Road Trip: Eighty Three Arcade Bar

I went on a fun little road trip with my cousins today. Our main destination was Eighty Three Arcade Bar, a venue mainly stocked with 80's classics but that also had my all time favorite arcade game, Mortal Kombat 2!

Japan Trip

Our first born came into the world earlier this spring, so we recently went to Japan to introduce him to his family there. This gave me the opportunity to spend some time visiting my favorite arcades. 

Mikado

Mikado spans two floors and has a large assortment of titles, mostly housed in New Astro City cabs. It is by far the best arcade not run by the bigger chains like Sega or Taito.

 

Taito Hey

A staple of Akihabara, Taito Hey is best known for their awesome selection of shmups and fighters. The blue lighting makes this place particularly memorable and it contains what is probably the largest collection of Egret 2, and 3 cabs in the world.

 

 

Try Amusement Tower

Though not as well known or easy to find as Hey, Try is another fantastic arcade located in Akiba. Try packs in a lot of retro greatness on a single floor. The titles are constantly changing and cover a wide variety of genres.

While it's great to have an arcade at home, nothing beats visiting a real arcade.

Sunset Riders

I've been wanting this game since I started the arcade hobby, but never seemed to have the cash to spare when one became available. I recently found the board at a nice price and quickly made a deal. Now I finally own Sunset Riders!

Sunset Riders is pretty unique for a run n gun game. With the ability to jump between 2 tiers, it plays kind of like Shinobi or Rolling Thunder only it's a lot less methodical and more action packed. Not only that, it's also a 4 player game. Currently I can only access the first 2 players on my candy cabs. However, I may get the eproms for the 2 player version so I can access Bob and Cormano, the shotgun wielding 3rd and 4th players.

I have fond memories of playing Sunset Riders in the arcades and on the Super Nintendo and unlike Tegai, which I sold to finance this game, I have no plans of letting it leave my collection. I mean, ya gotta love an arcade game with booze and whores as power-ups.

New PCBs

Hook

Hook is a pretty strange license to use for an arcade game, and I don't think it was terribly successful as a result. I saw it once in an arcade as a child and never encountered it again until now.

Though it doesn't offer any innovations to the genre, it's still a fun little 4-player beat-em-up/belt scroller. The fact that it was never ported makes it particularly appealing to me.

Tengai/Sengoku Aces

This game is a horizontal shooter by Psikyo. Shmups require a lot of practice and repetition, so I love how they randomly shuffle the levels in Psikyo games to keep things interesting.

I also enjoy that, instead of spaceships or airplanes,this game uses little human characters, one of whom is blatant fan service.

I'm not sure how long either will remain in my collection, but it's great to finally get some new boards and mix things up in the game room.

Game Room

I  finally got around to replacing the chassis in the Atomiswave SD recently and so I thought now would be a good time to show off my game room.  We moved into our new place last fall, which has a small den with space for my 2 cabs. Behold, my little arcade:

In other news, my annual spring cleaning went very well, and I already have some new PCBs coming in the mail. Expect an update on those games soon.