Bay Area, CA Racketboy Member's Meet Up!

[Bradtemple87]

I love the new look

[sevin0seven]

added grittykitty (aka Forever 16-bit) for maybe (per PM conversation).

[o.pwuaioc]

i'll add u in as a maybe. welcome aboard. get to know the guys a bit

Thanks! How's the SF retro scene? I wish I had known about Racketboy earlier. I fear my time here will be too short spent. Also, any good places to get games in the city itself? My search on Google Maps yielded me only one place in Concord, and I really don't want to travel all the way out there (I used to commute from there until I finally moved into SF properly!).

[Bradtemple87]

i'll add u in as a maybe. welcome aboard. get to know the guys a bit

Thanks! How's the SF retro scene? I wish I had known about Racketboy earlier. I fear my time here will be too short spent. Also, any good places to get games in the city itself? My search on Google Maps yielded me only one place in Concord, and I really don't want to travel all the way out there (I used to commute from there until I finally moved into SF properly!).

Thats probably Phoenix Games, very cool shop

[CRTGAMER]

I just got back from the Bay Area last week, driving vacation with the family. Stopped by Sequoya National Park on the way there, beautiful! 6 foot of snow in some places, but the roads were clear and the weather was nice. Missed out on Yosemite, due to snow, will look great in late May.

There are some great places to check out while in San Jose and San Francisco.

Musee Mechanique at San Francisco
Link in the OP. I had a blast in here! Retro Arcade Heaven! There are a lot of old penny arcade machines from the early 1900s on. Also some real classics from the 70s and 80s!

Whirl Bird
I remember playing this mechanical helicopter game as a kid. Not just fly around in a fast circle. The fun is hovering, moving up and down, even backwards to hit every metal bar for points. Really captured the feeling of flying a helicopter.

San Francisco Musee Arcade 01a.jpg (250.96 KiB) Viewed 1226 times

I bought a toy version a few years ago that captures the gameplay this old arcade.




Arcade row
Battlezone is even there, complete with the scope!

San Francisco Musee Arcade 02a.jpg (253.92 KiB) Viewed 1226 times

Also had to give Robotron a go, I have not played the original Arcade cabinet since the 80s. Look at the 70s style steering wheel in that Sprint game!

San Francisco Musee Arcade 03a.jpg (240.36 KiB) Viewed 1226 times

[CRTGAMER]

Standby for drooling
Be sure to hit up Amoeba Music in San Francisco. This place is HUGE. A small game collection waits, I saw a Resident Evil 3 pack there, regret now not picking it up. maybe still there for a lucky soul.


The games are just to the left of the stairs, out of the pic.



Couple of interesting Gamestops in San Jose
I could not have timed my vacation trip any better; The Buy 2 Get 2 Free Week!



966 Blossom Hill Road
This is a HUGE Gamestop, over twice the floor space of most other locations. This is where I picked up a ton of PS2 games, posting the games as I test them over at the Video Game Finds thread. When I left there were still six of these baskets, most the PS2 games are complete with manuals!

Gamestop PS2 Basket 01a.jpg (252.3 KiB) Viewed 1433 times

Gamestop PS2 Basket 03a.jpg (208.21 KiB) Viewed 1226 times

3580 Stevens Creek Blvd
The back wall has a Neon light stage. On Midnight launches of new games all the monitors are lit up for a tournament. Even though the PS2 selection was not near as huge, I did manage to find a couple. The best find was a game that was listed at the mall two blocks away. Gamestop is closing shopping mall locations, the web site still lists the games at the old closed location. Found the game hiding here in the GBA case.

[sevin0seven]

i'll add u in as a maybe. welcome aboard. get to know the guys a bit

Thanks! How's the SF retro scene? I wish I had known about Racketboy earlier. I fear my time here will be too short spent. Also, any good places to get games in the city itself? My search on Google Maps yielded me only one place in Concord, and I really don't want to travel all the way out there (I used to commute from there until I finally moved into SF properly!).

this thread can help out: viewtopic.php?t=22721

[sevin0seven]

I just got back from the Bay Area last week, driving vacation with the family. Stopped by Sequoya National Park on the way there, beautiful! 6 foot of snow in some places, but the roads were clear and the weather was nice. Missed out on Yosemite, due to snow, will look great in late May.

There are some great places to check out while in San Jose and San Francisco...

nice!

[Dakinggamer87]

These GameStop stores in San Jose are awesome. They are so much bigger than most I have visited in California. I go to them very often to get GC/Xbox/PS2 games while they are cheap and available.

[Hobie-wan]

Standby for drooling
Be sure to hit up Amoeba Music in San Francisco.

I've been to Amoeba in the Hollywood area a few times, but it's been a few years. Fantastic for music though and I'm sure if they have games now it would be pretty cool.