Just because you see and play some games at a trade show does not mean that those games are available right away, although in the arcade industry, it generally means they are very close. Such was the case of two video games seen at the recent Amusement Expo 2014 event in Las Vegas, NV, at the booth of US manufacturer Coastal Amusements.
Temple Run 2
The first game will get mileage out of the name and being a sequel has the opportunity to improve on elements of the first game. Temple Run 2 Arcade is now available for arcade venues to get their hands on. It is not just the mobile game sequel as Coastal Amusements was responsible for bringing Temple Run Arcade to fruition back in 2012. From a hardware perspective, the main difference is TR2A uses a 42″ monitor when the first one used a 32″. The trackball control is the same and ticket redemption is an option (I don’t know if many set it to amusement-only or not but it is nice that they give you the choice). It’s too bad that the arcade version doesn’t get a complete graphics overhaul for the big screen as the character models still look like they jumped out of the late 90s/early 00s but I’m sure that doesn’t matter to most fans of the game. I have mentioned this somewhere previously but in terms of control, I downloaded the 1st game to my Kindle before playing the first arcade version and the trackball control is a big improvement on controlling the action over touchswipe controls, it is the same with Temple Run 2. Here is a promo video that Coastal posted to their website, they don’t have a Youtube channel so I took the liberty of uploading it.
SharpShooter
Also from Coastal is a game that originated from Taiwanese developer Zeroplus. They have been working at getting this out on the market in some form for a while now, it was initially offered in the US through Suzo Happ as a kit but the partnership with Coastal gives us a full dedicated cabinet. Their main focus was creating a game to showcase their LCD light-gun technology, the original pistol used was a heavier black model but the current version worked out fine. The game itself as you can see below is a shooting gallery challenge where you have a short amount of time to shoot the targets at different ranges. Here is video I snapped of it being played by Eugene Jarvis at Amusement Expo, I talked to him afterwards and he thought it was fun. The last light-gun arcade game to have a shooting gallery focus like this as opposed to a storyline/character/hunting focus was America’s Army by GlobalVR so there is not much in the way of competition in the genre at the exact moment (I’d be genuinely surprised if the market could handle more than two in the genre simultaneously). Either way, this is an arcade exclusive title so that is an extra bonus.
