We’ve discussed the opening of ArcadeUFO previously but it blows my mind how many blogs and other news sources I keep running into that are discussing it - so much so that it’s not worth my time to report every single one. But I figured I’d mention it one last time to congratulate the new company on the amount of news coverage they are getting, which is certainly helping bring in people to support them and hopefully they’ll be getting enough momentum from the get go to keep them running for a long time. Whether they expected this amount of coverage or not is unknown to me but it was good planning on their part to get a hold of some highly prized games such as Tekken 6 and Street Fighter IV - if anyone continues to think that fighters aren’t meaning anything to people then you need to think again.
There’s a little more on my mind about this though, hit the post break if you’re interested in my thoughts about the attention given to arcades by the media and how it is sometimes a bit lopsided or discuss it on the forums.
Just something I noticed on my travels, the Sega Amusements Europe website has been updated with blurbs on Sega Rally 3 and Rambo, as well as the Mini Rider 2 simulator and a bigger focus on the company’s redemption products - Spongebob Squarepants Ticket Boom, Shoot This Win This, and the ever-popular UFO Catcher. The usual sort of information is contained within, including such things as cabinet shots, gameplay details and product brochures. Enjoy!
SFIV continues to attract crowds and as further evidence to that proof here is a story from the Spartan Daily, a newspaper by and for college students attending San Jose State University in California. The arcade at the Bowling Center in the Student’s Union building has picked up SFIV and it didn’t take long for it to begin attracting crowds, mostly of fans who really enjoy the game, along with some others that found it boring after a while. Either way the crowds remain and it was enough to attract attention for a news story.
My question is now - what is going to be the next game to create this sort of wave in arcades?
Konami has decided to test out their latest bemani title UBeat in the US and thanks to one of our readers and forum members, Phil Arrington, we have a look at this interesting new game that takes the genre a bit further thanks to it’s change in focus from the feet to the hands. As Phil puts it: “UBeat Beta,[is] basically the best thing to hit U.S. (Arcade music wise) in a long time.” In addition to being a new idea it is simple enough that allows a larger number of people to comfortably approach the game and have fun than say DDR. Of course the different nature of the game and it’s cabinet can work both ways of both attracting or repelling people depending on their tastes but Phil says that once you try it out, it is rather addicting and you could possibly spend hours plaiyng on this one. Phil predicts that UBeat will be a hit - I’ll agree with him along as Konami USA can get this out at a reasonable price so enough operators can pick it up. Plenty of people are interested in something different and I have always felt that this is where arcades can shine in creating games that are so unique that they just won’t translate well at all to a console.
After word came around that the “Arcade Station T2″ was in fact not being endorsed by Microsoft, we see the dominoes falling fast as Highway Games, the site that was part of the promotion of the T2 has pulled their support for the cabinet as they learned that Quasimoto had not secured licensing on the unit. From the Highway Games announcement:
This machine was scheduled for production last month with the first sample to be displayed by Highway Games Japanese partner at the upcoming Jamma Show in Tokyo. However, after the recent press release and announcement through highwaygames.com, we have received a number of calls from insiders to mention that all licensing of the machine has not taken place. Specifically, that whilst Microsoft was involved initially in the development of the controller board, no final authorisation or licensing was signed by Microsoft. Special thanks to The Stinger Report, for exposing flaws in the licensing agreements and further thanks to our industry friends for providing detailed information…
…Highway Games wishes to apologise to our loyal partners. At no time were we aware that licenses were not complete, having been informed since early this year that this project is fully endorsed by Microsoft. We are both upset and frustrated to dedicate so much time and effort in a flawed project and as such, Highway Games reserves the right to seek legal counsel.
It is too bad that this didn’t come to fruition as the idea is good but I believe that unless a company like Microsoft undertakes the effort themselves then you’re never going to see an official unit along these lines.It is also difficult since you would also be dealing with license agreements from other developers who in recent times have begun printing on their discs that the game cannot be used for a public demonstration like this.
I’ve pretty much covered everything that I experienced at AMOA 2008 and overall I came away satisfied, much happier than I was with ASI (no offense to those who worked hard on bringing ASI together - I had just hoped for more new stuff at ASI and there was little whereas there were several things at AMOA that caught my attention). But now it has passed and before long we’ll probably hear a little more news from the companies and their reaction to the reactions they got at the show. But before then let me cover two more things that I came across down in Vegas.
