A recompiled native PC port of Atari Games' futuristic arcade racer San Francisco Rush: 2049 has just been released online, as spotted by VideoGameEsoterica.

The port was released last week as part of the v.0.7.0 update of Project R — an unofficial fan project from the developer/engineer t3hd0gg that aims to create native ports of the arcade games San Francisco Rush: The Rock and San Francisco Rush 2049 for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

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New footage of Taito's cancelled 1993 racing game Vertexer has appeared online, thanks to higenekodo.

Intended to appear in arcades in the early '90s, this F-Zero-style racer used sprite scaling to give the impression of 3D movement, very much like Outrun, Power Drift and Taito's own Night Striker.

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The iconic Sega rhythm game Samba De Amigo has a lot of memorable characters, from the star of the show, Amigo, to the supporting members of the game's cast like the butterfly-wing-wearing dancer Linda, twin bears Bingo & Bongo, and the humanoid cat Rio.

However, there was one character in particular that reportedly proved troublesome to get right, as was revealed to us recently in an interview by the game's character artist Satoshi Okano: Amigo's sister Amiga.

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If you had to create a shortlist of the most colourful and creative Sega games, Samba de Amigo would no doubt rank toward the top.

Arriving in arcades back in 1999 (and on the Sega Dreamcast one year later in 2000), Sonic Team's Latin-inspired rhythm game about a sombrero-wearing monkey named Amigo was an instant hit with players, drawing a ton of praise at the time for its unique maraca-shaking gameplay, as well as its stylish art design and radio-friendly soundtrack. Because of this, it has since gone on to become regarded as something of a classic in Sega's back catalogue, and later ended up inspiring a Nintendo Wii port in 2008, as well as a multi-platform sequel, Samba de Amigo: Party Central, in 2023.

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If you look up who voiced the Street Fighter II character Cammy in the 1996 arcade game X-Men vs. Street Fighter you'll find a large number of websites claiming Susan Hart to be the voice of the character and implying that her performance was later reused across various games. This includes games like Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Capcom vs. SNK, and Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold.

But recently, while talking to Hart, she surprisingly couldn't remember whether or not the voice was actually hers, suggesting her performance as the character was either a total accident that she was completely unaware of or that the real identity of Cammy's voice actor may not be a closed book after all.

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City Connection's Saturn Tribute Boosted versions of Wolf Fang & Skull Fang are set to launch in Japan later this month, on October 31st, so the company is inevitably hard at work promoting the project on social media in the run-up to the big day.

Most recently, it has posted a closer look at the new fan book that will be available to those who purchased its special edition box set, revealing that this bonus item will contain a bunch of rare, never-before-seen proposals for a couple of unreleased Data East projects (thanks Gosokkyu!).

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A fan port is currently in the works for Taito's 1989 arcade sidescroller Crime City for the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis.

Crime City, in case you've never heard of it, is an action platformer that was designed to run on Taito's B-system hardware. It was released as a spin-off to the company's earlier arcade title Chase H.Q and saw up to two players take control of the police officers Tony Gibson and Raymond Broady as they try to take down various gang leaders and bring law and justice to a city.

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The Cleve Carney Museum of Art in Chicago is set to hold an exhibit, which starts later this year, telling the history of the arcade developer Midway.

Insert Coin: Inside Midway's Arcade Revolution will be open from October 26th, 2024 to February 16th, 2025, and will cost $12, with discounts available for students, seniors, and military personnel.

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Alfa System's 2006 arcade bullet hell Castle of Shikigami III could be coming to Steam later this year, thanks to a new crowdfunding campaign that launched at the end of last month in Japan on the website Camp-fire.jp.

Castle of Shikigami III originally debuted in the arcades back in the mid-2000s and was later ported to PC, Xbox 360, and Nintendo Wii, with the Wii release coming to North America via Aksys Games in 2008.

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DMA Design's Amiga classic Lemmings has been brought over to a lot of different platforms over the years, but one port that sadly never made it was Data East's proposed version for the arcade.

