Newsbag: Dog Loves Pinball; Paul’s Video Arcade Move; PvZ Whacker; Zone Dome; NTG# 18

arcadehero October 4, 2014 7

Happy weekend Arcaders! Hopefully with an arcade near you, you can enjoy some great coin-operated entertainment before the workweek starts up again.

First item for the newsbag today is a fun video shared by Jersey Jack Pinball of a dog that loves pinball, in particular JJP’s Wizard of Oz Pinball. I’m not sure how well the site is going to handle embedding a Facebook post, so here is the link in case it doesn’t work for you right on the page

In Racine, WI, an arcade by the name of Paul’s Video Arcade is looking to move locations and cities, transitioning from Racine to Milwaukee. Paul has been in business since 2005 and has a sizable arcade but he is looking to make the jump to greener pastures. As such he has created a Kickstarter to raise funds for the move, set at an ambitious $200,000 goal. He has a ways to go with 20 days left, you can check out and donate to the campaign here. Good luck to Paul in that, moving locations is not a fun process and of course it is a big risk anytime you pull up those roots since some people might think you just went out of business.

racinearcade

You might recall that Sega had the Plants Vs. Zombies license for use in the coin-op space, releasing Plants Vs. Zombies: The Last Stand videmption game earlier this year. When I saw that game at Amusement Expo 2014, they had a Plants. Vs. Zombies whacker (whac-a-mole style) game nestled between the two video titles. Sega Amusements sent out a press release this week stating that the PvZ whacker game is now available for venues to pick up. I imagine if a location already has The Last Stand then this would be a no-brainer to place right next to that game. In the email Sega sent out about the release, they stated: “Our location test results prove the power of the zombie!   In a Chicago area Family Entertainment Center, our Plants vs. ZombiesTM Mallet Whacking Game earned 3 X as much as other late model mallet whacking games set at the same price per play clearly illustrating the power and value of the Plants vs. ZombiesTM franchise.

Plants vs. Zombies Whacker

Before we get to Name That Game, a “grasping at straws” item. I caught this on the DNA Association site where a small dome screen is combined with a treadmill. Now this would make those “endless runner” type games finally interesting – let’s see how far you can get as well as how long you can last while actually running. The product site by the manufacturer Running Unlimited doesn’t indicate that this is planned for the arcade sector, it’s more of a unique thing for gyms, but with the right game I imagine it could work just fine as coin-op technology. Even without the treadmill, I think a screen of that size could be a neat novelty display which could be used for a number of arcade game ideas.

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Name That Game #18 – For Name That Game #17, it must have had too many obscure games, although I thought that the shooter game fans out there would have guessed on a couple. Your answers for what they were:

#1 – 1944: The Loop Master by Capcom

#2 – F-15 Strike Eagle by Microprose

#3 – Fantasy by Rock-Ola

For this week, I am going to try and keep the focus towards more horror/terror/Halloween games.

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7 Comments »

  1. Arcades4ever October 5, 2014 at 12:45 am - Reply

    No more dea about the first game but other two are vampire night and golly ghost.
    Seems to me ever since mach Storm came out this year arcade companies are trying cash in on the technology and it’s certainly something that can’t be replicated at home anytime soon in the future.
    Plants vs zombies was a really fun and simple shooter when I played it. I don’t usually bother with ticket games but it was so much fun trying to survive the hoard of zombies

  2. CAT October 5, 2014 at 9:38 am - Reply

    Fester’s Quest.

  3. 60Hz October 5, 2014 at 11:36 am - Reply

    #2! Vampire Night – SEGA AND NAMCO together! What more could you ask for!!! Love that game!

    • Arcades4ever October 6, 2014 at 2:30 pm - Reply

      Yeah it’s pretty unusual for a game like vampire night being made both by sega and namco. Imagine if they teamed up and created a gun game that combined elements of the house of the dead and time crisis. It could be similar to half like a little bit where some organisation are shooting at you while also there are zombies at the same time. the time crisis element would be still hiding but behind objects where if you don’t kill and move forward in time the zombies get you. Could be a winner if sega and namco decided on it 🙂

  4. voltz15 October 5, 2014 at 5:58 pm - Reply

    Milwaukee is great, but someone needs to take up a spot in Green Bay since we currently don’t have anything.

  5. Gamefan72 October 6, 2014 at 9:41 am - Reply

    Paul’s arcade, which I believe is at Regency Mall. not the best neighborhood anyway. Pretty sure that was once a Cyberstation or Alladin’s back in the day.

  6. Miguel Araujo October 6, 2014 at 3:11 pm - Reply

    the plants vs zombies pinball is very nice, good post

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