A few games popped up on the YouTube channel for UK-based distributor UDC this week so let’s give some love to our friends in Europe and highlight what new arcade games they have in store. Each one is a video game and can operate either as a pure video game (play for fun & score) or as a redemption piece (what I like to call videmption):
Galaxy Rangers
When I first saw this I wondered if it might be a remake of the old Teratoma arcade game from a decade ago but it appears to be a new, original work. Developed originally by Ace Amusement, it’s a sci-fi shooter that seems to incorporate typical arcade shooter elements but it does use some free guns instead of mounted. The game has four levels to play through and while it has the ticket option, it seems to have been designed more for straight amusement play:
The video above doesn’t mention it but the product page states that the button on the gun switches weapons. Here’s a cabinet image:
Dream Ball
Here’s a game that’s basically Fall Guys where players are pushing balls (maybe you could say it’s a little bit Super Monkey Ball) both in game and on the cabinet. What really stands out here are the 18″ giant trackball controllers that you use to control the character. Push balls to the goal line before the timer runs out with 18 courses to play:
The product page for this one is here.
Slime Busters
This last one is a mounted gun game that you’re shooting colored slime at characters that at one point look somewhat like the tiny humanoid characters from Nintendo’s Pikmin (the Hocotatians, I believe they’re called) -although the cabinet image shows humanoid pigs. This one is more kid-focused than Galaxy Rangers, by the theme.
Find it’s product page here.
Will we see any of these three titles pop-up in the US? Perhaps. Both Coastal Amusements and Amusement Source International have carried games designed by Ace Amusement, so it seems to fall under what each respective company decides will be a solid seller for them.
Some DDR News For both Europe & The US
Toby stumbled across a Dance Dance Revolution A20+ at Funland London recently; DDR is distributed by Electrocoin in the UK, although at the moment their website still shows the older DDR A. A20+ was released a couple of years ago and was ultimately superseded by DDR A3 (which was released earlier this year in Japan). Speaking of which, scroll down past the tweet for news on that in the US.
https://twitter.com/7Ten/status/1547251045272879104
Unfortunately for those of us in the US, no distributor currently sells new DDR machines, but Round1USA regularly imports units over (I’ve heard that some D&Bs might also have a newer DDR here and there but they’re not as aggressive about Konami content as R1USA is). Alex Neal sent me a pic showing the gold DDR A3 that popped up at his local Round1. I checked with BemBlake and he also confirmed that the R1USA in Utah also has this, so I imagine that these have been hitting all of the R1s. For those of you with an R1USA near you, have they upgraded yet? It certainly is a nice looking cabinet:
