Historic Houston Video Games

[GBryant]

To this day, I associate certain Houston locales with certain video games. I thought it might be fun to reminisce with you folks. The only rule is incidental machines only - no dedicated arcades! Here's what I can remember from the 80s and early 90s:

Champs (Hillcroft) Arkanoid, Victory Road and (maybe) Ikari Warriors

Pizza Inn (Bissonnet and Beechnut) Punch-out!, Centipede, Ice Hockey

Safeway (Fondren and Dashwood) Time Pilot, Krull

Nan's (59 and Shepherd) Wizard of Wor, Pongo(?)

Windchimes Dollar Cinema (way out Westheimer) Xevious, bio-rhythm machine

Circle K (Bellaire and the railroad tracks near Bellaire First Methodist) Kung-Fu, Goonies II, .50 cal, Devastators, Street Fighter I

- the Circle K was on the way home from school, so I saw a fair number of games come and go.

Palace Lanes (Bellaire Blvd and Academy St) Kageki, Track & Field, Gauntlet, Pole Position

Food City (Braeswood and Stella Link) Ms. Pac Man

Meyer Park Cinema (Post Oak and West Bellfort) Bad Dudes

Stop In (Dairy Ashford and Huntington Place) Twin Eagles, Street Fighter II, Bubble Bobble, Alex Kidd in Miracle World

Charlie's BBQ (Bissonnet near 610) Dig Dug

Mr. Submarine(?) (Fondren and Clarewood) Dig Dug

Herm, I thought I would remember a lot more. That's all for now.

[devonhart]

Safeway (Fondren and Dashwood) Time Pilot, Krull

Time pilot: is that one you start out in a WWI plane, progress to WWII, Jets, etc. I must of blown $50 in a Greenspoint area convenience store on that one.

[GBryant]

Time pilot: is that one you start out in a WWI plane, progress to WWII, Jets, etc. I must of blown $50 in a Greenspoint area convenience store on that one.

e Pilot 2 wasn't without a certain charm, but it definitely paled in comparison.

[samagon]

From my childhood I can really only remember one; Pizza Inn on Bellaire between Boone and Kirkwood, they had a cocktail top Pacman and Centipede back in the early 80s, and I still remember standing longingly over the jukebox wondering how it worked and asking my parents for money to make it do something, only to always be denied.

edit: oh man, how could I forget? My pediatrician, I can't remember his name, but he had 3 or 4 different arcade games in his waiting room for the kids to play while they were waiting to see the Dr. I found myself making up excuses to be sick just so I could go play dig dug while my mom and I waited to see the Dr. The first office I remember him being in was at Kirkwood and Carvel, and then when the West Houston Medical Center opened, he moved over there.

Later in my teenage years I remember playing Street Fighter at some convenience store off of Boone between Belaire and Beechnut, the machine itself had cigarette burns all over it from kids smoking and putting the cigarette on the machine while they played.

Otherwise, I did most of my early video gaming at Chuck-e-Cheese on Bissonette near Cook, and then after that place closed, I went to the arcade by the $ cinema on old Westheimer/Westheimer, West Oaks Mall, or Memorial City.

Of course these days, I wait patiently for the Houston Area Arcade Expo and go and waste an entire weekend being a pinball junkie, and of course playing all the video games of my youth, the game list they have is pretty paltry right now, but they usually have about 50 pinball games from various eras and about 100 arcade games from Pong all the way up to newish stuff. My favorite are the old vector based arcade games (think original arcade version of Asteroids) of which there are usually about 10 or so different titles.

There is also a place called Joystix that opens up to the public for some price (free-play after you get in), I haven't made it by there yet, but need to.

I know that isn't terribly 'historic houston' but it is historic arcade classics that may remind us of a different time and place in houston, which is what this forum is for, right?

Edited September 21, 2009 by samagon

[Ross]

The 7-11 or whatever on Willowbend and Post Oak had a Tron machine I helped wear out around 1982.

[kylejack]

There is also a place called Joystix that opens up to the public for some price (free-play after you get in), I haven't made it by there yet, but need to.

