The Loft Arcade welcomed my old mate Alex last weekend, to help him record the first in his new video series where he travels the country and documents on video home arcade collections, whilst interviewing their owners. Alex is a good lad, and a hugely enthusiastic arcade collector. Specialising in Nintendo arcade cabinets, he has…
Tag: arcade
Cosmic Guerilla: Weekend Pickup!
Universal is a Japanese entertainment company with quite a history. As well as an arcade heritage from Lady Bug to Mr Do!, they also produced Pachinko and slot machines to furnish Japanese arcade parlours back in the day. Here in the UK, I recall some of their earlier video game titles, specifically the Cosmic series. …
Robotron Cabaret Restoration 1
If you’re not familiar with Williams’ Robotron arcade game then you need to seek it out. A cornerstone of classic arcade gaming, it delivers relentless twitch shooter action in absolute spades. This is a game that delivers even today. Frenetic and colourful with sound effects to die for (literally), its gameplay pumps adrenaline through your…
The Arcade House of Horrors
This week, we take a look at some examples of what are known in the trade as “Conversions”. But I’m talking bad ones. Real bad arcade conversions. The purists of the video arcade collecting community tend to collect dedicated cabs. These are totally original, unmolested arcade cabinets from the 70s and 80s. A level of…
Arcade Loft: The Making Of A Man Cave
Man Cave or Manspace: a male retreat or sanctuary in a home, such as a specially equipped spare room, media room, den or basement. The term “man cave” is a metaphor describing a room inside the house where “guys can do as they please” like a caveman, without fear of upsetting any female sensibility about…
Classic Arcade Games: Sex Sells But Who’s Buying?
In the 70s and 80s, the notion of “sex sells” had a lot of traction from what I can remember. It seemed that the lowest common denominator of advertising was to stick a scantily clad young lady in front of a product, photograph it, and it would fly off the shelf. Jeans, aftershave, cars, you…
The Development of Pac-Man
Much has been written about Pac-Man. This was a huge game for Namco back in the early eighties that would grow into a true 20th century icon. Everybody has at least heard of the game, because it was one of the first to enter the realms of popular culture. Indeed, merchandise and endorsements earned Namco…
Sega Dinosaur King Conversion 2 FINAL
So having got the Sega Dino King stripped and cleaned out in part one, we had a PC installed happily running GroovyMAME. A stable picture was showing on the monitor, and it was time to take a look at how the controls might work on this tiny cab. There wasn’t a great deal I could…
Sega Dinosaur King Conversion 1
Released in 2005, Sega’s Dinosaur King was an attempt to appeal to the kids market, and to cash in on the growing popularity of turn based card games like Pokemon. The release was designed as a card battle game where players face off against each other using bar-code cards purchased from, and dispensed by, the…
Arcade Auctions: expect the unexpected
Finding classic arcade machines is getting harder and harder here in the UK. More difficult still, is finding potential bargains. The hobby has gone nuts over the last few years, with many cabs now attracting four figure prices, as collectors hang on to their machines, and what’s left of the undiscovered, becomes discovered. It’s a…
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