Well after spending most of my day uploading videos, the video part of our IAAPA coverage is coming to a close for now. But as I mentioned already we still have a few more things to go through as well as expected video from other sources to look forward to, perhaps grabbing a different perspective on what went on there or catching something I missed. It’s a big show so that’s easy to do. We’ll end it off with a look at a couple of Chinese manufacturers, where most of the talk I heard surrounding them was regarding the knock-offs of something like Stacker or of some of the game knockoffs that keep showing up online, with more than a few people understandably angry over those and the mentality behind such things. But that mess aside (I don’t condone the knock-offs, I’m just not sure how the problem will ever be resolved) these companies did have some original content to share so that’s worth taking a look at.
Golden Dragon – This is the first time we finally got a look at the light-gun shooter Bloody Taizerhuang in motion. Everything up until now was still pictures and it was impossible to tell how the game played from those, other than the standard assumptions you have from it being a light-gun game. I liked the cabinet which used a dark, textured wood, and red LED lighting. The game itself was fairly fast paced with enemies constantly keeping you on your toes. They also had a six-player fish catching game, it was one of those sit down cabinets that are popular in certain Asian territories.
One thing Golden Dragon had that many people were impressed with was a flyer for a new game they have in development. The game is called 3D Topspeed City and the flyer itself has a great 3D rendering on it, I’ll have to get a picture of it and upload it later.
Tecway/Belrare – Here’s another company we’ve talked about before and in fact they were at last year’s show with a different selection of content. Several of us expected to see their new Dino Survivor 3D shooter to be there but instead they had an animatronic dinosaur. Perhaps we’ll see that game next time. They did have Pong Pong, Pop Moto, and Sports Run there to play, among some kiddie rides. Pong Pong was disappointing as it could be a fun Arkanoid like game but the controls were screwed up where there was a slight delay between the movement of the sliding controller and the on-screen paddle. Not sure how something like that would ever get past testing unless it was intentional. Pop Moto has a great cabinet and the game is OK, it’s like Mario Kart with motorcycles, sans the cute characters of course. Sports Run was fun, the controls haven’t changed but they also didn’t have the same feedback that the Giant Tetris joysticks have. Still, the mini-games I played were fun and the cabinet looked good.
Thanks for sticking with us through all of the coverage, as I mentioned before, we’ll have more pictures to share, a podcast and possibly more video as well but that wraps up all of the videos I took. My thanks again go out to everyone who gave us permission to film, and it was great meeting many of the people who work behind the scenes that keep the games coming. That’s always something to be thankful for as we head into Thanksgiving. I’ll see you there next year!
