LEGENDS NEVER DIE

Joust: Because Fighting on Giant Birds Is Obviously Awesome at Arcade 92 Some arcade games make sense immediately. Pac-Man eats dots.Donkey Kong climbs ladders.Space Invaders shoots aliens. And then there’s Joust. Released by Williams Electronics in 1982, Joust basically asked one very important question: What if medieval knights fought each other while riding giant flying birds over pools of lava? And somehow, the answer was: absolutely yes. Joust became one of the most uniq

Millipede: Atari’s Bug Problem Got Even Bigger...at Arcade 92 If you thought Centipede was stressful, Atari had a simple solution: More bugs. Released in 1982, Millipede was Atari’s follow-up to the hugely successful Centipede. Instead of simply repeating the formula, Atari made everything faster, busier, and more chaotic. The basic idea is familiar. You control your shooter with a trackball at the bottom of the screen while a giant millipede works its way downward through a

👾 Space Invaders: The Game That Started an Arcade Revolution at Arcade 92 Before battle royales. Before open worlds. Before online multiplayer. There were aliens. And they were coming down the screen one terrifying row at a time. When Space Invaders hit arcades in 1978, it didn’t just become a popular game—it helped define what an arcade game could be. Suddenly, players weren’t simply chasing a high score. They were defending Earth from an endless alien invasion with nothing

The Legend of Zelda: The Childhood Adventure That Became a 40-Year Legend at Arcade 92 Before Hyrule. Before the Triforce. Before Link ever raised the Master Sword, The Legend of Zelda began with something much simpler: A kid exploring the woods. Shigeru Miyamoto, the legendary Nintendo designer behind both Mario and Zelda, grew up in the countryside near Kyoto, Japan. As a child, he spent a lot of time wandering through hills, fields, forests, and caves. One of his most vivi

Be Kind, Rewind: When VHS Ruled the Living Room...90s Nostalgia at Arcade 92 Before streaming, before DVDs, and before we could instantly watch almost anything ever made, there was the VHS tape. For kids growing up in the 80s and 90s, VHS was not just a format. It was an entire lifestyle. You had the giant black plastic cassette. You had the VCR that somehow weighed 40 pounds. You had the little door that opened with a mechanical clunk. And if you were lucky, you had a stack

Sunset Riders: The Wild West Arcade Game That Never Slowed Down at Arcade 92 If you were lucky enough to walk into an arcade in the early 90s and hear a machine shout “Bury me with my money!”, there was a very good chance you had found Sunset Riders. Released by Konami in 1991, Sunset Riders took the classic run-and-gun arcade formula and dropped it straight into an over-the-top Wild West shootout. The result was one of those games that was easy to understand, hard to master,

Round two, Fight! Growing Up With Mortal Kombat II at Arcade 92 There are arcade games you remember playing. Then there are arcade games you remember crowding around. Mortal Kombat II was definitely the second kind. Released in arcades in 1993, Mortal Kombat II took everything that made the original game controversial, exciting, and impossible to ignore—and turned the dial way past 10. More fighters. More stages. More secrets. More finishing moves. And, of course, even more w

SpongeBob SquarePants: The 90s Kid Who Showed Up Right Before the Bell Rang When people talk about the cartoons that defined the 1990s, you hear the usual suspects: Rugrats, Animaniacs, Batman: The Animated Series, Doug, Pokémon…And then there’s a little yellow sponge who showed up in 1999, looked at the rapidly approaching end of the decade, and apparently said: “I’ve got this.” SpongeBob SquarePants arrived ridiculously late to the 90s party. By the time SpongeBob started f

From DOOM to QUAKE: The Game That Shook the FPS World...90s Nostalgia at Arcade 92 Before Quake, there was DOOM. In 1993, id Software unleashed DOOM and essentially kicked down the door for modern first-person shooters. Fast action, multiplayer deathmatches, secret-filled levels, demons, shotguns and enough attitude to terrify every office productivity manager in America—DOOM became a phenomenon. But id Software wasn’t interested in simply making DOOM again. Three years late

There are video games… and then there is Super Mario Bros. at Arcade 92 Released in 1985 for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Mario Bros. did more than give players something fun to do after school. It helped define what video games could be. It took the simple idea of running, jumping, dodging enemies, grabbing coins, and saving a princess, then turned it into one of the most iconic adventures in gaming history. Before Mario was everywhere — movies, cartoons, lunchbo

