Arcade Archives: Video Hustler
Sep. 12th, 2025 08:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tepidsnakeThis week's Arcade Archives release is... Video Hustler (Konami, 1981)
Arcade Archives (previous-gen consoles)
PSN
Switch
EU
Arcade Archives 2 (current-gen consoles)
PSN
Switch 2
EU
Xbox
Just the one ROM and no Preference Settings this week, sorry, only the basics!
On the subject of basic...This week's game is an arcade adaptation of pool (sort-of) from 1981, so if you go in expecting Pocket Gal then you're going to be disappointed, try and keep those expectations realistic. You've got a joystick and a single button, with shot power controlled by a three-block bar that flashes between the different shot strengths and direction controller by a target that you move around the edge of the table, so there's no guideline to show where a rebound might go, you'll have to figure that out yourself. Of all things, this system reminds me of Champion Golf from a couple of years later in1983 on the SG-1000 which has the exact same targetting mechanics and it goes to show you that back in this era, developers were still in the process of figuring out how to adapt traditional sports like this into digital form. The way this game works as an arcade title is pretty fair though- each time you pocket a ball, you get given a number of shots to pot the next one before you sacrifice a life (you also lose a life outright if you pocket the cueball) rather than an overall shot limit which is nice. The scoring system is also novel, with higher multipliers for different pockets that change on each shot so you might be tempted to go for a trickier shot if it'll get you close to an extend. Konami would follow up on this many years later with Rack 'Em Up (The Hustler in Japan, making the title inspiration a bit more obvious) so you might want to wait for that game to get a rerelease instead, but this is doing its best for 1981.