Modern Arcade games are, of course, not really designed to be "video games". Theyre designed to be credit-crunching spectacles, meant to wow children with yet uncritical tastes. But as I play Super Bikes 3 while waiting for the text that says my tables ready at the korean BBQ place next door, a nascent thought I have every time Im in an arcade crystalizes into focus: why dont real video games play up this spectacle more?

Why are there so many racing games where youre driving through an "authentic" (but highly abbreviated) Mexican desert and so few games where youre shattering through a Himalayan ice shelf to discover the Yetis long-lost Hidden Forest? All people care about are expensive graphics and yet were not using them to make a game where you drive through a hurricane? What a fuckin waste.