If you walk up to any aged retro gamer today and ask them about the classic arcades; their heads will tilt, eyes will gloss over, and their facial expression will grow lax as they try to unlock that vault in the back of their minds where they stored all those endangered memories of an arcade era gone by. An era filled with simple addicting gameplay, hallmarked with simplistic graphics and the sweet nurturing sounds of “bleeps” and “bloops” echoing around the humming, wood-grain paneled machines. The sights, sounds and smells of the classic arcade is an experience that is treasured above all else for retro gamers, since those arcades are all but dead. Sure, some Small Town, America still has these relics humming for all to enjoy, but the classic arcade was a unique period in gaming. It is gone now, like Circuit City or American innocence, never to be regained. *Sniff* I'll miss you old pal. I have moved on from that era, sometimes revisiting my local Nickel Arcade like a divorced-husband visiting his children every third weekend of the month. It’s just not the same. When home consoles overtook the arcade in all the areas that made the arcade strong, we buried our roots and focused on the dazzling new era in gaming. Sure, I enjoy modern gaming, but sometimes I yearn for something familiar, a blast from the past really. That was when I visited my local Nickel Arcade on a rainy, Chicagoland day in 2005. The owner rotated his machines every so often and one stood out like a sore thumb. Between the classic Star Wars Arcade machine and the Konami Simpson’s beat-em-up, stood a rather odd looking machine. It looked modern but it was too simple. The board had a stick and two buttons… and that was it. I was intrigued, so I popped in my nickels and was greeted with a monotone, almost sad, voice telling me I was in fact playing “Cosmic Smash.” I was boarding the “cosmic bus” to a land of hyperkinetic racket ball… in space, and it was exactly what I craved. A wireframe simplistic character armed with nothing more than a racket and his agility ran back and forth across the screen, chasing a neon ball to smash into the blocks down-court in the constraint a specified time limit. Every once in a while, the player could pull off a special smash to get more points and hit through multiple blocks, but most of the action was performed with a single button. And that was it; it was basically an Arkanoid clone from a different angle. The game offered a simplistic score, great classic sound F/X, and very simplified graphics. Above all, it offered extremely addicting gameplay. I played Cosmic Smash for three hours, spending almost twenty dollars in nickels on that single machine. I left that arcade with a big smile on my face. The next day, the machine was gone, bought by a private buyer who collected arcade machines. I was heart broken and walked back out into the morning fog, thinking I had lost my chance to once again play one of the greatest arcade games I had ever gotten my hands on. I locked away those fleeting memories in my vault and moved on. Everybody needs a montage Years later, I took a tour through my favorite retro gaming shop. The Dreamcast had been dead for a few years, killed before its time by the same glitz that killed off the arcades. I decided to buy up all the Dreamcast games I could find to pad out my collection. That was when I glanced at the overpriced import section. Games such as Shenmue II, Lack of Love, and SEGA-GA-GA lined the self, all sporting hefty price tags. Then I noticed an oddity, a misplaced game I thought. Dreamcast games usually come in standard jewel cases, like PS games, but this game was different. It was in a clear DVD case sporting all the Dreamcast logos and fancy futuristic themes. Curious… and even more, I thought I recognized the character on the cover. Little did I know, Cosmic Smash was ported to my favorite underdog system, the Dreamcast. It was a perfect port of the original arcade game. I have never seen any of the home consoles capture an arcade game more flawlessly than they did with Cosmic Smash. SEGA Rosso, the people behind the fantastic Initial D arcade series, really delivered in 2001 with this game. Unfortunately, the game is rather rare. I paid close to seventy dollars for my copy but, thanks to the same pirates that helped kill the Dreamcast, Cosmic Smash is a widely available ISO that is burnable and just a Google search away. My only gripe with the game is the lack of a continue function. With the arcade machine, feeding money into the game kept it going even when you lost. With the Dreamcast version, once you die… you die. A continue function, even a limited one, would have been a welcome addition. The Dreamcast version If you fancy yourself a retro gamer and want to get back to your gaming roots with a modern flare, check out Cosmic Smash. It provides old fashioned arcade fun with a new twist and gorgeous simplistic, yet futuristic, graphics. To reclaim that old classic arcade experience, you must check out this game. Note: Here is a great fan site for Cosmic Smash and another great game, REZ. Check out this site if you want to know the history behind the game and more about its developers: http://bf.web.simplesnet.pt/ 8.5/10