Pick a cab, any cab. Whats your arcade cabinet GOAT? - The Bear and Badger

Time_on_my_hands

Well my all time fav is probably Gauntlet 2, but I could live with Gauntlet...

I'd have to go with 1. Now I've got a cab like Davy says there's something great about playing games in a proper stand up unit with the sticks and the other player right next to you. Really enjoying this experience with a big selection of games - Rampage World Tour, Dynablaster, Darkstalkers...

davyK

Gauntlet is a very fine shout. It would be part of my dream arcade for sure.

OK Dream arcade would be:

* most of the atari vectors (Lunar Lander, Tempest, Gravitar, Asteroids / Dx, Star Wars)
* Missile Command, Marble Madness, Gauntlet I or II, Super Sprint, cocktail Warlords
* Space Invaders Pt2, Phoenix, Super Xevious, Arkanoid, Defender, Robotron
* Class of '81 (Ms Pacman + Galaga cabinet)
* Track n Field, Hyper Sports
* Virtua Tennis, Monkey Ball
* Golden Tee
Would have a JAMMA cab for Cave 2D shmups and maybe a NeoGeo multi-cab but that's cheating really.
Probably one those physical basketball table games with the buttons.

For sit down link play (into the impossible realm now : Daytona USA, F-Zero AX.)

Lurch666

The thing about emulation is that it just doesn't feel the same as the original PCB.
If you never played the original PCB then you are not going to know the difference but owning lots of arcade PCBs and having lived in arcades back in the 80's I can tell you that playing emulation just isn't right.

To me The best cab is my generic cab that can play all the PCBs that I own.

davyK

If you are really attuned to certain games you will usually notice differences with sound effects. Some of the older machines had analogue circuits for sounds and some of the sound chips can vary if the voltage is slightly different too. Original Asteroids had custom hardware for its sound, Deluxe has the Atari POKEY chip which is a bit more consistent re sounds (it also has a random number generator that the game uses for rock placement and rock breakup angles etc.)

Emulation a splendid compromise though. Wouldn't be without MAME.

A JAMMA cab would be great - a Supergun would be a splendid compromise but there are some dodgy JAMMA multi game boards that emulate.

RedDave2

Lurch666 wrote:

The thing about emulation is that it just doesn't feel the same as the original PCB.
If you never played the original PCB then you are not going to know the difference but owning lots of arcade PCBs and having lived in arcades back in the 80's I can tell you that playing emulation just isn't right.

To me The best cab is my generic cab that can play all the PCBs that I own.

Thats lovely, quite jealous now. Maybe when my daughter moves out (no guarantees given the current irish home market) I'll have space for something like this.

They have those mini street fighter ones in Smyths toy shops - I think it's emulation rather than a pcb board, but I'm always tempted to do something stupid when I see it.

davyK

A supergun is a console-ised version of the above. They are far more practical re space.

RedDave2

It's the whole package of the cab though as well isn't it. For the moment emulation is brilliant so that will work for me but I'd love to have a cab in the house with that distinct screen flicker and booming sound .

Might need to start smoking to really complete the vibe. Also if one of you can act as the older kid who tried to take younger kids coin to "show them how to play" that would be complete.

Yossarian

My dream home arcade would be:

A multi light gun game cab to get my light gun fix.

A four player cab for multiplayer games, something like the turtles one.

One of the big screen, two player, sit down cabinets for two player games.

An air hockey table.

Oh, probably a pool table too.

davyK

RedDave2 wrote:

It's the whole package of the cab though as well isn't it. For the moment emulation is brilliant so that will work for me but I'd love to have a cab in the house with that distinct screen flicker and booming sound . Might need to start smoking to really complete the vibe. Also if one of you can act as the older kid who tried to take younger kids coin to "show them how to play" that would be complete.

Remember cabinets with built in ash trays.

The sound of a cabinet is unique too - the resonance of the speaker in a wooden box likely.

