There are a few special locations dotted around the UK that still have Arcade machines (links below) and I actually do have a custom one I built and it sits in the corner of my living room (of course) and I also made a PICADE too (as well as having a load of Retro machines that I can use) - SEE BELOW.
But, if you don't want to:
a) go outside
b) be near other people
c) waste time travelling
d) all of the above
Then you could just access these websites from your web-browser and/or mobile phone:
https://www.tripletsandus.com/play-classic-80s-arcade-games/
1942
or
https://www.free80sarcade.com/
Defender
Real physical Arcades:
BRISTOL - https://fourquarters.bar/location/arcade-gaming-bar-in-bristol/
BRISTOL - https://www.historyofvideogames.co.uk/
https://marketplace.futureartists.net/product/history-of-video-games-replay-social-gaming-lounge-generation-games-exhibition/
- however, it now has a Clean Air Thing, so you have to pay to go into the City... even more reason to not travel anywhere
STROUD - https://rmcretro.store/visit/
- confession, this is on my "to do" list, I'll mix it in with a visit to the Retro-ManCave museum too
Will add more, when I look further afield...as I say, I can just stay at home :-D
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My Big Cabinet:
It's just an RPi4 running RetroPie along with Emulation Station
Foolishly(?) I purchased a 256GB SD-Card for it to hold all the games... and then I realised I can connect to the SMB:Share on the 4TB HDD, so no need to copy all of them over, so when it boots it re-scans the network folder and adds any new games or consoles that I've added to since last time.
Here's the 20,000 games that I've added in ref. to the Atari 800 XL - I don't think that is right, there were about 145 original games - at the time the photo was taken, I ws actually copying 90,000 files onto the SMB:Share into the Atari800 folder, containing loads of other files about the machine.
As you can see though, these figures are correct, I've got loads of the original MAME Arcade games that play really well on this size screen and hardware. The Amstrad CPC stuff is again, purely retro-memories from historic times when I collected pretty much everything about the old Amstrad (as I had on when I was kid back in 1985-ish)...spent a small fortune, filled up an entire room on everything I could get my hands-on... and then one day in 2011 decided (foolishly!) to sell the entire lot for about £700. I don't even want to think about how much that lot would be worth today, but it would be close to adding an extra "0"(zero) on the end of that figure! Hey-ho......
I never knew this until now, but if I press the [COIN] button it does a random pick of a game and shows the video sequence of it playing - that is awesome! After pressing it about 5 times, look what showed up "Mr.Do!"... ah, the classic! I do have that in the MAME version (graphics are awesome), so I was curious and it turns out this is the ColecoVision version, still had that same music though!
My Little Cabinet:
Oops! It seems it has been a while since booting this one up - also I'm being cheeky and using a 5v USB connected to the laptop, hence the yellow "low-voltage" dagger in top right of the screen. If I recall correctly, this is running an RPi3 and is quite a capable little machine:
Normally it sits on top of those PS1 pile of games there... in full view, but out of sight.
...and if I turn my head to the left a bit more - I see ONE of the "other" retro-zone areas - you'll need a good zoom in to see what is hiding over there!
Back to the PiCade.... it boots up into EmulationStation - but I must have done some Theme settings with this one in the past - I actually quite like that layout, will have to look into it a bit more and see if I can replicate it on the Big Arcade machine config.
Of course, I could not resist a quick firing up of XEVIOUS (Along with "Mr.Do!", this is one of my child-hood favs), ah that music.....
and the odd old Atari 800 XL:
I never owned one of these, as I said, I had an Amstrad CPC464 - but these were out around the same era, or they were just dying off, they were a 1979-1984-ish era micro-computer and my Amstrad was a 1984-1988-era - I'm sure a wikipedia search would get the details. anyway, being Atari, they evolved from Arcade machines, so it is still kind of relevant!
I found 3 x Atari 800 XL machines in my loft (yes, I bought them and put them there - it wasn't the magic pixie elves being generous). I only recently however plugged them in and got them working. I also made a USB cable to emulate a disk drive...
That is an Atari 800 XL hooked up to the most awesome TV monitor that you could ever find (I now have 2 of them!), they have EVERY connector available (okay, apart from HDMI, but who needs that with old kit?) and they have sound too - absolutely awesome find and not hugely expensive, about £25 if I recall, from a charity shop; other one was from eBay, similar price - but about 5years time difference. Highly recommend them for retro-kit.
On the screen is a game called VANGUARD. Never played it / heard of it before, but liked the name.
You'll notice the modern laptop off to the right... yep, that is plugged into the Atari 800 XL.
Using this little app, you can add .ATR files to the disk drive and boot up the Atari 800 XL and it thinks it is booting from a real disk drive.
Well, I couldn't resist! It does look a little under-whelming from the loading screen.
Pressing [Start], oh there it is! Hang-on! The music is slightly different, maybe Atari didn't pay for the copyright or something? It still plays awesome though - and yes, I think I picked for the auto-fire to happen, or maybe I didn't? either way... it's still pretty impressive for an 1984 game!
Now, let me put this phone down and play it properly with two hands....
