Newsbytes: Predators; NBA Jam Book; Galaga Chronicles; Golden Tee 2018; ColorDMD Updates

Welcome to the last weekend of July. CAX and ReplayFX are in full swing so if you have the chance to attend, soak up every minute of it! Let’s end the month on some good news items with today’s Newsbytes:

Predators Restored

In case you missed the news last night, an unreleased arcade prototype by the name of Predators has been restored to working order and is at CAX this weekend. This was originally produced for Williams by a 3rd party, some Williams employees like George Petro and Steve Ritchie getting a chance to play it at the time. We covered this one in some detail (from what little was known) in our Midway Prototypes of the Past #1, where an old photo of it in a huge back-to-back 4p cabinet had been seen but not much else:

Now the arcade wizard of Andy’s Arcade in Oakland, CA has finally been able to restore the game after years of work. He had to make his own cabinet to house it, which was probably for the best since storing and moving the original cabinet would have been a bit of a pain. Here’s the new, more compact design sporting 4 LCDs and about to go onto a truck for CAX where it is playable this weekend:

To top it off, here is a video of the game in action. It’s almost like Space Wars and Sinistar had a 4p baby:

NBA Jam Book

Have you ever wanted to know more about how NBA Jam by Midway came about? Then Boss Fight Books and writer Reyan Ali has a book just for you. Boss Fight Books came about to provide works on single games. Many of those are console games but occasionally something from the arcade world comes along, such as this. Reyan has been able to put together an impressive list of people to interview including: “The full original Jam development team at Midway — several of whom also worked on NFL Blitz, Mortal Kombat II, Smash T.V., and other arcade classics; Commentator Tim Kitzrow (best known for shouting “HE’S ON FIRE!” and “BOOMSHAKALAKA!”); George Clinton (a secret character); DJ Jazzy Jeff (another secret character); Atari and Chuck E. Cheese’s founder Nolan Bushnell; Doom co-creator John Romero; 1997 All-Star Game MVP Glen Rice; Shaq (the one and only)”. You can check out the already funded Kickstarter for the project here and follow progress of the title on the NBA Jam Book Twitter.

The Galaga Chronicles – New Animated Series

Have you ever wanted to know what the ‘origin story’ to Namco’s Galaga is (well, apart from being a sequel to Galaxian 😛 )? Thanks to The Nuttery Entertainment group and Bandai Namco, such a story will be coming to life through animation at some point in the near future. From the press release they state: “Galaga Chronicles is planned for a multi-tiered approach across new and established media platforms. The Nuttery is creating a new meta Universe for Galaga that will re-imagine the brand based on the existing lore together with all new characters and storylines.”

My guess is that by animated they mean 3D CG but we’ll have to wait and see. With that said, get OtaKing77077 on this and that would be fine by me. Here’s one of his pieces of work, which has also included an anime style rendering of classic Dr. Who and there was the R-Type film (NSFW on the langauge for that one):

Golden Tee 2018 Marketing Begins

It’s that time of year again where the hype machine begins churning out new information for the next edition of the ever-popular Golden Tee Golf arcade game. Due to launch at the end of September, new courses and game modes are in store as a way to keep GT players coming back for more. Next week will see new course trailers being published on a daily basis and they sound excited to show off their first night course, Royal Dubai. Until then, here’s a 9 second video from the attract mode with the Golden Tee 2018 logo showing itself off:

Fate/Grand Order Arcade Announced

This trailer doesn’t really give you much to go off of but it is a game that has been released out West. A mobile-based JRPG, the game will be coming to Japanese arcades in Early 2018. Official website for it is here.

ColorDMD Updates: Rocky & Bullwinkle; No Fear; Jurassic Park

Pinball colorization enthusiasts still have plenty to be excited about as ColorDMD continues to provide new life to old monochromatic displays. The latest games to receive the treatment are mentioned in the headline above; here are their previews:

Jurassic Park doesn’t have a video quite yet so here’s a screenshot:
Dome Screen Rez

Last for today is one potential idea for Namco’s dome screen technology. Sega’s Rez Infinite…

Rez Infinite with 4K dome by @toshi_takahei Super immersive experience! VR without headset. Share the video. Check it out. pic.twitter.com/6oTT7TMrxs

— Tetsuya Mizuguchi (@Mizuguchitter) July 28, 2017

I also did add a new T-Shirt to my TeePublic store, which I haven’t done in a while. Have an awesome weekend everyone!