So today, in Denver, we find ourselves way out on the outskirts of town. This is another arcade I wasn’t sure if I would have time to make it to, but ultimately it didn’t turn out to be a problem. Denver’s public transportation is great.
I want to emphasize again that this one was way out in the middle of nowhere. There wasn’t even a sidewalk, just a crosswalk leading onto some grass. Just what kind of arcade will we find out here? A unique one, that’s for sure.
As I walked through this tiny town, I saw all sorts of random small businesses along the side of the road. For example, look at this spa and printing place. The two are crammed together so close that they share a single sign between them. As someone who lives in the middle of a city that’s been very chaotic this past year, these small towns make me nostalgic.
But enough about that, let’s find the arcade.
…oh.
Yeah, this place would be extremely easy to miss if you were to drive by it. It’s in the same building as the spa, there’s no sign above the store, and the roadside advertisement is in a small corner of the printing place’s sign. In their defense, they did have this garage sale-esque sign trying to inform people that, yes, there actually is an arcade here.
This is Channel 3 Gaming Center, formerly the most obscure arcade in Denver. As you may have guessed, it didn’t survive the extensive lockdowns in 2020. Unlike many other dead arcades, the owner made it clear he refused to reopen under the county’s heavy restrictions on these sorts of places. He says he still intends to resurrect Channel 3 Gaming Center once everything blows over, but who knows when that will be.
EDIT: It reopened in 2022. Good on you.
So… This is it, I guess? It’s not the smallest arcade I’ve ever been to, but I can’t shake the feeling this used to be a bait shop. Like most other arcades in Denver, this is a pay-at-the-door place where 11 dollars will get you unlimited play to your hearts’ content.
It’s very hard to get a good establishing shot, like a lot of arcades lately, because the building is just so damn small that they had to get creative with the layout. There’s this area, a couch area, and two cramped storage rooms in the back that have been converted into extra space to hold machines. I honestly don’t think they could fit another machine if they wanted.
By the way, this is the second Virtua-On machine we’ve seen in Denver so far.
The thing that made this place really memorable was the atmosphere. You could tell immediately what kind of place it was, just by the large number of kids who came here to hang out after school. It reminds me of my younger days, when I had a small arcade/miniature golf place a few blocks away from where I grew up. You could go at any time of the day and meet a bunch of other kids playing DDR. I honestly thought that would be an experience lost on modern kids, but before my very eyes I saw proof of the next generation getting to enjoy such a hallowed ground of their own (granted, they mostly hung out in the console area).
This is the reason I share my experiences when visiting these places. Photos alone may capture the layout, but they don’t capture the essence.
Over in the console area is a custom arcade machine that houses an N64 and Wii. I just wanted to mention it before I forget because it was cool.
Around the arcade were several video screens displaying footage from their most recent Super Smash Bros tournament, with interviews with the local winners and such. What a beautiful thing.
If it isn’t extremely obvious from the photos so far, Channel 3 doesn’t have much budget for decorating. They had to get pretty creative. The whole place gives me a bit of a flea market vibe. It reminds me a bit of DeLeo’s Pizza here in the Twin Cities, but without the slightly ironic vibe.
There’s also a very, very old-looking jukebox that provides the music for this venue. I’m afraid I can’t remember exactly what was playing during my visit, but you can probably imagine what songs are on here just from the decor.
I get the feeling the owner is a collector who had a lot of this stuff in his basement, like the Pac-man Fever record here. Now that I’m thinking about it, I wouldn’t be surprised if he just had an arcade in his basement that he decided to turn into an actual business. I know there’s at least one collector in the Twin Cities whose basement arcade has way more machines than this place.
By the way, I estimate there were 30 machines here.
Holy crap, it’s Togepi! I fucking love Togepi! This arcade is the gift that keeps on giving.
…oh, right. I suppose we should take a look at the games they had here. I wish I could say they were as interesting as the atmosphere, but they really weren’t. There are still a few neat surprises mixed in, though.
Let’s start here with the fighting game wall. These machines are all up against the window, so there’s a nasty glare. From left to right, they’re Marvel vs. Capcom, X-men vs. Street Fighter, Marvel vs. Street Fighter, and Marvel vs. Capcom 2. I’ve seen arcades with all four House of the Dead games, all four original Mortal Kombat games, and one particularly strange one with all four Cruis’n games, but I never dreamed I’d see an arcade with all four classic Vs. Series games (Galloping Ghost notwithstanding).
I’m a bit curious whether the older entries get played at all when they’re sitting right next to the newer ones. I think they just wanted to flaunt that they had them all, personally. If you ever find an arcade with a complete set of a particular series, it’s usually a sign of an arcade with character.
Also tucked away in the corner was Street Fighter II Turbo.
And Street Fighter Alpha on the other side. Oh, and what’s that we have next to it? That’s right, an actual Samurai Shodown II machine! Believe it or not, a handful of early NeoGeo MVS games did have dedicated cabinets like this.
