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Prop Cycle...Namco beat Peloton by 25 years. What other weird control setups are out there I should check out?

VGEsoterica

Member
Talking about a VERY deep cut this morning...but that's always a fun thing to do. Maybe some of the other 90's kids on here will remember Prop Cycle? It was a giant colorful cabinet with basically an entire bicycle attached at the front. The bike controlled the entire game from your direction of travel to your speed depending on how fast or slow you pedaled the bike. Seriously it took a LOT of pedaling to reach top speed in the game...it was basically exercising masquerading as a video game well before Wii Fit or Ring Fit Adventure turned working out into a video game experience.

If anything Namco should have sued Peloton for ripping off their idea lolol. If exercising at home on a bike was as fun as Prop Cycle maybe more people would do it. That should be Peloton 2.0...just bike controlled video games!

But since I am not an encyclopedia...what other games have wild control schemes I may not know? Always in the market to check out new and weird experiences and look into emulating them. I actually want to develop a mod to control Prop Cycle with my track bike on a stand...because why not!
 

VGEsoterica

Member


If you've never seen the game in action

PfIonWi.jpg

cabinet was hilariously large and it's basically extinct now sadly
 

VGEsoterica

Member
Don't forget the infamous table flipping one:

11924-1-Cho%20Chabudai%20Gaeshi.jpg
I was supposed to go to Japan this year for two weeks of vacation but obv that’s on hold...this was one cabinet I was looking forward to checking out because how did it even really become a game? Lol
 

jaysius

Banned
It always amuses me in the peloton commercial when they say “you’re crushing it” when that treadmill actually does crush things like pets and babies due to a design flaw.



You’d think they’d change that line in the ad.
 

VGEsoterica

Member
Wow, I was just playing on a prop cycle machine earlier today!
There is an Arcade Museum open in my city (in Japan) for the summer.
They also had that Police 911 2 game as well, but I didn't have a chance to try it.

They did have this Kayaking game called Rapid River.
http://bandainamco-am.co.jp/am/vg/rapidriver/
Damn really? I was just talking to someone on Discord about being bummed out Rapid River doesn’t emulate because I wanted to show it off.

good to know it still exists somewhere. I was supposed to be in Japan this summer for two weeks but I had to put it off
 

smbu2000

Member
Damn really? I was just talking to someone on Discord about being bummed out Rapid River doesn’t emulate because I wanted to show it off.

good to know it still exists somewhere. I was supposed to be in Japan this summer for two weeks but I had to put it off
Yeah, it was there. I didn't try it out, but I saw other people using it.
Website is pretty much in JP and there aren't many pics. (https://static.chunichi.co.jp/chunichi/pages/event/ge_sen_museum/index.html)
But people have been posting pics on twitter. Not sure if there is any pic of it though.
https://twitter.com/hashtag/ゲーセンミュージアム?src=hash

Oh, found a pretty far away pic of it, but also shows the Prop Cycle machine.
 

VGEsoterica

Member
It always amuses me in the peloton commercial when they say “you’re crushing it” when that treadmill actually does crush things like pets and babies due to a design flaw.



You’d think they’d change that line in the ad.

I mean they were never specific about what you were crushing so...I think it works!
 

Aggelos

Member
Talking about a VERY deep cut this morning...but that's always a fun thing to do. Maybe some of the other 90's kids on here will remember Prop Cycle?

I remember Prop Cycle. Was a big fan of Namco back in the '90s, so their arcade games always managed to caught my attention and amaze me one way or another...



Your timing would be at 2:01 (from AOU 1996)

 

Kuranghi

Member
Seaman on Dreamcast with the microphone? If even just to justify buying one, the green microphone cover rocks, mine is a bit faded now though, more seafoam green than Y-button green.

I think you need to hold A to speak into the mic and me and my friend didnt realise that for like an hour, total morons haha.

edit - oh also, have you played Sky Odyssey on PS2? If you like this you'd probably dig that too, its a tiny bit more involved than this but it has a mode which is basically the same as Prop Cycle as well. If you watch a video of it, it might seem like its a simulator kinda, but its really not, its quite arcadey. Its really fun imo, many great, different, exciting missions.
 
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Drew1440

Member
It's a rather unusual game, the objective here is to collect/pop all the balloons before time runs out with some balloons extending the time. The game’s story is even more bizarre, involving a nuclear explosion causing some parts of a village to ascend into the sky, hence why the balloons are floating and there's pieces of building scattered everywhere. Prop Cycle Story (Japaneese)
 

Azelover

Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams, and it was. It really was.
Yes yes, Prop Cycle.

I LOVED that game. If I could I'd own the cabinet. And no, it doesn't count if you played on emulator. You have to play the real game on a bike.

I was a child back then, so it's possible that my age colored the experience. But it felt like really flying. And I actually liked riding it in the middle of the Arcade Center, with people looking and stuff. It was just a perfect experience for me. Sadly it's been decades since I last saw it.
 
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smbu2000

Member
Somebody took a slightly better pic of the Rapid River machine, next to the Prop Cycle machine.
(Crazy Taxi and Daytona USA in the background.)

 
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Mattyp

Gold Member
Yeah, it was there. I didn't try it out, but I saw other people using it.
Website is pretty much in JP and there aren't many pics. (https://static.chunichi.co.jp/chunichi/pages/event/ge_sen_museum/index.html)
But people have been posting pics on twitter. Not sure if there is any pic of it though.
https://twitter.com/hashtag/ゲーセンミュージアム?src=hash

Oh, found a pretty far away pic of it, but also shows the Prop Cycle machine.


You wouldn’t believe it but this thread actually comes up when searching for PropCycles.

What are the chances of some high res photos of the side of the cabinet and of the graphics? To much to ask? If you’re there again but would be much appreciated 😂

actually managed to buy my childhood machine but need to get a custom cabinet made up for the modern tv that’s been retro fit.
 
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