No matter how much people say arcade gaming is dead it still holds a fearsome power over me. I've got a big stupid grin plastered on my face today and it's all thanks to this game.
There's nothing like an arcade experience. You can transplant the game onto a console, buy the necessary peripherals but it just isn't the same. It's like listening to a live CD versus being at the actual performance.
I was in Dublin this morning, tried to look interested in shopping with parents for an hour, made some excuse and made a beeline for Dr. Quirkies Good Time Emporium. I waded knee deep through scumbags in Kappa sportswear dropping coins into what must have been 50 or 60 new Pac Man slot machines and got stuck into Outrun2.
After an hour or so of play I went to have a look around and found Special Tours sitting among all the old **** like Thrill Drive 2 (****ing annoying music and woman scream sound effect going off in my ears ever 30 seconds, stupid Thrill Drive). WTF? I thougt this wasn't even out yet.
First of all the game looks just magnificent. This is partly down to the great big high definition screen, partly down to the Chihiro's power but mostly down to fantastic graphic design. God bless AM2.. they've reworked many of the old levels and they're just stunning. There's one point where you wind your way down a hill to a lake with huuuge waterfalls, not a hint of slowdown and scale of the scenery is incredible.
It's not just about visual enhancements though. The gameplay flows alot better. Collisions with traffic and scenery are very forgiving (you brush past in most cases) and the cars spin and fade out when you crash into them so you don't tend to get hemmed in by granny drivers half as much. Zipping in around traffic is much simpler so they've been able to up the complexity of the stages quite a bit. There are less long single turns and more zig zags and sequences of bends. The emphasis has moved more from fighting with the traffic to taking the turns correctly.
I tried a couple of the new vehicles and they were rather slow and well mannered so I stuck with the Testarossa after that. Some stats on the cars would be helpful. Maybe they were there but I didn't seem them.
I'm not that fantastic at Heart mode so I didn't see many of the challenges. There was one where you had to run over ghosts in the forest who sort of scuttled out of the way in an endearing fasion. Another challenge ran for the whole stage and put you racing against 8 rivals. Racing through hoops and collecting coins seemed a bit gimmicky to me. They're essentially the same thing as sliding on the red/blue bands and looked rather naff.
I didn't play the time attack mode on the old Outrun 2 but SP saves the ghosts of the best times which is nice. You also get a password at the end to submit to the world rankings.
So in summary; nice cabinet, nice looks and oh boy does it play nice.
Also played Ghost Squad and I really didn't like it. You rest the rifle on your shoulder. This makes looking through the sight sort of iffy. The game has to put a cursor on the screen to make things clearer.. never a good sign. There are two triggers, and a firemode toggle. You can switch around the toggle to automatic, 3 shot burst or single. All a little pointless. The screen is rotten with hostages and friendlies. You can use the front trigger to handcuff them (hold the pointer and hold it untill the handcuff bar fills). This doesn't really work very well because the enemies tend to jump out and shoot at you with practically no warning.
It's like a poor mans Crisis Zone. You don't want to give the player a machine gun and fill the screen with hostages. The enemies are bastards for using them as shields and running around in them too. At least in Virtua Cop 3 you could hit the bullet time slow down if you needed to pick some of them off carefully. Ghost Squad doesn't signpost attacks properly, looks dull and overcomplicates things. It seems a real step back from VC3 which I simply adore.
They had Initial D 3rd Stage. Lots of asian kids playing it. I've never really 'got' this game. Looks the same as the last version.
That new Namco Initial D clone was there too. Midnight Wagan or something? Looked ****.
Played a bit of Tekken 5. Christ, what a mess. Graphically it looks like a step back from Tekken 4. The levels are really dreary and the effects are incredibly tatty. Big chunks of concrete splash up into the air when you're character falls over. It's like he fell in a lake. Loads of people playing it of course. They had 3 ****ing cabinets and they were the busiest things in the whole place. In all the years I've been going there I've only ever seen someone play Virtua Fighter once. I just don't get it..
