ATEI show

[Grasshopper]

There was a major amusement industry trade fair on in London last week - www.ateonline.co.uk. Although it is advertised as being strictly trade only, the organisers only make a token effort to ensure that those attending are genuine trade buyers.....

The thought of dozens of the latest arcade games all set to freeplay was too much for me to resist, so I look a day off work and went last Tuesday. I thought people here might be interested to know what I saw.

The main thing that struck me was how big retrogaming has suddenly become.

Namco had a stand showing several of their Space Invaders/Qix Silver Anniversary cabinets. I must say they looked very nice (especially the cocktails) and appear to be better made than the Ms Pacman/Galaga reunion cabinets. Playing Invaders on the machines felt totally authentic. The only main differences are that the monitor is in colour, and you look directly at the monitor instead of a mirrored image of it.

I've played dozens of versions of Space Invaders over the years, but the original is still the best IMHO, and you just can't beat playing it on a genuine(ish) cabinet. However, I'm a bit puzzled why they chose to twin the game with Qix. I personally would have picked another of the classic black and white games such as Lunar Rescue (ridiculously hard!) or Invader's Revenge.

There were also at least three companies showing cabinets running emulated classic games. I spoke to one of the salesmen about the legality of this and he insisted that the games were all fully licensed. I'm assuming they weren't running MAME but it wouldn't surprise me if the programmers had reverse engineered some of the MAME code to get their emulators working.

If these retro cabinets catch on then it could be a double edged sword for us. On the one hand we will be able to play all of the classic games in arcades again (albeit at inflated prices if the Ms Pacman/Galaga machines are anything to go by!),  but on the other hand, once they realise there is money to be made from retrogaming, the games companies might start to take more notice of the illegal distribution of ROMS etc.

As far as new games are concerned, there was really only one that caught my eye - Out Run 2. Generally speaking when a classic game is updated with better graphics the essence of the original game is lost (think Defender!). However I'm pleased to report that the OutRun 2 programmers have got it totally right. OutRun 2 is simply the best car racing game I have played, and is a worthy successor to the original which was itself a classic. Unfortunately, I probably won't be able to afford to play it in the arcades. Last time I looked, sit-down racing games were

[GroovyTuesdaY]

Yes , it has surprised me that with the digital millenium law crap that companies or the gov. hasn't really started putting the smack down on emulation and roms etc.   I DO think that MAME's days are numbered, so we better enjoy it while we can.   Look how hard it is to get MP3's anymore.  It used to be sooooo EASY.   I remember the good old days of DAVES CLASSIC VIDEO GAMES and sites like THE DUMP back in the beginning.  WOW. those were the days. Now you can't even find roms hardly on the net anywhere. Its nuts.    I am still confused at where people get the updated roms for each update of mame when they go in and change stuff.   Now, i dont want a specific site obviously, but if someone could explain to me how that works, i would love to know. lol

groovy~

[APFelon]

 I am still confused at where people get the updated roms for each update of mame when they go in and change stuff.   Now, i dont want a specific site obviously, but if someone could explain to me how that works, i would love to know. lol

I use USENET for that stuff. That way I don't have to wait in line and deal with all of the political BS that comes with IRC or a '1337 FTP site. There is usually only a few hours gap (if even that) between a MAME release and the new and updated stuff. ABEM is a great group.

I miss the "old days" too. I always liked being in on the genesis of a great thing... Hard to tell when emulation "jumped the shark", though. Perhaps when Nintendo cracked the whip on their IP rights, maybe Neo Geo emulation, maybe the N64 emulator, maybe CPS2 emulation, maybe when the whole scene became so damned grouchy, or maybe even when Daves became overcommercialized ALA A@H... Who knows. The excitement was great while it lasted.

[Xiaou2]

no offense.. bit i highly doubt outrun 2 is better than the original.   from the vids i saw of it going... it sickened me to see how much it sucked comparitively.  (with exception to the nice backgroung gfx)

 the corners are too easy to powerslide though... i saw a 2 minute slide with almost no horizontal movment twords the side of the curve!

 the hills arnt steep enough like the original.. and dont have the 'blind hill' effect where you cant see over the top of the hill like the original.  (IE: camera sucks)

 there were few hills, twisty curves..ect.  And suckily.. no banked track... which 'should' be in any moderns racing game...   Overall the tracks looked bland and too easy.

  no challenge compared to the super twisty, hilly and winding roads in original outrun.  (and traffic looked pretty scarce too.)

[AndyWarne]

I thought it was a shame that on the 25th Anniversary Space Invaders stand, Taito didn't have any of their original cocktail cabinets. (I could have lent them one LOL!). The new table-tops they are producing are to the Midway design not the original Taito, but then again, these did have larger monitors, and also are a bit more robust.
One of them had a faulty joystick, which made it impossible to get a high score, not good for an exhibition machine!
At ATEI, I always have a vision of someone mentioning the word "MAME" and the whole place going quiet, with the person sheepishly saying "Err.. I'll get my coat"!
One of the people who was (rather foolishly) showing a MAME-based machine, confided that he did get into trouble, the heavy mob came round and had words.. I don't know if he was back up and running later on.

[macca]

Did anyone see the MAME-ish machine on the Electrocoin stand? I thought it was the best one on display. The cabinet was particularly nice.