A holiday, a hotel, and a broken Sega Touring Car machine

At the end of May 2018, I was on holiday on the island of Crete, Greece.

I had a good time overall, but there was one thing that stood out about it compared to other holidays I've been on- I saw just one arcade game.

Usually, I find some time to check out the nearby arcades whenever I'm staying in another place, but Crete was different. In 2002, all arcade games on Greece occupied soil were banned entirely, after some machines were being illegally converted for gambling and at the centre of a government corruption scandal.

Everything fell under it - even racing, lightgun, and dance games. The arcade scene there died a death immediately, and even with a repealing of the law some years later after much criticism by the arcade and gaming industry, arcades in Greece never really recovered.

So, I went into this holiday expecting to get away from everything, even one of my main interests in life. But to my surprise, I found one solitary arcade machine at the resort I was staying at; a broken and battered twin Sega Touring Car Championship.

Sega Touring Car, for those unaware, is one of several arcade racers developed by Sega in the 90's. It ran on the advanced for the time Model 2 hardware, like the widely-regarded classics Daytona USA and Sega Rally Championship before it- but unlike those two games, it never received a sequel on the upgraded Model 3 board.

Because of this, it isn't quite as well remembered, and the people who do know of it usually associate Touring Car with its Saturn console port, which is well-known for all the wrong reasons. Flickering, inaccurate graphics, jerky controls, lack of content, the game is terrible.

In fact, it could be argued that even the arcade version is a poorer game compared to Sega's many other arcade racers; as despite a typically cheesy Eurobeat soundtrack that predates Initial D Arcade Stage's use of one, there just isn't much character in it, and the gameplay feels nowhere near as tight as Daytona.

But anyway - the machine was located in a very small games room next to the bar, with it being the only reminder of anything resembling a video game there, sandwiched between claw machines and a whack-a-mole game.

It was clear from when I first saw it, that the machine had been subject to a lot of use. The marquee lights had blown, the screens were converted to LCD, seat decals reinforcing the Sega Saturn console brand were torn, no sound seemed to be coming out, and the right side didn't appear to be working at all.

This wasn't a good indication that the game would even be playable at all- but still, I paid the 50 cent price a few times to have a few shots at it. Of course. I didn't get far.

Once playing the game, I soon realised something was clearly wrong with the gas pedal. Even with putting my foot down on it hard, it wouldn't go as fast as it could. The force feedback was either ridiculously strong, or not even working. The gear shifter wasn't even safe, as it turned out to be a game in itself of chance finding out if you'd changed gears or not after moving it.

The furthest I ended up getting was the second course, and while I'm not the best at it anyway, I have done much better on it than that on other machines. With the cab in terrible condition, I didn't play the machine much afterwards, but I would always pass it on my way to the bar, or to the restaurant.

Every time I saw Touring Car afterwards, I couldn't believe how just sorry the machine looked. No-one was playing it, only children climbing on the seats and pretending to drive. Only one attempt was made to fix the right side- and nothing appeared to have changed afterwards.

The machine will likely never even be bought and restored by someone back to its former state, with very little interest in arcades in Greece, and of course the negative consensus opinion on Touring Car too.

To me, this twin racing machine embodies the complete decline arcade games had in many parts of the world during the 2000's. They may as well have been banned here too - more arcades than ever have no games to speak of, just prize redemption and claw machines. 

I'm going off on a depressing, woe-is-me tangent here to be honest, but the feeling of visiting an arcade and not seeing one racing, shooting, or fighting game is all too familiar now.

The final day of the holiday soon came, and I decided to have one last play on the game. It was still broken as ever, but I tried to enjoy it a bit more by listening to the game's Eurobeat soundtrack on my phone- because as I mentioned before, the sound wasn't working.

Leaving the island, I was half expecting to find a similarly broken arcade machine at the Crete airport, but there wasn't even one there.

Why I cared so much about this dilapidated, broken arcade game in a hotel, god knows - but as one of the last of an already very dead breed in the area, I thought I should at least give it some of the service it was designed to receive - even if the game wasn't a particularly good one.

My opinion, like many others, hasn't changed on Sega Touring Car Championship. I still think it's inferior to most of the company's other arcade racers, but the game means a little more to me after this holiday, which I definitely was not expecting to happen going into it. 

I wasn't planning even planning to write this this originally, but did want to get something out about this machine - having already spoke about it on my Twitter, I felt just a few posts weren't enough for something which could symbolise the decline of an entire genre of video game in some parts of the world.

Ted

Arcade round up- Tamworth, Matlock, and more

Over the past year, I've visited places with arcades that aren't significant enough to warrant a writeup all to themselves, but deserve to be covered in their own small ways I think. What better way to do that than lump them all into one for a round-up, then? Here's an amalgamation of tales of arcades in the UK, from Anglesey to Tamworth, from Llandudno to Matlock, here's those little places:

Anglesey +  Llandudno, Wales

Towards the end of August 2017, I went on holiday to the northern region of Wales, the Isle of Anglesey specifically. I looked up to see if there was any arcades on the isle but I was surprised to find there was only 1- and it was a very small space, tacked onto a restaurant.

