Arcade

Hello fans, do you remember the amount of money spent in arcade machines, and the amount of game over's? or maybe the amount of sheer amount of frustration when the timer counts down and trying to find another quarter/pound/50p, oh yes that has happened to me, sometimes too close to that 1 second left, when playing Chase HQ that was always a tough play when I was a kid. I use to use my turbo's when I got the run away driver, well then there was that 10 hits you need before you catch that criminal, well that does not sound too hard, it is when you are a kid and trying to turn left and right, and get distracted when other sounds in the local amusement were going of. I got there in the end and about £7 later out of pocket - ouch! never mind still fun.

I remember one of my fav sounds on a game is NBA Jam TE on the arcade machine, with the credits featuring the basketball players, wow I actually liked the music, sort out still do, just press the buttons on the control dash to get to the part when the music starts, listen you see what I mean. "Here's a tip" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO6WfozAlLk listen to the tittle music arcade version. NBA showtime with NBA Jam TE video found on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLp4XH0CzJY

Outrun 1986 if I am correct. Sega produced an excellent game there. I loved the way that you could choose your own route, and drive a Ferrari, and pick out of 3 songs, that good enough for me at the time. Outrun Full Completion under 5 minutes video found on youtube as a demonstration http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZmnMgjEgeQ you can see for yourself the routes you can choose, the high level of detail, and let's not forget about his girlfriend, who slaps him when you crash, ah comedy, pure classic. Outrun, too me sounds great, has great conversions to other formats, CBM64, Sega Master System, Gameboy Advance, Sega Saturn (Sega Ages) Shenmue 2 (Xbox, Dreamcast) Sega Mega Drive, Spectrum, Amstrad, Atari ST, Amiga ( I think) and to be honest it covered pretty much all formats, DOS included later down the line, then MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator). This game was great at the time along with Hang-On, Space Harrier, Hard Drivin' Rad Mobile, later on. Then the great Virtua Racing, Daytona USA, Virtua Figher 1 & 2, then Tekken series, the list of great games in the amusements are endless.

The list of endless games now available on MAME, you can Google the roms, the emulator you can find the latest on Google, and also I do recommend MAME32 that is the GUI (Graphical User Interface) version, instead of command line type, but if you are advance with computers then download the latest MAME, and then find the games you want, you then can play on your computer without needing to spend another quarter/50p/£1 but the games are older, no new games for the emulator, it does emulate model 2 games, but not very well, and model 3 is certainly a bad attempt, as the emulator is simply not advanced enough for that...yet, however it is a great emulator for even a low end PC, and a low end computer these days has great graphics card, you do not need a big graphics card or even a massive processor to play MAME, I was able to on an old Prescott Intel Pentium 4 1.7GHz computer, and even on an Toshiba M40x, and Dell Insprion 1300, so there you have it, you can now play games on your computer without worrying, unless you want to play DDR (Dancing Stage) then you will need a higher end pc, more middle end pc in todays standards.

Quick note, MAME allows Namco, Sega, Nintendo and many other amusement video games to be played on the emulator, just make sure you create a rom folder, or if it is there, do not extract the rom, keep it as it is. Also 5 is credit and 1 is play. Most of the time on keyboard you will need spacebar, CTRL, shift and Alt keys and UP, Down, Left, Right keys, as well as A S D F Z X C V keys, please keep note, unless you use Mouse for trackball games like Ataxx, now that is a great game, I actually still play the game, and I love the music on the game too.

Hate to type this, but we have reached the end of the Arcade journey, part 2 will be here soon it is on my list. I hope you enjoyed reading and I look forward to seeing you back here again soon.

Take care & Best wishes,
RGUK