From the little we know about the port it was in development in the early 90s, and resulted in a PCB prototype that was eventually rescued by the Lemmings creator Mike Dailly when Rockstar closed DMA Design's Dundee office around 1999 to 2000.

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Point Blank's rare high-definition arcade reboot Point Blank X is now playable for everyone on PC, thanks to a new patch from the modder Argonlefou (as originally reported by VideoGameEsoterica!).

Point Blank X is the last major release in the classic comedy lightgun series (as of the time of writing, at least) and was initially released in arcades back in 2016. It features a bunch of remixed levels from previous games in the series, with a modern HD art style, and can be somewhat difficult to track down in the arcades today.

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When it comes to Player Two costumes in the Tekken series, few outfits have seemed to resonate with fans as much as King's alternative clothing in Tekken 3.

The design in question saw the series regular sporting Armor King's mask, as well as a blue-ish t-shirt, black and white trainers, and a pair of dark sweatpants with a grey leopard print design running down the sides. In the past, this look has been described online as "iconic", "badass", and "the coolest any fighting game character has ever looked", and also inspired a bunch of merchandise from the fashion brand Prix in 2023.

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Update : Pre-orders for Alan-1's new Asteroids Recharged cabinets have now gone live.

The cabinets are expected to ship in Q3 2024 and come in 2-player and 3-player configurations — both of which are pretty pricey. The 2-player cabinet, for instance, costs $6499, whereas the 3-player will set you back $12,999. Both require an initial deposit of $1000 to pre-order, which will be deducted from the final cost of the machine.

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During the PlayStation One era, Namco established itself as one of the most successful video game publishers in the world, releasing a string of fantastic conversions based on its arcade masterpieces — helped along, of course, by the creation of the System 11 arcade board.

However, as the former Namco US product manager Jerry Momoda recently claimed in an exclusive interview with Time Extension, this close partnership with Sony also acted as a bit of "a double-edged sword", closing the gap between home consoles and the arcade and making it harder for players to justify pouring quarters into a machine they already felt they owned at home.

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Miracle - the indie developer currently working on the anime-inspired tile-matching game Dreamshot Fantasia - has just announced a surprise new Steam title.

The game, which is called Hot Top, was revealed on social media yesterday and is expected to arrive on the digital storefront in the coming weeks. It sees players taking control of a bird named Hop as they climb an insect-filled tower avoiding traps and using the various platforms available to ascend.

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VideoGameEsoterica has done it again! Less than a year after they successfully managed to preserve Castlevania: The Arcade Game and a month after they rescued Konami's Gashaaaan!, the YouTuber is back with another set of videos focusing on their efforts to save another rare piece of arcade history.

Akuma Mortis Immortal is a little-known title from the developer Gamewax — a London-based studio that also worked on arcade racing games like Wacky Races and Chase H.Q. 2. It is a horror lightgun shooter similar to Sega's House of the Dead and Konami's Evil Night. However, it's currently unknown whether it was actually given a full release like both of those titles or whether it was simply made available in certain beta locations for testing.

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A new Kickstarter has just launched for the Polycade Sente, a new modular home arcade system from the company behind the Polycade Lux.

The device, which takes its name from the company Sente and the Sente Arcade Computer from the 1980s, aims to be an all-in-one solution for home gaming, allowing you to connect it to a PC or a home console of your choice, as well as use it to access pre-installed retro emulators (for Arcade, NES, SNES, Genesis, Sega Master System, TurboGrafx-16, Atari 2600, Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, and more), or purchase games for the device directly from the Polycade store, Steam, GOG, or Itch.io.

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Martyn Brown, the co-founder of Team17, is planning to open a brand new arcade in the UK, as recently announced in a Facebook post.

The arcade will be situated in the West Yorkshire town of Horbury in Wakefield, and will apparently include classic machines such as Missile Command, Battlezone, Pac-Man, Asteroids, Tempest, Centipede, Millipede, Galaxian, Galaga, Gyruss, Championship Sprint, Joust, Carnival, Crazy Taxi, Super Hang On, Outrun, Neo Geo Selection, and many more. There will also reportedly be regular hi-score competitions held at the venue.

