ATEI is here again, to give us mere mortals a glimpse into the terrifying under belly of the so called Arcade industry in, well, Europe? United Kingdom? London? It's probably only representative of Earls Court, for those 3 days, and if Arcade looked like this, I should've worn a suit for the last 20 years of my life.

All it really does each year is highlight the complete and total corpse like generic tedium that is the world of Arcade. Positivity was completely and utterly smashed against the first driving game, select neon, select decal to continue.

On to the PHOTO BLOWOUT! With impossibly glib captions and the occasional insightful comment.

Textminator was such an exciting prospect that the anti-shake features of the camera broke, quivering with apoplectic joy.

Sega's new PSP killer has already made it to the exclusive UFO Catcher distribution mechanism.

Track and Field finds itself selling out that little bit more... and bizarrely impossible to play...

Red plastic was a big hit this year, drawing punters in, and prospective Drifters, although they were less interested, as is their nature.

"Knock it down with a whipcord." with correct grammar, this was the first fly by... more later!

Byon Byon, those fists don't extend into the screen. The squeezyness doesn't make it easyness, effectively a light gun game for comedy pugelists.

Street Fighter IV... a real game!

GTI Club Supermini Challenge! Worst cab design idea ever, we wouldn't want anyone else to see whats going on...

What this paraphernalia doesn't explain is this is neither the original, nor the PS3 PSN game, nor a racing game. Its a few mini games, or supermini games, or Supermini Challenges... extending the Bomb Tag element of the original... with bland PC like graphics and N64 like 4 player excuses.

Dance Dance Revolution X...

What's this... heavy duty guitars? You'd have to be some kind of...

Guitar Hero Arcade... looking like Guitar Hero >3 with odd timing and apparently completely delayed and unplayable and kinda impossible with ambient noise.

U Beat... which is actually brilliant and heartily recommended. If you don't know it, it has a grid of buttons, which screens in them, that you slap when indicated to do so, and it gets excellently mental.

H2Overdrive... the spiritual or actual sequel to Hydro Thunder, which was rubbish.

Nirin, note the red plastic and the exciting prospect of a 42" Monitor.

Justice League Heroes United, note the distinct lack of red plastic and apparently no prospect of a 42" monitor.

It's Castlevania The Arcade, now this is just the menu. The device there, that would be the "Whipcord", and somehow, using magic, it can translate the thrashing of a human into bits and bytes.

THEY... ARE... AMONG... US...

HUMMER, looked like SegaRaceTV (which was bad) with Hummers in an OutRun2SDX cabinet... due to the bitterness felt from last years SegaRaceTV debacle this wasn't on the top of the list to play, did have an interesting angle the accelerator to land idea, which was lost on the masses.

RAMBO, gun games just got a little more gunny. If you've not checked this one out, its an amazing post modern look at the Rambo films interspliced with a gun game, the in game commentary highlighting the skimming of the cultural issues are both enlightening and emotionally grueling, for those with PhD or above.

Sega Rally 3! It has an actual proper Sega Rally rally mode, that was missing from its console brethren. Contains a bizarre remix of the tracks you may remember from the recent and not so recent past. A must play.

SEGA Clay Challenge, no potter's wheel.

R-Tuned Ultimate Street Racing... which was awful, had nothing going for it at all, terrible transparent catch up and a completely banal drift idea, totally worthless and completely uninteresting to play or even look at... so several notches above the "competition". Did have Boost buttons... a staple of the genre.

Sega Bass Fishing Challenge, will you catch and release?

Bricks... "Let's go and find something yummyyyy!"?...

Sega Brick People was awesome to the max. Simply pile the bricks up to get the little dudes to the items they are after, so fun, and then the whole construction collapses at the end of the turn... or it doesn't and you have a crap load of bricks to deconstruct to find the next piece... genuinely interesting, fun, engaging and fresh. You've got the magic bricks on screen tech, something tangible to play with, and the ability to steal parts of it... and the bricks have eye lashes... what more could you want?! WHAT?!

Game Gate... its a housing for a PS3 or Xbox 360...

Controllers... and a console hidden within... WITH EXTRA COOLING...!

Interlude.

When will these toys be set free?

Never.

DJ Max Technika... a multi touch Ouendan / Band Bros game that looked totally rad.

The line sweeps across the top, then the bottom of the screen and you stab, stab and hold, stab and drag or multi stab the screen on the indicators, with the rhythmic synergy you get with the best rhythm action games.

Summary: Play Sega Brick People and DJ Max Technika.