Other big concepts were in play at IAAPA 2010 and here we will take a look at those companies who are adding the elements of motion, stereoscopic 3D and ever water into their games.
InJoy Motion Corp. – InJoy’s booth was similar to what they had last year as far as a line-up but they have since upgraded the software and the hardware to their games. These include Dido Kart, PowerBoat, Top Gunner and Street Racing Stars, all of which are original titles under InJoy. Not present but still supported by the company was their Panzer Elite Action platform. Most of these games go for the big attraction effect, although there was an SD version of Street Racing Stars on hand (which still includes motion) as you can see in the video below.
Universal Space (UNIS) – Universal Space was back and with a completely new line-up of games. Everything they had shown at last year’s IAAPA (Cooking Mama, Panda Family, Ultimate, H2Overdrive motion) were not to be seen. The first thing we noticed was Forest Guardian 3D. It was about 60% complete and it makes use of stereoscopic 3D. The player has to wear glasses but this was the first time I had a chance to play a 3D game like this and the effect was pretty good. That helped make up for the rest of the graphics in some measure which have low poly counts and no modern lighting techniques being used but again, where the game is still incomplete it’s best to wait and see. They also had Crazy Speed Arcade on hand in English and Spanish, which is a game we’ve covered before. If they could make Forest Guardian look as nice as Crazy Speed but with the 3D, they will be set as CS is easy on the eyes. They also had several redemption games on hand, including a couple like Waterpark Splash which integrate real water into the game. UNIS has more projects in the works that they plan on showing for next year but we’ll have to wait and see for the details.
Simuline – Simuline also was showing off a title that we have seen at other shows but as far as I know, the previous iterations of Aquarace Extreme didn’t include stereoscopic 3D, fans for a wind effect and a water sprayer on top of the motion technology they were already using. The combination of these things makes for a cool and fun game to play, I particularly liked the wind effect; the water effect was something which I thought would be annoying but it turned out to make the race more immersive. The stereoscopic 3D they used still needs some work – while playing the game in first person view you would see objects that wouldn’t not blend together to pop out and it looked as though you didn’t have the glasses on for certain objects but did for others. The 3D did improve when switching to a third-person view however.
My thanks to the different companies mentioned here for letting us film their booths! And don’t go away just yet, I still have several more IAAPA videos to go. The show this year certainly has a lot more to talk about than last year!
