River Raid Arcade Machine

[Rob-Jo]

I just got off the phone with a girl who's from the Soviet Union. She started mentioned something offhand about arcade machines they in the USSR, and I pestered her into telling me everything she could remember about them.

 

She could only remember one game, which she remembered because she said when she came to the United States she got a VCS and had the exact same game on it (she also had some kind of Atari computer, so it's possible she's confusing the two). She said the game she had on the Atari looked exactly like the one she played in the arcade. I figured it was one of the old 70s Atari arcade games that got ported to the VCS. But she described the game to me, and the game she described was River Raid.

 

I asked some more questions. At first I figured maybe it was just a VCS that was hooked up for people to play, but she said you had to put money into it to play. I asked if the machine worked on a timer, she said she wasn't sure but she thinks it worked on how many lives you had. She said she saw this game around 86'-87'.

 

Anyone have any ideas of what this thing is? Did they have some way to rig a VCS into something like a Player's Choice? Or is there some sort of arcade game out there that is very very similar to River Raid where she may have been confused? Has anyone ever seen or heard about something like this?

[+pboland]

I just got off the phone with a girl who's from the Soviet Union. She started mentioned something offhand about arcade machines they in the USSR, and I pestered her into telling me everything she could remember about them.

 

She could only remember one game, which she remembered because she said when she came to the United States she got a VCS and had the exact same game on it (she also had some kind of Atari computer, so it's possible she's confusing the two). She said the game she had on the Atari looked exactly like the one she played in the arcade. I figured it was one of the old 70s Atari arcade games that got ported to the VCS. But she described the game to me, and the game she described was River Raid.

 

I asked some more questions. At first I figured maybe it was just a VCS that was hooked up for people to play, but she said you had to put money into it to play. I asked if the machine worked on a timer, she said she wasn't sure but she thinks it worked on how many lives you had. She said she saw this game around 86'-87'.

 

Anyone have any ideas of what this thing is? Did they have some way to rig a VCS into something like a Player's Choice? Or is there some sort of arcade game out there that is very very similar to River Raid where she may have been confused? Has anyone ever seen or heard about something like this?

Interesting...I haven't heard of anything like that before, but it may not be that hard to make something like that. It has been a long time since I had my VCS out, but I seem to remember some games needed to have the reset hit before it would play again. Or in the case of an atari computer you sometimes had to hit the start button. I don't remember if River Raid is one of those games. If it is, I could see people in other countries making arcades game out of these units as they would have been easier to acquire than an actual arcade machine. All they would have to do is wire up a coin mech to the reset or start button. If the unit is inside an arcade like cabinet it would act just like any other arcade machine and no one would be the wiser. Just a thought.

[Shaggy the Atarian]

River Raid would have made an excellent arcade game and I wouldn't be surprised if they did something like that in Russia. In fact here is a link to a Russian arcade museum in Moscow.

 

http://adangerousbusiness.com/2010/01/05/the-museum-of-soviet-video-games/

 

They don't have an exact River Raid clone there but there is a plane shooter there. They also have a game that's like Grand Prix on the 2600 so it's plausible that whoever made that could have also done River Raid but this museum doesn't have it.

 

Other than that, I know of one game that used the Atari 2600 hardware called Tournament Table. The arcade hardware was actually enhanced over the home version with double the RAM *see the bottom of the linked page here)

 

http://system16.com/hardware.php?id=755

 

If someone could reproduce that hardware then we could have an Atari 2600 Multicade unit, that would be cool to see.

[jd_1138]

Thanks for the link to that Russian arcade museum. I love Russian stuff. Very cool.

[poker_plus]

I just got off the phone with a girl who's from the Soviet Union. She started mentioned something offhand about arcade machines they in the USSR, and I pestered her into telling me everything she could remember about them.

 

She could only remember one game, which she remembered because she said when she came to the United States she got a VCS and had the exact same game on it (she also had some kind of Atari computer, so it's possible she's confusing the two). She said the game she had on the Atari looked exactly like the one she played in the arcade. I figured it was one of the old 70s Atari arcade games that got ported to the VCS. But she described the game to me, and the game she described was River Raid.

 

I asked some more questions. At first I figured maybe it was just a VCS that was hooked up for people to play, but she said you had to put money into it to play. I asked if the machine worked on a timer, she said she wasn't sure but she thinks it worked on how many lives you had. She said she saw this game around 86'-87'.

