Original article hand written in early 2000.
It’s funny really that I read about this place years ago in an old copy of EDGE magazine in the mid-1990s but only visited in 2000. During an interview with developer Argonaut (of Nintendo Super FX fame amongst many other accomplishments) mentioned the Sega Dome in North London close to their headquarters. Then I came across an ancient copy of Games Master featuring the infamous games cracking trio of Sol, Mo and Louis. Take a look at this link for YouTube to find out what I'm talking about, the footage also includes glimpses of the once great Namco Wonderpark arcade in Piccadilly Circus and the UK’s first internet café ‘Cyberia’ which used to be located behind Goodge Street underground station.
How is this latter piece of information connected to the Sega Dome? Well, I used to have a VHS recording of the Games Master episode link above and discerned, from careful frame pausing type research, the location of this Sega arcade. In this episode the games cracker Mo ventures into a Japanese bookshop to consult a games magazine. As the camera pans up, I catch a glimpse of a price tag on its cover and it is upon this that the name is printed of this otherwise unmentioned location. The book store in question was 'Asahiya Shoten'.
For years I was aware that Japanese video gaming magazines always carefully and meticulously produced a rich source of information for a variety of games, including its mechanics and nuances usually many months before any equivalent publication in the west. So, it was just a matter of getting hold of a particular magazine. As the video tape clip showed that Asahiya Shoten had shelves full of such magazines.
After sifting through several phone directories and the Yellow Pages the shop refused to give up its location. Then, a brainwave, why not get in touch with that other Japanese bookstore I knew of in Piccadilly Circus, namely Japan Centre, and see if they knew what I was talking about.
Luckily they did, on a visit to them, where a sales representative knew exactly what I was talking about and provided some handy directions for getting to the book store. It turned out Asahiya Shoten was inside a shopping centre, once called Yaohan Plaza, but now re-named Oriental City in north London.
I recognised the name Yaohan Plaza from the aforementioned EDGE article. However, the question was, did this arcade still exist in the year 2000 because the article itself was from a few years ago and Sega had also now started to close down lots of smaller operations?
Oriental City was located about a fifteen minute walk from Colindale underground station on the Northern Line. My fears regarding the closure of the arcade were put to rest as I approached the shopping complex on the Edgware Road. On one corner to the left of the building was a giant Sonic the hedgehog with the words ‘Sega Dome’ in large blue lettering. The shopping centre itself was small compared to others such as, for example, Lakeside. However, it has a nice laid back, relaxed atmosphere about it. This could be to do with the time of day I visited in the early afternoon on a weekday. There were shoppers around and I imagine it probably got busier in the evenings and at the weekends. I say this in part because one of its attractions was its food hall located in a central square inside the building. This was found by heading to the right of the centre after entering. Dotted around the perimeter of the food hall were all manner of food stalls from parts of the far east and Asia including China, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia to name but a few. Other shops in corridors and walkways leading to the square also did business in wares from these geographical regions and it was here, just before the entrance to Sega Dome, I found Asahiya Shoten.
It was a fairly large shop unit with all manner of publications from the far east, or, what my limited experience in any languages from that part of the world told me from the visual spectacle of rows and rows of bookshelves. And yes, there were a good selection of Japanese gaming magazines here too. Amongst them were a handful of titles specialising in each of the big systems of the era, such as the PlayStation 1 and 2, Nintendo 64 and Sega Saturn and Dreamcast. But there were two specific titles I was after. ‘Gamest’ a magazine which specialised in arcade games, and ‘Famitsu’, a respectable multi-platform magazine honourably mentioned on numerous websites and publications in the west as an ideal source for future releases. There reviews and previews were interesting in that four people on the staff would each give a score out of ten with an overall average calculated from this. This provided a valuable insight into a title’s overall quality usually months before its western release.
Regarding Gamest, sadly I found out later that it was no longer in circulation. This was most likely to do with the fact that even in Japan in the early part of the century the arcade industry had suffered major losses and Gamest was just another casualty of the fallout. Famitsu on the other hand was still going strong and I decided to pick up a copy for general referencing. What instantly stood out in this latest issue was a move list for some of the characters in Tekken Tag, just released on the PlayStation 2. This probably formed part of a series of move guides but it would prove costly to collect the whole set not least because each copy of Famitsu was £4.90, a mark up from the 300 yen price in Japan, or about £1.80 according to the current exchange rate.
So, what about the arcade? Well, Sega Dome occupied the left most section of Oriental City, adjacent to Asahiya Shoten. Going through a large set of double doors visitors are confronted by the image of an arcade that had been fading of late. The brightly lit ‘family entertainment centre’ concept given birth by Sega in the early 1990s has become an almost distant memory with Sega Dome serving as a reminder of what they used to be like. As far as I know, this particular centre opened alongside the Sega Metropolis in the basement of Hamleys in 1992. Sega Dome has roughly the same amount of floor space as Metropolis but gives an illusion it is bigger thanks to its high ceilings and a set of bowling lanes on the right of the arcade. The remaining floorspace is occupied by 40 or so games dotted along the walls and newer titles taking the central space. The latter are displayed on the newer Naomi based cabinets and include titles such as Virtua Tennis, Virtua NBA and Jambo Safari.
Yet, my game of the moment was Spikeout, a 3D fighter that paid homage to classics such as Double Dragon and Final Fight. Here, they had a four cabinet networked version. Due to the high cost of the technology, this was a rare find and when I did come across Spikeout it was usually just two cabinets for two player games. Apart from this, other standout titles included the even rarer Indy 500, both Daytona USA and its sequel, Crazy Taxi, a four player Sega Rally 2 setup and Winding Heat. There were also a number of fighting games on display and these include the likes of Street Fighter vs X men, Marvel vs Capcom, King of Fighters 98, Tekken Tag Tournament and even a Virtua Fighter 3. Now, this latter title even seemed like a bit of a find because every other Sega amusement centre seemed to get rid of the game by 1998. This was shame because Virtua Fighter 3 was an integral addition to the world of 3D fighting games and it would have been nice to have Sega still feature it inside its locations.
On a slightly different note, I discovered that Marvel vs Capcom was on an old Mega Lo 50 which sort of reinforced my perception that Sega Dome was opened around the same time as Metropolis. Sega Mega Lo cabinets were all the rage about a decade previously. I recall playing on a number of these in Funland in Piccadilly Circus back then as large cabinets with projection screens began to take pride of place next to more traditional smaller upright machines. One particularly memorable session of Final Fight at 50p a go comes to light. It was completed with the help from a good friend over twenty or so onlooker, oh my, what memories! One of the best aspects about the large Mega Lo cabinets were their control panels used through various updates and iterations of the cabinets. These were similar to cabinets in the far east and Japan and featured ball top joysticks for extra precision. The Dreamcast arcade stick a few years earlier also paid tribute to this revered design.
Finally, Virtua On, Time Crisis 1 and 2, House of the Dead 2, and no less than three versions of Virtua Striker make up for a credible list of games at Sega Dome then. Pricing is mostly 50 pence a pop with only the majority of driving games and newer titles demanding a pound a play. So, overall, a decent enough selection of games for an arcade in north west London and worth checking out. The hardcore gamers amongst you might also enjoy a trip to Asahiya Shoten. In summary then, Sega Dome is just one of three surviving Sega branded locations in the now, the other two being in Bayswater and Wood Green. With its flagship Sega World closed and the floorspace assimilated into Funland at Piccadilly Circus and the once great testing site of Metropolis dismantled it is a wonder Sega still has a presence in the western amusement sector. It is definitely a case of enjoy it whilst it lasts.
