RIP: Adventureland Main Street arcade

Atari Force

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Adventureland amusement park in Des Moines, Iowa had a fire on their Main Street and part of the shops was their arcade. Mainly redemption, but a few classics were lost in the fire. A few I can recall:

Millipede
Super Punch-Out
Q-Bert
Karate Champ
Frontline
Marble Madness

Sad to see it all go.

http://www.kcci.com/slideshow/news/22622149/detail.html

Brian
 
I often think about all these OLD electronics flybacks, etc. sitting in my basement inside cabinets that are basically OLD Dry Wooden boxes, I think I'm gonna stick a fire extinguisher down there.
 
I often think about all these OLD electronics flybacks, etc. sitting in my basement inside cabinets that are basically OLD Dry Wooden boxes, I think I'm gonna stick a fire extinguisher down there.

Very good idea, i think i'll do the same!
 
lol, I am a full time firefighter/EMT anytime I mess with one of my games I have an extinguisher within arms reach...
 
I recently visited Adventureland, having last visited it in 2009, the year before the fire. I grew up about 50 miles north of Des Moines, IA, so I would frequent the amusement park from time to time growing up, and starting visiting again now with the kids when we'd visit my parents.

The games listed above were still there in 2009, and when I mean still there, still there from when I played them back in the early 80's. I spent lots of time on Frontline and Marble Madness specifically.

The arcade area had previously been split into three areas: a main area was mostly made up of redemption games, a back area that was populated by some newer arcade games, and a side room that housed most of the old classics listed above.

Having known about the fire, I had some hope that when they renovated, they had kept a small area set aside and repopulated it with some of the classics they had before. It would be in line with their "Old Time" theme, so it wasn't a completely unreasonable hope.

Approaching the arcade, from the outside it looked like the old arcade it used to be. However, inside it is all one big room. Taking up about 1/3 of the room is some Scrambler-like ride. The rest was all redemption games. I searched around for arcade games, and all I could find were a "Dead Heat" dual driver, some dual motor bike game, and a Big Buck Hunter.

I walked out.

Sometimes, you can't go back.
 
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