Alright, I know the title seems like one of those DS or Wii games we make fun of on Drunken Gamers Radio every week, but you’d be wrong. While looking around the arcade and discovering certain long lost joys, I stumbled on this crazy game.

Brought out by Innovation Concepts in Entertainment, or ICE for short, this is a simple redemption game with a look and feel that really draws in retro sci-fi junkies like myself. Which seems to be this companies thing. Simple redemption games with a little more style than the average. While I’m not a big player of these redemption sytle games, I can get behind a company that wants to up the ante in terms of style. You can check out the ICE website here and peruse their line of products. I’m sure you’ll recognize their money maker, the Deal or No Deal machine. Be warned, the website has a loud advertisement on the front end, so hit hit the mute button before you venture over there.

As far as Rock n’ Moon Rally goes, the whole thing has this neat 1950′s flying-saucer-movie vibe to it with very stylized aliens, a background out of a comic and sound effects out of War of the Worlds. The premise is very simple: two players control their bike riding alien on the moon. The faster the players spin the roller ball, the faster their alien bikes around the track. The winner gets the glory, a victory lap and some tickets.

I guess ICE also had a much larger, four player version of this game called Spacey Racers, so if you really want to get your retro redemption thing on, you can try and track one of these bad boys down. While not being a game I would normally stick any tokens into, Rock n’ Moon Rally’s ultra retro vibe really caught my eye and I had to try it out. It’s fun, simple and really fun to look at in motion and (if nothing else) a nice artistic addition to an arcade full of crap.

I’m not sure if the name Sea Wolf rings a bell for any of you but this was one of those games I remember playing in the arcades in the 1980′s and loving. Midway put out the original Sea Wolf in 1976 for arcades and it stood out for a couple of reasons. The biggest reason was that the game required that you look into an actual periscope to play it. When you looked into it, you saw an expanse of “ocean” in front of you and enemy ships would move in the background. Your goal, as you can imagine, was to line up the ships and push the red “torpedo” button on your periscope handle and try and sink the enemy fleet.

What was even cooler about the 1976 version was what it was related to. That would be it’s older brother, a 1970′s machine called Sea Devil. It played about the same but rather than being a true “videogame”, as was Sea Wolf, it was one of those old school mechanical games. In Sea Devil, there were actual ship cut outs that traveled on a track inside the cabinet. When you fired your torpedoes, a strip of flashing lights would show the missiles path and when you hit the ship it flipped over. My uncle had one of these games, which I believe was actually another Midway mechanical periscope game called Sea Raider, in his basement and I thought it was one of the coolest games around. It’s really a cool thing, being all mechanical in nature and as such has a very unique quality to the sounds and feel of the game. If you can track one down to play, I highly recommend it.

Well, looks like all things old are new again. Gleefully, on my trip to a local arcade, I stumbled upon the next generation of Sea Wolf. Brought out by a company named Coastal Amusements, this is basically the same game, only a little more “digital.” It has more of a 3D look to it and sadly, the periscope is gone. The idea remains the same, however, in that you line up your torpedoes and try to sink ships. This next gen Sea Wolf also qualifies as one of those “redemption” arcade games. Meaning that, depending on how well you score, you get a number of tickets as a reward. You know, so you can go get that plastic spider ring you’ve been so fond of.

While not being the greatest videogame in the world, I’m actually pretty happy that we’re seeing Sea Wolf in the arcades again. Maybe the next version will bring back the periscope.

While in the midst of a family day at the Mall of America, I took a break from the Farris Wheel and the Kiddie Cars to check out the arcade. Usually I despise this arcade, which is found in the midst of the mall’s amusement park, as it shares more in common with the roller coasters than with Pac-Man and there isn’t a pinball machine in sight.

As I walked in, to my surprise, I discovered that a sequel to one of my favorite late 80′s arcade games had been made. After Burner Climax is a sequel to the 1987 SEGA classic, After Burner. Popular for it’s Top Gun style F-14 Tomcat and simple “shoot down everything from the sky” gameplay, it sucked a lot of quarters out of my pocket as a kid. Climax takes the formula and adds niftier graphics and a new “Climax Mode” to the game.

Sounds dirty.
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