Arcade Games at the 8th China Cartoon-Comic-Game Expo In Shanghai

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There seems to be at least one game expo happening somewhere around the world every month these days and on occasion, one of those expos might have an arcade presence to look at. Last month in the middle of July was the 8th China Cartoon-Comic-Game Expo that took place in Shanghai. Thanks to David Liu we have pictures of the various arcade titles to be found there. Unfortunately we still have not seen a single picture from the AAMA Gala in Chicago earlier this month, where several new games destined for the Western market were shown off (we did at least get some detailed info on one of the games there, The Swarm by GlobalVR) but if those ever surface I’ll be happy to spread the news. For the time being it seems as though the AAMA products are being held in reserve.

A Gundam and Transformer to greet show visitors. This would be even more impressive if the pair of them were to overlook each side of the main entrance, like in some fantasy movie of statues standing guard at a gate.

As usual with a lot of these pictures, it’s not always clear who or what it is that is being played but there is a good chance we might discover that if any of these games head over to the IAAPA show in Orlando this coming November.

First off is Wahlap, a Chinese manufacturer that we have seen out West starting last year when they showed off Storm Racer, We Love Tennis, Power Truck and Speed Driver 3. Their latest release is a game called Top Star, a touchscreen rhythm game

Storm Racer making an appearance again.

Here is their dancing game, Dance Core.

Wahlap brought Konami’s soccer game Winning Eleven Arcade Championship 2012 along. I still wonder how a game like this might do currently on the Western market.

Also by Konami, GuitarFreaks 7

Wahlap has held various events in China recently to promote this game, Hero of Robots which is a game for kids.

I am not a “seasoned” veteran of trade shows exactly, only visiting them a handful of times since ’08 but while I have seen occasional tournaments, they are nothing like what they do at these Chinese shows with a full stage, cameras and presenters. Only exception I can think of was a stage tournament I noticed while wandering the show of the adjacent Pizza Expo show where they were competing on pizza creation.

UNIVERSAL SPACE

Speaking of that, here is a competition on some sort of touchscreen music game by a company we have also seen before, UNIS (they do appear at events like IAAPA but availability of games out West is sporadic). UNIS had a huge show presence

This game is apparently called Dancing Forever, now with ping pong like paddles (Why that is? your guess is as good as minethey are just handfans, but did not appear in any of the other pictures, silly me). A second one was at the show with a different marquee called Arcade Forever.

Some sort of videmption ticket game involving food by UNIS, in a world where pumpkins are evil, as best as I can tell.

Some mechanical ticket redemption games by UNIS. When they show up at Western shows, UNIS always has a sizable redemption selection.

UNIS did have a new light-gun game to show off called Iron Heart, developed by Arcas. This actually had a special website setup for it which was mysteriously scrubbed from normal internet channels recently but as this is the internet, there are always caches. Why they did that who knows – at IAAPA 2010 UNIS showed off a stereoscopic 3D shooter called Forest Guardian that had obviously been influenced by the recent release of AVATAR, they said it was intended for a release in the following January but it also ended up disappearing, never to be heard of again. Only time will tell if that is the case with Iron Heart, it looks like Generic Space Marine concept meets Razing Storm. It doesn’t have stereo 3D but does sport a 52″ 1080p screen (I also notice that the side panel on the interior uses artwork similar to what is found on Taito’s Dariusburst Another Chronicle cabinet, with the shiny hexagons)

Some Western games were at the show, UNIS had at their booth Raw Thrills’ Dirty Drivin’ and H2Overdrive, both of which have Chinese translation.

UNIS showed off their distribution power at the show, featuring a few music games by different companies: Konami’s Jubeat, Drum Dancing Max by unknown and DJ Max Technika 3 by PentaVision.

A videmption game by UNIS called Apple Frenzy

UNIS also carries some Taito products into China, they did Dariusburst and now they are bringing Block King

Next to that, InitialD 6 AA and MaxiTune 3DX+

and next to those, UNIS’ own Crazy Speed Arcade in two flavors, Super and 3D. I did get to play the 3D version last year at IAAPA, the effect was just fine from what I recall.

Even more racing games. Super Bikes 2, Mighty Moto (one we have seen in the past; motorcycle racing for kids and is mroe like a kart racing game) and some new kids kart racer

International Dragon World

Moving on from UNIS, there was International Dragon World, which does come to IAAPA events to sell their games but I’m not sure if they have partnered up with any US based distributors yet.

I played this one before, Blood Taizerhuang. Great cabinet, not the most memorable game

They also currently are the only ones selling a dedicated version of the US made game, Friction. Otherwise, over here you can still get the kit version of it, the dedicated has better guns and higher resolution graphics.

A familiar looking videmption game  that has made rounds at other trade shows although  I don’t remember what it was called.

Well at least you can rest assured that racing/driving games are not solely popular out West. Here is IDragon’s Super Speed.

Sega

Interesting to note that Golden Gun was not there apparently. Also seemingly absent, KO Drive, which still has only been seen at the DEAL show back in May but it was developed by Sega’s Chinese studio. As you can see, they did have some games we have all seen before, operation Ghost, Initial D6, Sega & Sonic Racing, and MaiMai.

Toms World – never heard of them until now but here are a couple of photos from their booth

Generic huge dance machine that is seen often in China

Been a while since we have seen Mozarc, the developer went quiet not long after this was released.

A Taito Hopping Road and GlobalVR Blazing Angels. Both have some small changes to the cabinet appearance, not sure if they are bootlegs or just refurbished models.

Not Sure – Brand name is unclear so they get shoved to the bottom here.

4 player mounted light-gun game called Bounty Hunter

There were a couple of pictures of this one in the collection I was sent but no direct screenshots so I have no idea what the game is but it has me curious

Of those vertical monitor cabinets in this picture, I have no idea to even guess on what kind of game that might be.

A game called Big Bang that uses soft hammers to hit the screen with, but who made it isn’t clear

Some game involving food and cartoon characters

Well that is it! Come November we will see how much of this content is marketed overseas.