Want to buy a new arcade machine?

Whilst researching for this blog I came across a company called BMIGaming.com, who are an international arcade and amusement retailer. There might not be many classic arcade machines on their site, but looking through their extensive range makes you realise how many arcade machines are still produced. The site is broken down into a dizzying number of categories. You can choose from:

• 3D games
• Air hockey
• Basketball
• Bowling
• Boxing
• Change machines
• Coin pushers
• Crane machines
• Dart machines
• Foosball
• Jukeboxes
• Kiddie rides
• Motion simulators
• Photo booths
• Pinball machines *
• Ping pong
• Pool tables
• Redemption games
• Shuffleboards
• Touchscreens
• Vending machines
• Video games *

* Obviously, these are the ones Arcda interested in.

That is way more categories than I could have come up with off the top of my head. Needless to say, browsing their website is like being a kid in a candy store.

Every few months they released a show reel of the new machines that are coming out, which I will add to the blog, but they also release lots of demos of new games, which you can see on their You Tube channel here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/bmigaming

MTW

Nostalgia Trip - Dreaming of the 80s

My parents have always been caravaners and for years we went to the same, dull caravan sites, where there was nothing for kids to do.  Then in 1984 we went to one called Old hall, near Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, and it was much better than the sites we had been going to; it was a 5 minute walk to the beech, it had a small farm, an open air swimming pool, a bar, a nightclub and an arcade.  I was 9 when we first went to Old Hall and although I had played games on my brother-in-law's Atari 2600 and my older brother's BBC Micro B, this was the first time I got to play an arcade game.  Over the next eight years or so, we went back to Old Hall every summer.  Over the years the games changed and the arcade itself changed location on the site, from behind the nightclub, to the games room in the pub to finally ending up in a brightly-lit brick conservatory-come-reception, pictured below:

The Old Hall, Caister-on-Sea, contained the first arcade I ever visited.

The Old Hall is still there, but the camp site, farm, pool and arcade are gone. It's now a restaurant and health club.  It's a shame, but I can't say I'm surprised. When I last visited around 1994 they just had a few, rather old machines left. A sign of the times.

Sun, sea and shoot 'em ups

As well as the small arcade in the Old Hall's arcade, there were also the numerous arcades along Yarmouth's seafront.  The Flamingo, Circus Circus, The Mint, Silver Slipper, Golden Nugget, Majestic, Caesar's Palace, I visited them all, often switching arcades every pound or so in order to find the games I wanted to play.

Circus Circus, formerly the Yarmouth Hippodrome, was my favourite arcade in the 80s

The Flamingo, still one of Yarmouth's biggest arcades

The Mint wasn't big, but did have a number of niche games in it.

I only got to visit these arcades when either my parents or my old older brother took me, but they still formed a major part of my early coin-op gaming. It's for this reason that I think I associate hot summer days as much with playing Golden Axe, Space Harrier or Wonder Boy as I do beaches, sun bathing and ice creams.

Yarmouth's arcades still exist, but like most arcades these days all that's left are a few light gun games, driving games and dancing games.  The rest of the space is now occupied by fruit machines, quiz machines and claw games.

Night-time nostalgia

In order to write this blog, I've been thinking about those holidays and those arcade more than I have done in decades.  And here's the funny thing, for the past week I have actually been dreaming about Old Hall.  Not specifically its arcade, but the site in general, from the pool to the grassy area where the kids played football and frisbee, to the pub and club, where they even let under 18s have a bit of a bop around - as long as they stay out of the bar.  Great days and when my own kids are old enough, I hope to take them on holidays they will remember for the rest of their lives.

 MTW

Homage Review: Shatter (PC, PS3)

Think of a game, new or old, and chances are you can trace its roots back to a previous game. The lineage of New Zealand developer Sidhe's bat, ball and block game Shatter is clear to see.

When you see Shatter the chances are you'll think it's just an iteration on Arkanoid, but of course Arkanoid was an iteration on Breakout, which in turn was an iteration on Pong, which, remarkably, can trace its roots back to the one of very first video games, William Higinbotham's Tennis For Two from 1958. But don't let that put you off.

