Those were the days…

Games were once played in bustling, busy places. These days, that’s rarely the case. Daniel Lipscombe chronicles the history of the humble arcade.

DUST – A layer of dust thick enough to write your name in for the world to see. This was the only thing to be seen on the Tekken 6 cabinet. No people; not even a passing glance was thrown towards Law, and Paul, and their comrades. A 50 pence coin rolled around in my palm, and after a momentary pause I was choosing my fighter. I lasted around six minutes in total. In that six minutes not one person passed through that dingy corner of the arcade, and my fingerprints were the only ones that would be left in the dust.

I walked out from my lonely hideaway, nodded solemnly at the Tekken 6 machine, and weaved in and out of the remaining cabinets. Time Crisis 2, Crisis Squad, Afterburner and Sega Rally all stood languishing with black screens, not even a flicker of life. This was once the stomping grounds of gods. Once the place to be. It’s nothing more than a graveyard now.

Arcade gaming is dying. There was a time when arcades would be packed from front to back with people moving from one game to another; when a constant milling of spectators stopped by to watch a match of Street Fighter 2, or to view the final lap of Daytona USA. It was once the backbone of the videogame industry. Now, it’s breaking, and no one is there to watch it take its final breath.

Ancient history

Arcade gaming was always tough in the UK. We Brits could only play these games when we venture to the coastal towns on holidays, as arcades were always seen as a tourist feature. Unlike in the US and Japan, there was rarely a ‘local’ arcade – unless you were lucky enough to live by the sea. The problem was always there: arcade cabinets weren’t getting enough footfall, and arcade owners were becoming understandably impatient.

At one point, arcade graphics boards were outstripping home consoles in performance, and players would gather around huge, colourful screens, mouths agape at the technology. This wasn’t to last, as home consoles became more powerful and offered more to their owners. Televisions were becoming bigger, and typical arcade titles were landing in bedrooms. There was less need to play in poorly lit arcades.

In the UK, arcade owners were ditching their gaming units in favour of gambling fruit machines, toy cranes and penny pushers. With such a high profit to be made on each of these machines, and the niche audience moving away from their gaming fix, managers stopped ordering spare parts and buying new games.

Arcades were once a haven for all walks of life, not just in the ’80s and ’90s but ranging all the way back to penny arcades in the 1930s. Games back then required very little playing, and were more “interactive entertainment” than anything. Some machines would simply require a payment in order to display a scene from a play or poem, and you may have been able to use buttons to change the lighting and such.

One notorious arcade thrill was a machine called What The Butler Saw, an early piece of adult entertainment that allowed the player to look through a viewfinder, turn a handle, and see ladies from the ’20s and ’30s in various states of undress. Not exactly a game – but penny arcades used machines like this to give people something that they couldn’t find at home.

Games would soon follow, with cabinets containing mazes in which you would guide a ball into a goal, or a clockwork duck-shooting gallery. Many of these games were sophisticated, and allowed players to socialise and create a competitive situation. Of course, modern arcades followed on from this tradition, but used technology to heighten the interactions and sportsmanship.

Can you come out to play?

Arcades were a place to gather with friends and experience videogaming in a very different way. Perhaps even the best way, particularly for the more competitive titles. There’s a gladiatorial feeling of popping in a ten pence piece and drawing a crowd while you and a friend hammer the buttons of Track and Field.

Trips to the local arcades would last the week through stories and tales told to friends missing on that previous Saturday. High scores were bandied about, noses were rubbed in defeat, and plans were made for the next trip.

Continues…

Arcades might seemingly be on the way out, but Daniel Lipscombe fondly remembers his Saturdays spent in the company of games machines and friends in his seaside hometown…

It’s raining outside. Clouds are drowning the sky and the world is swirling in a torrent of people running for cover. They dart here and there while we walk with purpose. The rain doesn’t bother us. We’ll be inside soon.

The warmth of the stale darkness will envelop us and open our eyes to a different world. We left the cables at home, strewn on the floor. Today is a Saturday, and in this “sunny” seaside town we have a plan.

