Arcades

[QualityChimp]

Rough games list:
Vampire Hunter 2
Bomb Jack
Bad Dudes (pandora)
Marvel Super Heroes Vs Street Fighter
X-Men (original cab)
Crazy Hoop (Basketball game)
Gyruss
Ms Pac-Man
Moon Patrol
Pac-land
Time Pilot
Crazy Kong (Kong 1, 2 & 3)
Terra Cresta
Fix-it Felix Jr.
Galaxian
Kasumi Ninja (Bespoke artwork)
Space invaders (original)
Punch-Out
Marvel Super Heroes (Astro City)
TMNT (original cab)
Splatterhouse
Virtua tennis (original) (OFF)
Robocop (Bespoke cab)
Street Fighter II
Point Blank (OFF)
Mortal Kombat 2
Neo geo 6 game cab
Killer Instinct
Killer Instinct 2
Mortal Kombat 2
Tekken 3
Revival Survival bespoke cab
Lethal Enforcers(OFF)
Gorf
Ice man(OFF)
Luigi's Mansion Arcade(OFF)
R-Type Leo
Double Dragon
Double Dragon 2
Bubble Bobble
Simpsons
Alien Storm (original cab)
Crude Buster
GC cab?
Dark Escape 4D
Mach Storm dome
Terminator Salvation
Rambo (OFF)
Ikaruga (OFF)
Final Furlong 2 (OFF)
Silent Scope Fortune Hunter (OFF)
Afterburner Climax (2-player hydraulic cab)
Dariusburst Ex Another Chronicle (4-player widescreen cab)
Sf 3 third strike
Big Buck Hunter Pro
F355 Ferrari Challenge (OFF)
Sega Race TV (OFF)
Daytona 2 player sit down
Need for Speed Carbon
The Fast and the Furious (OFF)
Sunset Riders

[wakka]

If you're in this thread, I knew you'd love loads of pics!

Yeah, I can't wait to try out that Ikaruga cab, although I think it needs stools when it's running?

The Mach Storm dome screen is a proper arcade experience and I loved it.
It's a lot like Ace/Air Combat, but slightly more on rails, but that's fine because you're flying through bridges or under collapsing skyscrapers.
You then get a bonus mission to shoot as many aircraft as possible, with kills extending time.

Darius was really cool! The cab was all Japanese but the game itself had loads of English prompts, so soon sussed out what was happening.
It's not quite Gradius V, but it's a real spectacle to play, with red lights flashing when A GIANT BOSS IS APPROACHING!

The more pics the better mate, for sure.

Great games list but glaring omissions on the lightgun side of things at present. Sure they're working on getting that fixed. Time Crisis 2 must be installed!!!

[QualityChimp]

Lightgun games.
Working: Terminator Salvation x2, Buck Hunter Pro, Dark Escape 4D.
Off: Lethal Enforcers, Rambo, Silent Scope, Point Blank.

A Time Crisis wouldn't go amiss, you're right. I'd love to finally finish 1 and 2 on freeplay.
Anything that's normally a coin hoover would be good, like Star Wars The Arcade, Let's Go Jungle and Pirate Storm.

They do have some other cabs out back and they plan to rotate them so there's something different on each visit.

Just throwing this out there, but maybe a Bordersdown meetup here would be good next year?!

[wakka]

Since it's freeplay House of the Dead 2 would be a good shout as well. It's a great game for the most part but it's just ridiculous towards the end how it becomes geared towards forcing you to add credits because the bosses are so spongey. Time Crisis is a lot fairer. With freeplay, though, HotD2 is a lot more manageable. Although it does get a bit tiring on the hands all the same haha.

Great to see Point Blank though. That's an all-timer. Always feel like a proper boss when you nail the floating leaf bonus stage

I have to be honest that I'm not too much of a fan of a lot of modern efforts like Terminator Salvation and Dark Escape because in my opinion like most modern arcade-style racers, they tend to have all the form and none of the substance. I think there's a subtle brilliance to the best 90s efforts in these genres which gave them those lovely high skill ceilings and lots of replayability as a result. A good example is Virtua Cop's Justice Shots (another game they should get in!).

I would be very interested to try that Luigi's Mansion cabinet though. That looks very cool. Great to see a Final Furlong as well. I'd forgotten all about that, you used to see those cabs all the time! Such a mad idea with the plastic nag rockin' away between your legs.

A meetup sounds cool, it's a bit out of my neck of the woods but I could be tempted the one I really want to try is Arcade Club though, I have to say, although that's considerably further for me as it's right up north and I'm South London!

[QualityChimp]

Yeah, totally agree that HotD would be a great shout as it's such an unfair game full of bullet sponge and undodgeable attacks. Would love to laugh in the face of that on freeplay!

