Games of the Abstract: Raw Thrills Double Bill - The Walking Dead (2017)/Jurassic Park Arcade (2015)

Developer: Raw Thrills

Publisher: Raw Thrills

One to Two Players

Arcade

I decided to pair these two licensed light gun games together as, dominating the modern arcade scene since their 2001 establishment, Raw Thrills from Skokie, Illinois were a company I came to with an unfair ambivalence. Unfair because, as one of the few publishers/developers who are everywhere in arcades constantly in any English seaside, they are a company who managed to have their machines in multiples in places among the ticket winning machines. Entirely my bias was that, barring Sega and a few others, there is not a lot of arcade machines like those in the past, and Raw Thrills is one of the few who are able to be found everywhere, mostly all licensed titles because those sell. I had not much particular interest in the machines at first, seeing them, not inclined to play them until time has passed, hence a bias which has thankfully passed.

Pairing together two light gun games based on popular licenses, one is not actually a “light gun” game to be technical about it, The Walking Dead a very idiosyncratic choice for its presentation too. Based on the comic book series by Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore, which started in 2003 and lasted to 2019, this was a franchise, when it was adapted for television, which arguably helped the zombie go from a horror trope that went in a fallow period in the nineties to suddenly being a pop cultural obsession even in the mainstream. Zombies, whether their popularity has sociological weight in the Millennium, suddenly became more and more prevalent in larger scale when the 2000s came. Based on the George Romero film versions than the Voodoo cultural ones, one big landmark would be television adaptation of The Walking Dead, when it began in 2010 for AMC. By the time of this arcade machine, the series had reached its seasons six and seven, ending in 2022 after Season 11, and having spin-offs such as Fear the Walking Dead (2015).

The Walking Dead however comes with knowledge that it is a much bleaker take on the zombie apocalypse, where other video game adaptations include the Telltale Games graphic adventure games from between 2012-2019, which are acclaimed as they are known as having tragic narrative turns. This presents a strange position for what is a light gun game, [Spoilers] especially when everyone barring your playable character dies [Spoilers End]. There is a pointlessness to the game which, even if you play a tale where you rescue people, even save bonus hostages from zombies (or “walkers”), knowing this is for naught is one of those things which make the adaptation really a curious piece of tie-in merchandise. The idea of presenting this as philosophically rich, about the nature of futility, also does not make sense and seem absurd – an experimental light gun game which would force one to ask tough questions would be a fascinating experiment, but it is telling that most of this game is meant to be action heavy, a romp even in spite of its ending where you find yourself battling the undead hordes.

Technically as well, this is a “light crossbow” game as, set at West Georgia Correctional Facility, location important in the franchise for Season 3 and Season 4, you play a group of survivors unfortunately realizing that their place of residence is not secure from the living dead, and with ammo scare for guns, a crossbow is your weapon of choice. It is a cool touch, forcing a different weapon on you strategically, especially as specific sections change the pace, be it being thrown explosive arrows to use or hand to hand weapons where the zombies have to be up close to actually land blows. The game however also presents an unexpectedly hard learning curve, tougher than other light gun games, by following the trope in zombie fiction that these walkers only fall when hit in the head. With the zombies popping out of nowhere, the number onscreen, and hordes in the background there for bonuses, it is a challenge but a surprisingly hard one, particularly in mind to how short the game is.

There are no bosses, no special enemies, and this one setting only, following a short story of human selfishness, preservation and ultimately futility. It is really nihilistic, and it feels tonally out of place for this genre, in spite of its virtues, particularly as there are moments which are meant to be visually “cool”, such as the slow downed shots to hit zombies as you are jumping off things. It suffers in how it feels a curious teaming of genres, and also personally, because Sega’s House of the Dead exists. House of the Dead is the less serious, more overtly b-movie of the pair but the franchise is also ambitious and proudly ridiculous. Optimistic even with its morbidness, it also has a fairer attitude to allowing all shots to work, only with head shots one-hit kills and allowing more points, and with its own camp sensibilities. Sometimes, depending on the context, tone has to be considered, and Walking Dead, especially as the sit down arcade machine is sold as a spectacle cabinet, not a somber take, presents a questionable choice to a slight game. It is entertaining to play, but it is far from the best of the genre by a long shot, and feels really at odds with the material.

Jurassic Park Arcade is a more ambitious and gleefully fun game. Sega already had a shot with a light gun adaptation, creating a 1994 light gun game from the first film followed by The Lost World: Jurassic Park in 1997, based on the sequel film. Stemming from the 1990 Michael Crichton novel, Jurassic Park in its 1993 adaptation for cinema by Steven Spielberg was a box office juggernaut, not a franchise strange to video game adaptations at all and contextually at a time when, in 2015, we would see the franchise brought back to life for cinema in Jurassic World. The Jurassic Park game follows the inherent folly, as from the get-go in this franchise, of even cloning dinosaurs in the first place and thinking they would be easy to keep in parks as a zoo, the same mistake done over and over in the franchise. Mayhem transpires here because of a volcano erupting on the island the park is built on, letting the beasts out to rampage.

The game is split into three sections, split into stages, all centering on the humans attempting to recapture some of the larger dinosaurs back alive – a Triceratops, a Tyrannosaurus rex and a Spinosaurus in that order – whilst fighting the other creatures like raptors that get in the way, even ones with feathers to reflect real life advancements in prehistoric research. Nonetheless, historical accuracy or not, there is a question about the fact you are “tranquilizing” said feathered lizards or anything else. The opening preview screens before you put a quarter into the machine list all the sub weapons you can collect as “non-lethal, and this is in mind that one of these weapons is a freeze ray, leaving the enemies frozen into ice which immediately shatters into pieces. Unlike The Walking Dead, there is no question about the tonal choice here, it is just funny in a slightly sick way.

Regardless of how many you make extinct, including the tiny ones so cute it seems wrong to blast them despite the horde trying to gnaw on your knees, this unlike The Walking Dead embraces a vulgarity which is more rewarding. Arcade machines, especially when they got into gimmick machines, feel wrong for something like The Walking Dead’s tone unless you were to take a real risk, this a blast and also something which feels like a game than a spectacle cabinet, as you have the ability including points for destroying the scenery which allows for score attack challenges. The game is fun for Raw Thrills embracing cheesy adventure, in mind that their debut game, which got a US Nintendo Wii release, was the digitized actor light gun game Target: Terror (2004), their brashness in their arcade cabinets fully felt here in how one stage has your parachute being grabbed by a Pteranodon, forced to ride the experience, another driving shotgun in a vehicle, among many times, trying to chase a T-Rex. Alongside how every “boss” will force you to restart the last section with a little less health if you fail the requirements, part of hitting targets quickly in a certain time period, and this is a likably gaudy blaster but with that a pure compliment to the developers. The later game softened me to Raw Thrills because of this, any unfair bias lost because they have a personality which is the thing I want to least have with my arcade games, or games in general. Certainly it is an incentive to go to their cabinets.