Testing a 3D Arcade (Racing) game within Tower Unite
4As per of the recent hotfix shortly after its inclusion of LibRetro features, Tower Unite now lets you play various 3D Arcade games via the MAME 2010 core, albeit it is broken as hell as you can see, since this is based on a much much older version of MAME where 3D Emulation wasn't all that perfect back then unlike how it is now (sort of).
I'm using the game Winding Heat by Konami for demonstration. It is a game that I remember seeing at what used to be an Arcade next to a mini-casino which was called "Spiel-Forum 2000" when I was in my mid-teens and it even had Time Crisis II alongside it, except that the area was virtually off-limits to minors as it was part of the casino itself and I had no chance to throw in a quarter and try it out. That location used to be at Brückstraße in Dortmund, which has since been converted into a pizzeria called "Mare". Only through emulation via MAME these days is when I finally had the chance to play this game for the very first time. At the time I saw the arcade machine, emulation of the game via MAME was virtually non-existent unlike now. Even at the same time of when I just got into MAME in my mid-teens I did not have a chance to play it.
Playing this game within Tower Unite however is a real mess, not just emulation-wise, but also in the way you play it. You have to use the left analog stick to steer and accelerate and brake at the same time, in addition to using the face buttons to shift gears, change views and other things, even to the point where the game (randomly) enters Test Mode. There is currently no way to remap the controls to better fit the use of the analog triggers for accelerating and braking. I really hope that the devs at Pixeltail Games would eventually allow you to remap the controls so you can play games like this better.
If they implement an option for you to remap the controls just so you are able to play the game much better, and if they implement a better MAME core into it, I would eventually test out the original arcade version of Ridge Racer within Tower Unite when the time comes.
UPDATE: Actually, I just discovered that, YES! You can remap the controls when playing Arcade games via MAME! It is the RS on the controller that accesses the MAME menu, where you can change the controls for particular games. The LS as it turns out, activates Test Mode.
What I really like is that, like with the buttons themselves on a regular arcade machine, even the steering wheel reacts to how much you push the left analog stick or the D-Pad. While the cabinet does have the gas and brake pedals, they do not react with your button presses apparently. Maybe in the future they implement animations for the pedals which would react in the same way you press the triggers for acceleration and braking.
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