There's nothing like an arcade experience. You can transplant the game onto a console, buy the necessary peripherals but it just isn't the same. It's like listening to a live CD versus being at the actual performance.
I was in Dublin this morning, tried to look interested in shopping with parents for an hour, made some excuse and made a beeline for Dr. Quirkies Good Time Emporium. I waded knee deep through scumbags in Kappa sportswear dropping coins into what must have been 50 or 60 new Pac Man slot machines and got stuck into Outrun2.
After an hour or so of play I went to have a look around and found Special Tours sitting among all the old **** like Thrill Drive 2 (****ing annoying music and woman scream sound effect going off in my ears ever 30 seconds, stupid Thrill Drive). WTF? I thougt this wasn't even out yet.
First of all the game looks just magnificent. This is partly down to the great big high definition screen, partly down to the Chihiro's power but mostly down to fantastic graphic design. God bless AM2.. they've reworked many of the old levels and they're just stunning. There's one point where you wind your way down a hill to a lake with huuuge waterfalls, not a hint of slowdown and scale of the scenery is incredible.
It's not just about visual enhancements though. The gameplay flows alot better. Collisions with traffic and scenery are very forgiving (you brush past in most cases) and the cars spin and fade out when you crash into them so you don't tend to get hemmed in by granny drivers half as much. Zipping in around traffic is much simpler so they've been able to up the complexity of the stages quite a bit. There are less long single turns and more zig zags and sequences of bends. The emphasis has moved more from fighting with the traffic to taking the turns correctly.
I tried a couple of the new vehicles and they were rather slow and well mannered so I stuck with the Testarossa after that. Some stats on the cars would be helpful. Maybe they were there but I didn't seem them.
I'm not that fantastic at Heart mode so I didn't see many of the challenges. There was one where you had to run over ghosts in the forest who sort of scuttled out of the way in an endearing fasion. Another challenge ran for the whole stage and put you racing against 8 rivals. Racing through hoops and collecting coins seemed a bit gimmicky to me. They're essentially the same thing as sliding on the red/blue bands and looked rather naff.
I didn't play the time attack mode on the old Outrun 2 but SP saves the ghosts of the best times which is nice. You also get a password at the end to submit to the world rankings.
So in summary; nice cabinet, nice looks and oh boy does it play nice.
Also played Ghost Squad and I really didn't like it. You rest the rifle on your shoulder. This makes looking through the sight sort of iffy. The game has to put a cursor on the screen to make things clearer.. never a good sign. There are two triggers, and a firemode toggle. You can switch around the toggle to automatic, 3 shot burst or single. All a little pointless. The screen is rotten with hostages and friendlies. You can use the front trigger to handcuff them (hold the pointer and hold it untill the handcuff bar fills). This doesn't really work very well because the enemies tend to jump out and shoot at you with practically no warning.
It's like a poor mans Crisis Zone. You don't want to give the player a machine gun and fill the screen with hostages. The enemies are bastards for using them as shields and running around in them too. At least in Virtua Cop 3 you could hit the bullet time slow down if you needed to pick some of them off carefully. Ghost Squad doesn't signpost attacks properly, looks dull and overcomplicates things. It seems a real step back from VC3 which I simply adore.
They had Initial D 3rd Stage. Lots of asian kids playing it. I've never really 'got' this game. Looks the same as the last version.
That new Namco Initial D clone was there too. Midnight Wagan or something? Looked ****.
Played a bit of Tekken 5. Christ, what a mess. Graphically it looks like a step back from Tekken 4. The levels are really dreary and the effects are incredibly tatty. Big chunks of concrete splash up into the air when you're character falls over. It's like he fell in a lake. Loads of people playing it of course. They had 3 ****ing cabinets and they were the busiest things in the whole place. In all the years I've been going there I've only ever seen someone play Virtua Fighter once. I just don't get it..
Wonder if that technique works on Ridge Racers!!
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