Now that’s a retro Christmas present to covet (Evercade)
If you’re serious about your retro gaming, then this feature-packed new cross between a console and an arcade cabinet is well worth hinting to Father Christmas about.
Playing arcade games authentically at home can be an extremely costly pursuit, for those looking to indulge their 90s nostalgia. As well as needing the space for an arcade cabinet – and a bounty of available tinkering and maintenance time – deep pockets are an absolute requirement. Beyond the investment of the cabinet itself, individual arcade games can now prove surprisingly expensive.
Most come on slabs of circuit board called arcade PCBs, which are neatly slotted into a cabinet somewhat similar to how cartridge-based consoles function. It is all too easy to spend way into four figures on a single PCB, which is a significant sum for just one game.
The rewards for all that effort are tremendous though. Games run exactly as their makers intended, with magnificent performance and crisp, vibrant visuals brought to life by the warm glow of a traditional CRT ‘tube’ monitor. Playing standing at a proper arcade cab is an unrivalled gaming experience, no matter how well the same games might be emulated on a console or PC.
Unfortunately, it’s a luxury few of us can afford in our homes. That’s where the new Evercade Alpha comes in: an alternative route to the joy that is personal arcade gaming. It takes the compact form of a bartop arcade cabinet, meaning it is designed to sit on a counter or similar – although the Alpha’s natural habitat might be the coffee table or gaming collectibles shelving.
For your money, you get a very well-made device that adopts the style of the ‘woody’ cabinets popular in the West through the 1980s and 1990s. Half-a-dozen games come pre-installed and there’s the potential to play hundreds of additional titles, which we’ll get into below. The Alpha is robust, feature rich, and fronted by an arcade-authentic button and stick arrangement, as well as an 8-inch IPS (in-plane switching – a type of LCD screen) that is much more comparable to your flatscreen TV than an original tube.
The control inputs feel very much up to real arcade standards, even if the button positioning will suit some personal preferences better than others. And that screen does a surprisingly good job in terms of delivering punchy, bright visuals that move elegantly. You’ll never beat a tube for displaying and playing older games, but the Alpha’s IPS takes a thoroughly respectable shot at it.
Its 4:3 ratio is a perfect fit for classic games – although with no ability to rotate the monitor, titles that were originally released for vertical screens are letterboxed, taking up just the central portion of the screen. On that note, all of the included games are horizontally orientated. Onboard stereo speakers, meanwhile, are far from audiophile quality but provide decent sonic punch and clarity.
The whole thing looks wonderful too and is rich in details that will delight arcade fans. The artwork across the undersized cabinet is glorious and nostalgia inducing, the power switch is cleverly disguised as a glowing red coin slot in the classic style, and the marquee (the game logo area above the screen) is backlit, bathing the unit in a soft pool of light, just like the real thing.
In the box you’ll find three swapple marquees, and while the Alpha itself only sports controls for a single player, a second can join by connecting a controller to a USB port. In fact, there’s even support for both players linking up their own controller, should you prefer a pad or other alternative for certain titles.
Tests have shown a decent range of common gamepads and fight sticks are compatible with the Alpha. You also get a range of display and related options and the ability to remap controls. Unfortunately, there’s no HDMI-out to display the games on a full-sized screen – one of the few oversights with the device.
The Mega Man edition has plenty of non-Mega Man games too (Evercade)
Evercade’s latest comes in two flavours, each ready-loaded with six games, and its own themed cabinet art. There’s the Street Fighter option, which contains Street Fighter 2: Champion Edition, Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo, Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors’ Dreams, Street Fighter Alpha 2, and Street Fighter Alpha 3. A selection of brilliant, beloved, and somewhat familiar Capcom Fighters, then – albeit without the sublime Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike.
Alternatively, you might opt for the unit tested here, the Mega Man edition, which serves up two action platformers from the celebrated Capcom series, plus a decent shmup, and a trio of beat ’em-ups and hack ‘n’ slashes. The Mega Man cab’s full game list, then, is Mega Man: The Power Battle, Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters, Carrier Air Wing, Final Fight, Knights Of The Round, and Strider, blending the titular icons with a selection of relative curios.
