Are arcade-style games still a thing? Good games to enjoy in short bursts?

Gone are the times when I'd go to the Arcades and have lots of fun playing Street Fighter 2, Neo Turf Masters, Street Hoops, Puzzle Bubble, Virtua Striker, Tekken and so many other games.

What are some short-burst games to enjoy in this day and age?

They exist in indie form. This games about 20 minutes long and cost £3.

Mother Russia Bleeds is about 2 hours long, which is longer, but still relatively short like a typical brawler.

The arcade version of Golden Axe: The Revenge of Death Adder was it's own version extended over the typical lengh of the console versions and that's about 40 minutes long, if we're being generous.

Many of these games were very short, sometimes 20 minutes long but just artificially extended playtime by deliberately trying to get the player dead in order to gobble up coins.

For example, while Golden Axe: The Revenge of Death Adder is an awesome game, at certain points it just starts spamming as many enemies on screen as possible, repeating multiple bosses on screen at the same time.

Unless you were some sort of gaming god with a power glove, or willing to drop your mommys bank account into it, it was definitely going to be a short burst.

That mentality is largely gone from gaming. It's more productive to make games easier to sell to a larger audience.

In some cases like Tomb Raider or Uncharted, you just don't bother with the gameplay - as long as the facial animations look nice, Golden Joystick Award.

Rocket League? That game is very arcade like. A match takes what, like 10 minutes?

Also, as you listed a bunch of fighting games, it's not like there aren't fighting games. Most of those franchises are still around in some form or another and many of them are actually still good (I guess there hasn't bean a Tekken game this gen, but you have Mortal Kombat X, King of Fighters, Street Fighter V, etc).

Somebody needs to do a proper Samurai Showdown.

Don't make me reminisce about my glory days in the arcade, throwing my quarter on the cabinet and challenging all comers to Virtua fighter or Killer Instinct or Street Fighter II, and eating at the mall food court and smoking weed in secret behind the arcade. Now that was gaming!!! Keyboard and mouse? F*ck off!!!!

Anyway, thank god for indies. Resogun is awesome.

Look up housemarque stuff. Resogun, Alienation and there upcoming games.

Back then you had Arcades, now you have online multiplayer and Candy Crush.

Kinda different. Those are designed as a passive experience, usually non violent. While arcade titles typically demanded the finesse of a Russian ballerina.

Arguably a better comparison would be something like Tetris on the Gameboy or Columns on the Game Gear.

Well, but people used to go to the Arcades to have fun and also socialize, then it moved to online gaming, didn't it? Call of Duty to me is like the arcade of modern age, just like Candy Crush would be comparable to Puzzle Bubble or the likes. Yes, the level of difficulty is different, back then I remember some games to be pretty hard.

Steam is your friend.

And that's just shmups. It still gets all of the fighters like Street Fighter, Guilty Gear, BlazBlue, as well as good games in other genres like beat 'em ups, such as Chronicles of Mystara.

The arcade was nothing like online gaming. People at the arcade did not yell racist garbage at you while you played or other toxic offensive things. People usually mingled quite well and became friends. No one was ever mad at someone for not playing the game right and it was all meant to be fun. It was competitive but not in the assholish way it is on the internet. It was a fun thing to do while you hung out with real people and did other real people things like flirting with girls and eating pizza and smoking weed and generally bonding with your friends. I recognize nothing of that in your modern online gaming world of today. But then again I'm old and meant to hate the younger generation.

Though I still plug in the arcade stick for fighters, 2d beat em ups, and any other game types that work.

And yeah, I think we all miss the arcade scene. Sometimes I wish I lived in SoCal or parts of Tokyo where the arcade communities are still alive and kicking. I have a few arcades left in my area, but it's not the same. They never get new machines and the kind of people who go there aren't really there to game. Just old farts looking for a trip down memory lane and their children who just run from one machine to the next mashing buttons. Like I'm not going to show up there and find someone skilled who legit wants to throw down on some Super Turbo or UMK3 lol.

