You Hear a Train Approaching
SUPER REAL SOUND SYSTEM. A.K.A. "a speaker". But what a speaker…
Like the shooter Darius, which boasts Taito's "Bodysonic" system, classic commute-em-up Densha de GO! has a seat that shakes to low frequencies. It goes thu-thump with the bumpy bits in the track!
Even though it’s an almost surreally boring public transport simulator, Densha de GO! is a must-play arcade classic.
The plastic cabinet was exuberant bombast last millennium, but it looks quaint against the sit-in, spherical mecha cockpits and slick, wall-to-wall horse-betting terminals of 2018.
Nonetheless, once you get into its world, with an industrial dashboard of gauges and controls, an authentic seat and footpedal and railway sounds you can feel, it’s 1996 again and 2018 doesn’t matter.
I don’t know how many different ways I can write this: When you visit Tokyo, get down to Taito Hey in Akihabara. It’s the best arcade.
Photographer and writer covering Tokyo arcade life – the videogames, the metropolis and the people