First was the Spiderman redemption game by Stern Pinball. I don’t know if Stern has produced redemption titles in the past (it seems like they might have done one or two but I might be confusing them with someone else) but either way this caught me off guard. Now if you read AH regularly you know that I’m not a big fan of redemption which is unusual for anyone involved in the industry, especially operators but either way I figured that people would be interested to know that Stern has done something outside of the sphere of pinball here and at least the presentation is great, I didn’t give it a spin though so I can’t say how it plays. BTW- there was always someone playing on Batman or Indiana Jones pinball, those were very popular. A Stern rep even told me how there was one location in the Midwest at an arcade/pizza parlor where their Indiana Jones pinball machine paid itself off in only two months. That is insane for a pinball game and I’m happy for Stern to have a success like this.
Next is Jet Ball by Aerr Technologies. I came across this while wandering around the floor towards the end of my stay and I almost overlooked them as they were tucked away in the corner but someone playing on the table called my attention to the game. It’s like air foosball where there are a number of colored dots on the playfield, each with a little hole on it that fires a jet of air when you light it up and pull the trigger. You light up the dots by moving the joystick around which admittedly is a little difficult to handle without practice and it was even more difficult under the bright lights of the show (the game was made for darker venues and even has a black light to light up the playfield better). It’s best explained in the video below by it was a pleasant surprise to find something unique like this, later on I’ll scan in the brochures so you can find out more.
Incredible Technologies was also at AMOA with a large and eye-catching booth where they were showcasing all of their games that are currently for sale in a new cabinet that features a smaller footprint that previous cabinets that also comes with a lower price. The only thing about the new cabinet that might be a catch for some while a plus to others is that this new cabinet does not come with a monitor - that is something you get for yourself. The rep told me that in addition to driving down the cost they also went this route since it allows operators to pick their own monitor. While the hardware currently doesn’t support HDMI, it does support component hook-ups which any HDTV should support. So if an operator has an HDTV laying around (it is likely that bar owners and FECs will moreso than an arcade-only location) they can use what is on hand or hook it up to a projector quite easily.
As for the games themselves, Golden Tee LIVE 2009 and Power Putt Golf both look great although I have to give the edge to Power Putt in the graphics department simply because the kind of game (mini-golf) lends itself to feature a lot more colorful items on the playfield. GT09 certainly has more features to it though, like the Youtube Replays where if the game feels you made a really good shot, it will give you the option to upload it to youtube. It will go to an account made just for this sort of thing although they tell me that you should be able to get your video to your own account as well (probably as a favorite). Both games use the trackball to work and you first pull back to prep your swing and then the harder you push forward the stronger the swing is. There are also buttons on the side for rotating your player to change the shot and on GT09 you can also change the type of club you are using.
Power Putt Golf will be selling for approximately $3200, using this type of cabinet. I didn’t find out the price on GT09 but with this new configuration it probably isn’t too far off that but I will find out for sure. They also had TargetToss Pro: Bags and Silver Strike Bowling in these cabinets and similarly they looked good.
Sorry about the delay in completing my AMOA coverage - I just wasn’t at a proper computer to do so most of yesterday. But now getting back into it here is some information I got from GlobalVR at their booth. When you first approached it the most obvious thing on display was Need For Speed Carbon, thanks to the large banner and the bright color scheme (yellow). They had two deluxe and two standard cabinets there and later on they will have a motion cabinet for NFS Carbon as well. As you know, this was first released as a kit but surprisingly there were no converted NFS cabs to be seen. One thing I did not know prior to the show was what exactly came with a kit but they had fliers there to show you what you get, which also includes a plastic marquee shell that can make the top look like the standard dedicated version of the game along with a new backplate for the chairs and artwork for the sides (as you can see in the flier pictured to the right here, just click on the thumbnail to expand). Some other details I uncovered about the game include that the graphics card is from the nVidia 9600 series and you can use previous NFS cards on this one as it has a card reader device. I was able to play the game for a few minutes (before the fire started, which again probably had to do with the fact that they had to share the booth with TrioTech which has a number of big games which probably pull an awful lot of amps) and I was impressed with what I played - the graphics are slick and the sound is just downright amazing. I still haven’t played the console version of the game but I have a feeling that the arcade version once again is better. I did not get a chance to play the Drift track so I can’t say how that works but the idea of a NOS pedal is pretty cool. The presentation that the cabinet itself produces with lights is also eye-catching and there were people playing this game all the time.
I also was able to see the NASCAR update, which adds the Atlanta Motor Speedway, the Watkins Glen Road Course and of course the updated rosters and Car of Tomorrow. In case you’re like me and have no idea what the whole Car of Tomorrow thing is about, click here to find out more. (Everytime I hear that term I think back to an old 60’s short ad film called Design For Dreaming where they use that term a lot, it’s a really bizarre film and the only way to watch it is with MST3k). I did get some video from the Atlanta Motor Speedway track, it looks really good although I didn’t get a chance to play it (I did record it though as you can see below). I’m not sure, but they might have updated the song list which is one of my favorite things about the game - right now I still have one of the songs stuck in my head.
