MAME

It's difficult to give a critical analysis of MAME without falling back on perplexing intangibilities like taste and intuition. After all, the game that originally struck to the heart of you, in my case Battlezone, is most likely in there somewhere just waiting to run its silicon fingers up and down your spine once more. However, despite the inevitable nostalgia kick here are the reasons, no, the FACTS why I love MAME.

At present (Release .81) MAME supports 2728 unique games. Now, my fantasy arcade would ideally like to have one of each of these games in their own, preferably dedicated, cabinet. I know what you're thinking but all that Jamma board swapping is a right pain, and anyway, all these games would be in lovely long back-to-back rows, so opening them up to change the PCB isn't going to be practical. Here, says our fantasy, I’ll have the Williams shrine – Defender, Robotron, Stargate, Joust, Blaster, maybe even Bubbles and Vanguard. Next to that I’ll have Pac Man, Donkey Kong, Space Invaders, Galaxian, Bezerk, Moon Cresta, R Type, Street Fighter 2, House of the Dead, Q*Bert, Rampage… The list goes on (and on) as I keep remembering games to add to the list. It’ll be fantastic.

Delivery for Mr Fuseball. Where do you want the Stargate mate?

But let’s do the maths.

The footprint of the average upright game cabinet is approximately 30"x24" (76cm x 64cm) On top of this you would need a further 20" of depth to comfortably stand in whilst playing it, so each game effectively takes up 50"x24" of floor space or 8.3 (recurring but I'll let that go for the moment) square feet. Multiply that by the number of games and you would require at least 22,642 square feet to house them all. Perhaps a sizeable office building would do. Or Wembley Stadium. And the floor had better be reinforced as well. This lot would weigh somewhere in the region of 350 metric tons, and that's a pretty conservative, specialist-cabinet-free estimate. Expect to have to pay a chiropractor too. Odds on you'll do your back in moving all these cabinets about.

Now a lot of these games are getting rather unreliable. It would be a safe bet to assume that ten-to-twenty percent of the games will have Out of Order signs hanging on them, so on top of the property lease and utility bills (these things guzzle electricity like it's going out of fashion), you'll have to pay a small army of technicians to work around the clock to ensure that whichever game you want to play will be working when you need it... and they're praying you don't like vectors. Oh yeah, and that I, Robot board? It's got bit-rot and it'll never work quite right again. Just thought you should know.

Get used to this view…

And you’ll need to be fit – fancy a quick game of Donkey Kong? That’s in Aisle C, Row 64, should take you about five minutes to get there at a good fast walking pace. Off you go. Q*Bert? Ah, that’s a bit of a trek I’m afraid – Aisle F, Row 32. Back up to Commando (might as well stop and have a quick game as you walk past eh?), turn right and then right again next to Pac Man. Can’t miss it, it’s right next to Qix – if you see Quantum then you’ve gone too far. Should take you about 15 minutes – I’ll see you there…

Okay, this is a ridiculous example, but even a moderate sized arcade cab collection takes up an inordinate amount of space. You’d need a large barn or similar sized space just to store the 20 most popular machines – and even by doubling up using multigame hacks for Williams, Tempest, Pac Man and Galaxian, you’re going to miss some real classics. And even the fantastic Retrokade falls about two and a half thousand machines short of arcade perfection.

The mighty Retrokade – our collective favourite place

So, my giant arcade dream is still there when I close my eyes, but a 2-bedroom flat in West London is not the place to act out this particular fantasy. Even if I whittled the list down to games that I actually play in MAME they'd be spilling out onto the street and I'd be minus a place to sleep and inevitably a girlfriend. As it is, MAME was my salvation - a way of keeping my arcade collecting hobby from spiralling out of control and allow coin-op gaming and soft furnishings to live in harmony. As for the legality of it all... well, I must have paid hundreds if not thousands over the years for third-rate crippled and stunted home versions of so many of these games (Christ knows how much on Defender alone) that I feel they owe me one.

That said - if anyone sees a Quantum going cheap (less than £1500) I'm having it.

FUSEBALL, April 2004.

Comments.