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Arcade1up has been around for a while now, making home arcade machines for those with the enthusiasm and floor space to give 'em a shot. In recent years, though, it seems like its reach has grown to allow it access to hard-to-license properties you can't play anywhere else. Among them? Konami's The Simpsons, a well-regarded 1991 beat-'em-up. The game made a brief appearance on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, but otherwise? It hasn't been available for people to play. So die-hard fans? Yeah, they may be ready for something like this. We put the machine through its paces.

Assembling an Arcade1up cabinet is certainly an undertaking, but it’s not so bad. You generally need to set aside an evening for construction, but it’s doable for normal folk like us. Arcade1up sent over the bundle with riser and stool, and all of it comes together fairly simply. There are a few elements we'd love to see improved, but they're relatively minor. Like the plastic screen covering getting stuck in the screws! But for the most part, the company's worked out most of the kinks in the process.

Arcade1up has been iterating on its cabinet designs in some smart ways. For one? It dropped the “let’s put big logos on the front” thing in favor of decorative fake coin doors. That looks nicer in peoples’ houses! Good on ya, Arcade1up. It also feels like trial and error has led to more comfortable button spacing. When we played earlier machines, things felt a lot more cramped.

The Simpsons Arcade Game, like other Konami brawlers of the era, is built for flashy multiplayer fun. You can play as Marge, Homer, Bart, and Lisa, with each receiving a dedicated set of controls. The Arcade1up version replicates this setup, and it feels like an important part of the experience. The second player controls are generally considered the most comfortable in of viewing angle. Homer, with his easy-to-use set of attacks, makes sense there. We have more fun with characters like Marge and Lisa, though!

Playing with all four players is ideal for the game, but you'll need at least two to check out all the moves. Combo attacks with each duo break up the monotony with which most games in the genre regularly struggle. Online play, a recent innovation in Arcade1up cabinets, is here too, in case you happen to have a friend who owns it too or want to find a match with a random teammate. Ultimately, though? The game's short. It's enough for a fun afternoon at the arcade, but as a permanent presence in your home, it may wear out before too long.

The second game included in the Arcade1up Simpsons cabinet may be less famous, but it’s definitely here for good reason. The Simpsons Bowling is the other Konami-developed Simpsons game. It does what it says on the tin — bowling with Simpsons characters — and that's probably enough for some people. The early polygonal approach of Simpsons Bowling certainly ages less gracefully than pixels, though there’s something endearing about it. The value here lies in this: it’s a trackball game! Games with buttons and joysticks can be easily replicated on other platforms, but the arcade form factor is a particularly nice way to play a game with specialized control devices.

It feels like, after releasing the beat-'em-up, Konami got the that there weren’t enough show references and overcompensated in Simpsons Bowling. Which is fair, honestly? Without the constant voice clips and special animations, it plays like a traditional bowling title. There’s some value in that, as non-fans can just play bowling with you with no problem and have a good time, but those wanting more of the IP can enjoy the window dressing.

We understand that Arcade1up’s market size and affordable approach may not be able to the full Digital Eclipse treatment. Still, we’d like to see the software become a more fully-featured, robust celebration of its games! A home arcade machine is a huge presence and a conversation piece, and it should show the same love for the IP in its code that an owner has shown for purchasing it. As it is, it’s definitely playable, but there aren’t a lot of bells and whistles. We’d love filters! We’d love more gameplay options! And most of all, anyone who loves the arcade form factor this much would probably like to see the marketing materials and ephemera from the titles’ original release.

An arcade cabinet is a big investment! Even an affordable one is more of a commitment than most want to make. But the Arcade1up Simpsons Arcade Machine does a lot to make for a fun addition to a Simpsons fan's household. And hey, if you have the means and space? You could check out a lot of them.

The Arcade1up The Simpsons Arcade Machine contains The Simpsons and Simpsons Bowling arcade games, both originally developed and published by Konami. The Arcade1up re-release is available now for $699.99 through the company's official site, as well as in various configurations at other retailers.

The post Review: Arcade1up The Simpsons Arcade Machine Resurrects Two Konami Classics appeared first on Siliconera.

Home arcade manufacturer Arcade1up showed off its 2022 slate at this year's CES, including commemorative Bandai Namco and Mortal Kombat cabinets and the start of a new, high-end Pro line.

New announcements in the company's Legacy line include Bandai Namco, Midway and Atari cabinets. Each one includes 14 games and is centered around one of the releases. The Bandai Namco release is Pac-Mania-themed. The Mortal Kombat-themed Midway cabinet celebrates the franchise's 30th anniversary. The Atari one? It's built around Centipede. These will also include online leaderboards. All three of the Arcade1up Legacy Edition cabinets are slated for a spring 2022 release.

