So in the first two installments of Arcade Rewind, I covered two of the biggest, badest, rarest, most outrageous arcade machines ever created: Sega's R360 and Namco's Galaxian 3. This time I want to take a different route. I want to focus on a sleeper... a game that has nothing particularly special about it... a game that doesn't have a great deal of depth, one that didn't revolutionize anything, nor make tons of money. I'm looking for a game that showcases arcade festiveness, but could have been developed further.

I decided to pick Sega's GP Rider, a fun little motorcycle racing game released in 1990 that lacks depth, but delivers quality graphics (for the time) and an awesome soundtrack.

If you're like me, the things you appreciate most in life are the things that were once the coolest, most
advanced forms of entertainment in the world, but are now virtually unknown. Last time on Arcade Rewind
(which I must admit was too long ago) I recounted the glorious R360 arcade machine, Sega's full motion
simulator ride from the early 90's. Around the same time period, Sega's biggest competitor in the arcade
industry, Namco, released a game that equaled the R360 in all around impracticability - Galaxian 3.

The crown for the holy grail of video game scores has been passed yet again. The Donkey Kong high score has been reclaimed by the former champion and star of the hit documentary, the King of Kong. That's right, Steve Wiebe has topped Billy Mitchell yet again.

Wiebe's score is an incredible 1,064,500, beating Billy Mitchell's world record score of 1,062,800. Hank Chien, whom we interviewed a few weeks ago remains in third place with a score of 1,061,700. The three individuals are the only recognized players to achieve over 1 million points in a game of Donkey Kong.

Wiebe has been attempting to reclaim his score over the last few years at live events. However, his world record was verified from a DVD sent to the Twin Galaxies International Scoreboard. It is safe to assume that Wiebe was playing in the comfort of his own home. Being that Donkey Kong has an actual end to the gameplay (ie; the kill screen), the only way to achieve a higher score is to find ways to get the necessary points faster (you get bonus points based on how fast you complete each level).

You can be sure that the battle over who truly is the King of Kong will continue, but for now, Steve Wiebe reigns supreme! Congratulations from Nerd Blerp!

Arcades in Japan are doing just fine. Arcades in America are disgustingly awful and sad. However, Capcom's latest incarnation of the arcade classic Street Fighter will be making the jump from console to arcade this fall, hopefully in an effort to get kids to climb out of their wretched basements and 'pwn some newbs' IN PERSON! Super Street Fighter 4 will showcase some new characters and features not available in the console version! Capcom has been very strategic in what they have made available to the fans and screenshots have revealed empty character slots in the select screen - that could only mean new fighters to choose from.

Is going out in public to play games instead of sitting at home just not your thing? Well, that's kind of sad. No matter how you look at it, beating your rival while he or she is standing right next to you with crowds of onlookers fighting to get a view of the screen is the only way to truly be a competitive gamer. Let's hope SSF4 brings back some of the glory days of the early 90's!

What happens when Brendan gets a hold of a Flipcam? He goes to Pennsylvania to record arcade videos... that's what.

Arcades are pretty rare these days. Arcades with games that are worth playing are even rarer, but the Mine Town arcade in Hersheypark is certainly an exception. This is a special place from my childhood, and sadly, the number of games they have seems to be decreasing every year. I shot a bunch of videos in an effort to preserve what it felt like to be in this glorious room. I've never been in another arcade that felt quite like this place, but hopefully when I'm absurdly wealthy, I can pay to have it recreated in my backyard. Don't worry, you'll be invited (the games will be 25 cents a play though).

During our post broadcast discussion after last night's radio show, I somehow managed to bring up Sega's R360 mid conversation. After Huey made the accurate yet distasteful comparison between the design of the R360 to that of a particular plot device in a certain episode of South Park, I felt inspired to shed some light on this legendary piece of arcade equipment.

So what is a Sega R360? It's this. Behold.

