Driving and shooting have been pretty
common arcade themes for quite a long time now for very understandable reasons.
Even if driving or shooting take a degree of skill to do properly, the
fundamentals are basic enough that a casual arcade gamer can apply them pretty
quickly and flexible enough that they can drive a respectable amount of
variations and sub genres, not to mention the appeal of the novel control
methods these games offer, even if the steering wheel or light-gun is a more
common control method than the joystick in many arcades.
The dominance of these genres is pretty
clear at Portobello, although there is a notable exception in Virtua Striker 2 '98. There hasn't been
an update to this series since 2006, although its bright, saturated style would
perhaps be a neat alternative on modern consoles to the largely more realistic
style of the more popular football franchises around now. The cabinet appears
to be in good condition, although I unfortunately didn't get a chance to play
it as it was surprisingly pretty popular and I have to confess to not being
particular eager to wait around for it to become free with the likes of Crazy Taxi and The House of the Dead II trying to magnetically draw pound coins
from my pocket. (This is a lie, pound coins are not magnetic, so the theft
magnets installed in Crazy Taxi
cabinets don't work in the UK).
Sega's flagship light-gun series, The House
of the Dead has (perhaps ironically considering its subject matter) been in
pretty good health since its inception in 1997, spawning everything from Wii
prequels and scrolling beat 'em ups to typing tutors and even crossing over for
a cameo in Sonic and Sega All-Stars
Racing. Sadly, many The House of the
Dead cabinets seem to be falling into disrepair and haunt arcades cursing
people with ghosting, wonky light guns and broken sound. I mean genuinely broken audio, not just the
voice acting. The voice acting is awesome, I would never mock it. The House of the Dead II cabinet in
Portobello is no exception to the broken cabinet rule, unfortunately, and
shambles on pathetically with broken light-guns, snaring the unwary.
Gunblade NY from 1995 fairs better, with working guns but some ghosting. I can't use horror prose when writing about this game, sadly. I could say it was terrorised by some ghosting? No, I can't, the ghosting wasn't even that distracting. Gunblade is pretty novel in its 'shoot terrorists from a moving helicopter in a way that seems slightly unfair' conceit, but the lack of proximity to the enemies and size of the gun makes the game seem slightly cold and detached. Gunblade NY doesn't even have a Wikipedia page, but it does have a Wii release. I don't know what that says. Poor Gunblade NY. Maybe you could play it and make it feel better?
Gunblade NY from 1995 fairs better, with working guns but some ghosting. I can't use horror prose when writing about this game, sadly. I could say it was terrorised by some ghosting? No, I can't, the ghosting wasn't even that distracting. Gunblade is pretty novel in its 'shoot terrorists from a moving helicopter in a way that seems slightly unfair' conceit, but the lack of proximity to the enemies and size of the gun makes the game seem slightly cold and detached. Gunblade NY doesn't even have a Wikipedia page, but it does have a Wii release. I don't know what that says. Poor Gunblade NY. Maybe you could play it and make it feel better?
Rounding out the trilogy of light-gun games
we found a Portobello is The Lost World: Jurassic Park from 1997. It's got a pretty cool cabinet modelled after the grey
and red jeeps from the film and, unusually for a light gun game, invites the
players to sit inside the cabinet. Sadly, you don't get to drive the jeep while
a friend shoots velociraptors in a dinosaur themed update of Chase HQ. Thanks for nothing, Sega. I
would play Chase HQ BC for hours. Get
on it, Taito.
Star
Wars Trilogy Arcade, Portobello's other movie
tie-in Sega title, is a pretty fun on-rails shooter largely based around the
original trilogies vehicle set pieces like the X-Wing trench run and
speeder-bike chase on Endor. It's a pretty hard game to hate and still manages
to imbue something as iconic as Star Wars with that bold, saturated Sega look.
The arcade in Portobello was in possession of a pretty impressive sit-down
cabinet for this one.
Overall, not the best selection of Sega
light-gun games at Portobello. A working The
House of the Dead would have been nice,
Gunblade is kind of middling
and Sega's The Lost World never
really made much of an impression. It's kind of a cool time capsule, but no Virtua Cop or it's sequels? That's
criminal.
0 comments:
Post a Comment