As this will probably be the last post here at Arcade Heroes for 2007, now is a good time to wish all of you a Happy New Year. 2007 was pretty good, it certainly was for the site and I’m glad I could be a part of it. 2008 is going to be a great time for arcades, mark my words. Personally I can’t be more ecstatic because I will finally be running my own arcade (which has taken way too long to get started) but also there are going to be a lot of awesome games coming to arcades this 2008. We’re seeing a return of fighters to the scene with Tekken 6, Virtua Fighter 5 and Street Fighter IV and while we can expect more games such as racers and light gun titles, I can’t help but wonder what really new surprises are in store for us.
For a retrospective, just a few well-known or popular arcade games from past years that end with the number 8 (in no particular order and if I missed your favorite game, apologies in advance):
1978: Taito Space Invaders, Atari Football, Atari Video Pinball, and VectorBeam’s Speed Freak
1988: Atari’s Vindicator’s, Tetris (Atari or Sega), Tecmo’s Ninja Gaiden, William’s NARC, Capcom’s Ghouls ‘N Ghosts, Taito Chase H.Q, Taito’s Operation Thunderbolt, Fabtek’s Cabal
1998: Atari Games’ Area 51: Site 4, Atari Games’ Gauntlet Legends, Konami’s Beatmania, Konami’s Guitar Freaks, Sega’s House of Dead 2, Sega’s Star Wars Arcade Trilogy, Sega’s Bass Fishing, SNK’s King of Fighters 98, Capcom’s Marvel VS Capcom, Capcom’s Street Fighter Alpha 3, Midway’s NFL Blitz 99, Namco’s Time Crisis II, Namco’s SoulCalibur, Incredible Technologies Golden Tee ’98, Treasure’s Radiant Silvergun.
2008: Remains to be seen. But all I can think of for the coming year are the immortal words of Duke Nukem: “Let’s Rock!”
