Insert Coin.

It feels like such a long time ago when I watched my cousin play Saint Dragon on his Amiga. Little did I know of the path that was opening up in front of me. My first steps into the world of gaming consisted of classics like Cannon Fodder, Secret of Monkey Island and Alien Breed. Retro games have shaped me both as a gamer and a reviewer, so when I saw the chance to attend an arcade convention in Britain, I leapt on it like a fat man trapped in the desert for weeks, who just found his favourite packet of crisps laying in the sand.

For those of us living in the United Kingdom (and especially in Scotland), it’s not always so easy to feel the full on arcade experience firsthand, at least not without a lot of travelling.

Insert Coin was a fantastic event for me, as it gave me a chance to get back to some gaming roots that are easily forgotten when you’re 12 years old. There’s nothing quite like sitting down at a machine and playing aliens for an hour, with someone you’ve never met before. This is the sort of bonding experience you’ll never find across the cold, faceless world of Xbox Live and it’s something every serious gamer should participate in, at least once in their lives, just to get some serious perspective on the humble origins of this beautiful hobby we call gaming.


Of the handful of games I got any serious play time on, my top two favourites would have to be Aliens and R-Type Leo.



Aliens is one of those rock hard side scrolling shooters that really pushes you to the limit. The game starts off easily enough with nothing too hardcore to really phase any old-school gamer familiar with the genre, but slowly begins to kick your ass as you struggle to fend off a variety of vicious multi-coloured Xenomorphs as well as some seriously bad ass bosses all looking to murder your ass, in which case it’s quite literally game over, man.




R-Type Leo is beautiful… pure and simple. I don’t massively get into shoot-em-ups aside from playing a few very decent ones like Saint Dragon and G-Darius as a young lad, and anyone who saw me trying to play the original R-type last weekend will tell you my retro skills are seriously lacking, but for some reason I just synched really well with Leo. Pace feels perfect, power ups are awesome and the visuals are still fantastic to look at, even now. Most importantly though, Leo was only available in arcades, so you’ll either have to get some emulation action going on, or drop some money on a decent MAME cabinet if you want to try this one.


Notable mentions go to Splatterhouse for still being awesome to play more than 20 years later and also to Outrun for being bloody fantastic and reminding me of a time when Sega weren’t shit.