Pac-Man Fever, first and last Friday night of every month, $15, buy wristband at the bar next door (1820)

Downtown, 1820 Franklin St

Edited September 22, 2009 by kylejack

[hammerofhope]

The Stop-N-Go on the corner of Montrose and Westheimer (now a Valero) had in the mid 80s:

Gauntlet (my friends and I stayed there late into the night playing this)

Paperboy

Spy Hunter

Lucky Way on Montrose between Fairview and W. Gray:

Double Dragon (probably the only Double Dragon machine within a 5 mile radius in the Summer of 1988)

Stop N Go on West Alabama at Yoakum:

Street Fighter 2

[belmontdrew]

Believe it or not Spanish Village on Almeda once had a stand-up Ms Pac Man machine...the Pac-Man & Ms Pac-Man sit downs at Eddie's Pizza on Richmond..APB was in the line of video games @ Meyerland General Cinema Theatre..Baby Pac-Man (& every other video game imaginable) at Showbiz Pizza on Weslayan..Paperboy, Gauntlet, Spyhunter & Marble Madness at any arcade at Astroworld..the Tron games at the West U Pool & WaterWorld..Elevator Action at a Safeway somewhere in Houston..Out Run & Toobin' at Amc 14 Meyer Park..Hard Drivin' at Tilt in The Galleria..Rampage in the second arcade in the food court next to Physical Whimsical at Sharpstown Mall..Double Dragon at Windsor Theatre...more may come to me later!

[nm5k]

Hummm. I never really got into the video game craze back then.

I'd usually be playing foosball or shooting pool. I did kind of

like Poll Position, but I never wasted too much money on it.

I hated the usual pac-man, etc type games. And besides, I had

them at home on the Atari machine. Remember those things?

Lame as watching grass grow now.. To me they were half lame even

back then..

But when I started getting the computers I did become a huge

Flight Simulator nut. :/

And the Nascar, etc games that I have on the puter make Poll

position seem pretty lame too. The Nascar I have on PC is so realistic

I'll actually recognize the tracks when I see an in-car TV camera

showing a driver's view of the track while he's driving. After a

a few turns, I'll usually recognize the track he's on.

You learn them well if you want to drive them well.

[JLWM8609]

Greens BBQ on Almeda used to have a Ms. Pac-Man machine, as did the Hank's Seafood on Griggs near MLK. I also remember the Galaxian video game at the Godfathers Pizza that used to be on N. Braeswood at Chimney Rock.

But when I started getting the computers I did become a huge

Flight Simulator nut. :/

Flight Simulator nut you say? We must talk. I've been a Flight Sim nut since 1994 when I got my first copy, it was FS5 for DOS.

Sorry for the hijack. We now rejoin the thread already in progress.

[nm5k]

Greens BBQ on Almeda used to have a Ms. Pac-Man machine, as did the Hank's Seafood on Griggs near MLK. I also remember the Galaxian video game at the Godfathers Pizza that used to be on N. Braeswood at Chimney Rock.

Flight Simulator nut you say? We must talk. I've been a Flight Sim nut since 1994 when I got my first copy, it was FS5 for DOS.

Sorry for the hijack. We now rejoin the thread already in progress.

I started in 92 with FS4. Ran FS4 for probably 2-3 years before FS5 came out.

I used to hang out on the "LINX" bulletin board which was run by a friend of

mine. Towards the end of LINX, I was the one that maintained the board as Joe

got tired of messing with it, or too busy.. I forgot..

Then with the internet finally getting popular, he finally shut it all down.

I bet he's still got the computers that ran that board laying around somewhere.

I remember one was a 286 machine. My first Flight Sim machine was a mighty

386DX/33. :/

I've done quite a bit of software design for flight sim over the years.

Pretty much all areas, except I never did much aircraft design. Did a lot

of scenery design, texture packages, panels, sounds, etc.

I think I was probably one of the first to do Houston for FS4, FS5, etc.

I know a did a FS5 Houston, which I used some custom textures, night lighting,

etc. Lots of little things I came up with were used by Microsoft in later

versions.. IE: I was the one who perfected "tire chirp" as an example..

I was the first one that used multiple sounds files for a single chirp

sound. :/ That way, it would vary as to how hard you landed, etc. MS always

used a single file chirp before that. A version or two later.. They started

using my method.. Chortle.. Also was one of the first bunch that used a lot of

night lighting in 3rd party scenery. Starting with "See03" for FS4, and then

using "night light" colors on textures for that in FS5 and later.

But I don't do much FS work now unless it's something I need for myself.

IE: I added GPWS and landing call outs, etc to FSX..

Course, I'm running FSX now. I guess you heard MS laid off the ACES flight

sim team and archived the FS 11 they had been working on. FSX is likely to

be the last MS sim for PC I bet. They may do something else, but I bet it's

for their X box, or whatever game platform instead of PC.

End of an era..

I still fly the thing quite a bit. Usually the Lear 45, and the 737's.

Usually a Southwest 737-700 if I'm running the 737.

