Sheringham
The next town along the coast
was Sheringham. There are two small
amusement arcades with some modern games, not much to report here.
Wells-next-the-Sea
Our next stop was Wells. Wells now only has one arcade, featuring
mostly gambling and redemption machines.
There were a couple of modern games though, including a nice OutRun2
twin cabinet.
Hunstanton
Thomas’s Amusements and Bingo
This arcade was pretty
awesome. The arcade had a nice selection
of videogames, old and new, all fully working and in very nice condition.
It was nice to play some
Ridge Racer, Silent Scope and the classic that is Operation Thunderbolt.
The Operation Thunderbolt
cabinet was in incredible condition for its age. I love the cabinet artwork.
My wife and I teamed up for
some twin Uzi action. The final stage
takes place on an airplane. The evil
terrorist takes the pilot hostage and it was up to my wife and her gaming
skills to kill the terrorist, save the pilot and bring justice to the
world. Unfortunately the wife mowed down
the pilot without too much remorse and we never got to see the true end
sequence!
It was nice seeing the old
machines running next to the new, and being played and enjoyed.
Thomas’s Showboat Family Leisure Centre
This arcade featured mostly
modern games. I enjoyed a couple of
credits on and OutRun 2SP, Sega Rally 2 and The King of Route 66.
It was the first time I’d
seen Pac-Man’s Arcade Party, featuring a selection of classic Namco games. It was nice playing Rolling Thunder in an
arcade in an English seaside town, even if it was a modern cabinet with an LCD
monitor!
This arcade used to have an
awesome selection of cabinets, with a nice variety of cockpit and Deluxe machines. Here are some pictures taken in 2004. How I would love to revisit the arcade and
play on these machines.
The arcade featured an
awesome collection of Yu Suzuki ‘Super Scaler’ classics, including Hang-On,
Space Harrier, OutRun, After Burner, G-LOC and Rad Mobile.
Space Harrier Deluxe, released
in 1985. One of my all time favourites.
Released in 1991, I fondly
remember playing Rad Mobile Deluxe at Barrons arcade, Great Yarmouth. Having to use windscreen wipers and
headlights was a cool feature, and Sonic the Hedgehog makes his first
appearance as an air freshener hanging on the rear mirror!
Monaco GP and Space Tactics,
released by Sega in 1979 and 1980 respectively.
Two titles I’ve never seen / played before. It’s still pretty impressive that the arcade
had these in 2004.
Operation Wolf and Operation
Thunderbolt, released by Taito in 1987 and 1988 respectively.
Chase H.Q., released by Taito
in 1988, another one of my all time favourites.
I played the Deluxe version down Great Yarmouth seafront back in the
day, but I don’t recall seeing the cockpit version before.
Hard Drivin’ Deluxe, Atari’s
awesome driving simulator, released in 1989.
The source of these images is
the Norwich Retro Gamers website / Gary Skipper: http://www.retrogamers.org/index.html
The images remain the
copyright of Alan Jacobs.
CHS Pier Family Entertainment
This arcade had very few
videogames, but they did have the awesome Afterburner Climax, which seems to be
becoming increasingly scarce.
Rainbow Park Amusements
Rainbow Park fun fair had a couple of modern arcade games. I was really pleased to see a Sega F355
Challenge DLX triple screen cabinet.
The cabinet features three
foot pedals and an H-shaped gear, although sadly the gearstick was
missing. Four Naomi units are utilised,
one for each screen and one to synch them all.
We really enjoyed our stay in
Hunstanton. It’s a very pleasant family
friendly place and still has that old English seaside town charm. I’m looking forward to going back, and maybe
one day we’ll save the pilot and get to see the true ending of Operation
Thunderbolt!
Snettisham Beach Amusements
The biggest surprise here was
the Virtual On cabinet. It’s been years
since I’ve seen one, although sadly it wasn’t working.
