IAAPA 2016 Part 2 – Racing Edition (Daytona 3, Cruis’n Blast, Maximum Tune 5, Ultra Race)

It’s been a busy, busy week with IAAPA 2016 in full swing. Every IAAPA has lots to see and do but this one felt busier than usual. Since video editing is consuming my time, let’s share some videos and a little more info. I’m going to focus on racing games at the moment since they were such a major focus for the show – if you’ve been following me on social media then this will be repeating some things but otherwise this should get us all onto the same page.

Daytona Championship USA 3

There’s been plenty of Daytona 3 to check out and I’ve had to frequently remind people that this is a prototype that has a few months to go before production. Changes will happen to the gameplay and graphics as they polish it up; a little later in the show a sticker was posted on it saying “50% complete”. Quite a bit can change in the other 50% but as stated previously, I liked what I played so far and I look forward to more.

First let’s start with Sega’s teaser trailer:

The Daytona 3 Championship USA teaser is here!! Play it today at Sega Booth 1606 @IAAPAHQ @OCCC #IAE16 #DaytonaIsBack #Daytona #ArcadeOnly pic.twitter.com/jUEp8eMJns

— Sega Amusements International Ltd. (@SegaAmusements) November 15, 2016

Then my footage that began with a quickie:

Then the longer, more detailed hands-on. KEEP IN MIND: Games at trade shows are often set to very different settings than what you find out “in the wild”. So don’t worry about number of laps and such for now. I can confirm however that there will NOT be an Endurance Mode in Daytona 3.

And finally for the moment, some good driving and 1st place racing provided by a Sega employee (many thanks to him for this).

Here’s the flyer as I posted on Twitter:

#Daytona3 flyer and #DaytonaIsBack sticker #IAAPA2016 pic.twitter.com/RC1CguYOZI

— Arcade Heroes – The Saviors of Coin-op Newsblog (@arcadeheroes) November 16, 2016

Cruis’n Blast (Raw Thrills/Nintendo)

The other return of a 1994 title is the latest Cruis’n. Following the familiar Cruis’n formula, fans of the FnF games that Raw Thrills has produced will also feel at home here, with a few subtle changes to bring it in line with Cruis’n (exploding roadkill, characters in cars).

One thing that a commenter on YT brought up is that the game didn’t have the woman waving the flag at the start of the race. After asking different Betson and Raw Thrills sales reps about it, no one was really sure as they hadn’t seen her or other ladies in the game. So thanks to the help of a RT sales rep, we went into the operator menu and indeed found a “No Women Mode” option but it was set to Off. We turned it on and saw no difference in the game. So the best assumption is that the software used at IAAPA removed them entirely while the production build will have scantily clad ladies available (for locations that want them…some do not). We’ll let you know if this and anything else changes for the production build.

Production units are already beginning to ship so you’ll be seeing the game out there very soon!

Betson always has their “Game Plan” brochure booklet at the show instead of individual flyers so here is the Cruis’n Blast flyer as seen in there

Maximum Tune 5 (Bandai Namco)

On the opposite end of the racing spectrum is the 5th installment of Namco’s popular series Maximum Tune – now without the “Wangan Midnight” license to headline it. To clarify some information that we had received a while back, Namco has 100 sets of 4 that they are selling as a “limited release”. To quote: “limited USA release of 5 with no additional possible until the release of 6 in the USA.” So, it’s  good to know that MT6 is also on the way 🙂

For more details on it beyond the video below, check out my post from earlier this week.

Ultra Race by IGS/UNIS

I had been wondering about this one but upon checking it out, it appears to be a reskin/retheme of IGS’s Overtake. I do know that there were players interested in Overtake here in the US but with few imports, just as few locations picked one up. Now with Universal Space handling it with some appropriate changes to the software (focused more on racing than dodging ‘disaster events’), perhaps it will be able to get noticed. UNIS’s main focus is their VR Omni Arena though, which I will get into soon.

Motion Simulation’s TL3

Waaay back in the hall where IAAPA took place (Orange County Convention Center in Orlando), a booth was setup with several dome screen pods with motion seats in them. Mr. Kevin Williams of the Stinger Report showed me where they were at but I unfortunately did not have a chance to drop by later to try them in action. Fortunately, you can find out more from their website here.

Here’s a promo video for the pods as found on their website:

There were some VR racing games at the show but I will save those for a post focusing on VR amusements as there were many to be found.

We’ve got much more from IAAPA 2016 to cover so stay tuned!