I think it’s safe to say that the U.K. and Ireland’s Arcade scene has been overthrown by the mighty power of the home console. Very few arcades exist with reasonable prices and experiences that can entice many to stray from their joypads (or keyboards). It wasn’t always this way. Arcades would be full at weekends with classics like Street Fighter 2 and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game having you spend many a 20p (Irish Punt that is) for all those minutes of gaming joy. These kind of nostalgia trips in my head are ones of warmth and remind me of times when it was fun and relatively cheap to go out on a Sunday and not worry about paying a single 2 Euro coin for a game that won’t even let you continue regardless of how well you do (Mario Kart Arcade anyone?). So imagine my joy when, after many years of putting it off for the proverbial “this and that”, I finally made it to Tokyo to experience first hand an arcade culture so strong that it would bypass alcohol as my main evening pastime shenanigans.
There was only ever one place in Tokyo where I could truly experience such a scene and it was in the heart of “Electric Town” Akihabara (or Akiba to the locals) that I found what I was looking for. There are more arcades on this one street than there is in the Greater Dublin Area, and while on my trip I managed to visit every single one of them. Each arcade has its own unique style and layout. Two of my favourites were Hirose Game Yard and Taito Gamestation. Each floor had a speciality such as beat em ups on one floor, old school shooters like Ikaruga and a floor dedicated to a pod-based Gundam game.
The most impressive thing was not the amount of games and variety on offer but the community built on these games. Every night I went (and I do mean every night) to an arcade there was always a large number of people playing, watching and discussing tactics used while gamers battled on in games such as Tekken 6, Virtua Fighter 5 and Gundam: Senjou no Kizuna. I found myself being drawn into this group and spending the final hours of a day watching Dan carefully tear Sagat apart through nothing but light punching and Ex cancels, only to be followed by Dan being destroyed by the pure poetry of Zangief’s numerous grabs and smashes. Yet while all this was going on I couldn’t help notice how cheap everything was. One hundred Yen for ALL machines in an arcade. When changed that’s less than a Euro or one Pound.
When I came back to Ireland I visted my local arcade only to weep at its emptiness and the fact that I would have to pay two Euros for a gun game. I left soon after wishing I was once again with the dedicated crowds studying form for character perfection. I mean I could do with the training, my current match record is Won: 1 – Lost: 7!
Ganbaro!
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May 2nd, 2009 at 10:33 am
Well done for making it over to a land of true gaming. I played a lot of the Tao drumming games in the Tokyo arcades, it was super fun. It is so nice to be somewhere where arcade gaming is communial and normal and not at all seedy.
Japan is right at the top of my ‘places I must go back to’ list :)
May 2nd, 2009 at 11:23 am
I miss arcades though, admittedly, my main experience of them was summer holiday trips to Bundoran or Portrush or somewhere. Happy days.
Is a punt equivalent to 20p? Never knew that…