"Arcade Perfect" - Your fondest memories of bringing the arcade into your living room

Eurogamer's best articles tend to come out over the course of the weekend and this article (below) certainly took me back to those days of excitement as a favourite arcade game got converted to the home computers/consoles of the time. Unfortunately most were terrible in those very early days, but there were a few impressive feats of coding and as gaming tech improved bringing the arcade home became more of a reality. Good or bad, though, it was a great time to be a gamer.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019 ... hool-ports

David L. Craddock, a prolific author and historian, has recently compiled a fascinating account of the history of arcade ports in Arcade Perfect: How Pac-Man, Mortal Kombat, and Other Coin-Op Classics Invaded the Living Room

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Arcade-Perfect ... way&sr=8-4


One of the stand out arcade conversions of the time had to be R-Type on the Spectrum. They just nailed it to the point where I could take my skills of playing R-Type on my Speccy 128+2 and apply them to the arcade original.

Looking back, the 80s and early 90s were probably the peak time for arcade conversions... at a time when the technical disparity between arcade machines and home computers / consoles was huge!

I have a fondness for Gauntlet; the C64, ST, Master System and Mega Drive versions were all very good. It wasn't the most technically demanding title visually, but the amount of characters on-screen was a challenge.

I think that the arrival of Ridge Racer on the PlayStation was the moment when I felt as if I had an actual arcade game at home. Fast 3D polygons, slick (albeit tricky) handling and crazy sound... such a rush!

jawafour wrote:Looking back, the 80s and early 90s were probably the peak time for arcade conversions... at a time when the technical disparity between arcade machines and home computers / consoles was huge!

I have a fondness for Gauntlet; the C64, ST, Master System and Mega Drive versions were all very good. It wasn't the most technically demanding title visually, but the amount of characters on-screen was a challenge.

I think that the arrival of Ridge Racer on the PlayStation was the moment when I felt as if I had an actual arcade game at home. Fast 3D polygons, slick (albeit tricky) handling and crazy sound... such a rush!

After receiving it as a Christmas gift from my parents Gauntlet on the Speccy stayed in my tape-deck for an absolute age. I remember discovering at some point that you could walk through the dungeon walls by holding down the shift button.

I didn’t spend a lot of time as a kid in arcades playing video games (unless you were very good they were also expensive, which despite being practically on my doorstep was the biggest barrier to SEGA World), but when I did it was always the very physical games, such as Time Crisis, Silent Scope, Daytona (bloody hopeless at this though) and very late into the 90s Dance Dance Revolution, so to get to experience these at home was very exciting. Light gun games are to this day the one genre I miss the most.

I have no recollection of Ridge Racer being in the arcades, but do recall Tekken 3, though never saw anyone on the machine...aside from young kids pretending to play it by wiggling the sticks around.

I know my Mum spent ages on Space Invaders, Galaxians and PacMan in the 80s, but then didn’t everyone back then.

I really like the SNES version of Sunset Riders it’s a really faithful conversion of the arcade original. The Mega Drive version on the other hand is a bit gooseberry fool.

Yeah Ridge Racer on PS1 was the one for me, it was literally Arcade Perfect.

Sunset riders was one I really loved as well, originally I had the megadrive version and then later the SNES and although the SNES one is better some bits of the megadrive one are actually closer to the arcade mostly due to a bit of censorship.I looked at some of the differences when I did a YouTube video on it.

Probably Street Fighter 2 on SNES (which was functional), but even more xmen vs street fighter on Saturn, which was (for me) the first arcade perfect conversion.

Virtua Fighter 2 on the Saturn was a fairly accurate representation of the arcade version, it was obviously running on inferior hardware but it managed to retain all the speed and fluid movement of its bigger brother, something which is very important for fighting games.

It did use to be the big accolade at the time, to say something was 'arcade perfect', even when it patently wasn't.

I think Crazy Taxi on the Dreamcast was the first game I can think of that met that description. Nailed it with House of the Dead too

And almost ever since then, most stuff has been better played at home, as most arcade stuff went down the route of adding gimmicky peripherals. And now, after all, what's the point of a 4k screen on something you're standing next to, so arcade machines are just novelties.

I was thinking the other day that I can only think of one arcade experience that wasn't bettered on home consoles, just because of the mix of game and hardware. It was a Star Wars game, with (for now) rubbish graphics, but where you were in a moving cabinet and got to do the Death Star run. Well, that and Dig Dug.

IAmTheSaladMan wrote:I really like the SNES version of Sunset Riders.

kerr9000 wrote:Sunset riders was one I really loved as well.

My guys

Gemini73 wrote:

jawafour wrote:Looking back, the 80s and early 90s were probably the peak time for arcade conversions... at a time when the technical disparity between arcade machines and home computers / consoles was huge!