I've got a bunch of FS vid's I've made.. I use "FRAPS" to record

them. It does cut my frame rate about 35% from normal, but lets me

record flights. I about need a new faster puter..

Naturally, all are compressed and low res for broadband, and not near

the quality I see while flying and with it full screen.

A few.. If you are brave enough to fly with me.. :/ Be afraid, be

very afraid..

Descent and landing into Little Rock.. Rainy day.. Low vis..

Note the heavy low altitude overcast and rain..

http://home.comcast.net/~disk100/HOU2LIT.wmv

Lear 45 from Houston Southwest to Little Rock at dawn.

http://home.comcast.net/~disk100/Lit45.wmv

Austin to Corpus Southwest 737

http://home.comcast.net/~disk100/AUS2CRPSW.wmv

Lear 45 from Houston Southwest to Corpus- Note the close encounter

with a Boeing 737 mid flight.. Within a mile.. He was going in

the other direction.

http://home.comcast.net/~disk100/L45CRP2.wmv

Continental 737-800 KIAH to KAUS "Austin" Reduced power takeoff

http://home.comcast.net/~disk100/iah2aus.wmv

Extra 300 doing my own airshow over Florida

http://home.comcast.net/~disk100/Twisted.wmv

Float plane-water landing in Idaho..

http://home.comcast.net/~disk100/Idaho.wmv

Powered Ultra light thang in Montana-

http://home.comcast.net/~disk100/Spin.wmv

Back to the regularly scheduled programming..

[TheNiche]

I started in 92 with FS4. Ran FS4 for probably 2-3 years before FS5 came out.

I used to hang out on the "LINX" bulletin board which was run by a friend of

mine. Towards the end of LINX, I was the one that maintained the board as Joe

got tired of messing with it, or too busy.. I forgot..

Then with the internet finally getting popular, he finally shut it all down.

I bet he's still got the computers that ran that board laying around somewhere.

I remember one was a 286 machine. My first Flight Sim machine was a mighty

386DX/33. :/

I've done quite a bit of software design for flight sim over the years.

Pretty much all areas, except I never did much aircraft design. Did a lot

of scenery design, texture packages, panels, sounds, etc.

I think I was probably one of the first to do Houston for FS4, FS5, etc.

I know a did a FS5 Houston, which I used some custom textures, night lighting,

etc. Lots of little things I came up with were used by Microsoft in later

versions.. IE: I was the one who perfected "tire chirp" as an example..

I was the first one that used multiple sounds files for a single chirp

sound. :/ That way, it would vary as to how hard you landed, etc. MS always

used a single file chirp before that. A version or two later.. They started

using my method.. Chortle.. Also was one of the first bunch that used a lot of

night lighting in 3rd party scenery. Starting with "See03" for FS4, and then

using "night light" colors on textures for that in FS5 and later.

But I don't do much FS work now unless it's something I need for myself.

IE: I added GPWS and landing call outs, etc to FSX..

Course, I'm running FSX now. I guess you heard MS laid off the ACES flight

sim team and archived the FS 11 they had been working on. FSX is likely to

be the last MS sim for PC I bet. They may do something else, but I bet it's

for their X box, or whatever game platform instead of PC.

End of an era..

I still fly the thing quite a bit. Usually the Lear 45, and the 737's.

Usually a Southwest 737-700 if I'm running the 737.

I've got a bunch of FS vid's I've made.. I use "FRAPS" to record

them. It does cut my frame rate about 35% from normal, but lets me

record flights. I about need a new faster puter..

Naturally, all are compressed and low res for broadband, and not near

the quality I see while flying and with it full screen.

A few.. If you are brave enough to fly with me.. :/ Be afraid, be

very afraid..

Descent and landing into Little Rock.. Rainy day.. Low vis..

Note the heavy low altitude overcast and rain..

http://home.comcast.net/~disk100/HOU2LIT.wmv

Lear 45 from Houston Southwest to Little Rock at dawn.

http://home.comcast.net/~disk100/Lit45.wmv

Austin to Corpus Southwest 737

http://home.comcast.net/~disk100/AUS2CRPSW.wmv

Lear 45 from Houston Southwest to Corpus- Note the close encounter

with a Boeing 737 mid flight.. Within a mile.. He was going in

the other direction.

http://home.comcast.net/~disk100/L45CRP2.wmv

Continental 737-800 KIAH to KAUS "Austin" Reduced power takeoff

http://home.comcast.net/~disk100/iah2aus.wmv

Extra 300 doing my own airshow over Florida

http://home.comcast.net/~disk100/Twisted.wmv

Float plane-water landing in Idaho..

http://home.comcast.net/~disk100/Idaho.wmv

Powered Ultra light thang in Montana-

http://home.comcast.net/~disk100/Spin.wmv

Back to the regularly scheduled programming..

