Reliving an Authentic Arcade Experience on the Wii

February 3rd, 2008

Unfortunately when I was a kid I was never big on the arcades. I guess that I can chalk it down to being too young at the time when arcades were on their last hurrah. I also don’t remember there being any arcades in our local area. But despite all this I managed to find a few arcades a little further away or at least other outlets with arcade machines.

With the cost of one play now being $AUD2.00 rather than the previous 20c spending a few hours at the arcade is simply not value for money. So I decided to throw together a few very simple, cost effective ideas on how to recreate the arcade experience at home on your Wii.

Rail Shooters

One of my favourite arcade experiences would have to be the House of the Dead series (right alongside Daytona). As I mentioned in the Best Upcoming Fan-Service games of 2008 article I love playing the original House of the Dead and its sequel at the arcades and on the consoles. Actually just last month a few friends and I snuffed out a small arcade near one of my University campuses with a House of the Dead machine.

Basically these are all the tools you need to recreate a solid rail shooter experience at home:

Sure its not an arcade machine but you don’t really need a cabinet unless you want to go the whole way. In which I’d suggest this article isn’t for you then.

The Nyko Perfect Shot is an arcade style gun mold for the Wii mote. Unlike the Wii Zapper which is much more akin to say a tommy gun, the Perfect Shot’s design is based around a hand gun much like many arcade rail shooters. The Wii nun chuck can be attached as well but not all games require the use of the nunchuck.

nyko perfect shot

If I were choosing a gun mold for the Wii I would buy the Perfect Shot as there are more arcade shooters that use this style of gun. Currently I think that only Link’s Crossbow Training and Medal of Honour Heros would work better with the zapper. It all depends on the types of light gun games you want to play.

The great thing about rail shooters on the Wii is that there already is a strong software line supporting this genre.

All of the games on that list excluding one were all discounted on release. Then there is also House of the Dead on the way and if Sega listens to the cries of fans we may see additional Virtua Cop compilations.

Arcade Stick Gamesk' king of fighters

At the current time there is only one Wii arcade stick on the market which is a Hori Fighting Stick. Just recently though Arcade Renaissance broke news that NeoGeo will be releasing the NEO GEO Stick 2 for the Wii as well.

Both sticks are compatible with all games that allow use of the Wii Classic controller. As for arcade games on offer there is only a few currently on the market such as Metal Slug Anthology and Guilty Gear but later this year more are on the way. SNK Arcade Classics Volume 1 and King of Fighters Orochi Saga spring to mind.

Otherwise you can check out whats on the Wii’s Virtual Console for the time being. NeoGeo are slowing porting some of their NeoGeo fighters across. Theres already an excellent range of great shmps and a few good 2D fighters as well. It all comes down to choosing something that interests you.

Conclusion

If you are serious about arcade fighters then pick up a PS2 as almost every great fighter in existance is on the system in one form or another. As for rail shooters though the Wii is already building up a strong library of titles and its cheap to buy the accessories required to give it theat authentic arcade feel. If the Wii is all you have then know that its still the best current generation console for arcade games and a lot of be fun can be had from it.

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