Remember Konami’s Road Fighters? Since we first heard about the game last September, there has been little to no information popping up about the game, until today where an anonomyous tipster sent us a photo of the new cabinet as seen on location test in Akihabara, Japan. As you can see from the picture above, Konami is continuing to push their experimentation with stereoscopic 3D (after they did so with Metal Gear Arcade) but this time they took a cue from the old Continental Circuit 3D arcade racer and have mounted glasses to the cabinet as opposed to letting the player wear a headset. Also if you look closely, you will notice on the back of the seat two holes which are another set of glasses so a person standing behind the game can see the 3D effect as well.
We have no idea as to when Konami will be releasing the game to arcades but with it on location test now I imagine that it will happen sometime this year, which will mean that we will have at least three stereoscopic 3D games to be on the look-out for, if you’re in Japan at least: this, Metal Gear Arcade and Disney’s 3D Ping Pong. When might arcade makers who release content outside of Japan be jumping on the 3D bandwagon is the next question.
UPDATE: Japanese game site Aries Small Room was at the location test and has a detailed report of what the game is like. There are five modes including online play and a button to switch between 2D and 3D. There is also a mission mode where you pick a character, win medals and race against bosses, so it appears that Konami will be positioning this game for the hardcore racer market that is populated by games like Inital D and Maximum Tune.
I want this. I need it very much.