Welcome to Newsbytes, a curation of news & videos from around the wonderful world of arcades & pinball. I’m trying to complete another Location Watch post as well but am also looking to do a video version of those from here on out.
Here’s the news:
CAX 2022: Major Havoc: The Promised End Revealed
California Extreme 2022 is well underway in San Jose, and as a part of that, there are panels. One of those panels was attended by Arcade Heroes reader MrJBRPG, where Owen Rubin revealed the long awaited ROM update to his 1983 arcade game, Major Havoc. As that game did not feature an ending(something that once led to a lawsuit against Atari), this update adds that plus some other enhancements and additions. Those include:
- 8 new levels + 4 secret levels
- Additional warps
- Homeworld Space station
- 3D Star Castle battle restored
- Speech support
- Updated attract mode
- Multilingual support
- A level editor
- The long promised end of the game
And more. I asked MrJBRPG to ask if Owen (pictured on the left below) had thought about making a MH pinball machine (since he’s a big fan of pinball) but it seems to have never crossed his mind. 🙂
If you are interested in grabbing the ROMs, they can be found here, along with the level editor. It will also work with MAME – that’s good news given how difficult it is to find the original machine. Still, if I ever get an MH cab, I’d make sure this update was applied to it.
CAX 2022: Vctr-Sctr by Digital Eclipse & Atari
When I visited CAX 2018, Mike Mika of Digital Eclipse had brought along an interesting 6-player variation of Atari’s Warlords to the show called Starlords. That was just a one-off project; Now, Digital Eclipse has developed another Atari-inspired game called Vctr Sctr and brought it to CAX 2022. This is also a one-off, designed to highlight the upcoming Atari 50th Anniversary Collection, with Vctr-Sctr itself being a new game that is a mash-up of various Atari vector classics:
Promo For Virtual Rabbids Ultra HD
LAI Games uploaded a bunch of videos the other day, most of which were about games they’ve been selling for a while. One exception was this promo for their new upgrade to the popular VR ride, Virtual Rabbids:
Firestone Financial Halts Amusement Lending
As I was writing about this it was turning into an entire blog post so instead of doing that, I decided to do a video. While this primarily affects arcade operators and potential arcade ops, it’s also going to affect you the player, since it could mean fewer new games turning up out there – at least at smaller venues. I’m sure that most big chains & FECs will be fine – although fortunately there are other lenders in the biz. Let’s just hope that they don’t follow Firestone’s lead here. Link to the Replay article.
UNIS Launches TekyGo! Exergame System
“Kidtainment” has been gaining more traction in our industry in recent years and now UNIS is looking to build on that using an exercise angle with their new TekyGo! platform. This had been initially teased back in late 2020 under a different name but due to how things shook out with the pandemic, it was delayed until now. It’s also principally being sold straight to consumers, however, there is an FEC version available in 2 & 4-player flavors. The target age for this is 6 & under; More details would presumably be available from your UNIS distributor:
Japan Game Updates
Though nothing major, we have some updates for arcade games and platforms in Japan, a country still trying to clamber out of that COVID unpredictability in amusement. First up, a wholly new game for Sega’s revenue sharing APM3 games platform, Milk Chan (no, not based on the anime). This was designed by Studio Saizensen the same team that created Umihara Kawase. As far as the gameplay, it’s… different. Here’s the trailer so you can be the judge; the main website is here.
Japan’s going Touhou crazy between the release of the first full Touhou arcade game and this collab with Initial D: The Arcade:
Starhorse 4 is doing a mobile game collab with Uma Musume. Speculation as ever that this could hint at an Uma Musume arcade game for Japan…
Konami is launching Jubeat Ave. next Wednesday. This one seems a surprise given that Konami hasn’t touched the game in a while.
WACCA, the rhythm game by Marvelous, is going offline at the end of August. Notably out there in the US mainly through Round1USA; UNIS grabbed the rights in China for it, but it’s nowhere to be found on their own website (which is typical as some releases get a page on their site, some don’t)
[Thanks to Ted H. for most of these JP ones; Milk Chan also shared by a couple of others]
Headlines
New Designs In The Arcade Heroes Teepublic Store – Mortal Kombat / Aliens Armageddon
Sega Has Launched A New Line Of Arcade Sports Games Aimed At Adult Venues
Retro Raccoons Looks Like It’s Selling Well
LAI Games Has Some Games For Sale On Closeout
Amusement Source International Now Selling New Cotton Candy Vending Machines
Photos From The SoulCalibur 2 Location Test – There’s a series I miss seeing in arcades proper
Yes, Atari’s Race Drivin’ Panorama Was Real, And It’s Still Spectacular
Dave & Busters Collabs With A Fashion Line
Not All Chuck E. Cheeses Are Nothing But Ticket Redemption Games
[Home Gaming] The Sega Astro City Mini V Is Out In Japan – Sadly, the input lag is not great
[Home gaming] Big Buck Hunter Marksman gets a major update
[Home Gaming The TMNT Cowabunga Collection Launches A Month From Today
[Home Gaming] Time For Another Home-Made Mario Kart Arcade Cabinet
[Home Gaming] The Evolution Of Steam Tags
[Home Gaming] If You Have An AMD Graphics Card, You Should Definitely Update Your Drivers
That’s all for this week, have fun out there!
Really liked the idea and look of Vctr-Sctr… I wonder if the monitors will retro-fit any colour (or B&W?) vector game?