In addition to that they also had a Blazing Angels, a GlobalVR Classics Collection and Paradise Lost inside a new cabinet that was designed for Aliens: Extermination. I also had some great conversations with some of the GVR staff, including the marketing director Caryn Mical and John Ray, who spent much of his career working for Atari (both Atari and Atari Games respectively). He worked on games such as KLAX, Pit Fighter, Guardians of the Hood and the entire Rush series. I know he played a major role in creating Rush 2049, one of my favorite racers of all time. We had a great conversation about the arcade industry, past and present as well as some technical details with the games as that is his specialty. I asked about Justice League too - it looks like they are waiting to reveal it still because (to paraphrase a little) “Warner is very happy with the game but we are not just yet - we want it to be perfect”. But I believe that we will find out more in the next few months - I did try to unearth some extra details about how the game actually works but we’ll have to wait. I did find out that the game is NOT based on any of the current titles on game consoles which are using the Justice League title and it’s completely original and exclusive to arcades.
This came as a surprise - I was wandering around the show near the GlobalVR booth and between two Pump It Up games I see two Japanese candy cabs housing a fighter in them. I get closer to check it out and it’s Arcana Heart 2! I really didn’t expect to see this in the States in arcade form, but I’m guessing that the effect of SFIV is making some developers think twice about fighters.
The basic gist of the game is about girls fighting each other - with magic and sometimes swords. It’s hard to pass that up! While I didn’t consider myself good at the game, I think I did OK beating out two opponents and getting a several levels into the game before being defeated. The game has two modes - arcade and story. The story mode has a bit of text to go but at least it’s optional.
Graphically it looks very good between the high-res 2D animation (I’m not sure if it was HD resolution or not but it looked like it) and the special effects that the game throws about. The control scheme takes a little getting used to - I’m not used to fighters with five buttons schemes. Fortunately the marquee also serves as the manual so you can figure out what it is that you are doing.
Andamiro is going to bring AH2 to the States in kit form and at a “very low price”. I don’t have a date yet on this but I will be checking with my distributor on that as I assume that it is going to be very soon as the game is complete. For more check out the video below and witness my failed attempt to try and play the game with one hand. I guess it wasn’t too bad considering that it was the first time I played that game and the first time I tried to play a fighter like that.
Later I will be posting videos and info on GlobalVR, Incredible Technologies and more, but I might only get to that tomorrow.
I was happy to see that Sega had a stonger presence at AMOA than they did at ASI and it was great to finally get a chance to play games like Rambo and Sega Rally 3. I spoke with one representative at their booth who gave me a run-down on the prices as well as a little info on games not present at the show such as Hummer Extreme and R-Tuned Racing. It sounds like both of those games are coming along nicely and they say that R-Tuned looks great and Hummer has a motion base but I couldn’t find out more. I asked about House of the Dead EX but they didn’t know anything about it at the time; I also asked about what happened to Sanguozhi War 3 - it sounds like it tested fine but ultimately they decided not to bring it over. Part of the problem was that there was no translation for the game at the time of testing which hurt it a little but hopefully the idea will still be on the table. They also said that they have begun remanufacturing House of The Dead 4 again due to demand.
Anyways, onto the games at the show. Rambo is a lot of fun as it’s all about wanton destruction and it presents itself in a theatrical way by combining movie scenes from the Rambo movies into the game. Graphically I like it although it is a little rough on the edges (it could use some anti-aliasing or a higher rez) - still the action never slows down as enemies pummel you from all sides. I love the Rage mode that you activate with a button on the side or front of the gun (depending on the model) once your Rage Gauge is high enough and I’m also happy to see a standard version of the game for those operators that can’t fit or afford the deluxe model.
Sega Rally 3 was first revealed to the world via Arcade Heroes and so I was happy to get a chance to finally play it. I tried the motion deluxe version and was impressed with the motion - it didn’t throw me around making want to vomit so that’s a plus in my book. It also looks incredible, the hardware design was obviously a good choice on their part. While I didn’t play the standard version, I like the screen, it looks a little sharper than the deluxe version but the cabinet they had there was not the final design for the US.They said that the standard version would go for about $7200 per cabinet, but I’m not sure when it’s going to be available here.
Sega’s Clay Challenge was a surprise, it’s a fairly simple game where you shoot clay pigeons in different locations but it is being released as a kit upgrade for the Atomiswave board. I had thought that the Atomiswave was no longer going to be supported by anyone but it looks like it will be for a little while longer with this game. The version at the show wasn’t final but you get a good idea of what to expect from the video below.
They also had an updated version of Shoot This! Win This! with updated software, a Spongebob Squarepants redemption game and the Mini-Rider 2 that I didn’t try out but I did catch some video of it that you can see below.
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