ABOUT THE SHOW

The premise of Game Center CX is genius in its simplicity. Each episode Shinya Arino, a Japanese comedian, enters an average looking conference room in the morning and is presented with a game and a challenge. The challenge is typically to see the ending and be declared successful or to give up and fail. The amount of time that he is given to achieve this can vary but the video engineer Suda usually doesn't want to miss the last train home in the early hours of the morning.

Unfortunately for Arino, he's pretty bad at video games and even simple games can prove to be quite the challenge. Whether he's playing a classic like Super Mario World or the masochistic Quest of Ki, Arino faces up to them with good-natured humor and resolve which makes it impossible not to root for him.

While the game challenge makes up the majority of most episodes there are a number of other popular segments such as arcade visits, challenges against other staff members and looking at forgotten peripherals and consoles.

After ten years and over two hundred challenges, Arino has become the face of retro gaming in Japan and Game Center CX isn't stopping anytime soon. And don't worry, although he's gotten better at playing games over the years, they'll always be a challenge for him.