Who remembers Blackpool in the 1980's and early 90's? No annoying hen or stag parties wandering around getting drunk, computer shops galore, the illuminations, the funny mirrors in the tower, and of course the classic arcade machines in the many game establishments like the piers or dedicated places like Coral Island or the Pleasure Beach!

Yes there were stacks of fruit machines everywhere. But what I really remember most were the amazing games like Sega's Hang-On. Hang-On was a motorbike racing game which always drew me to it because of the music blaring away and the funky style of the sit-down version in the style of an actual motorbike! Okay so you might have looked silly sitting on this thing, but boy did you actually feel as if you were in the seat of a super-bike!

Probably the game I played the most, and one which I could actually complete in the arcades was the fantastic car racing game Chase HQ by Taito! In this game you were in control of a sleek, black Porsche 928 that 'chased' the bad criminals who were of course also driving fast, sleek sports car. Using your turbo however, meant that you soon caught up with them. Once you had caught the bad guys up then it was time for the sirens to kick in and the bonnet-bashing to start!

With tons of excellent speech such as "Hold on, Man", "Push it more!" or "Let's go Mr Driver!" spoken by your colleague who was obviously straight out of Miami Vice, the game also featured excellent music and sound that just made you play that one more time and catch that last car!

While wandering around the arcades I always seemed to come across a sit-down cock-pit version of Atari's Road Blasters. This was one atmospheric game as you controlled your futuristic car along the motorways, shooting everything that moved and collecting the extra weapons that were dropped from above. You were constantly running out of fuel but there was ample opportunity to collect additional fuel to keep you going until the end of the level!
I'll always remember the excellent cut-scene music and thrilling speech that spat out of the speakers around your head!

Asteroids by Atari was an older game from 1979 with it's simple black-on-white vector graphics but the idea was simple. Control your spaceship while avoiding and shooting the large asteroids! Who can forget the explosions and the low beeps in the background that steadily built in faster frequency!

Other games I used to enjoy was Midway's Space Invaders, which frequented many a hotel bar lunch with my parents, and of course Paperboy where you had to cycle along the streets delivering papers to the correct houses. I seem to remember Paperboy also featuring on a BBC quiz game called First Class where youngsters had to battle against each other for the highest score achieved! Excellent stuff....