X-Nico

4 unusual facts about Arcade game


Colony 7

Colony 7 is an arcade shooter game by Taito Corporation released in 1981 that is in many ways a combination of two of the most popular shoot 'em up games of the time, containing elements of both Taito's own Space Invaders and Atari's Missile Command.

Rave Cinemas

Most theaters features multiple concession stands, arcade games, online and kiosk ticketing, and a futuristic environment with special lighting, LCD menu and film trailer displays, and some have a stylized special event room.

The Case of the Cautious Condor

It was one of the first CD-ROM-only games that was furthermore a complete new development for that media and not only a port of another version such as an already existing floppy disc game or a laserdisc arcade machine.

Wheelchair trainer

Arcade game software and clinical data acquisition use were first introduced by the Veterans Administration's WAFT as a means of promoting stationary wheelchair propulsion as a beneficial aerobic exercise.


After Burner II

Like OutRun, another Sega arcade game, After Burner II came in several versions, the most famous being a large, servo actuated, sit-down cabinet which resembled a cockpit and moved according to the motion of the plane onscreen.

Astro Blaster

This was a novel feature at the time that was shared with Midway's contemporary arcade title Gorf, and had been pioneered a year earlier by Stern's, with "Berzerk".

Atari Force

The first Atari Force comics, which only counted 5 issues, were published in 1982 and were created mainly to illustrate story lines for home console games being released by fellow Warner Communications subsidiary Atari, Inc. The comics were packed in with the games Defender, Berzerk, Star Raiders, Phoenix, and Galaxian.

Axesynth

The SN76477 IC was the sound synthesizer used in the Space Invaders video arcade game of the late 1970s and early 80's, this fact prompted the AxeSynth to be nicknamed "the Atari" by some of its noted users.

Capcom Fighting All-Stars

Capcom Fighting All-Stars: Code Holder was a 3D fighting game planned for the arcade and PlayStation 2 that was to be developed by Capcom.

City Bomber

The game's Soundtrack was produced by Konami Kukeiha Club and published by King Records on July 21, 1989 as part of "Konami Game Music Collection Vol.0" along additional soundtracks from Flak Attack (MX 5000), The Main Event, The Final Round, Gang Busters, and Devastators.

Discs of Tron

While the first Tron arcade game had several mini-games (Gridbugs, Light Cycles, entering the MCP cone and Digital tanks), Discs of Tron is inspired by the Jai alai sequence in the original 1982 film in which Kevin Flynn is forced to play against Crom, leading to Crom being "derezzed" by Sark.

Exidy

Some of the notable games released by Exidy included Circus, Death Race, Star Fire, Venture, Pepper II, Mouse Trap, Victory, Targ, and Spectar.

Free look

An early primitive example was in Taito's 1992 first-person shooter arcade game Gun Buster, which featured a unique control scheme where the player moves using an eight-direction joystick and takes aim using a mounted positional light gun.

Galaxy Fight: Universal Warriors

This is an uncommon feature in 2D fighting games (other examples of this is Shuma-Gorath's stage in Marvel Super Heroes and all stages in Joy Mech Fight) and is usually more closely associated with the 3D Tekken series.

Intel MCS-48

Another variant, the ROM-less 8035, was used in Nintendo's arcade game Donkey Kong.

Magnavox Odyssey²

The lack of third-party support kept the number of new games very limited, but the success of the Philips Videopac G7000 overseas led to two other companies producing games for it: Parker Brothers released Popeye, Frogger, Q* Bert and Super Cobra, while Imagic released versions of their hit games Demon Attack and Atlantis.

Monster Mini Golf

Locations typically include two party rooms and an arcade with such things as glow-in-the-dark air hockey tables, custom-made glow-in-the-dark pool tables and arcade games as well as ticket redemption games such as glow Skee Ball.

Non-game

Among the earliest examples are Jaron Lanier's Alien Garden (Epyx, 1982), I, Robot (Atari 1983), which featured a special "ungame mode" called "Doodle City", and Jeff Minter's Psychedelia (Llamasoft, 1984), which is an interactive light synthesizer.

