Nov 17, 2007 Fun N Games arcade, Willowbrook Mall, Wayne, NJ UNEDITED
Vložit
- čas přidán 11. 05. 2020
- Here are the unedited, higher quality (but still low quality) digital video recordings from our trip to the Fun N Games arcade at Willowbrook Mall in Wayne, NJ, Saturday night, November 17, 2007, one week before it shut down.
The version of this video we posted in 2007 is lower resolution, more compressed, and edited. I went back to the original digital files (which I stupidly recorded at 320x240 instead of 640x480) and re-exported them at a higher resolution and bitrate. The quality is still bad, as was my camerawork, but now you can view the recordings as they were originally captured by my Fuji F10 digital point-and-shoot.
Although Fun N Games is part of the mall, the entrance is on the outside.
Inside the arcade, there was a table set up with small TVs and people playing Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike for Sega Dreamcast.
There was also:
an air hockey table near the entrance
a basketball free throw game in the back corner
racing games:
Daytona USA 2: Battle on the Edge
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
Indy 500
Initial D Ver. 3
Midnight: Maximum Tune 2
etc.
light gun games:
Crisis Zone
The House of the Dead III
Police Trainer 2
Silent Scope EX
Time Crisis 3
Time Crisis 4
etc.
rhythm games:
Dance Dance Revolution Extreme Plus
DrumMania 10th Mix
In the Groove 2
etc.
one-on-one fighting games:
Capcom Vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001
Marvel Vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes
Street Fighter Anniversary Edition
etc.
pinball machines:
The Lord of the Rings
Pirates of the Caribbean
The Simpsons Pinball Party
and other games:
Beach Head 2002
Derby Owners Club: World Edition
The Grid
Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga
Virtua Tennis 2
etc.
The Paunch Stevenson Show - the world's longest running pop culture podcast.
paunchstevenson.com - Hry
Thank you soo much for this, I pretty much lived here and you got recorded me playing MvC2, I’m the tall dark guy next to the guy in the green shirt.
I miss this arcade I use to hang out there when I was in high school. After the arcade I'd go go FYE, KB Toys, Suncoast & Waldenbooks mostly to buy anime & manga, back then hanging out at Willowbrook Mall was great but after the arcade closed then they closed my other hangout spots, I still go to Willowbrook but not like I use to. Use to go to Garde State Mall for Sam Goody & Borders. I miss it all I wish I could go back. Great video it brought back awesome memories
It's a bummer that so many places which made malls great back in the day are now long gone, with them being arcades, along with some of the stores you mentioned. FYE being the only real one left, but even finding them is getting harder to do these days. But it is great that Dave & Buster's is now at the Willowbrook Mall, which I really need to check out if I'm ever in the area one of these days again soon too!
Time Crisis 2 with the foot pedal was my game there back in high school. RIP Fun and Games, always a spot in our gamer's memory
dude I had no idea this used to be here, I would kill for this to still be here, it’s all I’ve ever wanted
Every so often I think of all the good memories I had here, thanks for this upload
Omg thanks for this video. I used go to this arcade every Saturday. So many memories there, especially with DDR. 😢
You're welcome Jorge, and thanks for watching. Hope you're doing well.
man, I wish I grew up around this time to experience this stuff. Fun N Games seemed like the coolest place in the world.
It really was, and thought this would be one arcade which would never close down, until it did now 15 years ago though! 🙁
Lived there in the 90's playing fighting games.
Omg, this brings back so many memories of my HS and college years! I loved this place! I was so upset when they closed down! This and Funcoland were my go-to’s! Thank you for posting this amazing footage!!
I’m so happy this video exists…shoutout Saif yo
Man, it's so sad.... this was such a great place for so many people to hang out. And it was open later than the rest of the mall too, so it was somewhere the younger crowd to spend their time. I spent many weekend nights there over the years. And now I go by and it looks like that area is still just closed down... the windows are painted over and that area is just quiet. I dunno if they have mall offices there or whatever, but it looks just like it was left there to waste away.
Thanks for the memories.
Thanks for watching and taking the time to write a thoughtful comment Jim. We had been going to Fun N Games regularly since 1994. It was sad hearing it was closing forever, but the good news is we now have retro arcades like Yestercades in Red Bank, NJ, and Somerville, NJ, and Morristown Game Vault in Morristown, NJ, as well as Barcade in Jersey City, NJ. There’s the Digital Press store in Clifton, NJ, too.
@@paunchstevenson There's also a Yestercades in Westfield (I saw it last week and nearly hurt my neck with the double-take). And one of my friends works at Digital Press, actually. Although I've yet to actually go there. Yet.
I think I started going to FnG about the same time. A friend of mine in college lived in West Caldwell and we'd regularly hang out at her place, then hit up the arcade and maybe the diner after that. It was a regular thing just about every week.