That's quite interesting, and I watched the video of your Houston to Corpus flight in the Lear Jet. Have you ever done the real thing, though?

A company I used to work for had a Citation X, and if ever there were a sweet perk, experiencing jet travel in such a small plane was it. It was especially interesting to look out over the cockpit on approach; you'd never know it looking out the side windows, but the wind is variably shoving the plane around in the sky as you're trying to line up on the runway. It adds a whole new dimension to one's conception of air travel. The tumultuous takeoff on a dark and stormy afternoon was also fun, especially as it was punctuated by a sunset view that stretched all the way from Galveston to Sabine Pass.

The one caution I must bring to bear about small planes without lavatories or recirculating air: don't eat french onion soup before you get on, and if you do, for christ's sake hold it in. You don't want it exiting through any orifice as a solid, liquid, or gas. Damn near forced an emergency landing. ...it wasn't me, btw, but I'm not squealing on the culprit either.

[nm5k]

That's quite interesting, and I watched the video of your Houston to Corpus flight in the Lear Jet. Have you ever done the real thing, though?

No. Never flown a real one. I got to try a level D sim once though. That's

pretty close for a jet. Way too rich for home use though.

A company I used to work for had a Citation X, and if ever there were a sweet perk, experiencing jet travel in such a small plane was it. It was especially interesting to look out over the cockpit on approach; you'd never know it looking out the side windows, but the wind is variably shoving the plane around in the sky as you're trying to line up on the runway. It adds a whole new dimension to one's conception of air travel. The tumultuous takeoff on a dark and stormy afternoon was also fun, especially as it was punctuated by a sunset view that stretched all the way from Galveston to Sabine Pass.

I've run Citation X's on past sim versions, but not on FS 9 or 10.

Eaglesoft makes a nice one for FS9-10, but I'm too cheap to buy it when

I can get many for free.

The Citation X is a real sky burner. I liked flying that thing on the sim cuz

it didn't take very long to get where I was going.

You can run nearly mach .92 with those. That's getting on down the road.

I'd usually idle along at .88 or so unless I was in a hurry.

In comparison, I'll usually run the Lear's at say mach .77-.78 range.

Unless something new has hit the scene, the "X" is the fastest non military jet

in the sky. Even the mighty 747 does not run quite that fast. They might do say

mach .84-.86 or so.

Nice perk.

[JLWM8609]

I started in 92 with FS4. Ran FS4 for probably 2-3 years before FS5 came out.

I used to hang out on the "LINX" bulletin board which was run by a friend of

mine. Towards the end of LINX, I was the one that maintained the board as Joe

got tired of messing with it, or too busy.. I forgot..

Then with the internet finally getting popular, he finally shut it all down.

I bet he's still got the computers that ran that board laying around somewhere.

I remember one was a 286 machine. My first Flight Sim machine was a mighty

386DX/33. :/

I've done quite a bit of software design for flight sim over the years.

Pretty much all areas, except I never did much aircraft design. Did a lot

of scenery design, texture packages, panels, sounds, etc.

I think I was probably one of the first to do Houston for FS4, FS5, etc.

I know a did a FS5 Houston, which I used some custom textures, night lighting,

etc. Lots of little things I came up with were used by Microsoft in later

versions.. IE: I was the one who perfected "tire chirp" as an example..

I was the first one that used multiple sounds files for a single chirp

sound. :/ That way, it would vary as to how hard you landed, etc. MS always

used a single file chirp before that. A version or two later.. They started

using my method.. Chortle.. Also was one of the first bunch that used a lot of

night lighting in 3rd party scenery. Starting with "See03" for FS4, and then

using "night light" colors on textures for that in FS5 and later.

But I don't do much FS work now unless it's something I need for myself.

IE: I added GPWS and landing call outs, etc to FSX..

Course, I'm running FSX now. I guess you heard MS laid off the ACES flight

sim team and archived the FS 11 they had been working on. FSX is likely to

be the last MS sim for PC I bet. They may do something else, but I bet it's

for their X box, or whatever game platform instead of PC.

End of an era..

I still fly the thing quite a bit. Usually the Lear 45, and the 737's.

Usually a Southwest 737-700 if I'm running the 737.

I've got a bunch of FS vid's I've made.. I use "FRAPS" to record

them. It does cut my frame rate about 35% from normal, but lets me

record flights. I about need a new faster puter..

