What started out as a half-hearted attempt to give my studio “a bit of an arcade theme” spiralled further out of control last year, leaving me with what I can only describe as an “arcade with a bit of a music studio theme”.

I lay the blame for my cavalier attitude towards arcade machine acquisition squarely at the feet of my inner twelve-year-old, a socially awkward and troubled boy trapped somewhere in 1983.

And if this already points towards some sort of midlife crisis – which it surely does – then I feel I can at least console myself with the idea that it’s a fairly cool manifestation of one.

For some, it’s sports cars and marathon running. For me, it just happens to be garish multi-coloured lighting and games such Defender and Space Invaders. (Along with analogue synths, ancient computers, gramophones, and phonographs – but those are all long term afflictions).

Inner child James declared war on his adult self earlier this year, with arcade machines becoming the chosen battleground. Across the decades, young James had screamed at outer adult James to play Atari Star Wars again – believing, naively, that this may transport him back to Bournemouth’s magnificent Pier Amusements during the 1980s.

Child James wasn’t wrong: Playing Star Wars again – thanks to the emergence of a fairly decent ‘replica’ from Arcade 1UP – proved to be a pretty thrilling experience. The familiar yolk, the assault on the Death Star, the glowing vector graphics (albeit rendered on an LCD rather than a CRT monitor), the emulated POKEY chip music and a grainy sampled Sir Alec Guinness are much as big James remembers them.

Arcade 1UP’s Atari Star Wars – my favourite offering from the company to date.

I’m tempted to crack a joke here, describing this kind of midlife-crisis as something of a quarter-life crisis, but for a British person accustomed to pumping ten-pence pieces into coin slots, that would be inexcusable. (Too late, it would seem).

Obtain this immediately, if you can.

There’s no doubting that much arcade paraphernalia – and the culture surrounding it – did, of course, originate in the US and Japan, even if the British have long had their own unique way of celebrating it – particularly, as I recall it, in and around seaside resorts. (I read a wonderful book by Alan Meades on this subject recently, called Arcade Britannia: A Social History of the British Amusement Arcade, which I can wholeheartedly recommend).

VINTAGE OR REPLICA?

At the risk of becoming inappropriately techie by even raising such questions on what is supposed to be a composer’s website, I’ll quickly answer this by saying that I enjoy both vintage and replica arcade machines (and retro “re-issue” consoles, for that matter).

Next level emulation: sooner or later I’ll fit this Smarty Pi board (which incorporates a Raspberry Pi 4) into my original Turbo Outrun. Apparently, it plays Outrun and Turbo Outrun flawlessly, and reliably.

The ongoing war with my younger self has only intensified in recent years, brought on by the frustrating availability of newer, fully-licensed “replicas” from the likes of Arcade 1Up and AtGames.  These cabinets – although lacking CRT monitors and being flimsier than the vintage arcade machines they seek to emulate — are quite appealing for the casual arcade fan and, unlike some other solutions on offer, don’t rely on the acquisition of illicit ROMs in order to work. I’ve had a few of these cabinets imported from the US since they hit the scene, and I do quite like them.

Brought together in a dimly lit room, side by side with the real thing, the replicas successfully manage to create a welcoming arcade vibe – and they sound the part, too, producing the kind of unmistakable arcade soundscape (some might say, cacophony) I fondly remember from my youth.

Deemed somewhat inauthentic by aficionados and arcade purists, I wonder if some of these newer replicas (and I use that word loosely) will themselves end up collectible some day, much in the way the many cheap, plastic tabletop games of the 1980s (such as the likes of Grandstand’s Astro Wars) have done since their inception.  As a kid, I can well remember purists scoffing at those, too, yet nowadays they’re museum pieces and recognised as bona fide ‘vintage’.  (Or should that be ‘retro’? I’ve never really been clear as to the exact meaning of this word. Does it mean old or something more akin to new old – i.e. styled after older products?).

Astro Wars – Aged 12, I charged my schoolmates ten pence a go on this thing…
I’m particularly keen on New Wave’s 1/6th Scale Replicade series (Q-bert, left) and Taito’s amazing Egret II Mini (right).

Given enough time, it seems as though almost anything powered by electricity will eventually acquire a degree of retro tech charm — serving as a reminder of just how subjective and, dare I say it, age-related this hobby can actually be. Innovation and quality motivate part of the interest, of course, but nostalgia, cultural impact during one’s formative years, generational influences and so on, all appear to play a fundamental role in the hobby as well.

Williams’ Defender (1981). In my opinion, the coolest ever arcade machine – and the best sounding, despite being monophonic. Although mine has the original board and chipset, the cabinet is currently using the excellent JROK multi-Williams PCB.
WHERE ARE ALL THE ARCADE MACHINES?

A lot of old consumer technology ends up in landfill – only adding to its mystique and rarity, I imagine. Many arcade machines seem to have shared the same fate, sadly.

Were that not the case, I reckon there would be many more of them in circulation, especially given how many of the things used to exist. What happened to them?

Where did all of those Defender cabinets end up? The Arcade Blogger expertly offers an explanation here.

I’ve heard it said that, after various arcade machines fell out of fashion and became commercially unviable to arcade owners during the late 1980s, some of them proved hard to even give away. Many were thrown out, burned, or even dropped into the sea (seriously).

