find.
Like the boat, the second pier also had a sign advertising an arcade that didn’t exist. There probably was one at some point. I decided to look up some older pictures of this place to see if I could see what it looked like, only to find that the “& ARCADE” part of the sign was taken down about a week after this photo was taken. Huh.
Since the bus was so far away, I had to take a very long walk through this neighborhood to get to it. Sure, it wasn’t that long, but I’m on my third day of walking here.
Cape May was a complete impulse trip. I didn’t even decide to stop there until the night before. Bethany Beach surprised me, so maybe this one would too?
Salvation came to me in the form of Dunkin’ Donuts. As you may remember from Kansas City, I don’t have a local Dunkin’ Donuts or 7-11, so I always make it a point to stop at them at least once whenever I’m out of town. Krispy Kreme is an acceptable substitute.
Also the bus stop was right in front.
According to this sign, the bus took me right to Cape May. It’s so clean that I feel like I’ve walked onto the set of some kind of musical.
I mean, look at this. How am I supposed to be comfortable in a town like this? All the white painted fences and cute decor…
Come to think of it; this reminds me of Macanac Island. I never did like that place.
No matter where you go, this town is picturesque. Caked in sweat, hunched over from exhaustion, and dragging a filthy piece of luggage down the beach sidewalk is exhilarating, but it makes you feel so out of place here. I miss Omaha. Everyone is dirty in Omaha.
By the way, you’re not allowed on the beach without a pass in New Jersey. If you ever visit, keep this in mind.
Well, here’s one of them. It was called Lucky Birdie Beach Arcade, I think. The woman milling around out front is the sole employee. After going in and taking pictures for a while, she wanted to know what the hell I was doing. I just told her I was updating the internet arcade listings, and she suddenly stopped being concerned. It’s not a total lie since the internet can now see what machines are inside. I’d love to update an actual listing, but Aurcade’s fallen out of use lately. Someone should fix that.
Arcades visited: 16
This is about as close as I got to an establishing shot of the arcade. I tend to forget the establishing shot if I’m disappointed enough by an arcade. It was very clean and organized like the rest of the town. It had a strangely homey feel.
This is a good example. At first glance, this picture makes it look like someone has a bunch of arcade machines in their living room. Even their choice of games manages to contribute to the feel in a strange way.
This is the arcade version of Pounder I mentioned last time. As you can see, it’s pretty much just a scaled-down version of the carnival game.
I don’t know what New Jersey gambling laws are like, but this arcade sure didn’t use tokens. These machines must have been modified to give out tickets. I think I can see a ticket dispenser at the bottom.
Like Pac-man, Sonic got his own themed basketball game. Sonic’s never had much arcade presence, despite being on Gameworks’ tokens. Every once in a while, we’d get a weird release like Sonic Championship or a ticket game like this, but otherwise, there hasn’t been much. In the last few years, there’s been the arcade version of Sonic and Mario at the Olympic Games and two different ticket games, so maybe they’re trying to push him harder now. They really should have done that before Gameworks was downsized to 8 locations…
Back in Bethany Beach, I said that Feeding Time is one game with tons of different incarnations over the years. This is another one. The animal heads on the last version looked nice, so these heads look terrible by comparison. I think they’d look terrible even without the comparison. Look at that poor bird.
This machine is cursed. Every time I tried to take a photo of it, my camera would suddenly refocus. After about six tries, I finally got a somewhat passable one. I suppose with the Minions’ popularity; it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. Surprisingly, this is the first time I’ve seen this machine anywhere. The Despicable Me movies aren’t good.
The trick here is that coffee pots and blenders are things people naturally assume cost 30+ dollars. Google tells me that Proctor Silex coffee pots go for around seven dollars each, while Black + Decker Daily Blend blenders can be found on eBay for about ten dollars new. Curiously, the blender seems to be discontinued. The Walmart reviews are from mid-2016 to early 2017, so the product was likely only available for about a year. Is that normal for blenders?
I didn’t win these tickets. Someone else won them and just left them here. I was tempted to take them, but I figured I’d leave them for the next kid. It didn’t occur to me at the time that the woman working there probably found them before there were any other customers and threw them out.