Matt_82

Despite spending many hours in arcades when I was young, I never really enjoyed many arcade games.

I did enjoy Time Crisis so I might have one of them in my fantasy house. Those retro uprights look great but would be entirely wasted on me.

RedDave2

Matt_82 wrote:

Despite spending many hours in arcades when I was young, I never really enjoyed many arcade games. .

I feel you are on the wrongest forum. Ban request.

Ed_Flanders

There was an electronic table football machine at a local arcade which I loved. You controlled the game with bars, but the players moved in circles, on the same plane as the table. The machine even played "anthems" for the teams and had crowd noise. It had an electronic scoreboard, of course. The whole playing field was under a plastic dome. I haven't been able to find anything about it online, though, which is making me feel like I'm mad.
I also loved the Party Zone pinball machine.

Yokel

Centipede. Please, no centipedophile jokes.

ChopperByrne

The Electrocoin Duet is the cabinet I'd want the most for general purpose.

If we're talking specific gimmick cabinets, Afterburner, Initial D, Virtua Cop, Time Crisis 2.

davyK

Yokel wrote:

Centipede. Please, no centipedophile jokes.

Centipede is another game that needs to be played in the cabinet as it's trak ball controlled for the optimal experience.

It's one of those games I find strangely moreish and have no idea why. 1942 falls into that category too. An early seemingly simple game that quickly gets its hooks into me.

davyK

RedDave2 wrote:

Despite spending many hours in arcades when I was young, I never really enjoyed many arcade games. .

I feel you are on the wrongest forum. Ban request.

The arcade in the late 70s-early 80s had a tremendous effect on me. It, with my experience of the 2600 at home and programming in BASIC on the Apple IIe in school, combined to push me into a career in IT; specifically software development.

The echoes of the arcade still affect my gaming tastes. I rarely stray far from that style of game.

Matt_82

RedDave2 wrote:

Matt_82 wrote:

Despite spending many hours in arcades when I was young, I never really enjoyed many arcade games. .

I feel you are on the wrongest forum. Ban request.

If you'd asked me at the time, I would have said that I loved them. But I would have been lying. Mostly to myself.

I wanted to like arcade games (and did enjoy some, tbf). I remember being SFII crazy when it came out. Yet I've never played another SF game since.

davyK

It's a fair point. There aren't that many arcade games I'd play today for no reason other than nostalgia. There's a few I still rate but that's largely due to my gaming tastes which are on the simpler side.

ChopperByrne

The old Atari pure gaming games are timeless classics.

For pure gaming, it's hard to beast Asteroids Deluxe. People talk about getting into the zone, and there are few modern games that do that.

Tetris Effect with decent headphones on, and Geometry Wars 2 give that feeling for sure.

Vela

Sega Rally

Or maybe Outrun 2

davyK

ChopperByrne wrote:

The old Atari pure gaming games are timeless classics. For pure gaming, it's hard to beast Asteroids Deluxe. People talk about getting into the zone, and there are few modern games that do that. Tetris Effect with decent headphones on, and Geometry Wars 2 give that feeling for sure.

Asteroids and its superior Deluxe variant are everlasting classics. I don't think there has ever been a more pure game. I've gone into that in some detail here in other threads.. There were flashier games around at the time but they didn't have the staying power and they were linear. Asteroids isn't. No two waves are alike. Tetris and a good twin stick shooter like GW or Robotron are up there too. They last forever in theory.

Funnily enough - when you play enough Tetris and Asteroids you start to feel similar decisions being made - which direction to rotate a shape or your ship is something you have to decide on continuously.

I haven't played a good version of Asteroids that wasn't developed by Atari which is weird. The old 2600 port - even with its limitations, the excellent 7800 port and the arcade originals have not been beaten when it comes to the core experience and the feeling you get from playing. There is something in those original algorithms other devs haven't been able to follow.

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