The GTI Asia China Expo 2011 Mega Post

With China’s arcade market booming, there are now a few different arcade shows taking place there each year. While there is still a problem with bootlegs galore (in fact I’ve found out about another version of Plants Vs. Zombies and even Angry Birds getting the bootleg treatment), companies in the business of not ripping off other people’s work are taking note in China as the opportunity for selling games is pretty big there. As such, at the GTI Asia China 2011 show taking place this week, every major manufacturer has some of their content to show off here, along with some lesser known and in some cases, less reputable companies.

What surprises me here for this show is we actually get to see a few innovative ideas, including new concepts in firefighting video games, a motion based competitive boxing game and more. The first sighting of the dedicated version of Friction is also there; and Dirty Drivin’ which was just barely shown in the US is also seen in Chinese. After I looked through everything GTI had to offer, I’ll venture to say that I’m envious on one level here as they have a lot going on in terms of pushing arcade accessibility and innovation beyond where we’ve been seeing it go int he West. The bootlegs in the mix still damage credibility and some things just wouldn’t work out in other markets but they are experimenting and I think in many cases as you’ll see below, that’s a good thing. All of these photos are posted with Tosh Morita’s permission, owner of Fillmore Games in Japan!

(BTW – I am still waiting to get some pics from the AAMA Gala that took place last week. If anyone has any pictures or videos in hand of that event, please let me know!)

It’s a little bit astounding how many pictures Tosh took, I can’t fit it all on this page as it’s taken me a good chunk of time just to get this. I considered splitting the post in two but I hope an index here will suffice.

3D Topspeed City; Speed Rider 2; Knight of Valour 3; Storm Racer, GSpirit Tennis; a Big Rig truck racing game; Friction; Dirty Drivin’; Terminator Salvation; Operation GHOST; Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing Arcade; Initial D 6 AA;Hummer MDX; Golden Gun; Gaia Attack 4; Let’s Go Island; Tekken Tag Tournament 2;Final Turn; Dead Heat, Dido Kart 2; Project X-Pher; Love Touch; a couple of Firefighting games ; Disney’s 3D Ping Pong; Angry Birds Arcade bootleg; Cowboy Legends; Konami’s booth with Reflec Beat & others; various music games; Green Journey’s (mountain bike game), Basketball FY; Boxing; some fighting games; Crazy Tanks; some other games that are different in their own little ways; plethora of light-gun games; ; racing games galore; OutRun bootlegs and more.

As part of their promotion to show off a new 3D driving game, International Dragon World had a stage with a large screen and at one point dancers. May as well start off with a bang right? Not to mention that with quite a few driving games at the show, you may as well find a way to try and stand out. Although when it comes to the cabinet as you’ll see below, I can’t say that the cabinet design for the game is all that inspiring.

Dragon World wasn’t the only company that decided to market their game with dancers as IGS tried to 1up them with a bigger stage, promoting Speed Rider 2.

It lacked the dancing fanfare but IGS also brought along the new Knights of Valour 3.

One heavyweight company in China & Taiwan is Wahlap Technologies. Here’s their newest racing game Storm Racer.

Gspirit Tennis, an original gesture/motion arcade game by Wahlap

Big Rig Racing game at the Wahlap booth. The HUD has an H2Overdrive look to it but when it comes to racing Big Rigs, the closest game I can think of is Sega’s 18 Wheeler game from a few years back. I do like the setup and cabinet, I wonder if it’s any fun.

Released earlier this year to the US/Europe in kit form, this is the first time we’ve seen Friction in a large screen dedicated cabinet. The other day Coast To Coast announced that China Star Games would be distributing the game in China exclusively. As you can see from this pic, not only is this running widescreen and thus at a higher resolution than the kit version, the guns are different as well.

I’m not sure how they say Dirty Drivin’ in Chinese. I could tell you what it is in Portuguese but that doesn’t really apply here.

Sega wasted no time getting Operation G.H.O.S.T. ready for the Chinese market.

Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing Arcade looking to make an impression

Initial D6AA found a place to stay outside of Japan.

Hummer MDX is apparently too shy to be photographed but posed for just this one pic.

Sega Golden Gun in it’s natural habitat, sporting a larger screen than the international version

Taito’s Gaia Attack 4 and Sega’s Let’s Go Island get to know each other a little better.

Tekken Tag Tournament 2, just in case anyone needs a reminder that this is an arcade game.

Namco’s Final Turn, Formula 1 racing without the complex controller.

Dead Heat soaking up some plays

Injoy Motion’s Dido Kart 2, which will be released next week in fact, along with Project X-Pher.

I’m not sure if this is an InJoy product or not, it was near some of the inJoy games but it doesn’t really fit their typical style. It’s called Love Touch, someone’s answer to Konami’s recent love/dating sim they released in Japan earlier this year.

Now here is a neat idea – last year at IAAPA, a company called UNIS showed off  a game where you used mounted water guns to play mini-games. It seems that idea has been picked up by some other companies and they are doing something with it that makes total sense – make a firefighting game out of it. The last firefighting arcade game I recall is Sega’s Brave Firefighters but with these two games, I really think that this is a neat enough of an idea where it could even work without a ticket dispenser. There were two competing Firefighter games here, the first is called Emergency (maybe something else too, I don’t read Chinese) and the other is Fire Hero but the picture was taken either before or after the show as it’s off.

