SEGA! Before SEGA marketed its home console systems, it had some pretty awesome games in the arcade. Not one of their most popular games, SubRoc (short for “Submarine Rocket”) definitely has its appeal. I remember playing it a couple of times back in 1985 at an arcade near Misquamicut Beach in Rhode Island. Mostly because it had something other games didn’t… 3D! I was lucky to purchase this game in great condition from Kevin at K & S Family Amusements. All it needed was to be cleaned up, and have some light bulbs replaced.

The cabinet is great to look at. The side art is spectactular, and the paints used in the sideart and control panel have flourescence (or had, rather! The black lights don’t really bring out the flourescent paints any more.) SEGA went to town on making this game different. The game play is pretty basic; you look through a periscope and with the periscope controls you can move your sub up to the air or down to the water, and left and right. I am surprised as to the crowd this game draws at a party… there are always people playing it… mostly women!

The features which make the game stand out, though, are around the screen. In the periscope, two rapidly spinning black disks (one for each eye) are synchronized with left and right images on the screen. If you don’t look through the periscope, the image on the screen looks blurred. Look through the eyeholes in the periscope, and voila! Torpedos and missles are coming at you left and right. The stereo sound helps add to the 3D perception… the sound effects move to the left or right depending on where the enemy fire is coming from.

The monitor is mounted below, with a mirror reflecting the image to you. A crosshair is lit with light bulbs behind the mirror, to make a crosshair appear to be on screen. This game also had another cool feature; the top three scores would be displayed on red digit-displays above the screen. And last but not least, the coolest feature yet… a step stool that you can pull out from the bottom. The periscope is up kind of high, so if you’re 5’2″ and under, you’ll need the step stool!

Like I mentioned before, the only thing I had to replace were some of the light bulbs behind the “Top 3 High Scores” titles and in the crosshair light assembly.


Arcade Stats:
Manufacturer: Sega
Year Released: 1982
Cabinet: Upright
Monitor: 19-inch Horizontal Raster
Coin Counter: 22982
Tony's First Quarter: Misquamicut Beach, Westerly, Rhode Island
Tony's Arcade: No (January 2005 - November 2005)