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Arcade games

May 2021

  • Street Fighter II

    Capcom Arcade Stadium review – recapture the magic

  • Uniquely challenging … Asteroids invades Butlins, Skegness.

    The 15 greatest video games of the 70s – ranked!

February 2021

  • Farz Edraki with the spoils of her claw machine victory.

    How I fell in love with ...
    double quotation markThe claw machine is not a cool hobby. But I love it

    Farz Edraki
    Ocean swimming and tennis are acceptable summer pastimes – spending time in a dark arcade in the middle of the day is not

May 2020

  • Ghosts in the machine … Pac-Man.

    The game that ate the world: 40 facts on Pac-Man's 40th birthday

    The iconic maze chase has been played billions of times, created one of the 80s’ strangest sex symbols, stupefied Martin Amis – and is now enshrined in a leading art museum

April 2020

  • Fun-sized … the PC Engine CoreGrafx Mini.

    PC Engine CoreGrafx Mini review – cult retro cartridge system returns

    A mini reissue of this forgotten 16-bit era console brings back 50-plus pixel art classics such as Super Bomberman, Air Zonk and Splatterhouse

October 2019

  • Dance Dance Revolution

    Here come the hotsteppers! The duo staging a Dance Dance Revolution

    What can the arcade classic tell us about competition, friendship and failure? Jasmine Price and Nikhil Vyas found out by making a show about it

August 2019

  • Power Stone.

    Power Stone: the Dreamcast brawler that foresaw Fortnite and Overwatch

    Capcom’s joyful, rule-breaking gameplay laid the groundwork for today’s multiplayer fighting games. Its producer and designer tell us how they did it

March 2019

  • Metro Exodus

    Simon Parkin on games
    Metro Exodus, Devil Engine and Apex Legends: three games that demonstrate the value of genres

    From a ‘battle royale’ showdown to a shoot ’em up revival, three mixed new titles demonstrate the value to games of genres

August 2018

  • Martin Amis on the cover of the Observer Magazine in 1982

    From the Observer archive
    From the archive: Martin Amis on arcade games

    An Observer Magazine cover story from September 1982 sees the novelist, 33, turn his attention to a ‘global addiction’

June 2018

  • Tomohiro Nishikado

    Space Invaders at 40: 'I tried soldiers, but shooting people was frowned upon'

    Four decades ago, Tomohiro Nishikado created the title that became shorthand for video games themselves. He recalls how he wanted to tap into players’ competitive instincts

May 2018

  • A gamer at VR Star in Bristol

    A new reality: could VR revive the amusement arcade?

    Dedicated virtual reality installations offer an experience you can’t recreate at home – like in the early days of video gaming

April 2018

  • A line of Pokémon Pikachu characters parade in Yokohama, Japan.

    Zelda? Pokémon? Spyro? Players tweet their defining games

    Under the trending Twitter hashtag #GameStruck4, video game fans have spent the day listing the four titles that defined their love of gaming. Some are predictable, others not so much

January 2018

  • Game on … Tye Sheridan as Wade in Ready Player One.

    Unmissable culture of 2018
    Spielberg's Ready Player One – in 2045, virtual reality is everyone's saviour

    At last, a film that dares to show the positive side of living in virtual reality. Steven Spielberg’s future shocker, about people using VR to escape hell on Earth, promises to be everything The Matrix wasn’t

December 2017

  • Udderly addictive ... one of the many mini-games making up Nintendo’s 1-2 Switch.

    Move over, Mario Kart – the best multiplayer games to play at Christmas

  • Landmark title … The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

    Best culture 2017
    The top 10 video games of 2017

September 2017

  • Games — Autumn culture preview

    Autumn arts preview 2017
    Gods, guns and gross-out: the best video games of autumn 2017

    The South Park goons turn into caped crusaders, the Star Wars Death Star is avenged, Cuphead catapults players back to the ravishing 1930s, and Mario unleashes his super magic cap

April 2017

  • Persona 5

    Games reviews roundup: Persona 5; Yooka-Laylee; Virry VR

  • VR1 arcade in Bangkok

    Sodas, fries and killing zombies: games arcades are back

January 2017

  • horizon zero dawn

    Unmissable culture of 2017
    Shock, dread and yakuza: games not to miss in 2017

    Resident Evil haunts the deep south, Halo Wars makes a twisted return – and Nintendo launches a its keenly awaited new console … the best of games to come

December 2016

  • Uncharted 4’s action man Nathan Drake.

    Best culture 2016
    The 10 best video games of 2016

    From the fiendish classic that tests your sausage-cooking skills to the summer of Jigglypuffs and a return to first world war battlefields, here are 2016’s best video games
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