A new and interesting shmup is now on location test in Japan and seeing efforts like this makes me long for seeing some good shmups in arcades outside of Japan again. Called Exception, this shmup has elements from games like Asteroids, Blast Works, Mars Matrix, Panzer Dragoon Orta (and probably others I am missing) that with physics processing, combine together to create something quite unique and a bit abstract. The only thing I don’t like about it is the constant blur effect that occurs when blocks are pushed away en masse – it kind of gives me a headache to watch where it keeps blurring up like that (although I’m told that it looks much better on an HD screen as opposed to what you see in the youtube video – that and it’s probably just me getting older :P). The game does also include multiplayer support but I am not sure what the arcade version will have different from the PC version which has already been released.
UPDATE: There is a new official site for the game which includes more information on the arcade version of the game (it will have an extra stage the PC version doesn’t have and different difficulty options so more players will find it easier to approach). Check out that site here.
This game is actually quite fun on PC and hopefully they kick it up a notch for arcade.
I would love to see this in America. Any plans for it here?
Not that I’ve heard. The US isn’t much of a good testing ground for shmups anymore sadly. I still think that the right shmup could do well but it would have to spread the word well so players would come out for it.