Posted 03 July 2016 In the late 1800 and early 1900s, coin-op machines began were finding their way into bars, saloons and shops, and coin-op arcades were popular destinations in many major cities.
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The deluxe coin-op version of Sega's Out Run was huge, literally.
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Tournament modes are stripped back, play time cut down almost to coin-op lengths.
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There are dollar stores, gas stations that serve as liquor outlets, and coin-op laundromats.
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In Los Angeles, childhood friends Scott Davids and Noah Sutcliffe opened the coin-op bar EightyTwo three years ago.
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He works at a coin-op laundry, while his wife, 49, is a babysitter, a midwife and a nanny.
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The first two games were strictly about one-on-one duels, but the 2015 coin-op was built around 3v3 battles.
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Outside his office is an old coin-op gumball machine, the kind with a glass sphere and a dispenser with a crank.
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Full Metal Furies immediately puts me in the mind of those old coin-op arcade games based on franchises like X-Men and The Simpsons.
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During their heyday, the cost of a floor-standing coin-op device such as the Hercules Grip Tester might have cost between $100 and $200.
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During development, [longtime Bushnell collaborator Alan Alcorn] snuck into nearby Atari's coin-op division building with Etak engineers to show them the hit 1979 arcade title Asteroids.
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Having worked in the coin-op arcade business, he said he always suspected games were headed for the home as soon as the price point became reasonable.
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Yet even this brain-dead-obvious choice for a port of an existing 1979 Atari coin-op took more than a year to arrive on the 21983 and 22000.
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The following excerpt comes from Arcade Perfect: How Pac-Man, Mortal Kombat, and Other Coin-Op Classics Invaded the Living Room by David L. Craddock, available in paperback and Kindle formats.
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I never personally saw Virtua Racing in its coin-op, double-wheel cab guise, but I did pick it up for my Mega Drive, when the port arrived in 1994, two years after its arcade debut.
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Chances are you've seen one, even if you didn't step up yourself—the Dance Dance Revolution, Beatmania, and the drum-pounding Taiko no Tatsujin series have been relative mainstays in coin-op corners since the late 1990s.
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"Daytona USA showed off the Model 2 coin-op tech, which would help transform the arcade industry," explains Keith Stuart, games editor at The Guardian and author of Read Only Memory's Sega Mega Drive/Genesis Collected Works.
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The institution and its displays offer a voyage through time, back to an era where fun seekers could pay a mere pittance to be entertained by now antiquated machines—and learn that coin operated (coin-op) devices have a long and rich history.
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Instant Weightloss parodies coin-op weighing scales, and is largely an excuse to demonstrate a ridiculous, captivating mechanism that—after analyzing the player's physique via a traditional "bendy mirror"—selects, heats, pops and distributes a single kernel of popcorn as a suggested diet.
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My apartment building doesn't have a laundry (very SF) and so I find it easier just to drop off in the morning and pick up in the afternoon, but honestly, I probably should have gone to the coin-op this week since I haven't been very busy.
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A few computer magazines published notes about a coin-op version of the game that was never released outside Spain, although a coin-op of the game could be played many years ago in the Parque de Atracciones de Madrid, graphically identical to the 16-bit computers counterpart.
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The Amusement Trades Exhibition International (ATEI) is the major UK trade show for the coin-op and amusements trade.
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Atari, Inc.'s '1978 coin-op Fire Truck is widely believed to be the first arcade coin-op to feature co-op play. As its title suggests the game involves a large fire truck, and in two-player mode both players are required to cooperatively steer the vehicle along a winding road, with one driving and steering the tractor of the truck and the other steering the tiller for the rear wheels, controlling the swing of the trailer. Several early 1980s arcade coin-op games allowed for co-op play, but typically as an option.
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When the Atari Inc. division of Warner Communications lost $500 million in the first three quarters of 1983, its arcade coin-op division was the only one to make money. In 1984, Warner sold Atari's consumer products division to Jack Tramiel; he named this company Atari Corporation. Warner retained the coin-op division and renamed it "Atari Games".
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The Amiga version was runner-up in the category of Best "8-Bit" Coin-Op Conversion of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards, behind Operation Wolf.
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The concept for Rocket Riot was created by Dutch company Coin- Op Interactive.Coin-Op: Rocket Riot page Codeglue purchased the game concept and took on development duties, with Coin-Op providing assistance as creative director.Coin-Op Dutch company SonicPicnic composed all the music and made all the sound effects for the game. October 19, 2016 Codeglue re-published Rocket Riot on Steam and Windows 10 (PC and mobile).
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The original coin-op version of Side Arms is included in Capcom Classics Collection: Remixed for PlayStation Portable and Capcom Classics Collection: Vol. 2 for PlayStation 2 and Xbox.
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Julian Rignall, writing for Computer and Video Games in 1989, called Datastorm "the best shoot 'em up yet seen out of a coin-op cabinet." The overall review score was 95%.
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Lyle Rains was a senior executive at the arcade game company Atari and is sometimes, with Ed Logg, listed as a co-developer of the video game Asteroids. In fact, Rains called Logg into his office and said "Well, why don’t we have a game where you shoot the rocks and blow them up?". Rains also served as Executive Producer for a large number of Atari coin-op games. An avid gamer, he wrote a popular online FAQ for the Atari coin-op game KLAX.
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The game was also critically acclaimed. It won several awards at the 1989 Golden Joystick Awards for 1988, including overall Game of the Year (8-bit) as well as Best Coin-Op Conversion (8-bit) and Best Coin-Op Conversion (16-bit). Sinclair User gave it the "Over The Top Game of 1988" award, for the "shooting game most likely to push you over the edge" in 1988. It was later voted number 26 in the "Your Sinclair Readers' Top 100 Games of All Time" poll.
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"Black Tiger" was planned for released around October 1986, but programming placement difficulties delayed it. During conversion, the game was one of ten games included in a $2,000,000 deal between U.S. Gold and some Japanese coin-op specialists.
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While the arcade game conversions were liked for still being fun to play, critics generally agreed that they simply weren't as good as their coin-op predecessors, and that they should have been included in addition to their console counterparts.
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Hashimoto joined Konami along with several other recent college graduates in 1981. At the time, Konami was focused on coin-operated (coin-op) products such as medal games, and Hashimoto started by helping to develop the circuit boards for these games. Konami expanded over the next few years into arcade games with successful games like Scramble and Super Cobra, and later into bringing these games into versions for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). According to Hashimoto, the company's focus at the time still remained the coin-op machines, with experienced staff assigned to that area of the business.
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Audiogenic licensed the Loopz concept to Capcom who developed a prototype coin-op, but it was never released. Similarly Audiogenic developed an SWP (skill-with-prizes) version on behalf of Barcrest, a leading UK manufacturer of pub games, and this too remains unreleased.
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Rommel's Revenge is game programmed by Martin Horsley for the ZX Spectrum and published by Crystal Computing in 1983. Ports for the Dragon 32 and TRS-80 Color Computer were released in 1984 It is a clone of the arcade coin-op game Battlezone.
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Rock-Ola Capri II from 1965. The Rock-Ola Manufacturing Corporation was founded in 1927 by Coin-Op pioneer David Cullen Rockola to manufacture slot machines, scales and pinball machines. The firm later produced parking meters, furniture, and firearms, but became best known for its jukeboxes.
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Hot Pixel is composed of minigames. It consists of 10 stages, each representing young suburban culture. Some of these games are based on Atari properties from the 1980s including coin-op and home-based video games. Some minigames are copies of classics such as Breakout and Space Invaders.
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A Judge Dredd arcade game was created but never completed nor released. It can be found online, where it is available for free, but requires an arcade / coin-op emulator. It features Mean Machine and other Angel Gang members. A Judge Dredd Pinball game was released for MS-DOS in 1998.
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Hill transferred to Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia. To pay for school, Hill managed a shoe repair store and joined the Army ROTC. Hill also founded a coin-op laundromat in 1986 and would manage it until 1996. He continued to play football and was a NAIA All-American in 1985 and 1986.
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Timebomb is a game for the 16K ZX Spectrum computer (and which will thus run on any Spectrum), published in 1984 by CDS Microsystems. It is an unlicensed clone of the arcade coin-op Check Man. While the player moves, the game plays (one note for each step taken) Beethoven's Für Elise.