It’s always pretty obvious whenever an arcade doesn’t have much to discuss because I tend to focus on random ticket games. This arcade had an unusual amount of them. Like, it didn’t even have the usual Raw Thrill stuff. It was ALL ticket games.
The most interesting thing was that they had a legitimate plastic egg machine. I was tempted to get something to see what was inside, but I just wanted to get out of there. Even then, I knew there was very little to say about this arcade.
I still can’t get over how clean and organized this place is. Look at this and try to tell me that it’s not the tidiest redemption counter you’ve ever seen. A part of me wonders if the city mandates them to keep the arcade this clean.
That’s all for this arcade. I’ve made it clear by this point that this arcade isn’t my style. The boathouse feel was interesting, but there were so damn many ticket games. Whatever, let’s try the next one.
This arcade was easily the better of the two. It had a decent mix of ticket and non-ticket games, even if they were standard. Family Fun Arcade is a boring name, though.
Arcades visited: 17
Cool alien dude.
I’m usually careful about not getting caught reflected in the glass when I take pictures. This image was a rare time I’ve been caught in my reflection. I had to crop a clear picture of myself from the door on the left.
Unlike the last arcade, this one feels like it’s been around for a few decades. Change booths haven’t been a standard feature in arcades since the 1980s. Given the amount of wear on the counter and the color scheme, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was when this booth was built. Reviews on the arcade’s Facebook page also mention that this arcade’s been around for as long as anyone can remember. It also has many people complaining about the 90-year-old owner being stingy.
Here’s a better shot of the inside. Yeah, this place is old as hell. It feels like someone’s basement tavern. I dig the wooden prize cases up top. Let’s take a better look at what’s inside.
Now there’s something you don’t see in every arcade. Model ships in a stained wood display case give this arcade a real air of sophistication. God damn, it’s cool.
Let’s see what games they have here that I haven’t already talked to death about. If you can’t tell by the signature dial pad, this is yet another Raw Thrills release. However, it was developed by Spectacular Interactive, the guys behind H2Overdrive and Batman arcade. It shows since this game uses H2Overdrive’s engine. Come to think of it; I’m not sure what happened to Spectacular Interactive. They made three games, then disappeared off the map completely. Maybe they got absorbed into Raw Thrills?
I usually don’t bother taking pictures of the standard Raw Thrills games, but I took this one for size comparison. Aliens Armageddon is so huge that I’m caught off-guard whenever I run into it. This works out well since I discussed this game earlier in the post. THIS is the Raw Thrills Aliens game. The other one is Global VR.
Big Haul Truckin’ was such an insanely popular game in the late 90s they made a sequel! This is Big Rig Truckin’. At first glance, it may appear to be the same game, but you couldn’t be more wrong. Those coin slots between the trucks are new. If you land a coin in one of those, you automatically win the total displayed above. That’s the only real difference between the two. 90s ticket games had a lot of “sequels” with minimal changes, didn’t they?
The wood paneling in this arcade reminds me of someone’s basement. This corner, in particular, feels like it would be more at home in a smoky tavern.
These are some modern-ish Pokerino machines. Since they’re primarily black and yellow, like the change counter, I will guess they’re from around the same era. The early 80s? They are newer than the vintage ones I keep running into, anyway. Like Skeeball, these older Pokerino machines are very easy to maintain, so they linger in arcades long after everything else has been rotated out.
Here’s another testament to this arcade’s age. Take a look at those signs up top. This arcade used to have multiple ticket colors. Normal tickets were 3 points, silver was also 3 points, and gold got scratched off. I wonder if this means they had a provider that sold rolls with multiple colors of tickets mixed in or if different machines were stocked with different ticket colors. Either way, this system hasn’t been used for years. I highly doubt that tickets are even worth more than 1 point each anymore. That sign’s probably been hanging there since they opened.
And that’s that for Cape May. It was a quick stop on my way to the day’s real destination. I’ll get to that in part 2. I’m not looking forward to having to write about that place. You’ll see why next time.
