The story so far: I went to the arcade, but it was closed.
It’s fine. That last arcade had some fantastic games, but it was just a theater in a mall parking lot. The mall itself has another arcade. I’m not sure what to expect from this place. I know it has a DDR machine and something about minigolf.
So the general gist of this place is that there are two main floors and a small “basement” food court. It seems simple enough. The arcade is supposedly down there in the food court, but let’s look around first.
FYE still exist? I have many good memories of buying anime at one of these back in high school, but I didn’t know they were still around. The inside was pretty much what I remember: Movie cutouts, assorted merchandise, Japanese snacks, etc. There was also some jpop song playing over the speakers, but nobody seemed able to identify the recording I made of it.
It was my favorite toy as a kid. I think I got mine from a swap meet, but the toy was a big enough deal to still be in production. In this toy, three penguins go up the ladder, slide down, then repeat. I usually just had the three penguins fight against each other. The black penguin seems to be missing.
Kemps, makers of the best chocolate milk, is an ice cream place. That would explain why their chocolate milk is so good. This is easily the best ice cream I’ve had in years. They understand how to make strong-flavored ice cream.
You’ve got to be kidding me. I didn’t know about this when I came here, I swear. I’ve been putting off writing about Chuck E Cheese’s since I started doing these articles. The day will come eventually, but I’ve got more important things to write about today. I swear I’ll come back to this one eventually.
This is what we’re here for. Tilt was once a prevalent chain of mall arcades, but only 23 still exist in the country. In recent years, they’ve expanded to a series of fun centers called “Tilt Studio.” I’d like to see one someday, but they’re all in such weird places that I doubt I’ll ever get the chance.
As soon as you walk in, you can hear it. There’s no mistaking the noises coming out of these machines: This is the sound of a completely authentic late 90s arcade. It’s a sound that creates an overwhelming feeling of belonging. Don’t be fooled by the above picture: This arcade is enormous. It’s wall-to-wall games from the 90s and early 00s.
…and the first picture I took happens to be of a 2007 game, completely undermining my point. That’s Paradise Lost, a politically incorrect machine gun game that opens with you shooting the ever-loving hell out of a bunch of primitive natives who seem to be angry that you’re flying a noisy helicopter around their village. If you’re ever at this particular arcade, don’t play on the player’s one side. The gun is broken and doesn’t aim right. The other thing is Deer Hunting USA from the year 2000. It’s Big Buck Hunter, except several years earlier.
Now, THIS is podracing—Star Wars Racer Arcade, to be exact. Most people are probably more familiar with the deluxe version, but this standard version does exist. Made by Sega, the same team behind the popular Star Wars Trilogy Arcade, this game was made to cash in on the hype surrounding Star Wars Episode I. This is one of those games you’d see at every arcade when it was first released, but ithas since become hard to find. I’m unsure whether that’s because Episode I is considered dated by today’s standards or if the machine just had a lot of hard-to-replace parts. Note that player two is missing a part of their left control throttle.
Here you see the cluster of four showcase fighting game cabs sitting around in the middle of the arcade. This one is SVC CHAOS: SNK vs. Capcom, not to be confused with Capcom vs. SNK. When Capcom and SNK agreed to do a crossover, each made their own version of the game. SVC CHAOS is SNK’s interpretation of what a crossover with Capcom would be like. As you’d expect, it plays more like a King of Fighters game than a Capcom fighter. My favorite part about this game is that if you do well enough, you get one chance to fight a super boss with bad AI. One of the awesome bosses summons a giant cockatiel, so Goddess Athena’s okay by me. Please make her playable in the next King of Fighters.
Speaking of Capcom vs. SNK, it’s right next to SNK vs. Capcom. If you’re familiar with the other games in the VS series, you probably have a pretty good idea of how this one plays. I’ve always wanted to get better at fighting games, so I can go into more details about these, but my fighting game controller was stolen in the mail.
This machine wasn’t working, but it’s Tekken 4. I spoke to the guy running the arcade, who confirmed that this game usually works.
He also tells me that almost none of these games are running in the original machine, so you get things like Tekken 4 being stuffed into what used to be an NBA Showtime machine.
