Beside the Seaside...

Today I bring my continued remote writing to you from the coast. Don’t worry, I’m not about to sit on a rock and give you the full Rick Stein treatment of recounting numerous literary classics, although the rather striking red and white cliffs have certainly inspired many.

No, I’m going to go on about arcade games. Because the British experience of the arcade is likely a very different one to that of America and Japan. And given I’ve already used a very British reference already let’s double down by going “to the seaside.”

We had arcade games in the occasional entertainment venue of course, same as everywhere else. But for most Brits it was the coast that held the most in arcade fun.

Day trips, weekends, holiday camps and caravan parks - these coastal retreats made money (and continue to) mostly through tourism. The cities and towns of the UK would flood to these places every bank and school holiday. At a time where budget air travel was only a futuristic dream and holidays abroad were classes above the masses, the coast provided an inexpensive and self sufficient means of getting away from it all.

So through the 80s and 90s these holiday camps became the destination for arcade game fans. Nowadays it is very different and I’m not going to drop into the woe-is-us nostalgia, but the “gaming” element of arcades, and the ones I’m currently walking around, has long departed in favour of reaction times, claw machines and ticket dispensing gacha-esque folly.

There are still some things, much like the new Daytona that I mentioned last week, and a few interesting things based on classic and modern franchises.

I can still tell you the games I most enjoyed from the little arcade I enjoyed at the caravan park I used to visit…

Return of the Jedi

I still want the Arcade1Up Star Wars Arcade cab with the yoke, I just don’t have anywhere to put it. But it is a direct line to 1989. In the middle of the gaming (as opposed to gambling) side of the arcade was an old Star Wars sit down cabinet with the Return of the Jedi board inside.

“I see them, wait for me!” rang out in digitised speech, alongside “leave them to me, I shall deal with them myself.” A game that mixes Paperboy/Enduro Racer and Zaxxon, with levels through the Forests of Endor and the fully armed and operational Death Star.

It still plays great and even though I have played it via various at-home means (the last release was perfect of Rogue Squadron 3: Rebel Strike on GameCube) including my beloved Domark Spectrum tape trilogy, nothing plays like using the yoke on the arcade. Just something about that control method works, even compred to a joystick.

WWF Wrestlefest

I could have had one of two wrestling games here and I’m sure I’ll speak about both in future, but here I’m singling out Wrestlefest.

I probably don’t need to explain why this game is the choice of many wrestling game fans, and arguably the best arcade game to feature sports entertainment next to Saturday Night Slam Masters. But when I played it in the early 90s, it was at its peak relevance.

Incredible life like graphics illuminated the cutscenes as Mean Gene Okerlund interviewed the waiting Leigon of Doom. The multiplayer design cabinet bought the best of Technos’s visuals with great, easy to pick up, button mashing controls. Tag team action felt seamless. And then there was the Royal Rumble mode.

The game is, to use the meme, chefs kiss. Amazingly larger than life WWF characters that were recognisable - almost like virtual action figures. Great gameplay and right at the zenith of its popularity. The perfect combination.

Golden Axe

It’s incredible to think back now to that time and how much it could have swayed my love towards SEGA games. At some point I think there was at least one of every SEGA game there - Wrestle War, Alien Storm, ESWAT.

Golden Axe is the one that sticks in my memory. Great, fantasy action like the Conan movies I loved. Great visuals, wonderful soundtrack - it was a sign of one of SEGA’s greatest strength in the side scrolling genre.

I never completed it at the arcade sadly, and the difficulty really needed a two player setup that were old enough to play it well. But I remember after a year it had gone, and I didn’t play a Golden Axe again until the Mega Drive sequel.

The arcade is a very different place now and it’s great to see it have life, even if the classics and cabinets are short in supply and hidden for gaming events or pop up businesses. Wouldn’t it be great if these companies re-released them now as new cabinets. Making money out of their old IP and spreading what made these games great in a new venue and modern technology setup.

I don’t know about you but it pains me to walk into somewhere and see a barely optimised Pandora’s Box arcade unit with a massive 16:9 screen and too much choice. It has no character, no soul and just feels off. I’ll take a new official SEGA retro inspired cabinet over those any day.