At the beginning of the game you are just a bat, trapped in a cell of one of the many matrices in Sector 14G of the Kinetic Harvest Zone, knocking a ball back and forth against a spark plug to make energy. Then there's an anomaly, the spark plug breaks, your ball shatters the walls of your cell and you escape. And so begins a 4-6 hour journey as you break blocks and even battle bosses in your fight for freedom. It's not much of a story, but it's different.

I've said Shatter's lineage is clear, so let's just quickly check off all the routine stuff:

✔ Bat
✔ Ball
✔ Bricks to break
✔ Power-ups

But I said don't be put off by its generic genes, Sidhe, have gone out of their way to inject some innovation into the genre. For a start, the first few levels are horizontal, like Pong, rather than vertical like every over Breakout and Arkanoid clone. Over the course of the game you'll be batting from all sorts of crazy angles. As usual, your balls represent your lives, but in Shatter you can initiate multiple-ball mode by firing another ball at any time, sacrificing a life in the process. It's a risk, but in the right circumstances it can really pay off. Any balls that are left over at the end of the wave go back to being lives on the next wave. Next thing of note is the fragments (known as Shards) that float around the screen when you break a brick. These can be collected to slowly build up a power meter. When the meter is full you can unleash a few seconds of hot laser death called a Shard Storm, which is very handy when it comes two Shatter next innovative feature, the boss fights. I may be overlooking some obscure Breakout clone or other, but I have certainly never seen bosses in  other games like this before. They every half a dozen waves or so and in typical style they represent the end of each world. Among Shatter's 10 bosses there's a snake made of giant blocks, there's Shatter's version of David and Goliath as you face off against a giant bat, and even a boss you have to fight in 360°.

As you can tell by how you active multi-ball and blasters, Sidhe have also tried to be different with Shatter's power-ups too. There's no glue-ball or extra-wide bats here. Other power-ups include a Shard multiplier, an unstoppable ball that will break any type of block and a manoeuvre ball power up, which leads us to Shatter's biggest innovation: your bat's ability to suck and blow. This serves multiple purposes. For a start, it can be used to collect power ups. Next it can be used to direct your ball towards its target; when you have the manoeuvre ball power-up it's even possible to blow the ball back before it ever reaches your bat. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, you can use it to collect the Shards, which in itself puts you at risk of unwittingly changing the ball's trajectory in the process. Other tricks up Shatter's sleeve include blocks that drift towards your bat, knocking both the ball and the bat itself out of position. There's a lot going on, but with a decent multi-button mouse it's all perfectly manageable and unlike other games in this genre, Shatter is generous with its allocation of lives, so rather than being defeated within a few levels there's a good chance you will finish it and free Bat-1138. After that the game unlocks a host of new modes, including boss rush mode, but whether you'll want to play again is questionable.

Video games rely on iteration to improve and often the game that introduced some brilliant new idea was not the best example of it. So yes, Shatter plays like Arkanoid and every other game derived from it or Breakout, but it is also the best version of this genre I have played since Taito's 1986 classic.

Aside from how good Shatter's gameplay and visual are, I must also mention its gorgeous techno soundtrack, composed by Module. If you like ambient dance music, you will absolutely love the music in Shatter -- it's actually good enough to listen to on its own. With that in mind, here's the music video for world 6, Amethyst Caverns. Yes, they made a music video for the sound track -- it's that good:

Plays like

• Breakout
• Arkanoid

Highs

• Feels like a significant iteration of an otherwise well-worn genre.
• Brilliantly-realised boss fights.
• Great visuals.
• Even better sound track --one of my favourites of all time.

Lows

• Not much replay value once you finish it.

Shatter is available for PlayStation 3 on the PlayStation Network Store or for PC via the Steam service, priced £6.99.

Also available for purchase is Module's soundtrack, priced around £3. If you just want to preview it, you can listen to the whole thing on Bandcamp.com here:  http://sidhe.bandcamp.com/album/shatter-official-videogame-soundtrack.

