Retro Weird arcade hardware.

[Yzz]

In the CRT enthusiast bubble there has been an obsession over widescreen displays in the last years, most notably John Carmack's famous monitor:

The lack of PC montiors similar to the one above has resulted in these achieving relic status among enthusiasts, however there was a relatively common piece of hardware that surpassed in width even the widest desktop monitors: the display in Taito's Darius cabinet

The Darius series has worn its insanely wide displays as some sort of badge of honor, the latest being Darius Burst in 2010 (this appears to be an LCD monitor though).

Darius widescreen cabinets can seem kinda exotic to some people, specially those who aren't familiar with Japan's arcade centers, however these are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to weird arcade hardware.

A weirder example I can think of is Street Fighter's pressure sensitive buttons. Supposedly Capcom made a version of Street Fighter I where the strength of your kicks / punches would be determined by how hard you press their respective buttons. This obviously wasn't very fun to play as the six button layout we all know and love.

What are other examples you know of weird arcade machines? And most importantly, have you ever come across to any of these strange pieces of hardware?

 

[robertman2]

Castlevania had a light gun game with a whip controller instead of a gun

 

[Clov]

The amazing (and sadly closed) arcade Kawasaki Warehouse used to have one of those Street Fighter 1 machines! The monitor was in terrible shape and the buttons barely worked.

Castlevania had a light gun game with a whip controller instead of a gun

This reminds me of the light gun for Luigi's Mansion Arcade! Vacuum shaped with some really intense rumble.

 

[freedomseekr]

I've never come across any arcade machines here (Germany banned arcade video games, so the scene never took off for us), so my memories of arcade machines are mostly constrained to ones I've seen on trips to other countries.

That said, there is one arcade machine that sticks out to me that I've actually played:

Prop Cycle by Namco. Yes, that is indeed a stationary bicycle driving a video game. And the bicycle in the game flies! The game is played by pedalling to speed up or slow down your "Lapperopter" and the handlebars take care of steering (leaning like you'd do on a real bike or some motorcycle racing games like MotoGP does nothing). I don't remember exactly where I played it other than a) it was during a trip to the USA and b) it might've been in some sort of museum, since playing was actually free of charge.

Funnily enough, there are some indoor trainers that can be hooked up to a TV to add visual stimulation to bike home training, but I don't recall any arcade game using this sort of a system ever again.

Also The Idolm@ster keeps popping up in my brain, but idk if the machine itself is anything noteworthy and it's more about the game itself in this case.

 

[Deleted member 2258]

I think the arcade cabinets that utilize mirrors are really cool. Asteroids Deluxe and the 6-player X-Men come to mind.

 

[Zanreo]

And let's not forgot Cho Chabudai Gaeshi, the tableflip game:

I've gotten to play it several times (a place near me got it recently too) and it's pretty fun!

And of course, there's tons of rhythm games with unique controls. Taiko no Tatsujin with its big drum, maimai the washing-machine shaped touchscreen game, jubeat with 16 buttons in a grid... just to mention a few.

 

[Krvavi Abadas]

(this one is particularly well-known, but i was surprised to see it not posted yet.)
Monkey Ball famously uses a banana as a controller, rather than the traditional joystick.

---

Lucky & Wild was a unique combination of a driving game mixed with a lightgun shooter, one player drives (and has a spare handgun) while the other shoots targets.

---

Cube Quest, while not looking particularly special outside. uses a unique combination of raster graphics hardware overlaid on top of a Laserdisc video.


with it's slightly unsettling audio and bizzare visuals, it likely was a major source of inspiration for the Polybius urban legend.

 

[Mer.Saloon]

---

Lucky & Wild was a unique combination of a driving game mixed with a lightgun shooter, one player drives (and has a spare handgun) while the other shoots targets.

---

Phew. Lucky and Wild. I remember playing that at my local Chuck E. Cheese, trying desperately to manage both the shooting and driving since I had no friends.