What happened to the Arcades?

[Tim Janssen]

A couple of weeks ago I visited Hommerson Funland Arcades in Scheveningen, The Netherlands. I have fond memories about Funland: In the past me and my friends visited Scheveningen every Autumn and the trip was not complete without paying a visit to Funland. I have spent many hours playing games like Rail Chase, Time Fighter, Dactyl Nightmare (lovely VR) and Virtua Racer to name but a few. This Arcades had also the largest collection of pinball-machines one could find in The Netherlands.

Now, many years later I live nearby Scheveningen and decided to visit Funland again. It happened to be no fun at all. I played some new arcadegames like Monkey Ball, Star Wars POD Fighter and Baby go wild but was generally disappointed about some things:
- Only 1 (one!) pinball machine (The Addams family) was left and people weren’t generally interested in it;
- All retro arcade machines are gone. In the past I could play some ‘ancient’ games like Space Harrier, Paperboy and Pacman. Now there was only one machine left. It was called 20th anniversary or something similar which let you for 1 Euro choose between a game of Ms Pacman or Galaga. I wanted to play the first one but the game was waaaaaay too fast to make it to level six. What a waste of money.
- A vast amount of space was devoted to some type of Arcade cabinets which are only known in The Netherlands: Photoplay. You can play multiple games on this machine like Memory Challenge, Jigsaw and other boring sh*t. The worst thing was that these machines were really crowded!
- A large rotund arcade cabinet with multiple screens on which you could play Tetris and connect multiple devices like mobile phones. I don’t know about you but the last thing I want to do is go to Funland, connect my mobile phone and play a game on a small monochrome display.

What are your experiences with Arcades? Have they changed throughout the years too?

The last time I went to an arcade was about 1993/1994.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to go check one out. See what's changed.

I walk in and the atmosphere was the same, which is cool. I look at the games and I see they're all these new 3D games, which I expected. I saw the game where you shoot the basketball through the hoop (Glad they kept that one) and I also saw Air Hockey! (Very glad they kept that one! ).

Anyway. I kept looking around and some of the new games they have where you can get tokens are insane. There's a test your reflexes game where a counter starts from 0 and just goes up and up really quickly. You have to stop it at 1000. OMG! You'd have to be The Flash to be able to stop in time

Then I saw the Street Fighter machines....I was ready to play (btw - There was no "The World Warrior" which pissed me off). So I hop onto "X-Men VS Street Fighter"

First thing. They had seats rather than standing up in front of the machine. WTF!? That ain't old skool.
Second. There was only one controller? This confused me. What about the multiplayer capabilities?

I put in my tokens (it's no longer putting in coins. Nope. You gotta go and get special tokens) and chose my players. I play for a bit and notice the joystick feels very different. When I used to play, it was more of a slam the thing to move your player. Now it's a tap. That sux! Too sensitive!

Anyway. I keep playing and I'm doing pretty well. After I kick Zangief and Juggernauts ass I see "Here comes a new challenger", so I think, COOL! The AI gets to request a rematch! (first time playing this game btw ). So I start playing, then my friend asks someone if these things are all hooked up to each other. The person says yes. Apparently, I was fighting someone else! Normally, I wouldn't care and just kick their ass, but now, it took me by surprise and I felt ripped off, so I played alot worse and lost

That sucked! The whole point of the arcades is to be able to laugh in someone's face when you win.

Overall, I hated it. Let's start up an old skool arcade. Who's with me!?

[Amiga1992]

I feel the same about arcades, they have changed quite a bit . Luckily most of the local arcades are still intact, and MANY still have classics which I enjoy playing. Some places accept tokens (it has always been like this here, never used coins), and some have changed to a magnetic card system.

Originally posted by Amigaboy
The last time I went to an arcade was about 1993/1994.
First thing. They had seats rather than standing up in front of the machine. WTF!? That ain't old skool.

Yeah, most of the arcades have now switched from uprights to seating cabs like the Sega Astrocity. I like them, specially because of their controls, but an upright is much better sometimes

I play for a bit and notice the joystick feels very different. When I used to play, it was more of a slam the thing to move your player. Now it's a tap. That sux! Too sensitive!

I actually preffer controls to be working fine. I hate to struggle with a frigging controller, being the skinnyarse that I am . Besides, I hate the US Happ stick stuff, I like the japanese-style ballstick a lot more. It has a very different grip, to which I got VERY used.

So I start playing, then my friend asks someone if these things are all hooked up to each other. The person says yes.

This sounds strange. CPS2 machines have NO networking capabilities. I suppose whoever said that the machines hooked up was talking from the arse, and you should have kicked his arse because he made you lose IIRC, if you perform very well a 'new challenger' comes, it;s a special fight you get for performing fine. This happens at least in Street Fighter Alpha.

Let's start up an old skool arcade. Who's with me!? [/B]

ME! If I earned lots of cash I'd be all in for making a classic arcade it would RULE. All machines in MINT conditions with their ORIGINAL cabinets... cocktail machines.. the joy... Back to the 80s man ))

This sounds strange. CPS2 machines have NO networking capabilities. I suppose whoever said that the machines hooked up was talking from the arse, and you should have kicked his arse because he made you lose IIRC, if you perform very well a 'new challenger' comes, it;s a special fight you get for performing fine. This happens at least in Street Fighter Alpha.

Actually. The machines were hooked up. After my friend asked about it, he went over to the dude who was challenging me and saw it all.

