A bulk of the pictures come via David Hiu who has done a lot of work cataloging various trade shows in the past. You can view the album here but where it is loaded with a lot of casino games and other booths that aren’t particularly interesting to look at. So what you find below has been whittled down to the arcade content. A few pictures not from this album will be given the proper credit; there are also some videos from games at the event which were uploaded by Highway Entertainment.

Due to the amount of content, here are tabs to split the content up. Just click on the tab to view the categorized content; click on any images for a full view.

Aside from this, I imagine there might be a few more videos in store, we’ll have to wait and see.

The post GTI Asia Taipei Expo 2013 Arcade Bonanza appeared first on Arcade Heroes.

That item is related to the new Hobbit Pinball machine by Jersey Jack Pinball, slated for a release in Summer 2014. until now, that was all we really knew about it, was that it is coming next year as JJP works on getting their first title, Wizard of Oz Pinball out the door. Since they have achieved that goal, it makes it so production time on their other machines will be shortened and they shared the basic design for the lower playfield of the game. I’m sure this could change for the final build but you will notice the idea is to have moving axes among other features. There are targets in the outer ball drop lanes that you may have to bump the machine to get. According to the email that JJP sent out with this image (which I did get permission to share here), it also stated this about the game:

Joe and the Team are going full out on The Hobbit Trilogy. Joe says “This design is going together better than any layout I have ever done. It will include several different elements than my other games. It is a more expansive flowing game with fast shots and multiple ramps. The main mechanism is Smaug which will be very interactive. The game includes subways and a mountain-scape. Aside from WOZ Joe has designed some of the best loved highest earning games including our own TheWizard of Oz, The Simpson’s Pinball Party and South Park. Joe continued; “We are all having a lot of unexpected fun creating this game”

Without further adieu, the partial playfield (click for a full view):

(Next tip thanks to Adam Coate)

Next is something of interest for “indiecades” – I’m not sure if that’s the best name for them to be honest but they probably aren’t getting a wide release anytime soon and they are non-coin. In particular this is a story run by Kotaku about a huge cabinet made for a game called Killer Queen but before we get to that, a message to the author of this story (who appears in the video below)

Evan, buddy, pal. Please do some research on the subject before writing a headline like “Nobody Makes Awesome Arcade Machines Anymore“. Sure what defines “awesome” is arbitrary but I will confidently submit these modern cabinets for review:

This Cabinet is Awesome #1; This Cabinet is Awesome #2; This Cabinet is Awesome #3; This Cabinet is Awesome #4;

That’s just a small sampling of professionally built arcade machines that could be classified as ‘awesome’ and they have more going for them than just big screens too (artwork, LED lighting effects, unique controllers, special molds to adorn the cab, etc.).  Presenting arcades as a dead art form doesn’t help the cause of arcades and arcade game makers who still produce this stuff for a living. These games are released to the public at large on a regular basis, no matter what coverage they might get in game media. Why they are overlooked on a regular basis I can’t answer but suffice it to say, you can still find some great arcade cabs out in the wild.

Anyways, back to the story at hand is the unique Killer Queen arcade setup by Josh DeBonis and Nik Mekros. It was designed for an NYU Event called No Quarters and supports 10 players. In one way you could say it carries on the tradition of unique arcade setups on college campuses, Galaxy Game was the first and it ran for about a decade, although it did take quarters to play. The video gets into more detail about Killer Queen with the creators.

Next up is something sent to us by 趙泳泰 on Facebook, a six min videos of the Fast Beat Battle Rider arcade game.  This is a game by Taiwainese company Saint Fun, we’ve covered it before and surprisingly it got a bit of attention. I’m still trying to get some more info on what happened at the GTI Asia Taipei trade show last week but not much luck since the last post about it.

Finally, I found out about this on Facebook, not sure how long it’s been the case but apparently if you go to Google Image Search, type Atari breakout and wait for a moment, it launches “Image Breakout” where you get to play Atari’s Breakout game on your browser but with random selected (but clean) Google images. Neat little timewaster although the physics are different than any other Breakout I have played and it’s pretty easy. You can pause the game; I currently have 4404 points and 10 lives still. Curious to see how high I can go. As neat as this is, I have to wonder why current Atari isn’t trying to do things that will make them easy money, like putting Atari Lynx games on the Nintendo 3DS VC and such (I’ll avoid suggesting they jump into the arcade biz at the moment as that probably wouldn’t work out given the path they’ve been on for the past 15 years or so). Seems like that would be more of a no-brainer than this.

The post Tuesday Newsreel: Hobbit Pinball Playfield Partial Reveal; Killer Queen Indiecade, Fast Beat Battle Video; Google Breakout appeared first on Arcade Heroes.

Since the “crowdfunding” craze got started, various video games have found glorious success in obtaining funding so they can reach the wide market. Granted, the success of titles like Star Citizen has many dreaming of just a small percentage of that attention but it is certainly easier said than done. We’ve come across a few projects that are arcade-related but none that involved the creation of a full-blown machine before. Enter King of the Ring.

