Escape to a time of yesteryear with your favorite Marvel friends!

It’s time to confront a universal truth: arcade games are either completely amazing or utter garbage. There is no in between. Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker, garbage. Don’t mistake enjoying the schtick for the game being enjoyable. It’s not. It’s hot garbage. The Paperboy arcade with the handlebar controls, completely amazing. I don’t make the rules, I just report the consequences thereof.

Keeping this in mind, there’s still some innate appeal of owning an arcade cabinet. It’s kind of the ultimate collectible of a time gone by, of a period when your mother would bake apple pies and your father would put on a suit to go ask for a small business loan from the town bank that kept the cogs of Main Street capitalism cogging. Bright colors paired with game mechanics that either send you to a place of euphoria or makes you rage quit are what make arcade cabinets otherworldly, in a sense. That sense being magic. Arcade cabinets are magic when they’re not hot garbage.

Yet another universal truth about arcade cabinets: if you throw in the X-Men, you’ve got yourself a bona fide hit. X-Men vs. Street Fighter, for example, though somewhat rare (but available in all its glory at Up-Down in Milwaukee, WI), is the best illustration of this. Pair up Gambit with Chun-Li and take down Storm and Rogue in 2-on-2 action – it’s glorious, but I digress.

Arcade1Up understands the formula of X-Men in an arcade cabinet equals pure awesome sauce because they have just announced that pre-orders are now available for a 3-in-1 cabinet with Marvel Super Heroes, X-Men: Children of the Atom, and The Punisher.

For $399.00, this special edition cabinet includes a riser to get the somewhat diminutive cabinet (dimensions are 45.8″ H (57.8″ H w/ riser) x 22.75″ D x 19″ W) to a comfortable playing height. The artwork that wraps the cabinet is simply gorgeous, and the cabinet itself features a light-up marquee that is sure to be a gorgeous element, and a Marvel certificate of authenticity. For any X-Men fanboy like me, this is almost a dream come true. I say almost because, after all, it doesn’t include X-Men vs. Street Fighter, but what can you do? Cry, I suppose.

I’ll admit, I’ve questioned why anyone would want to spend money on owning a cabinet from Arcade1Up in the past. After all, the reduced dimensions, while making it more practical perhaps, also detracts from an authentic feel. I have to admit, though, with this piece, I’m intrigued. I can’t say with certainty at this point whether I’ll be picking one of these up, but this definitely has my interest piqued.

The rosters of these games might seem somewhat lacking when you consider the list of over 35 playable characters in a game like Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3, but it’s still an incredibly impressive character list featured in these games. In Marvel Super Heroes, A-list playable characters like Spider-Man, Thanos, or Captain America squaring off against the Psylocke, Blackheart, or Juggernaut makes this a compelling case. More exciting, though, is the roster of X-Men: Children of the Atom featuring Iceman, Cyclops, and a Sentinel! While I don’t know much about The Punisher game, it appears you pair up with a white (controversial) Nick Fury and adventure much like the classic X-Men arcade game.

So, that’s that, folks. You have a chance to bring the X-Men into your home, and you don’t even have to pretend like the atrocity Dark Phoenix exists because these games all pre-date the year 2000! That’s worth the cost of entry right there.

By: Dan Burkett

@DanielBurkett