Three new games out of Taiwan and China: Crazy Speed Arcade and Star Predator (in stereoscopic 3D) and another DJ Max clone called Finger Musicians

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Here’s some interesting news on new arcade titles to come out of China or Taiwan. First from relative newcomer UNIS aka Universal Space is a new racing title called Crazy Speed Arcade. We don’t really know anything about this one at the moment other than the cabinet picture seen here. The graphics look pretty nice and I wonder if it’s a port of a console racer although I honestly am not up to speed on racers from that realm. The game hasn’t been placed on UNIS’s youtube channel or their website yet but if this company is carrying it already, I imagine that we’ll see it soon. UNIS does have distribution into the US and Europe and one of the things that really impressed me at IAAPA was the prices they have on the games. The only question then is how will the games hold up, to player beatings and interest. [Crazy Speed Arcade page].[Official Crazy Speed Arcade website (thanks Da FONZ)] It’s worth noting that the same site that carries this racer also has a different Sega Rally 3 cabinet than the one we discussed in the previous post and it’s called World Rally Car Edition.

Next up is an interesting title called Star Predator, not so much from the appearance of the game itself as the 3D geometry of the objects in the game looks a bit dated but because it employs stereoscopic 3D so the player needs to wear 3D glasses to play. Of course we can likely blame the highly overrated Avatar (sorry, it’s got nice CG and all but it is definitely an overrated film as there ARE better movies out there) for the current trend although this is not the first time 3D in this manner will have been employed in amusement (see Continental Circuit 3D by Taito for an example as well as the upcoming Metal Gear Arcade). The game itself features mounted guns on a large panel inside of a theater style enclosure similar to Taito’s Panic Museum deluxe and it has you shooting alien bug/monsters in large cities. I am not sure who it is that has developed the game – it is listed on ZS Dragon World International but they seem to be a distributor out of Hong Kong as opposed to a developer but if you know otherwise, please let us know. [Quite a bit more info on the Star Predator page]

Also found on the ZS Dragon World site is another DJ Max Technika clone called Finger Musician. From the description it doesn’t sound like anything different than DJ Max or even the Magic DJ game we saw at IAAPA (although that had two screens). There is no list of songs but it does state that it offers online features, both “online games” and “online game ranking[s]”. The interface from the graphic here looks similar to Magic DJ so either this is done by the same company or it’s a blatant rip off.  I am unsure as to who it is that has developed the game as it isn’t stated directly like we have with Star Predator. At the very least it shows the interest in this kind of game in Asian markets. I imagine that the PM Studios guys have to feel a little flattered as their game is being copied more an more now although I wonder if there ever will be any legal proceedings held over these clones or not. [Finger Musician Info page]

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