Arcade music games are not to be shunned and they certainly weren’t at IAAPA this week. Here’s a look over what new music gaming concepts players have to look forward to trying out at a venue near them.
Andamiro – Andamiro had a large booth to check out and the most eye-catching piece of the booth would certainly have been the new TX model for Pump It Up. The first day they had it set at 50% volume and saying it was loud is nearly an understatement – they next day they lowered it to 15% and it still was substantial, which shows the great quality of the sound system in place. On top of that the lighting system on this one is impressive as it produces an impressive display of color and motion that is synced perfectly to the music. The cabinet is huge, as you will see below, dwarfing the Pump It Up Pro 2 that was sitting to the left of the TX, and the Pump It Up Jump (which is PIU for kids) that was also sitting a short distance away. Beyond the PIU setups, Andamiro also featured Hammer 2 and then the line-up of merchandisers such as Winners Cube.
World’s Fastest Drummer– We have discussed the indie arcade project about the World’s Fastest Drummer before and I was excited to see the game in person for the first time at the Fun Company booth. The cabinet has been totally redesigned from what we saw previously, it’s very sleek and the game itself is a lot of fun to play. In fact, it’s a lot of fun to watch someone else play it and get into it, as you might have seen if you were able to join us for our live broadcast from the show on Wednesday, when Phil took a crack at it. I was told that there are plans to improve the software/look of the game, which is really all I could suggest for the game at this point so it doesn’t look like a flash game. Otherwise, the overall concept is great to see and play so we look forward to seeing more of WFD in the future.
DJ Max Technika 2– Another game we have been talking plenty about lately, DJ Max Technika 2 was located at the Pentavision Global booth with two units setup to play. The volume on these was nice and loud to attract attention and the game itself from what I played was fun although I can’t get into noticeable differences between this and the first game since I didn’t spend much time with the DJMT2’s predecessor.
Mozarc– This was yet another surprise for many people at the show, the appearance of a Beatmania-like game called Mozarc. We first saw this at one of the GTI shows earlier this year and this is the first time I know of it showing up in the US. If you saw this on the webcast then you also know that the guys we filmed playing it all agreed that it is a fun and addicting game (I gave it a crack but I sucked. I guess it will be beginner settings next time I give it a shot) but who knows how prevalent the game may become. One thing I heard more than once about this game is “That’s nice but what about Konami?”. Only Konami can answer that question so we will have to wait and see what their response, if any, happens to be. In the meantime, enjoy the video.
The next post will probably be the last regarding Youtube videos but I will have more in terms of pictures coming along soon. Please share the links around the web, help us spread the word that arcades are far from dead – anyone who still thinks so needs a proper reality check as these companies haven’t created all of these games for a couple of places out there.
