Last week the wife and I took our little one out to Niagara Falls for the first time. It's only one town out, so it's not really that special a thing for us. But still - when you're two, it's magical. We parked on Clifton Hill - the tourist strip that runs right into the Falls. On our walk down we passed a number of arcades that offered some surprisingly cool things I hadn't seen. Hit the jump to join us on our brief photo journey of cool stuff in Canadian arcades, won't you?

Percussion Kids was like Taiko for Tots. For the first time in my life I got to make like I was playing Taiko outside of my living room, even if it was to tunes like Jingle Bells and Happy Birthday.

As you can see, Julia knew she was in the demographic more than daddy was, but fuck her - it was my two dollars. I'll be damned if I was going to give the sticks away. Still - she lad lots of fun hitting with her hands and helping out.

This was easily the best part of this machine. As if a kid-friendly Taiko-clone wasn't Japanese enough, this bad boy had a 100 yen coin slot. Of course all this really means is Percussion Kids was only one dollar Canadian when it was new and once it became old and exported I had to shell out two bucks. Lame.

Up next was a 2001 Konami sleeper called Blade of Honor. Think Police 911, but with samurai's. I hadn't heard of this one before stumbling across it in the arcade, but I'll be damned if it didn't play exactly like a Wii title! You just take the sword and start swinging, as I demonstrate with my demonstrably fat body in these shots;

All of the above shots were taken in Captain America's Game Zone at Marvel Super Hero City - arguably the most disappointing anything on the Hill. Basically it's glow-in-the-dark Hulk mini-putt and a cheap-o carnie-quality funhouse ride with Spiderman. Not fun.

Across the street is another arcade - The Great Canadian Midway. Most of our photos from their (including a Namco game strikingly similar to Blade of Honor) didn't turn out. The only one that did though was too cool for words;

That's right folks - Hungry Hungry Hippos, the arcade game. How do you not love it?

So what about you? Been to any good arcades lately?

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