In continuing coverage from the Amusement Expo 2013 event that took place this week in Las Vegas, here are some of the other games that were hanging out to be used and enjoyed. If you didn’t read Report #1 with Pac-Man Ticket Mania, Cars Arcade and Rock N Roll Verti-Go, click here.
All the videos below were filmed in 1080p so you can switch to that in all its glory and what-not if you want. Also, last video has a match between myself and Kevin Williams of The Stinger Report on Speed Ball.
It’s been talked about before but this time around I actually got to spend some decent time with Namco’s Dark Escape 4D. At the last trade show they had to constantly be pushing people out so that everyone had a chance to play it but I only got a minute on it. This time I got a real feel for it. The levels are long for what you might expect from a game like this. I would saw that it is kind of supposed to be Saw the video game, mixed with Deadstorm Pirates. An extra special effe t that I didn’t notice the first time I played it for some reason was the occasional flashing light effect, which doesn’t occur often but was another nice touch to it.
First seen at EAG2013, Namco had a new motorcycle racing game called Dead Heat Riders. As the name suggests it is related to Dead Heat Street Racing which Namco has had out for a while. It’s quite related though as the tracks are the same as those from the car version. The real difference is that you have motorcycles instead of cars, so the control base is made to fit into that theme. The software is actually like the 42″ version of Dead Heat, in that the PIN feature has been removed. The camera is still there and the graphics are on the same level as DH.
Sega’s booth was sort of a repeat of their IAAPA booth but with some minor changes (no Hero of Robots as one example). Dream Raiders was there but I believe some minor software changes as it seemed to handle the continues differently (you could play all six levels now, after finishing that choose from three final levels). I also don’t recall the gems for bonus points but it could be I just forgot. Aside from a new mechanical redemption piece, the only change for Sega there was the version of K.O. Drive. At IAAPA they had said that the build running at the time was older software because the newer one had an issue of some kind. I’m not sure where the software build here fits into the development timeline but it was certainly different, albeit still unfinished. The premise of the game remains the same – race in closed circuits on fantasy courses and upgrade abilities during the race to get ahead. Upgrading is the biggest change and to be honest I liked the way it was done in the other version just because it was much clearer how to do it. Now you collect K.O. capsules and I think they all go towards whichever ability you pick at the beginning. There are a few other issues with the game so it still has a ways to go before prime time.
Pinball was there, Stern with their standard booth setup (using cameras and monitors to show the action and a tournament), Jersey Jack with a smaller presence than they had last time at IAAPA but while only two Wizard of Oz machines were there, they also had two redemption pieces to show, one of which was a videmption game called Blocky. I will have a picture of that one in Report #3.
Among unique stuff to find there included some non-video content, such as Speed Ball by Kalkomat. There’s not a whole lot to say about it aside from what you will see on the video below but I would say that it’s in the same class as air hockey or foosball as it can only be played with two people in a head-to-head battle. Like other Kalkomat table games (they make air hockey tables that are water-proof like the Shark; they also make a lot of boxing machines) its very colorful with changing LED lights under the translucent playfield. The handles which serve to move your barriers can be squeezed to make the barrier jump forward so one can shoot the ball. It’s simple and is around $3k. Here’s Kevin Williams and I having a little friendly competition on the game.
The next post will be to tie up the rest with pictures. This is all I grabbed as far as video goes. As I mentioned in the Report #1 post, there were several manufacturers there that had content previously seen but for the most part I have covered the newest stuff to be found. There might be one or two other things that will be included, there was a robotic lobster game Andamiro had and a very early videmption game by Nanotech as a few examples. The show is not as expansive as a larger event like IAAPA but it is better than Amusement Expo a couple of years ago where there was pretty much only one new game to be found and I had finished the show in a couple of hours as opposed to taking a couple of days. I suppose I could have done this show in a day and that’s what many people did so it was nice to have the International Pizze Expo going on for part of the Amusement Expo (which is a few times larger than AE but there is quite a bit to pizza that you find at a trade show – booths dedicated just to cheese or pizza ovens or snacks, that sort of stuff). I didn’t spend a whole lot of time there but going to the show as a whole was nicer since my wife was with me so certain games were more fun to play. Report #3 coming soon!