The R360 is a motion simulator arcade cabinet that has the capability of sending players into full 360 degree rotations at any angle. Sega released the R360 in 1991 with a sticker price in the range of $90 to $100 thousand! While Sega and Nintendo were in a bitter fight to the death in the realm of home consoles, Sega was secretly dominating the arcade industry, which Nintendo had decided to abandon. As a leader in the arcade business, Sega had the luxury of experimenting with huge, cutting edge, and expensive technology that other manufacturers wouldn't even dream of developing...

The pinnacle of their innovation is without a doubt the R360.

In our continuing coverage of Stern's latest pinball machine, their Avatar machine has made its first appearance at the 2010 AAMA Gala (American Amusement Machine Association) in Chicago. The machine was set up courtsy of Stern Pinball and BMI Gaming, one of Stern's game distributors. Luckily for us, David Young, a BMI Gaming employee was nice enough to shoot this video:

Stern Pinball has released the first full official image of its upcoming Avatar pinball machine. Avatar was such a huge and difficult license to obtain that Stern had to hold off almost an entire year before getting the game to production line. However, with the upcoming DVD release and the announcement of a special edition of the film, the Avatar license has kept its value and is now a go at Stern's Chicago based factory. Based on what we can see in the image, it looks as though Steve Ritchie's original blueprint for the machine was either not used or was altered before production.

Check out the game's original blue print:

Steve Ritchie is one of the most prolific pinball game designers in the world and designed such mega hit games as High Speed and Terminator 2. You can learn more about his career and buy autographed fliers and prints from his website at http://steveritchiepinball.com/.

Many thanks to Martin at Pinball News for the Avatar photo.

For those of you keeping score at home, pinball has been losing a pretty nasty battle the last over the last 15 years. What was once a more popular and profitable form of entertainment that the ENTIRE motion picture industry, pinball has been reduced to a fading glimmer of what it once was. There is only one manufacturer of pinball machines left in the world - Stern Pinball... However, things have gotten very exciting in the industry again, as Stern has begun a huge campaign to get both kids and adults back into what is truly one of America's greatest contributions to the world of gaming.

With Stern's recent release of Iron Man, their appearance at the 2010 Comicon is both smart and warranted. Stern has been uploading a nearly un-ending stream of photos from their booth at Comicon on their new facebook page, which was created as part of this massive new campaign to get the company, and pinball as a whole, back on its feet.

Space must have been at a premium at Comicon this year, as Stern only had room to setup one machine. Clearly, setting up one of their Batman machines (released in 2008, and in my opinion, Stern's best offering since Monopoly in 2001) would have been icing on the cake, but I suppose beggers can only be choosers when they work for Sony or Microsoft.

John Borg, designer of titles such as Jurassic Park and Sharkey's Shootout handled the playfield design on Iron Man, while Lyman Sheats (who is considered one of the world's greatest pinball players) handled the programming duties. Iron Man features an Iron Monger action figure that pops out of the playfield, letting the player hack away with the silver ball.

So what's next for Stern? Well, it seems as though their plans to produce an Avatar pinball machine have been revived in time to coincide with the DVD release of last year's mega hit feature. Legendary game designer Steve Ritchie had already drawn the playfield for Avatar before the game was scrapped due to what must have been tricky (and by that I mean expensive) licensing issues. Stern announced that a photoshoot for the new machine has been scheduled, and we'll be sure to get those images to you right away.

I'm Brendan by the way.... Great to be here!

Ok as a fan of both the Xbox and PS3 I like the fact that they both take from eachother (PS3 more so then Xbox), However microsoft I personaly think you should have left this one alone. Its basicly the PS3 Home with just the game playing portion of it. Yeah it makes it easier to set up your arcade and get down with your friends but it also only plays retro games from what I just saw. Yes they are fun but how often am I going to get together with friends to play these classics???? Once maybe twice and then ill forget about it similar to Home which I find myself not ever trully using. Well either way its new content its a novelty at best just like Home and people will still love it because well its what people do.