If you happen to be in Las Vegas and grow tired of the  neon lights, slot machines, and over the top nature of the city, Gameworks is your haven. CES 2010 gave me the opportunity to first venture into the place, as Valkor (the head honcho of The Other View) and I decided to hit it up after an early evening burger run.

Upon strolling into the place, Gameworks doesn’t look much different from any other family dining/arcade establishments (think Dave & Busters), but after casing the joint and noticing the lineup of titles — After Burner Climax, Daytona USA, Outrun, Rambo — we realized that it’s a  SEGA fan’s dream arcade. And being that, we nearly splooged.

Rambo. Two player terrorist-killing action at its finest.

After buying a cart load of game tokens, Valk and I plopped down in front of the bad ass cab you see above, fed it shiny metal circles, and lifted the machine guns, and proceeded to lay waste to all manner of people that speak differently than we. Rambo‘s your typical light gun shooter, but  the license and satisfying feedback  led us to complete the game (after losing significant amounts of money).

Outrun in mock cars kicks ass.

It just kept getting better. I love Outrun. It’s one of my favorite all-time racers. Gameworks had an incredible four sit-down machines, which allow virtual drivers to compete against one another.  What made this set up kick ass was the cameras embedded into each machine that broadcast each gamers’ smiling faces on an overhead screen for all to see. Awesome stuff. As all the Outrun seats were taken, Valk and I took on one another in Daytona USA where I lost by a few seconds after tanking a bank.

After wiping away a man-tear, I took out my sorrows on After Burner: Climax and an odd Sonic fighting game; Valkor moved onto a funky Star Wars action game. At the end of the night, we were stoked to have finally found a kick ass arcade — something that as you well know is very hard to come by these days. Fortunately, Gameworks isn’t confined just to Las Vegas; you can find a splattering of locations across the nation.

Game on.