Arcade Throwback reviews

I've been thinking, 'What's a games website without reviews?' So with that in mind, I want to write the occasional review for Arcade Throwback. The trouble is, new arcade machines are few and far between, so I will need to review things like ports, remakes and any other new, arcade-related games I encounter.

It's common for review sites to put a score at the bottom, but I think that's pretty much meaningless, so inside I'll end my reviews with two bullet point lists, one for the highs and one for the lows.

Look out for upcoming reviews under the http://arcadethrowback.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Reviews label.

MTW

Pac-Man returns to the arcade

If you asked a non-gamer to think of a video game hero, the chances are they'll give you one of three answers: Lara Croft, Mario or everyone's favourite yellow sphere, Pac-Man.

Namco Bandai gave the old fella a new lease of life back in 2007 when they released Pac-Man Championshop Edition for Xbox Live Arcade.  Sure, Pac-Man has appeared on lots of home platforms, but really he belongs in the arcade and Namco Bandai have realised this and released a brand new machine, Pac-Man Battle Royale as part of his 30th anniversary.

Revealed to the public at the 2010 Amusement Expo in Las Vegas last month, Battle Royale has a similar asthetic to Championship Edition, but is a four player cocktail cabinet, where the players can not only eat the ghosts, but each other too.

The cabinet looks brilliant too.  It's uses an LCD screen to keep down the bulk and with its four cup holders, it's clearly been designed to live in bars as well as arcades.

I have no idea where I can get to play this in the UK, but I can't wait to give it a go when it's released next year.  For now, here's a video demo from a guy calling himself The Atarian:

Classic of the Month - Space Invaders

Manufacturer:	Taito
Genre:	Shoot 'em up
Board:	Dedicated Intel 8080-based hardware
Year:	1978

When I decided to do a monthly spotlight on classic arcade games, it was difficult to know where to begin.  In the end, I decided to go for the first arcade machine I can remember seeing, Space Invaders. I was 7 or 8 and my family were on holiday in Cromer. We went to a fish and chip shop and there by the counter was Space Invaders. I didn't know what the game was called, in fact I don't think I fully understood what it was, but I remember the artwork -- because it gave me nightmares. Those hulking, faceless beasts, stomping through a mountain range (or was it meant to be the moon? I still don't know) looked nothing like the simple sprites in the game, but it was an iconic image nonetheless.

 
The first time I actually played Space Invaders was on my older brother's BBC Micro B a few years later and it was several years later still that I made the connection between the game I played at home and the arcade machine with the scary monsters on it.

Over the years, Space Invaders has had several updates, most noteably Space Invaders '91 and Space Invaders Extreme - the latter of which is brilliant.  For now, let's just remind ourselves of the original, courtesy of YouTube user Laoch111:

MTW

E3 2010

The Electronic Entertainment Expo, the biggest trade show in the games industry calendar, is over for another year.  While E3 has never been about arcade games, I do work in the industry, so it only seems right that I should comment on this annual extravaganza.

The big three, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo, all had new technology to announce this year, most of which was based on either motion-controlled gaming or 3D.  As a result, it felt as though there was not as many actual games announced this year compared to previous years, although there were still over 800 games at the show in some capacity or another.  Let's have a look at what Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo had to show us all.

Microsoft
Where as Nintendo and Sony offer very similar kinds of motion control, Microsoft have headed off in their own direction with Kinect.  This is basically a very clever camera system that allows you to play games by moving your arms, legs and in some cases, your whole body without actually holding anything.  As Microsoft's press release says, you are the controller.  And this isn't just technology for playing virtual volleyball, Kinect also works with the Xbox 360's user interface and even allows users to control movies with hand gestures.

Will Kinect for Xbox 360 be the next evolution in gaming?

To go hand-in-hand with the Kinect, Microsoft unveiled their new, smaller version of the Xbox 360, which features a special connector on the back for powering the camera.  People with original 360s will have to find space on their extension leads to connect the Kinect to the mains.

After being on the market for five years, the Xbox 360 gets a facelift.