Which spread of titles appeals the most will come down to your own personal tastes, but both options present a spread of well realised classics that show of the Alpha nicely. As with other Evercade machines, there are also hidden games to unlock, and a monthly extra title, supplied via the internet – although the connection doesn’t support online multiplayer.
It does seem rather a shame that all 12 Capcom releases weren’t included on a single Alpha, the £229.99 price point considered. Instead, there’s an option to buy more expensive Deluxe Editions of each Alpha at £249.99, which come with six switchable marquees, an extra official pad, and a stick and buttons from Sanwa – a well-established Japanese outfit known amongst devotees as one of the finest makers of arcade parts in the world.
The absence of Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike is a shame (Evercade)
Recent years have provided a number of diminutive arcade cabinets, from the Quarter Arcades range, to the Neo Geo Mini, and Taito Egret II Mini. Those machines, however, are rather more in interactive ornament territory, since they’re so aggressively scaled down. They are fun, playable, and utterly delightful, absolutely, but the Alpha has rather more ergonomic chops, as a machine to play somewhat more meaningfully.
What really distinguishes it from competitors, however, are the two slots on the front for Evercade cartridges. Evercade refers to a line of console-like devices, from the Evercade VS-R console to the handheld EXP-R. Indeed, the electronic guts of the Alpha are extremely similar to those found in the EXP-R. Importantly, every Evercade device is compatible with the same Evercade cartridges.
Over 60 have been released or are inbound, and each contains a number of older games from arcade cabinets, classic consoles, and home computers. It is worth noting here, however, that there are a tiny minority of compatibility issues; specifically that Evercade’s Namco Museum Collections 1 and 2 do not work with the VS and VS-R consoles.
Still, with over 500 games out now, on the various Evercade carts, and more consistently in the works, the Alpha has a huge range of compatible games, many of them hard to acquire on other formats. There really are so many superb games, across systems like the Amiga, Commodore 64, and even the PlayStation – and from publishers and developers including Atari, Team 17, Codemasters, Namco, Toaplan, Irem, and Gremlin Graphics.
There’s modern indie games too, but the emphasis is largely on titles from the two decades that predate the turn of the new millennium. Not every title will be the perfect partner for arcade controls, but that is where the support for additional controllers comes in. And if you’re already the proud owner of a shelf bristling with Evercade games, the Alpha gives you a new way to enjoy your collection – especially the arcade titles.
Importantly, Evercade games are emulated, meaning that older systems and their games are simulated through software, rather than hardware. Emulation has a bit of a reputation for inconsistent standards when it comes to performance, but in terms of the built-in games, the input latency is so minimal only deeply experienced purists would see much impact on their game playing abilities.
The same is true across the Evercade cartridge line, although the odd title can demonstrate a touch of lag. Indeed, the Evercade cart releases sometimes feature warts-and-all authenticity, right down to the occasional original bug. However, most games in the line perform handsomely.
The Evercade Alpha ultimately sits in its own space. It is more playable than its tinier rivals, better made and more performance geared than the countless cheap off-brand consoles stuffed with thousands of badly emulated games. It’s also more convenient than building your own legally murky option with an option like a Raspberry Pi, and much more affordable than the original hardware.
The Evercade Alpha absolutely doesn’t rival playing on a fully-fledged cab, and nor does it intend to. If you are a PCB hoarding enthusiast the appeal here is in a machine that allows you to build an expansive interactive archive of great games and let your friends and family loose on them without worrying about those precious PCBs.
It might not make the grade if you’re chasing world record scores and for serious local multiplayer, things get a little cramped. But for the vast majority with a less obsessive interest in retro games the Alpha provides a wildly fun, if somewhat pricey, means to dive into all manner of classics. It’s an eye-catching centrepiece with a knack for drawing in all who pass it, and – approaching festivities considered – a perfect retro gaming gift if you’re feeling generous.
Standard Edition: £229.99; Deluxe Edition: £249.99
Release Date: 28th November 2024
Age Rating: 12
The on/off button is a nice touch (Evercade)
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