Adding insult to injury, and in clear violation of the Geneva Convention for Arcade Machines, some were drowned and burned. How deranged would someone would have to be to attempt to burn a wet arcade machine?

Many arcade machines will simply have fallen into a state of disrepair, with some so old now that it’s becoming difficult to source the custom made replacement parts required to repair them.

WHAT – OR WHEN – IS RETRO?

This is a difficult question, and one I’m not qualified to answer, but according to the podcast, This Week in Retro – of which I am a keen listener – “retro” (in gaming, at least) is defined as anything released up to and including the Playstation 3 console.

That’s for now, anyway, as the goalposts are always moving.

Two of my favourite consoles: The Vectrex and the Atari 2600 console. There’s no doubting the retro status of these two. Amazingly, games are still being made for them today, such as the fantastic shmup, Vyrzon (pictured).

Off-topic a little, I was surprised to learn recently that even some of the games I’ve scored – or have contributed to – during the earliest part of my career are now considered retro/vintage by some, which I find surprising and terrifying in equal measure. Some of the people who occasionally write to me with questions about now apparently old games such as Theme Park World, Privateer: The Darkening, Flight of the Amazon Queen, Freelancer, Space Hulk, Evil Genius, Conquest, Grand Prix 4, Cutthroat Island, Shadow of the Horned Rat and a bunch of others mostly from the 1990s (and even some EA Sports titles and games such as Red Alert 3, which I flat-out refuse to believe are actually “old”) are invariably much younger than I am, growing up during the era in question. This I think says a lot about the nebulous definition of ‘retro’.

Retro for me – in games at least – means something entirely different, dating back mostly to the late 1970s and 1980s, the golden era of arcades, the Atari 2600 and the advent of home computers such as the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amiga.

Remember the Sinclair ZX Spectrum? If you’re under forty years of age, you probably won’t. I’m using a TZXDuino with mine, which is essentially a digital tape deck. Loading Chuckie Egg has never been easier…
Retro in the eye of the beholder: As an audiophile, I’m in love with Edison Phonographs.
SPACE WARS

Living in the UK, where space is at a premium for the majority of people, I count myself lucky to have an “arcade” of any description.

Perhaps it’s a general lack of free space found in UK homes that explains why home arcades have never really been a thing here, and may never be.  For many on these islands, even accommodating a new espresso machine or toaster presents a huge challenge, so it’s no wonder so few arcade cabinets enter UK homes.

In contrast – if YouTube is any indicator – it would appear that the average suburban house in America can accommodate an entire cinema, arcade, bar and bowling complex. Even espresso machines and toasters get their own rooms.

THE MAGIC OF THE GOLDEN ERA

Arcades of the 1980s, as I recall, were an assault on the senses from the moment you entered them, providing not only solo gaming but a social and competitive experience as well. A place to huddle with friends in the warm glow of CRT monitors, eagerly competing on games such as Outrun, Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Defender, Star Wars, Battlezone, Pole Position and countless other era-defining classics.

These glorious establishments have always been more than just a collection of machines — offering immersive experiences that are greater than the sum of their parts. With deceptively simple designs built-into the very fabric of their cabinets — much like Nintendo’s synergistic approach to hardware and game creation — arcade machines were made to function as a cohesive whole: a mesmerising combination of aesthetics, hardware functionality and gameplay mechanics. They were — and continue to be — a celebration of the sensory experience of gaming, and an unforgettable fusion of art, design, and technology.

In an era of games industry saturation and emulation-based machines boasting “thousands of games”, there’s something pretty compelling about the idea of an arcade cabinet that plays just one game properly.

With few menus to negotiate and no compatibility issues to contend with, vintage arcade machines remind me of the relatively uncomplicated, uncluttered pre-internet era of gaming — a time when it felt as though every big new game — or film, for that matter — became an event shared by millions. 

During the 1980s in particular, the eye-catching cabinets on offer — with their wonderfully vibrant side art, striking marquees, attract modes and unique control schemes — managed to lure in millions of players in on an epic scale, each and every day of the week.

Bournemouth Pier Amusements: My favourite arcade growing up in the 1980s

There are establishments offering a 1980s-style arcade experience in the UK today, thankfully, but they are few and far between. One great one, quite local to me, is Arcade Archive, which can be found just outside Stroud in Gloucestershire. Situated above The Cave – a fantastic, hands-on retro tech museum – both are well worth visiting. Together they form The Retro Collective.

As I play — and revel in the sound of — classics such as Space Invaders and Defender in the studio arcade, I’m reminded of the immediacy and accessibility of the gaming experiences arcades used to offer, and I marvel at their enduring, cross-generational appeal — even now, in the era of photorealistic graphics and VR technology.

The arcade games of old epitomised the very essence of casual gaming: easy to learn, hard to stop playing, difficult to master —  serving now not only as a lesson in gaming history and a nostalgic reminder of a bygone era, but also as a refreshing counterpoint to some of today’s more complex and convoluted gaming experiences.

The allure of these games is undoubtedly magnified a little by the realisation that they laid the foundations of an entire industry — an entire art form, even —  establishing many of the ground rules and conventions that still hold sway today. Their lasting appeal isn’t only about the games themselves, then, but the cultural impact many have had as well, and the very fact they were first. – JH