As for games, there were plenty of Kinect games announced, most of which harped existing Nintendo Wii games, including such obvious clones as Kinect Sports and Kinect Party.  If you're one of those old fashioned sorts who likes to hold on to a controller while you play, Microsoft haven't forgotten about you.  Among the upcoming core games were Gears of War 3, Fable 3, Halo: Reach, Crackdown 2 and Mass Effect 3.

Sony
Sony had the most new tech to show off this year, with both a motion controller and 3D.  Their motion controller is called the Move and as I mentioned at the beginning, it closely resembles a Wii remote.  It even has its own version of a Nunchuk, called a Navigation Controller.  What the Move has over the Wii Remote is direct positional tracking, with the aid of the PlayStation Eye camera and a glowing, rubber ball at the end of the controller.  Sources say it is significantly more accurate than either Kinect or Wii Motion Plus, but it's still difficult to shrug off feeling it's just a copy cat.

Montion control and motion capture combine with the PlayStation Move

As for 3D, Sony are pushing this technology hard, with both their 3D TVs and 3D games and 3D movies on the PS3.   Some games they showed in 3D included Gran Turismo 5 and Killzone 3, both of which should be first class titles.  However, for a family to enjoy this admittedly impressive technology in their home, everyone will need a set of polarised 3D glasses.  Combined with the cost of the TVs, the initial investment to enjoy this technology runs into the thousands.

3D TV is coming, whether we like it or not.

Nintendo
In recent years, Nintendo have been accused of abandoning core gamers.  However, at this year's E3 they seemed keen to prove this attitude is wrong.  They showed some interesting new Wii titles, including a new Zelda game that uses Motion Plus, Sin & Punishment 2, NBA Jam, Epic Mickey, a new version of GoldenEye, Kirby's Epic Yarn, Mario Sports Mix, Conduit 2,  a new Donkey Kong Country game and loads more.

Kirby's Epix Yarn has a brilliant art style, where everything is made of bits of wool.

The biggest news coming out of Nintendo, if not the whole show, was the unveiling of the 3DS.  This is their first new handheld since the original DS back in 2004 and it's packing quite a punch.  It now has an analogue stick, the power of a GameCube and glasses-free 3D.  It's also backwards compatible with the current range of DSs.  The press all seemed really impressed with this technology, which I find interesting, because so many of them are against other forms of 3D.  As far as Arcade Throwback is concerned, we wish this technology had been available back in the heyday of coin-op gaming, because it is precisely this kind of experience that used to make those old games so different from home gaming.

Despite looking similar to the DSi, the 3DS is a very different beast underneath

Consoles live or die by their games and Nintendo have already announced Metal Gear Solid, Street Fighter IV, Resident Evil, Splinter Cell, Assassin's Creed, Dead or Alive, Ghost Recon, Ninja Gaiden, Ridge Racer, Saint's Row, Pilot Wings and the long awaited return of Kid Icarus.  I reckon that lot will stand the 3DS in good stead.

Summary
Overall it was an exciting show and proof games still have a lot to offer.  I think the new slim Xbox looks great, although I'm not yet convinced about Kinect.  As far as motion-controlled gaming goes, I think Sony has the best idea by combining everything the Wii remote can do with most of what Kinect can do.  It's worth clarifying that the glowing ball at the end of the Move controller gives the system something clear and definite to track.  Kinect, on the other hand, will always have to guess where your hand is in relation to the rest of your arm and the surrounding environment.  As for games, I think Nintendo has really cranked things up this year.  I can't quite believe how many core titles are on the way for the Wii, but at the same time I can't help feeling they should have done this three years ago; I know far too many gamers who have abandoned the Wii because of the vast number of shallow party games and bogus fitness games there are on the system.  Let's hope some of them can be tempted back with this crop of "proper" games.

So what was my pick of the show?  Easy, the 3DS.  The idea of playing 3D games without having another pair of glasses on top of my prescription lens is very appealing, but I need to see one in the flesh before I'll believe the 3D is as good as everyone says.

For more information on the show, see http://www.e3expo.com

MTW