I think this is the most recent "traditional" arcade game I've played on a cabinet, before this it was Time Crisis 4, which is a full decade older, yikes!
I'm young enough that arcades have basically never been a thing for as long as I've been alive. I mean, yeah, they exist somewhere, they'll probably never completely die out. But the stories of people huddling around a fighting game or beat-em-up cabinet are just that, stories, and the arcades near me don't even have any games in those genres. Most of them don't even have pinball anymore, you have to go to a separate, pinball specific place.
When I was a kid you could still find arcade games all over the place, at the roller-skating rink, at the movie theater, the golf course, the grocery store, the dentist's office. Though, they were always off to the side, unattended, gathering dust. I played Pacman, Galaga, Time Crisis, Gauntlet, Crazy Taxi, Daytona, Hydro Thunder, Cruis'n USA, and almost always did so alone. The arcade I've heard described by older generations of game enthusiasts, the arcade I've seen in documentaries and old news broadcasts, seemed like a place with its own culture, it seemed like a place where strangers could find a shared experience.
The most common place to find arcade games in use in the early 00's, and to find the machines at all today, was and is in "family entertainment centers". Even here the machines are often neglected, they don't give any tickets and each credit is usually more expensive than the children's gambling machines. In a place like this you reserve a time-slot, a table, a lane, course or track for whatever amusement you've signed your group up for; even though the arcade is separate from this, you would still never play with a stranger, and those strangers are probably playing for prizes instead of fun anyway.
When talking about the apparent death of the arcade, people often point to the technical aspect. Video games require computing power, and for a long time that power came at enough of a cost that it made more sense for a business to buy separate machines for individual games and rent out playtime for change. Even if you could play at home, for a long time the games were both more expensive and technically inferior to what the arcade had. By the late 90's, home consoles had gotten powerful enough that they could offer an experience more or less on-par with arcades, and today home video gaming has completely outpaced arcade games. People used to have to settle for a worse version of Pacman at home, now I can just buy what is probably an objectively better version of Cruis'n Blast, at almost certainly a better price than continuing to shell out credits, for a handheld system that I can play anywhere.
But I think that only gets to half of the issue. While the internet and online gaming have made home video games more social, made it more easy to find strangers to play even the most obscure games with, cultural shifts have made playing video games in public one of the most awkward, lonely things you can do. You don't go to an arcade to play games, you go there to spend time with friends and family. If you go to an arcade specifically to play games, that's a little strange; if you play arcade games to get a high score, you are actually a freak.
I went to the arcade expecting to hover over my brothers' shoulders and challenge them to skee-ball. I had already looked at the websites for all the arcades in town and thought I had deduced that none of them had anything worth playing. I felt kind of stupid seeing something I was excited to try, I insisted someone else play it first. The cabinet prompted me to look up for a photo, a voice from behind commented that I had a good "smug rival" sort of expression, I clarified that I was just squinting weirdly because of all the RGB strobe lights both on the machine and hanging from the ceiling.
I played Cruis'n USA on a busted old cabinet in a dentist's office when I was a kid. I have no idea what exactly was wrong with the screen on that thing, but imagine playing that game in Game-Boy green monochrome. In the context of a Switch game, Cruis'n Blast's garish colors have a sort of charm to them simply because nothing else in console games is quite like it. In the context of an FEC, the game blends right in with everything else. Pop music shakes the building, every wall is lined with TV's tuned to whatever sports are playing. Cruis'n Blast was built to be just one corner of a TikTok video. Older arcade games had an attract mode to sell the game, here it feels like the game only exists as a formality to sell the attract mode.
Did I have fun? I don't know. I used to play loud music to fall asleep, overstimulation used to be the only way I could really relax. Whenever I start a new job there's a period of auditory shock, like the noise profile on my brain's filter no longer matches what I'm hearing. For the first few days, or weeks, I can barely sleep because I can still hear trucks and tools whirring, keyboards clacking, lights buzzing in my head. Cruis'n Blast is kinda like that, a noise washed over me, and it has passed.
