It’s the last weekend before the next trade show for the US arcade industry, the Amusement Expo International 2016 show. I’ll be there to check out the latest and greatest, including the new Ghostbusters pinball. I’ve heard that distributors have already sold out of LE units, I’m always surprised by what people will drop that much cash on even if they haven’t played it (I am considering a GB to replace my aging Stern Indiana Jones but I want to play it first). In the meantime here is some news for your weekend:
Best Of Show Awards 2016 Announced – Long running industry newsletter The Stinger Report and equipment distributor BMIGaming.com have announced their Best of Show Award winners this week, which covers games seen at IAAPA 2015. In the interest of disclosure, I did participate in the vote but mine was only one of many. You can check out the awards page here to see who won what. Already I have seen a few manufacturers promoting their medals on social media; congrats to those who have been recognized for their products!
IAAPA 2015 Arcade Flyers – Speaking of IAAPA, I’ve been on a video hiatus for a little bit in part that I needed to get a new camera. The new one has some better features including a better mic so hopefully the videos coming next week from Amusement Expo 2016 will be my best quality ones yet. Here’s a look at the arcade flyers I had grabbed from IAAPA 2015
Coleco Mini-Arcades Coming Back? – If you grew up in the 80s then you might have had one of those Mini-Arcades that Coleco sold. They were rudimentary but playable. Looking to recover from some bad press brought on by the Coleco Chameleon scam (that they only licensed their name to, they were not involved in the hardware design nor the marketing, which came from Retro VGS), Coleco is re-grouping by looking to bring those Mini-Arcade games back. They are asking users on their Facebook page what they would like to see in the Mini-Arcades from a technical standpoint. What do you think about a possible return of the Mini-Arcades?
Namco Tests A Video Whack-A-Mole Style Game in Japan – And it is based on sumo wrestling. That’s an interesting little twist.
ロケテスト機情報】スーパーモグラたたきが期間限定で登場！反射神経に自信のある方は是非チャレンジしにきて下さいね(*˙︶˙*)ﾉﾞ pic.twitter.com/TcR48CJcdZ
— namcoラゾーナ川崎店 (@namco_kawasaki) March 8, 2016
Taito Launches Groove Coaster 3 Link Fever – Also in Japanese arcade news, Taito shows that they are still alive by launching the third title in their popular rhythm game series.
Galloping Ghost Arcade Adds Unreleased Gottlieb Prototype As Their 500th game – Most arcades have somewhere between 40-100 games but 500 is quite a feat. It is also likely a technical challenge to keep all of the games running but GGA has the support to keep that up. For their 500th game, they are adding a Gottlieb title called Argus, which would have been released in 1982 (Note: Not the same as Jaleco’s Argus released in ’86). Congrats to Galloping Ghost for the achievement!
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Name That Game #77 Part Deux – No one guessed last week so let’s give it another spin (I’ll transfer my laziness this week to being busy, taxes and all that fun stuff). As a hint, the first game was well known among Neo Geo fans; the second fairly known among shooter fans; the 3rd, well that’s just plain obscure 😛
Number 1 is the Irritating maze.
I think the second one is 1942
It is a 1942 meets Raiden kind of game 😉