And I think the awesome thing is I was linked this from a friend I made there, with other friends I made commenting on it, and there's still others who I'm close with to this day.
What an amazing arcade! It even has my favorite game at 1:15 which is Daytona USA 2. I am in love with that game so much.
Great place great memories
I remember hanging there in the late 70's early 80's when I was a mall rat! The games were much different. Among others, I remember playing Dragon's Lair that laser disk arcade game - anyone else remember that game?
So many memories! Sad this place closed
The owner of the space kept raising the rent for the arcades owner (Rich). It got to be where it wasn’t worth it anymore. Since the arcade closed nothing has taken its place in this space. It remains empty still.
Thanks for uploading this. I have such awesome memories of this mall, although to be honest I never hung out here much (although I remember passing it by very often), as I was more of an at-home video gamer lol. Now I'd kill to have a place like this! Yestercades and places like that are a lot of fun, at least they still exist.
I remember this place!!
This new generation just don’t know man gez. We are living in times we are going backwards smh
Many a good time was had here. Many hours spent after closing just talking videogames with good friends. When I lived in Lincoln Park I used to ride my bike there on teh weekends.
This is fucking epic
Thanks! My friends and I started going there regularly starting in the 1994, when Cruis’n USA, Killer Instinct, and Virtua Fighter 2 were the hot new games.
I'm still so bummed this place closed down, even if it was almost 15 years ago, which is hard to believe. But at least they now have Dave & Busters there these days though!
We were bummed too. Now we go to Yestercades in Red Bank, NJ, or the one in Somerville, NJ. There’s also Morristown Game Vault. And two Digital Press stores- Clifton, NJ, and Springfield, NJ.
@@paunchstevenson There's also Eight on the Break in nearby Dunellen for that matter too. That and Chuck E Cheese if you count that also! I'm from South Jersey, but I would often make a mandatory visit to Fun N' Games whenever I was in the area, which I have relatives living in. I'll admit this arcade didn't really have a whole lot for me as time went on, and mainly visited it much more out of nostalgia, rather than really being interested in what the place had to offer. I also didn't personally know anybody who went there (unless they of course went with me), with that being said either. But F.N.G. was on their way to getting in more games in that I loved, and didn't yet own for home consoles at the time, with them being Ghost Squad, and The House of the Dead 4. That and they surely would have eventually had other newer games I really like for the arcade, and never received home ports as time went on if they had stayed open, with them being Terminator: Salvation, and Aliens: Armageddon for example. But the Dave & Busters there looks amazing, and can say has just about every newer game I'm interested in, and really want to eventually pay a visit to when/if I ever can however.
THE GRID!🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯
I understand arcades losing money to people with home gaming PCs and systems. But why would they close an arcade that was always packed with paying customers? Went there lots in the 70's and 80's.
One of the owners was a known Groomer and was messing with 16 year olds. Therefore it closed.
MAS FIGHTSTICKS hooked up to the 3rd strike Dreamcasts 👁👁👁👁👁
And Rez. Someone played Rez on the Dreamcasts they had there, and I remember crying over Swayzak (he had made a cameo in the Toonami review of the PS2 port a month prior.) Then I played some House of the Dead afterwards.
@@YuukiTakemoto1996 the best
@@YuukiTakemoto1996 Rez is the best I got the ps2 version also I always stick the vibrator under my sac everytime I play
I was a regular here up until the auction. I can’t believe I can’t find myself in this video. I had to be working that night and came much later. What’s funny is I remember the dude at @5:31 in the Naruto headband. Used to beat his ass in KoF11. He was one of the worst players. If I was in this video that’s the machine I would have been at.
is there even any mall in america with a arcade?!?
In 2006 I was like.......
"Spend over 100 bucks on the ps2 ports of Marvel Vs Capcom 2, KOFXI and DDR Supernova and enjoy them at the comfort of your own home": NAH
"Go out with friends to the fun n games twice a month..... spend almost twice that amount yearly.....and still not own the games": YUP
Yeah, and that was the problem when home gaming systems became at least almost (if not just) as powerful as arcade hardware was, since you had little incentive to still play them in arcades when that was the case. That of which truly began with the Sega Dreamcast, and every console released after it. That unlike during the very early ones such as Atari, Intellivision/Colecovision, etc. followed by the 8, 16, and even 32 bit eras to an extent, when some games came close to being, but still weren't quite arcade perfect then. That and how many people just didn't find arcades appealing anymore, when they began to gain bad reputations as seedy hangouts, along with when their newer games lost so much of their imagination and spirit beginning in the mid 90's onward. It also didn't help they were almost always the same types of games getting released over and over again (such as fighting, racing, and shooting) for that matter, which everyone got sick of being the case too.
That mall had an arcade
It does again with Dave & Busters now too.
13th year
And to think it's been just about 15 years since this legendary arcade shut it's doors for the final time. Damn. 🙁