Sega unveiled the latest photo and letter from an upcoming arcade title they are soon set to release, with the name so far spelling out “SIDEAR”. I guessed from last time on Facebook that it’s going to be SIDEARM, with this latest revelation I think it will be that or pretty close. That seems to indicate a shooting game at least,but what kind of shooter exactly is hard to say still since there are a number of ways to go in that direction. Light-gun shooter seems to be the standard, although the half of the controller we have already seen leaves it up in the air exactly.
This picture, from some sort of internal Sega meeting about the game doesn’t give us much to go off of either, that black blob on the projector screen. They did respond to a fan request to verify that it is the cabinet of the new game.
I decided to open the file in GIMP and do some tinkering. I’m not a photoshop expert but I was able to extract a little more defined outline using a neon edge filter and it looks like the blob on the right is a mounted gun. What is interesting about that is your standard mounted light-gun game has two guns for two players on a cabinet. If that is a gun, then they are putting it on one side and leaving a lot of room on the other. Could it be a hybrid of a gun on the right, some other control feature on the left and ultimately linked cabinets for multiplayer? A lot of arcade titles in the past have done such things, using something like a joystick and trackball or joystick and spinner. Guns blended with a completely different control type are not common at all though so it’s hard to say but hopefully we won’t be waiting much longer!
I wish SEGA a lot of success with their teaser initiative with this game… whatever it is called!
I hope that they realize that a teaser has a limited lifespan and they must not over do it.
Finally, as Japan is now talking about no new international releases till March (MaiMai looks like its on hold for Western release) – we will have to hope to see more “home-grown” titles.
Does anybody remember Lucky&Wild by Namco?
http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=8462
when I asked on segas facebook page they told me it was a shot of the cabinet on the bright screen at a presentation meeting. I hope this doesn’t use the underpowered ringwide because the graphic quality is shit, but with it being developed in the UK it’ll either use the europa R hardware or brand new better hardware or the ringedge 2.
BTW is it true that 2spicey was made in the uk :s
Having past experience of SEGA UK development I think you may find this is a normal PC platform!
I say now to SEGA – this had better be worth the hype!