Arcades

[Wools]

Thanks for the clarification everyone, me and my Brother were wondering about that as were were playing it. Once we complete it and I took that photo, I was questioning myself if the cabinet was custom or made for it. Looked beautiful though!

[wakka]

Aha that's very interesting about Ikaruga. Looking at the photo by QC more closely it's obvious that's it a custom adaptation of an existing cabinet! There are a bunch of holes in the front of it for a start, where something's been ripped out! Thanks to Speedy's detective work we can see what was cannibalised too.

[QualityChimp]

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.

Glad you went and had a decent time.
I really want Retro Realm to be a success, so I want to encourage people to visit, but also warn people it's literally just opened, so there's a bunch of teething problems they have to work through.

Shame about those cabs getting roughed up. Some people don't really appreciate this is like a museum in some ways.

Still, I'm looking forward to going back again and playing a few cabs I missed last time.

Glad the Ikaruga cab is sparking conversation!

[QualityChimp]

I was in the Custard Factory in Birmingham to meet with friends for food and a boardgame at Chance & Counters.
Next door is NQ64 and I couldn't resist popping in.
They had all the same cabs as last time, but I think they've refined them to keep the most popular cabs.
Introduced my friends to Point Blank and they loved it. LOVED IT!

Might need a bigger gap between visits to stop it going stale, though.

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[wakka]

Solid selection of absolute bangers in those photos.

[QualityChimp]

Quite a nice story about a Victorian shopping arcade, Silver Arcade, that's had a few shops close, but there's a retro video game shop called Super Game Shack that's doing really well and now they've opened up a gaming café on the floor above called Super Game Shack Level 2!

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https://www.timeextension.com/features/retail-therapy-super-game-shack-powers-up-with-level-2-arcade-coffee-shop-and-store

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1290512095464489

[fuse]

Understand MonkeyJuggleDX was there close to launch, and uh... perhaps might not offer quite such a glowing appraisal of their offering.

[MonkeyJuggleDX]

I was indeed there and unfortunately it disappoints in many ways.

The cabs themselves in the main area are modern reproductions with awful 45° slanted control panels, low quality levers and buttons and are all running Pi’s on screens with terrible viewing angles. Even the two Dino King conversions are running Pi’s, although the controls on those seen a little higher quality.

Also, I know retail stores are generally slightly higher with their items, but £120 for a Japanese Neo Geo Samurai Spirits 2 is around £30-40 more than you can get one for on eBay. Same with the KoF94.

I like the idea behind it, but on the arcade part, the execution was all wrong.

[Hirst]

By chance I saw on a video, thought the same regarding the modern reproduction machines. It's one of those things where in theory it shouldn't matter, but I'm not particularly fussy when it comes to arcade cabinets and I just don't think they're good enough that I'd ever want to put money into them. It'd feel like I'm paying for using those demo machines they have in the corner of Smyths Toys Superstores.

Fair enough it might be a nice place for some folks to sit down and have a coffee or whatever, but my idea of a nice coffee is handing over 50p to a guy in a van for some swill in a styrofoam cup. I can't see the arcade machines being more than a very brief novelty for people who aren't that into them, but a complete waste of time for people who are. They exist in this weird space where they're kind of for nobody.

[wakka]

I can't see the arcade machines being more than a very brief novelty for people who aren't that into them, but a complete waste of time for people who are. They exist in this weird space where they're kind of for nobody.

Yeah, I have to agree. I'd be pretty underwhelmed if I walked in there.

[MonkeyJuggleDX]

I’m certainly no arcade elitist, as I currently have a Pandora in two of my cabs, but I can tell a quality product versus a low quality one. I have two Chewlix and one Vewlix. The Chews are almost 1:1 with the Vewlix and come with decent Japanese parts and 1080p Samsung panels. The units he had were just vinyl covered mdf builds with cheap parts that cost more each than any of my cabs.

It’s a missed opportunity where he could have had decent hardware that may have attracted people that were still into the scene that could end up running local tournaments, but the reality is you’d get a better experience running mame or fightcade and using an 8bitdo or Hori stick.

[fuse]

Another high-profile Japanese arcade bites the dust. A-Cho in Kyoto is to close shortly

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[briareos_kerensky]

Noooo! I remember hitting A-Cho almost every night the first time I went to Kyoto.

[QualityChimp]

Went back to The Retro Realm again with my son and it was probably even better than the first visit as there are more cabs and more working.

They've now got a Guitar Hero Arcade and as we were playing that, they were assembling a Dance Dance Revolution unit! We played both once built, but they're waiting on the main speaker for DRR, so it's a little bassy, but that's perfect for Rapper's Delight!

I played some Splatterhouse, which I loved, but needs continues turning on as I try to remember the tricks. Got to chainsaw hands boss.

Also played some Sega arcade racer that's good fun with its big BOOST button.

We were there for hours and my son didn't want to leave.
We finished on that 4D HotD clone. A girl ran out screaming earlier "I'm not playing that, no more!" but we found it a bit repetitive after a bit. The 3D was cool, though and was fun for the first 10 or so minutes.

Also played Sunset Riders, Pac-Land (has a joystick now), Double Dragon, Big Buck Hunt and loads more.

Highlight was how much my son enjoyed Guitar Hero.
I went out on Sunday and when I came home, I saw he'd fired up the 360 and GH!

EDIT: Forgot to mention, we played a bit of that giant Ikaruga cab (which my son also enjoyed, huzzah), but it crashed, revealing that it's actually a Dreamcast emulator running on a Windows 10 PC! That was great fun whilst it was running, but saw it'd reset a few times whilst we were there.

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[QualityChimp]

The missus told me that we're visiting her friend in Manchester this weekend.

My gears start clicking and I asked if it would be incredibly rude if I went out in the evening, to which I got the green light.

So, this Saturday, I'm finally going to Arcade Club in Bury. I'm so hyped!