Hong Kong November 2012 - North Point

It's been a while since I wrote much on the blog. Whenever I lost inspiration I found it's better to let it be for a while, rather than force myself to write something. Of course that leads to me having a lot of old pictures in the "backlog", but I'm slowly starting to publish them today.
We took our annual trip to Hong Kong in November 2012, and as always I visited some game arcades. I can't believe I've kept these pictures to myself for a year, but here they are.



This time we lived in the area called North Point, so I started off there.
The first arcade related item I found was inside an old shopping mall:


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This small cabinet with Metal Slug 3. It looks so crude that I think it was made in some guy's basement! Just look at those metal trimmings and the cheap looking stone pattern. But it still has a certain charm. I would actually love to have this at home, even though it's butt ugly. And it could fit anywhere. You need to look at the joysticks and buttons to realize just how small this cabinet is.

North Point also has one of the few nice remaining arcades in Hong Kong, simply called Game World.


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Just in case Google Maps street view isn't working for you, here's a photo:

This was definitely our local arcade this holiday, just 2-3 minutes walk from the hotel. It was bright, clean and nice, but there was something missing for me. My favourites weren't there! I guess I just have to accept that the time when Outrun 2 and Mario Kart GP ruled the arcades has ended, but I miss them.

On first glance this almost looks like two washing machines, but it's actually Sega's MaiMai. It's a rythm game, and those round things are touch screens where you try to follow arrows in tune with the music.
Maybe I'm getting old, but this didn't really do it for me. I prefer some DDR over this.

Gambling seems to be taking over the traditional game arcades, and this was no exception. I would say that half of the games where for gambling and redemption. It's heading in a sad direction, but I guess they need to do this to keep the business going.

This huge fishing cocktail table is actually quite much fun. I just wish it gave me points and hiscores, not tokens and coins.

I have absolutely no interest in these games, but I'm sure they're nice to people who even have just a tiny bit of interest in football.

Game World had a room with some beautiful Blast City cabinets which were used for mahjong and gambling related titles. Boring!

Phew! Finally to the real games! We start off with Operation Ghost from SEGA. Here's a trailer.

They had a nice row of newer shooters.. Rambo, House of the Dead 4 and..

Lethal Enforcers 3!

I'm a big fan of racing games, and this huge Initial D decoration on the wall caught my eye.

What a dream! A nice row of drivers and a lot of Versus City cabs. The racing games are:
Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 3 DX Plus
Initial D
and..

Battle Gear 4. One of them wasn't working, but other than this most of the games at Game World were in good condition.

The highlight of the arcade was the Bishi Bashi cabinets, where we spent most of our time. What a great party game this is! It seems it's almost impossible to acquire it in Norway, so I'm hoping to build one myself one day. I just need to finish twenty-some other projects first.

This fantastic robot was placed near the entrance, and welcomed everyone to the games.

All in all the selection of games was not fully to my taste, so I'm not sure if I'll be returning. But if you're in the area you should definitely give Game World a chance!