Project DIVA Arcade cabinet revealed as the game goes on location test in Japan

Posted January 6, 2010 by Shaggy
Categories: Arcade Games
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Last October we found out that Sega Japan was planning on bringing a PSP music game known as Project DIVA over to arcades and after a short time of hearing little about the game, we now have a look at the cabinet, pictured above. You can tell by looking closely at the picture that this is the cabinet design they are using in the Ringedge-powered Border Break but with a much larger marquee and enhanced sound system. The website doesn’t say if this is a Ringedge or Ringwide game but it currently is on location test in Japan. I am not expecting to see this particular game get much attention in distribution channels outside of Japan but I am curious to know if any operators out there who frequently import games from there plan on picking this up or not.

More details can be seen at the Project DIVA Arcade website.

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Pat Laffaye smashes the “Costanza Score” on Frogger

Posted January 5, 2010 by Shaggy
Categories: Arcade Games
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We have spoken of the Costanza Score before – the mythical score on the arcade game Frogger that was shown in an episode of the comedy TV show Seinfield back in the 90’s. When that score was shown on the show, it was more than double the world record that had been set previously and while organizations like Twin Galaxies offer prizes for beating the Costanza score, no one had managed to do that – until now.

On New Years Eve, gamer Pat Laffaye achieved a score of 896,980 points on an original Frogger machine, which was witnessed and verified by Twin Galaxies referee Eric Akeson. Pat also holds the world record for Paperboy as well. Congrats Pat!

[Via Twin Galaxies.com] [Discuss on the forums]

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The Stinger Report’s gaze into the crystal ball for 2010 (updated)

Posted January 5, 2010 by Shaggy
Categories: Arcade Games
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As 2010 in finally upon us, it’s a good time to take a look further into trends we can expect to see throughout the rest of the year. Thanks to Kevin Williams of The Stinger Report for bringing us this look!

- ‘Crystal Ball Gazing on “Digital Out-of-Home Entertainment” Trends 2010’

It is that time of the New Year when our free trade e-Newsletter (The Stinger Report)– likes to ponder some of the issues that will impact the international amusement  industry – and this year we thought we would give Arcade Heroes a sneak peak at our observations:
Read the rest of this post »

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Able Gamer interviews Sebastian Jennings, the “Goofyhand”/”One Handed Terror”

Posted January 5, 2010 by Shaggy
Categories: Arcade Games
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If you are one of the many people who are into tournament gaming, especially when it comes to fighters like Street Fighter IV then you may have already heard of Sebastian Jennings. If you haven’t, then it’s still worth reading ahead. Mr. Jennings is a tournament player himself who has grabbed attention not only because of his talent with playing games like one-on-one fighters but also because of his underdeveloped left hand. While this makes it difficult for him to play games like first-person shooters or real-time strategy games, fighters which use the standard arcade setup are better to handle. Jennings has made a number of Chun Li tutorials for Street Fighter IV which you can see here or you can read more about him at this interview which was recently conducted by Ablegamer.com.

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NYC eases up on arcades (a little)

Posted January 2, 2010 by Shaggy
Categories: Arcade Games
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One major hurdle for people looking to get into the arcade business are the local laws which often restrict the use of coin-operated video games in certain venues. Because of that, it is always my advice to check up on these laws well before you start organizing everything for your business, otherwise you can end up wasting a lot of time and effort into creating a business in an area where arcades are either completely prohibited or they are restricted to the point where it is nearly pointless to start on in the first place. If this is the case then I also advocate getting involved to change the laws – many times these are holdovers from the 70’s or 80’s where a cities created restrictive arcade laws out of either greed, fear or both. This can be an extremely difficult task to do alone and in some cases even as a group, as we see in this story at the Vending Times about the efforts of the AMOA-NY to change the laws in New York City to be a little more friendly towards the purchase and use of arcade machines on a location.

The new law allows venues to purchase and operate a certain number of arcade machines on location without requiring them to get a license, unless they have more than 10 machines. As anyone who deals with business in New York knows, obtaining a license is an extra headache that results in higher costs and time wasted. Now licenses haven’t been eliminated by any means here but at least this will open the doors for more businesses in purchasing a couple of games and that is a good thing overall.

For more details hit up Vending Times.

[Discuss on the forums]

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And the winners are…

Posted January 1, 2010 by Shaggy
Categories: Arcade Games
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While it is not quite 2010 yet where I am right at the moment, for the website the timer has passed onto the new year and so our Game of the Year/Decade polls are now closed. So what were your choices?

