SegaWorld Part 1

One of the reasons I wanted to set up Sega Memories was to, quite simply, reminisce about some cool Sega related stuff from the past I remember, particularly the stuff you can't find anywhere on the Internet. One of these is the SegaWorld indoor theme park that was located in the Trocodero, Piccadilly Circus, London from 1996 to around sometime in 2000/2001, when the seven floors were blocked off and one floor has been made room for some of the arcade cabinets in an area they now call "Fun Land". I have some proper photos and other random stuff from the place to show, but for now here's some screen caps I took from an old home video of my first visit, back around the time it opened with a bunch of school mates. Take note these are grabbed from a DVD rip old video cam footage, so there not the best of shots.

More after the jump.

When it first opened it cost about £12 to get in, and all the rides were included in the price. Over time, the admission was made free, but you had to pay around £3-4 each for the rides. The entrance was two large, lit-up escalators, kind of like the one's they apparently had in the Japanese 'Joyapolis' parks. As you got to the top of these escalators, there was this big hulk of a Sonic statue, ready to be taken a photo with. You could pay to get professional photos done of your group alongside it, which naturally we did (I may show you the photo another time).

Most of the floors were pack to the brim with arcade cabinets, including some that you could probably only get here in the UK, such as that RZ-90? (can't remember the exact title) rotating After Burner style game, a row of about 20 Daytona USA cabinets set up with player cams, and as I'll show you in a photo another time, rare games like Sonic the Fighters and SegaSonic Arcade.

One of the real treats, however, was the rides. I don’t recall the all perfectly, but one of them was a haunted house with a twist, you had a transparent screen in front of you to play a light-gun game that, when you shot certain things, made scenery around you react! There was also a Virtual Reality ride, a sea adventure on a huge screen where everyone on the whole ride had to team up to get the highest score, and this ball-shoot thingy where you got in these bizarre tank things that was, from memory, not very good. There was also some kids ball-room with Sonic related parts, and this cool shock-test thing where your heart rate is rated. I still have my result sheet for that somewhere, got to dig it up.

Anyway, the place was a great day out, and I after seeing it vanish after going there 4 times as a kid, I really miss it now and wish I had more photos, or something. Does anyone else remember this place, and more importantly, have more photos of it? I'd love to see 'em and will post them here if you e-mail me them. From searching for SegaWorld stuff on Google, I also found out that there was also a SegaWorld is Sydney. Some info/photos of this would be cool, too.

More SegaWorld stuff to come!