I could get quite far on Time Crisis 1 as it was so fair. I'd rather spent money learning a fair game than die for no obvious reason.
One shooter I'd love to try again is the Resident Evil: Gun Survivor one


I believe Arcade Club has that Elevator Action one:


A Quick 'n' Crash would be fun too, but I'm in total agreement with the newer lightgun games being pretty weak.
My wife and son played Terminator for a while at High Score in Farnborough and he had no desire to play it again "it went on a bit".
I thought Rambo got boring, quick, but not sure what this cab was.
MIB was awful.

Back to Retro Realm and Dark Escape was full the entire time I was there, so there must be something going for it!

We did that Monster Eye 2 and High Score and I'd totally play through the whole of that on Freeplay.

Saw a dad and daughter trying out Final Furlong without it being on, so that'll be a winner when it's working.

I'm still desperate to get to Arcade Club. I think I'm going to make it happen in 2025. Will probably go on my own and stop the night as I'm tired of waiting on others.
I just thought this central location, near a train station, might be a good shout.
Can't comment on the ventilation of local restaurants, though...

[wakka]

Dark Escape has some cool effects like moving seats and blowing air in your face and stuff I think, so that does enliven proceedings.

I actually didn't know that Gun Survivor had an arcade release, I thought it was home-only, so that's interesting.

I'm fascinated by Elevator Action: Death Parade and I'd love to try it. Love the physical lift doors on it.

Time Crisis 1 I'm actually really unfamiliar with but I know 2 like the back of my hand. It's a very fair, very beatable game with practise. I played it a lot back in the day on PS2 then more recently a lot in my local barcade, and got to a point in the latter where I wasn't 1ccing it or anything, but it wouldn't take more than maybe 3 credits.

[Anpanman]

Just throwing this out there, but maybe a Bordersdown meetup here would be good next year?!

Thanks for the pics, that place looks seriously brilliant, I was thinking it might be worth a trip next year. I could grab a hotel and do a full day there then I saw your comment.

A meet-up is a good idea.

[CMcK]

Just throwing this out there, but maybe a Bordersdown meetup here would be good next year?!

Put my name down for that.

[QualityChimp]

Nice one, lads. Maybe look at late Feb/early March? Just putting the feelers out and I'll give everyone info once we get some momentum.
There's a hotel about 23 seconds walk away!

When asked about how many cabs are there, they said: "running about 80 machines right now, looking to have around 100 shortly into the new year. Add to that a few pins, several consoles and some rhythm gaming and there’s about 120-130 playable games at any one time."

Someone asked for a list and they said: "machines rotate all the time, some cabinets run substitute games etc. From other places we know doing the same it can cause more problems than it helps, as if there’s a list and that machine is absent on a visit, people tend to get annoyed about it. If there’s a specific game you like to play it’s just best to ask before your visit if it’s currently there and working, as machines are constantly being serviced."

[Tobal]

Went in to retro realm today, unfortunately the owner explained a few of friday nights visitors had not been 'careful' with the machines so a few more big machines in the first room turned off (long with the already OFF list chimp made above), did a 3 player Darius to completion, i used about 3 continues which was pretty good going for me, 1 of the afterburner machines was still working so had a good go on that till my back couldn't take more, the Mac-loc (namco ace combat thing) machine was great with all the wind blowing and huge screen, abit with whatever namco's HotD ripoff was with the vibrations and loud subwoofer bangs. Daytona 2nd cab had a broken accelerator, so it was just 1 player game with me sliding into the last corners wall for 8laps trying to remember how to powerslide correctly in manual gears.

In the other room went on about every working cab, the KI2 cab has the left stick broken and the SSF2T sticks had been completely ragged making it next to impossible to do specials with diagonals. Tekken 3 cab was the PSone version... strange one that. Not sure on that X-men cab being original, maybe the outside of it, but it had alot of glitches specially on the lab level (2nd level), like lights behind the lab windows, on top of the background as large squares and half covering the players.

Very likely go back next year, give it a chance to get everything working and set some harsh rules down for idiots ragging machines.

Also made sure to get my picture taken with a VHS copy of Road House.

[speedlolita]

Like Hudson I have never actually seen an Ikaruga cab before, even in a photo.

That would be because there is no such thing, Ikaruga is a NAOMI title that would have been placed in an appropriate candy.

And after doing a little bit of digging I found the machine that this used to be.

[Wools]

That would be because there is no such thing, Ikaruga is a NAOMI title that would have been placed in an appropriate candy.

I thought the same, but I think I played on a re-released machine of Ikaruga which I never knew existed at Arcade Club Bury this year. Not sure when this variant by Taito was re-released though, or if this was just a re-housing of Ikaruga in a new Arcade unit.

[Yakumo]

That's just a normal Taito Jamma cab that they've shoved Ikaruga in to. There are no dedicated cabinets for that game unless the original Naomi cabinets to be official.

[speedlolita]

To add to Yakumo's point I also think that may be the NESiCAxLive release of Ikaruga (which runs on Taito Type X PC hardware essentially) considering the NAOMI version will be limited to a 15kHz or 31kHz output.

[fuse]

Yeah I believe they're running some NESiCA (and other) multi-game boards at Arcade Club. I played a bit of Rolling Gunner on one of the Vewlixes!