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Ritchie left Williams Electronics in August, 1993 for a new opportunity at Capcom Coin-Op, Inc. He was hired as director of engineering for Capcom's new pinball division. Capcom made 5 pinball titles under Ritchie's leadership, including Pinball Magic, Big Bang Bar and Kingpin, which was Ritchie's last conventional pinball design to date.
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The company also developed video games for other publishers. Starting in 2004, they started developing games only for Nintendo hardware. Mitchell Corporation is best known as the game developer of Puzz Loop. Copyright and trademark registration of Puzz Loop was established in December 1999, the same year it was released to the international coin-op arcade market.
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People playing an arcade game An arcade cabinet, also known as an arcade/coin- op machine, is the housing within which an arcade game's electronic hardware resides. Most cabinets designed since the mid-1980s conform to the Japanese Amusement Machine Manufacturers Association (JAMMA) wiring standard. Some include additional connectors for features not included in the standard.
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Within a four-person team, she became the software developer and software engineer on Centipede. Ed Logg, a supervisor at Atari at the time, assigned Bailey to do the programming on Centipede. Logg said he worked on the game's design, while Bailey did "about half the programming". Centipede went on to become Atari's second best-selling coin-op game.
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Alcorn's team included two new engineers. Harry Jenkins, who had just graduated from Stanford University, and Roger Hector, a project designer who had done some impressive work in the coin-op division. Both were assigned to work directly under Alcorn on the Project. Borrowing a page from Odyssey, the Cosmos used overlays to improve the look of its games.
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In recent years, this game was re-released on some TV game products. In 1987, the game was included on the compilation Konami Coin-op Hits with Hyper Sports, Green Beret and Mikie. The NES version was relaunched for the Game Boy Color (as a part of Konami GB Collection Vol. 4), Sega Saturn and PlayStation.
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Play Meter served as the parent organization of the first coin-op-oriented spring trade show (forerunner to North America's annual Amusement Expo). It published several bi-monthly and annual special issues throughout its history and it maintains a website where online content is also published monthly. The magazine shut down after publishing the June 2018 issue, coinciding with publisher Carol Lally's retirement.
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Day has appeared in documentary films including Icon (2002), Coin-Op TV (2007), Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade (2007), The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007), Frag (2008), The Video Craze (2013), Gamer Age (2014), The King of Arcades (2015), Nintendo Quest (2015), and Man vs Snake (2015). Day left Twin Galaxies in May 2010 to pursue a career in music.
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By 1982, Atari had US$1.3 billion in annual sales and was the fastest-growing company in the history of American business. By 1984, the company had crashed and was split into three pieces to be sold off. The coin- op division became Atari Games. The Consumer division was sold to Jack Tramiel, who folded it into his Tramel Technology, Ltd.
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Martin continued working with Broderbund on a business level and was able recover all debt through NES and Coin-op versions of Spelunker. Martin and Foley continued to work together including at an Amiga Publishing company by the name of Inovatronics. Eventually, Martin was a founder of the Internet provider, Internet America. As of 2007, Foley was working at Perot Systems.
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In the late 1980s, Groening drew several print advertisements for Apple Computer in the form of Life in Hell comic strips. At the 2005 Comic-Con in San Diego, a series of deluxe Life in Hell vinyl figurines manufactured by CritterBox Toys was announced. Binky and Bongo appear as background and enemy characters in the Simpsons arcade video game (coin-op).
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The first portion of the Atari 2600 version Following its release in the coin-op arcade platform, the game was ported to the ColecoVision console and the PC-8801 and Sharp X1 computers in 1983, the Atari 2600 and MSX in 1982, and the FM-7 and Nintendo Famicom in 1985. The Famicom version was Taito's first game for the console.
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Metropolis was the first Sega- themed arcade in the UK, which opened in Mid 1992. The arcade was housed in the basement of Hamleys' Regent Street branch, as a SEGA-dedicated coin-op den. The arcade contained a rare R-360 motion simulator. The venue was later renamed under the Sega World brand, and eventually became an unbranded arcade known as called The Game Zone.
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In 1980, Bailey joined Atari's coin-op division, where she was the only woman. In an interview, Bailey recalled that Atari had a notebook of possible game ideas at the time. Of the 30 or so entries the only one without "lasering or frying things" was a short description of a bug winding down the screen. She said, "It didn't seem bad to shoot a bug".
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HanaHo Games Inc is a division of Semco/PVG that services the commercial coin- op industry. HanaHo primarily produced the HotRod arcade joystick. They also sold a line of non-coin-operated PC game machines (the machines had a coin door, but it was non-functional) that included 50 game titles from Capcom. The company was started by Tony Hana and Conway Ho (hence the name Hanaho).
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14–16 Despite late competition from Taito's hit arcade game Space Invaders in 1978, Sega prospered from the arcade game boom of the late 1970s, with revenues climbing to over million by 1979. During this period, Sega acquired Gremlin Industries, which manufactured microprocessor-based arcade games,Horowitz 2018, pp. 21–23 and Esco Boueki, a coin-op distributor founded and owned by Hayao Nakayama.
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As Nintendo released Donkey Kong Jr. (a Donkey Kong sequel), Falcon developed and published a cloned- sequel as well entitled Crazy Kong Jr, also known as Crazy Junior,Crazy Junior - KLOV/VAPS Coin-op Videogame, Pinball, Slot Machine, and EM Machine Forums - Hosted by Museum of the Game & IAM but unlike the previous one, it was unlicensed by both Nintendo and Nintendo of America.
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On 2 March 2011 Llamasoft released their second iOS game, Minotron: 2112. Minotron: 2112 is a remake of the Atari ST / Amiga game Llamatron (which was inspired by the coin-op video game Robotron: 2084). An iOS version of Deflex was also released although this was not specifically labeled as being part of the Minotaur Project. On 17 September 2011, Llamasoft released GoatUp, their first platform game.
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CVG magazine also reviewed the Atari Lynx version of the game in their August 1991 issue. Rob Swan said the game was exactly the same as the arcade coin-op. He felt the game was a little short of superb but really addictive, giving the game a score of 89 out of 100. Les Ellis reviewed the game in Raze Magazine giving a score of 91%.
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Gameplay screenshot Dragster, released in 1980 for the Atari 2600, is the first video game developed by Activision. It was programmed by David Crane, who later wrote Pitfall!. The object of the game is to either beat the player's opponent across the screen, or to race against the clock for best time, depending on the settings used. Dragster is an unauthorized adaptation of the 1977 Kee Games coin-op Drag Race.
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Despite a low production run, Metal Hawk proved to be a commercial success. The September 1990 issue of Leisure Line magazine reported the game to be the seventh most-popular coin-op game of the year, outdoing both Out Run and After Burner. In Japan, Game Machine listed it as being the sixth most-successful cockpit/sitdown arcade unit of the year. The game was well-received by critics.
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Digital Compression System, or DCS, is a sound system developed by Williams Electronics. This advanced sound board was used in Williams and Bally pinball games, coin-op arcade video games by Midway Manufacturing, and mechanical and video slot machines by Williams Gaming. This sound system became the standard for these game platforms. The DCS Sound system was created by Williams sound engineers Matt BootyPurdue University: Matt Booty's biography.
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F2 was founded in 1995, and its first offering was a coin-op "Blank n Holdem." Their MMO offerings are typical KMMO fare. One centers on a fantasy universe, another around creating an avatar in an online world to interact with others, and the final about space exploration. No mention of TechnoMotion is made on F2's website, aside from an unclickable graphic on the last page of their games list.
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An expanded edition known as was released for the coin-op Nintendo Vs. System. It contains twice as many puzzles, a new enemy named Boss Unira, different level themes, and some other adjusted game features. A port of this version was released as the final game for the Family Computer Disk System, titled Clu Clu Land: Welcome to New Cluclu Land. It contains a few minor enhancements such as difficulty selection.
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In May 1945, Bromberg, Bromley, and Humpert established a second Hawaiian coin-op distributor called "California Games", and they subsequently dissolved Standard Games that August. California Games was likewise terminated the next year, after which the trio established "Service Games" to replace it on September 1, 1946.Smith 2019, pp. 105 At the time, the United States Army ceased operating slot machines and sold its inventory to Bromley.
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Sega's UFO Catcher, introduced in 1985 During 1984, Sega opened its European division. While Sega was not initially considering expansion into Europe, the company reconsidered after being contacted by Victor Leslie, a coin-op seller in the United Kingdom. Leslie was placed in charge of a new Sega office in London, to be named Sega Europe Ltd. Sega Europe would be the company's marketing base on the continent.