Rounding out the quartet of fighting games, it’s Soul Calibur II! I was thinking about how I hadn’t seen Soul Calibur in ages, and here it is! Soul Calibur’s claim to fame is that the combat is weapon-based instead of martial arts. Soul Calibur was popular enough to be the only non-DDR game to have tournaments at my local arcade growing up.
It’s SNK vs. Capcom and Capcom vs. SNK! They wouldn’t be that redundant. It’s a Marvel vs. Capcom 2 next to SNK vs. Capcom. I’m sure you’re wondering why any arcade would need two copies of a cult game like SNK vs. Capcom. The answer is pretty interesting:
This specific Tilt location isn’t some relic from the 90s that somehow survived. It was built in 2007. Since so many Tilt locations have closed over the years, they have a vast warehouse full of old games lying around and use this place to get some use out of them. During the Christmas season, every game here goes up for sale. Very few are ever bought because nearly all of them are broken or running on crappy hardware, but at least Tilt’s doing something with the machines. That’s why there are so many duplicate machines lying around.
This place is heaven.
And our last giant fighting machine is another Soul Calibur II! I checked with the manager to ensure that this was Soul Calibur II and not something else since it was clearly out of order. Those marquees haven’t exactly been honest so far.
I found my first Silent Scope machine in years a few hours ago, and suddenly there are three more of them, including the sequel. It makes the one across the street less special, so I’ll give you some extra information about this game. Believe it or not, a home port for the Xbox included the gun. Putting a tiny video monitor inside wouldn’t have been cost-effective, so it instead uses a light sensor to tell when you stick your face in front of the scope and uses that information to tell the game when to zoom the screen—points for creativity.
When talking to people online, the most common complaint I hear is that their arcades charge too much to play Time Crisis. I’ve said this before, but Time Crisis is still so common in arcades because arcade owners can’t sell the things. This arcade has Time Crisis II, Time Crisis III, and Time Crisis III. You think they’d separate the two Time Crisis III machines to create the illusion the arcade doesn’t have a bunch of duplicate machines, but Tilt does not care. They put both Time Crisis III machines back to back to create the illusion that they have one big Time Crisis III!
Remember in the late 90s when games like this, Prop Cycle, and Top Skater were the hip thing? I remember Top Skater being fun once you figured out how to play, but this game, especially Prop Cycle, was challenging for a ten-year-old. Maybe that’s the reason this genre has mostly died out.
Now I feel silly. It turns out there was another Initial D AND Maximum Tune 3 machine in town, right next to each other. It also turns out that both of them have severe issues with the player two side. If the other one gets sold, I at least know there’s a backup Initial D in town.
Colorama’s bastard sister.
With all the other stuff here, I expected a more traditional Air Hockey table. I’ve never seen this version before, and I don’t feel like looking up if there’s any history behind it. The photo does better at expressing the feel of the arcade than the earlier establishing shot, though.
Sega Super GT and Sega Rally are two milestone racing games. These machines made me realize that I run into many exciting racing games, but they’re so hard to talk about in a blog post like this. I’m working on a new page for this blog that puts all of the racing games I’ve seen in a single article so that I can talk about them in the context of each other. For example, Sega Super GT was one of the first arcade games to use the super, super powerful Sega Model 3 arcade board, which was more potent than even the Sega Dreamcast. And this was in 1996. It was a BIG deal when it was released, but it’s hard to express that without showing what other racing games were like at the time.
EDIT: The racing game articles were a very short-lived experiment. I decided not to carry them over to the new blog.
Two more racing games: Cruisin Exotica and California Speed. EDIT: The paragraph originally said to look forward to the racing game article for details. The gist of what it said was that nobody remembers anything about California Speed besides the Silicon Valley stage.
Here’s an old motorcycle game from 1998 called Motocross Go! The bike has obviously seen better days. It’s SUPPOSED to have flame decals on the side, but those are long gone. I think those handlebars are a cheap replacement part, too. All of the games here are so worn down. I love it.
Like everything else in the arcade, Tower of Power was widespread when it was released. This might be the first time I’ve seen the triple version. It’s a fancy machine, but it’s like a classic light-stopping game. This game is crucial because it goes “FEEL THE POWER” and makes a memorable bleeping noise every 30 seconds. Background ambiance is the difference between a good arcade and a bad one.
Life finds a way.