The cacophony of shrill chirps and thudding music does nothing to dampen our spirits. The rattling of metal bounces around our ears as we run our fingers over the loose change in our pockets. We have a destination, and it’s in our sights. We move as one and serpentine back and forth as we check what’s new. There are three of us, our palms itching. Our eyes are wide as we scan the surroundings. There’s man with a dog picking up spilt coins. He was here last week.

This is a Magic City, our Magic City and nobody can take that away. The musty smell of grease wafts throughout, only replaced by a metallic tang as we run our hands over our faces. Our pace quickens as we approach a quiet corner that will soon be full of teenagers. There’s one other person in our area, bouncing a basketball and preparing for a shot. A brief nod is passed between us, and a friend retreads his steps back to the opening of the building. One pound sterling later, he’s with us again. We’re a team.

A pile of 20 pence coins are placed on the top of the machine, to signify that we’ll be here for a while. The whole week has built up to this moment; the freedom from the mundane is here, fresh as the smell of salty sea air kicked up by the rain. We can’t hear the drops anymore. All we hear are the stereo speakers playing the familiar music we know so well.

KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE
The colours and animations flow and play out before us while we mutter something about walking down to the pier afterwards and seeking out the older stuff. Only ten pence per credit now, those older machines. For now, though, we’re in the Magic City and coins are waiting to be spent. As two of us roll our money into the slot below the screen, we exchange a cursory smile. This is a battle, and one of is guaranteed to lose. There is no friendship for 90 seconds; only a bitter rivalry that is tracked through memory.

Our hands come to rest on the surface before us. The left hand waits patiently; the right taps an unknown rhythm while we wait. It’s his choice first, and I know what his pick will be – regular as clockwork. He knows me well too, and my choice never changes either. The countdown appears, and our hands settle into position.

Someone always jumps at the opening second and is usually followed by a sweeping kick, easily blocked and countered with a Dragon Punch. This is where we belong; this is how we play. As the movement flows across the screen, people are walking past and commenting. Some stop to watch. Someone reaches in and places a pound coin next to a stick, his way of saying that “he’s got next.”

As the match comes to an end, the smiles are back and someone else steps up to put their money where their mouth is. We stay there for hours, watching, or moving from machine to machine. When we’ve lost the taste to fight, we duck behind crates while we reload, or we climb into the seat of a Hornet and drive for as long as it takes.

The rain has stopped and the sun is setting. Our pockets are empty, but we got what we came for. Three friends leave the Magic City to walk down to the pier and throw a javelin, or compete in the long jump for ten pence a go. This is the way we played. No one can take that away.

By Lewis Denby

Imagine flicking a set of toy cars around an air hockey table.

That’s the sort of high-tech, low-grav, zero-friction experience delivered by Super Laser Racer.  It is, in effect, all about learning to manage the handling of these vehicles, as they fly and flail around a multitude of tracks suspended in deepest space.  There’s no tarmac condition to worry about, and nothing weighting these cars down to the road.  They float precariously, at dazzlingly high speeds, around inordinately complicated laser grids.

Comparisons to Wipeout, Mario Kart and a whole load of other combat racing games are inevitable.  In fact, Super Laser Racer’s a solid enough game, with a unique enough feel, to stand proudly on its own.  It’s a great example of an indie developer playing to its strengths and producing the type of game that could only emerge from such a scene.  It’s colourful and kitsch.  It’s maddeningly addictive.

With an impressive collection of vehicles, you’ll race around the many tracks in any of a multitude of game types.  As well as the slightly uninspired tournament setting, there are individual races, which can be tackled in any of three modes.  The standard race mode is straight-forward enough.  Eliminator knocks out the last racer to finish every lap, making each a mad dash to climb the grid.  And Survivor locks out the power-charged pit-stop, meaning any damage you take can’t be repaired throughout the race.  When your damage bar fills to the top with red, it’s game over.

While these modes add some variety, it’s the basic race mode that remains the most engaging.  Its universally understood rules, with the addition of some arcade shooting, make for a splendidly invigorating distraction, as you work to beat lap times, risk narrow corners and line up your shots.  You collect weapons and power-ups around the tracks but, pleasantly, they rarely take over.  Despite the crazy, Geometry Wars-esque explosions, none of them are particularly devastating, acting more as a temporary irritant than a race-destroying catastrophe.  As such, it remains primarily about the racing itself, and its mechanics never contradict.

