in Regina, Saskatchewan up here is Canada we have this rad place called Wonderland. Its $3 an hour and all the games are set to free play. They have a pretty descent selection of games, everything from House of the dead 3, to tetris, dr.mario, donkey kong, lethal enforcers, and tmnt. plus some carnival games like skiball.

they also sell beer and nachos and burgers and stuff

Last year I found a great arcade place in the near mall. It mostly has new machines but some older once are there too like Virtua Zone and Time Crisis 2. They have a nifty card system instead of quaters. It's a little more expensive but you always can place some money on it and don't have any problem with spilling the quaters or missing them.

Here is two photos of the card:

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c196/ZagZagovich/P1010053.jpg

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c196/ZagZagovich/P1010054.jpg

I think I can Make some pics and videos of the arcade tomorrow. We got a short day since russian iternational day of women(don't even ask, I don't know why it's international) was on saturday so I'll have some time for that.

btw: other videos were passable?

Not really much stuff in NYC sadly. DAve and Buster yeah!

Me and my 4 year old son Max will be checking out the arcades this summer... here's just a few pics from yesterday's.... I wish I'd have got a pic of the Afterburner machine though !! Next time...

http://www.mathowlett.com/galleries/2008/270408/index.html

The two "real" arcades by me on Long Island shut down a year back. One was an FYE Arcade and when FYE died, they took the arcade with it. The other was a place called Sports Plus a giant place with games, laser tag, indoor rollercoster, bowling and ice rink, they closed down and the place is going to be an LA Fitness Center and Organic Supermarket.

We do have three Dave and Busters but they all suck. They are 85% redemption games and the other games they do have are all mid 90's garbage and they don't take care of most of them, but if it's a token sucker, they fix them ASAP.  You get a better selection of games at an f'n Laundramat. I also hate the f'n card system. I'd rather save my money and go up to FunSpot where the coupon makes the tokens 11 cents rather then paying a buck and change for Mrs.Pac-Man/Galaga.

NYC is better. You have the usual China Town Fair if fighting games is your bag, Kong Man Center has a few cool fighters in a VERY small space and of course there's Barcade in Brooklyn, but they lack Pinball and games you can play together. But their prices for drinks and games are fair so it's the best place.

Jersey has a couple of good places, 8 on the Break, Castle Video (for pinball) and as I saw this weekend, Richie Knucklez on Friday nights.

There ARE places to play, you just have to go out and find em', I always say.

As I said, "Arcades aren't dead, you just gotta know where to find em'" I keep hearing the "Poor Me's" of people saying their gone in their area but if they do a little detective work, they find out some places might still be around.

There's also another place in Queens called Peter Pan Games, I still have to visit there, I know the guy who owns the place, I got my Neo-Geo MVS from him. He keeps up with the new stuff the kiddies like, DDR, IIDX, Initial D, MVC2.

DDRFreak.com and if your in the tri-state area, NYCPinball.org have great guides where to find places to play. DDRFreak is great, but just be warned, if the place DOESN'T have a music game, they won't have it. So places like Barcade and even FunSpot don't exist to them. But you can find a lot of great places to play DDR with that and the people usually keep it updated.

I used to have an arcade where I live in my mall, Meadowhall. Not long ago, it was removed, but we also have the bowling alley, that has a section of arcade machines and The cinema. Despite the fun arcades have, they are bit of a scam now, depending where you play.