Otakon 2017 — Game Room

David Cabrera
Aug 22, 2017 · 5 min read

I generally spend my downtime at a con in the game room, especially one that’s as good as Otakon’s. Even before Tokyo Attack started bringing Japanese arcade stuff across the country, Ota has had a really good sense of what should go in a game room. Most places allow competitive players to overrun the room with their favored games, which kind of shuts out everybody else. At Ota, modern hits are up front, Smash has its section as always, but there’s also a really good range of game types and a lot of retro stuff too. They clearly choose by games that folks passing by will have a good time sitting down and playing, and I respect that a lot.

A cabinet like this brings all the East Coast competitors out of hiding. I was surprised at the level of play. It wasn’t that the level was low at Otakon all these years; everyone was just hiding.

However, as a fighting game player, Tokyo Attack’s homemade Guilty Gear cabinet had me for most of my game room time. Fighting games were all over the floor, but they were explicitly casual setups on huge, laggy TVs and with console pads. That’s pretty much a no-go for hardcore players. The arcade cabinet setups evenly separated experts and newbies for their own good, and I wound up having quite a few high-level matches while I waited for events or to meet up with somebody. Honestly, when it really comes down to it, a 2P Guilty Gear cab is all I need.

Late Saturday night, when I was already quite drunk, I sauntered off to the game room with a bunch of East Coast anime FGC and we all yelled at each other while doing Taiga vs. Taiga mirror matches in Dengeki Fighter. It was the most anime FGC you could get.

But there was a lot of other stuff! Tokyo Attack brings a whole range of popular Japanese arcade cabs that Americans are pretty much not going to see unless they live near a Round 1. I of course do live near a R1, so this didn’t quite have the spark it did for me in the past. However, everybody else will want to check out all the Bemani games that they’re unlikely to ever see again. (Unfortunately I don’t seem to have a picture of any of that stuff.)

I did, however, get in a game of Super Table Flip. (It’s always broken at my arcade.) It’s an upgraded version with branding from the classic baseball manga/anime Star of the Giants, tying in with the “angry old people” theme of Super Table Flip in general. If there is one arcade game you want to try out at the anime convention, it’s probably Super Table Flip. It’s a game about middle-class frustration.

I tried Friday morning, Saturday morning, and Saturday late night. It just wasn’t happening.

The actual big shot of the game room was Gundam. Gundam: Senjou no Kizuna is a really impressive game that simulates the cockpit of the series’ titular Mobile Suits. Sit down in the “pod” and your entire field of vision is engulfed, creating VR before VR. With controls accurate to the original Gundam, you pilot a heavy, plodding MS in a 2-on-2 battle reminiscent of the old Mechwarrior games. Nothing moves, but the illusion is so strong that you feel like you are.

(You can play a very different and much less complex game on the same hardware if you ever find one of those Star Wars pods at a Dave and Buster’s or some such.)

It’s a really cool game that you can’t play anywhere outside Japan, and it’s kind of amazing that someone would try and bring over a game that requires at least four gigantic pod cabinets to play. As such, the long line to play was a consistent one-hour wait. I had completely intended to jump into a pod, but when I saw the wait I knew I didn’t want to waste a precious hour. I had played this game in Japan before, after all. (Oh ho ho.)

It’s very common to have physical gimmicks that pop onto the playfield. The CC on the right was extremely creepy and I was really hoping we could see it pop up and wave its weird jointed arms.

Speaking of things you generally do in Japan, we actually spent quite a bit of time playing pachinko. The pachinko aftermarket is pretty good: you get the machines for dirt cheap and fans of the series generally pay a pretty penny for such an unusual piece of merchandise. (Street Fighter IV and Macross F machines sold at the con.) I should know, I’m writing this in front of a Fist of the North Star slot machine.

In honor of Mr. Fukuyama, of course

Pachinko has kind of a hypnotic flow. People are mystified by all the lights and buttons, but the fact is that there’s barely anything to know: just put some balls into the feeder, turn the crank to aim them, and watch. When a ball makes it through the maze of pins into one of the holes on the machine, that means you get a spin on what is effectively a slot machine video screen in the middle. Everything else is something the game handles. You’re meant to just zone out in front of it, not make sense of the way in which the game is screwing you out of your money.

This is a 2017 photo

And finally, huge shout outs to the Touhou display, which appears to have intentionally used “period” hardware: old Pentium towers, that one set of Creative speakers, and that familiar (and good!) Logitech controller you probably remember from your Windows XP days. Love it.

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David Cabrera

Written by

Sooolar wind. Anime/games writer. Sometimes on @polygon? @Kawaiikochans is the sum of my efforts. Serious about stupid.

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