Recent Arcade Adventures

In a complete reverse of last year, it’s looking like fall has put me on the road more than the summer months. The past couple of months have put us at arcades in Illinois, Michigan and Ohio, and if a November trip pans out, I’ll add Indiana to that list.

August allowed us another trip out to Galloping Ghost Arcade in Brookfield, Illinois, for the annual T20 competition. As we’ve detailed on GemuBaka before, T20 is a tournament in 20 arcade games, where competitors play over a period of three days to submit as high of scores as possible in a lineup they do not know until the competition starts.

Since the inception of the T20 competition, I have helped out in collecting score submissions and running the tournament. The process went really smoothly last year, so I had plenty of time to document the event:

This year some of the cabinets were rather uncooperative in working in proper order, with select cabinets working the day prior to the event, and then deciding to just not work at all when they were turned on the following day. As a result, the setup ran over, but things were restored in order so competitors could participate in T20. While I normally do recordings and streams from the tournament venue, the arcade has had a phenomenal streaming setup for the event the past few years, and this year I spent most of the time commentating and reviewing the competition along with GGA Waffelz.

Still, the competition periods ended each night with plenty of time left over to head down to the arcade location where I was finally able to put my new unlimited data plan to the test and do a couple of streams. I added a couple of 1CCs to the collection, including live playthroughs of Marvel Super Heroes, Final Fight Revenge, World Heroes and Jojo’s Venture.

Thankfully, I was able to reconnect with The Toa of Bass, who I’ve played plenty of fighting game sets with, most notably on SEGA’s Holloseum and Square’s Ehrgiez. This time around we were able to put in lengthy sets on The Kung-Fu Master Jackie Chan and Marvel Super Heroes.

For my birthday in September, I traveled to the closest Round One arcade, which is still approximately two hours away from me. I booked a nearby hotel and gave myself the gift of nearly two full days of arcade games.

My workplace has been quite busy since I’ve returned, so I’m scrambling to catch up on doing videos from my visit to the arcade. However, this trip did result on our special feature on Dynamite Deka EX and the resulting playthrough:

Until I get more videos posted on YouTube, you can check out clips of livestreamed playthroughs with my commentary through my Twitch channel:

Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 playthrough at Round One

Dynamite Deka EX playthrough at Round One

Street Fighter V playthrough at Round One

Finally, we recently returned from a very successful Cleveland Gaming Classic event. Much like the previous year, there was an arcade area for the event, but there were also arcade cabinets sprinkled throughout the venue to highlight certain guests or events.

At this point I don’t have any videos prepared, but I must note the event was my first chance to ever play the Next Xenesis (NX) 2 version of Pump It Up. This version seemed pretty full featured, so, while it wasn’t quite on the level of XX, it was a smoother experience compared to something like Premiere.

There was a nice variety on display, with cabinets featuring fighting games such as Tekken 3, Darkstalkers and Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, along with racing games and light gun games. Unfortunately, the only cabinet at the event I’ve never played before – SEGA’s The Maze of the Kings – was out of order. No big deal as there was plenty else to play.

For aesthetics, some of the indie game offerings were placed inside impromptu arcade cabinets, and this included our newest look at Little Nemo and the Nightmare Fiends, which is still in development. Our look last year at Litte Nemo was a pretty straight-forward concept with two out of four available characters, but this year branched out more, had new areas to explore and offered up all four characters. More to come on this title in the future.

Lastly, the event finally gave me a chance to run into Reyan Ali, author of the book “NBA Jam.” I’ve been wanting to get this book signed for quite some time, so it was fantastic to finally get that opportunity.

Even though the book’s main focus is on NBA Jam, it goes over the history of video games period, how Mark Turmell rose in development and landed at Midway, key games leading up to NBA Jam and then bit and pieces that follow the Midway development company all the way through to its end. It’s highly recommended if you haven’t already checked it out.

We were able to discuss a variety of video game topics over a game of NBA Hangtime, and more on that will be coming soon to GemuBaka!

As long as things pan out, the next arcade on the list is Boss Battle Games in Indianapolis. I’ve heard about the arcade through Twitter, and it seems like it is an impressive collection of games that can be played for $10 per day. Of course, if I make the trip, all of that activity will be documented.

As always, keep checking for our updates on YouTube, Twitch and Twitter

And if you’re able to, keep supporting your nearby arcades!