I had just one day in Akihabara, and wanted to visit as many game arcades as possible. As you see from the picture, the evening dark was coming, as we arrived at another Club Sega.
I promised you that Sega redeemed itself with this one, so please don't choose the wrong Club Sega if you're ever in Akihabara! This is a very good game center, and you should definitely not miss it.
The Google street view had me confused, until I noticed that the pictures were taken in 2009. This building was obviously redecorated around that time, and it looks like Sega moved in later that year. It's that Sejimo building next to Taito Hey, you really can't miss it when you're there in person.
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I'm a big Sega fan. Everything from Outrun to Shenmue, I'm one of those guys who wished the Dreamcast a better and longer life. Sega more than made up for the previous disappointments this time. They even had some great games from other companies. Later we'll see an even more amazing Sega location, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Unlike most of the other game arcades, this didn't have many redemption cranes, even in the ground floor. We started off with a row of Super Mario Kart 2, and a game which I'm not quite sure about. If you know what it is, please leave a comment, and I'll update the post.
I'm a sucker for driving games, and if I ever have a big basement arcade I'll try to get a couple of these Mario Kart sitdown cabinets. Playing on the Wii is good and all, but the arcade version is a great experience!
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| Some more Taiko Drum Master, in immaculate condition! |
Sega really set the mood throughout the building, with posters, instructions etc. featuring famous characters like Sonic. Even the money changing machine looked great!
On the right you can see some photo card cabinets, which were popular with teenage girls. I remember photo stickers being a short lived fad in Europe, but never photo cards. They are still alive and kicking in Asia.
Sega had the usual rows of candy cabs. My favourite is Blast City, just because I've seen it all over Hong Kong for as long as I can remember. What really separated this Sega arcade from the others is that it had a large collection of classic games in the cabinets. We'll see many examples of that further down, so keep reading.
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| Some games that didn't interest me, like Aquapazza. |
Here you can see some of the posters on the walls, they definitely set the mood. As if the beautiful rows of Blast City cabs weren't enough..
My wife and I enjoy 2-player shooters, and Let's Go Island 3D was a pleasant surprise. The gameplay is nothing new, but if you like House of the Dead and Jurassic Park Lost World, you should give it a go. What is new however, is that this game features 3D, without glasses. I'm not a big fan of 3D myself, but the effect wasn't bad.
Let's Go Island 3D is the follow-up to the equally great Let's Go Jungle. You can take a look at the promo video here.
This arcade also had Deadstorm Pirates! Aside from the price difference (Tokyo is 10 times more expensive than Hong Kong), there's also the language barrier. Most of the games (including this one) in Hong Kong are in English, but most games in Japan are.. Japanese! So some of the background story of the game is lost, but it's never that important anyway.
Hey, wasn't I just mentioning The Lost World? I actually finished this game. It must have been almost 15 years ago, just after its launch. My home town had a quite large game arcade, and my buddies and I liked going there when the clubs and discos got too boring. The arcade is long gone now, and the only alternatives are home consoles or travels to far, far away.
The musical game Project Diva was all the rage at the time I visited Tokyo. It was advertised everywhere, but I never gave it more than a short glance.
Club Sega had its share of driving games. Please remember that there was a strict no-photo policy in all the Tokyo game arcades, so I had to be careful when taking pictures. I'll use that as an excuse for the poor picture quality!
I can't identify the two other games, just Crazy Taxi in the middle. If you can help me, please leave a comment.
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| House of the Dead 2 and several other shooters. |
Here you can see some of the classic games offered by Sega. More of that later.
..and of course my favourite racer, Outrun 2 SP. I'm in love with this game! I'm getting one as soon as possible, I just need to sell some more pinballs first. I wish I had unlimited space, but don't we all?
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| The 1999 game Airline Pilots and Sega Strike Fighter from the year after. |
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| Initial D and Daytona USA 2 |
After having walked around in the top floor for some minutes, we discovered an interesting looking machine: Pac-Man Battle Royale! As the title suggests, it's a multiplayer (4) vs. battle Pac-Man game. Great fun! I'm surprised I hadn't heard about it before. You can take a look at the gameplay in this YouTube video.
Here are more examples of Sega catering to retro players. Great classics like Bomber Man and Mario, in Blast City cabinets with beautiful large monitors.
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| ..and more classics. |
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| Beautiful! |
What really set the mood for me were the stunning retro posters they used to decorate the walls. Many of them were just enlarged flyers, but it looked fantastic! I actually asked many of the locations if they had any posters for sale, but sadly they couldn't (or wouldn't) help me.
We're coming to the last corner of the top floor, where they had a selection of great games.
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| Ferrari F355 Challenge |
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| F-Zero FX (see clip) |
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| After Burner Climax |
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| Virtual On |
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| Super Hang-On and Star Wars Trilogy Arcade |
Here's something I haven't seen for a while.. The Typing of the Dead! I remember playing this on the Dreamcast. The gameplay is pretty strange, it's House of the Dead with a twist. You basically have to type words as fast as possible to kill the zombies. Take a look at a random YouTube video here.
Of course this was Japanese, so I didn't even attempt to play it.
The rest of the pictures are of areas which I've already covered, but maybe from other angles or with other games in focus.
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| House of the Dead 2, something (please leave a comment if you know) and Ghost Squad. |
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| I'm happy that they have a classic like Super Hang-On, even in 2011. |
That concludes our visit to Club Sega! Remember, I just had one day in Akihabara, so I had to continue to the next game arcade, so you all could see more of this fascinating city.
I hope you'll follow me also to the next location. And please leave a comment if you're enjoying this series of posts!
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