Video games. For as long as I can remember they have been a part of my life and many of my best childhood memories revolve around them. From early memories of anticipation, waiting for a game to load with my brother on the Spectrum and rarely ever playing a game (either because we got bored waiting or because after 1 hour of waiting the game would crash at the menu screen) to my teenage years of playing FIFA and WWF (the proper name for Wrestling kids!) on the megadrive and "borrowing" Amiga games from friends. Several hard fought battles were won and lost around an old CRT TV with a packet of Walkers and a can of Mountain Dew and plenty of laughter and tears along the way.
In between all of this however, was one constant, the epitome of gaming Nirvana that only came on the rare occassion that it was a nice day (not very often in the UK) and my parents didnt need to look at carpet samples, do some decorating or go to B&Q to look at wheel barrows (unfortunately these are all activities I can now as a father empathize with) and had instead decided a jaunt to the coast was required. On these occassions I'm sure they had images of building sandcastles, resting on the beach with a good book whilst watching my brother and I playing on the beach. However, our image of these days out were entirely different and involved us collecting all pocket money and loose change from around the house ready to hit every amusement arcade along the seafront, stopping only for waffles, candy floss or tokens along the way.
You see, unlike now, the technology in the arcades far surpassed what we could play in the comfort of our own home. These were machines dedicated to playing one game and one game only. Hardware that had come off a production line where every component was designed to provide the best experience for that game. We would go machine to machine, looking out for the favourites (Final Fight, Turtles, Street Fighter 2) whilst also on the lookout for any new machines that may have been added to the arcade which we had not yet seen. These days out were bliss but for one thing - we would return home and for a couple of days be all to aware how lacking the power of home consoles and computers were in comparison to what we had just played. Many times I would say to my brother - "When I'm older I'm going to have my own amusement arcade in my house so I can play the best games whenever I want!"
Obviously times have changed and things have moved on. The arcades no longer the pinnacle of gaming technology, in fact technology far more powerful can now be held on mobile devices. Most amusement arcades are long since gone relics of a yesteryear and I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't a few of you who are reading this who have never witnessed the sticky carpeted, trance music saturated dark corners of an amusement arcade to really know what I am talking about. Games now have become big productions, rivalled only by the film industry. A title like Call of Duty will make millions in pre-orders alone and will be instantly available in nearly every home. The graphics and sound now, immerse you in the experience, no longer do you control a character, you are the character and part of the experience. You see the game world through your eyes and the world is yours to play in and do what you want...
However, it was recently that I realised something and it was this that led me to start building my own Arcade Cabinet. For the past 5 years I have been playing the same game! This was a daunting realization as I had not absent mindedly gone to my machine and decided to play the same game day after day. In fact I have an array of games installed but when I came to think about they were all trying to achieve the same thing - full immersive gameplay, a deep game world, photo realistic graphics. The mission statement is simple, make the player believe they can do whatever they want so long as it involves (typically) a first person perspective, 3d graphics and shooting things. Nowhere in the mission statement is one simple three letter word ... fun.
Now don't misunderstand me at this point, I love shooting things as much as the next guy especially on a multiplayer server with friends. However, it is not the only thing I like to do. Back in the day developers were willing to try new things in the name of fun and experiment with the formula rather than regurgitate the same game year on year with minor improvements. It was in one of these moods that I ventured into Emulation - I had looked at MAME previously but things had moved on since I last had looked. Now even the most modest PC's can play nearly all of the arcade games from the 80's and 90's add on top of this the ability to also play old classics from the Amiga and Megadrive on a single box and suddenly the dream of owning an amusement arcade didnt seem so unlikely.
So I set to work on a MAME setup and quickly realised, that something wasnt quite right. To capture the experience from my childhood correctly something was missing, and that was the cabinet itself. Having done some research it seemed many people had already had the same idea and with much success. There was a wealth of information available online and even plans to download of some examples.
Armed with this information it was time to start the project, so a few mock-ups in Google Sketchup later and it was time to venture to B&Q and thankfully not to look at wheel barrows. Things were about to get a bit more interesting than that...
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