Langostino amarillo

Just as movies tried to win audiences back into theaters after the appearance of television, arcade video game producers searched for ways to provide experiences that most home con- soles of the time could not. Arcade games that four players could play simultaneously had been around since the release of PONG Doubles in 1972, and were made throughout the

1970s and 1980s, but during the 1990s the number of three- and four-player games increased dramatically. There were even some six-player games, like Sega’s Hard Dunk (1994), Atari Games’ T-Mek (1994), Konami’s X-MEN (1992), and Namco’s Galaxian 3 (1990) and Attack of the Zolgear (1994); and racing games like Namco’s Final Lap 2 (1991), Sega’s Daytona USA (1994) and Manx TT Superbike Twin (1995) which could accommodate up to eight players when the cabinets were networked together; and one game, Daytona USA 2: Power Edition (1999), could network up to 40 players.

Although specialized interfaces had been around since the earliest days, for example, the steering wheel and foot pedals used in Kee Games’s Formula K, or the two mounted guns used in Sega’s Balloon Gun, arcade video games of the 1990s abounded in specialized inter- face devices. The most common ones were cockpit games, with sit-in car seats and steering wheels found in a wide variety of driving or racing games, such as Konami’s Over Drive (1990), Sega’s Rad Rally (1991) and Sega Super GT (1997), and Namco’s Driver’s Eyes (1990) which had a panoramic image spread over three video monitors extending into the player’s peripheral vision. Namco’s Lucky & Wild (1993), a two-player cooperative game, combined interfaces and had a steering wheel, foot pedal, and two mounted guns.

Other vehicle interfaces could be found, including motorcycle handlebars in Atari Games’ Vapor TRX (1998) and Road Burners (1999), Namco’s Suzuka 8 Hours (1992), Sega’s Super Hang-On (1992), Motor Raid (1997), and Harley Davidson & L. A. Riders (1998). Taito’s Landing Gear (1995) was an airplane simulator with a throttle lever and joystick interface, and Sega’s Airline Pilots (1999) was a commercial Boeing 777 aircraft simulator made with the help of pilots and engineers from Japan Airlines.3Players drove an excavator in Taito’s Power Shovel Simulator (1999), a motorboat in Stricor’s Powerboat Racing (1998) (which also used three adjacent screens for a widescreen effect), a train in Taito’s Densha De Go! 2 (1999), a pedaling bicycle in Namco’s Prop Cycle (1996), a hang glider in Konami’s Hang Pilot (1997), a water scooter in Namco’s Aqua Jet (1996) and Sega’s Wave Runner (1996), and even rode on a saddle in Namco’s Final Furlong (1997).

Instead of sitting, some interfaces were designed for players to stand on and steer with foot movement. Sega’s Top Skater (1997) featured a skateboard interface, while Namco’s Alpine Surfer (1996) featured a snowboard. Namco also produced two skiing games, Alpine Racer (1995) and Alpine Racer 2 (1997), which had skis to stand on and ski poles for the player to hold. Sega’s Ski Champ (1998) also had a similar interface.

Other sports games also had specialized interfaces. Gaelco’s Football Power (1999) had a soccer ball that the player kicked to move the ball about the field, while Global VR’s Kick It! (1997) had a tethered soccer ball that the player kicked into a miniature goal area while an on-screen goalie attempted to stop it. Namco’s Family Bowl (1998) used a small bowling ball which the player rolled down a small bowling alley where sensors then used the ball’s position to determine which on-screen pins were knocked down. Another bowling game, Stern’s Super Strike (1990), used a cue ball and a table-top alley. Grand’s Slick Shot (1990) used a cue ball and a full-sized pool cue on a miniature pool table and infrared sensors to detect the ball’s movement. Taito’s Sonic Blast Man (1990) was a boxing game with real boxing gloves, a punch target, and on-screen opponents who reacted to the punches (players were only allowed three punches per game). Jaleco’s Arm Champ (1988) and Arm Champ II (1992) had a robotic arm that players arm-wrestled. There were even a number of fishing games, including Namco’s Angler King (1990), and Sega’s Sport Fishing (1994), Sport Fishing 2 (1995), Get Bass (1998), and Sega Marine Fishing (1999), each of which featured a fishing pole interface.

New interfaces occasionally spawn new genres of games, and the 1990s saw the rise of ‘‘rhythm and dance’’ games, in which players had to coordinate their movements to music. Konami produced so many of these games that it had a separate division, Benami Games, to produce them (‘‘Benami’’ is a combination of ‘‘Beatmania’’ and ‘‘Konami’’).4Devecka’s Drumscape (1990) and Konami’s DrumMania series (five games over the period 1999 to 2001) all had a set of miniature drumheads that the player played on with tethered drum- sticks. Konami’s Beatmania series (34 games over the period 1998 to 2007) had games featuring a five- or seven-key piano and a DJ turntable interface which the player used interactively in time with the music playing. Namco’s Guitar Jam (1999), SCEI’s UmJam- mer Lammy (1999), and Konami’s GuitarFreaks series (14 games over the period 1998 to 2006) were two-player games with two full-sized guitars that were used as an interface to play along with the music, although players pressed buttons on the guitars instead of strumming strings. Some DrumMania and GuitarFreaks games could even be networked together so that two guitarists and one drummer could play a song together.

Other interfaces required physical movement that involved the player’s whole body. The most famous of these, Konami’s Dance Dance Revolution (1998) had players follow a series of on-screen dance steps, dancing on a pressure-sensitive dance floor interface. The game began a popular series of games (16 versions over the period of 1998 to 2006) and it was even used in a physical education class in California.5These games eventually became available for home console systems, and in 2003, three of the top seven best-selling PlayStation 2 games were variations of Dance Dance Revolution.6Konami also produced several Dance Maniax games in 2000 and 2001, in which infrared motion sensors detected the movements of players’ arms and legs. A few other companies produced motion-oriented games. Andamiro, a Korean company, released Pump It Up (1999), which had a dance floor interface, and was sued by Konami for patent infringement. Namco’s 1998 game Jumping Groove had a much smaller interface, with one position for each foot, requiring a player to hop on one or the other in sequence. Namco also released Balance Try the same year, which had a rocking bar that the player tried to remain standing on while it moved.

Other unique games of the time include SNK/Saurus’s The Irritating Maze (1997), which had air jets that blasted the player suddenly when mistakes were made (the game even had an advisory warning that people with epilepsy and pregnant women should not play the game); Virtuality’s Dactyl Nightmare (1992) featured a three-dimensional world seen through head-mounted displays, where players could see and shoot at each other’s avatars, as well as get carried off by the pterodactyl flying around in the game’s simple world; VR8’s Virtual Combat (1993) was a one-player game, and its head-mounted display hung from its game cabinet for the player to wear; and finally, there was even a game which used a computer keyboard as its input device: in Sega’s The Typing of the Dead (1999), players typed words quickly and accurately to kill the zombie coming at them.

While the 1990s saw some innovative hardware in arcade video games, it was changes in software and in particular game graphics, where home console systems were catching up and raising players’ expectations, which would have to be met if the arcade was to continue.