Arcade Heroes

arcadehero May 3, 2012 at 5:05 pm

Well I’m not sure where you are getting the impression from that all I want is DDR – do a search for Missing in Action here on the site. You will see that I have written several articles about various game genres that work perfectly in arcades that have been in great part ignored for the past 8 years or more. Arcades for the longest time have been bastions of innovation but in recent years it has collapsed into more and more of a play-it-safe game – churn out tons of drivers, light-gun games and rhythm games and call it a day. Again, I get why that is done because those games make money but I am not convinced that they are the only ways money can be made with the video arcade format. I want to see games of all kinds come along and supply locations with a variety of games and bring along some innovations that only arcades can get into. If all you want is arcades filled with nothing but driving games then I am sure you could appeal to a niche group but let’s be honest – the greater variety any arcade has, the better it can do. Pigeonhole yourself into one game type and that will only go so far for you – that’s why a lot of locations still pick up old games, aside from the costs. I currently own three racing games and they do well so I’m not against racers entirely but as someone who actively spends money on new games, I want a little more that is outside the box. If arcades became nothing more than virtual racing arenas across the board, I don’t see how that would lead us into a renaissance era of gaming. Of course drivers are nice since they give you a better experience then at home a lot of the time but you could say the same thing for games that would involve mechs, tanks, submarines, fighter jets, space ships, trains, etc. Fighter games are better (hence the obsession with arcade fighting sticks), puzzles can be done better (quirky controls and the games are always made to fit into arcade style), run’n gun games and other shooters can be done better (same reasons as puzzles) and completely new concepts can be done that don’t easily fit into a specific genre category (I’m thinking of Taito games like the Table Flipping game).

I don’t know where you can find the Chinese games out there at the moment but I am sure you will come across them soon enough.

arcadehero October 31, 2012 at 12:35 pm

I haven’t played it yet so I don’t know exactly what improvements were needed but Kevin W. here was not impressed by the game. Hopefully whatever changes have been made to it make it a better game overall. It reminds me a little of the prototype Atari Games title Meanstreak but I wonder if they had similar problems in creating a combat style game combined with straightforward racing. That can be harder than it looks on paper. I wonder if they ever have considered going arena style on these types of games, that’s not something we see too often anymore.