Author Topic: Ridge Racer Full Scale- in Blackpool Pleasure Beach, UK!  (Read 5324 times)

Tedward

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Ridge Racer Full Scale- in Blackpool Pleasure Beach, UK!
« on: March 01, 2018, 02:50:38 PM »
Been a while since I was last on here but thought I should share this with you guys. I was on holiday in Blackpool recently- at one point this place had more rare games than you could count- R360's, Galaxian 3 Theatre's, Virtua Formula, Sega Taikans... you name it. Sadly all the arcades are dedicated to redemption now, with only a few modern games (OutRun 2 SP SDLX, Star Wars Battle Pod) remaining, and are not maintained very well. Yet there is one place that holds the last remnant of Blackpool's glory days, it's battered, bruised, and seen better days, but impressively still in operation after almost 25 years.



RIDGE RACER FULL SCALE!!!



In the 'Bowl-A-Drome' arcade, one of 4 in the Pleasure Beach theme park, lies possibly the very last Ridge Racer Full Scale in operation today. Namco's other massive simulator of the 90's, this thing is basically a Galaxian 3 Theatre stripped out and redressed with a REAL Mazda MX-5 car and the Ridge Racer game thrown in. It's not for certain, but this might be the most expensive arcade game available to any venue ever!









Of course, the original Sony projectors are no longer being used... Pleasure Beach have replaced them with some Epson projectors which are ok. They go through a new bulb in just a few months so they have to replace them pretty often. To say it's a very old game, that's dedication!



The Mazda MX-5 car... it's definitley seen better days. The original seats, steering wheel and car stereo have been taken out. The wheel and seats are now the normal Namco ones seen in their other racing games from that era and the stereo is just gone... this means you can't choose music, you can only listen to the original Ridge Racer theme, no Rare Hero, no Rhythm Shift, no Rotterdam Nation... the gear shifter and speedometers are also no longer working, making manual driving impossible, and the windscreen was also taken out last year as it was supposedly cracked. But everything else is working, even the car's air blowers, and Pleasure Beach seem to keep the car cleaner than other arcades that had it....







And here's me playing it. I'm not the best at Ridge Racer, I like Sega's racers more- but at least I managed to finish the race!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZi3C_yqcQU&feature=youtu.be

Unless someone has enough money and wants to deal with the theme park, (could be very hard) this will most likely be scrapped, which is a damn shame. Seriously, I can't find anything about another in operation or in storage right now. But overall I'm extremely happy I got to experience this before it gets lost to time  :)



Ted
« Last Edit: March 01, 2018, 03:38:31 PM by Tedward »

retrocab

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Re: Ridge Racer Full Scale- in Blackpool Pleasure Beach, UK!
« Reply #1 on: March 01, 2018, 03:51:01 PM »
coooollll

Tedward

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Re: Ridge Racer Full Scale- in Blackpool Pleasure Beach, UK!
« Reply #2 on: March 01, 2018, 04:59:23 PM »
I've got some more pictures of the games Blackpool had- Like an Initial D 3 Cycraft and a pretty unique 2 player After Burner Climax if anyone wants to see them...

mumboking

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Re: Ridge Racer Full Scale- in Blackpool Pleasure Beach, UK!
« Reply #3 on: March 01, 2018, 07:08:38 PM »
Namco's other massive simulator of the 90's, this thing is basically a Galaxian 3 Theatre stripped out and redressed with a REAL Mazda MX-5 car and the Ridge Racer game thrown in.
The car is actually a Eunos Roadster, the Japanese version of the Mazda MX-5/Miata.

Seriously, I can't find anything about another in operation or in storage right now. But overall I'm extremely happy I got to experience this before it gets lost to time  :)
I got to play one in worse condition. It was impressive.
It's apparently now in storage according to this: http://www.jammaplus.co.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=86398&PID=764155&title=first-visit-to-a-proper-arcade-in-17-years#764155
I enjoy reading about arcade cabinets. I don't own one though... :(

Tedward

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Re: Ridge Racer Full Scale- in Blackpool Pleasure Beach, UK!
« Reply #4 on: March 01, 2018, 07:44:05 PM »
Namco's other massive simulator of the 90's, this thing is basically a Galaxian 3 Theatre stripped out and redressed with a REAL Mazda MX-5 car and the Ridge Racer game thrown in.
The car is actually a Eunos Roadster, the Japanese version of the Mazda MX-5/Miata.

Seriously, I can't find anything about another in operation or in storage right now. But overall I'm extremely happy I got to experience this before it gets lost to time  :)
I got to play one in worse condition. It was impressive.
It's apparently now in storage according to this: http://www.jammaplus.co.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=86398&PID=764155&title=first-visit-to-a-proper-arcade-in-17-years#764155
Ah! That's slipped my mind, I posted in that thread and forgot about it- but I'm not sure they have the whole machine. This blog states some parts were scrapped and others were put into storage, and it's from 2014 so I assumed they'd scrapped the rest by this point too:

http://planetharriers.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/arcades-on-isle-of-sheppey-north-kent.html

Either way would be nice to see what they have of it.