Newsbag: Wahlap Expands; JAEPO Updates; Ironclad MVS; KO Drive; NTG#34

I mentioned in the last post to the site that this week was kind of slow in regards to multiple news stories – knock on wood I’m finding a bunch of items to discuss today 😛

Wahlap Making A Move Into the US & Europe – I heard that this was happening ‘through the grapevine’ but today with my Replay Magazine arriving in the mail, comes the confirmation. Chinese game manufacturer & developer Wahlap is a company we have covered a few times previously as they have shown product at tradeshows like IAAPA. They had been trying to get some official distribution setup in the West but until now almost all of their titles have had to ship out of Hong Kong, excepting Storm Racer G and Storm Rider which were picked up by Sega Amusements. Now that they will have stock in the US/Europe for all of their Westernized titles, coming across games like OverTake should prove to be a much easier task.

JAEPO News: Less than a week from now we will be getting a bit of arcade news coming out of Japan but we have a good idea of what to expect already thanks to the teasers that have been put out there.

Taito To Unveil New Payment System + Wizrouge – Labyrinth of Wizardy: In addition to promoting titles like Left 4 Dead: Survivors and Groove Coaster 2, they are going to be demonstrating a new payment system (which will likely compete with systems like what Konami has with their PASELI payments) and an arcade adaption of a mobile RPG game called Wizrouge – Labyrinth of Wizardy. The game will apparently make use of 3D metal statuettes (not unlike Amiibo or Skylanders) that you move around in a maze of randomly generated dungeons and monsters. Japanese arcade makers have done that with cards before but statuettes is an irregularity. The game will also include some extra elements that the mobile version doesn’t have. This combined with the Taito’s parent company Square Enix unveiling School of Ragnarok and something related to Final Fantasy V; along with Sega showing off Wonderland Wars, the markets there are really picking up a focus on RPGs/Fantasy elements. You can visit the Wizrouge website here; Here is the trailer for the mobile version:

Konami has unveiled a list of the games they will have and it is very heavy on the Bemani games as usual. They also have a game called Disney TsumTsum (also translated as ZamZam) which is a videmption game that will vend Disney themed trinkets (link to Famitsu).

Bandai Namco will have Pokkén Tournament, Tekken 7, Star Wars Battle Pod, Synchronica, Time Crisis 5, WMMT5, a new Taiko No Tatsujin and a few other games on display.

Ironclad MVS – I hadn’t been aware of this until recently but back in 1996 a scrolling shooter by the name of Ironclad was released for the Neo Geo CD home console. That wasn’t a very easy thing to come across and the MVS hardware did not receive a release at the time. The game was released on the Wii Virtual Console  back in 2009 & ’10 and thanks to some hackers who extracted the ROM from that version, the game finally found its way to the MVS. As a ‘homebrew’ style release that means it is not available in huge quantities but there is one currently listed on eBay. Here is a long video showing the MVS build in action:

K.O. Drive Direct Videos: Way back in 2012 we ran a story about a new Sega racer that was in development called KO Drive. After that the game kept appearing at trade shows, often with different software but at the end of the day, Sega never put it into wide production. Andrew Lewis of Amusement Games Services in the UK got his hands on the game and has posted a bunch of direct feed videos to his Youtube channel. This looks a lot like the prototype build I played of the game back at Amusement Expo 2013, maybe a little more polished but still not perfect (there are some frame rate drops or rough car animations, etc). I preferred the combat/power-up system of an earlier build to what they had here but no one at Sega that I talked to about the game ever seemed happy with either one.

Arcade Heroes T-Shirts Updates: I’ve been a little busy this week cooking up some new T-Shirt designs which you can purchase from TeePublic. The newest designs are $14 for the first 72 hours, after that they go up to $20 (this is how this website works, barring any holiday sales that they occasionally run). You can check out the Arcade Heroes TeePublic store here and my thanks in advance!

Name That Game #34: Pretty much no guesses last week so I went too obscure again. I’ve got to find that sweet spot on mystery games, somewhere. Here are your answers for NTG#33:

#1 – Code One Dispatch by Konami (this was too easy since it showed the title in the lower left 😛 )

#2 – Hard Yardage by Status (had to have something related to American Football thanks to the Super Bowl)

#3 – Dynamic Ski by Taiyo System (it is skiing season after all)

For this week, let’s go with a love theme given the approaching holiday…