//So lonely
It’s absolutely crying out for multiplayer.  That there isn’t one, either local or online, is a serious problem.  It’s never fair to criticise a product for failing to be something else, but that’s the issue.  Super Laser Racer is totally the sort of game that screams for competition.  There’s an online leaderboard, but that’s hardly exhilarating.  And it’s not that the AI isn’t convincing – it genuinely is.  It’s just not real people.

The single-player game contains enough content to keep you occupied for a fair while, even if the basics remain the same across each mode.  There’s plenty to unlock, if that’s your bag.  There’s even a surprisingly-easy-once-you-know-how track editor, and if enough players start sharing their tracks on the official forum, there’s the potential for limitless entertainment.

But, you know.  No multiplayer.  It really nags.

It nags mainly because I like Super Laser Racer.  I like it a lot.  It’s explosive, addictive and gorgeously balanced.  It revels in its own simplicity and its mastery of a core concept, like so many excellent indie games do.  But £7.49, though inexpensive, is a very real price – and despite the impressive amount of content to unlock, the inability to challenge friends is a serious kick to the mileage you’ll get out of this.

Still.  I’m ready for another go…

7/10

What does this score mean?

By Greg Giddens

Madballs in… Babo: Invasion is a true arcade game that fully embraces the style. You’re a head with a gun strapped to your face, and you roll around picking up different guns and destroying other faces or balls. Expected result: fast paced shooting action – and that’s exactly what Madballs deliverers. However, underneath the arcade shell is a surprising amount of innovation and strategy.

The single-player game isn’t the deepest of experiences, but it doesn’t really need to be. But the length is a problem – although the 10 levels are initially challenging, once you learn how to approach them you can breeze through them very quickly. Once it’s over, the fun dies with it, as replaying the same levels can only entertain for so long. The humour through the single-player game is excellent, not so much from the characters’ annoyingly frequent one-liners but from the hidden dairy entries scattered around each level, providing amusing release from the often hectic shooting action. The levels themselves are well-designed and varied, with good presentation through vivid colours and great fire effects. It’s amazing how much is squeezed into each area, from the copious amount of enemies to all the hidden areas and collectables. And collecting them, along with killing all the enemies, provides much more than just fulfilling your rampant needs; the experience gained unlocks more weapons and characters.

//Rolling, rolling, rolling
As you play through single- or multiplayer, you gain experience, unlocking more as you go. This omnipresent progression means every kill counts, especially as the difficulty ramps up in the single-player game’s later levels. Despite this increase in challenge, it’s certainly best to begin with the campaign, as in the multiplayer mode you’ll find yourself easily out-gunned you until you unlock some of the more powerful weapons.

There are an impressive 10 of these to unlock, each with a secondary fire mode that too needs unlocking, usually through kills with the primary fire option. Many enemies have specific weaknesses and strengths, which your fire modes are geared towards, so figuring out which mode is best for each enemy is crucial. It all adds a dose of strategy to what is essentially a traditional arcade shooter, and affects your playing style whether in the campaign or online.

Ultimately, the single-player acts as a primer for the excellent multiplayer game. Madballs in… Babo: Invasion sports no less than seven multiplayer modes, the most interesting of which are the Avatar Attack mode, which allows players to use their avatars’ heads instead of the ordinary characters (for once, the inclusion of an avatar game mode doesn’t feel tacked on) and innovative and strategic Invasion mode. In Invasion, the objective is to secure control points around the map, each of which able to be fitted with an offensive weapon or health station to support your team. It’s fast-paced, action-packed and agreeably tactical – something which surprisingly extends throughout the otherwise typically arcade experience.

The variety of game modes on offer is magnificent, and none of them feel rushed or compromised by the others. However, for all the engaging features of the multiplayer and the challenge of the single-player, Madballs is lacking in depth and nuance, so prolonged play is difficult to sustain.

For 800 MS points (£6.80), it’s a good buy. But it’s still shy of its full-priced competitors. Madballs in… Babo: Invasion is an arcade game, and it lives up to that completely: the fun is present in abundance, but it’s a casual and short-lived affair.

7/10

What does this score mean?