Game of the Decade – H2Overdrive – Raw Thrills’/Specular Interactive’s follow-up to Hydro Thunder took the cake by quite a lead for the best game of this past decade. In second place In The Groove 2 came in with 12 votes and DJ Max Technika and Outrun 2 SP tied for third with 10 votes each.

Game of the Year 2009 – DJ Max Technika – This took an early lead and managed to hold onto it, even though for a time it looked like H2Overdrive would catch up. Coming in a very distant third place would be BlazBlue: Continuum Shift.

Pinball Game of the Year – Lord of the Rings Limited Edition – Even though the new LotR pinball re-release has only been available for a short time, it handily came out on top in the poll. Following behind were CSI and King of Diamonds.

This also reminds me that I will have to make a new page for game releases in 2010, especially where there are some exciting projects to look forward to  If you hadn’t seen our 2009 page, click here. Thanks for your votes and Happy 2010!

(BTW – I am hoping that I will have a look at a new game I will be debuting at my arcade soon – a tank combat game by an indie PC game developer who I convinced to make an arcade version out of it. It wasn’t hard since the developer will be my future brother-in-law. Anyways, it is very close to being done but the motherboard that was going to be used in the machine was bad so we need to get a new one to make the thing work. stay tuned)

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Big Buck Hunter pinball revealed

Posted December 31, 2009 by Shaggy
Categories: Arcade Games
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We heard about Big Buck Hunter Pro coming to pinball ages ago (in fact that is something we discussed on the most recent podcast) and finally we have a look at the game, via Pinballnews.com. The main feature of the playfield is a stag which can move diagonally across the board, which is your target to hit of course. Otherwise, you can see some ramps in the background, some orbit targets and not much else (I can’t tell if there are any drop targets there). The playfield was designed by Dennis Nordman, who is no longer with Stern. It should be interesting to see how well this does in places that also carry BBH games and whether bars will be picking up these up to compliment their BBH videos or not.

While I was hoping for something like a color display, I wasn’t honestly expecting to see one here. The playfield is obviously following a simpler pattern which Gary Stern said the company would be following post-NBA pinball.

UPDATE: I found some more information on the game at Bingovit.be including the pic below.

UPDATE: Pinballnews.com has more detailed pictures of the game from the location test.

[Via Pinballnews.com] [Discuss on the forums]

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Play Belgium now open, offers an interactive look at the history of video games

Posted December 31, 2009 by Shaggy
Categories: Arcade Games
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There have been a couple of instances in the past where we have covered touring museums which cover the history of video games and the latest exhibition that I am aware of is Play Belgium. This is based upon the Game On exhibition which began in 2000 and has since been traveling around the world, spreading the knowledge regarding the 40+ years of video game history. Obviously where this is an exhibit about video games, they allow attendees to play the games and on top of that, there are a number of arcade games which can be played as well. The exhibit is open until April 18th, 2010 and they even reserve two days of the week just for tours from schools. I would have died and gone to heaven had my elementary or middle school taken us on a field trip to something like this. :)

Here is a video covering the tour when it was in Australia recently (which we covered earlier this year)

[Play Belgium Official Site] [Discuss on the forums]

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Arcade Heroes Podcast #11 – Finishing up ‘09

Posted December 31, 2009 by Shaggy
Categories: Arcade Games
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It’s the last day of 2009 and with that, our last podcast of the year. Due to the slow down in news lately (and I have been rather busy) it was a little difficult to get a podcast done but Kevin Williams and I were able to talk for abotu an hour the other day about what has gone on in the industry since IAAPA. Some of discussion includes -

-ASCAP going after Guitar Hero Arcade

-The future of pinball

-Discussion on some of the new games coming out in the near future

-Looking back at the past ten years and looking forward to what is in store in the future.

As always, we hope you like it! And Happy New Year to everyone on top of that, have a fun and safe holiday!

Download the podcast here! (99MB; MP3)

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Looking for some arcades to buy in the San Fransisco area? Check out the TILT

Posted December 31, 2009 by Shaggy
Categories: Arcade Games
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So it’s not really news that a TILT location has their games on sale – every time I have visited a TILT location, they always have something on sale. But things are slow enough that I am going to mention this anyways – game blog Destructoid is highlighting some of the games that are for sale at the TILT in San Fransisco. They have some cool games that are currently available: Dark Legacy, Star Wars Trilogy, Silent Scope, Street Fighter III 3rd Strike, War: Final Assault, Dual Stacker, Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, Vapor TRX and others. Hit the link below to check it out.

[TILT games for sale - Destructoid] [Discuss on the forums]

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