It’s the dog days of summer and that means its been slow around here, but as we inch our way towards Fall, new games will start popping up – and as you’ll see here, pop-up they have! Here’s the latest to discuss, including: Golden Tee PGA Tour 2023/2024; Jurassic Park [pinball] 30th Anniversary Edition; Raccoon Rampage; Dance Dance Revolution A3; Supercharged Shuffle and then Drone Racing Genesis. If you’re curious about games already released to the business this year, click here. Read on!
Golden Tee PGA Tour 2023/2024 (Incredible Technologies)
I had missed this one which was announced last month, the latest major update to Golden Tee arcade machines. Annual updates have long been the standard for Golden Tee, the newest edition offering new courses and game modes to make it a “new” game. This landed on July 31st, adding a new “60 second Target Rush” mode, more courses to bring it to 110 total, new golf clubs and a new “Create-A-Course” mode. Here’s the trailer; Here’s a press release; Here’s the game page.
NOTE: Fixed with the correct trailer, I accidentally posted a short teaser previously
Jurassic Park 30th Anniversary Edition (Stern Pinball)
If you are like me and was around 30 years ago then you’ll likely remember the hoopla surrounding Jurassic Park when it hit silver screens around the world. Adapted from Michael Crichton book of the same name, the Steven Spielberg directed movie was a blockbuster and is still fun to watch today (although it’s sad how the CG in that movie is better than a lot of stuff now – how does that happen?)
Back in 2019, Stern Pinball released a new Jurassic Park pinball which was not based upon the new Jurassic World but on that’93 film. I have a Pro model from that and it’s done all right as it’s a fun game (the Jeep toy is fun to hit and the shots in the game flow well) but one thing that I didn’t care for is that it had very few clips (video & audio) from the movie – the only ones it did have was from the side character Dennis Nedry. Sure, he’s the catalyst for what goes wrong at the park but he’s killed pretty soon after the action starts so isn’t even in the last half of the film. I get that licensing costs are probably to blame here but it felt more like Nedry pinball than Jurassic Park – they didn’t even bother to get new actor voiceovers for the main characters.
Now this new edition is an LE with art blades and what appears to be LE fixings like the moving T-Rex head and spinning copter blades. Does it incorporate anything else from the film that wasn’t in the game originally? No clue from this trailer. There was an unauthorized update which did load the game with those clips but one can’t update your present model and keep those. Some collectors on Pinside are not very happy that this is another LE run, feeling it devalues the original run, which was also 500 – but some others sound excited for it, so we’ll say its mixed.
Anyways, complaints aside, here’s the trailer; If you’re interested, MSRP is $12,999 and they are limiting these ones to 500.
On a more positive Stern note though, it turns out that their new-new release of Venom has some very interesting updates that are being designed to bring players back again and again, one of which is saving your game progress through Insider Connected. I’d love to see other IC games get this treatment and I do applaud the team at Stern for working to find ways to get people back.
Raccoon Rampage (UNIS)
UNIS unveiled a new four-player water-gun videmption game called Raccoon Rampage. The trailer doesn’t show the gameplay but does describe some of it in the text, mentioning that there are four stages to play. As with other water gun games, this has a field of fake grass in-between the guns and the monitor and there are stronger water blasts when you grab power-ups. The game isn’t listed on UNIS’ website at the moment but I do imagine it will show up at IAAPA.
It’s also interesting that we have another raccoon themed game in the industry…Retro Raccoons is still available so this now gives us a couple of raccoons.
Dance Dance Revolution A3 (Konami; Round1USA Only?)
News came along this week, just in time for the release of Andamiro’s Pump It Up 2023 Phoenix, that DDR units at Round1USA locations would be getting an update to DDR A3. The bad news is that someone apparently didn’t vet the update enough and last I heard, several DDR units were bricked. Hopefully that will be resolved soon; Whether Dave & Busters will also get the A3 update remains to be seen. In the mean time, here’s a little meme cooked up by someone paying attention to these shenanigans:
Supercharged Shuffle Debuts At A Dave & Busters In Texas
Those who are into shuffleboard but want to get a tech-upgraded experience might be interested in this one. A company by the name of CONDUCTR has unveiled their Supercharged Shuffle. The LinkedIn post does not say which D&B Texas has these (there are quite a few), but for the game itself, here are some of the features:
• Patent-pending automated tracking
• Multiple game variants for endless fun
• Instant replays to relive epic moments
• Profile creation for a personalized touch
• Real-time lighting and audio for immersive vibes
It reminds me of the old DiscGlo Shuffle that Arachnid did, but full-size and with some extra software touches. I’m unsure if this is a D&B exclusive or if it will roll out to other venues in the future.
Drone Racing Genesis
This one isn’t new-new but since Sega Amusements cooked up a new promo video for it and we’re talking new stuff anyways, here’s a look:
That’s all for now – what appeals to you the most out of these?
Alongside the Jurassic Park pinball re-release, there will also be a code update for all models with new modes and such. Source: Stern’s facebook page.