More IAAPA 2009 videos – Tetris Giant, Hummer, Twisted (+ NASCAR 2 news) & more

Here’s some more content from the IAAPA 2009 show.

Tetris Giant – We first heard about this interesting new Tetris game a few months ago and while it seemed like the perfect game for Western audiences, I was still a little surprised to see it at Sega’s booth. Where the blocks are pretty large the game can go by quickly but when you play against someone else it can be a lot of fun. Otherwise, it’s Tetris with huge joysticks. These are actually interesting as they make use of force feedback. I am not crazy about the price at all however – $10k for a Tetris game, even if it is huge is too much. At least you can project the image onto the wall for a 150″ image, which could be very useful in certain venues. It’s also good to see a puzzle game make it’s way back to arcades so hopefully this won’t keep it’s price tag for very long.

Hummer – After Sega’s Hummer Deluxe came and went I had expected it to end there but some time later they decided to rework the game slightly for a standard format. It’s actually an all right game and it was constantly being played at show. They only had two standard units setup next to two standard Sega Rally 3’s. Graphically the game looks pretty nice, once again proving what they can pull off Lindbergh platform and the boost feature in the game was nice as it focuses on targeting other Hummer’s to smash into them. You collect your boost depending upon things like nice landings and objects smashed so it does feel like Excite Truck in that regard. I admit that I am not as excited about racers as I am other titles at IAAPA(I know how important racers are to any arcade because they earn well, I can’t ignore that but at the same time I believe that it’s important to demand more titles that give us something different and earn well on their own) but this is a pretty good effort for the off-road racing genre that is worth checking out, if not for the racing than just for the destruction factor alone.

Twisted- GlobalVR was at the show after all, even though they hadn’t been listed on an interactive map system for the show (unless I was looking in the wrong place). They didn’t have any new games we hadn’t heard off but they did have their newest release, Twisted: Nitro Stunt Racing dominating the booth in it’s three configurations. The idea behind this one is to gain enough speed to pull off big jumps or to master loops, depending upon the track you race. As such you have unlimited boost at your fingertips, which is a little surprising but I found that overusing it generally results in a crash (not of the software, just your car). One thing I would have liked to have seen is a scoring/ranking system for the jumps, like it was an Olympic event or something (or even like with Sega’s Hummer, which rewards you with boost points for a good landing) – that would make the jumps feel more satisfying. As we’ve seen before the game looks really nice, whether it’s on the 32″ or 42″ screen. Like with Hummer there are so many racers out there to choose from right now that I’m not sure what advice to offer for someone looking to make a pick between all of them but this is a solid effort. The motion version is pretty cool, the base doesn’t go all over the place when you’re racing and I didn’t feel nauseous during gameplay so that’s a plus.

There was some news regarding GVR’s next effort- a major upgrade to NASCAR which they are calling NASCAR 2. In fact GVR is looking for some operators who own the game to test out the new software which adds several new things to the game including a feature similar to the old Wavenet. If you need to know who to contact, drop us an e-mail and we can put you in touch with the right person but you do need to actually own some NASCAR cabinets. 😉

And Speaking of NASCAR, there was an interesting redemption NASCAR based game at the Baytek booth where four players can race against each other around a small track using remote controlled cars.

Don’t worry, I have several more videos to put up, so stay tuned!

UPDATE: Links to other posts with more arcade videos from IAAPA: Sega Racing Classic/Terminator Salvation/Tank!Tank!Tank! / Tecway Developments, InJoy Motion games, Kung Fu Ball / Dead Storm Pirates, Cooking Mama, Big Buck Hunter Pro Open Season, Textminator