It’s hard not to be envious of arcade fans in Japan. When it comes to arcades, they get everything including plenty of games that we will never see in the UK or the States. Take for example New Space Order by Namco Bandai Games. This game was briefly mentioned in reports that came out of AOU 2007 and it raised a few eyebrows by featuring a sit-down arcade cabinet that included a keyboard and mouse, much like CounterStrike NEO. Even more interesting was the fact that the game was a space combat title and those see little action anywhere, let alone the arcade. Well Namco Bandai has an official site dedicated to the game, replete with screenshots, videos and even linkage to a subsite that features a series of Flash anime videos that tell an interactive story about the game (you need to understand Japanese to get something out of it though).
After poking around a bit, I discovered that the game is actually an RTS instead of a straight space combat game. Attempting to do an RTS in the arcades seems like a pretty risky thing to try out, but in Japan they probably will have a better chance of testing such ideas. Even though this game will never see a release outside of Japan, it is still interesting to check out – perhaps someone will be brave enough to try out a space combat game in the arcades here again. They used to overrun arcades back in the day and it would be nice to see what they could do using modern technology.
[New Space Order Official Website]
[New Space Order Flash Story site]
