Night Striker

80s arcades: the heyday of videogame showbusiness.

Back then, the real world was a higher plane than software. Experience design acknowledged that the videogame was a guest in reality, on best behaviour. That’s why Elite packed a novella to explain itself in mundane terms and Hang-On offered a whole plastic motorbike in exchange for exercising some imagination.

So in those days it would have been impolite for Night Striker to turn up without at least an illuminated hood around the screen.

Even if that hood was just a nod to the mores of the time, Night Striker is gorgeous in a blue tunnel. Don’t emulate: it’s janky and sadly lo-fi on a naked screen.

This is After Burner meets OutRun meets Wicked City: a Yu Suzuki superfan with a deviant fetish for neon reflected in Ray-Bans.

You drive/fly at metropolis backdrops, roads scooting underneath. You bash left and right around obstacles in cheap tunnel stages. You shoot spinning shit.

It’s got that certain something. No longer cutting-edge but the X factor never goes away. A privilege to meet in a Tokyo underground that still respects the Golden Age stars.