A Few Days in London

Well it was the end of the semester and I had lots of coursework due in this week, naturally this involved a trip into Uni. Lots of work was done, a very funny 3D film was made and after transcribing a 25 minute interview about mechanisms of attention in video games I began to doubt the existence of the word "Frustrating".

Despite all this academic torture I did manage to get some gaming

in. A bit of time was spent on a friends PS3 playing Madden 10, Worms and posing as a sultry temptress on PlayStation Home. i also had my first experience of the gamerbase LAN centre in the Trocadero. Playing my first PC FPS in years. MW2 is way more twitchy on PC and lots more jumping is done. The controls just lend themselves to a different gaming style I guess. My left handedness didn't really help either as my fingers just weren't in the right place for the various buttons I needed to press. I did get to play some Eve there too, my god that game is beautiful on a decent PC with a big high quality monitor.

I also popped into my previous local arcade for a few credits on DoDonPachi DFK still hitting a wall on level 4 with a score of about 1.4 billion. None of the other shooter crowd were in so I had my credits and left.

The most fun of the few days though were my credits with

Afterburner Climax again at the

Trocadero. climbing into the moving mock-up ejector seat makes me feel ten years old again pulling loop the loops and gunning down scores of enemy fighters. All I can say is that this is what arcade gaming is all about, sod Final Fantasy, GTA IV and various other games that take up your entire life for about three months, get some cash, go down to Troc and get your arse onto that game. It is an experience (almost) worth the £2 a credit the thieving gits at Troc are charging . I can not wait to get the Xbox Live version when it comes out this year, even without the moving cabinet, It's gonna be schweet!

A Visit to Casino Arcade and the Trocadero

This weekend I had the pleasure of meeting up with some friends at the notorious Casino Arcade on Londons Tottenham Court Road. Recently some new shmups had been installed that we all wanted to play.

Now shmups (or shoot-em-ups) is a genre that has had it's day. At one time names like Raiden, R-Type and Gradius were as well known as the 2D fighting games Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and King of Fighters. How times have changed.

During the 16-bit era, shmups were as common as first person shooters are today and it was these very games that truly pushed the capabilities of home systems but the advent of 3D saw the trusty shmup fall out of favour with all but a hardcore following in the west. However all was not lost as in Japan a number of companies continued to produce shooters as each new generation of consoles came and went. It was games by one of these companies; Cave, that I had gone to Casino Arcade to play. The legendary Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu and Death Smiles. Myself and my friends had a great few hours playing these games and we even met a few new fans of the genre so a successful day was had by all. Near the end of the day the few of us that were left wandered into the Trocadero to watch one of our number complete the lightgun game Ghost Squad on its highest difficulty (just because he can!). I also managed a couple of sneaky credits of Ferrari F355 Challenge and an old irem shmup i can never remember the name of.

I love arcades, the few true arcades that are left should be treasured by all, for it was in this environment that the hobby we love was born. To truly experience the social aspect of gaming never mind Xbox Live or the PSN it is in the few remaining arcades that have weekly fighter competitions or where the few shmup fans left gather to play the latest Cave games or where can be found men in their forties still attempting to beat high scores that have eluded them for 25 years.


Here is a Link to the videos made of SMRAEDIS's Almost perfect run of Ghost Squad filmed by Chi.