Here are the included games in each collection:

Arcade1up Bandai Namco Legacy 5h2t2t

• Dig Dig
• Dig Dug II
• Galaga
• Galaga '88
• Galaxian
• Mappy
• Pac & Pal
• Pac-Land
• Pac-Man
• Pac-Man Plus
• Pac-Mania
• Rolling Thunder
• Rompers
• Super Pac-Man

Arcade1up Midway Legacy 6k4h

• Bubbles
• Defender
• Gauntlet
• Joust
• Klax
• Mortal Kombat
• Mortal Kombat II
• Mortal Kombat 3
• Paperboy
• Rampage
• Rootbeer Tapper
• Toobin
• Ultimate MK3
• Wizard of Wor

Arcade1up Atari Legacy j84j

• Akka Arrh
• Asteroids
• Asteroids Deluxe
• Centipede
• Crystal Castles
• Gravitar
• Liberator
• Lunar Lander
• Major Havoc
• Millipede
• Missile Command
• Space Duel
• Super Breakout
• Tempest

Check out more images of the new cabinets in the gallery.

[gallery ids="910772,910781,910774,910775,910776,910777" link="file"]

In addition to the Legacy releases, the Arcade1up CES 2022 announcement included the first in a new Pro line of higher-end machines. These have a larger 19-inch screen and upgraded components. The first, a Killer Instinct collection, will launch in summer 2022. The cabinet will include five games. The full list of included titles hasn't been announced.

Get a better look at the Arcade1up Killer Instinct cabinet below.

[gallery ids="910780,910779,910778" link="file"]

More information on the Arcade1up CES 2022 announcements can be found on the company's site.

The post Bandai Namco, Mortal Kombat Lead Arcade1up CES 2022 Reveals appeared first on Siliconera.

Arcade1up’s Infinity Game Table is something of a new outing for the company. After all, the popular line of arcade replicas builds off existing games and ideas. The Infinity Game Table is a new concept in need of new games to it. Still, there aren’t many companies out there as experienced in shipping heavy furniture with screens, so it’s not totally out of the team’s wheelhouse.

The hardware’s interesting. And full of promise! The Arcade1up team has future-proofed the Infinity Game Table with USB ports and a card slot, all of which do nothing for now. There’s constant software updates as the developers build out more experiences and features. You can play online with other table-owning friends! And there’s rumble? On a table? Yeah, for sure.

For now, though? There’s not a lot to do on it. The launch slate of software includes mostly well-trodden Hasbro games, as well as some generic public domain fare. For the most part, the games seek to replicate the physical experience as much as possible. You have to move all your pieces manually. The table makes you read another player their Trivial Pursuit questions. You have to drag each letter of your word into place in Scrabble. This is an understandable stance, but sometimes we just wanted to do a little less manual labor. Especially with big screens and covering and uncovering our tile racks.

In the current lineup, there are a couple of standouts. Monopoly and Scrabble feel the most robust and complete. It makes sense that these popular games would get the most attention. It’s a bit of a drag to have to manually move your Monopoly pieces since there’s no choice involved, and that does slow things down a bit. Still, one of the main problems with the game is that people mess up the rules, so automating them does help. Like the auction rule! Still, there are house rules available, so you can mess up the game’s already-tenuous rule set even further if that’s how you like it.

One app that could really use a tune-up is chess. It seems like it’d be hard to mess up a multiplayer implementation of chess, but the IGT version uses a top-down view of 3D pieces. In practice, most of your effort is spent discerning the pieces from each other. It loses the tactile feel of real pieces while not gaining the ease of use of most digital versions. The options allow you to pick a few different materials for pieces, which is fun! But it really needs the option to use flat symbols.

It feels like the Infinity Game Table is coming in hot, and the developers know it. Games appear to be finished in reverse order of complexity, pushing out the easy and simple stuff to bolster launch game quantity. It means there’s a lot of… solitaire? And checkers? There’s even, no kidding, a tablecloth app. The system is capable of a lot, but these initial apps don’t do much with them.

There are also some hardware missteps. Some are easy to fix! Like the flimsy included accessories. Not a lot of games use them, to be fair, but the experience with paper tile rack covers is decidedly less than deluxe. Others… maybe not. The entire table is glossy, which is a tech choice many know too well. Does it look shinier when you first see it? Sure. But this is a thing you’re supposed to touch a bunch and even lean on sometimes. There are lots of smudges immediately, and a matte finish would have done a lot to mitigate that.

