Hong Kong and Tokyo November 2011 - Part 13

We have come to the final post in this series of visits to arcades in Tokyo and Hong Kong. It's been a long journey, and I hope you have enjoyed at least some of the pictures!

We're back in Hong Kong again, after an eventful week in Tokyo. This time we're in the middle of the tourist area, Tsim Sha Tsui. Right at the Star Ferry Pier, Avenue of Stars and the view to the famous skyline there is a small arcade in the second floor of a shopping mall building. I wonder how much longer it will remain in that place. Hong Kong has changed a lot the recent years, and I'm honestly fearing that this arcade will disappear. The interesting shops are rapidly being replaced by expensive brand shops like Prada, Gucci and LV. And those obviously don't blend well with game arcades.



Anyway, here we are:


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The game arcade is in the far corner in the background, just behind the middle bus in the picture. It's smaller than the ones we have visited before, but not by any means small compared to the average Hong Kong place, and the feeling is light and open.
The host/clerk seemed especially opposed to me taking photographs, so I had to be both stealthy and careful. In the end she told me that I couldn't take any pictures, so that was the end of it.

I seriously need help to identify some of these games, so please leave a comment if you can fill in the blanks.

Pop'n Music and a shooting game I'm not sure of.

Unknown shooter, Silent Hill and Dragon Punch

Midnight Maximum Tune 3 DX Plus and the same unknown shooter

A whole row of them!

I missed out on Bishi Bashi AGAIN? I will test it the next time I see it!

Sega Racing Classic. Basically Daytona USA.

Initial D

Super Mario Kart 2

Extreme Hunting and an unknown shooter

Terminator Salvation, Drum Mania v7, Guitar Freaks v7 and a musical game in the background.

There's often a little game arcade in older shopping malls. It's often for kids and usually has a lot of redemption games. One day we passed by some games which my wife remembered from her childhood. The first one is this very nice cat and mouse game:

The mechanical mice appear from the right and go to the left. Your goal is to push the button at exactly the right time, so the police cat can hit the mouse with his stick. I gave it a go, and it was very entertaining.
Another game she remembered was this Pirates Gold. It's almost like a type of pajazzo. You can control the coin and try to hit one of the slots for maximum points.

Of course I'm not only interested in arcade and pinball. Also retro consoles and home games! As I mentioned, the old style malls and interesting shops are rapidly disappearing from Hong Kong. I was determined to find a Super Famicom in good condition, preferably new in box. Some other retro stuff would also be nice.
We went far into the "country side", to the areas still untouched by the trendy brands' expansion. Having the advantage of knowing the language, we asked some local boys if they knew where to find older games. They gave us the name of a shopping mall up the street, and we were off on a little adventure.
We arrived at a place which is to my liking. The kind of Hong Kong mall I prefer: old and tired, with a plethora of tiny shops. 

We didn't find a NIB Super Famicom, but I got a very nice pre-owned one, in a mint box. The Super Famicom in Hong Kong doesn't look any different than the one sold in Japan, but the box is very different. I am happy to have a piece of Hong Kong gaming history. It must have been a fantastic place in the nineties. While we were paying more than 100 USD per Super Nintendo game here in Norway, my wife and her friends went down to their local shop and got three games on floppy disk for less than 2 USD! I guess almost all Hong Kong kids had a backup unit at the time.

I didn't buy much more, but it's always interesting to visit this type of mall. I hope it will still be there the next time I return to Hong Kong, and of course I want to discover more of them. Many of my favorite shops and malls have disappeared since I first visited Hong Kong 12 years ago, and I want to enjoy them while I can.

That's it for this series of posts. As I said, I hope you got some enjoyment out if it. I sure enjoyed looking back on all the photos, and I hope to bring you more from a later trip.