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But yeah OP, these types of games are still being made. Mostly by the indie market, sure, but they're still around. Action platformers, beat em ups, side scrolling shooters, bullet hell, it's all still there.

Fighting games are still going strong. Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Killer Instinct, and King of Fighters have all seen relatively recent releases. Tekken gets a new home release this year.

We still get arcade style racers from time to time.

A lot of the 'spirit' of arcade type titles has transitioned into the form of 3d beat em ups (hack and slash, character action, whatever you want to call it). They don't come around too often, but there are some good ones. A lot of it being from Platinum. Stuff like Bayo and W101.

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Thing is, a lot of these games have become far more sophisticated. You could play some of them in short bursts, but for better or worse (mostly better), they're not the incredibly short quarter sucking games of yesteryear. These games expect a little more time investment from the player now.

Short burst games are more of a handheld/mobile thing these days.

Slow down lol.

I'm with you for most of that, but it wasn't all pretty. People were assholes. Shit could get out of hand real quick. And people would blow up about not playing the game the way they feel it was intended.

"Stop using throws you cheap ****!" was probably the most famous one. Ending a match with a throw in SF probably caused more pop offs than it should have. But plenty of arcade games had similar taboos.

If you only stuck to mall arcades then yeah, things could be tame. Outside of that it could get intense. That's just gaming in general. You can look up videos of people rage quitting and flipping out over Monopoly of all things lol.

You're right though, online gaming doesn't even begin to compare.

Edit: I suppose it depends on the time too. From what I understand, arcade scenes were more respectful in the 70s and 80s. My days as an arcade kid were from the late 80s through the mid 90s. And those were the years when fighting games really came into their own, bringing all the associated rage with them lol.

I used to play all those Marvel - Capcom cross overs back when I was still in primary school. I'm a noob on 3D Fighting, I never really got into TEKKEN. KOF2002 too was my jam. Then I moved to mobile recently playing waiting / strategy games that takes my money. haha. I still play KOF on Android, though it isn't as much as fun back when in Arcade and you can hear the speakers of the machine. I also play Oceans & Empires in Android, the waiting game that I'm referring to.

I guess gone were the days of arcades. I dunno but videogames now being more of a super-personal experience rather than personal-social experience kind of make me sad. Now, even though you are with other gamers, you can't really be sure whether you're going to nerd out over the same thing.

@ConanTheStoner: I do have rose tinted glasses when thinking about those days. People did give each other hell in the arcades from time to time. I just feel like today's internet competitive scene is on a whole other level of toxicity. I saw plenty of people taking games way too serious back then but nothing like the stuff they say in online games nowadays. They'd get knocked the F out! There is something to be said for actual human interaction and the consequences of saying something terrible to someone's actual face. Games should never be taken all that seriously in my opinion. Kind of defeats the purpose of them being "games".

Look for and play indie games. There are some good ones. They'll cost less than $20 each. Fighting games are doing good these days.

Sure, I'm currently playing Skyforce Anniversary, nice top down shooter with leader board support. A lot of them are now indie games. But for me, a game like Forza Horizon 3 also falls in that category.

Oh yeah, to all this I absolutely agree.

Being a nameless faceless person, no consequence for your words and actions, yeah it brings out the worst in people. Yes, they'd get knocked the **** out back in the day lol. I remember the early years of XBL, hearing 12 year olds drop the N-bomb repeatedly, those kids would have been the quiet timid ones waiting for their turn to coin up and get wrecked in the arcades. And if they had the balls to say the shit they say on Live, they'd get that ass beat.

So yeah, to the overall point it really just isn't the same. Online gaming brings some great things to the table, but it will never be a substitute for human interaction, be it arcades, lan parties, or local mp on the couch with friends. We've definitely lost something special and respectable in the transition.

