{"id":28074,"date":"2025-01-15T07:15:12","date_gmt":"2025-01-15T07:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/arcade-game\/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-london-trocadero-and-sega-world\/"},"modified":"2025-01-15T07:15:12","modified_gmt":"2025-01-15T07:15:12","slug":"the-rise-and-fall-of-the-london-trocadero-and-sega-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=28074","title":{"rendered":"The rise and fall of the London Trocadero and Sega World"},"content":{"rendered":"


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The site was a full on media blast, with endorsements by consumer brands everywhere, and British cultural icons of the time prevalent – Sega held a star-studded opening day with scores of celebrities, like Robbie Williams, and by the time Pepsi’s “GeneratioNext”\u00a0<\/span>ad campaign rolled around, the mainstream pop music starlets of the moment, the Spice Girls, could be heard belting out their song Move Over in the main atrium every other minute.<\/p>\n

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\nBack to Sega World itself.\u00a0<\/span>Before zipping up the two rocket escalators, visitors would walk through the Trocadero’s shopping arcade entrance way. Immediately, Sega’s presence could be felt with two Sonic statues – the first placed outside, a golden one above a circular LED sign advertising the centre, and another by the entry point of the first escalator.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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In total, there were 6 floors to the place, linked together and accessible through a further series of escalators and travelators, all either criss-crossing through floors or at the left and right sides of the very top of the Trocadero’s atrium.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The first floor was the reception, where game tokens and later ride tickets could be purchased, and photo opportunities could be taken with another Sonic statue, clearly the centrepiece of the floor. A video wall, running a promo video informing visitors of the floors and attractions, ran behind this. Sega Saturn console setups could also be found here, often showcasing new releases including the likes of NiGHTS Into Dreams.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nJust below the reception was then the first proper floor, Combat Zone, which had over 70 action games; mainly shooters, light gun games, and fighting games, like Virtua Cop 2, Virtual ON: Cyber Troopers, Fighting Vipers, and Virtua Fighter 3 – VF3 in particular had its UK launch at Sega World, having only just been put out in Japan weeks beforehand.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nThe Combat Zone also featured the first ride, Beast In Darkness. This was one of the only attractions to not have some sort of VR or 3D graphical feature, instead being more of a glorified ghost train\/haunted house type deal, with sensors, surround sound, and the occasional live actor walking around to simulate the ‘beast’ lurking around you.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Next was The Race Track- this floor had over 70 racing games, and was arguably one of the more impressive floors of the place. Upper walls featured replicas of cars sticking out of them; highlights of its game selection included back to back 8 player deluxe setups of Manx TT Superbikes and Daytona USA. In addition to its cameras outputting video of racers to the screens above the cab marquees, the Daytona even had running commentary provided by an employee.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nMany other linked multiplayer racing games were also situated here, including Scud Race, Sega Rally Championship, Sega Touring Car Championship, Le Mans 24, Harley Davidson & L.A. Riders, and Motor Raid.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nAlso notable here was an impressive Sonic mural, and t<\/span>he very F1 car that Damon Hill once drove in the\u00a01993 Formula One European Grand Prix.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nThe Race Track’s main attraction was Aqua Planet, also known as Aqua Nova at other Sega World and Joypolis locations. In it, riders would don a pair of 3D glasses and be transported to an undersea world which fell to decay at the hands (or tentacles, rather) of a giant squid monster. The main objective was to kill said squid, with three different endings achievable depending on how well teams did in doing so.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nThe 3rd floor was known as The Flight Deck, which featured 20 different flying games, including Sky Target, Wing War and a couple of the previously alluded to R360 simulators. An elusive Sega Net Merc VR machine could also be found here; a mere 70 units of it were supposedly produced due to the short supply of Model 1 arcade boards, with very few making it out of Japan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Even more impressive was the Harrier Jump Jet hanging from the ceiling, which was lowered through the Trocadero’s ceiling by a crane in a press event.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nThis floor’s ride was VR-1 Space Mission, one of the premier simulators of the venue. This ride combined VR, hydraulics and sensors to provide a fully immersive VR experience, in which you would aboard a spaceship to ‘deliver vital information to the planet Basco’, destroying any enemy ships or debris in the way.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nSega World’s biggest floor was The Carnival – a floor dedicated to ticket redemption machines, and more family-orientated games, with bright, garish colours everywhere. As such, there was a prize desk, where exclusive merchandise could be won, as well as Sega’s consoles and games themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nWhile the UFO Catchers and ticket games were this floor’s main draw, there was also a section on this floor called ‘Segakids’, with outlandish Sonic themed decor, including palm trees and gold rings painted on the walls, a McDonalds outlet shaped like a box of fries, and a childrens play area next to it.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nThis floor also had 3 rides. The first was Power Sled, a bobsled simulator that used four moving replicas of sleds and large projection screens to best simulate the feeling of flying down a sloped sled track.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nA later addition to the park in 1998, this was at a few other Sega Worlds, and was also not limited to them – a few turned up at non-affiliated amusement centres in America and Japan, though this was the only known one in the UK.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nThe 2nd was House Of Grandish, another subsequent addition from 1997.\u00a0<\/span>Grandish was not too dissimilar to Beast In Darkness, in that it was another haunted house type attraction, with the added difference of your heart rate being monitored throughout it and given to you on a card by the exit.<\/p>\n

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\nThe 3rd attraction and longest standing one was Ghost Hunt, an interactive ghost train. Riders would get in two seater pods, using transparent projection screens to overlay 3D monsters onto the real life background of a haunted mansion. These monsters could then be shot at with gun yokes; players were graded on how well they did by the end of the ride.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nThe final floor was The Sports Arena, which had 90 sports themed games. Among them were Alpine Racer, Wave Runner, and Sega Bass Fishing. A huge surfing Sonic statue could be found in the centre of the floor, and not only that, his two arcade games were situated here- SegaSonic Arcade, and Sonic The Fighters.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nThis floor appears to have been used most often for corporate parties, as shown in the videos below.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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