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In 1987, the roadie enters a coin-op laundromat to have the shirt and his laundry cleaned. As he sleeps while waiting for his laundry, a woman steals the shirt and slips it between her laundry in a cart. The video ends in the year 2002, where a woman (presumably an older version of the teenager from the 1983 scene), buys the shirt from an online auction and then receives it in the mail.
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In January 1983, the 1982 Arcade Awards gave Donkey Kong the Best Single-player video game award and the Certificate of Merit as runner-up for Coin-Op Game of the Year.In his next game, he reworked the Donkey Kong character Jumpman into Mario, and gave him a brother: Luigi. He named the new game Mario Bros. Yokoi convinced Miyamoto to give Mario some superhuman abilities, namely the ability to fall from any height unharmed.
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In 1969, Bushnell and colleague Ted Dabney formed Syzygy with the intention of producing a Spacewar clone known as Computer Space. Dabney built the prototype and Bushnell shopped it around, looking for a manufacturer. They made an agreement with Nutting Associates, a maker of coin-op trivia and shooting games, that produced a fiberglass cabinet for the unit that included a coin- slot mechanism. Computer Space was a commercial failure, though sales exceeded $3 million.
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The decision to use birds also prompted Newcomer to deviate from the then standard eight-direction joystick. He implemented a "flapping" mechanism to allow players to control the character's ascent and descent. With the vertical direction controlled via the arcade cabinet's button, a two-way joystick was added to dictate horizontal direction. Other games Newcomer helped design included the #1 coin-op games High Impact Football and its sequel Super High Impact.
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The game was well- received. In Japan, Game Machine listed Thunder Blade on their January 15, 1988 issue as being the fourth most-successful upright arcade unit of the year. Your Sinclair stated that "Thunder Blade is probably the game which took most of your money in the arcades this summer, probably one of the most eagerly awaited coin-op conversions". The game earned the Golden Joystick Console Award in 1988–1989.
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Klax is a puzzle video game released in arcades in 1990 by Atari Games. It was designed by Dave Akers and Mark Stephen Pierce. The object is to catch colored blocks tumbling down a machine and arrange them in colored rows and patterns to make them disappear. Klax was originally published as a coin-op follow-up to Tetris, about which Atari Games were tangled in a legal dispute at the time.
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" The One criticises Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles scrolling, stating that the "Music and sound effects are jolly enough, but the cartoon-style graphics are let down by slow and jerky scrolling." The One concludes by stating that the game "lacks depth and imagination". Zzap! reported on the game after it appeared at Amusement Trades Exhibition International, calling it a "great coin-op which is best in four player mode.""ATEI Show Report.
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It has also been speculated that Namco may have licensed the game to Sega; Nakamura stated that he did sell some of his games to competitors. According to former Sega CEO David Rosen, poor conditions in the US coin-op manufacturing market prompted the company's development of electromechanical games. His company, Rosen Enterprises, had just merged with Nihon Goraku Bussan to form Sega Enterprises, Ltd. the previous year, and both companies had engineers on staff.
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Meninsky joined Atari after graduating from Stanford University with a degree in psychology. For the Atari 2600 she wrote the 1980 racing game Dodge 'Em (similar to the 1979 Head On coin-op from Sega), a 1981 port of Atari's Warlords, and the 2600 version of Star Raiders (originally designed by Doug Neubauer for the Atari 8-bit family). She later worked on a port of Tempest that was never released, but prototypes exist.
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He then worked as a second programmer on the coin-op version of Killer Instinct with Rare's technical director Chris Stamper, who designed the hardware. Hollis programmed the machine's operating system. Both Stamper and Hollis also went to Silicon Graphics in Mountain View, California, where they got the chance to write and test code that would run on the first chips of the then-upcoming Nintendo 64 console. Panel at 2005 game event in Cambridge.
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Ozaki and Niida took over the company and began acting as exclusive overseas agents for such video game companies as Visco, Video System, Seta, Metro, Home Data, and other small video game manufacturers in the 1980s. Company activity was suspended on 20 November 2012. Mitchell Corporation developed titles for home consoles, handhelds, Japanese mobile phones, the arcade and interactive kiosks located in restaurants and other places. Mitchell also distributed printed circuit boards for the arcade/coin-op market.
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Before the player's starship is destroyed it must take enough damage to exhaust several points of shields (which regenerate over time) and armor. Tyrian's full game mode features a credit and equipment- buying system, and the shield/armor hit points which are similar to game mechanics in Raptor: Call of the Shadows, another PC game from the same period. The arcade mode has characteristics from coin-op arcade shooters, such as in-game powerups and extra lives.
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Newcomer was born in Granger, Indiana, the second of two children. His father, Robert, was a milkman and then a maintenance worker in a movie theater. His mother, Beverly, was an administrative assistant and office manager. Newcomer attended Clay High School in South Bend, Indiana, where coincidentally one of his friends in the school chess club was Franz Lanzinger, who also ended up in the coin-op industry, working for Atari and designing games such as Crystal Castles.
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Razorworks initially developed combat flight simulators before moving onto developing car racing games. Razorworks developed a number of titles for Empire Interactive's Ford Racing series, including Ford Racing Full Blown, a coin-op video game developed for Sega Amusements of Europe. Razorworks also developed arcade machine emulation technology used to produce the Taito Legends titles and Double Dragon for Xbox Live Arcade. Razorworks' final project was a remake of Empire Interactive's classic puzzle game Pipe Mania.
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Coinslot International is a UK trade magazine that caters for the 'pay-to- play' leisure sector, generally known as 'coin-op' before the widespread introduction of electronic means of payment. It is published weekly with a 'double' issue over the Christmas/New Year period. Coinslot originated as a section of the World's Fair newspaper, published by the eponymous publishing house based in Oldham, Greater Manchester, before becoming a separate title. The magazine was first published in 1974.
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The Detroit-based Caille Bros. Manufacturing Company along with Chicago-based Mills Novelty Company, were one of the most successful companies in the United States coin-operated machine industry during the 19th century and early 20th century.Historical Interlude: The History of Coin-Op Part 3, Pinball Retrieved August 8, 2015. They became popular releasing not only slot machines, but grew the company to encompass arcade games, weight scales, strength testers, gum machines and Bagatelle-style games.
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Narc is a 1988 run and gun arcade game designed by Eugene Jarvis for Williams Electronics and programmed by George Petro. It was one of the first ultra- violent video games and a frequent target of parental criticism of the video game industry. The object is to arrest and kill drug offenders, confiscate their money and drugs, and defeat "Mr. Big". It was the first game in the newly restarted Williams Electronics coin-op division, after being acquired by Midway.
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Bakutotsu Kijūtei was only moderately-successful in arcades. Game Machine, a Japanese arcade game trade publication, reported that it was the seventeenth most-successful coin-op of October 1988 by revenue. Game Machine briefly noted of the game's smooth sprite animation and detailed visuals, believing it would be successful in its own right. In a 2015 retrospective review, Federico Tiraboschi of Hardcore Gaming 101 described the game as being a cross between Gradius and Section Z, with some vague resemblance to Metroid.
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Night Driver is an arcade game developed by Atari Inc for release in the United States in October, 1976. It was inspired by the earlier German coin-op Nürburgring 1. Along with Micronetics' Night Racer and Midway's 280 ZZZAP, Night Driver is one of the earliest first-person racing video games and is commonly believed to be one of the first published games to display real-time first-person graphics. There were two versions of the cabinet manufactured, an upright and a cockpit.
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Vic Viper is an unreleased coin-op racing video game from Konami. It was to star Gradius's own signature ship, the Vic Viper (and various other vehicles), in a game resembling the F-Zero or Wipeout series. It was first shown at the 1995 JAMMA show. In September 2011, the game's completed soundtrack was released on disc 10 of Konami Shooting Collection, an album featuring soundtracks from Salamander, TwinBee, and many other Konami shoot 'em ups, as well as other related games.
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Forgotten Worlds can be played by up to two players simultaneously. The player controls a flying muscle-bound soldier armed with a rifle with unlimited ammo. The Player 1 character is equipped with a long-range automatic rifle, while Player 2 has a short-range wide shot. The controls in the original coin-op version consist of an eight-way joystick for moving the character in the air while flying and a unique rotatable button known as the "roll switch".
