Over Memorial Day weekend, my family went on a classic beach vacation — rent a house, go crawl the boardwalk, eat food that’s 87% grease by volume, things like that. And ~as is tradition~ for these outings, I took this opportunity to visit some boardwalk arcades.
I’ve got happy childhood memories from mid-atlantic beaches and their arcades. Notably Hampton Beach, up in New Hampshire, which had several absolutely stellar arcades in the late 80s and early 90s. I remember wiling many an hour away on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, after bopping from classic to classic, experiencing a wide variety of games. Fumbling with lightguns that were just a bit too large for me. Having Dad work the gas pedal while sitting on his lap and playing RoadBlasters. Good times, good times.
But that’s through nostalgia goggles, and many a decade gone by. How fares these beach arcades in 2017…? Let’s just say I went in with bottom-tier expectations and they did not entirely disappoint. (More below the click. Lots of photos, so I wanted to give you a chance to not load ’em if you’re just browsing the blog…)