I tried to get my hopes up by thinking they would have some long forgotten JAMMA cab or a uncommon racing game from the 90's like Scud Race or Rave Racer, covered in cigarette stains but still working; but alas, it was not to be.

The Coast Diner Arcade, Benllech

This arcade was part of a fish and chip shop + restaurant, and as previously alluded to, the only one on Anglesey. When I first set foot in it, the signs were good. It was dark, dingy, and outdated.

A long line of old gambling machines against the wall, a absolutely battered 'Bowlingo' mini bowling alley, and 2p pushers that were barely operational. Pretty bad, considering the restaurant looked fairly modern.

And, right at the back of the arcade, I found the only game to be had- Maximum Tune 2.

Now, I like the Maximum Tune series. I like the gameplay, I like the car tuning, I like the music by Yuzo Koshiro, and I don't like the fact most UK arcades don't have it. So I should be happy I found one in this arcade. But this was just depressing to see.

The right side was switched off, presumably not working. The sound was barely audible. The CRT's had pretty bad burn in. The card reader wasn't working. The 'DO NOT SIT ON SEAT IF NOT PLAYING' sign was placed halfheartedly on the marquee. All of this made for one of the worst condition arcade games I have ever seen!

I had one credit, still priced at £1, and didn't have another go. While I was hopeful at first for finding some hidden treasure, I left the arcade with a pretty bad taste. Just how on earth have they let the place fall into such disrepair, when the restaurant actually looked pretty decent? 

Soon enough, this will most likely be converted into more seating for the restaurant. The arcade might've been popular once, but it's had its day- as while there were people in the diner above, the arcade was deserted and no-one else came in while I was there.

It didn't help that there was little info I could find about it on the internet, and the entrance was the other side of the building, with only one sign pointing towards it. Most people probably don't even realize it exists, to be honest!

There also was this 2nd arcade elsewhere in Benllech attached to the 'Wendon's' cafe, but it only had pushers and fruit machines. 

There was a little graveyard of machines in the corner, and I tried to see if there was a neglected old cab, but there was nothing. And I was shouted at by an employee for looking, so there you go. Watch yourselves, people.

Llandudno

Disappointed with Anglesey's arcade, I looked around online to see if there was any other arcades just outside of Anglesey. Unfortunately, the next town along the coast was 45 minutes away, and the other towns, like Rhyl, were even further, which is a shame as I've heard they have some nice stuff, like this 8 player Daytona:

I would've normally made the journey but I had other stuff planned already, like a zipline experience and Snowdonia so I only had time to do one. So, I chose Llandudno, as it looked like a really nice town overall, and it had a few arcades.

Leisure Island Amusements

An okay little arcade, with old looking decor but new, shiny machines.

It was nice to see Luigi's Mansion Arcade. I do like the plastic replicas of the original's Poltergust 3000 vacuums.

Not a massive fan of the new Daytona, but from looking at older pictures of this arcade, it replaced the pretty dire NASCAR Arcade by Raw Thrills- anything other than that is good by comparison!

The attract mode said something about a 'open tournament'- there wasn't anything mentioned about it in game when I played it, so I don't know what this meant. Maybe it was something to do with the Championship Mode, which I haven't tried yet.

It may be redemption and nothing like the original, but I think Space Invaders Frenzy is a pretty fun spin-off, especially with 2 players.

Also, not sure why they need not one but two Terminator Salvation machines. Variety is better than having double cabs of one game!

The Deck Arcade

The second of two arcades on Llandudno Pier. I'd heard this one had a few older Sega cabs, like a sit-down House Of The Dead 2 and the hard to come by Initial D 3, but alas, things had changed.

Most of the games here are made by Raw Thrills, which left a lot to be desired. Namco's 2009 tank sim, Tank! Tank! Tank!, was my only game of interest here.

It's a spiritual successor of sorts to Tokyo Wars, which I have enjoyed playing in the past. Even with it being a lot more recent, it never got a wide release, and as such is about as uncommon as its original incarnation now.

There were a few other arcades in Llandudno but there was little of note- though I did spot some familiar faces in one of the grabber machines...

If only there was an actual Street Fighter machine there...

Later on that day we went on the Llandudno cable cars up to the Summit Complex. The cable car track is one of the longest in Britain and there was really quite great views.

But why am I mentioning this? At the entrance the sign mentioned this arcade. When we got up there though, it didn't seem to exist...

Anyway, despite the somewhat lackluster arcades as a whole, I had an amazing time in Wales and did so many things I haven't told you about. May be visiting again soon with a better mindset of what to expect!