Ultimately, the promise of the Infinity Game Table is in handling complex and unique ideas. A suite of Asmodee games, such as Ticket to Ride and Pandemic, should be ready for the system’s public launch. (For an additional cost.) This will help! A digital system shines when it can help with calculation and setup. But what the table really needs is some original ideas built for the platform.

Arcade1up knows this, and is pushing its message hard: we want to help developers make games for this thing. Unfortunately, it feels like the team’s banking on the allure of the platform. If you build it, they will come? With such a small market, though, that likely won’t happen without direct funding, something Arcade1up isn’t yet offering as an incentive. Without that, the player base likely won’t grow enough to a wider development community.

Arcade1up is continuing the process of shipping the Infinity Game Table to Kickstarter backers now. Public preorders will launch on July 17, 2021. It’s exclusively available through Best Buy.

The post Review: Infinity Game Table Packs Cool Tech, Potential appeared first on Siliconera.

Three new home arcade machines are ing the Arcade1up lineup in 2021. The company announced these new reveals, including a replica of Capcom’s Street Fighter II Big Blue cabinet, as part of this year’s Electronic Entertainment Experience. Also part of the reveal: a Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga cabinet and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time machine.

Street Fighter II Big Blue 373o65

The Arcade1up Street Fighter II Big Blue arcade machine commemorates the game’s 30th anniversary. It includes these 12 Capcom games, understandably mostly head-to-head fighters:

• Street Fighter II: Championship Edition
• Street Fighter II’ Hyper Fighting
• Super Street Fighter II Turbo
• Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo
• Darkstalkers
• Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge
• Darkstalkers 3
• Saturday Night Slam Masters
• Knights of the Round
• Eco Fighters
• Capcom Sports Club
• Muscle Bomber Duo

The “Big Blue” cabinets were used by Capcom throughout the 1990s, and are a fan-favorite design. Street Fighter II, as well as other Capcom games, have appeared on other Arcade1up models in the past. This new model carries an MSRP of $499.99.

Turtles in Time and Namco's "Class of 1981" 2l1644

The other Arcade1up E3 2021 announcements have a similar aesthetic focus. The Turtles in Time cabinet, like Arcade1up’s previous Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles release, includes both of the franchise’s Konami arcade beat-’em-ups. The first version replicated the model of the 1989 game, while this edition sports the look of the sequel. This cabinet’s retail price is $599.99.

The $499.99 “Class of 1981” machine features Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga, with a design recalling a common re-release cabinet that shows one of the games on each side. This machine includes Galaga ‘88, Galaxian, Dig Dug, Dig Dug II, Mappy, Rally-X, Rolling Thunder, Rompers, Tower of Druaga, and King and Balloon. It’s the latest in a long line of Namco releases from the company, and many of these games have been included in previous models.

The Arcade1up Street Fighter II Big Blue, Turtles in Time, and “Class of 1981” home arcade machines are slated for release later in 2021. Earlier in the show, Arcade1up revealed a home cabinet featuring The Simpsons.

The post Arcade1up Street Fighter II Big Blue Arcade Headlines New E3 2021 Cabinets appeared first on Siliconera.

The Simpsons are heading home this year. Arcade1up’s newest addition to the company’s lineup features Konami’s 1991 arcade game based on the long-running TV show. The cabinet will likely retail for $599.99, but pricing may vary.

The Arcade1up Simpsons arcade cabinet includes two games. In addition to the popular beat-’em-up, players can also check out a bonus game that the company has not yet confirmed. As the cabinet includes a trackball in addition to the four-player arcade controls, it's safe to assume that the second game will use this input method.

The Simpsons cabinet’s release celebrates the game’s 30th anniversary. Konami’s Simpsons game was previously re-released in 2012 as a able port by Backbone Entertainment for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. That version has since been delisted.

As has become a trend in Arcade1up’s commemorative and releases, The Simpsons will sport a wi-fi connection for updates and online multiplayer. It’s also bundled with a light-up marquee, a clear protector for the control ’s surface and a branded stool. The company’s replica cabinets are 75 percent of the original size for licensing reasons, so Arcade1up includes a riser to bring the controls up to near the full system’s height.

The Arcade1up Simpsons arcade cabinet will be available sometime later in 2021. More E3 2021 announcements from the company are expected at the end of this week.

The post Arcade1up Simpsons Arcade Revealed, Coming in 2021 appeared first on Siliconera.