It has been a hectic week with various news items accumulating on the plate. I finally received the key to a new space this week and have begun the tedious remodeling process – the location has seen many tenants over the years including a Kay Bee Toys, a pet store, a Payless Shoe store, some sort of goth fantasy item store and most recently a photography shop. I think once completed, this is going to be the nicest looking arcade I’ll have done.
Cruis’n Blast Up-Close
In lieu of an unboxing for Cruis’n Blast, I did this up-close ‘inspection’ of the game then had a race. As mentioned last week, the setup as it arrived was almost completely assembled and it was a busy Friday night so doing an unboxing wasn’t going to be that interesting. As it is, I will try to do more up-close overviews of cabinets like this in the future.
For some ‘inside baseball’, after one week on location, the game has been proving its chops – it is the first game to beat Jurassic Park Arcade in weekly earnings (counting both Cruis’n cabs as one), which it did by $50. Of course you watch earnings over a long period of time as all games have strong starts before finding a lower average. But some games have a higher average than others and those are the ones you want:
Attack On Titan: Team Battle (Capcom) On Loctest In Japan
We’ve been waiting to hear something about Capcom’s latest arcade creation since last February but they have done a pretty good job at keeping that under wraps. What we saw at JAEPO 2016 for this anime/manga turned arcade game was only a prop cabinet showing teaser footage of what the game would be. Now Capcom has held public location tests in Tokyo and Osaka for Attack On Titan and Japanese media outlets were there to grab pictures and impressions. Capcom has also launched an official mini-site to promote the game which you can visit here (Japanese)
Famitsu has a bunch of pictures and details although they seem to have blocked online translators from being able to auto-translate the page. The game has multiple characters available, a tutorial and a pair of unique controllers as you see pictured below. These remind me of Square-Enix’s Gunslinger Stratos in that you have a free controller in each hand; there is a thumbstick on each as well as two triggers. Also like Gunslinger Stratos, multiple units are linked together, each player getting their own cabinet and you work together as a team to take down the grotesque giants. What is interesting that you can also see on the panel is both a headphone and a microphone jack, each with adjustable volume settings so you can better communicate with your team members. Headphone jacks aren’t new for arcade gaming but microphone use is rare. This also will have collectible data cards with AoT characters on them. You can also check out 4Gamer’s article for more info.
予想以上にコントローラーがガンスト：『進撃の巨人 TEAM BATTLE』のロケテが本日よりスタート ロケテの模様を速報リポート – ファミ通.com https://t.co/tkqiJM3vnu pic.twitter.com/AqT3zGQ7mR
— ◣ ◥◣SIM3◥◣ ◥ (@sim_CF) January 27, 2017
Jersey Jack Pinball’s Playfield Tours
Earlier today Jersey Jack Pinball uploaded five episodes with Butch Peel, offering “Playfield Tours” for both Wizard of Oz Pinball and The Hobbit. If you want to see these playfields in great detail, check them out. I’ll embed Episode 1 here, the others are on their Youtube channel:
Skycurser Level 4
Coming very soon to connected Skycurser games around the globe. Looking good…
Railroad Rampage will test your mettle! Fight hard and DIE A HERO! #SKYCURSER #shmup #gamedev #arcade #pixelart pic.twitter.com/WYl2IMsvoI
— SKYCURSER dev team (@skycurser) January 28, 2017
Sega Music On Spotify
Not much else to say, if you have a Spotify account and love Sega’s classic music, then check this link out.
Some classic Sega soundtracks have appeared on @Spotify for your listening pleasure! #tbt #ThrowbackThursday https://t.co/2BbsIugxyv
— Sega Amusements International Ltd. (@SegaAmusements) January 26, 2017
King Fossil Model
Thanks to The Dude for tweeting this cool Darius model my way. It’s a foot long and is about $200 so you’ll have to be serious about importing it (if you have a Silverhawk model already then I imagine that is already in the cards 😛 )
https://twitter.com/WoodWhisperers/status/824796469207105538
Mystery Minis Features Arcade Characters
Here’s another item of interest sent in via The Dude. You have probably heard about Funko Pop Figures, but if not, they are a very popular series of collectible figures. People go particularly crazy for them at different Comic Con events since they seem to be cover just about every popular show, video game and other such properties these days. The Mystery Minis line covers plenty too and now that will include “Retro video games” which means arcade games. This set was announced at the London Toy Fair and is coming sometime later this year.
https://twitter.com/WoodWhisperers/status/823683817093398528
KOF x Tekken (Not Really)
If you enjoy seeing weird conversions, then this cabinet that Toby tweeted along certainly scratches that itch. Perhaps they have one of those multi-game PCs in there so it can do more than KOF, although Tekken isn’t on Type X2 hardware 😛 The artwork looks nice at least, despite also having Street Fighter characters on there instead of more prominent Tekken ones…:
https://twitter.com/7Ten/status/822846430482202626
New Old Arcade Ports
I am not a fan of seeing old arcade games ported to old consoles but it seems to be the thing that sells among collector circles and there are quite a few out there. Here are a few of those titles in development that may or may not interest you as well:
Jr. Pac-Man (Mattel Intellivison): Including the arcade cutscenes and all 7 arcade mazes. This looks pretty good based on what I know about the INTV hardware. I’m not sure if this would have moved the needle for the INTV back-in-the-day though since Jr. Pac-Man wasn’t as popular as the other Pacs.
Aardvark (port of Anteater; Atari 2600): Speaking of Pac-Man, or at least Pac-Man like games is the somewhat obscure Anteater by Tago Electronics & Stern (1982). Anteater received some ports back in the day and one was planned for the Atari 2600 but never released. Thus a homebrew developer has taken it upon themselves to make that happen. There isn’t a good video of this up yet and I didn’t have a chance to load it up to see so here is a screenshot. Move your tongue through tunnels while eating dashes, watching out for ant attacks
Hera Primeira (Juno First; Vectrex): If you felt like Konami’s Juno First should have been a vector game instead of a raster, then this unofficial port of the game to the only vector-based home system is right up your alley:
