Continuing the IAAPA 2011 trade show coverage with twice the pics and half the salt! In case you missed it, pictures of games like Bejeweled can be found here. All of these pictures are courtesy of Kevin Williams of The Stinger Report. And no, your eyes are not deceiving you, that is a pair of official Half-Life 2 Arcade cabinets, originally by Taito. These were at an unidentified booth, which I hope to track down today.
But moving on, below find pictures of the Stern Pinball booth, Dirty Drivin’, Deadstorm Pirates 3D, Let’s Go Island 3D, Pac-Man Battle Royale Deluxe, Project X-Pher, DJ Max Technika 3, Flight Control FX, Powerputt 2012 and more. Please note, this is still not everything we have and I’ll be uploading videos within a few days so make sure to come back for even more! Click below to continue.
Let’s start with some pinball, in particular Transformers and TRON Legacy at the Stern booth. Not sure if Wizard of Oz Pinball is around anywhere, I will keep my eyes open today though.
Raw Thrills
Dirty Drivin‘, without the full-size crank I played and instead the new design with the dash crank. I hope the side crank is an option, seems more enjoyable to me.
Super Bikes 2 and Super Cars
Betson had a little more than Raw Thrills on the booth – Konami’s DDRX2 as well as IGS’s Power Truck (a big rig truck racer) and Wahlap’s Storm Racer, which I get into a little more below
Speaking of rhythm games, now’s a good time for DJ MAX Technika 3 by Pentavision Global. It was seen in two configurations, deluxe and Solo, the Solo model seen here
Adrenaline Amusements
These guys made waves recently with the release of Infinity Blade FX and they already have something to follow-up with at IAAPA, the unveiling of Flight Control FX. It’s the third game to join their FX platform after the aforementioned Infinity Blade and Fruit Ninja.
Namco
The new Pac-Man Battle Royale Deluxe. We saw a pic of this at the AAMA Distributor Gala but that didn’t give me a proper sense of scale. It’s a big cabinet, sporting a 54″ LCD and the lighting on it is great.
A more compact version of Deadstorm Pirates
And a shot from the Deadstorm Pirates 3D booth
Sega
Since describing Let’s Go Island 3D‘s autostereoscopic lenticular glasses-free 3D display is a mouthful to go on about, I was thinking of perhaps another name for such technology – how about Free3D or FreeD? Anyone? Either way, Sega’s showcase in cutting edge technology was at the show, I only glimpsed at it from the back so I wasn’t in the calibration zone but I could see some ‘pop’ in the image. Also in case you missed it, you can see the pics of the new Bejeweled and Operation GHOST by Sega here.
Incredible Technologies showing off their latest titles including Golden Tee 2012 LIVE and PowerPutt LIVE
InJoy Motion
We’ve discussed Taiwanese based InJoy before, they specialize in motion games, particularly with motion seats. They have a few new games on hand including the dress-up/rhythm game Love Touch which has already been mentioned. here is the new co-op shooter (same vein as Let’s Go Island or Deadstorm Pirates but with a sci-fi theme) Project X-Pher. This uses InJoy’s multi-feedback guns, and you start the game off with two weapons, a machne gun and a cannon. Both have unlimited ammo and completely different gun feedback
Dido Kart 2. This sequel has a bit more to it with an in-game purchasing system, card support and the motion seat. The kart racing itself is standard although I only found out afterwards it has a drifting function as well. Really nice graphics on this one.
Finally, the first InJoy game I ever came across was called Panzer Elite Action, it was in a unique sit-down cabinet where the screen slid down in front of you. Only problem was it didn’t allow anyone else to see what you were playing so InJoy has decided to bring the game back with a more traditional sit down cabinet, with a motion seat of course. This also uses a yoke controller, which I haven’t used in ages.
Wahlap
You might not be familiar with this name (we have spoken of them before on AH) but perhaps that will change soon. This is the first time they have had a presence at IAAPA that I am aware of, they have always been strong players at various Asian trade shows however. One game they have at IAAPA stirring some buzz is Storm Racer, which I haven’t had a chance to play yet but it looks very polished. In fact a couple of units were at the Betson booth.
GSPIRIT Tennis. Big screen game, sort of an arcade answer to Wii Sports Tennis
Storm Racer.
Any opinion on the viability of a TRON Legacy pin after the movie just kinda laid there and died?
And, furthermore, why is it there’s a pin of this so long *after* the fiml was released? The whole point, generally, of licensing IP is to get there, at worst, day and date w/ the huge marketing roll out that goes hand-in-hand w/ expected blockbusters. (This wouldn’t apply, of course, to something like Transformers which never really disappeared from the limelight and I’m sure I’m not the only one that would be thrilled to see a Gen1 pin.)
To answer the second question first, I think it’s been the fact that Stern’s solitary confinement in the market has led them to essentially not care about the usual market factors of rolling out on time. Then again, it’s happened on the arcade side and I suppose it’s because we don’t see a lot of media hype for the products around these parts.
As for TRON, I heard it sold really well. I also heard an operator here say that at one of his top locations it was pulling $400-$500/wk which is quite good for a pinball.
Tron and Transformers were fan service machines. They had a large fanbase of both franchises that were home buyers, so I expect them both to sell well to both sides of the market (home and operators). The next machine has me a little worried that it’s a step back, but it’s AC/DC, so we’ll see if they can make that work compared to the disappointment that was Rolling Stones. I like the idea of an AC/DC machine, and it will have a great soundtrack and Steve Ritchie design, so I’m optimistic.