Quick visit to Taito land

[Yakumo]

I had to wait about an hour today before the movie started in the cinema so I paid a visit to Taito Land. Was I shocked to see some really naff shite from the US there. Please tell me that this isn't the type of stuff your arcades are full of. They had some 90's looking Area 51 type shooting game with digitized actors. man, that went out of style 10 years ago !! It was new-ish however and the cabinet was like a nig hulking slab of meat. No style at all. Sadly I couldn't grab a picture of this crap. But next to Initial D Arcade Stage 3 was even more crap in yet another big hulking dark no style cabinet. It was Fast & Furious based on the movie. Looking at this right next to Initial D made it look even worse ! Looks like the company that made this and the shitty gun game RAW FUN or something like that haven't realized that racing games need to be something a bit more impressive than San Francisco Rush :p

I'm sorry to go on about these two but they are so out of place in a Japanese game center and not to mention looks like shit.

Showing up Fast and Furious was the beautiful Battle Gear 4 by Taito featuring some nice surround sound.


There wasn't anything else really of interest apart from Ziods by Tomy/Taito but I couldn't get a shot of that thanks to it being right next to the counter. I did get a few shots of this new Sega medal game though called Dragon Treasure II.




Yakumo

[sayin999]

funny area 51 has been here in the states for a good while, though its common to find it in arcades or places that have an arcade section, belive it or not its widely aval here, as for fast and furious, shockingly it might have been made by genki as i know they were resonsible for the console version but that one never got released.

[Jasonkhowell]

Most of the arcades in the US are a mere shell of what they used to be. The arcade near where I live has a giant DDR machine, a few other music related machines, a few very old shooting games, a few fishing games, and mostly crane games. Mostly shit when compared to Japan.

[Greatsaintlouis]

The original arcade version of Area 51 was developed by a small company called Mesa Logic and published by Atari. And yeah, it's common here, and has been out for close to a good 10 years now, but that doesn't make it any less awesome than it is! :-D Arcades feel naked without an Area 51 cabinet sitting somewhere.

[Paulo]

Think hes talking about the new aria 51 game?

[WanganRunner]

Arcades here suck.

I'm right next to a Dave & Busters, and the only cool stuff they've got is VC4 and F355 Challenge.

Area 51 is garbage.

Battle Gear 4 looks neat though.

[Calpis]

Taito probably put that shit there to make their games look better by comparison.

[Taemos]

I laughed when I first saw the "Fast and the Furious" machine.

As for our arcades, most are either dead or dying. My friends make a 20 minute drive to the nearest arcade (in the next town over), since ours here closed down a few years ago.

[The VGM]

We don't really have arcades here anymore...

[sayin999]

well the dreamcast was the start of the arcades dieing out here in the U.S., then the ps2 and xbox came out and further killed arcades here as people no longer went to the arcade since they could finaly play the exact thing at home. This was most apparent when marvel vs capcom 2 came out on dc, many people just bought the dc version instead of going to the arcade. As for arcade games, the only ones that really do good here are ddr and intial d since the ps2 version was never released here and ddr is best played in the arcade as no one reallly wants to pay alot fo moeny to get the arcade mat modded to play on a ps2. IN fact most arcades here are mostly filled with games that no one can really buy on a console such as the ninja game made by namco, or any music konami game. In fact the market so bad here capcom has already closed its us arcade branch, which was sad since they were a huge part of the arcades. But of course the other very common arcade is neo geo mvs.

[PhantasyStar]

ninja game made by namco

Are you talking about Ninja Assault? I thought that came out for the PS2 also.

[cahaz]

if i want to go to the arcade, i have to drive about 70 to100 km. :(

[sayin999]

oh yeah, didnt come out as a gun game on ps2? Cause the one im talking about uses a katana with motion sensors as the control.

[Nintendomad]

When I went to Tokyo at the end of may/ start of june, the arcade's were thriving there, it was like going back to the mid eightie's when I was a kid in the USA and that was where everyone used to hang out, I spent nearly half my holiday in the Sega World's around Tokyo and the many other various arcade's in Akihabara.

[JTI2K]

The same here in Argentina, arcades are dying worldwide

Here we got a lot of Daytona2 machines, F335 challenge (sometimes one of the deluxe 3 screen version) a lot of HotD and Time Crisis 2 machines. About 3 years ago a bunch of old Daytona, VR and some others Model2 machines dissapeared to leave place to those damn DDR machines (too bad i couldnt find a used daytona cabinet :-( )

That same year (2002) the LAN craze exploded and now theres LANs all over the country. Its easy to see why: arcades are downright too expensive (at least here) and the less ppl goes, more expensive it gets (the owners do that)

If i was at the head of SEGA ill struck a contract with nVidia for their 7800 GPUs and make an hyper realistic Daytona 3 and a Daytona Underground (cuz under is the new "shit"). Ill sold them at 6K a piece (pretty cheap compared to old arcades) and i tell you, the arcade market is goin to rise, once again.

[Yakumo]

You know why the arcades are dying in the west? Because they are filled with drop outs that do nothing but fuck everything up. The arcade owners can't buy new cabinets all the time. These drop outs stop regular people going too which again hurts the arcade owners.

In Japan the arcade or game center as it's called is a family place. I shit you not ! Next Saturday (I'm out traveling this weekend) I'll pop in to my local Sega World at 7pm and take a few shots. you'll see loads of families and nice girls too :D as well as the "real" gamers. This is what's wrong with the west. Western arcades have a dark shitty image just like those crappy arcade games I saw in Taito Land. japanese arcades are bright and fun looking.

Yakumo

[JTI2K]

You know why the arcades are dying in the west? Because they are filled with drop outs that do nothing but fuck everything up.

Dude, here in my city the arcades are illegal, i can only play em in the next city, 40 KM away. The arcades were banned with that EXACT point in mind: keep the city clean of bad areas.

Now i say that extremist and hypocrit too: they went and pass a law to accept the installation of several night clubs, that in fact have the same (or even worst) problems that the arcades: bad social enviroment :smt071

I dont know why SEGA never went and open a SEGAWORLD in orlando (like the one in london) were more people is akin to go. Plus they could do something like the "chucky chesse " in the US: a fast food and arcade court to give the same feel of "family place" that the Joypolis in japan.

Shit, they could make a deal with macdonalds, and build some Joypolis merged to Mcdonalds courts.

Dude, I should go and work at SEGA :-D

[sayin999]

really, that never was a problem around here, though arcades also were cede areas, still arcades never really appealed to a family audience, here they were viewed as a place to hang out as well as play the latest game that could not be play at home. But the drop out remark, thats not exactly the full reason theyre closed here mostly, just that here alot of people would rather just play it at home then go to the arcade since its pretty much perfect. I mean why else would inital d be doing so well here, even then alot of arcades seem to attract a larger audience with the ddr games as well as konamis music game. Still i do miss the glory old days of big filled aracde ceters with latest capcom game or another big sega machine. I was so dissapointed with sega poor distribution of fezor ac here in the states, still from time to time i see an arcade here or there open up. Man i really wish there was a sega game worrks around here.

[neomatrix]

in my town the arcades are illegal because in old days the boys do no go to school for play the game so now is illegal is llegal if you have a bar only
I go to the next city is like 25min in car to play

[LeGIt]

For a moment there I thought the thread title was a visit to Tatoo Land. Imagine my surprise when I saw arcade machines and not Tatoos hehe. Dragon Treasure II looks like it might be interesting :D