November 24th, 2008 by Craig (email author)

I’ve been away for a while visiting family near Portsmouth. One of the things that we always seem to do while we are there is visit Southsea which is a nice little seaside town in the area.

With it being a seaside town, it is obviously very quiet at this time of year. However, to my surprise the arcades were still open. And as always, I couldn’t resist having a quick look around to see if anything caught my eye.

Now, I seem to do this almost everytime I see an arcade so I should be expecting it really. But I still feel disapointed whenever I look around and discover that the arcades of today are full of slots, sit-down racers, shooters and dance machines. I find myself secretly hoping to find an old Bubble Bobble or 1942 machine hidden away in the corner, but of course this never the case.

I grew up quite near the coast in the ’80s and the arcades where one of the places where my love of games first started. Back then, there was a quantum leap between the games you could get for your home computer and the ones available in arcades. It was always a special experience to play them in their native environment. However, it seems that the only way arcades today distinguish themselves from their arcade counterparts is the interface you use to play the game. Out are the 8-way joysticks of old and in are a variety of controls ranging from the previously mentioned dancemats to fishing rods.

It does make me wonder if there are any pubilc retro arcades still out there. My heart would love to see one, but my head tells me the maintainence of the old machines alone would be a nightmare. And with emulators such as MAME enabiling people to play the classics in the confort of their homes, would anybody other than real enthusiasts be interested?

Anyway, the visit wasn’t a complete disapointment. I did find a couple of pinball tables which recieved the attention they deserved. I have to shamefully admit that I got all three multiballs stuck on a ramp on one of them.