Designed by Nexersys, the King of the Ring first reminds me of a few Konami games, particularly Punch Mania which came out back in 2000. It could also be compared to those boxing machines which are in a few arcades, some of which are starting to integrate video screens for a more exciting presentation.  I’ll let their own description detail how the exer-game works:

Nexersys Corporation has created a professional-grade multimedia fitness product that delivers the motivation of a personal trainer, the benefits of a boxing and mixed martial arts high-intensity interval-training workout and the entertainment and feedback available from today’s gaming and computer technology. Nexersys has proven itself to be one of the most innovative and effective products in the fitness space and due to popular demand from current customers, it’s time to take over the gaming and arcade market.

Here is a conceptual rendering of the planned cabinet:

And here is the Kickstarter video pitch:

At the time of this writing, the clock is almost out on the funding period – they have only managed to gain the pledges of a small fraction of their goal of $150,000. Unfortunately we didn’t hear about this until this evening to be able to share the news, with such projects being a Kickstarter rarity it can be too easy to overlook. Perhaps they will try again though or obtain the needed investment another way to make this a reality on the market.

[King of the Ring Kickstarter Page]

The post Found on Kickstarter: King of the Ring Arcade Exer-Game appeared first on Arcade Heroes.

Cars UK Loctest

The new Disney Cars arcade game by Raw Thrills is due to be released just about any time now, Kevin Williams of The Stinger Report stated that the final build of the software was at the DEAL show in Dubai a few weeks ago. If you are in or near Sheffield, UK and want to get a chance to check out then head over to the Hollywood Bowl that has a pair of cabinets. It’s unknown what software build this is using and whether they are linked although it would make sense for a location test with two units to have them linked. Thanks to Kieran May for the tip!

PureNovelty launches first product – The Pic N Mix

We don’t cover novelty or vending machines really but was asked to take a look at this one. By UK company PureNovelty, their first unit is called the Pic N Mix. As the name implies, it allows the user to pick from various candies and mix them together to their liking. They’ve patented their tech and have set up an agreement in the UK and Ireland with Candyking UK. Again the vending world isn’t our fortei but this looks like a sharp piece with a unique twist to draw some attention.  More info on it can be found here.

Namco Earnings Report

Via The Stinger Report(newsfeed 1304), a link to Namco’s latest corporate report card. From the looks of it, things are steady and positive for the company with arcades and amusement still proving to be a solid part of their business. It speaks for itself, you can see it here.

The Great Goat Polo Arcade Hoax

( newsfeed 1305)

Remember the Soviet Museum of Arcade games? It’s a real place that collects arcade games gamers in the West have never heard of. It shows the feeble attempts to capture some of the arcade fever in the USSR during the time when the retro classics we know and love were writing headlines and gobbling quarters in free regions of the world. The games didn’t make it outside of those particular borders and so it left an easy opening for someone to pull a joke. Enter in Ulak-Tartysh, a game that was apparently being touted as a new find from those strange Soviet games as far back as in 2009. It’s something we overlooked completely here, until the jig was up.  You can read the confessional here @ Jalopik, where the hoaxster went to the length of creating a cabinet, dirty artwork and a game based upon a sport called Buzkashi (not necessarily the kind of thing on ESPN every other day). It was certainly a convincing piece of work so at least the creator didn’t let the joke reach the mythical status of Polybius.

The post Newsblend The Weekend: Cars UK Loctest; PureNovelty Launch; Namco Earnings + more appeared first on Arcade Heroes.

So far from what I have gathered, it looks to be similar to the GAGA2013 show held in China last month. Naturally Taiwanese manufacturers have a stronger presence here than at other shows so we can expect to hear more along those lines. InJoy Motion is launching a new game to use their Air Series technology which you can find below and Sealy was going to be showing off the Crazy Motor game that was covered in the GAGA2013 post. At the time of this writing only a few pictures and no videos have been obtained from the show, so we’ll skip using tabs for now.

Pictures via Rico Shen of Music Game Fantasia -

Among the pictures received, this is the only new-new product shown so far, Allied Tank Attack by Taiwanese game maker InJoy Motion. It’s hard to determine how it plays exactly just by a single picture although I can see that it uses a yoke control for the left player to drive the tank and the right side uses InJoy’s unique mounted gun. They used this idea of the driver/shooter combo when they first unveiled Project X-Pher but they later scrapped that design in favor of doing a straight light-gun shooter. The seat does use their new Air Series motion tech, which employs various air bladders to move the seat around instead of mechanical arms or hydraulics. I am going to guess that this game is more of an evolution of something like Panzer Elite Action which the company also sells. I’m sure there will be videos of this in action before too long. Also, this will be a worldwide release as InJoy does with all of their games so it will likely be available for Western locations before the end of the year.