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Shaw's first published game was 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe for the Atari 2600 in 1978. She also wrote Video Checkers (1980), and collaborated on two titles: a port of the coin-op game Super Breakout with Nick Turner and Othello with Ed Logg (1981). Co-worker Mike Albaugh later put her on a list of Atari's "less publicized superstars": Shaw worked on several projects for the Atari 8-bit family of home computers. With Keith Brewster, she wrote the Atari BASIC Reference Manual.
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Perception began in 1995 as a small animation and sound studio, but by 1998 had expanded into the video game market. Between 1998 and 2004, two products were developed primarily for the coin-op arcade market; Thunderboats and Top Down Racer, but neither were financial successes. Thunderboats was planned to be ported to the Sega Dreamcast game console, but the project was cancelled. In 2004, the company successfully negotiated with MGM entertainment to develop a new video game based on the Stargate television series.
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Star Wars arcade machines can be converted into The Empire Strikes Back via a conversion kit. As mentioned above, a complete emulation of Star Wars, along with The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi is included as bonus content for Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike. In October 2019, Tastemakers LLC's Arcade1up division released a 3/4 scale recreation of the original Atari arcade cabinet featuring emulated versions of the coin-op Star Wars arcade, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi games.
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Bushnell and Dabney realized that they needed to expand on the game but formally needed to get out of their contract with Bally. Bushnell told Bally that they could offer to make another game for them, but only if they rejected Pong; Bally agreed, letting Atari off the hook for the pinball machine design as well. After talks to release Pong through Nutting and several other companies broke down, Bushnell and Dabney decided to release Pong on their own, and Atari, Inc. was established as a coin-op design and production company.
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Out Zone received positive reception from critics since its release and has become a well regarded title from Toaplan in recent years. In Japan, Game Machine listed it on their August 15, 1990 issue as being the fifth most-successful popular arcade game of the year, outperforming titles such as Dark Seal, Final Fight and Parodius! From Myth to Laughter. Leisure Line magazine reported the game to be the fifth most-popular Japanese coin-op game of the year, outdoing both Columns and Air Duel in their September 1990 issue.
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Firefox is an arcade game based on the 1982 Clint Eastwood movie of the same name."Firefox Takes Off" from Atari employee newsletter (page 1) It was produced in 1984Atari Vax emails "And to my knowledge, Coin-op has yet to sacrifice quality to get an on-time delivery. Firefox was supposed to start production 1/23/84; millions in parts are all staged ready for production, but it has not started (1/31/84) because the software is not ready." as Atari, Inc.'s only LaserDisc video game.
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Bosconian was largely unsuccessful commercially, with most cabinets being sent back and converted to Galaga. Bosconian won the 1982 Arcade Award for "Best Science Fiction/Fantasy Coin-Op Game in January 1983", beating both Atari's Gravitar and Sega's Zaxxon. Electronic Games magazine called it "a real space-gamer's delight", highly-praising its unique 360-degree movement, the multiple ways to destroy the battle stations, and the ability to freely fly about the screen. Video Games referred to it as "another treat for Galaxian fans", commending the controls and several ways to earn points.
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Logg was impressed with the Atari 2600 (then known as "Atari Video Computer System") and joined Atari's coin-op division and worked on Dirt Bike, which was never released due to an unsuccessful field test. He developed Super Breakout after hearing that Nolan Bushnell, co-founder of Atari, wanted Breakout updated. He co-developed the video game Asteroids with Lyle Rains. Other games designed or co-designed by Logg include Centipede, Millipede, the Gauntlet series (with inspiration from John Palevich's Dandy), Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey and the home versions of the San Francisco Rush series.
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Java. Graphics are different in Galaxy Game, but the basic game is the same. The gameplay of Galaxy Game, like Spacewar!, involves two monochrome spaceships called "the needle" and "the wedge" (though their appearances have been modified for the coin-op version) each controlled by a player, attempting to shoot each other while maneuvering on a two- dimensional plane in the gravity well of a star, set against the backdrop of a starfield. The ships fire torpedoes, which are not affected by the gravitational pull of the star.
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At the 1989/1990 Golden Joystick Awards, the 8-bit home computer versions were awarded Best 8-Bit Coin-Op Conversion and Best 8-Bit Soundtrack. The Spectrum version also topped Computer and Video Games "The Best Games of '89" list (along with Super Mario Bros. 2). The ZX Spectrum version of the game went to number 2 on the UK sales charts, behind Rainbow Islands. The Spectrum version was voted number 1 in the Your Sinclair poll of Readers' Top 100 Games of All Time in 1993.
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A player in Japan playing Police 911, an arcade game in which players use a light gun. An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games or merchandisers. While exact dates are debated, the golden age of arcade video games is usually defined as a period beginning sometime in the late 1970s and ending sometime in the mid-1980s.
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GameRoom Magazine is an American magazine focusing on game room products (pinball, arcade games, jukeboxes, etc.). It was founded in 1988 by Dave C. and Donna Cooper of New Albany, Indiana, and was created to serve the growing market of coin-op memorabilia collectors, hobbyists, and restorers. The first issue, dated January 1989, focused on jukeboxes. The magazine also covered other coin-operated playthings, such as pinball machines, slot machines, and gumball machines, in addition to related items such as carousels, gas station memorabilia, and antique ice cream scoops.
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Asteroids was conceived by Lyle Rains and programmed by Ed Logg with collaborations from other Atari staff. Logg was impressed with the Atari Video Computer System (later called the Atari 2600), and he joined Atari's coin-op division to work on Dirt Bike, which was never released due to an unsuccessful field test. Paul Mancuso joined the development team as Asteroids technician and engineer Howard Delman contributed to the hardware. During a meeting in April 1979, Rains discussed Planet Grab, a multiplayer arcade game later renamed to Cosmos.
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In 1998, Next Generation magazine editors called it the "worst coin-op conversion of all time", and attributed the mass dissatisfaction to its poor quality. In 2006, IGN's Craig Harris echoed similar statements and listed it as the worst arcade conversion, citing poor audio-visuals that did not resemble the original. Another IGN editor, Levi Buchanan, described it as a "disastrous port", citing the color scheme and flickering ghosts. Skyler Miller of AllGame said that although the game was only a passing resemblance to the original, it was charming despite its many differences and faults.
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Jan Yarnot reviewed the Atari version of Demon Attack in The Space Gamer No. 53. Yarnot commented that "This game is interesting and enjoyable, and different enough from other cartridges to recommend it for all who must 'play Atari today.' The price is in line with other such programs and I think the fun of the game makes the price reasonable." Video magazine reviewed the VCS version of Demon Attack in 1982, describing it as "quite simply excellent", and characterizing it as a "true coin-op-level program".
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Sea Wolf is a shoot 'em up video game by Midway, originally released in arcades in 1976. It is a video game update of an earlier coin-operated electro-mechanical Midway game, Sea Devil, itself based on Sega's 1966 coin-op electro-mechanical arcade submarine simulator Periscope.Steve L. Kent (2001), The ultimate history of video games: from Pong to Pokémon and beyond: the story behind the craze that touched our lives and changed the world, p. 102, Prima, Sea Wolf was designed by Dave Nutting and eventually sold 10,000 arcade cabinets.
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Start of Dragon's Lair: The Legend Roller Coaster was reworked into the 1991 Game Boy title Dragon's Lair: The Legend, with the game's plot and graphics amended in order to closer resemble those of the original Dragon's Lair coin-op. As less of the playing area was visible in the Game Boy port than in the Spectrum version, the display was effectively a window on each of the original version's screens, scrolling within each one and flicking to the next when the edge of the screen was reached.
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Sega produced its own home version of Shinobi for their Master System game console. It was released in Japan on June 19, 1988, with subsequent releases in North America and Europe. Some of the play mechanics from the original coin-op version were altered for this version. Instead of the one-hit kills from the arcade game, the player now has a health gauge that allows Musashi to sustain more damage before losing a life, although this comes with the trade-off that touching an enemy causes Musashi to lose health.
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Reviews for ACE and Computer and Video Games also strongly recommended readers to play the game for its fun experience. Ayrton Senna was reportedly a fan of the coin-op game, and this factored into his contributions to the game's sequel, Ayrton Senna's Super Monaco GP II. The Genesis version was also highly acclaimed. Two reviewers for Mean Machines praised the game's graphics and replayability, as well as the added World Championship mode. According to Mega in 1994, the Genesis game set a standard "that many still fail to emulate".
