Quick Links
Games
>Download Arcade, Retro and Computer Games
Background
News
|
Tekken: Blood Vengeance, Fruits Basket Collection, Gantz: Perfect Answer Released Monday 05 Feb 2012 Monday February 6 sees the release of the CGI film Tekken: Blood Vengeance by Kaze through Manga, rated 12, with an RRP of £15.99. The film is based on the Tekken fighting videogame series. Digital Frontier, the studio responsible for opening movie footage in the Tekken 5 and Tekken 6 games as well as handling animation production in the Appleseed and Resident Evil: Degeneration films, produced the new film with director Yōichi Mōri. MVM is re-releasing the 26-part romantic shapeshifter series Fruits Basket as a Complete Collection. In the story, Tohru, an orphaned girl, gets invited to live in the house of her classmate, the handsome boy Sohma, and his cousins. However, these young men and some of their relatives are cursed; if they are hugged by the opposite gender, they transform into animals of the Chinese Zodiac. Based on the manga by Natsuki Takaya, the series was originally broadcast in Japan in 2001. The collected edition is rated PG, with an RRP of £29.99. Finally, Manga is releasing Gantz: Perfect Answer, the second of two live-action films based on Hiroya Oku's Gantz manga. In the story, people are resurrected to take on violent missions under the instructions of a mysterious black orb known as Gantz. The second film involves a world-weary investigator (Takayuki Yamada), a female actress (Ayumi Ito) and an army of humanoid aliens out for revenge on the Gantz fighters. Gantz: Perfect Answer is being released in two editions: an individual DVD, and a Double Pack which also includes the first live-action Gantz. Football Manager 2012 Out Now 21st October 2011 LONDON (21st October, 2011) - Sports Interactive and SEGA Europe Ltd. have today released the fan favourite management game, Football Manager 2012. Sporting over 800 new features, Football Manager 2012 also includes all the changes to the rules of the beautiful game and all the updated statistics and transfers in over 50 playable leagues. To top it off the Football Manager 2012 Match Engine is now available in full 3D, giving fans the added realism to their match experience. To watch matches in full 3D all you need is a 3D capable NVIDIA graphics card and 3D Vision certified monitor or 3D TV with NVIDIA 3DTV Play. For more information please visit uk.geforce.com. Phil Eisler, 3D Vision General Manager at NVIDIA said "3D Vision adds an extra level of immersion and excitement to Football Manager 2012. Using NVIDIA's stereoscopic 3D technology, gamers will truly get the feeling of being pitch-side as their team goes for greatness! This is a great example of a developer using 3D to genuinely enhance the gameplay experience." Football Manager 2012 for PC and Mac was developed by London based award winning developer Sports Interactive, and is available now at retailers and via digital distributors. The PSP version, Football Manager Handheld 2012, will be released on the 28th of October 2011, with the iOS version for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch coming soon. 3D video recording coming to Nintendo 3DS this November and new details on Mario Kart 7! 21st October 2011 Nintendo 3DS owners will soon be able to capture 3D video, play new puzzles in StreetPass Mii Plaza and download a range of new Nintendo 3DS games and other engaging content from the likes of Red Bull, Eurosport and Aardman Animations. 3D Video Capture The Nintendo 3DS system update at the end of November gives Nintendo 3DS owners access to a range of new features and enhancements. These include 3D video capture, which will let users record up to 10 minutes of 3D video and enable people to create their own 3D stop-motion animation videos. The update will also add new puzzles to Puzzle Swap in StreetPass Mii Plaza and a new dungeon to StreetPass Quest. Other features will be announced in the future. Sonic Generations™ continues to celebrate Sonic’s 20th anniversary with Demo 2! 17th October 2011 LONDON & SAN FRANCISCO (October 17, 2011) - SEGA® Europe Ltd. & SEGA® America, Inc., today confirmed that a second demo is being released prior to the launch of the highly anticipated Sonic Generations™ game for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system. The first demo, released on June 23rd 2011 - the anniversary of Sonic’s 20th year - allowed fans to play as Classic Sonic only. Now the second demo means fans can finally play as Modern Sonic - as well as Classic Sonic again - in the stunning environments of the iconic Green Hill level from Sonic Generations™. Demo 2 for the game will be available via XBLA and PSN on 19th October for Europe. |
Arcade Games
CPS3 - Capcom Play System 3
CPS3 stands for Capcom Play System 3. CPS3 Roms are a software representation of PCB used in arcades. The board was released in arcades for 1997. Was often used, overseas, in un-official cabinets as it only accomadated several games. Street Fighter 3, Warzard and JoJo's bizzarre adventure are the main CPS3 titles.