It must be in the hardware. These machines were interlinked (there was about 8). It must've been kinda like Kaillera....just not software

[Amiga1992]

I suppose they took the wiring for the second player to the machine in front of it... Quite a stupid thing to do, since as you say, how can you yell at the losers face that way? Pathetic really...

But all 8 machines linked up... hmmm.. i dont know.. two is possible, I dunno how would they make 8... how do you know to whom do you fight? how does teh machine decide to which machine to pop?

strange strange... definitely not a JAMMA or CPS2 option

[Muzkat]

Two machines linked up, with their backsides facing each other, I see alot. But eight?

Are we talking about fighting games? If so, why would you want eight Street Fighters or Mortal Kombats all linked up?

[Drake1009]

To make sure people spend more money. If there can only be 1 single player game going at a time that's an answer. While you can play a long time on a single player game you only get max 3 rounds in a multiplayer game before the loser has to toss in more money.

[Ian]

I think arcades are on a downward spiral (through no fault of there own), I think it all started with the PSX/Saturn era, I imagine most people thought why spend a £1 on ridge racer in the arcade for one go, when I can buy a PSX and play it as much as I want, I know that's what I thought.

It worse today, the Dreamcast is as powerful as Sega Arcade machines (perfect home versions, in some cases improved) and the PSX2, which is more powerful still.

I certainly don't get the same feeling now when I venture into an arcade and see games that look worse than games I have at home.

I only really play old games now anyway, an arcade where my grandparents lives still has a load of old stuff, Hang-On, Endro Racer and a few others including my favourite Spy Hunter, oh yeah and the obligatory 4 Air hockey tables

Just look to the future, all arcade machines will have an X-box in them, won't that be fun

[Shatterhand]

Here in Brazil the arcades keep going, mainly because many people here don't have the money to but consoles. Yeah, it's true that they are much weaker than what they used to be, but there are still many arcades around.

The games we most see here are soccer games (Virtua Striker and stuff), fight games, racing games, and ever arcade here has at least one shmup..

I only play arcade games if one of the following conditions is matched:
1- Someone is playing , and I can challenge him. I do that even with games I have at home, half the fun of the arcades is to play games against people you don't know, to get new challenges.
2- If the game has some kind of gadget that can't be reprdouced at home. Racing games, shooting galeries, and stuff like that.

Those magnetic cards Akira is talking about suck a lot. Here in Brazil we always had tokens, and since about 1995, some arcades begun to use those cards. They make the price of the games go WAY up.

[Drake1009]

I'd actually like to try a VR game once. When I was in Segaworld in London they had one, but unfortunately I wasn't allowed to play, why? Because I had glasses. Then I saw a sort of flight simulator game I'd like to play where you sat strapped in a seat in a sort of ball with the screen in front of you, and it turned with you, again I wasn't able to play because I had glasses and they didn't want me to lose them

[birdy-scc]

There's only arcade left in Glasgow that has video games. They also go just for the big sega games and little else.

There used to be a few others, but now they only have fruit machines (one-arm-bandits)

But even in the 80s I had to go to Edinburgh (70Km) to see any good games.

[Tim Janssen]

I have played two VR games in my life: the first one is Dactyl Nightmare which I could play for 4 minutes after waiting 45 minutes in a queue in 1994. The armour I had to wear was top-heavy and screen-update was a bit slow when I shaked my head too often. I really had no idea what the purpose of the game was but I was too amazed by these whole new senses.
The second one I played at Funland was with a friend of mine. Pity I have lost the name of the game. I saw my friend in 3D. He turned out to be a muscular space-marine. We could also talk to each other my a built-in microphone. In this game we had a few seconds to clear up each zone. Once I shot all enemies he took the power-ups and left the scene. He played the game for 12(!) minutes once I had lost all of my lives and saw the 'Game Over' message on my visor. -That bastard.

B.T.W. What I would like to know is whether any pinball machines are left in other arcades. I would love to play some of these machines again but they appear to be the dodo of the arcade industry.

[Twistin'Ghost]

Wasn't Dactyl Nightmare run on an Amiga?

[Tim Janssen]

..but I did some research on the Net.
Yes, it seems that this some parts in this first true VR game was programmed on an Amiga 3000:
"Dactyl Nightmare: virtual reality arcade game by Virtuality. Amiga generated graphics and system control."
For more info, check out Amiga.emugaming.com.

This is truly a great thing. I never thought the Amiga would be capable for such 3D graphics. I am more proud than ever of this machine.

[Twistin'Ghost]

As I recall, it was also RUN on an Amiga. No shit! I've even heard tell of a friend who actually saw a guru meditation on one!

[Tim Janssen]

Is it really possible that it is a VR Amiga game? Fantastic.
I think Dactyl Nightmare should be added to Cody's MIA Amigagames list.

[MethodGit]

An Amiga-powered VR game? Wow, where was I back then??

But what media format was it on? Disk, CD, cartridge, or just built-in?

It would be funny if this game reported a read/write error while you were playing it...

[Twistin'Ghost]

It was pretty common knowledge back then. And there was another VR game that was running on an Amiga, but I forgot the name of it at the moment (Dactyl was first, so it was the name to remember..)

I have info on this somewhere...

Yeah. This was THE game a few years ago. I never got to playing it even though all I would have to do is drive 20 minutes

[Drake1009]

Looks interesting though.

As for pinball machines. Do they still make new pinball setups or do they just let the machines in existance deteriorate until they're scrapped to make cheap figurines to adorn the front of your car?