As everyone knows the arcades were great. As a dribbling 13 year old you could stare for hours at the big boys playing really cool games. Mach 3 was once such a game. It was the best thing ever.
It ran real video footage of a plane flying down canyons, over a dam and past Richbourgh power station (it might have been Didcot). A jet fighter was superimposed on top that you could control and shoot down other superimposed fighters.
There was a second stage that you had to pay more money to play where you viewed the action from above. I never played that bit. It looked boring. Unfortunately Mach3 broke. Well the one in Margate did anyway, it was (probably) taken away by arcade dustmen and buried in concrete to make a motorway bridge. Sadly there was never a home version of it. The closest there ever was, er.. was Tomcat Alley on the MegaCD which coincidentaly belongs buried in concrete to make a motorway bridge. Maybe one with a Skaven head spray painted on it. Thanks to the world wide interweb you can at least download and watch the video footage. I have found out in lieu of not actually being able to play it you can hold a toy F14 in front of the monitor playing the footage and pretend to shoot down the toy Mig21 in your other hand. Buy more toy planes to get extra levels and use a pocket calculator to keep score. Brilliant!
I rember playing this game, It was really scaring putting your money in, as you didnt want to waste your precious lives too quickly. A real adrenaline rush, it was the closest thing to flying a VCR I will ever experience.
ReplyDeleteBetamax has a better turning circle.
ReplyDeleteMan I remember this! It was fantastic! The closest thing you could get to flying Firefox (aside from the actual Firefox arcade machine obviously which wasn't very good as you didn't have to think in Russian to make it fly)
ReplyDeleteStarkers!