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Next year, a large transport museum called Yumenova is opening in the Japanese theme park of Hirosawa City in the Ibaraki prefecture, and among its many attractions looks to be something truly unique: the opportunity to play the 1996 arcade train simulator Densha De Go! on one of its decommissioned trains (thanks @ted90909 for the spot!).

The Densha De Go! series, in case you're unaware, is a collection of simulation games (originally by Taito), which started in the arcades before being ported to countless computers and home consoles. Most of its games feature a specially designed control setup built to replicate the experience of maneuvering a real Japanese train and contain authentic train (and tram) routes that are based on actual Japanese services.

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Earlier today (September 21st), Success Corporation announced a new game in the long-running Cotton series tentatively called Cotton Fantasy 2 for console, PC, and arcade (thanks Gematsu!).

The new shoot 'em up is a follow-up to Cotton Fantasy: Superlative Night Dreams, which was originally released in Japanese arcades back in 2021 and was later ported to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Windows PCs.

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The video game developer/publisher Atari and the retro manufacturer Arcade1Up are partnering on a new arcade cabinet to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Atari (thanks RetroDodo for the spot!).

The arcade cabinet, which is called the "Arcade1Up Atari 50th Anniversary Deluxe Arcade Machine", was accidentally leaked last month by the retailer Wayfair, but has now been officially announced. The machine stands over 5 feet tall and features a 17" colour screen; a light-up marquee, buttons, and coin slot; online leaderboards, and four control panels. It also includes 64 classic Atari games.

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Konami's 1981 title Frogger is arguably one of the most famous arcade video games of all time (being subject to constant references in pop culture including in the memorable Seinfeld episode "The Frogger" where Jason Alexander's character George Constanza tries to maintain his high score at his high school pizza joint). The origins of the game, however, are surprisingly mysterious. This is because, like many other arcade companies at the time, Konami didn't credit its developers, with the studio instead claiming sole responsibility for all its games (in order to prevent headhunting).

Last year, by pure dumb luck, we managed to get talking to a former Konami programmer called Masahiro Inoue, who revealed during our discussion that he had actually worked on a sound effect for Frogger as one of his first jobs at the company. So, obviously wanting to know more about the game's development, we asked him if it would be possible for him to shine a light on who else was involved in the making of Frogger and put the mystery of its anonymous creators to bed; fortunately, for us, he was more than happy to oblige. However, first, we should probably address the elephant-sized frog in the room.

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Capcom has partnered up with the UK watch brand Avi-8 to produce two limited edition watches based on 1942, its classic shoot 'em up that was originally released in the arcades back in 1984 (thanks timeandtidewatches/VGC!).

The two AVI-8 X Capcom 1942 Flyboy Automatic Limited Edition watches will be limited to only 300 pieces each and faithfully recreate the sprites from the iconic game on their face, with the player's plane being attached to the second-hands.

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Space Invaders is 45 this year. It hit Japanese arcades on April 1st, 1978, before mass production kicked off on June 16th of the same year, and an urban legend quickly arose that its incredible popularity triggered a shortage of 100-yen coins in Japan. While this tale has since been debunked (production of 100-yen coins was apparently lower in 1978 than normal), the fact remains that it is one of the most famous and instantly recognisable video games of all time.

45 years is quite a remarkable milestone when you consider that many players out there won't even have been born when Taito's famous shooter was sucking up coins all over the world – and for its 79-year-old designer Tomohiro Nishikado, it's the ideal time to reflect on the impact of his most famous creation.

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Update : Video Game Esoterica has revealed in a new video that members of their Discord have successfully created a work-in-progress demo that transposes the arcade game's whip controls over to a mouse. It will apparently be available soon for free (possibly later today), with the goal being to allow more players to finally experience this rare Castlevania title for themelves.

In the video, Video Game Esoterica claimed that the demo will have the choice to switch between English and Japanese and that it will include the bonus character Little Witch as well as a level select option. Though, unfortunately, as they mention, levels 4 and 5 currently don't load, and level 3 only loads occassionally. These are known issues, however, and are currently being worked on behind-the-scenes.

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