Well if it isn’t Disney 3D PingPong. Originally released in May 2010, this boasted using the first autostereoscopic 3D display so the player didn’t need glasses. It’s been a while since we’ve seen this, it is still just hanging out in China and it happens to be an officially licensed product which is nice to see.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Angry Birds arcade bootleg. I’ve been sitting on the news of this one for a few days as I did some research but this was a part of the pics so I may as well out it now. This is lacking a monitor for some reason. You can see the flyers for the game which Hero Technology is trying to sell in the Chinese market, I’ve pasted one below as well.

Saddle up! I’m not sure if this is MadDog McCree running in a completely different cabinet but just the cabinet concept is interesting here for Cowboy Legend. The horse does seem to be sitting a little too far away from the screen, but it could just be the camera angle here.

Konami’s Reflec Beat enjoys some attention

You’re not a real freak until you’re a Guitar Freak (XG). A Beatmania was on hand and in the background of the 2nd pic you can see a Stern NBA Pinball machine. So that’s where they all went to.

The stage is set for the World Pump It Up Tournament

The music game that got some excitement at IAAPA 2010, Mozarc finds some time to chill at GTI

Belrare shows off their take on music gaming.

DJ Max Technika wants to meet these two games outside by the flag pole after school to discuss some things.

It might not have a brand name but it draws the crowds

I believe a foreheaded-thinking person designed this uBeat clone…

DJ Club lathering on some grooves.

It’s not the first time someone has developed a coin-op karaoke video game but it doesn’t seem like there are a ton of them around.

Green Journeys takes a page from Namco’s old Prop Cycle, apparently is some sort of mountain biking game. It’s certainly the best way to go about this kind of game and you get to skip the allergies and possible head/limb injuries!

Basketball FY – not sure who made it (or what the heck FY stands for) but it’s been quite a while since we’ve seen any basketball video game in arcades.

Aptly called Boxing, here’s a new boxing game using huge gloves and motion sensors. No idea who has made it though.

Some sort of new fighting game, apparently starring a buffed up bionic Patrick Stewart

Teasing Super Street Fighter while offering up some Battle Fantasia and King of Fighters. Cold.

A fighting game called Battle City. Sounds like a crappy place to raise a family.

Believe it or not, someone is ripping of the 3D Street Fighter IV idea from another company (also at the same show) who already ripped it off in the first place. Such is the cycle of bootlegging. Not a bad cab except for the awkward speakers on the top but looking carefully, this design seems to be partially inspired by the Darius Burst cabinet.

Sailing Technology Company had this overhead combat game called Crazy Tanks there with some different cabinet styles. It’s hard to say but could be like a modern version of Tank. A modern Tank 8 would be completely awesome, this looks like it fits the bill although it won’t be seen outside of China most likely and who knows how it really plays. These people seem to be enjoying it at least.

Speaking of tanks, here’s a no name tank game, with shiny graphics ans stereoscopic 3D.

Deep Sea Shark Hunter is totally secure with it’s size. Something like this could be fun if it were an updated version of Atari’s Shark JAWS or PSE’s Maneater. I have a feeling this is a turret shooter that they like to make for the Chinese market.

Cut Fruit is an awkward name and it’s hard to say if this is just a bootleg of Fruit Ninja or a clone but the idea of using a samurai sword to slice the fruit is kind of cool, fitting into the original intent of the game. If you have to swing it inside that box though I don’t see how that will last long to the certain beating the cabinet would take from people swinging the sword around.

4 player beachhead turret game which the guy on the right seems overtly excited about (or he won a sweepstakes, who knows)

I can has…oh whatever. And it’s sitting to yet another Plants Vs. Zombies bootleg. I’m starting to think that PvsZ is going to dethrone ping pong as the National Sport in China.

It’s Wack-A-Mole (clone) – OF THE FUTURE!

Happy Balance Ball redesigned with a completely different control scheme. The version of this I played at IAAPA 09 used a balance board controller which was OK.

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At least Game+ decided to modify the style of cabinet Sega used with Giant Tetris so it isn’t too obvious anymore, as they’ve done with Happy Swing.

With a variety of random light-gun games like these, we could setup “LIGHT-GUN CITY”, sister company to Spatula City. The first one here seems to be interpreting what a 4-player light-gun game based upon World of Warcraft would be like (answer= weird)

Allrighty then.

Taito’s Panic Museum 2 (Frightfearland in the US) gets it’s Chinese makeover

Snow Bros type clone?

Demon Hunter – while inspired by Plants Vs. Zombies, I don’t think it’s PvsZ. Could be a bootleg of someone elses game perhaps, I don’t really track all of the casual games out there these days.

Another 4p turret shooter, but this cute one is about blasting gross bugs, I think.

Hark!  More racing games, just in case you haven’t filled your quota yet.

Apparently Tippin’ Bloks forgot to sign-up for LifeLock Identity Protection giving Folding Box the in it was looking for.

I’d be hesitant to try too, that robot looks pissed.

This is not Sonic Blast Heroes, but every night Live Boxer dreams that it was.

More than one company has decided it’s time for OutRun 3D, but none of those companies happen to be Sega. The first one here even pulls some “inspiration” from Konami’s RoadFighters.

Half-Life 2 Standard. I guess the newer Cyber Diver couldn’t make an appearance?

Hey Spikers Battle, one game I’d really like to play one of these days but they are pretty rare in the US.

To further prove the show is not situated in the West, some STG games

The irony of this pirate guy at the expo is delicious. Yar matey.

If you want to see much more from the expo, then check out Tosh’s collection, it really had way too much for me to post here!