Among the upcoming products that Sega has coming to arcades, we’ve covered two recently that have gained some attention – Transformers: Human Alliance and Plants Vs. Zombies The Last Stand. We’ve seen a little about Transformers already but Plants Vs. Zombies only had a teaser flyer to unveil that it was coming.
Well if you subscribe to the industry trade publication Replay Magazine then the October issue has more info on these and a few other games that Sega is bringing to the IAAPA 2013 tradeshow in Orlando, FL this November. Of course if you get the magazine, then this post is not news for you but for those who did not get their hands on it.
From the get-go the magazine has some Sega love going on – the cover is all about Transformers and the back cover is that Plants Vs. Zombies flyer we saw the other day. The cover story starts on page 63 and while I don’t want to stomp on their scoop, some of the new details we get:
-Sega is going to have a substantial booth setup at IAAPA 2013. There will be 28 games represented by at least 50 cabinets (accounting for linked games or multiples). It also will include a “17-foot tall Optimus Prime” statue to tower over the booth. That sure beats those giant balloons with the brand name logo on it that companies normally go with.
-In Transformers you “partner” with either Optimus Prime, BumbleBee or Side Swipe to once again stop the Decepticons from obtaining the All Spark. I assume this means that the player does the shooting while the Autobot automatically does the melee bashing.
–Plants Vs. Zombies The Last Stand is inspired by (but NOT a direct port of) Plants Vs. Zombies 2. It has a mounted pea shooter (presumably a light-gun) that the player uses to aim and fire peas at oncoming zombies. It is a videmption game, paying out tickets as zombies are eliminated. There are 10 waves with a final jackpot wave. No indication if it will be just ticket payout or if they will have a video-only or the increasingly popular gift card options.
-PvZ also marks a return by Sega to using QR codes again so users can post their high scores. This was used in some of their arcade games years ago but on a limited basis.
Interestingly enough, there are no photos of their cabinet to be found in the spread but there are pictures of all the other products that will be at IAAPA, including a “sequel” of sorts to the very popular KeyMaster game Sega has, called Prize Locker. For more details on that you’ll have to grab the October 2013 Replay Magazine.
Outside of the Replay info, I have found out that the director of various Sega games including Gunblade, Jurassic Park: Lost World and Let’s Go Jungle/Island is also the director of Transformers (Mr. Oga-shi). He will be at IAAPA and I hope to do an interview with him at that time so that is something else you can look forward to from our IAAPA coverage next month, which will take place from the 20th-22nd.
didn’t know replay still existed! And plants vs zombies is a gun game??? i was ignoring the news on that game because i assumed it was an arcade port but now my interest is piqued!
It makes you wonder if they have thrown any “House of the Dead” characters in there. That would be a nice touch.
I’m all for cameos and crossovers in games but I feel that would be somewhat of a waste of the license to include HotD zombies. Also if it’s a videodemption it will most likely be geared towards a younger audience. Great idea but Sega would probably be better off making their own title with HotD characters.
It’s nice to see the return of an internet ranking in a Sega game (on western shores) however as it’s a redemption game does that not mean there’s an element of luck in high scores rather than skill? Shame Transformers doesn’t seem to have the same feature but better than nothing.
I’m interrested as to which directors at Sega did some of the recent Arcade games.
I know this might be inappropriate to ask since it’s a very specific question that he might not know the answer to. But if you do get to interview Ogashi-san, could it be possible to ask who the director behind Sega Race TV, R-Tuned, HotD EX, 2Spicy and Golden Gun was, and what they did before? Or at least some of these games. Thanks.
Golden Gun as far as I know was done by a Sega-owned Chinese studio but I’ll see if I can find out for those games.
I think that Studio is just for doing some of the “dirty work”, cause at least for Sega’s consumer work, the credits imply that the director/producer with the vision of the game is still an internal Sega Japan employee.
That is definitely the case to some degree, just not sure how the organization is overall. The Chinese made games still have a very distinct look and feel to them, the still unreleased K.O. Drive being another example of their work and last I played it, it was a bit different than any other Sega racer I have played.
Wasn’t Operation G.H.O.S.T. not that good looking as well, and Rambo too…
I think this is because of them increasing on their Networked games in Japan, adding in Border Break.
The other games suffer a bit it seems.
I don’t think Rambo looked bad being a Lindbergh game released in 2008. I think it looks just as good as OG which was 2011. OG certainly is lackluster in the graphics, I usually compare it to a Wii game. It should have been better as its the only drawback to an otherwise excellent game and cabinet.