Arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine you
may find installed in restaurants, public houses, video arcades,
and Family Entertainment Centers. Most of these games are
redemption games, merchandisers (such as Claw crane), video
games or pinball machines.
Arcade game has a long history beginning from 1920’s-era.
The first popular "arcade games" were early amusement
park midway games such as Shooting galleries, ball toss games
etc. In the 1930s, the earliest coin-operated pinball machines
were made.
By late 80’s the arcade video game craze was beginning to
fade due to the advances in home video game console technology,
which experienced a resurgence with the advent of two-player
fighting games, ie. Street Fighter II (1991) by Capcom, Mortal
Kombat (1992) by Midway Games, Fatal Fury (1992) by SNK, Killer
Instinct (1994) by Rare, and The King of Fighters (1994-2005)
by SNK.
By 1996, home video game consoles and computers with 3D accelerator
cards reached technological parity with arcade equipment,
and by the late 1990s and early 2000s, networked gaming via
console and computers across the Internet also appeared. In
the recent 20th anniversary arcade machine, combine two or
more classic video games.
Today’s Arcades have found a niche in games that use special
controllers inaccessible to home users. These games mainly
focus on individual's performance, rather than the content
of the game. Examples are rhythm games such as Dance Dance
Revolution (1998) and DrumMania (1999), and rail shooters
such as Virtua Cop (1994), Time Crisis (1995) and House of
the Dead (1996).
In early times, coin-operated arcade video games generally
used custom per-game hardware, often with multiple CPUs, highly
specialized sound and graphics chips and/or boards, and the
latest in computer graphics display technology. Recent arcade
game hardware is often based on modified video game console
hardware or high end PC components.
Arcade games are also found in places open to the public,
such as: bowling alleys, college campuses, dormitories, laundromats,
movie theatres, supermarkets, shopping malls, airports, truck
stops, bar/pubs, hotels, and even bakeries.
|
