Arcades (and arcade games themselves) may not be as relevant as they used to be, but just because you don’t see them around as much these days doesn’t mean there aren’t new – and cool – arcade games being developed and released.
And I don’t mean just fighting games and whatever Big Bucks are left to hunt.
The EAG 2015 Expo took place in the UK last week, and this year’s big arcade games were all on show. The largest draw was probably Time Crisis 5, but there were also big showings from the latest Mario Kart arcade game, Star Wars Battlepod (which looks good) and a new Jurassic Park shooter as well
Arcade Heroes has some good coverage of the event, while Arcade Belgium got some gameplay footage out, showing Time Crisis and Jurassic Park in action.
Comments
16 responses to “No, Arcade Games Are Not Dead”
Yes they are.
You have not been to Taiwan then. Mad mecha of arcade sites scattered throughout the big cities.
Sure in Australia they are few and far between, but by no means not anywhere near dead.
Maybe not in Japan and big events that are about gaming.
Those games look 100% identical to what they were 20 years ago (well just under) other than the slightly updated graphics that first one may as well be Virtua Cop, and the second is exactly like every other rail shooter with mounted guns.
Also why is the voice acting just as ridiculously crap as it ever has been, they sound like they’re speaking english for the first time.
Twenty years the top arcade games were Daytona USA and Mortal Kombat 3
Virtua Fighter was still in its first version, and only one Tekken had been released
Time Crisis 1 was about to come out
The first Virtua Cop came out around 94/95 – please go look at the graphics of that game and compare it to the videos above. Its more than a ‘slight’ upgrade
96 saw the evolution of the AM2 model board and games like The Lost World Jurassic Park and Virtua Striker 97 were being released
Time Crisis 2 hit the arcades in 1998 and looks absolutely nothing like the videos posted above
I get it, you either dont like arcade games or they arent your cup of tea. But cut the hyperbole.
On rails shooters are popular arcade games – there isnt a whole lot you can do with the genre (pedals for ducking, swapping guns, 3D – Dark Escape 3D/4D depending on where you play it) – these features werent around 20 years ago (Time Crisis 1 had the pedal for ducking, VC was a standard light gun game – before them you had sprite based rail shooters like Lethal Enforcers, T2 Arcade etc)
But every arcade I go to still has Daytona in there. I mean why? Move with the times for gods sake!
Cheap cabinet + high earnings + low maintenance costs = good game to have
Chinese made spare parts for it are so cheap its almost crazy not to have a Daytona
Besides, Sega re-released the game a few years ago under the name “Sega Classic Racing” with a widescreen LCD monitor, removing the Daytona licence
Sure. Makes sense. A game I played a lot in 1993 man. The graphics are just awful. Ridiculous that the same game is still in arcades.
We have one actual arcade left here in NZ. The rest of the “arcades” only have Stacker, Big Buck, Daytona, Who wants to be a millionaire (for some reason) flat-out mediocre games and alot of crane games
Are Yifan’s and Stages still around? Those were massive back in my day (mid to late 90’s), with the walls lined with Streets and MK.
When I first moved to Sydney in ’98/’99 there was a timezone at every shopping centre. Within about 5 or so years they all dried up, leaving the only arcades down George St. Now there’s, like, half an arcade upstairs in Galaxy World (the rest is claw machines) and a few shitty arcade corners at bowling alleys.
Arcade in my nearest shopping centre had an overhaul recently, they were like this before. While they still have all this stuff – weird ticket games like a pac-man ticket game, and a flappy bird one (shudder), down the back they put in a bunch of high-tech looking cabinets some flight sims and a shooter with a huge curved screen in a little room/cabinet thing, and another horror shooter with wind effects and stuff lol. But yeah.. most of them are racing and shooting.
Crane games and redemption is where it’s at now. Arcades are HISTORY unless you have a huge population. As much as we have fond memories of arcades the cash flow is not looking good for regular arcade games.
So errrr 4 arcade games are released this year and maybe 1-2 of each unit will hit Australia…. I’d say it’s pretty dead.
If anything pinball is massively on the rise with Stern in full production mode lately but arcade games…. dead.
4 games a year?
Go visit Japan/China/Korea/Taiwan and you will see lots of new product.
Lots of these titles hit Australia too
As for pinball – I dont know where you get this informaiton from? PInball has been more deader than dead and Stern are just producing expensive limited run licenced tables – barely 2 or 3 a year
You know what could revive (western) arcades? VR. And not just slap-a-headset-on (once consumer versions ship you could do that at home). Experiences that involve setups to stimulate other senses. Like that Game of Thrones experience a while back. For example, retrofitting an existing motorcycle arcade machine with a VR “helmet” and a giant fan, with the wind speed controlled by the speed you’re travelling in-game.
They are not dead, but they are on life support in a coma they are not expected to come out of.
Now we all must take the hard decision to pull the plug and let them die with dignity or to leave them on life support.