(at least it’s the Lost World and not the modern version for once)
Back in my day, this was what coin pushers looked like. We didn’t have your fancy Star Trek and Wizard of Oz nonsense.
Oh my god, I never realized how 90s Storm Stopper looked until now.
Wait, you’re not Big Mouth Bass. What the heck is this? Even Googling, it turns up very few hits. Weird.
Here’s another old game I remember playing as a kid. You put a coin in; it spins around, then you get tickets if it manages to hit one of the tornadoes at the right angle. It hits the tornado more often at the wrong angle and doesn’t register, causing the coin to fall right into the hole. I don’t believe it’s possible to light that jackpot.
This place is such a nostalgia trip. I don’t remember ever seeing this game before, but somehow it’s burned into my memory. Maybe they had it at Circus Circus when I was young? Pocket Change, possibly?
The guy running the place speculates that this Skee Ball game is from the 70s. The font looks more like the late 80s to me. I wouldn’t be surprised if we were both wrong, and it was from the 90s.
For some reason, Tekken is the kind of game that’s really common in tiny arcades. You usually find it in theaters, laundromats, and other such places. I don’t see it much around the twin cities, for whatever reason. This arcade has Tekken 4, 5, 5, and 6, so any Tekken itch you have is easy to scratch here.
I’m convinced this Tilt has the highest concentration of fighting games in the state.
I just thought this machine was cool-looking.
Fire Stomper, similar to Spider Stomper and that bee game they have at Big Thrill Factory. This game is so old that the only release date I can find online is “around 1992-ish?”. Look at how poorly drawn this game is. I’m not even sure what those fire guys are supposed to be.
I just now realized that there’s a row of buttons on the panel, too. You have to both stomp and slap the buttons. That’s pretty cool.
We’re winding down to the end. I don’t know anything about Winners’ Wheel other than it’s also cool looking, but that gumball machine interests me. How long do you think those giant gumballs have been in there? Are they still edible?
It reminds me of one time when I went to Goodwill. They’re not supposed to sell food items, but there were these tubes of old-ass plastic Easter Eggs. Nobody working there seemed to realize that the eggs had candy inside, so they contained decade-old Jawbreakers, Bubble Gum, and Lemonheads that were turning brown. Those were the best damn Lemonheads I’ve ever eaten in my life. I should start a Lemonheads cellar or something, so I can age them.
I just realized I still have some jawbreakers and gum pieces in my desk. They were both so hard I couldn’t eat them.
Last but not least, DDR Supernova. While Extreme and Supernova are the two most common versions, I was still happy to have both across the street from each other. Then I played it. These pads are so terrible that I’d never come here to play this.
The mall Easter Bunny did come up and give me a high five while I was playing it. That’s something.
I probably should have mentioned this sooner, but Tilt arcade also has a blacklight golf course. The owner said I could go in to take pictures, but I think this one was enough. I love the purple lights, even if the courses are uninteresting.
I wanted to show off this redemption counter. It’s the crappiest-looking one I’ve ever seen in my life. That back wall is just some black poles holding up an orange net. Things like this remind me why I love this blog.
But now, our mall adventure is over. Tilt is such an amazing arcade. I’m going to go as far as calling it the best arcade in Minneapolis, despite (or because of) all of the broken down machines. If the DDR weren’t in such shoddy shape, I’d be down there every week.
While I was waiting for the bus, this place caught my eye. I can’t ignore a mysterious store called “Unique,” right? It’s a thrift shop similar to Goodwill or Savers, so I was all about this. It doesn’t come up much, but I have the devil’s luck. I decided to press it by coming in here to find something related to this blog that I could post.
Pac-man counter: 4
Umaru’s fired. Welcome to the site, Clyde. Your job will be to stand next to stuff in my apartment while I take pictures.
Maybe I should have gone for The Very Hungry Caterpillar, instead?
On the bus home, I managed to snap a picture of this. It’s getting late, but we’ll go there some day.
UPDATE: A couple of years after writing this blog post, Tilt, unfortunately, closed down. However, I did make a few follow-up visits before then. If you’d like to see a few more photos, including answers to what fighting games were running on the broken machines, you can find them here. Just be warned, I was very bitter about so many arcades closing, so the tone of that post is a lot more cynical than usual.
