Family Arcade
Friday, April 17th, 2009
Ye Olde Familie Arcayde
After driving by several times on my way to or from my favourite ice cream parlour, I finally decided to stop into the Family Arcade in Hollywood. It looked pretty dumpy on the outside, but inside, it was clear that this place was run by people who love arcades. The game selection was excellent and they are organized in a way that makes it easy to locate what you want to play. There were no little kids or shitty Dave and Busters machines either. Most take quarters but some only take tokens (stick to quarters when possible unless you’re going to spend enough dough to get a token bonus e.g. 24/$5). Nearly a dozen versions of Street Fighter were represented, including a Korean model of SF4 and 3 copies of Marvel Capcom 2. They also had some of my favorite shooting games, Silent Scope, Point Blank and LA Machine Gunners. A couple of air hockeys and DDRs in the back round out the collection.
A row of Marvel vs. Capcoms
Perhaps the most unusual game I played there was one called Punch Mania (aka Fist of the North Star) which was basically the same idea as whack-a-mole but with punching. The story, presented in Japanese, made me LOL plus I nearly broke a sweat.
Fist of the North Star
This place gets a solid A in my book. It’s good to see that the classic arcade isn’t dead yet – at least not in LA. Although, on the other hand, I didn’t bother playing SF4 because I figured it would be more fun to play at home… hmmm. Either way, I’ll soon be organizing a group trip here.
More pics @ my Flickr.
http://familyamusement.com/
876 N. Vermont
Los Angeles, CA 90029