Naturally, all are compressed and low res for broadband, and not near

the quality I see while flying and with it full screen.

A few.. If you are brave enough to fly with me.. :/ Be afraid, be

very afraid..

Descent and landing into Little Rock.. Rainy day.. Low vis..

Note the heavy low altitude overcast and rain..

http://home.comcast.net/~disk100/HOU2LIT.wmv

Lear 45 from Houston Southwest to Little Rock at dawn.

http://home.comcast.net/~disk100/Lit45.wmv

Austin to Corpus Southwest 737

http://home.comcast.net/~disk100/AUS2CRPSW.wmv

Lear 45 from Houston Southwest to Corpus- Note the close encounter

with a Boeing 737 mid flight.. Within a mile.. He was going in

the other direction.

http://home.comcast.net/~disk100/L45CRP2.wmv

Continental 737-800 KIAH to KAUS "Austin" Reduced power takeoff

http://home.comcast.net/~disk100/iah2aus.wmv

Extra 300 doing my own airshow over Florida

http://home.comcast.net/~disk100/Twisted.wmv

Float plane-water landing in Idaho..

http://home.comcast.net/~disk100/Idaho.wmv

Powered Ultra light thang in Montana-

http://home.comcast.net/~disk100/Spin.wmv

Back to the regularly scheduled programming..

I first started running FS5 for DOS on an IBM PS/2. I didn't know anything about add-ons or anything like that. I didn't start doing the add-on thing until I got FS 98 in 1998-99. I got FS2000, but it ran too slowly on my computer. Then, I got a new computer in 04 and thus, FS 2004 as well. I don't see myself getting FSX as FS 2004 is doing just fine with me. I'm working on a scenery for Houston Executive Airport (KTME) since the airport didn't exist when FS 2004 came out. I've been working on it off and on for over a year.

[devonhart]

e Pilot 2 wasn't without a certain charm, but it definitely paled in comparison.

Just out of curiosity, I searched Youtube for time pilot.

[TJones]

Mama's Cafe..Westheimer.

Killer Instinct

Golden Tee

Daytona-(full functioning cockpit version)

WWF tagteam

Haunted Mansion pinball

[RhinoVP]

I'll add a few..

Skatin Place (Murphy Rd. in Stafford)

Space Invaders. This was the first place I ever saw this game, and remember how complicated the game seemed at the time.

Safeway (Wilcrest & W. Belfort)

Pheonix & Star Castle

7-11 (Hickory Downs & Clay)

Stargate. Wish I had all the rolls of quaters I put in that game, back now!

Corner food store (W. Belfort)

Joust , Popeye & Donkey Kong Jr.

Barney's (W. Belfort) Next door to Corner food store.

Ten Yard Fight & Combat

This was also the only place I ever saw a coin opperated (Video) Strip Poker game. We were too young to be in here, but nobody seemed to mind.

Too bad this thread isn't - "Arcades of the 80's"

Could go on about that forever.

[GBryant]

Too bad this thread isn't - "Arcades of the 80's"

Could go on about that forever.

Well, I don't see why it couldn't go there! I suppose the one I frequented most would be the Time Out(?) at Sharpstown. I remember for my tenth or eleventh birthday an aunt sent me a check for twelve dollars. Couldn't tell you why twelve, but that's what it was. I cashed it and blew it all at Time Out. I felt really guilty afterward but the memory of the exhilaration and empowerment I felt in having all those quarters is one that will stick with me for the rest of my life. As a kid, we never had much money and quarters were special rarities begged from the folks now and again. But that afternoon, there was no begging. I was master of my domain and no game was beyond my grasp. I think the twelve bucks lasted about half an hour.

The closest arcade to my house was Fun Time at Meyerland Plaza. My friends and I would make the two or three mile trek from our neighborhood in Bellaire and always stop in at a some deli there on Braeswood because they had free cold water in an Igloo cooler. I think a dollar in hand was the motivational threshold for us to mount our bikes and skateboards.

Let's see; there was a good arcade at the mini-golf place across from the Braeswood movie theater. I seem to remember it having a jungle theme. At the arcade in West Oaks mall I saw my first holographic game. It had something to do with time travel and was horrible. I think all Westwood Mall had was a few games in the movie theater, but no proper arcade. God, I miss those parquet floors.

Oh, Northwest Mall had a Gold Mine. I don't remember any of the games, but I thought the faux stone entrance was the coolest thing ever.

[brunsonpark08]

The Arcade Expo is cookin' this very weekend. Go and support those good timin' folks!

http://www.arcadecenter.com/