I heard about this but I don’t watch a lot of live TV so I had not seen it until today when I found it online. For any of our international readers, Sonic is a fast food restaurant with 3500 locations in the US, it works a little differently then a lot of other fast food places since they focus on driving up to a window or parking outside where there is a menu and they bring your food out to your car so you can eat it there. We call it a drive-in (although I know that depending on the country the term “drive-in” can mean a much different thing – this has nothing to do with that) and while I haven’t dropped by there myself very often, I’ve had good experiences from the two or three times I have.
They produce a lot of commercials and their most recent commercial has an arcade touch to it, being based on Sega’s OutRun (and a little Carmageddon thrown in there). Check it out for yourself:
Speaking of TV or movies, I heard that the hugely popular The Avengers has Namco’s Galaga in it. I haven’t had a chance to go and see the movie yet but I’ve heard nothing but good things about it so far…
Its where tony (iron man) is talking and discussing his plans and then spots one of his work colleagues secretly playing galaga and shows you right at the end of the scene lol 🙂
Holy crap! That was awesome! 😀
Good on you Sonic.
Next time I eat there, I’m going to listen to Magical Sound Shower in the car.
yeah galaga is in Avengers but in the credits NAMCO is accredited as NAMECO o.O
Never heard of this restaurant, but that ad is really, *really* well done.
I live in west jordan Utah is the game grid the arcade in valley fair mall?
I have not been to the valley fair mall much in years and I did not see an arcade called the game grid there but google earth says its in there.
I know they have had a small one in the movie theater that has been there since the 1980’s and has a classic checkboard floor I love it in there I have been playing arcade games in there since the 80s.
Yes my arcade is in Valley Fair Mall. We are approaching our 4th year in business there, but we’ve been moved around a lot. We’re currently in our third location which is in the main corridor next to Payless Shoe Source, across from RadioShack. Website: http://gamegridarcade.com
Oh then that must be why I never saw it i dont get out to the malls much these days since the economy went down hill. I still love to hang out at the malls and mall arcades are my fav arcades. I think valley fair is the last mall in utah with arcade games.. its sad arcade games used to be everywhere even in gas stations in utah. im going to stop by and play one of these days.
Yeah it’s been a rough ride since we’ve been open since the economy was crap. But we’ve managed to hold on despite not being a standard redemption type arcade. I remember coming across arcades at 7-11’s all over the place here so I know what you mean; I know that Fashion Place and South Towne don’t have an arcade and there are two factors on that from what I know. I have heard that FP has refused arcade start-ups from people I have talked to that tried to get in there; ST I’m not sure if they are anti-arcade but their rental costs are enormous so that is likely the problem. Even Valley Fair here has been a little difficult about it until recent management changes. That’s why they put us into a crap spot at first and our second spot wasn’t much better- it was right across from a small Namco owned arcade (which closed their doors after a few months since we took a lot of their business but they never had anyone there and didn’t properly maintain the machines). So our current spot is the best so far as there are no more holes to shove us down. We just need to improve the game selection further and keep going on.
Oh and the ad is one of the most amazing ads I have ever seen in my life…
Why is sonic the hedgehog not a sonic mascot? it fits well.
sonic is doing a progrssive car insurance ad and that makes no sense at all the, sonic at the sonic drive in would be sweet. they are missing out.
and they should make this game and sell it on xbox live, psn steam ETC or if you buy some food at sonic you get a code to downlaod sonic drive in outrun game like this.
south town and fashion place used to have arcades in the 90s and 80s
south towns was on the bottom floor near a esclator i cant describe the exact location in detail but i know when i see it where it used to be. the food court area seems to come to mind when they had the merry go round. It was there in the 90s left around the time the dreamcast hit maybe a little later. it also had a music store next to it and maybe a suncoast video store.
Fashion place had a movie theater circa 1990 to 1994 that had some arcade games like after burner and sunset riders but it is gone now they also had a real arcade back then. it was next to the “helo kitty” shop down from kb toys/software etc/zcmi that is also gone and since they remodled I cant find anything… that arcade was there until the late 90s Im not sure why they are being so lame with arcades now then again the old arcade was in a part of the mall nobody could find like off the path. im going to say it was . I think it was where the Apple store is now next to it….
I guess they are trying to be so called hip and cool with the remodeling and it’s run by older people who dont get games. i love to get food at malls and hit the arcades.
I dont think apple is hip and cool but what ever that dead spot in the mall is still pretty hard to find even if it has a ton of store there now there is still less people in that part of the mall since nobody can find it for some reason.
I used to spend way too much time in these 3 malls when i was a kid I have them pretty much memorized as they was in the 80s and 90s burned into my brain.
Oh and i had no idea namco had a arcade in Valley fair either..
I have a namco token with pacman on it I think i got it from south towns arcade back in the 90s so they must have been namco owned too.
Sega needs to make a new Outrun, I’m a fan of the series.
Make it happen, Sega!!