Hey fellow arcade fans, welcome to your new seasons – Fall if you’re up North, Spring if you’re down South. We have some big news coming soon on Raw Thrills’ Cruis’n Blast (I know I’ve been teasing that for a few weeks but it is very close now) and hopefully something about a new Sega title as well. In the mean time, let’s get caught up on other ‘blurbs’ out there:
35th Anniversary Celebration for Namco’s Galaga – I did not realize this until it was too late yesterday but September 23rd marks the release date for one of the most popular video games in the arcade industry, Galaga. That also happens to coincide with Nintendo’s anniversary. To celebrate, the Namco Cybertainment location Level 257 held a birthday bash for the game, featuring the classic Galaga (which a lucky person went home with); the World’s Largest Pac-Man which had Galaga on it (as we saw last year at IAAPA 2015) and of course the new Galaga Assault. Galaga was preceded by the less popular but still fun Galaxian and it has some other sequels including Gaplus/Galaga 3, Galaga 88′, Galaga Arrangement and Galaxian 3. What is your favorite version of the concept?
And did we mention the GALAGA games are all on FREE PLAY to celebrate Galaga's 35th Birthday tonite @level257 ?! #playtogetheragain pic.twitter.com/S9tuV8oFDk
— David Bishop (@dbishopus) September 23, 2016
I also think that this Star Wars/Galaga mash-up is an appropriate homage:
Sky Skipper Project To Give Nintendo’s Sky Skipper A Proper Western Release In 2017 – Not long after getting an Atari 2600 as a kid, I wanted to collect as many games as I could for the system so I had stuff to play. I once got a box of 2600 titles from my cousin and in that package was an off game called Sky Skipper. It was fun but not something I had ever heard anyone talk about.
Turns out it was supposed to get a full blown arcade release in the West back in the day but due to poor playtesting, it never did outside of Japan. Now a group of arcade fans is looking to change that in 2017 with the SkySkipper Project, recreating the game and giving it a proper Western arcade release. We will definitely keep an eye on this – check out their main website here!
Pump It Up PRIME To Receive Final Update; Prime 2 cabinet tease – As we learned not too long ago, Andamiro is gearing up to release their latest dance game to arcades, Pump It Up PRIME 2. The game will be at the IAAPA 2016 trade show in November and will begin shipping in December. In preparation for that, the company is launching the “final” software update for existing Prime cabinets which unlocks a new step and adds some songs. At the end of the trailer we get a glimpse of the new cabinet design that is going to be introduced with PIUP2.
Golden Tee 2017 Release This Monday – Fans of Incredible Technologies’s Golden Tee have plenty of reason to celebrate as the latest version of their popular golfing game will be released this coming Monday. If you want to read over everything that has been reported about the game and it’s features, this is the place to go.
We are alllllllmost there. Golden Tee 2017 ships on Monday!
— Golden Tee Golf ⛳ (@GoldenTee) September 23, 2016
Scale-1 Portal Rebranded As Voxel – A few years ago, before everyone was all hyped up on VR fever, we ran a story about an up and coming French company called Scale-1. They introduced their Portal product that might be best described as Mixed Reality. It uses stereoscopic 3D projection mapping and Microsoft Kinect to create a sort of VR experience without cumbersome hardware that the user has to wear. I got my first chance to see it last year at IAAPA and came away impressed. There are some tweaks I would like to see (such as the Kinect sensor not being visible in the corner there) but overall if you are looking for something a little different, they’ve got it. They just launched a new trailer to show off the amusement version, rebranded as ‘Voxel’
Sleeping Beauty Re-Imagined In Sega’s Wonderland Wars – With a new update to Sega’s popular MOBA arcade game Wonderland Wars, comes a very…unique twist to an old character, Sleeping Beauty. It’s done in a way that can only come out of Japan. Here is the update and the new character in action:
Name That Game #96 – Coming up on #100 fast! For last weeks answers:
#1 – NBA Maximum Hangtime by Midway
#2 – Cobra Command (1988) by Data East
For this week:
1. Manx TT Super Bike
2. Dangun Feveron
Galaga 88 is my favorite version of the Galaga series, but the original will always be in my top 10 arcade games.
Prefer galaga. The first was good but the sounds got on my nerves. Played the 88 version but only once.
Good Stuff!
Looking at how old galaga is makes me feel kinda old 🙁 I use to love playing galaga at my local arcade room the many quarters I spend I would have bought myself my own machine for the house 🙂
What size monitor/TV that pac-man / galaga machine is using 80″? Would love to have that at my house. To play all the classic games specially my favorite of all time MS. Pac-Man, Super Mario Bros.