Now Shipping: Mission: Impossible Arcade by Sega

Initially intended for a release in the Spring of 2020, jump forward a year, and the latest light-gun creation by Sega Amusements is now shipping out to locations that have pre-ordered one. This is the first brand new game that Sega has shipped out since they launched Mario & Sonic At The Tokyo 2020 Olympics Arcade Edition in February 2020, which was also a victim of unfortunate timing in more ways than one.

If this is the first you are hearing about this game, it is a licensed mounted gun shooter based upon the popular action movie franchise, but it does not feature the likenesses of any movie stars like Tom Cruise. In the game, there are two teams: Team Reco (red) and Team Beta (blue); When maxed out at 4 players, each team competes to reach the end of the level, with a gauge at the top to demonstrate how far ahead or behind each team is. This was done by the game’s designer, Oga-Shi, as a way to incorporate “the competitive racing nature of Daytona USA with an action-packed shooter like Ghost Squad” into one. How quickly you’ll get through the situations depends on how quickly you deal with confrontations, whether that’s groups of enemies, bosses, and a variety of QTEs that help give it more of a “spy thriller” feel.

Often the question that pops up with news like this is: “Where can I find it?” Unfortunately, that’s always a difficult question to answer no matter what game is being discussed, but given the size and cost of these machines, most likely you’ll find them in an FEC (Dave & Busters, Round1USA, Main Event, etc.) that is open and doing well enough to afford purchasing new games again. I have heard that some FECs are doing pretty well at the moment, which is why this and other high-dollar arcade projects are launching right now. That said, I do hope that the street operator gets more choices for something in their budget soon.

I did ask if there was anything else added to the game during the shutdown delay, but as of this writing, I didn’t hear back. I’ll update this space if anything relevant comes along. I’ll also use this spot to throw out a reminder that there was an 8-player version of this in the works for the Tokyo Joypolis, but I do not know if that was canceled in the wake of the pandemic and all of the changes going on over at Sega.

The only other thing I can add to M:IA for now, is that it’s too bad that the game doesn’t ship with a cool Mission: Impossible movie poster – something made just for the game using its art assets. Seems like that would be a nice fit given the blockbuster IP. 😉

Have you come across Mission: Impossible yet? What did you think of it from what you played?