Happy weekend everyone. I don’t know about you but 2013 is moving along briskly for me, maybe because it’s been a hectic kind of busy. Here’s some newsbytes to start your weekend off with.
Let’s start with something we haven’t done in a while – a Newsfeed from The Stinger Report! If you are new to the AH blog, the Stinger Report is an email newsletter that provides a monthly in-depth analysis of what is going on in the amusement/out-of-home entertainment business. Its free too. They sometimes send us links regarding arcade news and we comment on them. We haven’t had any since July but a couple have arrived in my inbox this week.
Newsfeed 1331 & 1332 via 
There seems to be theme parks for everything, so why not make that theme all about video games? That is the goal of the new Game Nation venue, a theme park that will open in Southern Florida next month. They have an interesting premise that goes beyond just getting your hand stamped and checking out some rides. According to the story about it, “patrons create their own characters, whose adventures and challenges they live out in fantasy and video-game based simulations. ” The story doesn’t get into a whole lot of detail as to how they plan on accomplishing that level of interactivity, which almost sounds like trying to make a real-life MMO or perhaps something kind of like real Nintendoland. We’ll keep our ears open for more news on this one. [Via WGCU.com]
No California Extreme did not have another event this week but the webzine Polygon released an article on Oct 4th covering the annual phenomenon entitled California Extreme Keeps The Retro Arcade Scene Alive. After briefly covering what CAX is about, they get into the collector side of the industry and how dedicated individuals are keeping the games alive. The discussion then turns to CRTs and LCDs and building your own cabinets. It ends by going back to CAX and its potential future. Overall its a recommended read.
Outside of some Stinger newsfeeds, the Japanese arcade industry has been busy covering two titles this week – Taito’s rhythm game Groover Coaster Arcade and a new fighting game called Fighting Climax. On the former game, we’ve mentioned that a few times on the blog although for the moment it looks like they are just going to keep it in Japan. A release date of Nov 5th has been announced for the game and they released this flashy trailer. Too bad it doesn’t really show the game being played though.
The other game to get a lot of attention is a new 2D fighting game being released in Japan via Sega’s ALL.NET P-ras Multi arcade network. Called Fighting Climax, they already are running tests and drumming up interest for this title which features some popular anime characters such as Misaka Mikoto and Kirino Kousaka (which if I have this right, are from different anime series). Also if I understand the news correctly, this game is being developed by Ecole, who previously released a different 2D fighting game for Sega’s network called Under Night In-Birth. Here’s a trailer for Fighting Climax, posted to Sega Japan’s Youtube channel. You can find the official game website here.
Since we’re mentioning Sega, let’s end with a palette cleanser. I might have posted this before a couple of years ago but if so I’ve forgotten about it and rediscovered it this week. What is it? A fanmade Streets of Rage “movie”. Some of the camera angle and lighting choices I find to be a little strange but the idea, the sound effects/music and general attitude of not-taking-it-too-seriously make up for that. The boss battle in part 2 cracks me up. While I don’t necessarily claim that we need a remake of SoR, it still would be very welcome to get SoR4 or something like it. I’d take that before another Virtua Fighter, OutRun or House of the Dead. Unfortunately brawlers are just one genre that get no respect these days, as we have discussed many times before. *Sigh*.
Those Streets of Rage videos made my day 🙂