I'm young enough that arcades have basically never been a thing for as long as I've been alive. I mean, yeah, they exist somewhere, they'll probably never completely die out. But the stories of people huddling around a fighting game or beat-em-up cabinet are just that, stories, and the arcades near me don't even have any games in those genres. Most of them don't even have pinball anymore, you have to go to a separate, pinball specific place.
When I was a kid you could still find arcade games all over the place, at the roller-skating rink, at the movie theater, the golf course, the grocery store, the dentist's office. Though, they were always off to the side, unattended, gathering dust. I played Pacman, Galaga, Time Crisis, Gauntlet, Crazy Taxi, Daytona, Hydro Thunder, Cruis'n USA, and almost always did so alone. The arcade I've heard described by older generations of game enthusiasts, the arcade I've seen in documentaries and old news broadcasts, seemed like a place with its own culture, it seemed like a place where strangers could find a shared experience.
The most common place to find arcade games in use in the early 00's, and to find the machines at all today, was and is in "family entertainment centers". Even here the machines are often neglected, they don't give any tickets and each credit is usually more expensive than the children's gambling machines. In a place like this you reserve a time-slot, a table, a lane, course or track for whatever amusement you've signed your group up for; even though the arcade is separate from this, you would still never play with a stranger, and those strangers are probably playing for prizes instead of fun anyway.
When talking about the apparent death of the arcade, people often point to the technical aspect. Video games require computing power, and for a long time that power came at enough of a cost that it made more sense for a business to buy separate machines for individual games and rent out playtime for change. Even if you could play at home, for a long time the games were both more expensive and technically inferior to what the arcade had. By the late 90's, home consoles had gotten powerful enough that they could offer an experience more or less on-par with arcades, and today home video gaming has completely outpaced arcade games. People used to have to settle for a worse version of Pacman at home, now I can just buy what is probably an objectively better version of Cruis'n Blast, at almost certainly a better price than continuing to shell out credits, for a handheld system that I can play anywhere.
But I think that only gets to half of the issue. While the internet and online gaming have made home video games more social, made it more easy to find strangers to play even the most obscure games with, cultural shifts have made playing video games in public one of the most awkward, lonely things you can do. You don't go to an arcade to play games, you go there to spend time with friends and family. If you go to an arcade specifically to play games, that's a little strange; if you play arcade games to get a high score, you are actually a freak.
I went to the arcade expecting to hover over my brothers' shoulders and challenge them to skee-ball. I had already looked at the websites for all the arcades in town and thought I had deduced that none of them had anything worth playing. I felt kind of stupid seeing something I was excited to try, I insisted someone else play it first. The cabinet prompted me to look up for a photo, a voice from behind commented that I had a good "smug rival" sort of expression, I clarified that I was just squinting weirdly because of all the RGB strobe lights both on the machine and hanging from the ceiling.
I played Cruis'n USA on a busted old cabinet in a dentist's office when I was a kid. I have no idea what exactly was wrong with the screen on that thing, but imagine playing that game in Game-Boy green monochrome. In the context of a Switch game, Cruis'n Blast's garish colors have a sort of charm to them simply because nothing else in console games is quite like it. In the context of an FEC, the game blends right in with everything else. Pop music shakes the building, every wall is lined with TV's tuned to whatever sports are playing. Cruis'n Blast was built to be just one corner of a TikTok video. Older arcade games had an attract mode to sell the game, here it feels like the game only exists as a formality to sell the attract mode.
Did I have fun? I don't know. I used to play loud music to fall asleep, overstimulation used to be the only way I could really relax. Whenever I start a new job there's a period of auditory shock, like the noise profile on my brain's filter no longer matches what I'm hearing. For the first few days, or weeks, I can barely sleep because I can still hear trucks and tools whirring, keyboards clacking, lights buzzing in my head. Cruis'n Blast is kinda like that, a noise washed over me, and it has passed.