Videobytes: Crusin’; VR Zone; Sega Promo; NTG#79

For this weekends newsbytes it was so heavy on the videos that I figured to call this Videobytes instead. I hope you are all having a good start to your April!

Cruisn’ – It’s Out There: Now that the Spring arcade trade show is over, I’ve begun hearing the rumblings that Raw Thrills is now testing Crusin’ at select locations. I heard about it through the grapevine this week that it is getting some tests done and then one of our frequent tipsters Jdevy says he saw an image of it on a Tumblr site but it was promptly removed. According to his description of it: “Basically the cabinet was a mix of MotoGP and Batman, with a huge Crusin’ sign on top of it. From what it looks like, there was online play, and a recording feature. It also seems like there was a ticket redemption feature (that can be turned off, I suppose) as well!” Certainly a game like that if it used redemption could have it shut off, although I wonder how that would do since players generally aren’t looking at racing games for tickets (Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing Arcade had a redemption option; not sure how popular it was). I imagine we’ll know for certain before too long but location tests can take a while.

The only sighting we’ve had of Crusin’ so far

VR Zone Project iCan Video promo: The upcoming VR project by Bandai Namco was annoucned a few days ago and I overlooked this video that BN posted to their JP Youtube channel showing it in action:

Sega Corporate Promo Video: This is an odd one – Sega has apparently posted this one three times to Youtube. It is promoting Sega’s history and their future. I asked an industry consultant about it and they thought it looks like the sort of thing you’d send to a potential buyer although it could also just be a corporate ‘rah-rah’ kind of thing.

CIAE 2016 Footage: Thanks to some clips that was sent to me by Kevin Williams of The Stinger Report and the DNA Association, I was able to edit them together to make this video, showing the games that were shown off at a trade show in China last month.

SharpShooter / Shooting Sports Update Adds App Score Tracking: Makers of the arcade shooting gallery game SharpShooter posted three different videos to YT this week to promote an update to their game. There are minor differences between each video although they are all touting their new app and the ability to track scores worldwide for the game. I reached out to Coastal Amusements (the US manufacturer/seller of this game) about this but so far haven’t received a response.

Super Zaxxon Promo: I never heard of Halfsies until I stumbled across this promo but according to the stats, it was discontinued before I was old enough to be eating cereal anyways. Judging by the games all being 1982 releases, it was likely axed right after this promo. I wonder who won?  (The earliest cereal I remember having was E.T.)

ColecoVision Getting A Ninja Princess Port – Ninja Princess isn’t exactly a game that is remembered with deep fondess in the West, being more of a Japanese market title but in case you do care for it and you have a ColecoVision lying around, then this homebrew project might be of interest.

Flyer of the Week – Karnov: Dr. Who fans might do a double take upon seeing this one. Karnov was the star of this 1987 title where you were a fireball throwing Russian strongman collecting pieces of a map leading to treasure. The enemy designs in this one were sometimes bizarre – like skeletons riding ostriches or golden statues that looked like they fell out of a 1950s monster flick. Check it out in more detail at Flyer Fever.

Name That Game#79 – I used to own one of last week’s games, T-Mek, but I had to sell it when moving locations and it took up too much space (plus it had a few issues – I got it for free so wasn’t much I could complain about). It’s still one of my favorite arcade games from the 90s.

#1 – T-Mek by Atari Games

#2 – Lethal Crash Race by Video System

#3 – Baseball – The Season II by Cinematronics

For this week, the first one is basically a freebie to make up for all the difficult ones lately – not sure where in this game it wouldn’t be obvious off the bat (pun intended!) 😛