10 SEGA ARCADE MACHINES YOU WON'T HAVE HEARD OF

Sega has been around in one form or another since the 1940s, but the modern version of the company properly began in the 1960s, when it began releasing electro-mechanical arcade games.

Indeed, over subsequent decades Sega became a true pioneer in arcade gaming, releasing the first ever stereoscopic 3D game (SubRoc 3D), the first arcade game on Laserdic (Astron Belt), the first game with isometric graphics (Zaxxon), and the first game to feature a live nude man trapped inside (The Clothe-less Screamer).

These days, Sega's arcade division is still distributing games, but they tend to be of the ticket-dispensing variety (you know the sort: they churn out tickets which you can then hand over to a disinterested/irritable arcade employee in return for a malformed rubber pencil topper). 

Here are ten very obscure arcade machines from across Sega's history.

FLASH BEATS (2000)

A weird blend of rhythm-action game and air hockey, Flash Beats was comprised of five fluorescent light fitting-style tubes which sent red pulsing "orbs" back and forth towards players at either end.

As the red pulse reached your "end", you could hit a button to fire off a green pulse to send it back towards your opponent. The key to success was timing your response to the beat of the game's music. Get it spot on, and your green light would careen back at high speed. Depending on taste, players could choose the soundtrack from a choice of five wildly different genres: house, drum n' bass, techno/trance, hip-hop/rap, or "Digital rock". 

Now study the above images... Note how the feller in the leopard-print hat appears to be having a stroke and/or involuntary naughty pelvic spasm, and everyone's too engrossed in the game to notice.

​That's how good it was.

ASTRODATA (1971)

By inputting your date of birth into this mechanical fortune-telling marvel, you would be given a card revealing your future prospects on matters financial, happiness, health, romance, sex, and "pleasant surprise".

"Please, Swami, I must know if I will receive pleasant surprise in the near future!"

"Your chances are favourable."

<SMALL KITTEN DROPS FROM CEILING INTO YOUR LAP>

"Wow!"

​"My ceiling - it's ruined!"

TITANIC (1998)

Yes... yes, I'm sure those who died when the Titanic sunk would've wanted their deaths to be commemorated by a ticket-dispensing coin-drop game, which featured a revolving plastic replica of the doomed ship.

It's pretty astonishing when you consider that, at the time, the sinking of the Titanic was properly horrific... and you have to wonder how many years must pass before they start making ticket-dispensing arcade machines based upon 9/11, featuring a pair of revolving plastic Twin Towers.

"Roll your coins into the buildings to knock them down and win a prize!"

<ELECTRONIC RASP> "AL QAEDA!" 

WACK-A-DOODLE-DOO (1998)

A mix of Whack-A-Mole and Simon, Wack-A-Doodle-Doo required players to pummel the yellow "yolks" on a panel of fried eggs corresponding to the frantic behaviour of five animatronic hens (no more, no less... always five there shall be).

Reportedly, the chickens were repurposed from an earlier Sega ticket machine - Udderly Tickets - which required players to "milk" a life-size model of a cow. The hens were originally placed on a bale of hay at shin height, making them the ideal target for a good kicking, and thus were regularly vandalised.

Just for the record, if you attempted to recreate this game in real-life, you'd probably anger a farmer, and responding to his furious gesticulations with egg-based puns - as seen on the above flyer - would be likely to make matters worse.

"Why... why do you come here and smash my hens' eggs so?"

"The yolk's on you!"

"That's it - I'm getting my shotgun!"

"That seems like a bit of an egg-streme reaction."

"What is wrong with you?!?! This is my livelihood."

"My brain is scrambled."

"FFS."

"Eggeggeggeggeggeggeggeggeggeggegggggggg-gggnnn-fffnnnnnn!"

HELI-SHOOTER (early-1970s)

I can remember playing this - THAT'S how old I am. It featured a curved screen, onto which was projected a weak representation of an aerial dogfight - the gaming equivalent of watered-down orange "squash". Clearly, it was a precursor to big, sit-down, shoot 'em up cabinets which later became ubiquitous, and the main thing I remember about it was how loose and wobbly the control stick felt.

"Look at me, mum! I'm flying a whirly-bird!"

"It's a helicopter."

"It's a whirly-bird! Wheeeeee!"

<SLAP>

CUT THE CHEESE (1996)

Yes: Sega released an arcade ticket machine based around a euphemism for "doing a blow-off". The aim was to successfully roll a (brown) coin into a lavatory, simulating the act of defecation. Sega had no qualms about associating its mascot Sonic with this particular bodily function; he appeared on the game's built-in LED screen, giving it some major attitude (as he was/is prone to).

Inevitably, in a bid to justify its scatalogical "bent" Sega attempted to disguise the fart reference by giving the game a sort of rodent theme.

Here are some other farting euphemisms Sega may wish to base a game around:

Open The Mortuary Drawer
Visit The Old Folk's Home
Burn The Wig Made of Human Hair
Give The Dog A Colonoscopy
Meet The Frenchman (poss. racist/delete?)

LOVE TESTER (1972)

There were many love tester machines from many different manufacturers, so it's inevitable that Sega wanted a slice of the love pie. What's interesting about Sega's machine is that the third panel on the device was labelled "self loving", which is a tantamount to Sega accusing its customers of being onanists.

Which is, of course, not entirely inaccurate.

Honestly, who used these machines? More to the point... did anybody actually believe them? I mean, we all want to be sexy, but I'm not sure how much faith I put in the subjective opinion of a machine that has only just met me.

PLINKER'S CANYON (1976)

Effectively a shrunk-down version of those massive Wild West-themed light-gun shooting galleries you can still find in many arcades, Plinker's Canyon was notable for its euphemistic title, and a selection of targets that included "an egg that rolls along a branch, a flying bird that squawks and flaps when hit, and a dodging mouse that you can trap under a 'strainer'."

BULL'S EYE (1988)

This enormous game attempted to recreate the thrill of a real shooting gallery, by using REAL (plastic) projectiles to shoot at paper targets. In order to prevent players from shooting at other people, the gun featured a sensor which prevented it from being fired if pointed away from the target area. Way to remove any reason for playing it, Sega.

PUNCHING BAG (1962)

Sega's first ever arcade game was a punching bag. It was far from the first arcade punch-tester machine produced - they date back as far as the early-1900s. Though it might've been the first with a. "Formica" type finish on front and sides.

Of course, the irony of this is that Sega itself later became a proverbial punch-bag, due to its absurd-mid-to-late 90s business practices.

<DROPS MIC, GRUNTS, POOS IN HIS PANTS>