Ugh, I feel like crap for having barely skimmed through the OP. I suck.There’s something about arcade games which I think has been lost with modern AAA games. This isn’t an either/or or a flame war against AAA games - they have their place - but arcade games always had an intensity right from the get-go; you might clear the first level or two and then - BANG! - you either shaped up or shipped out. Once you started to master a game, I think you could find a sense of flow that is still, for me, unparalleled.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)
Of course, part of that intensity was designed to encourage death and bring in more coins, but the cash you put in created a genuine sense of risk and reward - not just for your score, but because you might only have a few coins left and if you died, that would be it. How long you played was (usually) determined entirely by how good you were at the game and you had to embrace each game on its own terms - not just the game itself, but its controllers, the cabinet art and - especially - the sound (most games were silent until you put your money in and part of the dazzling effect came when suddenly there would be a burst of audio after you’d hit “1 player”.
Most big-budget modern games - again, for me as an old-timer - are woolly. They aspire towards cinema but tend to have shallow, badly-written stories and they aspire towards masses of content rather than intensity, meaning you end up with the worst of both worlds: a game with a predictable, derivative narrative with little difficulty and little sense of mastery. There are exceptions but, in my experience, there’s precious little sense of achievement; you never really have to ‘earn’ your right to a boss battle because the designers are so keen for you to experience the pseudo-cinematic story they have put together.
Spot on. I think the biggest issue with a lot of location pinball (and video arcade games) is that they might have one or two machines setup and that's it. A podcast I was listening to recently had a theory that if there was a bank or multiple machines in a location, they'd all do far more business because there are games to alternate between and go back to. If there's just one or two it's hard to do that. Rather than have the multicade cocktail/upright cabs, people should be pushing for 3-4 dedicated machines with full artwork (plus 3-4 pinballs as well) as it's own area to hang out in. Make the spectacle the mini arcade that's popped up out of nowhere, not the one or two machines that sit there by themselves. Makes sense, IMO.
More machines also means more choice which attracts different people. I'm not going to stop to play pinball or Pac-Man, but a scrolling shoot'em up, a platformer or a beat'em up, sure. And once I stop and engage with one game, I might be inclined to take a break from it and play another I wouldn't initially have stopped for, like an action puzzle game.
there's crazy awesome energy at the Galloping Ghost Arcade. Granted they do over 400 cabs, wiring/soldering classes and have a dedicated competition fighting team, but it's as close to the old vibe as it can get in this day and age. the coolest was when I first walked in and saw that there was a crowd around some of the fighting arcade cabs.
I can't believe I hadn't posted these in this thread already! Arcade "ambience" MP3s. Hour (or so) length MP3s with game sounds from various eras, created to emulate the ambience of an arcade in that time. There are sounds for '81, '83, '86 and '92. I often play them in the background when I've fired up Pinball Arcade on my iPad, probably great when playing other emulated games as well
