Arcade-Fu: Games With Kick Body English Translates Into Action

Stepping into today's arcades feels like going into a department store for extreme sports. Look around, and you're likely to see people skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking, skateboarding, or even hang gliding.

More and more arcade games are allowing the players to participate in ways that require far more than fingers twitching or wrists bending. Simulations have become popular during the past several years _ particularly with slick, sophisticated games that take players into perilous locales to perform perilous stunts.

Seattlites, of course, are a bit spoiled, what with the original GameWorks in their own back yard. GameWorks, the ultraswank, extra-large and somewhat pricey video-game arcade on Seventh Avenue and Pike Street in downtown Seattle, specializes in such simulations.

It hasn't always looked this way, however.

There used to be a time when video-game arcades peppered the landscape. They were usually dark, shadowy places illuminated mostly by the glow of game screens and marquees. They were loud, too, filled with the sounds of rows of "Ms. Pac-Man" machines competing against noises of "Galaxian" and "Donkey Kong."

Of course, that was 18 years ago, during the heyday of arcades. In 1981, Americans dropped 20 billion quarters into arcade machines as they spent 75,000 man years playing games.

It was a time when 15-year-old Steve Juraszek of Arlington Heights, Ill., set the world-record score of 15,963,100 points in a 16-hour marathon game of "Defender" and got his picture in Time magazine. (He also got some attention at his high school _ the game started during school hours.)

Joysticks replaced

Today, arcades are often more like GameWorks, where games cost from 75 cents to $4 per play, and the crowd is older.

The other big difference is in the the amazing high-tech experiences the games provide.

The joystick used to be the symbol of video games, the heart of the human-video game interface. Now, when some business-seminar speaker tells his audience at a GameWorks event to "be the joystick," he is speaking in a literal sense.

The change traces back to 1995, when Namco, the company that created "Pac-Man," sent the arcade business in a new direction with the introduction of "Alpine Racer," a skiing simulation in which players stand on a swiveling platform that vaguely resembles skis and balance themselves with handles that look a bit like ski poles.

With "Alpine Racer," the player becomes the joystick, controlling the game by shifting weight on the skis while staring into a large television screen and watching a virtual skier negotiating a downhill course.

Beyond home-video games

One thing about success in the video-game market, it breeds imitation. In the years since Namco released "Alpine Racer," other companies have released skateboarding, horse-racing, jet skiing, mountain biking, bobsledding and motorcycling games _ all of which are controlled by body movements. GameWorks even has a game called "Virtual Arena," made by a company called Holoplex, in which players stand on platforms that read their movements and translate them into actions in a fighting game.

The big deluxe games have been both a boon and a bane to the ailing arcade business. On the positive side, they have differentiated the coin-operated gaming experience from the home-video-game experience. Nintendo, Sega and Sony have all created game consoles that infringed upon the flashy bells and whistles normally associated with arcades.

But, though they may be able to make their console games look like their arcade counterparts, they cannot make them feel like deluxe arcade games. Nintendo's Rumble Pak may add the element of force feedback to driving games, but it pales to "Indy 500" and "Super GT," which feature car-shaped cabinets that rock and shake in reaction to the action on their screens.

On the other hand, top deluxe arcade games such as Sega's "Daytona 2" and Namco's "Downhill Biker" sometimes cost as much as $20,000, meaning that arcades such as GameWorks and Quarters sometimes spend as much as $100,000 when they link five "Daytona 2" games together for players to race one another.

Arcade owners agree that games must pay for themselves five or six times over to cover operating costs, and you cannot make a $16,000 machine pay for itself at 25 cents per play.

Game reviews

Most arcades survive by surrounding a few deluxe cabinets such as "Jurassic Park: Lost World" with less-expensive machines. With a diminishing number of companies manufacturing games - at all-time high prices - even the largest arcades are finding ways to make their games last a little longer. Many of the games on this list are more than a year old, but they're still steady draws in arcades.

# # # "Rapid River"

(Namco)

Fun but extremely short game in which players control with an oar while sitting in a replica of a rubber raft. The game takes players through glacial bays, down white-water rapids and past dinosaurs. "Rapid River" is a bit of a workout; you have to paddle hard to outrun certain dinosaurs and escape whirlpools.

# # # "Alpine Racer 2"

(Namco)

The sequel to the game that started the deluxe-game revolution, arcade owners can link two "Alpine Racer 2" machines together so that players can race each other on all sorts of runs.

# # "Star Wars"

(Sega)

Beautifully animated but ultimately shallow game in which players control an X-Wing fighter, shoot imperial storm troopers and master a light saber using a joystick.

# # # "Bass Fishing"

(Sega)

Players control a rod and reel-shaped joystick that pulls and fights in response to the virtual fish on the screen. You choose a spot, cast and reel in your lure hoping to attract a fish. Dorky and different as this game sounds, it's really fun.

# # # 1/2 "NFL Blitz '99"

(Midway Games)

Created by Mark Turmell and Sal Divito, the same team that created "NBA Jam," "NFL Blitz 99" exaggerates the aggressive nature of football and creates a thoroughly addictive game. This is a football game in which you either perform some heavy pass interference or forfeit the game.

# # # 1/2 "Crazy Taxi"

(Sega)

Players race around a virtual city in a taxi picking up ludicrous passengers, then race to get them to their destinations as quickly as possible for bonus driving time. A hint for first time players is that only amateur cabbies stay on the beaten path - look for short cuts.