NV1

Several Saturn games were converted to NV1 on the PC such as Panzer Dragoon and Virtua Fighter Remix.

Power Pad

Short Order, features gameplay similar to that of Atari's arcade game, Touch Me, and Milton Bradley's electronic memory game, Simon, where the player must build a hamburger in which the customer requests by remembering the order of ingredients that the customer puts out.

Roc'n Rope

is a 1983 arcade game developed and published by Konami (published by Kosuka/Interlogic in some markets).

Sengoku Ninja Tai

Sengoku Ninja Tai (Japanese: The Sengoku's Greatest Ninja) is an arcade game released by Data East in 1981.

Shuto Expressway

Due to this infamy, the Wangan is the setting for several entertainment properties, such as the manga and arcade game Wangan Midnight, video games Shutokou Battle and Gran Turismo 5 and the movie series Shuto Kousoku Trial.

Starcade

Whoever had the highest out of all eight on their team was selected to play against the two other highest-scoring players on an arcade game (Berzerk in this case) for the grand prize – their very own arcade game (Asteroids Deluxe, in this case) and an Apple II Home Computer System.

Super Hang-On

Like Shinobi and its omission of any references to Marilyn Monroe, the Virtual Console version of Super Hang-On was slightly altered to avoid any copyright troubles.

Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3

It is the fourth and final release in the Super Mario Advance series, and was first revealed at Nintendo's conference at the E3 2003 convention, containing several enhancements, including the addition of Mario and Luigi's voices by Charles Martinet, the ability to scan e-Cards into Nintendo's e-Reader to add certain content, and a multiplayer mode based on the original arcade game Mario Bros.

Superstars V8 Racing

Superstars V8 Racing is a car racing video game based on the 2008 season of the Italy-based Superstars Series and available for the arcade on 17 April 2009 and ported to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows on 26 June 2009.

Tatsunoko Fight

In addition to normal versus mode, players may choose a round-robin-style team battle mode involving multiple characters, as well as a single-player story mode that resembles an arcade fighting game.

Tekken Tag Tournament

Tekken Tag Tournament was originally released as an arcade game in 1999 before it was ported to the PlayStation 2 in 2000.

Tempest 3000

Tempest 3000 is a remake of the Tempest arcade game and a sequel to Tempest 2000, written by Jeff Minter for Nuon.

Texas Instruments LPC Speech Chips

Used on the Atari arcade games Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, 720°, Gauntlet, Gauntlet II, A.P.B., Paperboy, RoadBlasters, Vindicators Part II, and finally Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters.

The Elektrik Keyboard

In the late '70s it added personal computers and MIDI music to its lineup, and began publishing Apple II computer software written by programmer Chris Oberth. The software, advertised in the company's catalog and sold on cassette, largely consisted of games including some that emulated popular arcade titles.

The Final Round

The game's Soundtrack was produced by Konami Kukeiha Club and published by King Records on July 21, 1989 as part of "Konami Game Music Collection Vol.0" along additional soundtracks from Flak Attack (MX 5000), The Main Event, Gang Busters, City Bomber, and Devastators.

The Simpsons Arcade Game

The Simpsons Arcade Game is an arcade beat 'em up developed by Konami released in 1991, and the first video game based on The Simpsons franchise.

Vertical orientation

It has been used primarily for arcade games (especially during the early 1980s) and for art projects, including a music video by The Shamen.

Virtua Cop

Virtua Cop (known as Virtua Squad for the North American Windows version) is a first-person lightgun shooter arcade game created by Sega AM2 and headed by Yu Suzuki.

VisiCorp

Early alumni of this company included Ed Esber who would later run Ashton-Tate, Bill Coleman who would found BEA Systems, Mitch Kapor founder of Lotus Software and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Rich Melmon who would co-found Electronic Arts, Bruce Wallace author of Asteroids in Space, and Brad Templeton who would found early dot-com company ClariNET.