JNCO Jeans: The 90s Pants That Needed Their Own Zip Code There are fashion trends, and then there are cultural events. JNCO jeans were absolutely a cultural event. For anyone who grew up in the 90s, JNCOs were impossible to miss. They were not just baggy jeans. They were aggressively baggy jeans. Jeans so wide they looked like you could smuggle an entire Sega Genesis, a Discman, three packs of Fruit Stripe gum, and maybe a small friend inside one pant leg. And somehow, they w

The 90s One-Hit Wonders That Still Live Rent-Free in Our Brains The 1990s were a magical time for music. It was the decade where grunge, alternative rock, pop punk, hip-hop, ska, dance music, and weird radio experiments all somehow shared the same airwaves. You could hear Nirvana, TLC, Green Day, Ace of Base, Alanis Morissette, and Coolio all in the same afternoon and nobody thought that was strange. But hidden between the superstars and the legends was another special catego

Paperboy: The Most Dangerous Newspaper Route in Arcade History Before push notifications, before breaking news alerts, and before your phone told you everything happening in the world, there was one hero delivering information the old-fashioned way: a kid on a bike, armed with newspapers, questionable aim, and nerves of steel. That hero was Paperboy. Released by Atari Games in 1985, Paperboy turned one of the most ordinary jobs imaginable into one of the most chaotic arcade e

DOOM: Battling the Demons of Hell With Friends… Unless Mom Picked Up the Phone to Call Grandma and Kicked You Off the Dial-Up Modem...Doom at Arcade 92 Before modern shooters had loadouts, battle passes, cinematic cutscenes, and fourteen different buttons for crouching dramatically behind cover, there was DOOM. And DOOM did not knock politely. Released in 1993, the original DOOM was fast, loud, violent, chaotic, and absolutely unforgettable. It dropped players onto the moons

The Delicious Orange "Cheese" Dust of the 90s...Relive the 90s at Arcade 92 Some snacks are just snacks. Doritos were not one of them. In the 1990s, Doritos were everywhere. They were at sleepovers, birthday parties, school lunches, movie nights, road trips, and especially anywhere a video game controller was involved. If there was a Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, PlayStation, or Nintendo 64 fired up in the living room, there was a very good chance a bag of Doritos was within

From Dial-Up Dreams to Digital Worlds: How the Early Internet Changed Everything There was a moment in the early 1990s when the world started making a strange new sound. It was not a guitar riff. It was not a movie theme. It was not the opening music to a Saturday morning cartoon. It was a modem. That screeching, buzzing, robotic handshake meant something was happening. A computer somewhere in your house was reaching out through the phone line and connecting to something much

Saturday Morning Cartoons: A Bowl of Cereal and the Fate of the Universe Hanging in the Balance There was a time when Saturday morning felt sacred. Before streaming. Before YouTube. Before every show was available on demand at any hour of the day. Saturday morning was the main event. You woke up early, poured yourself a bowl of cereal, sat way too close to the TV, and waited for the theme songs to hit. The week may have belonged to school, homework, chores, and bedtime, but S

Is Call of Duty Finally Going Back to What Made It Great? For longtime Call of Duty fans, there is something special about the early days of the franchise. Before the wild skins, the exaggerated movement, and the constant chase for trends, Call of Duty felt grounded. It felt intense. It felt like you were stepping into a cinematic war story where every mission mattered. Call of Duty 1 was amazing. It introduced a generation of gamers to what a large-scale, cinematic military

While Mortal Kombat Ruled the Arcades, Beanie Babies Started a Different Kind of Mall Battle 90s Nostalgia In the 1990s, there were a few things that could instantly define your childhood: Saturday morning cartoons, Super Nintendo, trips to the arcade, Lunchables, Capri Sun pouches, and somewhere in the middle of it all… a pile of Beanie Babies sitting on a shelf like they were rare museum artifacts. Beanie Babies were not just stuffed animals. They were a full-blown cultural

Star Fox and the Super FX chip that changed the 90’s and Beyond. Legends Never Die at Arcade 92! Before Fox McCloud became one of Nintendo’s most recognizable heroes, before players were shouting “Do a barrel roll!” at their friends, and before Star Fox 64 became a Nintendo 64 classic, there was the original Star Fox on the Super Nintendo. Released in 1993, Star Fox landed right in the middle of early ’90s gaming culture, a time when arcades were still loud, colorful, and pac