Mame - Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator
MAME stands for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator. When used in conjunction with images of the original arcade game's ROM and disk data, MAME attempts to reproduce that game as faithfully as possible on a more modern general-purpose computer. MAME can currently emulate several thousand different classic arcade video games from the late 1970s through the modern era.
SEGA Model 2
The SEGA Model 2 board was used in different types of SEGA coin-ops. From simulators like SEGA Rally and Daytona USA to Stand alone and deluxe cabinets such as Virtua Fighter 2. The board is designed for the 3D SEGA games that were around arcades from 1995 to 1997, before the release of Model 3 / Naomi.
ULTRA 64
Killer Instinct was released in arcades in 1994 and followed by Killer Instinct II in 1996. Both games were developed by Rare, a division of Nintendo. Rare are also famous for Golden Eye and Pefect Dark, games released on Nintendo games consoles.
Emulators
Click Here to Proceed to Emulators section
Computer Games
Windows PC
Download Games for Windows PC
|
Early games used interactive electronic devices with various display formats. The earliest example is from 1947—a "Cathode ray tube Amusement Device" was filed for a patent on January 25, 1947, by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann, and issued on December 14, 1948, as U.S. Patent 2455992. Inspired by radar display tech, it consisted of an analog device that allowed a user to control a vector-drawn dot on the screen to simulate a missile being fired at targets, which were drawings fixed to the screen. Other early examples include: The NIMROD computer at the 1951 Festival of Britain OXO a tic-tac-toe Computer game by Alexander S. Douglas for the EDSAC in 1952 Tennis for Two, an interactive game engineered by William Higinbotham in 1958 Spacewar!, written by MIT students Martin Graetz, Steve Russell, and Wayne Wiitanen's on a DEC PDP-1 computer in 1961. Each game used different means of display: NIMROD used a panel of lights to play the game of Nim, OXO used a graphical display to play tic-tac-toe Tennis for Two used an oscilloscope to display a side view of a tennis court, and Spacewar! used the DEC PDP-1's vector display to have two spaceships battle each other. In 1971, Computer Space, created by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, was the first commercially sold, coin-operated video game. It used a black-and-white television for its display, and the computer system was made of 74 series TTL chips. The game was featured in the 1973 science fiction film Soylent Green. Computer Space was followed in 1972 by the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home console. Modeled after a late 1960s prototype console developed by Ralph H. Baer called the "Brown Box", it also used a standard television. These were followed by two versions of Atari's Pong; an arcade version in 1972 and a home version in 1975 that dramatically increased video game popularity. The commercial success of Pong led numerous other companies to develop Pong clones and their own systems, spawning the video game industry. Arcade Games The first popular "arcade games" were early amusement park midway games such as shooting galleries, ball toss games, and the earliest coin-operated machines, such as those that claim to tell a person their fortune or played mechanical music. The old midways of 1920s-era amusement parks (such as Coney Island in New York) provided the inspiration and atmosphere of later arcade games. In the 1930s, the earliest coin-operated pinball machines were made. These early amusement devices were distinct from their later electronic cousins in that they were made of wood, did not have plungers or lit-up bonus surfaces on the playing field, and used mechanical instead of electronic scoring readouts. By around 1977, most pinball machines in production switched to using solid state electronics for both operation and scoring. Electro-mechanical games In 1966, Sega introduced an early electro-mechanical arcade game called Periscope. It was an early submarine simulator and light gun shooter, which used lights and plastic waves to simulate sinking ships from a submarine. It became a worldwide success in Japan, Europe, and North America, where it was the first arcade game to cost a quarter per play, which would remain the standard price for arcade games for many years to come. In 1967, Taito released an early electro-mechanical arcade game of their own, Crown Soccer Special, a two-player sports game that simulated association football, using various electronic components, including electronic versions of pinball flippers. Sega later produced gun games which resemble first-person shooter video games, but were in fact electro-mechanical games that used rear image projection in a manner similar to the ancient zoetrope to produce moving animations on a screen. The first of these was the light gun game Duck Hunt, which Sega released in 1969; it featured animated moving targets on a screen, printed out the player's score on a ticket, and had sound effects that were volume controllable. That same year, Sega released an early electro-mechanical arcade racing game Grand Prix, which had a first-person view, electronic sound, a dashboard with a racing wheel and accelerator, and a forward-scrolling road projected on a screen. Another Sega release that year was Missile, a shooter and vehicle combat simulation that featured electronic sound and a moving film strip to represent the targets on a projection screen. It was also the earliest known arcade game to feature a joystick with a fire button, which was used as part of an early dual-control scheme, where two directional buttons are used to move