When Games Attack

Each puppet would pick one of two video games that were similar such as Tekken vs Virtua Fighter or Grand Theft Auto vs True Crime: Streets of LA.

Wild Gunman

The original version of Wild Gunman was one of Nintendo's electro-mechanical arcade games created by Gunpei Yokoi and released in 1974.

William Leymergie

Leymergie sang the French-language version of the theme song of the television series based on the Pac-Man arcade game, and has appeared in small roles in various movies.

William S. Sessions

Sessions became associated with the phrase "Winners Don't Use Drugs", which appeared on idle arcade game screens during demos or after a player finished playing a game.


see also

19 Part One: Boot Camp

The inspiration for the game came in two parts - the arcade game Combat School and the Paul Hardcastle song 19, which was itself about the Vietnam War.

Andy's Gang

Buckner & Garcia paid tribute to Smilin' Ed McConnell and Froggy the Gremlin on a 1982 novelty song "Froggy's Lament" about the Sega arcade game Frogger from their album Pac-Man Fever with its lyrics "Hiya kids" and "Plunk your magic twanger, Froggy!".

Babel II

Video game developer Yu Suzuki of Sega says Babel II was his main inspiration in the creation of the arcade game Psy-Phi.

Beaver and Steve

Steve, whose exact species is unknown (though it has been speculated that he may be a dinosaur, lizard or perhaps something to do with the classic arcade game Bubble Bobble) is the co-protagonist of the strip.

BPR Global GT Series

Scud Race/Sega Super GT – Arcade Game featuring BPR Global GT Series competitors.

Brandon DiCamillo

Additionally, DiCamillo has also provided voice overs for the Xbox Live Arcade game Trials HD and its sequel Trials Evolution.

Crystalis

Two of the characters from Crystalis are subtle nods to earlier SNK characters who later became part of The King of Fighters series; the latter two sages, Kensu and Asina, are based on Kensou Sie and Athena Asamiya from the Psycho Soldier arcade game.

Data East USA, Inc. v. Epyx, Inc.

Data East's largest objection in court was that their 1984 arcade game Karate Champ was the true originator of the competitive fighting game genre, which predated the original Street Fighter by three years.

Dino Master

Dino Master is a game for the Nintendo DS system similar to a fusion of Pokémon and the arcade game Qix.

Double Dragon Advance

The Special Thanks on the end credits now mentions Bruce Lee, as well as Yoshihisa Kishimoto, the director of the Double Dragon arcade game.

Double Dragon Neon

The game's dialogue and graphical style is heavily 80s-inspired, and features a soundtrack composed by Jake Kaufman, inspired by the original Double Dragon as well as 80's pop music and arcade game soundtracks.

Dynamite Düx

Dynamite Düx is a side-scrolling 'beat 'em up' arcade game, created by Sega AM2 and released by Sega in 1988 for their successful Sega System 16 arcade board, the same board that was used for hits like Golden Axe and Altered Beast.

Eugene Jarvis

He now works for his own studio, Raw Thrills Inc., and his more recent work has returned him to the coin-op arcade game world with Target: Terror, a first-person perspective shooting game based on the "war on terror", introduced in Spring of 2004.

Fatal Fury Special

An emulation of the Neo Geo arcade game was released for the Xbox Live Arcade.

Fei Long

The English localization of the original arcade game pays tribute to Bruce Lee by having Fei Long state "there could never be another legend like the great one and his son", a reference to Bruce Lee and his son Brandon, who died shortly before the release of the game, although these references were removed in the revised localization of the Game Boy Advance version of the game.

Game Boy Camera

Play is a built-in Space Fever II minigame, which is the sequel to the Space Fever arcade game created by Nintendo.

Game Refuge Inc.

Star Trek: Voyager – A light-gun arcade game set in the Star Trek universe, with new enemy characters created by Game Refuge.

