Location tests rarely get a lot of attention in the US but in Japan it’s usually a different story. While Sega’s newest coin-op title, Sega Card Gen has already tested at the Gameworks in Chicago, we never saw any pictures from that test but we did get an excellent description about the game on our 8th podcast thanks to Aaron Auzins. We also had hoped to see more on this game when it was at AMOA but since then we only saw one shot of the panel. Now that the game is testing in Japan, we have a few more details along with nicer pictures of the cabinet and cards.
As you can see in these shots (sorry, this is the largest size available), the game does feature an attractive, well-lit cabinet and sharp 3D graphics but we can only guess at the moment what hardware is powering it(Lindbergh is my guess for now but if it was Ringwide or RingEdge that would fit into what Sega should be moving over to). We also learn from the report that the game will feature both single player and online functionality but since the test only offered single player, we are in the dark for now as to what online features the game will have. We do know from Aaron Auzins that cabinets can be linked up for two player capabilities and this might also mean that players in different arcades will be able to play against each other.
Below you can see the front and back of a card, naturally some cards will be more valuable than others and this is one example of an 8 gold star card, which I assume means it’s one of the best to have.
As we expect to see this game at IAAPA, I will take the opportunity to play the game and capture some video of it in action at that event. I imagine that it will prove interesting as I am intrigued by the concept that is being used here, especially since it’s a nice change of pace from the stock of racing games the coin-op industry has been getting lately.
UPDATE: Looks like you can already buy some of the cards via Yahoo Auctions Japan.
[Location test report 1 & report 2 @ Ameblo.jp] [Via AM-Net]
