Following up on the reviews from Barcade, here’s one more for you and this one is on Virtua Tennis 3. I do have this game on the 360, but it’s not the same as the arcade version. Don’t get me wrong, they’ve done a good job on converting it, it’s just missing that real arcade feel to it. Hit the link to read the review.
Today I am starting a new feature on this site to coincide with Shaggy’s review of the week. Every Tuesday I will be reviewing a different arcade location. Today, I am going to recall my visit to Time-Out at the Arnot Mall in Horseheads, NY. For those who don’t know, Time-Out was a large arcade chain in the Northeast United States in the 1980s. During the peak of their popularity, they were at one point known as Sega’s Time-Out. In the 1990′s they were purchased by Namco. Today there are very few remaining Time-Out arcades. The Time-Out at the Arnot Mall is one of them.
The arcade has a large selection of the standard modern arcade money-makers such as driving games, shooting games, 3D fighting games, and dancing games. They have each genre lined up nicely, so you can pick your favorites with ease. When you first walk in via the left hand entrance, you will find a selection of driving games, such as The Fast and the Furious, Super Mario Kart Arcade GP, and The Fast and the Furious: Superbikes, and Initial D. On the opposite end of the wall, in the middle of the arcade, there are two more racing games.
On the back end of the arcade there are shooting games. The older games are on the left. Silent Scope 2 and House of the Dead 2 are side by side. Aliens: Extermination is next to that, and Star Trek: Voyager – The Arcade Game is right behind it. Oddly, sandwiched in between the redemption games and the shooting games is an ATV game. This is the only game that is not working at the moment. The arcade has a record of moving in new games at a steady rate, so there is a good chance that this game will either be replaced or repaired by the time of this writing. Next to the ATV game is the oldest game in the arcade, Virtua Tennis, circa 1999.
The right hand section of the arcade is completely dedicated to redemption games. There are some gems to be found here, such as Kick-It Pro. There are also the redemption mainstays such as a skee-ball clone called Ice Ball and a basketball game. The skee-ball game is a bit wonky for my tastes, however. I enjoy a nice game of skee-ball, but these balls are too light and there always seem to be too many balls left over at the end. I’m not sure if the game registered the correct number of balls allotted, but when you have a shot left over that isn’t recorded, you can’t help but feel a little ripped off. If you’re a fan of redemption games, you’ll find fun in the basketball game and Kick-It pro. I’d recommend avoiding Ice-Ball, and going for a real Skee-Ball experience at other arcades.
The last section of the arcade is a nook dedicated to arcade fighters. Soul Calibur III is available here, as is Tekken 5.
The cost of the games in the arcade is standard for today’s market. Virtua Tennis is one token (at 25 cents a token). The rest of the games cost 50 cents a play, while the driving games and the dancing game cost $1.00 a play.
If you’re looking for the latest arcade game, Time-Out at the Arnot Mall is worth a visit. If you are looking for older arcade games, there are arcades in the area better suited for that.
You wait for one then three come along at once. The coming weeks sees the release of three Sega arcade games converted for the home machines. Vitrua Tennis 3 comes out on 23rd March for PS3 and Xbox 360 and 30th March for PC and PSP. Virtua Fighter also hits 23rd of March on the PS3, and finally Afterburner Black Falcon comes out on the PSP on the 30th March. So overall a great month for all you arcade fans out there, I myself can’t wait to get my twitchy button mashing fingers on them.
For you Vitrua Tennis fans out there with a Xbox 360, you can now grab a slice of the action in your home. That’s right, the VT3 Demo is now available to download from XBL Marketplace. The demo weighs in at 840MB. The release date for full game is scheduled for the 23rd March (that’s this friday!)
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