I have a fondness for Gauntlet; the C64, ST, Master System and Mega Drive versions were all very good. It wasn't the most technically demanding title visually, but the amount of characters on-screen was a challenge.

I think that the arrival of Ridge Racer on the PlayStation was the moment when I felt as if I had an actual arcade game at home. Fast 3D polygons, slick (albeit tricky) handling and crazy sound... such a rush!

After receiving it as a Christmas gift from my parents Gauntlet on the Speccy stayed in my tape-deck for an absolute age. I remember discovering at some point that you could walk through the dungeon walls by holding down the shift button.

Also, I think I remember that you loaded levels from tape every so often (Spectrum version), and if you wanted to skip a few levels you could just fast forward the tape - it didn't seem to check how far through you were.

Lime wrote:

Gemini73 wrote:

jawafour wrote:Looking back, the 80s and early 90s were probably the peak time for arcade conversions... at a time when the technical disparity between arcade machines and home computers / consoles was huge!

I have a fondness for Gauntlet; the C64, ST, Master System and Mega Drive versions were all very good. It wasn't the most technically demanding title visually, but the amount of characters on-screen was a challenge.

I think that the arrival of Ridge Racer on the PlayStation was the moment when I felt as if I had an actual arcade game at home. Fast 3D polygons, slick (albeit tricky) handling and crazy sound... such a rush!

After receiving it as a Christmas gift from my parents Gauntlet on the Speccy stayed in my tape-deck for an absolute age. I remember discovering at some point that you could walk through the dungeon walls by holding down the shift button.

Also, I think I remember that you loaded levels from tape every so often (Spectrum version), and if you wanted to skip a few levels you could just fast forward the tape - it didn't seem to check how far through you were.

I don't think I ever tried that!

Elite did some great stuff considering the limitations of the Speccy.

Ghosts and Goblins
Commando
Bombjack

All excellent versions on the spectrum.

Space Harrier on the Master System (I bought the console and Space Harrier on release) was excellent. The first time I heard " Get Ready!" was a wow moment

Green Beret is also worth a mention.

Gemini73 wrote:

jawafour wrote:Looking back, the 80s and early 90s were probably the peak time for arcade conversions... at a time when the technical disparity between arcade machines and home computers / consoles was huge!

I have a fondness for Gauntlet; the C64, ST, Master System and Mega Drive versions were all very good. It wasn't the most technically demanding title visually, but the amount of characters on-screen was a challenge.

I think that the arrival of Ridge Racer on the PlayStation was the moment when I felt as if I had an actual arcade game at home. Fast 3D polygons, slick (albeit tricky) handling and crazy sound... such a rush!

After receiving it as a Christmas gift from my parents Gauntlet on the Speccy stayed in my tape-deck for an absolute age. I remember discovering at some point that you could walk through the dungeon walls by holding down the shift button.

Symbol shift.

Apparently

Mommy wrote:Space Harrier on the Master System (I bought the console and Space Harrier on release) was excellent. The first time I heard " Get Ready!" was a wow moment

To this day I'm still utterly amazed at how they managed such a great port in such limited hardware.

Witchcraft I tell you.

No doubt for me, i finally felt that the arcade had made its way in to my home when i got my Super Nes with Street Fighter 2 (Hyper Fighting). Looking back it is clear that there were lots of compromises that had to be made, but seeing as this was the first console i had (and so had more than one button available to me for the first time), together with no loading times etc, the small graphical and audio compromises were completely disregarded.
Still have that SNES (and the box). Seeing the artwork on it still takes me back to the absolute amazement i felt when i first saw it running.

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:No doubt for me, i finally felt that the arcade had made its way in to my home when i got my Super Nes with Street Fighter 2 (Hyper Fighting). Looking back it is clear that there were lots of compromises that had to be made, but seeing as this was the first console i had (and so had more than one button available to me for the first time), together with no loading times etc, the small graphical and audio compromises were completely disregarded.
Still have that SNES (and the box). Seeing the artwork on it still takes me back to the absolute amazement i felt when i first saw it running.

Wasn’t that that most expensive (non-neo geo) cartridge ever at £120?

mic wrote:

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:No doubt for me, i finally felt that the arcade had made its way in to my home when i got my Super Nes with Street Fighter 2 (Hyper Fighting). Looking back it is clear that there were lots of compromises that had to be made, but seeing as this was the first console i had (and so had more than one button available to me for the first time), together with no loading times etc, the small graphical and audio compromises were completely disregarded.
Still have that SNES (and the box). Seeing the artwork on it still takes me back to the absolute amazement i felt when i first saw it running.

Wasn’t that that most expensive (non-neo geo) cartridge ever at £120?

It was very expensive to buy from importers, but the official price was around £60, I think.

Import 16-bit games were always expensive due to import fees and import shops knowing enthusiast gamers would pay a premium to get games early (or get the proper 60hz, borderless experience).

Then you had companies like Telegames who just took the piss with prices.