Happy weekend arcade fans! This weekend’s newsbytes are brought to you by the number 5,000, because that sounds like a good number to sponsor something. A new podcast will be posted later today so stay tuned for that if you are interested. Also, I have mentioned this out there so may as well here – I am actively developing a new book about arcades but it is quite a bit different from The Arcade Experience. I’ll refrain from getting into what that difference is right now but mentioning it here should help keep me motivated to finish it up sooner rather than later. 😛
In the mean time, here is your news:
2015 Ottawa Pinball And Game Room Show Announced – If you live in or near Ottawa, then mark your calendar for September 19th & 20th as a pinball and arcade event will be taking place that weekend. Here is the information I was sent, thanks to Josh Mackay for sending this our way:
Saturday and Sunday September 19th & 20th, we will be celebrating the 5th anniversary at the 2015 Ottawa Pinball & Gameroom show!
CKCU, Ashton Brewing Company, House of Targ, and Ottawapinball.com bring you 2 days of all you can handle Pinball and arcade machines!
We’re rocking the warehouse at the fantastic Maker Space North @ 250 City Centre, Bay 215 in Ottawa.
Purchase games, parts, or gameroom treasures from the Playdium store and Pinball Customs, plus many great used games from local collectors in our vendor booth and flea market areas.
Compete in the IFPA sanctioned “O-Town Throw-Down 2015” tournament for IFPA points, cash and prizes, and the bragging rights of becoming the capitol’s Grand Wizard!
The House of Targ Wizards will be slinging perogies and hot dogs all weekend long out of the “TARG Express” mobile kitchen and tapping an assortment of Ashton Brewing Company’s finest brews. Proceeds of the tactical TARG carbo-loading station will be used to help CKCU keep their DJ’s DJ-ing and their transmitters transmitting.
Should you wish to volunteer a game to the party, set up a booth, or contribute in any way you can, email ottawapinball@gmail.com for more info.
Teenager Makes His Own Video Arcade Game – (thanks to Kieran May for the tip) I imagine that for most students that are into computer science, the focus is on creating apps for smartphones since that is the hot market right now. So it is surprising to see an aspiring coder go in the direction of an arcade game, cabinet and all, instead of ‘moar apps!’. The arcade industry always can use ‘new blood’ as far as coders and game designers go so perhaps he will be able to join one of the arcade game developers in the future?
Pixels Thrashing & New Pac-Man Fever Remix – Well, I haven’t had the chance yet to go see the new Pixels movie but so far the reviews are really harsh, as you can see from the 19% rating on the aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Audience rating is hovering around 59% and I know one person who said he loved it, while on social media I’m seeing a lot of vitriol (seems very polarized – it’s absolute love or hate); I’ll reserve judgement for myself to see what the fuss is all about this week on a $5 Tuesday deal that most theaters do around my area 😉 In the mean time, Jerry Buckner and company has produced a new official remix to their 80s music hit, Pac-Man Fever, which was released on Yahoo Music:
Heart of Gaming Arcade Robbery and crowdfunding – Earlier this week I mentioned on the AH social media that the Heart of Gaming, a video arcade in the UK, was robbed. The arcade games were not damaged but they had some other gaming equipment such as game consoles and TVs which the scum stole. They started a Gofundme campaign to be able to re-coup their losses, which they surpassed their goal in just 2 days. Perhaps the extra amount can be invested in a good security system.
The Heart of Gaming in London when they opened
Mario & Sonic At The Rio 2016 Olympics Arcade Cabinet render – Sega released this 3D render of their upcoming sports title that features the mix or two famous IP franchises, along with a release date for this arcade edition of February 2016. Whether or not we’ll see this in the US will likely have to wait for one of our big trade shows (IAAPA or Amusement Expo 2016). The Japanese version will have a “mobile phone kit” – not sure what that is exactly, unless that is something involving Sega’s Aime payment system over there.
Arcade Heroes Video Updates – Added to the Arcade heroes Youtube channel this week (please subscribe if you haven’t already) – 1 Credit Play Monday: Chase HQ2 and the Star Wars Battle Pod Attract mode.
Name That Game #52Â Special Edition – This post officially marks 1 year of “Name That Game” so let’s keep it up. Last week was a big challenge (although I thought that the first two would have received some correct guesses) so this week let’s try and guess among 5 games instead of 3. For last week:
#1 – Final Blow by Taito/Romstar
#2 – Aurail by Sega
And for this week (not really letting up the on difficulty 😛 ):
#1 is Ninja Spirit. It also happens to be one of my favorite games.