OMG. Where to start?
I was 5 when Space Invaders was released, and it would have been a year or two later that arcade fever really hit the UK.
There was a Space Invader machine in the market in my home town (replaced years later by Express Raider). I remember begging for 10p and lasting 2 seconds
We did get a TI99 4a computer with THE BEST version of Space Invaders (TI Invaders - download an emulator and the ROM to see just how good it is) which meant I got very good at Space Invaders, but never in the arcades as by then... BOOM - game explosion.
We had a holiday at Bultins when I was 7 (just before I was 8) and the arcade had Pacman (my sister loved it, but I always found it too difficult), Donkey Kong, loads of others I didn't bother with and...
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I was naturally good at Moon Patrol, so spent quite a bit on it.
I also loved some of the early race games. There was one that was a set of projectors rather than real graphics. You sat in the cockpit and it just had all this huge sound, crap controls and constant crashing. No idea what it was called.
And the evil Monaco GP! How tough was this game?
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I don't think we did arcades for a couple of years then. They were expensive and my parents always stopped us from going in them, but I adored the sounds and lights coming from them. My sister and I had a couple of handheld LCD games. She had Mini Munchman (a great version of Pacman), I had Zaxxon. They were the Gameboys of the early 80's. So we got our arcade fix through those and the home computers (the TI 99 and neighbour's Spectrums and C64s).
Roll on a few years and I had more freedom on the annual visits to Fleetwood/Blackpool. The main game I remember then was Peter Gunn blasting out in deep bass throughout the seafront at Fleetwood.
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Spy Hunter - what a game! Essentially Midway's answer to Monaco GP with so many bells and whistles it drowned out the competition. I once saw somebody get to the stage where you drive into the water and become a boat - I thought gaming just couldn't get any better. Hard as nails though, but superb.
That led me to buy this recently:
http://uk.ign.com/games/arcades-greatest-hits-the-midway-collection-2
Moon Patrol and Spy Hunter on single disk? Yes please! Pity Joust 2 isn't anywhere near as good as the original (I discovered Joust in the early 90's, so it's not part of this as it was on the Atari ST
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The only other game I really remember from this period (early/mid 80s) was Star Wars. We found it in the arcade in Harlech in Wales and spent a week playing it one holiday. That game so so good. They had a sit down version at Hayling Island a few years back - don't know if it's still there? That was such a great agme. Return of the Jedi was good too, but it was all about Star Wars. I played the home console versions of Empire, but didn't see an arcade version of it in the flesh until the mid-90s, hidden away in a corner of an arcade somewhere so obscure even I don't remember where.
It wasn't too far after this that the cabinets started to get interesting. There wasn't just a revolution in the gaming hardware and sound, but also the way they attracted you.
I loved all the moving cabs. My annual trip to Blackpool became a pilgrimage to the latest cabs and wonderful ideas. Wec Le Mans, Enduro Racer and eventually the pinacle in the R360 [youtube]
For me though, it was really about two games, Paperboy and:
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OMG - hearing that I'm right back at the arcade on the exit of Blackhole at Alton Towers.
Paperboy I have no idea why I loved it. It's so difficult,such poor controls - but it just summed up that period in the later 80s for me. That suburban Americana we were subjected too, mocked a little in the silly game that was a bit :emoji_poop:.
Though when I bought the Midway collection above, I also bought this at the same time:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcade's_Greatest_Hits:_The_Atari_Collection_2
I can now play the arcade version of Paperboy to my heart's content in the comfort of my living room (my contentment level being about 2 minutes before I swear and throw a controller at the screen).
I had the Sega Master System of Space Harrier and it's the only "hard" game I ever completed on it. I think the playthrough was about half an hour of manic constant blasting. I was dripping with sweat by the end of it LOL
The gaming mags I used to buy (C&VG, Crash, Your Sinclair and later, ST user) would often feature the new arcade releases and sometimes the soundtracks would be given away on a tape on the front (think floppies are old, this was the era of storage on a C90!
).
So I learned to love some of the arcade tunes that had moved on from the simple bit-tunes to something a bit better.
Afterburner:
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Ninja Warriors:
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and of course:
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All bobbins games (Outrun is far too difficult), but great soundtracks. Worth noting that Ninja Warriors had a three screen (I think it was three screen) cab that gave it a ridiculous ultra wide screen effect. If you ever grab the ROM on MAME, it's tiny because it's so wide LOL
By the early 90's, I was going to Liverpool regularly and taking in the arcades at least once a month. Playing some of the classics of the time like Operation Wolf, Chase HQ (Taito's response to Outrun), Hard Drivin', the brutal Super Monaco GP (it had a pneumatic seat that would slam you forwards on an impact and actually give you whiplash), SUper Offroad, Altered Beast, Street Fighter, TMNT, Gauntlet - wow, the volume of games that came in that period is frightening. Atari dominated for a small while with some really innovative games - probably ending on the high of S.T.U.N Runner (they had the "sled" cab in the arcade by the Go-Karts outside of Southport Pleasureland.
Things tail off then. I remember (with small fondness) Sega Rally and Daytona, the Time Crisis games (recently got a G-Con for my PS2 to play TC and TC2) - but home gaming was surpassing what the arcade could bring. The death knell for arcades being Vampire Night (also have it on the PS2) - the arcade machine was built around the PS2 - home gaming was officially equal to arcade gaming. Though (even though I have them emulated now) the new Star Wars trilogy game and the Jurassic Park shooter were both superb.
I still do arcades though and there are occasionally some good games here and there. The new Walking Dead shooter is surprisingly good for instance.
I do equate most of my arcade experience with theme parks - the two are essentially intertwined. I'd never visit a park in the 80s without checking out their arcades too. Some had mainstay cabs that would be there as permanent as the coasters. That adrenaline of rides and fast reaction games epitomises my teen years.
Those who bothered to read may have noticed a big exclusion form all this. Nintendo. I never had any interest in either the Nintendo cabs (beyond Donkey Kong on that first holiday when I was 7), or home systems. For the years I was really into gaming, Sega and Atari dominated the scene. I still don't have any real affection for Nintendo games. I understand it, but it just doesn't do that much for me. I'm trying now though to get into it more. See...
I like to go back and play every now and then. Relive the period for a short while. However, I get bored quickly. I played these games so much when I was younger. I don't "retro-game" because this to me IS gaming. I've been there and I've done it to the point of boredom. I'll occasionally find a new game (or one I never actually played much because it was too tough, like Spy Hunter on the Midway collection) that I will play a lot (I can now reach the boat stage myself on Spy Hunter) - but revisiting old games just doesn't do it for me. Hence why I'm trying to discover Nintendo from those periods.
Will that do?
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