Good times.
I remember when it was my 17th birthday, where life was somewhat less complex then it became. I've heard about Gameworks being over at San Antonio, Texas at the Quarry Market. I immediately made it my mission to hunt this place down on my birthday, and with success, I have found my dream place. A place where I'm surrounded by arcade machines, just like the times I was little! I enjoy the arcades! They may be a great place to pointlessly and even mindlessly waste all your
Until we spend every pennywin!
I'll start from the most common kinds of machines they had at the Gameworks Studio at the Quarry Market.
DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION!
They had about two DDR machines there, being DDR Extreme 2 (with the two Queen songs that were remixed (and played the most) and even La Quinta, or whatever that famous Spanish song was, I'm sorry for forgetting :( ), along with DDR USA which compared to Extreme 2, it has a weaker song list so I stick with the obviously superior version. I'm not that good at the game as the highest I can do is the light difficulty, though I could handle some songs on medium. I played this at least three out of the eight times I went to the place because I've gotten a little more self-cautious since, mainly being that my friends didn't quite motivate me to try. They eventually got the Supernova machine in. I do not know what songs that game had, except for one song that kept me away from the machine. I'll give you a hint. Here are the titles for the following games I can name on top of my head, being Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War, Resident Evil Outbreak, and any game that has Astro Boy in it. What they have in common is that they each contain a noun that constructs the title of the band.
Give up? Here's the answer below
Not THAT big of a deal, but figured I'd add what little suspense I can for this post. :3
ON-RAIL SHOOTERS
Dear lord, by far my favorite genre to mess around with! As time went on, they added even better games in their library, even if it took them forever to add new ones, and the only new ones they added were like, I dunno, four out of ten of them that were there, not counting that they replaced about two of them that were there. The ones I played are House of the Dead 3, House of the Dead 4, Ghost Squad, Lethal Enforcers 3 (they made a third game?!), Crisis Zone, Virtual Cop 3, and eventually Rambo and a hunting game with a touch screen by Sega; though oddly enough not a single Time Crisis or Silent Scope machine to be found.
Now there isn't much to say about House of the Dead 3, except that it's silly, you use shotguns, and it's available on the X-Box with light gun support, and for the Wii, both ports packaged with House of the Dead 2. House of the Dead 4 on the other hand was interesting to play. Mac 60s, or Sub-machine guns were used in place of the shotgun or standard issue handguns, packed with the ability to use grenades to help with boss fights or clearing off enemies on the screen, along with the ability to shake the gun to reload and getting pass context-sensitive events such as getting up from being knocked down, forcing a gate open, etc. It was really intense to play, though I felt the boss battles can be really cheap despite trying to get em at their weakness. Then again, the weaknesses were pretty easy to hit against the bosses of the previous games (with certain exceptions with two or three bosses from HotD 3), so these bosses put up a much more challenging fight than any other bosses I've faced in the series. I managed to play on the day they had the play pass deal. The flip-side of the deal is that you can only slide a card sixty seconds at a time. I was out of the game and my friend was constantly getting hit by the next to final boss of the game, and I was desperately trying to get a credit in so we can continue playing (we've gotten so far on a HotD game at an arcade. It was quite an achievement for us), but it only prolonged our inevitable fate.
I can't tell who's the cheater. The game or the play pass deal?
Ghost Squad I had the best time with, as I can adjust the skill level to how I want to play, as well as decide what weapon I want to bring with me, and choose which of the three missions I want to play in any order I want. The great thing about it, despite only having three missions, they do variate in objectives as inside missions you'll come across certain points where there are multiple paths or options to take, along with the skill level adjusting how each mission can play out. When I was playing the second mission where the President was being held hostage, I played on skill level one where I was just going around shooting terrorist. Then in skill level four, there was a segment where I had to utilize stealth in a form of context-sensitive sequences, which is meant to make the mission go by faster and less painful as well. I enjoyed this game a lot and love going back to it time to time. It's available on the Wii with even more weapons and costumes to mess around with. Plus, it goes perfect with that Nyko perfect shot and Wii Sniper Rifle peripherals.
