Articles
Arcade. Eyesore. It’s Conquered.
win yourself a prize for playing
certain games. And it’s not just
bowling offered at this arcade,
there’s pool, an eatery and a bar
too. If it wasn’t for the dodgems
hiding away in the corner –
seriously, dodgems! - I would
have assumed I’d wandered
into a Tenpin by mistake.
Now, back to Doodle Jump.
Or not, as the case is, as I just
tutted at the mere concept
of having an iOS game blown
up onto a screen bigger than
my own telly at home, and
moved on to... sweet Jesus...
Temple Run. I have to say I
was intrigued by this, as I have
wiled away a fair few hours
on it at bus stops in the past,
Issue 57 • July 2014
but looking at the rolling demo
it barely looked much better
than on my much inferior
Galaxy S2... which I had on
me... with Temple Run on
it... which I downloaded for
free. And Namco Funscape
want me to pay £1 to play it,
just for the novelty of swiping
a trackball rather than the
screen itself? Seriously, where
are the actual, proper, bona
fide ARCADE GAMES?!
Sure enough, I arrive at the
hulking cabinets, the plastic
vehicles and huge screens with
guns hanging off them. Arcade
stalwart Time Crisis is present,
Time Crisis 4 to be precise,
which I promptly stick a quid
into, draw my weapon, only to
put it back in the holster two
minutes later due to too many
face-entering bullets coming
my way. There was an original
Terminator Salvation machine,
which looked ok, an arcade
iteration of Codemasters’ Grid,
a sprawling 8-player setup
of the latest incarnation of a
personal beloved favourite of
mine, Out Run, and Deadstorm
Pirates. That was literally
it. Profound sadness.
Let’s travel back to the mid-90s,
shall we? With the decline of
arcades unknowingly on the
horizon, they still drew immense
crowds and businesses thrived
solely on the takings eked out
12 • GameOn Magazine