 

Anyone have any ideas of what this thing is? Did they have some way to rig a VCS into something like a Player's Choice? Or is there some sort of arcade game out there that is very very similar to River Raid where she may have been confused? Has anyone ever seen or heard about something like this?

 

Could she be thinking of "Sky Raider"?

[amiman99]

My friend is from Turkey, just recently we were talking about games, and he described a game which looked like River Raid.

I showed him some screen shots of the River Raid and he told me that this is the game he played in 80s in Turkish arcades.

He found a flash based game that looked like 2600 version and he's 100% sure that this was the game.

[Crazy Climber]

My friend is from Turkey, just recently we were talking about games, and he described a game which looked like River Raid.

I showed him some screen shots of the River Raid and he told me that this is the game he played in 80s in Turkish arcades.

He found a flash based game that looked like 2600 version and he's 100% sure that this was the game.

That would be cool if your friends name was Tom, then you could call him Tom Turkey

Seriously though, is it possible this River Raid arcade machine is one of those Exidy "Max-a-Flex" things?

[raskar42]

in soviet russia - raid rivers you!

[keilbaca]

River Raid required the player to press reset to play it. Because it was so arcade like, I wouldn't be surprised if they took a VCS, wired up some arcade controls, and wired the coin mech to be reset.

[+pboland]

River Raid required the player to press reset to play it. Because it was so arcade like, I wouldn't be surprised if they took a VCS, wired up some arcade controls, and wired the coin mech to be reset.

Sounds plausible to me. (see post #2)

[keilbaca]

River Raid required the player to press reset to play it. Because it was so arcade like, I wouldn't be surprised if they took a VCS, wired up some arcade controls, and wired the coin mech to be reset.

Sounds plausible to me. (see post #2)

 

Doh.... x.x

 

I needs to read.

[mykgerard]

I can't seem to find any record of it existing but I remember clearly playing a bar top River Raid at my mom's work The Blue Goose Inn when I was a kid in St. Clair Shores, Michigan.

[sirlynxalot]

A company out of Boston did some simple modifications to make Vectrex machines into pay to play arcade-like machines in the 80s. Maybe someone else did something similar with the vcs.  http://vectrexmuseum.com/collection/vectrexminicade.php

 

I've also heard of arcades in places like Latin America or the Philippines rigging up consoles in various pay to play situations - like you get to play PS2 inside an arcade machine or something like a display kiosk, and the money you put in goes to a timer that keeps the power on. If we're talking the Soviet Union, maybe some arrangement like that would be a reasonable guess.

[Shaggy the Atarian]

I've seen some of those machines when I lived in Brazil, although I also saw some other odd hacks where it wasn't on a timer (like a weird version of Rock Band that I was filming when the workers freaked and kicked me out  ).

 

I imagine that someone could have just as easily hacked the RR software to take coins-per-lives like a proper arcade game. It would really just be a matter of reassigning one of the various 2600 inputs (something that RR wouldn't have to use) so that the software takes any signal from the coin switch to add coins into the game, then have the start button wired to the Reset input. I wouldn't mind such a hack for RR or even Star Raiders to put into my arcade...

[Yak]

I remember seeing this in Brazil too, on a trip to South America in the mid 1980s, IIRC it was at the airport near the Iguacu Falls, I encountered a coinop that was blatantly Activision's VCS "Enduro" somehow fitted into an arcade machine. It had a steering wheel but it wasn't analogue, it just did a virtual left/right button press according to which way you spun it. 

[Crimefighter]

I would not use that link to visit the Soviet arcade museum - use this one --

https://arcadeblogger.com/2019/06/15/the-museum-of-soviet-arcade-games/

[Shaggy the Atarian]

On 4/11/2021 at 7:10 PM, Yak said:

I remember seeing this in Brazil too, on a trip to South America in the mid 1980s, IIRC it was at the airport near the Iguacu Falls, I encountered a coinop that was blatantly Activision's VCS "Enduro" somehow fitted into an arcade machine. It had a steering wheel but it wasn't analogue, it just did a virtual left/right button press according to which way you spun it. 

Ha, I guess they didn't want (or couldn't afford) to get a Midway Laguna Racer or a Sega Turbo

 

On a similar note, I've often wondered why River Raid-style play wasn't really copied by other shoot 'em ups, either in arcades or on consoles. Not that stuff like 1942, Gradius or Darius was bad or boring, but RR's style of play is just so fun that you'd think there would have been more games almost exactly like it.