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She has also covered events as a host such as The 2nd Annual Streamy Awards and Coin-Op TV as well as hosted "Sneak Peek of the Oscars" for Cosmo Celebrity TV. She has trained under Actress Gloria Gifford, and appeared in stage productions such as La Ronde and Annie Hall under Gifford's direction.Cyndee San Luis - Biography . cyndeesanluis.com San Luis is a graduate of UCLA, with a B.A. in psychology, summa cum laude, went to high school at Cimarron-Memorial in Las Vegas, Nevada (graduating as valedictorian there) and was born and raised in Chicago.
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The coin-op games originally accepted brass tokens issued by the company, stamped with various logos and branding that evolved over time. The company experimented with a card access method as a replacement for tokens, which allowed customers to load credits onto a card that could then be swiped for access at arcade games and refilled later. It was tested under different names including "Chuck E.'s Super Discount Card" and "Chuck E. Token Card". It didn't catch on originally, but the company eventually embraced the system in test markets and began rolling it out to other Chuck E. Cheese locations.
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Pac-Man, a port of the arcade game for the Atari 2600, was altered from the original in order to meet the Atari's limitations. Some of these changes included simplified graphics, a modified maze layout, and "flickering" ghosts—a result of the game rendering one ghost on screen per frame. In 1998, Next Generation magazine called it the "worst coin-op conversion of all time" and attributed the mass dissatisfaction to its poor quality. In 2006, IGN's Craig Harris echoed similar statements and listed Pac- Man among his own list of the worst home console ports of arcade games.
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James joined Nintendo of America in August 1981, and his employment with the company has now spanned over 30 years. He has been responsible for manufacturing, product development, and design for both coin- op and home games such as Tin Star. James participated in organizing and creating the Interactive Digital Software Association (later renamed the Entertainment Software Association) and was a leader in the creation of the Electronic Entertainment Expo trade show for the video game industry, the largest event of its kind in the world. He still sits on the advisory committee of the ESA.
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The game's computer racers also adapt to the player's speed - slowing down when the leading player racer is too far behind the best computer racer, and vice versa - as the rival computer racers catch up to the player in first. An early example of difficulty balancing can be found in Zanac, developed in 1986 by Compile. The game featured a unique adaptive artificial intelligence, in which the game automatically adjusted the difficulty level according to the player's skill level, rate of fire, and the ship's current defensive status/capability. Earlier than this can be found in Midway's 1975 Gun Fight coin-op game.
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The company secured a deal with Walt Disney Productions to produce children's rides in the likenesses of its characters, a move that allowed the business to expand its operations and become a driving force in the Japanese coin-op market. Its other products included Ultraman-themed gun games and pinball tables branded with Osomatsu-kun characters. The logo to Nakamura Seisakusho In 1970, Nakamura Manufacturing released its first arcade game, a driving game titled Racer. The name Namco, an abbreviation of Nakamura Manufacturing Company, was inducted in 1971 as a brand for several of its machines.
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In an obituary for Masaya Nakamura in 2017, Nintendo Lifes Damien McFerran wrote: "without Namco and Pac-Man, the video game arena would be very different today." Namco's corporate philosophy and innovation have received recognition from publications. In a 1994 retrospective on the company, a writer for Edge described Namco as being "among the true pioneers of the coin- op business", a developer with a catalog of well-received and historically significant titles. The writer believed that Namco's success lied in its forward-thinking and firmness on quality, which they argued made it stand out from other developers.
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The NES version featured notable product placement advertising: Pizza Hut logos. The rear cover of the instruction manual provided a coupon for the restaurant, with an expiration date of December 31, 1991. Computer ports of the arcade game were released by Image Works and ported by Probe Software in 1991 for the ZX Spectrum, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, PC and Commodore 64. The title was changed to Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles: The Coin Op in the European versions, reflecting Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987 TV series)#International of the 1987 TV series in certain regions at the time.
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NASCAR Arcade was developed by Sega Rosso, formerly Sega's R&D; #5 division. Production of a NASCAR-based game was suggested by the game's producer, Kenji Arai, despite concerns that NASCAR was not well known in Japan (although NASCAR had previously hosted exhibition races at Suzuka Circuit and Twin Ring Motegi). At the time of its development, the license to create console games based on NASCAR belonged to Electronic Arts (EA), who were not releasing games on Sega's home console system, the Dreamcast. EA granted permission to Sega to develop NASCAR Arcade as a coin-op only game.
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Matt Bielby of Your Sinclair magazine gave the game a positive review, and went so far as to claim that Capcom wanted to use the Sinclair port of this game as the basis for a coin-op sequel. The four reviewers of Electronic Gaming Monthly gave the Genesis version a 6.75 out of 10, describing it as a decent but disappointing sequel. They praised the massive size of the game and the high amount of digitized voices, but criticized that the animation is much too choppy. Three of the four also felt that the gameplay lacked the excitement of the original Strider.
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If the customer's timer runs out before the player reaches the destination, the customer will jump from the taxi without paying the driver. Players can select three-, five- or ten-minute settings, or the Arcade Rules used in the original coin-op version of the game. In the three time-limited settings, play continues for the designated period of time, after which the cab automatically stops and no more points can be scored. Under Arcade Rules, the player starts with an initial time limit of one minute, which can be extended through time bonuses earned for quick deliveries.
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Raw Thrills' first independent coin-op game was Target: Terror, a light-gun shooter game which was later upgraded to Target: Terror Gold (also known as Target: Force) featuring bonus levels, end-of-round awards, and other performance enhancements. Target: Terror was the first gun game designed under the direction of Eugene Jarvis. Cruis 'n Blast arcade cabinets, released by Raw Thrills in 2017 The company's second game was The Fast and the Furious, a racing game based on the Universal Studios movie of the same name. Tsunami Visual Technologies later made a motion version of the game for large family entertainment centers.
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The NES version of Legendary Wings features several significant differences from its coin-op counterpart. While the basic premise and formula remains essentially the same, several changes were made to the gameplay, particularly in how the player's power-ups work in this version. Like in the arcade game, the player can upgrade their firepower- up by picking up "P" icons hidden inside certain containers. The player can improve their character's firepower to four levels: starting with the normal gun, the player can improve it to a twin laser, a penetration beam, and a three-way flame shot.
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Sega Saturn Magazine said that the port has "some jaw-dropping visuals virtually indistinguishable from the coin-op original" while Next Generation attributed the compromises the port made as a sign that "developers are approaching the asymptotic side of [the] Saturn's graphics curve". The design and gameplay received a broader range of opinions from reviewers. GameSpot, which gave Last Bronx a negative review, said its biggest problem is that it fails to differentiate itself from Sega's previous fighting games. However, most reviewers said that the brutal gang style of the fighters were enough to set it apart from its predecessors.
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Starglider is a 3D video game published in 1986 by Rainbird. It was developed by Jez San under his company name Argonaut Software. The game is a fast- moving, first-person combat flight simulator, rendered with colourful wireframe vector graphics inspired by San's love of the 1983 Atari coin-op Star Wars. Starglider was originally developed for the 16-bit Amiga and Atari ST. Rainbird commissioned Realtime Games to produce 8-bit versions for the Amstrad CPC, Amstrad PCW, and ZX Spectrum (128K, with a cut-down 48K version without sampled speech or special missions), and for the IBM PC compatible with CGA.
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For higher sound frequency resolution (quality), two of the audio channels can be combined for more accurate sound (frequency can be defined with 16-bit value instead of usual 8-bit). The name POKEY comes from the words "POtentiometer" and "KEYboard", which are two of the I/O devices that POKEY interfaces with (the potentiometer is the mechanism used by the paddle). The POKEY chip—as well as its dual- and quad-core versions—was used in many Atari coin-op arcade machines of the 1980s, including Centipede and Millipede,Multipede—Trouble shooting guide, Braze Technologies Missile Command, Asteroids Deluxe, Major Havoc, and Return of the Jedi.
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Although RCA began the development of the COSMAC in the early 1970s, it was some time before they introduced their own products based on in. In 1975, a prototype of an arcade game machine with swappable ROMs was experimented with for the coin-op business, but was ultimately abandoned. Meanwhile, Weisbecker had adapted the original FRED, known within RCA as System 00 by this time, using the new chipset to produce a greatly simplified single-board system known as then COSMAC ELF. Building instructions were described in an article in Popular Electronics magazine in 1976, and an expanded version with various upgrades in a second article in 1977.