Samurai Shodown II, in particular, is my favorite fighting game. It wasn’t before this trip, but I played a LOT of Samurai Shodown at different arcades while I was in Denver. Lots and lots of NeoGeo out here. That’s a stark contrast to what we have here in the Twin Cities. It’s further proof we got no taste out here.
And it seems they didn’t have enough fighting games to round out the Fighting Game wall, so they just stuck Golden Axe and Rampage here and called it a day.
Moving on, this wall is where they put a lot of the miscellaneous games. Before we get to that, take a look above. If you remember, the sign outside advertised itself as a used video game store. Well, there’s their entire stock of used games up there. I believe kids could also request to play any of these games on the consoles while they were here.
Now we’re getting into the more interesting stuff. Virtua Cop 2, in particular, is the main reason I ended up visiting this arcade, to begin with. It was pretty out of the way, and most photos showed standard stuff I’d seen before, but this caught my attention. You don’t see these around very often anymore, despite how common they were in the 90s.
If you’re unfamiliar with Virtua Cop, it was one of Yu Suzuki’s revolutionary early 3D titles like Virtua Fighter and Virtua Racing. But I’m sure you could tell that much from the name (then again, Virtua Tennis exists…). Sadly, Sega’s other major light gun series, the House of the Dead, proved to be much more popular and ensured this wouldn’t be a long-running series. The two franchises couldn’t be more different in terms of mechanics. While HotD is more about judgment and accuracy, Virtua Cop is more speed-focused. Each enemy only takes one shot to dispense, but there are often 5-6 of them on the screen you must dispose of immediately. It almost feels like a target-shooting minigame at times.
I ended up playing through the entire game while I was here. Who knows when I’ll run into another one?
Oh yeah, Turbo Out Run. Back in the early 90s, Out Run had two sequels. The other one was Outrunners, which I’ve talked about before. The short version is that Turbo Out Run was retooled to play more like a standard racing game, which Outrunners dialed back. Finally getting to play the infamous Turbo Out Run for the first time, I can see why people didn’t like it. It just doesn’t feel good to play. Out Run’s physics don’t lend themselves to racing against other cars.
Here’s Xybots and Shinobi. In retrospect, Xybots is another game I saw three or four times in Denver.
I’d probably be much more excited to find a Ghosts and Goblins machine if I hadn’t seen Ghouls and Ghosts at a barcade two days ago. Have I told the story of how I got scared and hid the NES version under a blanket when I was a kid? I forget.
Fun fact: “Zaxxon” is the name of the robot dragon boss!
Rounding out the front room it’s Micheal Jackson’s Moonwalker and Smash TV (not pictured: an NBA Jam and Golden Tee machine next to them). It’s been a while, but I remember this Moonwalker having an LCD screen for some reason. Maybe it’s my imagination.
So here’s the back room I mentioned before. There’s Galaga, Q-Bert, Klax, Pac-man, and Rolling Thunder. I can’t remember the one on the far left, but if it were something rare, I’d have taken a better shot of it. Not much to see back here, despite how cramped it is. There is one machine I want to call attention to, though.
I bet you didn’t know this existed. Here’s Q*Bert, Mello Yello edition! It’s a super, super rare variant of Q*bert with product placement. Between levels, Q*bert drinks a nice, cold can of Mello Yello. There’s also a 7-11 version where he drinks a Slurpee!
So here we are in the other back room. I guess this one is less of a “room” and more of a “small corner.” This is where a lot of standard stuff like Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros Vs., and Mario Bros are housed.
It’s been a while since we’ve run into a PlayChoice-10, so let’s see what they had back here. Lots of Multi-player games, it seems. Where are 1 and 2, exactly?
Remember two posts ago when I talked about having the itch to play Gradius? Well, the original arcade version is rare these days, so that was never going to happen. Instead, here’s Gradius Vs. It’s the arcade port of the NES port of the arcade game.
I’ll take it, even if I don’t understand why it exists.
So there you have it. The late Channel 3 Gaming Center, as I saw it that day. I can’t believe I nearly passed this one up. It may not be the best arcade I’ve ever been to, but one of the most memorable. You can tell the arcade didn’t have much to work with, but it did everything in its power to make the place inviting. Everything from the wall-to-wall cheap decorations to the local community events. These were some of the happiest kids I’ve ever seen at an arcade. I’m happy I got to show it to anyone who happens to be reading. Who knows? Maybe in a decade, one of these kids will stumble upon this blog post and remember how special this place was to them.
EDIT: Again, the arcade managed to re-open, so these closing thoughts feel a bit premature…
Every arcade I went to in Denver has a unique flavor that’s completely unlike any others. There are only four arcades left on our journey. If you’ve been following along, you’re probably wondering what those last four could possibly be to live up to some of the absurdity we’ve seen so far.
I’ll give you a hint: If you thought Denver’s Gameworks was a dump, just wait until you see this next place. It’s glorious.