Glossary of North American railway terms

Pac-Man: A nickname for Canadian Pacific Railway's 1968-1996 logo featuring a black triangle within a white half-circle, which resembles the main character of the video arcade game Pac-Man.

Hell's Winter

The samples of the menacing voice saying "Beware, I live!", "I hunger", "Run, coward!", and "Beware, coward!" in the song "Grand Ol' Party Crash" are from the 1982 arcade game Sinistar.

Lead Sails Paper Anchor

Other games include: "Dan Becomes Guitar Hero" a game similar to Guitar Hero, "Travis Makes McTreyu Burgers" a remake of the 1982 arcade game BurgerTime, "Marc Busts Ghosts" a game similar to Ice Climber, and "Brandon Falls Down Into Hell" where the Brandon Saller character fights off creatures from hell while collecting ice cream cones.

Long Eaton Speedway

Another revival followed in 1982 as the team was again re-branded, but this time as the Long Eaton Invaders – the name was chosen due to the popularity of the Space Invaders arcade game at that time.

Lyle Rains

Lyle Rains was a senior executive at the arcade game company Atari and is sometimes, with Ed Logg, listed as a co-developer of the video game Asteroids.

Masters of the Universe: The Arcade Game

Masters of the Universe: The Arcade Game is a video game developed by Adventure Soft for several home computer platforms, and published by U.S. Gold in 1987.

Medieval Mayhem

The game was inspired by Atari's 1980 arcade game Warlords, which was first ported to the Atari 2600 in 1981 by game designer Carla Meninsky.

Meyers Manx

The Meyers Manx was featured in Sega's arcade game OutRunners as "Wild Chaser".

Neil Funk

Funk was also featured as the play-by-play announcer for the 1996 Midway Games arcade game NBA Hangtime.

Nemesis 2

Gradius II, a 1988 arcade game, a sequel to the 1985 arcade game known outside Japan as Nemesis

Ninja Gaiden

Both games also feature Jason Voorhees look-alikes and the final boss in the arcade game vaguely resembles Bloody Malth from the NES game.

Pigskin

Pigskin 621 A.D., an arcade game also released for the Sega Genesis

Pigskin 621 A.D.

At one time, the makers of Pigskin 621 A.D. offered tickets to the Super Bowl as part of a sweepstakes promotion associated with the arcade game.

Pojo

A secret character in the 1996 arcade game and its 1997 N64 port Mace: The Dark Age, named like that because its chicken appearance and the pun that chicken is POLLO in Spanish, which is similar to how some Spanish speakers pronounce the English word, Pojo

QB-3

QB-3 is a color vector arcade game from Rock-Ola that was produced in 1982.

Rainbow Islands: The Story of Bubble Bobble 2

The original arcade game contained in-game music reminiscent of the song "Over the Rainbow" from The Wizard of Oz.

Sega Rally Championship

The music for the arcade game was composed by Takenobu Mitsuyoshi, while the Sega Saturn port's soundtrack was done by Naofumi Hataya and performed by Joe Satriani.

Space Eggs

Space Eggs is an unofficial port of the arcade game Moon Cresta to the Apple II.

Tapper

Most of the home versions of Tapper featured the Mountain Dew logo, but retained the bartender character of the original arcade game instead of the soda jerk in Root Beer Tapper.

The Idolmaster

Originally released as an arcade game in 2005, the franchise has grown to numerous ports, sequels and spin-offs across multiple video game consoles, including two social network games.

The World of Faderhead

The video features Faderhead in a club, playing a 90's style arcade game, similar to the style of Streets of Rage.

Tim Skelly

One of his early games, Rip-Off, was the first arcade game with two-player cooperative play.

Toobin

Toobin', a 1988 arcade game by Atari and later ported many other platforms

War Thunder

In this mode, unlike the arcade game, players are selected for each teams nation, making it possible to recreate a real scenario, such as the Battle of Stalingrad between the Soviet Union and the Third Reich.

Wonder Boy III

Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair, originally released as an arcade game in 1988.