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Leadbetter praised the Master System version, calling it "one of the best arcade conversions" available for the system, while noting that the game's only "slight downer" was the music. Mean Machines praised the Master System version for its graphics and similarities to the arcade game, while Raze wrote a mixed review for the Master System version. Mean Machines was critical of the NES version for its graphics, sound, and controls, and concluded that it was, "A highly offensive product which weighs in as a sadly derisive conversion of a classic coin-op." Brett Alan Weiss of AllGame stated that Mindscape did a good job of porting the game to the NES.
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On release for home platforms, the game received mixed reviews in the press, ranging from 69% in Amiga Format to 84% in CU Amiga magazine. A preview from Amiga Power described Space Gun as deriving from an "inexplicably popular coin-op, best described as Line of Fire set in space." Several reviews have stated that Space Gun is an Operation Wolf clone, while it has also been compared unfavorably to Operation Thunderbolt. Sega Power magazine reviewed the Master System version, giving the game a score of 70% if the player is using a Light Phaser, but only 50% if a control pad is being used.
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Jewish-American businessman Irving Bromberg had been a major player in coin-op distribution since establishing the Irving Bromberg Company in New York in 1931. His son Marty, who changed his last name to Bromley, joined the business after graduating high school. They saw that the onset of World War II, and the consequent increase in the number of military personnel, would mean there would be demand for something for those stationed at military bases to do in their leisure time. In 1940, Bromberg, Bromley, and family friend James Humpert formed Standard Games in Honolulu, Hawaii, to provide coin-operated amusement machines to military bases.
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Japanese magazine Gamest called it one of the greatest arcade games of all time in 1998, applauding its addictiveness and for breaking the traditional "dot-eater" gameplay used in titles such as Pac- Man and Rally-X. In a 2007 retrospective, Eurogamer praised its "perfect" gameplay and strategy, saying it is one of "the most memorable and legendary videogame releases of the past 30 years". The Killer List of Videogames rated it the sixth most popular coin-op game on their website. Electronic Fun with Computers & Games praised the Atari 8-bit version for retaining the entertaining gameplay from the arcade version and its simple controls.
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Atari Games licensed the Atari Jaguar's chipset for use in its arcade games. The system, named COJAG (for "Coin-Op Jaguar"), replaced the 68000 with a 68020 or MIPS R3000-based CPU (depending on the board version), added more RAM, a full 64-bit wide ROM bus (Jaguar ROM bus being 32-bit), and optionally a hard drive (some titles such as Freeze are ROM only). It ran the lightgun games Area 51 and Maximum Force, which were released by Atari as dedicated cabinets or as the Area 51/Maximum Force combo machine. Other games (3 On 3 Basketball; Fishin' Frenzy; Freeze; Vicious Circle) were developed but never released.
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Sega Power, however, criticized the same version for jerky gameplay and bad scrolling. The PC Engine-CD conversion was panned by The Games Machine, which called the port "a disappointment" and suggested players who want to play the game try the Genesis version instead. Julian Rignall of Computer and Video Games criticized the Master System version, stating that while he is a fan of the arcade version, the reduced graphics, slow gameplay of the port, and fussy collision detection are significant issues. Contrary to their praise for the Genesis port, The Games Machine called the Master System version "a middling conversion of a nice coin-op".
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The original coin-op version is available as a downloadable title for the Wii's Virtual Console and Xbox 360's Live Arcade services. Although both releases are emulated from the arcade game's code, slight graphical modifications were made due to licensing issues. One of the enemy grunts in the second stage of Mission 1, a wall-crawling ninja who roughly resembles the comic book character Spider-Man, originally wore a blue bodysuit and mask with red gloves and boots, which was too close to Spider-Man's color scheme. In the Wii and Xbox 360 releases, his color scheme was changed to a green bodysuit and mask with yellow boots and gloves.
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As of June 1994, it was still the publication's best reviewed driving game for the Genesis. Julian Boardman of Raze gave a positive review to the Genesis version for its realism and ease of reading the screen layout, though noted that accidentally shifting gear while trying to steer was a distinct possibility with the Genesis controller. ACE's Tony Dillon was less positive about the gameplay, criticizing that it offers no new concepts that have not been done in racing games before and that the game is "an uninspired conversion of the coin-op". According to video game journalist Ken Horowitz, the Genesis port brought the most attention to the franchise.
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Reviewing the Atari Lynx conversion, IGN praised the game's colorful graphics, controls, and faithfulness to the arcade original. Raze magazine echoed a similar response, saying the visuals, stage layouts, and soundtrack added replay value to the game. Computer + Video Games called the TurboGrafx-16 version a "marvelous conversion" for its vibrant visuals, stage layouts, gameplay, and accuracy to the coin-op game; they had a similar response for the Lynx version, claiming its accuracy to the original would entice fans of the arcade release. Japanese publication Famitsu praised the PC-Engine version's graphics and overall challenge, awarding it the "Silver Hall of Fame" badge.
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The original arcade game was advertised in the United States as a sequel to Commando, going as far to refer to the game's main character as Super Joe (the protagonist of Commando) in the promotional brochure, who was originally an unnamed member of a "special commando unit" in the Japanese and World versions. In 1988, Capcom produced a home version for the Nintendo Entertainment System, also titled Bionic Commando, that was drastically different from the original arcade game. A version much truer to the coin-op original was released for the Amiga (OCS) in 1988. An adaptation of Bionic Commando for the Game Boy was released in 1992.
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The arcade cabinet for Metal Hawk, a motion-based machine that moved based on player input, was an integral part of production. By the mid-1980's, Japanese video game developer Namco quickly rose to become one of Japan's leading video game developers, creating hit titles such as The Tower of Druaga (1984), Pac-Land (1984), Metro-Cross (1985) and Rolling Thunder (1986). The success of these titles generated a lot of income for the company, who began to set up a new research and development (R&D;) division for future hardware endeavors, aiming to help create unique, interesting new coin-op games. Metal Hawk was one of the first games produced under this new division, alongside Assault (1988).
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Unlike many other games in the series, Parasol Stars was never released to arcades \- it was originally developed for the NEC PC Engine, and later converted to a number of other home systems. Parasol Stars was misreported as being the third coin-op in the Bubble Bobble series by many magazines at the time, and there are rumours about prototypes for an arcade version. Taito has officially stated that an arcade game was never produced. Mick West (who was the programmer of the Amiga and Atari ST versions) stated that they ported the game directly from the PC Engine by playing it and that he did not know anything about an arcade version.
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Play Meter (initially Coin Industry Play Meter) was an American trade magazine focusing on the coin-op and arcade game industry. It was founded in December 1974 by publisher and editor Ralph C. Lally II and it is published in physical form by Skybird Publishing on a monthly basis. Together with rival publication RePlay (founded 1975) it chronicled the arcade industry from its nascency, through market fluctuations like the video game crashes of 1977 and 1983, and the rebirth and maturation of the medium through the 1980s. It is the earliest example of video game journalism, establishing such practices as individual video game reviews and the ten-point assessment scale for video game reviews.
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Bushnell later bought out Dabney, who was forced out after Nolan told him he would transfer all the assets to another corporation and leave Ted with nothing. After Bushnell attended a Burlingame, California demonstration of the Magnavox Odyssey, he gave the task of making the Magnavox tennis game into a coin-op version to Alcorn as a test project. He told Alcorn that he was making the game for General Electric, in order to motivate him, but in actuality he planned to simply dispose of the game. Alcorn incorporated many of his own improvements into the game design, such as the ball speeding up the longer the game went on, and Pong was born.
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While in Boost mode, Hiryu can shoot Plasma Waves with his sword for a limited period until the Boost gauge under Hiryu's life gauge runs out. Throughout the game, the player can pick up power-up items such as health replenishments and extensions, a cypher extension, and additional boosts. The player can obtain various miscellaneous point items based on other Capcom games, such as the Yashichi and the Sakichi symbols from Vulgus and the "zenny" coins from Black Tiger and Forgotten Worlds, that will increase the player's score. The coin-op version of Strider 2 consists of five stages or missions, each with a different objective that is explained to the player beforehand.
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Sega's Periscope was one of the first such games, and established the standard of use a quarter per play. Spacewar!, recognized as the first video game, inspired to the first two arcade games; Galaxy Game, a demonstration coin-operated unit run at Stanford University in November 1971, Computer Space, the first commercial arcade game created by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney in the same month. Bushnell and Dabney followed their success of Computer space with the help of Allan Alcorn to create a table tennis game Pong, released in 1972. Pong was a commercial success, leading to numerous other coin-op manufacturers to enter the market and create the arcade game industry.
