Remember the days of spending your nights and weekends and maybe even your days at the arcade?

Remember practicing and trying to get better at your favorite video game so that the next time some punk tries to battle you, you can beat him to a pulp on the game?

Most of us can remember spending much of our time at the arcades playing games and hanging out with our friends. Meeting up at the arcades only to leave one arcade to go to the next.

Arcades are few and far between. Most of the arcades are at tourist spots, like Pier 39 in San Francisco, CA or Las Vegas, Nevada located in many of the grand hotels that line the strip. Everything from old school Dig Dug games to Guitar Hero they have it at the arcades.

But what happened to our local arcades? They're gone; dead in the cemetary to rest. Consoles came about and change the whole gaming dynamics. We now game online in the privacy of our own home. We can talk all the crap we want without having to really see anyone or punch anyone (not unless you guys are really friends then that is just a different story).

With Xbox360 Live and PSN, and the ability to play online with Nintendo's Wii, we now have an arcade at our fingertips without really leaving the house (not unless you're going to your buddy's house to go play).

I'm sure there are still some people that miss the whole feel of the arcade and some that don't miss it at all.

Just remember, the next time you see an arcade, think of how gaming use to be and how the arcades and consoles changed the gaming world.

Happy Gaming!