Namco Funscape/Station, Tamworth

During my first visit to Tamworth in quite a few years, I couldn't resist a look at the Namco arcade and bowling alley now that I was always on the lookout for arcades. It's in a prime location, near to the town centre and other attractions in the Castle Grounds, so I had time to check it.

Interestingly, the venue has a noteworthy history regarding arcades- in the 90's, it was Sega

who owned it! The first floor was used for Sega World, and they supposedly had an 8 player Daytona USA among other expensive titles. However, it was sold to Namco in 2001, who moved the games down with the bowling, and leased the first floor to a gym, so there's no leftover machines from when Sega owned it, sadly.

I still hoped there would be some quality games to play in whatever space there still was, but there was only a few. Mario Kart Arcade and Star Wars Battle Pod were the only highlights of a very small selection.

The games were still in good condition, but I was thinking there'd be more choice. There's not very much space, but it's quite strange to me how a dated game like Terminator Salvation is still out and taking money, when they could replace it with a more recent shooter, like Time Crisis 5. I'm hoping on a future visit, there will be more newer games, but perhaps Namco's 

focus is on their bigger locations.

I must mention this amazing bit of street art near the building though. After the disappointment over how few games were there, this definitely was a real delight to see.

Matlock Bath

Matlock Bath is a little town just 30 minutes away from me. The one way it can be described is a landocked seaside town, with all the tourist attractions and hallmarks of one, but no beach of course.

There are 4 arcades in Matlock, a good amount considering its relatively small size. Only one of these has any actual games though, which is a little disappointing, but still, it's interesting there's a town like this near me.

Derwent Amusements

The one big highlight of this place is, quite obviously, its House of The Dead 2 DLX cab. Surprising to see one of these still alive and kicking out in the wild.

The rear projector is on its last legs, but the game is still playable, in fact until very recently, the guns on this had some shocking calibration. However, it's fixed now, and I finally managed to get a gameplay video of it:

Bizarrely, Derwent Amusements chose to get the upright version of Transformers, over the more impressive sit-in deluxe machine. They could've easily gotten rid of HOTD2 for it but chose to have both, not that this is an issue.

Unfortunately, the game itself follows in the footsteps of recent efforts by Raw Thrills and offers little noteworthy things gameplay-wise, but something nice I noticed playing it straight after the comparatively vintage HOTD2 is that Sega are still employing the same wooden voice actors for their arcade releases- some things never change.

Namco's Pac-Man revival for 4 players is always fun, and keeps the same great gameplay of the original with just a little more variety to spice things up. Good condition, 50p a play, what's not to like.

Really, if you don't like House of The Dead and the curiosity of an in land seaside town, this place isn't worth your time. But as somewhere not too far from me, it's nice to come here for walks and check on what's going on in town.

Nottingham

Nottingham's arcade prime sadly came and went before I could ever enjoy it; both Cascade Amusements and Namco Station closed in the 2000s. Ironically, Nottingham's infamous National Videogame Arcade museum opened just a few yards away from where Cascade was, but NVA is not what I'm going to be talking about here- it now deserves it's own write-up, which is coming soon.

The only other place in Notts with a significant amount of arcade games in Funstation. This was a surprise addition to the Cornerhouse complex in 2015, which already had several restaurants and attractions like indoor mini golf and a casino. I never thought for a second that a new, dedicated arcade would open in the centre of Nottingham again, but here we are.

Funstation is actually a little-known chain of arcades in the UK, with only a few other locations. They seem to be very modern and clean, no cigarette stained carpets or gambling machines in these- just redemption and a select few video games, all paid for with the I-Card system. 

What's good is that the Nottingham location probably has the most diverse selection of video games out of all the Funstation arcades, after looking at others online. You've got your usual mediocre Raw Thrills games, but also some slightly newer titles from Namco and Sega like Transformers Human Alliance, and Star Wars Battle Pod.

But the biggest surprise of all is that they've opted to have two decade old games in the form of Time Crisis 4, and a deluxe 4 player OutRun 2 SP linkup!

Both of these games were released in the mid 2000s, and I find it odd that Funstation have got these, considering redemption dominates the arcade and that it opened in 2015. They've been fully refurbished, and have been given a good LCD conversion for once- barely any lag, and they look great. To be honest, these are the only reason I keep coming back to the place!

The venue could still do with some improvement, though. As always, the caveat of having some quality releases from the 00s is that a better effort should be made with keeping up to date. Since they opened, they haven't bought anything new, which concerns me.

But, overall, I'm glad that Funstation have got good games for their arcade, even if they are quite old now. They could do with some newer machines, and maybe a better variety (rhythm games like DDR A would be appreciated), but it's interesting to see an arcade in a city that isn't attached to a bowling alley thriving and doing well. I thought arcades were finished in Nottingham a while back, but with this and National Videogame Arcade, they might not be after all.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this little round-up of arcades I've visited in the past. I may do another one of these in the future, if I've been to other smaller and less noteworthy places, so watch this space. Thanks for reading.

Ted