Smoke a bowl + Geometry wars = sex

@ConanTheStoner said:

@mark1974 said:

Don't make me reminisce about my glory days in the arcade, throwing my quarter on the cabinet and challenging all comers to Virtua fighter or Killer Instinct or Street Fighter II, and eating at the mall food court and smoking weed in secret behind the arcade. Now that was gaming!!! Keyboard and mouse? F*ck off!!!!

Though I still plug in the arcade stick for fighters, 2d beat em ups, and any other game types that work.

And yeah, I think we all miss the arcade scene. Sometimes I wish I lived in SoCal or parts of Tokyo where the arcade communities are still alive and kicking. I have a few arcades left in my area, but it's not the same. They never get new machines and the kind of people who go there aren't really there to game. Just old farts looking for a trip down memory lane and their children who just run from one machine to the next mashing buttons. Like I'm not going to show up there and find someone skilled who legit wants to throw down on some Super Turbo or UMK3 lol.

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But yeah OP, these types of games are still being made. Mostly by the indie market, sure, but they're still around. Action platformers, beat em ups, side scrolling shooters, bullet hell, it's all still there.

Fighting games are still going strong. Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Killer Instinct, and King of Fighters have all seen relatively recent releases. Tekken gets a new home release this year.

We still get arcade style racers from time to time.

A lot of the 'spirit' of arcade type titles has transitioned into the form of 3d beat em ups (hack and slash, character action, whatever you want to call it). They don't come around too often, but there are some good ones. A lot of it being from Platinum. Stuff like Bayo and W101.

-

Thing is, a lot of these games have become far more sophisticated. You could play some of them in short bursts, but for better or worse (mostly better), they're not the incredibly short quarter sucking games of yesteryear. These games expect a little more time investment from the player now.

Short burst games are more of a handheld/mobile thing these days.

I know it sounds wierd but it feels like PC has no soul. I play some games on PC but I would rather game on Ps4 and Wii U tbh. Plus I hate the random issues on PC. Sure I could easily games on PC like a console but it' doesn't feel the same at all.

Yea series like Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden, Beyonette, Yakazu, God of War destroy old scool beat em ups and are a LOT more complex. What I think people miss are 2 player beat'em ups. Outside of indies you can't find them anywhere. Would kill for a 2 player beat em up with complex gameplay and GG graphics.

Too bad my home is small and I have no place for it but I would love to get me an Arcade machine, those with like a thousand classic games, buttons and a stick.

For me Vanquish was one of the best games last gen and it was meant to be played in an arcade fashion.

Never liked them. Resogun may be the only game of this genre that i enjoyed greatly. Sadly it was way too short.

Wild Guns Reloaded just released for PS4 and there's Windjammers coming either this month or next month so Arcade Games are not dead.

Plus there's Steam that have a ton of Arcade like games on there.

Windjammers is coming to PS4? Wow, I did not know that, but I'm very excited about that now.

It's funny how my top 2 most anticipated upcoming PS4 releases are not any of their big budget games; instead it's a remake of the Crash Bandicoot trilogy from the 90s and a port of the 90s arcade game Windjammers.

True, I don't remember people in the arcades throwing insults like they sometimes do via text/voice chat now. Sore losers have a colorful imagination these days, in the heat of their frustrations and hatrids, they'll try to get under your skin any way they can.

In the arcades, they wouldn't have the guts to do that, they'd keep that shit locked up in their puny brains. Now with the internet, these anti-social people have an outlet to express themselves without feeling the need to hold back.

However, we also gained some great things. My local arcade Stree Fighter machine always had at least 1 button or the joystick that didn't work well. Waiting in lines for my next turn for Street Fighter, while having to enjoy the wonderful odors that you can imagine would be in arcades with middle aged men who haven't showered in days lol.

Now If I want to play a fighting game online, I do it like a king, on a 50 inch TV with my own High Quality Arcade stick. Can go grab food and drinks when I want, don't need to stay standing up, etc. Hey don't get me wrong I love some of the interactions we had in the old days, but I don't dwell on it too much to be honest :)