Chicago Spring Break and Galloping Ghost

During our lives it is easy to become overwhelmed with everything around you. Work gets hectic, responsibilities mount up, you are constantly pulled in directions that misalign your priorities. In the corporate world you see leadership conferences and retreats set to rebuild your focus and peer relationships. You see people going on extravagant locations to find center. In some extremes you see the ayahuasca adventures to escape reality itself.

For me, I have my own happy place to escape to: The Chicago Arcade scene.

Last weekend I had a fantastic getaway to see a couple of great concerts in the city (Dream Theater one day and Vola on the next), but while I was there, I spent a day walking around the city and hitting my standard haunts of record stores, book stores, and coffee shops. Along the way I finally was able to hit up Emporium Arcade Bar.

Last year I was near the Emporium and somehow just missed it. Thankfully I was able to hit it up and while it wasn't huge, it was fantastic. The whole ambiance was on point, from the music to the murals. I had no idea that this was part of the same "chain" that included Logan's Arcade, which has been one of my most visited Chicago attractions for years, if only because I have followed their Street Fighter 3 scene for a long time. While neither establishment are the easy to play "free play" style, the Emporium has actual branded tokens which I'm a massive mark for (and don't tell them that I kept a few for my collection). 

With it being a Sunday afternoon, the arcade was fairly empty, but that just meant there was no jockeying for machine position and also meant I could casually push buttons on their Marvel vs Capcom 2 machine without being crushed into dust. Add in some fantastic House of the Dead play, ski ball (the best physical arcade style game ever), getting smoked in some weirdly slanted air hockey machine, and their killer Twilight Zone pinball machine ensured that my time spent was greatly satisfying.

However, on my way back out of time, I went to the fabled world...that ultimately may be my most favorite and happy place: Galloping Ghost.

Don't get me wrong, I love all arcades. I love the CiderCades and Logans of the world. But the sheer quantity and quality of Galloping’s setup is absolutely absurd. It's room after room after room of things that you might have seen, might have heard emulated, and never new existed from one machine to the next. The fact that it's a pass and not token based means you can touch all of the buttons you have time for (which is NEVER enough) and you can also play all those terrible quarter munchers that you loved as a kid but could never financially afford to finish. Someday I'll get to take weekend to only visit this shrine, but until then I'll take what I can get. Here are my highlights for this visit: 

Primal Rage 2: First off, I had heard Primal Rage 2 was up and running. This is a game that was never fully released and is a bit of a legend. But Galloping has one. I wish I understood it more. But the fact that it exists and is playable is mind boggling especially if you have nostalgia for what is undoubtedly not the best to play but was a wild ride that is the original game.

Cannon Spike: I remember seeing a Dreamcast copy of this at a secondhand store in Kansas of all places maybe 15 years ago. I didn't have a Dreamcast when it was relevant but even if I did, I don't know that this would have been in my radar other than how weird it was that it existed like those Mortal Kombat spinoffs. Basically, you play as Cammy from Street Fighter which is interesting considering she's never been the cover star, but I assume this is because they couldn't come up with a good reason to put Ryu on Rollerblades. That's right. You can play as Cammy, on Rollerblades, in a weird twin stick shooter. It sounds bizarre but it was a fun ride and I'll definitely look for a copy soon.

Victory Road: There are a ton of these style of games I've never been able to play properly. If you aren’t familiar, you have a joystick that also rotates your character into different angles to shoot, so you move and shoot on the same stick. Nowadays games would have movement on the left of your controller and aiming on the right (and I've played arcades that also do this) but it's incredibly rare to be have an authentic arcade experience with these now. What's wild is I actually ordered a Thunderstick Studios rotating joystick (there was a sale...) the week before I went after seeing a ton of reviews and I'm fairly certain some of the arcades there were either using this stick or Thunderstick makes them to look the same. I should be able to confirm this with pictures I've taken once my setup gets here (and I'm sure I'll do a video on this once I get it together). 

DariusBurst: There's a wall of these at Galloping but they have the massive (Chronicle Saviours) 4 player/4 continuous screen setup as well. The game is amazing and it's almost overwhelming how great the operatic soundtrack hits all around you as you navigate your ship.

Street Fighter The Movie The Game: Regardless of this games quality, I will play it every single time. I remember reading a game magazine while at a grocery store with my mom that taught me how charge characters work. I own the PSX version. It's bad. But the digitized movie version, and whoever they got to dress up like Akuma for no reason, is a gem of an experience. 

I could go on for days, but needless to say I've bought a few more shmups this week and have a list of things I need to look into more in the very near future. I've included a good chunk of pictures of my other honorable mentions (or at least honorable art) so let me know if you see anything interesting!