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GoldenEye 007 was developed by Rare and directed by Martin Hollis, who had previously worked as a second programmer on the coin-op version of Killer Instinct. In November 1994, after Nintendo and Rare discussed the possibility of developing a game based on the then-future James Bond film GoldenEye, Hollis told Tim Stamper, Rare's managing director, that he was interested in the project. Due to the success of Rare's 1994 title Donkey Kong Country, GoldenEye 007 was originally suggested as a 2D side-scrolling platformer for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. However, Hollis proposed "a 3D shooting game" for the Nintendo 64 console, then still in development and known as "Ultra 64".
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Prototype location testing of a new, smaller single-player version of Periscope occurred in Asia and Europe, and distributors were still enthusiastic about its performance, according to Rosen. In full production by March 1968 and distributed internationally, the smaller single-player cabinet measures deep and more than wide, which is still larger and heavier than most games of the time. Furthermore, Japan's high export tax made it more expensive than most coin-op games at the time, costing distributors () per single-player cabinet while the average game cost $695-795. Enthusiastic distributors complained of the expensive but popular machine's overall low profit, so Sega suggested charging a premium price of 25 cents per play ().
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Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, released in Japan as , is a one or two player tile-matching puzzle video game first released in 1996 by the Capcom Coin-Op division of Capcom on the CPS II arcade system. The game's title is a parody of Super Street Fighter II Turbo, as there were no other Puzzle Fighter games at the time, and the game includes music and interface elements spoofing the Street Fighter Alpha and Darkstalkers games. It was a response to Sega's Puyo Puyo 2 that had been sweeping the Japanese arcade scene. A HD-remake version titled Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, is available on Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade and Sony's PlayStation Network.
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Next Generation also stated that the "atypical approach and its success in execution" made Alpine Racer one of Namco's best coin-op games of the era, adding that its premise could also help attract players of both genders into arcades. The graphics were also the subject of praise, with GameFan describing them as "nothing short of shocking" and Next Generation liking their attention to detail. Allgame appreciated the game's concept for making it stand out among other racing games. The Spanish magazine Ultima Generacion found the game to be far superior than many of Sega's racing games, such as Sega Rally, which they criticized for being based on pre-existing ideas with little attempt towards an original concept.
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The arcade version is included in the compilations Capcom Generation 3 for PlayStation and Sega Saturn, Capcom Classics Collection for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, Capcom Classics Collection Reloaded for the PlayStation Portable and Capcom Coin-Op Classics by Hanaho games included with the HotRod controller for the PC. It was released on the Wii Virtual Console in Japan on September 7, 2010, in North America on December 6, 2010 and in the PAL region on December 17, 2010. Capcom's Street Fighter Alpha feature a shop called SonSon in the Ryu and Guy stage. This same shop is also featured in stages from Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo and Capcom vs. SNK: Millennium Fight 2000.
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Box of toilet seat covers A toilet seat cover or toilet sheet is a disposable piece of paper shaped like the toilet seat itself that can be placed on the seat by its user. Its purpose is to protect the toilet's user from germs that may be resting on the seat by creating a protective barrier. Coin-Op Toilet Seat Cover Dispenser circa 1940s The first known patented model of the toilet seat cover dispenser dates back to 1942 and was invented by J.C. Thomasa. The photo of the "Germ Free Toilet Seat Covers Dispenser" is one of the original Thomasa Seat Cover Dispensers and is on display at the DFW Elite Museum of Haltom City, Texas.
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The company also manufactures other market-leader brand names, including Tornado brand table football (foosball), Dynamo air hockey, and Champion indoor shuffleboard tables, as well as Sun Glo shuffleboard equipment, for both the home and coin-op markets. The company has distributors in some two dozen countries. Annual sales were up to US$15-17 mil, as of May 2009, at which time Valley-Dynamo employed around 125 workers in its larger centers (approximately 60 at the Champion factory in Texas, 40 at the Valley plant in Mexico (since relocated to Texas), and 25 or so at a Grand Prairie distribution center), plus office support staff, and employees of Valley- operated leagues (see below).
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After Glass, he worked on numerous projects through the contract manufacturer Grand products, including the Battletech Centers and several Sega, Jaleco and Taito coin op video games of the late 80's. In '93 he became a designer at Williams Electronics and designed several notable pinball machines including Monster Bash and was one of the lead developers of the Pinball 2000 system. After Williams closed the pinball division, he re-joined Midway Games and was one of key designers of the street basketball video game series NBA Ballers . While at Midway he became a consultant designer to Stern Pinball; during this time he designed several games, including The Lord of the Rings, Batman the Dark Knight, Playboy and The Sopranos.
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Rob Fulop is a game programmer who created two of the Atari 2600's biggest hits: the port of arcade game Missile Command for Atari and 1982's Demon Attack, which won Electronic Gaming Monthly's Game of the Year award. While at Atari, Fulop also ported Night Driver to the 2600 and Space Invaders to the Atari 8-bit family. Fulop graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1978 with a degree in electrical engineering. He was hired by Atari's coin-op division where he worked on sound design for a Superman pinball machine, and then transferred to the home division after the release of the Atari 2600, creating arcade ports for the newly released console as well as the company's family of 8-bit computers.
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" A review by Computer and Video Games called it an "excellent conversion of a great coin-op", as well as "[e]ssential for fans, and something well worth consideration from all Saturn owners." Reviewing the Genesis version, GamePros Bruised Lee said the graphics and controls are solid by 16-bit standards, but the arcade version's voices and music are poorly reproduced, and the game offers too little beyond the previous installments of the series, all of which had already been released for Genesis. He summarized, "Mortal Kombat fans looking for a quick fix should enjoy UMK3, and players new to MK will find this game a treat. If you're looking for a new fighting game experience, however, you'll have to wait for MK4.
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GoldenEye 007 is a 1997 first-person shooter developed by Rare and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64. Based on the 1995 James Bond film GoldenEye, it features a single-player campaign in which players assume the role of British Secret Intelligence Service agent James Bond as he fights to prevent a criminal syndicate from using a satellite weapon against London to cause a global financial meltdown. The game includes a split-screen multiplayer mode in which up to four players can compete in different types of deathmatch games. Development began in 1995 and was handled by an inexperienced team led by Martin Hollis, who had previously worked as a programmer on the coin-op version of Killer Instinct.
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Redmond, Washington. Nintendo founded its North American subsidiary in 1980 as Nintendo of America (NoA). Hiroshi Yamauchi appointed his son-in-law Minoru Arakawa as president, who in turn hired his own wife and Yamauchi's daughter Yoko Yamauchi as the first employee. The Arakawa family moved from Vancouver to select an office in Manhattan, New York, due to its central status in American commerce. Both from extremely affluent families, their goals were set more by achievement than moneyand all their seed capital and products would now also be automatically inherited from Nintendo in Japan, and their inaugural target is the existing $8 billion-per-year coin-op arcade video game market and largest entertainment industry in the US, which already outclassed movies and television combined.
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The April 5, 1980 issue of Cashbox noted of the game's colorful and attractive cabinet design, while the April 26 issue called it an "earthshaking hit", referring to it as a true followup to Space Invaders. In a 2007 retrospective review, Sir Clive of Eurogamer labeled it a masterpiece, praising its "beautifully drawn" game graphics and intense gameplay, and for being a historically important game for the industry. Home versions and ports of the game (see Ports below) received mixed responses by platforms. Video magazine in 1982 reviewed the Astrocade version of Galaxian (named Galactic Invasion), noting that the graphics were inferior to the coin- op and PC versions, but praising the play-action as "magnificent" compared to other console versions.
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Famicom Tsūshin, issue 22 (October 27, 1989) It would be nominated for "Best Graphics" in the 1989 Gamest awards, losing to Taito's shooter Darius II. The European release was also acclaimed. In the March 1989 issue of Computer and Video Games, both Clare Edgeley and Julian Rignall would give it a positive review, favorably comparing it to Atari's Hard Drivin – they would label the game's graphics as "simply stunning", concluding that it is "easily the best racing game yet seen – it's thoroughly realistic and totally exhilarating." The Games Machine was also positive in their review, calling it one of the most impressive arcade games of the era, referring it as "an astonishing coin-op". Praise was also given to its sense of realism to Formula One racing.