the player's tank and a two-way joystick is used to shoot and steer the missile onto oncoming planes displayed on the screen; when a plane is hit, an explosion is animated on screen along with an explosion sound. In 1970, the game was released in North America as S.A.M.I. by Midway. That same year, Sega released Jet Rocket, a combat flight simulator featuring cockpit controls that could move the player aircraft around a landscape displayed on a screen and shoot missiles onto targets that explode when hit. Throughout the 1970s, electro-mechanical arcade games were gradually replaced by electronic video games, following the release of Pong in 1972. In 1972, Sega released their final electro-mechanical game Killer Shark, a first-person light gun shooter known for appearing in the 1975 film Jaws. In 1974, Nintendo released Wild Gunman, a light gun shooter that used full-motion video projection from 16 mm film to display live-action cowboy opponents on the screen. One of the last successful electro-mechanical arcade games was F-1, a racing game developed by Namco and distributed by Atari in 1976; the game was shown in the films Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Midnight Madness (1980), as was Sega's Jet Rocket in the latter film. The 1978 video game Space Invaders, however, dealt a yet more powerful blow to the popularity of electro-mechanical games. Arcade video games In 1971, students at Stanford University set up the Galaxy Game, a coin-operated version of the Spacewar computer game. This is the earliest known instance of a coin-operated video game. Later in the same year, Nolan Bushnell created the first mass-manufactured such game, Computer Space, for Nutting Associates. In 1972, Atari was formed by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. Atari essentially created the coin-operated video game industry with the game Pong, the smash hit electronic ping pong video game. Pong proved to be popular, but imitators helped keep Atari from dominating the fledgling coin-operated video game market. Taito's Space Invaders in 1978 proved to be an even greater success, and is now regarded as the first blockbuster arcade video game. Video game arcades sprang up in shopping malls, and small "corner arcades" appeared in restaurants, grocery stores, bars and movie theaters all over the United States, Japan and other countries during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Space Invaders (1978), Galaxian (1979), Pac-Man (1980), Battlezone (1980) and Donkey Kong (1981) were especially popular. During the late 1970s and 1980s, chains such as Chuck E. Cheese's, Ground Round, Dave and Busters, and Gatti's Pizza combined the traditional restaurant and/or bar environment with arcades. By the late-1980s, the arcade video game craze was beginning to fade due to advances in home video game console technology. Arcade video games experienced a resurgence with the advent of two-player fighting games following the success of Street Fighter II (1991) by Capcom, leading to many more successful arcade fighting games such as Mortal Kombat (1992) by Midway Games, Fatal Fury: King of Fighters (1992) by SNK, Killer Instinct (1994) by Rare, and The King of Fighters (1994-2005) by SNK. However by 1996, home video game consoles and computers with 3D accelerator cards had reached technological parity with arcade equipment-arcade games had always been based on commodity technology, but their advantage over previous generations of home system was in their ability to customize and use the latest graphics and sound chips, much as PC games of today do. Declines in arcade sales volume meant that this approach was no longer cost-effective. Furthermore, by the late 1990s and early 2000s, networked gaming via console and computers across the Internet had also appeared, replacing the venue of head to head competition and social atmosphere once provided solely by arcades. The arcades also lost their status as the forefront of new game releases. Given the choice between playing a game at an arcade three or four times (perhaps 15 minutes of play for a typical arcade game), and renting, at about the same price, exactly the same game-for a video game console-the console was the clear winner. Fighting games were the most attractive feature for arcades, since they offered the prospect of face-to-face competition and tournaments, which correspondingly led players to practice more (and spend more money in the arcade), but they could not support the business all by themselves. Recent 20th anniversary arcade machine, combining two classic video games. To remain viable, arcades added other elements to complement the video games such as redemption games, merchandisers, and food service. Referred to as "fun centers" or "family fun centers", some of the longstanding chains such as Chuck E. Cheese's and Gatti's Pizza ("GattiTowns") also changed to this format. Many old video game arcades have long since closed, and classic coin-operated games have become largely the province of dedicated hobbyists. Today's arcades have found a niche in games that use special controllers largely inaccessible to home users. An alternative interpretation (one that includes fighting games, which continue to thrive and require no special controller) is that the arcade game is now a more socially-oriented hangout, with games that focus on an individual's performance, rather than the game's content, as the primary form of novelty. Examples of today's popular genres are rhythm games such as Dance Dance Revolution (1998) and DrumMania (1999), and rail shooters such as Virtua Cop (1994), Time Crisis and House of the Dead (1996). |
HOME | ABOUT | CONTACT | POLICY | HELP | HISTORY | NEWS | TOP 10 | GAMES | SOFTWARE | VIDEOS | SCREENSAVERS | WALLPAPERS | EMOTICONS | WHAT'S NEW