As you can tell, arcade news has continued to be slow for September, which is pretty normal. As school starts up, there are many projects in the works that will be headed to IAAPA, but it usually isn’t until October or November that we really hear about them. In the meantime, here are a few quick stories I’ve come across for our Newsbytes this weekend:
House Of The Dead Prototype Footage
Our friend over at Andy Geezzer Services posted quite the treat to his Facebook page this week, information about the House Of The Dead 1 prototype ROMs that he has. The ROMs have been dumped to MAME so that others can enjoy this different version of how Sega’s iconic zombie shooter game was before production. Thanks to that, here’s 2 1/2 minutes of that game in action:
The CART Documentary Hits A Major Snag
This week I had the pleasure of meeting Art & Stanley of the CART Documentary Project. Using their own money, they were on a road trip across the US, stopping by various arcade locations along the way and interviewing the owners about our craft. Like usual I got a little long-winded on the subject of arcades, but it was a lot of fun.
Behind the scenes @gamegrid pic.twitter.com/aQ80Qmhaam
— The CART Documentary (@CartDocumentary) September 3, 2018
Unfortunately only two days after I sat down with them, this tweet hit the internet:
Due to a rather catastrophic event, "The C.A.R.T", has been put on hold. I truly appreciate everyone's time and effort. I cannot thank you all enough and I am sorry for this. -Stanley
— The CART Documentary (@CartDocumentary) September 5, 2018
While I’m not 100% sure about what happened, they did state that the equipment they were using to make the film were lost (not sure if misplaced or stolen), thus putting the project on this indefinite hold. It’s really unfortunate, as they were going to be shining a light on many other operators who make arcades work in this day and age, showing just how vibrant and alive the business is. Here’s hoping that they’ll be able to comeback from this – I’m certainly willing to sit down with them again. I’ll also let you know in case they do come back to the project.
Bandai Namco Amusement Lab To Being Operations October 1st
In case you have been confused by Bandai Namco’s many divisions before, it’s time to buck up. The company has announced the Bandai Namco Amusement Lab in Japan, which is going to be creating out-of-home entertainment products with a particular focus on AR/VR amusement tech…however the story seems to indicate that other non-AR/VR titles will also be in the works. Perhaps this division will make further use of Namco’s dome screen technology, although we haven’t seen much from that in quite a while. You can read the auto-translated story here; stay tuned later this month for more VR Zone news though 😉
More Beat Saber Arcade
There has been a bit of interest in Beat Saber Arcade, a title that could stand to do well in the market where other VR arcade machines have failed. You still need an attendant…but at least the machines look really nice
https://twitter.com/BeatSaber/status/1037348948602769409
Star Trek Day
Today marks the 52nd anniversary of the iconic sci-fi TV show Star Trek, thus making it “Star Trek Day.” Star Wars has “May The 4th Be With You,” and Star Trek has this (which is admittedly less catchy). Star Trek has had a presence in arcades through the years, although it is not quite as extensive as what Star Wars has seen due to the different natures of the franchises. In case you missed this article from way back in 2009, here is a look at the history of Star Trek in arcades. Which one of those titles are your favorite?
Happy #StarTrekDay – You can #BoldyGo to fun with our Star Trek premium #pinball machine! pic.twitter.com/858mMlK3G0
— Arcade Galactic (@arcadegalactic) September 8, 2018
The R-Type Chart
In case you are a little confused by the legacy of the classic shoot ’em up series R-Type, here’s a handy chart to help you see how the stories “flow”
https://twitter.com/shmups/status/1038431903714439169
Frogger For The Atari 7800
The Atari 7800 received quite a few arcade ports during it’s four year life span, but it didn’t enjoy a port of every title considered to be a classic. Thus, many homebrew programmers have made efforts to recreate their own ports of certain games for the platform, from Space Invaders to Pac-Man and more. Now, a project called Froggie looks to bring a almost arcade-perfect rendition of Frogger to the system. Granted, this port had been completed a few years ago, but the developer was waiting on some hardware to come along that would allow it to enjoy better music (it’s a long, polarizing story about the Atari 7800 XM). Either way, this week a video was posted showing different sound chips being used for the game, so enjoy:
That’s all I managed to grab this weekend. Have fun out there!
