General Arcade Game Discussion

[Zero Kirby]

There's a certain atmosphere to playing arcade games IN an arcade that's lost in home versions. As much as I love playing Crazy Taxi on GameCube, there's nothing quite like actually getting to sit in a booth behind the wheel and have The Offspring blasted at me. (I must admit, though, it's weird hearing the arcade voices - I love the GameCube release voices much more.)

I also have a bizarre fixation on playing Bust-a-Move in any arcade that has it. It's one of the first machines I look for, generally.

I actually got to go to a pretty sweet arcade near me that had a number of hard to find machines (and Crazy Taxi) - there was one of the Mario Kart Arcade GP machines, for example. It's definitely a different Mario Kart experience than I was used to... I just wish they had the F-Zero AX machine. I've always wanted to try that one out.

And they had loads of pinball tables. Lots of 'em. I love playing pinball. They had a pretty cool KISS themed one that actually played their music - the great thing about it was I was chatting with a friend about one of their songs (Detroit Rock City) and lo and behold, it's the first song that comes up on the playlist when I start it up.

The college I used to go to had a small arcade as well, with an interesting selection (they actually had the Simpsons' arcade game, which was cool). One game I wish I could've played more before it got broken was Beastorizer. Yeah, the original Bloody Roar, before the name changes. I actually liked it quite a lot. I wish more games were over-the-top absurd like that one.

I realize emulation for arcade machines is fairly advanced right now and I've looked into it for a couple games, but it's not like getting Link's Awakening to run on my PSP. Something gets lost in translation that just isn't emulatable.