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GamePro gave a generally positive review of the Genesis version. They wrote that it was a solid conversion of the arcade game, but "Super was never the game it could have been in the arcades, and the same imbalances and flaws that hurt the coin-op still affect the home versions." They also said the new features were "pretty cosmetic or just downright boring and unimportant", and that, music and voices of the Genesis version were all inferior to the SNES version, but concluded "Super is still Street Fighter" and "Street Fighter is still the best fighting game ever made". They had given a more positive review for the SNES version, while citing some of the same issues with the core game.
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A home version of Strider 2 was released for the PlayStation in 2000 (a simple port, given the PlayStation's similarity to the arcade's Sony ZN-2 board), which was released as a 2-disc set, with a second disc devoted to a direct port of the original Strider coin- op. Due to a labeling error in the American release, the Strider 2 discs were labeled as the original Strider, and vice versa. Finishing both games and saving the achievements on the same memory card unlocks a secret level in Strider 2: "Mission 00", a waterfall stage. Completion of all missions unlocks the former Strider Hien as a playable character, who wields two ranged cyphers; completion of the game using Hien unlocks the Boost skill for unlimited use in the game's menu.
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One of the main differences between it, and its predecessor, John Elway's Team Quarterback is that it was the first (and possibly, only coin-op game) to allow users to select from a list of "college" teams in addition to "pro" teams representing the 26 cities/regions which had NFL teams at the time. It is also the only game in the series to allow users to purchase power-up items such as "beef" (for boosting the offensive line) and "go juice" (for a second wind on long gains) from a "sideline shop" during the game. Screenshot of All American Football The game did not have licenses from the NFL, NFLPA or the NCAA. Because of this, pro teams were only referred to by city (Green Bay, Pittsburgh, etc.), state (Minnesota) or region (New England).
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Game Informer gave it the "Best Game of the Year" and "Best Playability in a Video Game" awards.Game Informer, issue 8 (January/February 1993), page 34 It was also one of the three games nominated by Electronic Games magazine's Electronic Gaming Awards for the Video Game of the Year category, along with NHLPA Hockey '93 and Sonic the Hedgehog 2. The Mega Drive version of Street Fighter II received 10 out of 10 for both graphics and addiction from Mega, who described it as "a candidate for best game ever and without a doubt the best beat-'em-up of all time" and gave it an overall 92% score.Mega magazine review, 1993 MegaTech scored it 95%, and commented: "the greatest coin-op hits the Megadrive in perfect form".
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With Emlyn Hughes International Soccer in 1988 Audiogenic pioneered the concept of a fast-moving sports simulation featuring on-screen commentary, named players and management elements; later with World Class Rugby and then European Champions Audiogenic introduced the concept of sports simulations with a choice of viewpoints. Other titles included Exterminator (a coin-op conversion), Helter Skelter, Impact, Krusty's Fun House, Bubble & Squeak, Exile, and Loopz. Loopz, designed by Ian Upton, is one of the few computer games to have been converted to a coin-operated arcade game, and whilst Capcom (the licensee) never brought the game to market, a video of the completed game exists. It was also licensed to Barcrest for release as a skill-with-prizes amusement machine, but this version also failed to make it to market.
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GamePro outright panned the port, commenting that the special moves are too difficult to pull off, the sound effects are weak, the gameplay is generic and unimaginative beat 'em up fare, and "the graphics never come close to the coin-op game that this cart is based on." It was also lambasted by Next Generation, who stated that "not much good can be found" in the game and "the person responsible for putting out The Punisher deserves a good spanking." Hyper even had The Punisher as the worst rated game of the month, describing it as "almost like an 8 bit game: scrappy graphics, stilted animation, sloooowww scrolling and only two (yes, two) buttons on the controller used." The game sold poorly, resulting in it becoming one the rarest PAL region titles for the platform.
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In the early 1980s, video games were based on models established either by coin-op games' scrolling playfields, or board games' static background images. The screen was either a stable field on which characters moved or a top-down (sometimes angled) display that scrolled horizontally, vertically or both ways across a larger virtual image. These restrictions were created by the limited memory size of early video game consoles, where a single screen would use up much of the RAM storage space available in a machine, and small video game cartridges that held only 4K (later 8K or 16K) of ROM memory. Daglow was one of the original five in-house Intellivision programmers at Mattel in 1980, and had written the first known computer baseball game, Baseball on a PDP-10 mainframe computer at Pomona College in .
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In 2015, Kevin Savetz, host of the ANTIC Podcast, was contacted by former Atari programmer Aric Wilmunder. Wilmunder mentioned that he had been working on a true sequel to Star Raiders, also known as Star Raiders II. Wilmunder joined Atari after working at Epyx, where he worked on Atari ports of their games, notably the various Temple of Apshai series and Crush, Crumble and Chomp. After working for a time with Chris Crawford, Wilmunder moved to a secret team within the coin-op division that was working on games for the 8-bit, and had decided to make a sequel to Star Raiders. This version of Star Raiders II was faithful to the original in gameplay terms, but was designed to make use of new 32 kB cartridges that allowed the game code to be greatly expanded over the original 8 kB version.
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The arcade version of Strider was part of a three-way project conceived in a collaboration between Capcom and Hiroshi Motomiya's manga studio Moto Kikaku, which also included the Strider Hiryu manga by Moto Kikaku's Tatsumi Wada that was published in Kodansha's Comic Computique anthology in Japan, as well as the NES version of Strider. Kouichi Yotsui, director of the coin-op Strider (who is credited as Isuke in the game), was chosen for his experience with the CP System hardware while working as a background designer on Ghouls 'n Ghosts. The three projects were developed independently of each other. The original arcade game soundtrack was composed entirely by female video game music composer Junko Tamiya, who was not credited for her work in the arcade version but was mentioned as part of the original arcade staff in some console adaptations.
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The game's tendency to bring the player back to the starting point of the level once a frog is collected (as in the original) Poole complained "turned challenges into frustrations" as players must repeatedly complete the same difficult sections, and ultimately concluded that "the 'new and improved' Frogger probably won't convert anyone who didn't care for the old one." A reviewer for Game Revolution agreed, arguing the time limits make it impossible to play a level for a lengthy amount of time before dying, reducing the challenge to a matter of practice and memorization. The reviewer likewise concluded that Frogger would not appeal to new players, though the game "should sell very well to the numerous fans of the old coin- op." Kelly Rickards of Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) likewise found that the new levels, which seem to invite exploration, are made frustrating and excessively difficult by the time limits.
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Atari's tendency to port arcade games for its home console had led to some of its most commercially successful games, including the port of its own coin-op Asteroids, and the licensed versions of Taito's Space Invaders and Namco's Pac-Man. When the latter game received its official port to the Atari 2600, Atari was confident that sales figures would be high, and manufactured cartridges—despite having sold only around Atari 2600 consoles. It was believed that the game would be successful enough not only to earn an estimated , but also to boost sales of the console itself by several million as gamers sought to play the home conversion. However, the finished product, released in March 1982, was critically panned for its poor gameplay, and although it became the console's best-selling title after shipping units, it still left Atari with over unsold cartridges—a problem compounded by the high rate of customers returning the game for refunds.
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Ocean Software acquired the license after the European Computer Entertainment Show in September 1990 while work on the port immediately began as soon as programmer Pierre Adane finished his task of converting Pang. Despite receiving almost no support from Toaplan, the team at Ocean France wanted the Amiga port of Snow Bros. to be as close as possible to the arcade original, playing the coin-op machine from start to finish while using it as reference when taking notes about certain elements such as animations, graphic techniques and enemy AI. Work on the conversion was primarily done on Amiga and Atari ST-based systems, while custom software was written to animate sprites and build stages as a jigsaw puzzle using low memory, which allowed an easier coding process to implement every element from the arcade version like hidden bonus secrets. Artists Philippe and Lionel Dessoly, as well as Francis Fournier adapted the arcade artwork for the conversion, using a ST set-up for maps and sprites, while Pierre Loriaux was responsible for sound design.
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The coin-op version of Legendary Wings can be played by up to two players simultaneously, with a second player being allowed to join the game at any time or even continue after a game over. The game's controls consist of an eight-way joystick and two buttons which changes depending on the context. The game consists of five areas with two different playing styles: the first segment in each stage is a top-view vertical scrolling segment in which the player flies across the sky, shooting at airborne enemies with their gun while dropping bombs at ground enemies, in order to reach the palace at the end of segment. When the player defeats the guardian and gains entrance to the palace, the game switches to a side-scrolling perspective, in which the player moves towards their goal on foot (by walking, crouching, and climbing ladders, as well jumping) until reaching the boss at the end, in which the player character will begin to fly with their wings again.
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