Marcus here, and I’d like to explain before Carl starts to argue again why Daytona USA is the arcade racing experience that revolutionised our perception of racing games. What I’m going to say has nothing to do with nostalgia – it’s about technical innovation, accessibility and the rare union of leading edge technology and pure arcade entertainment. Daytona USA was released in 1994 (Wikipedia), the first game on the Model 2 arcade system board developed…
Joe’s been going on and on about Streets of Rage for weeks now, so I’m happy to take over for this post because I wanted to talk about something else entirely – basically, the fundamentals of the whole thing. As usual, we’ve been arguing about arcade hierarchies and I’m sick of hearing about it, so I thought I’d give the nod to a game that should be recognised for changing the face of gaming culture…
When I came to Space Invaders for the first time, I will admit I saw no more than just the most rudimentary elements of a game. A black screen with white dots floating around – that was supposed to be the basis of everything? However, after spending quality time playing the game and understanding what it achieved, I have come to appreciate what Tomohiro Nishikado accomplished with the creation of Space Invaders. In 1978, the…
Joe has been going on about this for weeks; saying Street Fighter II should receive a lot of the credit for essentially inventing competitive gaming as we know it. We have all pointed out to Joe that fighting games have existed since before 1991, but Joe will not listen to that either. Joe continues to go on about the frame data of the game, and how he is the first person to find out about…
Joe here, and I’m prepared to start another argument with my team: NBA Jam is the best arcade basketball game ever made, and the best sports game, bar none. I know Tim’s gonna try to throw some FIFA nonsense at me, while Sam tosses out some frame data about how Street Fighter is the better competitive experience. But NBA Jam took what every simulation-focused sports game was aspiring to do in 1993 and said “screw…
One of the most vividly remembered events in my childhood was the very first time I ever played Pac-Man. I was 8 years old and completely amazed. That would have been around 1982. I had accompanied my dad to the working men’s club in Stockport where he played in their darts team – he’d drink with his pals, toss a few darts, and I would head off to explore the arcade machines scattered among the…
There is no doubt that the best way to enjoy Street Fighter II is at an arcade. I will admit that I was immediately hooked upon entering the Pizza Ranch in July 1991, and observing a high school kid doing things in a video game that I didn’t know existed. The kid was playing Guile, the military dude with the super long hairdo, and he was launching those curved energy blasts while yelling “Sonic Boom!”…
The sound hit me first. That metallic crunch when Scorpion's spear connected, followed by the digitized grunt that my Mega Drive's YM2612 chip somehow made sound more menacing than it had any right to. I was hunched over our living room carpet—the brown one with those weird geometric patterns that looked like a computer had hiccups—frantically scribbling move commands on the back of a school exercise book. Down, forward, high punch. Got it. But what…
To this day, I remember hearing those sounds, in passing during the day, or sometimes even in my sleep. If you were lucky enough to grow up with them too, you know what I’m talking about. The glory of a wash of static as the local electronics store ran their loop of EWAV during the daytime. The coins clinking into slot machines. The frantic beeping of Frogger. The laser noises of Defender whizzing around the…
Elena here, and I need to tell you about something most gaming historians completely overlook when discussing Sega’s final console. Everyone fixates on Shenmue’s ambition or Jet Set Radio’s style, but they miss what actually demonstrated the Dreamcast’s arcade-perfect philosophy: Virtua Tennis. This wasn’t just another sports game thrown onto a console. This was Sega proving they could translate arcade precision into home gaming without compromise, creating what remains the most satisfying tennis experience ever…