Beachin' amusement

There are two dedicated video arcades left in the Sydney CBD - the Galaxy World on George St and the G/W on the top floor of Chinatown's Market City. They're dominated by rhythm games (dancing, playing instruments), linked driving games, linked beat-'em-ups, gun games, prize-ticket games and "print club" machines for making those photo-sticker thingies.

The latest amusement at both venues, as I discovered today, is Sega's evocatively titled "Let's Go Beach: Lost On the Island Of Spice". It's a two-player gun game with typically stunning graphics but several differences -

* The cabinet's shaped like a gaudy jeep that wants to be a Filipino jeepney when it grows up (stickybeaks like me have to peer through the rear windscreen)
* Main characters Ben and Norah aren't wise-crackin' cops or soldiers, they're hapless holiday-makers in funky threads
* The object is refreshingly simple - shoot^ recognisable nasties, from glowing leeches to giant insects a la Peter Jackson's "King Kong" to leaping piranha, AND
* It's clearly been designed to attract couples. Not only are there opportunities to save each other throughout the story, the end sequence includes a "compatibility rating" (percentage), plus a cheeky comment such as, "Why are you together?"

"Let's Go Beach" is the first arcade machine in ages that's made me think: "Hey, that looks like fun!" Which makes a nice change from, "You want me to learn how many moves?" or "Sorry, I only dance like a fool when I'm in poorly lit nightclubs...and very, very drunk."


^One pair of players I watched lost their guns after unsuccessfully negotiating a waterfall and had to resort to wielding oars as weapons.