Rambo I also enjoyed, though it was lacking in variety it was fun to play for a few minutes. Virtual Cop 3 kind of bore me just a few minutes of playing it. I already played the crap out of Crisis Zone before and own it for the PS2, and Lethal Enforcers 3 is kind of a Time Crisis knock-off. Not to say it's a rip off or anything, but if I had the option to play that or any Time Crisis game, I'd definitely go for the latter; but not to say it's boring or anything, I mean it did hold a few minutes of my time before I got bored. In the long run, it makes me wish Gameworks had Lethal Enforcers one or two instead. Slower paced and can be cheap sure, but the music is more memorial and the game feels a lot more rewarding (or discouraging if you do poorly) in the long run.
This game's number one mistake is it's very existence
FIGHTING GAMES
Alright Shadowsnake123, I think you've been expecting to read something about this. There are a handful of fighting games. This includes Marvel vs Capcom 2, SNK vs Capcom Chaos, Soul Calibur 3, and Mortal Kombat. Not that big of a library unfortunately. Each game I all had fun with. SNK vs Capcom Chaos (not to be confused with Capcom's take on the crossover called Capcom vs SNK fight for the millennium or Capcom vs SNK 2) is SNK's take on the crossover with their fighting engine used in the King of Fighters series. It's a good fighting game that attempts to integrate a simplistic plot to it and has an interesting choice of characters, such as the devil from Ghost and Ghouls, Zero from Mega Man Zero, the alien creature from Metal Slug, etc. Soul Calibur 3 was also really fun to play, and quarter-friendly too (even though you had to slide cards to play the games) as the game gives you the option to enter into a training mode for a small period of time to get accustomed to the controls, along with a versus mode which I think a regular buy in gives you about three matches to fight in with a friend. Obviously the custom characters have been removed, but they have been replaced with three original characters from the story section of the third game for the Playstation 2.
GAMBLING GAMES
There really is no other word to call these types of games. These are the games that drain your money with promises to gain tickets. Yes, Gameworks has a prize stand in which you can gain tickets to spend for various of prizes, you know, gambling for kids! As well as serving as the parents absolute worse nightmare. Ironically, I haven't witnessed such events going on lately, but I remembered putting my brother and my folks through hell when I wanted to win a huge prize. I never did, especially if they are worth much less than the tickets can actually buy. In the long run, I end up spending more money just to get tickets to spend on an object when I can get the object itself from other places much cheaper if I just pay cash, like a nerf gun or a toy drum set. Minor rant aside, they had a decent variety of him, but most of them are actual games that doesn't always rely on luck, such as those basket ball tossing games, Quick Shot where you shoot a few targets before shooting a coffee mug, and the ever so fun Skeeball! Seriously, I love playing this game. Though to some, it can be easily exploitable.
A Modern Warfare 2 players early years.
OTHER STUFF
Like most arcade joints, they aren't complete without at least one racing game, and this place had about half a dozen of em, which includes Mario Kart GP Arcade, Outrun 2, Daytona USA, Star Wars Racing, and a couple of games that utilize a motor cycle or skate board. The only ones I played was the aforementioned motor cycle one that takes place in the future, Mario Kart and Outrun 2. I don't know why, but despite being a good driver on the road that managed to avoid accidents (with the exception to one but that was a minor paint scratch) and yet I'm terrible at racing games. I can get fairly far in Mario Kart or F-Zero, but the others I'm not so good at. There's also a handful of themed pinball machines which were fun to play, and one of those arcade cabinets that stores about a hundred classic games on it, including Marble Madness, Mortal Kombat, Bubble Bobble (OH YES!), Puzzle Bobble, Street Fighter 2, Mega Man 2 Power Fighters, Dragons Lair, Smash TV, etc.
Then, there's this thing.
At least at the place I went to, the advertisement was VERY misleading!
This is suppose to be an electrocution machine, much like the Painstation (which was pong only with torture methods taken on your hand every time your opponent scores a point), except that it isn't electrocution at all. The idea is that you place both of your hands on those middle rods and keep a firm grip on them. You are suppose to withstand the electrical voltage it sends to your body, meaning it tortures you for a limited time to see if you can hold out til the end. Except that it doesn't electrocute you. It vibrates your hands! Yes, you can literally hold a grip on what feels like metallic dildos! I felt dirty just going to this thing
Chad approves!
CONCLUSION
I really had fun at this place. It was expensive, but it was well worth the 20 miles I drove to get to the location, just to relive my childhood once more. Even then they had some sweet deals where you can by a play pass at certain times to get unlimited gaming for that day. It's a shame that the one I go to closed over a year ago. Same for the one in Austin. As far as I know, there are only six locations in America. SIX. Oh well, time to hit to an internet cafe called GameworX instead.
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