Part Two is officially live!
The best arcade in California for competitive fighting games is an invite-only establishment
run out of some guys garage and for as awesome as Keystone II is, that is the state of the
arcade industry. When I look back on the history of the business, it makes me believe that all
the arcades need is just one game to bring it all back. In the 90's it was Street Fighter II. Ten
years later it was Dance Dance Revolution.
The annual AOU show is next month and we'll be seeing everything from playable Street
Fighter IV to the standard Bemani sequels and the return of Dodonpachi. Will any of the
games there be that one brilliant title to bring it all back? It's all extremely unlikely, but I'm
also not going to complain when I see Melty Blood: Actress Again or something new like
BlazBlue popping up select arcades.
Wii Sports was and has been enough to fling Nintendo into the position of top dog once again.
I wonder if the same would have been true if it were released in arcades. Then again, arcades
blew by the whole motion sensing nonsense years ago and no one seemed to notice.
jaredr's blog
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1. The visuals of current arcade games aren't nearly as far beyond consoles as they were in the 90's. In most cases they tend to look identical to their console counterparts, and in a few instances, they actually look worse in the arcade. That's one arcade advantage lost.
2. The other loss is the socialized multiplayer(I know it sounds redundant) that could only be found at the time by stacking a your quarters and playing a complete stranger who could either be revealed as a complete noob or the kicker of your ass. Now, however, all it takes is a series of tubes to pit you against a bevy of badasses/noobs, in most cases for free. Strike two for arcades.
Sad to say, as great of a nostalgia trip as they can be, arcades seem to be the Cro-magnon of videogames; just another evolutionary stepping stone to something more functional.
Oh, and your title is fucking terrific.