Gang-busting adventures in urban areas were still a quasi standard setting for beat-em-ups far into the 1990s, but it's not that easy to come up with a lot of graphical variations between levels if every other game takes place in a modern day city. Arcade machines were an efficient antidote - some interesting titles on the cabinet are enough to let the player's imagination do all the work for you - except many of these examples don't even bother with titles.

An early example of an arcade walk-by can be found already in Sega's proto beat-em-up My Hero, which feature's the arcade "Game" with a very American sign font but only from the outside. The first and possibly the most obscure example of visible arcade machines in this category, Target Renegade is one of the semi-inofficial sequels of Technōs' Renegade published by European licensee Ocean. You still only walk by the entrance here and cannot see too much of it.

The early Neo Geo brawler Burning Fight features a nameless machine right in the beginning. But even though the title is unreadable, it is obviously a three-player Beast Busters cabinet, with its three SMG design lightguns on the control panel.

The titular mechanized law enforcer in Robocop 2 for arcades walks through an area that looks like a storehouse for arcade machines. All bear the Data East logo, but most are turned to the side or back. Only a few show the title of the game stored here, a garbled font apparently saying Sly Spy, another game by Data East. The machines are actually dangerous, though, as enemies pick up the cabinets and toss them at the hero.

Konami's The Simpsons arcade game features the Noiseland Video Arcade in the background of the Springfield street in the first stage, but the Simpsons don't enter it. But later in Moe's bar (which for some reason is huge here) there can be seen a cabinet of Konami's The Simpsons arcade game - way to smash down the fourth wall. There is also a violet cabinet called "Aliens", which shows a typical Matt Groening alien on the screen, whom Marge scares off with a Giger alien parody costume.

Brute Force by Leland features a bunch of arcade machines in a subway station. The scale is too small to read anything on them, but they appear to represent other games by the same company. Especially the two on the right of each pair look like Ironman Stewart's Super Off-Road, with its three steering wheels on color coded bezels. All of them can be smashed to get the money out of them. Also destructible are the "Bare Knuckle" arcade machines in Streets of Rage 2 (reminder: the series is actually called Bare Knuckle in Japan), but therein you can find odd stuff like food.

One of the most frequently revisited arcade in games is Sailor Moon's Game Center Crown, a popular hangout for the friends in the animated series. In the first SNES brawler, you pass by it right in the beginning. In the arcade game it's rather far in, but as a reward you get to go inside and fight the giant monster kitty, who has slashed up the UFO catcher, presumably to get the stuffed toys for free.

Violent Storm's arcade machines come unusually late in the game - in the final stage. But as a reward for your persistence, they include an actual Konami classic. Scramble is lovingly recreated, featuring a faithful scene from the game on screen. The other cabinet is "Penta", a game that doesn't exist, but instead Penta is the star of the MSX game Antarctic Adventure. There were some arcade products starring him, like redemption games or slot machines, but no video games.

Denjin Makai in contrast has you once again passing an arcade right at the start. The very first enemy doesn't even pay attention to you because he is so immersed in the UFO catcher machine by the entrance. Also dominated by an ufo catcher machine is the arcade in the Satellaview exclusive Super Famicom title Shubibinman Zero.

Even though the traditional beat-em-up genre fell out of popularity at that time, there were a few holdouts that tried to translate similar mechanics into 3D, one of which is Sega's Dynamite Deka series. In the second game, known as Dynamite Cop in the West, you start in a cruise ship captured by pirates, where you enter a bar with a bunch of arcade machines. Two are a bit off to the side and you never get a good look at them, but they appear to be a skiing simulation. The third is a Blast City, Sega's generic candy cabinet around the time, which you can even pick up and use as a weapon; if you throw it at an enemy, it explodes.

Both Dynamite Deka games also feature playable classic Sega arcade games (Deep Scan in Die Hard Arcade, Tranquilizer Gun in Dynamite Cop, and a simulation of the old mechanical game Periscope in the PlayStation 2 version of the first game), but those are bonuses selected outside of the main games. In the Game Boy Advance version of 2007's TMNT, the Ninja Turtles have a selection of machines in their sewer hideout.

The indie game revolution brought back many genres that seemed all but forgotten, including all the tropes that go with them. The 2013 doujin brawler Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds has its chibi anime heroines strolling right through Akihabara, where they reach a Club Sega arcade, with the "G" sneakily hidden behind a tree, as of course it is not licensed. There are a lot of machines inside, with special points of interest being an SMG lightgun shooter in the back and an UFO catcher with very sad-looking stuffed toys in it, but none of the games are recognizable as a reference to anything specific.