Articles
Arcade. Eyesore. It’s Conquered.
Before, it was a simple
question of building a game
within a cabinet that vastly
outperformed what was
possible in the home. The
various home console versions
of the Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles coin-op is a testament to
that. But as graphics, sound and
just the games in general of the
home left the arcades in their
dust at breakneck speeds come
the dawn of the new millenium,
the arcades still today possess
the space and money to offer to
take you for a spin in a Ferrari
Testarossa during a game of
Issue 57 • July 2014
Out Run. 8-player local co-op
racing. Light gun games how
they’re meant to be played – on
a 72-inch screen with the sound
turned up to 11. Sure, there
hasn’t been an original IP to
have begun life in an arcade for
Donkey (Kong)’s years, nor has
there been an original title of
any kind in nearly 20 years, that
purpose of an arcade is dead.
Now simply a side attraction
for other businesses, they do
still enjoy life as a means to
garner a unique method of
playing games in an ‘always-
already-read’ industry, and
for that reason alone they
should continue to live on for
a little while longer. I have
to just accept my childhood
experiences of pumping
enough 50ps into Final Fight
until completion(!) are not
coming back, and arcades
had to adapt to the fastchanging, unforgiving world of
technology or be lost forever.
I’d just like to see how they
stand up to the forthcoming
VR headsets and treadmills...
an arcade Holodeck, perhaps?
14 • GameOn Magazine