Monday News Round-Up: Wreck-It Ralph, Arcade Hero Essay, Hurricane Sandy Aftermath

I hope that everyone had a good weekend, here is a beginning of the week news round-up for you. Just a reminder here that next week is IAAPA, a time where we will get a flood of information flowing here on new games seen at the show.

First, Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph made it’s theatrical debut on Friday and made just a little over $49 million this weekend, the best opening for a Disney Animation Studios film yet. Everything I have heard about it is positive so far but I won’t get my chance to see it until tomorrow as conflicting schedules and finding a time to take the kids doesn’t match up until then. Feel free to share any spoiler-free thoughts in the comments below!

Along those lines, with Halloween it was a time to see plenty of video game related costumes. With my arcade being in a mall we had more visitors than we had candy for and saw plenty of interesting designs. For some reason Luigi was one of the most common characters we saw, very few Marios, I saw one family as Pac-Man and ghosts, etc. I myself went as a very lame Pac-Man but I admit that I generally haven’t put much if any thought into costumes as an adult. Ah well.

For anyone that cares, Taito has been testing out Psychic Force 2012 through the NESiCAxLIVE download system in Japan. This is actually a fighting game released to arcades back in 1998 but thanks to how easy it is for them to provide content through NESiCA, Taito is dipping a little further into their catalog. If NESiCA was available here I’d be pining for a re-release of Elevator Action Returns, Space Dungeon and the rare single screen version of Dariusburst Another Chronicle. I can’t find any videos of the arcade version of this so we’ll settle for the Dreamcast port.

Next up, The Stinger Report shared a link to an essay written for the 2012 Game Masters Exhibition entitled Arcade Heroes. Huh, sounds familiar. If I am not mistaken, this is an exhibition we have mentioned before, it had been open in Melbourne, Australia and is next headed to New Zealand. Here’s the exhibition website. As for the essay, it’s just a few pages long,  condensing arcade history throughout and ending with what it is that makes arcades great. You can read the essay here.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy the clean-up continues although plenty of problems abound as patience was worn thin or completely lost over food and gas, looters abound and misery mounts in many areas. Donations to credible organizations are still welcome and hopefully it won’t be too much longer for things to return to a level of normalcy. But there is still plenty of clean-up to do and among the destruction included small businesses like arcades. This story at the Washington Post looks at the Jersey Shore, where a Bob Stewart lost everything in his 300-game arcade. I’m not sure if the photo below is from his place or not but it’s also not the first to show some games out in a still flooded street. Again, donate if you have the means to do so!