Next is a pic from the IGS booth. IGS is also a Taiwanese company that has made waves before and they have been expanding their reach of 3D games. Here is Speed Driver 4, a game made to compete with the likes of Namco’s Maximum Tune 4 series. SD4 was at IAAPA2012 through Wahlap (here is a video I shot of it at the show along with Wahlap’s Storm Racer). No comment on how it compares to Initial D6 or 7 or MaxiTune 4 since I have not played those yet. Also after the pic is the official trailer for the game released last year. The official site for the game (English) can be found here. The game to the right is IGS’ kids game, Hero of Robots.

Namco is there and their booth looks not unlike their booths at US trade shows like IAAPA2012 and Amusement Expo 2013 – excepting the addition of Wangan Mindnight Maximum Tune 4 of course.

I am guessing that this is Wahlap’s booth, judging by another picture below. Sega’s Dream Raider’s next to Wahlap’s Dance Core.

I found the following pictures on Instagram after doing a Twitter search, by user Idben who was at the show.

I’m not sure what the game is up-front here but what I find more interesting in this particular photo is a game behind them, over to the left. That just so happens to be Under Defeat:The Ride which is a sit-down version of Under Defeat.

In case you are wondering, this is apparently designed by Tong Li Animation. How legit it is, I’m not sure. It’s not Under Defeat HD+, just the original game that had been released to arcades several years ago.

And in another shot I find the background games more interesting than the principal point of the photo. That is not Super Bikes 2 but Wahlap’s new Storm Racer MT we spoke of the other day. And right next to that – Sega’s still unreleased K.O. Drive but in the original prototype cabinet that Sega had only shown off a couple of times before going in a completely different direction with it.

That’s all for now, stay tuned for more as there will certainly be more information trickling out of the show soon!

The post First Look From GTI Asia Taipei Expo 2013 – Allied Tank Attack Unveiled + More appeared first on Arcade Heroes.

Apologies for the earlier post being taken down on another subject, it was requested of us after the story ran.

Anyways back in the world of upcoming VR developments, Gamespot has an article with a video look at a new concept being worked on in Seattle by the name of VRcade. The video below gives the full rundown of what they intend to do although I was unable to find anything about a launch window for when the facility will be open as they are still in the development phase. The ultimate promise of what they want to do is provide a facility that allows for the immersive play promised by VR many times over – full body motion tracking coupled with the Oculus Rift VR headsets on a large scale. Sounds like just as much an evolution of the laser tag arena as it does an arcade – a “holodeck” albeit lacking the holograms for now.

You can read the Gamespot article here; Visit the official VRcade website here and the promo video below:

The post The VRCade Concept Looking To Fulfill the VR Promise appeared first on Arcade Heroes.

Regular readers of the site here are aware that Sega has a development studio in China that created Sega Golden Gun, K.O. Drive and possibly done work on a few other titles. K.O. Drive hasn’t been released yet but apparently Sega is ready to start testing out their next title and in China first. Given the nature of the license, I doubt it will just stick to that region so chances are we will see it reach the Western world by the end of the year but that is just a guess – nothing has been announced as of yet. This further demonstrates the importance of China as a market for arcade manufacturers. Here’s the location test announcement that unveils the new Transformers: Human Alliance:

According to the scant info about the game so far, it’s a shooting game where humans (presumably the player) fight alongside the Autobots to save the planet. Also it can be presumed that means it’s a light-gun game, which would make this the first licensed light-gun game Sega has done since Rambo. However you never know, there is a small possibility that shooter could mean the STG kind too, which is more popular in that area of the world. It is also the first time I am aware of that the Transformers will have their own specific video arcade game; there was the pinball machine by Stern otherwise.

The testing starts tomorrow and goes until Sunday, I will keep an eye out for any further updates.

[Via 17utt.com]

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The important bits have been compiled into tabs for your convenience. The first is Wahlap, a major company there that unveiled three new games. They have been selling some games of theirs out West and they may very well bring these new ones over too. Next is some videos of Japanese and American companies making a presence at the show; the 3rd tab compiling the remaining videos that may or may not be easily identifiable.

The post Chinese Arcade Devs Strut Their Stuff at GAGA2013 appeared first on Arcade Heroes.

I am going to use the tab feature to separate the stories, just click on the tab below to open up the story you are most interested in. Tabs 2-4 are links shared with us by The Stinger Report, covering newsfeeds 1315-1317.

The post News For Monday: Rock N Roll VertiGo Release, Arcade Fighter GIFs, Fast DDR Player + More appeared first on Arcade Heroes.

LOADING SOHO – the latest venue from the LOADING venue chain that first launched in Cornwall in 2009 – the new Soho London venue, sitting inside the MADD juice bar – and called a “open beta testing” of the concept offers a relaxing venue to socialize and play games. In the early stage of launch the site is still getting the whole environment sorted. The venue along with a smattering of classic console systems had a number of retro table amusement pieces and a few uprights – the final venue will have a lower level with even more machines – looking at private events and game launches, as well as drop in crowd to grow the business. The Stinger Report hopes to visit again for a more in-depth conversation with the venues owner.

You can visit their website here.

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