I’ve finally uploaded all of the IAAPA videos that I took and while I probably should have got a few more, I hope that everyone has enjoyed what I did put online. I know a couple of the videos have terrible sound and I apologize for that – the camera I was using was new to me and I didn’t realize how sensitive the microphone was at first.
Panic Museum – We first heard about Panic Museum as Haunted Museum some time ago and it had been previously seen in Europe. So when I heard that it would be coming to IAAPA I was surprised as Taito hasn’t been bringing most of it’s titles to the US. The cabinet (if you want to call it that) for this one is huge and it allows for an 80″ projected screen. As for the game itself, it throws a lot at you and the story is OK but the voice acting is terrible and there were a few points where I found myself bored with the game. I can’t really pin it down – there is no reloading feature so it seems a bit easy but I don’t know if that’s it. Overall I found it OK, the bonus rounds were fun and there are a number of hidden objects to find which could be added to your character. The graphics look dated by a few years but this wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen that happen with a new arcade game. On the opposite end, Kevin Williams (of The Stinger Report) seems to have really liked this game but he played it all the way to the end.
Make sure the sound on this one is down when you start, it’s a bit loud.
Silver Strike Live – Incredible Technologies did have a booth at the show but it took me a little while to find it as they were downstairs mixed in with the novelty and amusement park area as opposed to the coin-op area. They had six games there, including the brand new Silver Strike Live which launches in Q1 2010. Here is a video of SSL below, I played it a little bit but I am not an expert on SS by any means (as you can tell in the video). Still it’s a fun game that should do well thanks in part to the online features it boasts, although those were not available to check out from what I played.
Make Your own Dog Tags – one trend at the show was for companies to produce coin-operated custom dog tag engravers. They are actually pretty cool but the cheapest one I found as seen below will set you back a mere $14,000 (another company had one for $24,000). By using a touch screen interface, you pick out what you want the dog tag to say, it engraves it and vends the dog tag and a necklace to attach it to. This particular engraver at the ICE booth was very popular as people were allowed to engrave their own dog tags for free.
Last of all we have one thing I decided to film that is not arcade related at all – a booth showcasing some cool animatronic figures.
We’ll be finishing up our IAAPA coverage when I hear from Kevin Williams next. We actually tried to record a podcast at the show but due to our ill-preparedness what we produced was incomplete. Partially due to the fact that we were interrupted by some guy who thought we were just sitting around talking and partially due to the fact that the device we were recording with ran out of juice. So we’ll see what we have to work with and if it doesn’t work we’ll have to try again the old fashioned way over Skype.
