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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ProfessorCirno" data-source="post: 4839990" data-attributes="member: 65637">Sigh.The best, friendliest FLGS, bar none, in the entire world, closed its doors for the last time in September 6th, 2005.  All Star Games was a small little place in Diamond Bar, California, where I learned about pretty much all things nerdtastic.  It's where a friend of mine told me about Fallout and Baldur's Gate, it's where I started playing CCGs, starting with Magic, then hitting a whole punch of other ones (yes, even Pokemon for a time).  It's where I started playing tabletop games, with D&D naturally being the gateway.  Funny enough, it's where I spent a stupid amount of money for the ability to say "I beat Metal Slug 2 on an arcade machine."  And let me tell you, that was beyond awesome.It went through two different owners.  It was foudned by - and I don't mean to make this sound like a history lesson - David and Carol Turrietta, whom I wouldn't be too surprised if you vaguely know - they were pretty central figures in the SoCal gaming community, and somewhat known outsider of that, always heading to GenCon and, well, pretty much every convention in existance in SoCal.  They were two very, very good people.  Tragically, they both passed away, and the ownership went to Larry Boyd, who, I feel the need to point out, is also an overall down and out awesome person.Unfortunately, the property the store was on - which used to be damn prime property - was hit hard when one of the two major stores in the area that brought in foot traffic was bought by Ralphs, who then decided to close the spot and deny it to anyone else - so their other store in Diamond Bar would have less competition.  It devastated all the stores in the area and, it's not without sadness that I say that I don't think a single local store I grew up with is still around.  All Star Games being one of them.It really earned it's place as Friendliest of the Local Game Stores in the world.  All the employees were incredibly nice, cool people.  They had a wide array of games you could try for free, and were always holding awesome events to get local gamers involved in with each other, for just about every game - tabletop or CCG - imaginable.  The owners, both the Turriettas and Boyd, were always active in the gaming community throughout all of SoCal, and for just about every system or CCG that existedm they had someone working there who could tell you about it....I miss it.  A lot.</blockquote>

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