It’s been a few months since IAAPA hit but that doesn’t mean that some awards for the games can’t be released. Around the beginning of last year we ran news of the first run of awards by site partners The Stinger Report and BMIGaming.com, so this would be the second annual run of the Best of Show Awards. The awards have been expanded as far as categories covered, they still have Video Arcade games and redemption games but they also have Videmption Games now. The criteria in determining how a game received a reward was split into “six (6) categories : Game Originality, Uniqueness, Market Relevance, Earning Potential, Pricing and the all-important ‘Fun Factor & Playability ‘.”
For the Video Games Category the winners are:
Gold: Dark Escape 4D by Bandai Namco
Silver: Winter X Games Snocross by Raw Thrills
Bronze: Dream Raiders by Sega
And The Swarm by GlobalVR got an Honorable Mention. Winter X Games Snocross was actually the winner of the Arcade Heroes Players Choice Poll 2012 (link in case anyone forgot about that), with Dark Escape 4D grabbing 3rd place behind Big Buck HD.
On the Videmption Side the winners were:
Gold: Sea Wolf 55 by Coastal Amusements
Silver: Harpoon Lagoon by ICE
Bronze: Temple Run Arcade by Coastal Amusements
with Black Out by Adrenaline Amusements nabbing the Honorable Mention. I didn’t spend much time with Harpoon Lagoon at the show but I heard quite a few people talking about it, more so than any other videmption game. I guess they just never bothered to play the games like it that are always at the Chinese manufacturer booths. Speaking of that, Chaos Generation by Sealy is up for sale here in the US but I will get to that in another post.
For those interested in seeing all of the games that got an award, you can check out the official BOSA webpage here which has more pictures and videos of the award-winning titles. Most if not all of these games will most likely making an appearance next month at Amusement Expo and of course most of them are already available so chances of finding one at an arcade near you are likely if they happen to like the new stuff.
Thanks for the coverage… and congratulations to all of this year’s Best Of Show Arcade Machine Award winners !
Agreed on Harpoon Lagoon, looks fun but i had actually thought i’d seen that game before in japanese footage.. Sea Wolf looks nutso btw