Hey Arcaders!
A piece of Sega’s arcade history was discovered In the UK recently that I had to post- I mean we are the Arcade Archives after all!
Via CBR-
Scramble Training, an unproduced simulator game for SEGA’s Advanced System-1 featuring pop icon Michael Jackson, is discovered at a UK flea market.
An unproduced SEGA game titled Scramble Training was uncovered at a U.K. flea market by video game enthusiast Ben Bizley. Obtaining merchandise from an individual with family ties to SEGA, Bizley realized he left behind a D-2 tape he paid for “blindly” for £300 ($364) and eventually had it shipped, only to discover he had no means to play it. With help from gaming writer Nick Greenfield and hiring the Oxford Duplication Centre to digitize the rare tape, Bizley discovered that the footage was the King of Pop’s lost arcade game set in space. Scramble Training was developed in 1992, when Jackson was at the peak of his career with his Dangerous album. Having previously headlined SEGA’s Michael Jackson Moonwalker game, the iconic artist worked with the gaming company’s AM5 developers for the simulator only made available at SegaWorld locations worldwide. Playing a flight instructor guiding gamers as pilots on a spacecraft, Jackson’s game was well in line with theme park attractions similar to those at Universal Studios. All the major arcade manufacturers wanted in on the fad.
Around this time, Namco had released their Galaxian 3 six person theater to entertainment locations around the world. There was actually one here in Orlando- at Church St. Station. a much younger RayGunn got to play this amazing machine many times at Commander Ragtime’s arcade back in 1994. Commander Ragtime’s was owned by Namco. It could put DisneyQuest to shame with the vast amount of games they had. RIP Commander- the Archives will never forget you.
Anyway- this beast was six person theater, where you picked your seat- each equipped with a laser cannon- and blasted the Galaxian empire to kingdom come! It utilized a laserdisc for all the backgrounds, with superimposed computer generated targets ( similar to Interstellar… but we will get to that game another time.) Check this out!
Sega wanted in on this. On the hardware-
Sega designed the AS-1 with Douglas Trumball, the guy who’d just built the Back to the Future ride for Universal.” It looked like most of the simulators of the time, but with a slick, bullet like simulator pod, with all the Sega elements, and a viewing monitor for customers to watch!
But- what’s with the Michael Jackson connection? Well, Michael loved video games. and- he loved Sega.
And Sega had worked with Michael on the Moonwalker video game. I had this machine at Fun N’ Games back in 1990- I took it right out of the crate. Fun game. I always loved his special move- making all the enemys onscreen dance with you… Until they explode! Even Bubbles the chimp makes an appearance in the game to give you your robot suit!
Check it out!
So- when developing one of the first games for Their new simulator-
MJ was who they wanted to sell it.
In the game, players take the role of new pilots on a training mission in an eight-man spacecraft, with Commander Jackson guiding them through the tasks.
The uncompressed footage in full is available to watch and download from Gaming Alexandria’s own Internet Archive account – at a whopping 14 GB in size.
As whether or not we will ever get to play the game again-
The hunt continues for the ROMs and the AS-1 simulators themselves, though there have been sightings in Ukraine, Australia, and Indonesia during the past decade. So someday, we may be able to go through flight training with the king of pop again.
Keep Playin’ Like It’s 1981!
The Arcade Archives! 