Remember when arcades were actually good? Yeah, it’s been a long time and the memories are cloudy, but this video helps relive the golden years of the arcade.

It’s been a long time since arcades were popular. A very long time.

At the peak, or golden years, of the arcade era, you’d find at least one arcade in every mall or shopping center. Nearly every store would try to carve-out room for a machine or two. Every Pizza Hutt was known to have several arcade games. Why? Because they were pulling-in quarters at incredible levels – some machines made more than $250 per day.

Those were the days when arcades offered better graphics and cooler environments than just sitting at home playing games on your TV as people do now.

I pretty much grew-up in the arcade, as I’ll bet a good portion of this site’s readers did. As such, I have many fond memories of just being there and what it was like to be surrounded by dozens of great, creative games (unlike the recycled driving or first-person-shooter themes we see today). My arcade was a Superfun – once one of the largest chains. It was dark, with pulsating music heard over the bleeps and bloops from the games. The manager’s office was a large spaceship in the center. UV lights were all around. The place was packed with energy at all times.

However, in the past 20+ years, the memories are bound to fade a bit. Fortunately, people like Dave Dries remember these golden years and also have the skills to reproduce a bit of the experience in 3D movies and renderings. His site has a wonderful video called “Arcade ’84” which can take you back a bit. Hearing the sounds and spotting the games as the camera flies-around really brings-back the memories.

Be sure to check-out some of his other computer animated works on his main site – they are all very well done!