Welcome to our second day of coverage of the GTI Asia China Expo 2024 here on AH. The show has pretty much wrapped up in China now, but there is still today and tomorrow to sift through the booths and pick out the new arcade games that we could be seeing in the near future.
Today’s round-up centers on UNIS, the other major Chinese amusement factory with overseas links. Theirs are more strong than Wahlap’s in some respects, thanks to their headquarters in Texas and Canada (which will mean that a good chunk of the games you see here are going to come out West), though both companies are of a larger scale compared to others from China in terms of their business operations. Wahlap’s seem to be a little less consistent here, but their products are still carried by others.
Do note that there are additionally several cases of machines that were there that weren’t allowed to have photography/filming shared. We have done our best to describe them since we can’t post photos.
If you missed our first day of coverage focused on Wahlap (and Namco Hong Kong’s surprise appearance), find that here. A massive thanks once again to Oga-Shi of Sega Amusements for providing the vast majority of photos and information you find here, as well as Ted for his assistance 🙂
UNIS
With a couple of exceptions, we did not see as many new arcade games out of UNIS back at AAA 2024 in May compared to other attendees, at least in the more video-based category. UNIS’ output is stronger in prize redemption and videmption (e.g. their high-profile partnership with the Emoji company) as a whole in any case, but even so, the likes of Wahlap had more of the limelight there. However… the slight lack of it at that show would seem to be because they saved up their future developments to go all out at GTI Asia China Expo 2024, with several new arcade offerings on a sizable scale. This may have something to do with UNIS now also celebrating their 30th anniversary, making them a veteran of the Chinese scene.
A few of their new titles and cabinets did have photo sharing bans, which we will respect by only describing them towards the end of the post, but there is still lots more besides from UNIS (and others) to talk about here. According to Oga, bans on sharing photos from these booths has been increasing – there are a few reasons as to why that could be (products too early on in development, piracy concerns, etc).
Neon Rush
For the biggest of UNIS’ new video titles at GTI Asia China Expo 2024 that we can currently reveal, Neon Rush is their latest entrant into the two-screen trend for arcade racing games. We have seen that gather pace since the release of Raw Thrills’ Fast & Furious Arcade (which UNIS sell in China), and UNIS’ recent truck-based riff on it, Bigfoot Mayhem. Now, they are looking to take the format into motorbikes with this new original effort, which is the first of a couple examples in that style on the GTI show floor (another company does have a different take on the concept, but that will have to wait for the day 3 post…).
In terms of the game itself, the cabinet aesthetic and few screens available should make it more than enough clear that UNIS have gone for a sci-fi cyberpunk-like style, with some added hero iconography from the looks of the toppers. Oga has described it to us as “Tron + Raw Thrills game + Motor Raid (with shooting, not physical combat)”, which does sound like it could be cool.
In terms of game modes, Neon Rush has two available; “Race” (naturally a standard racing mode) and “Mayhem” (presumably centered more around points-based arena combat, or something similar to that) – although it looks like the latter has not been completed yet in the build shown by UNIS. Either that or it’s only made playable after you complete a race, and it just doesn’t say so.
We shall have to wait and see on whether this one will appear at their IAAPA booth in November though. It’s easy to say this could work very well as-is in the West, but perhaps UNIS want to make more changes.
Picture Book Land
UNIS’ horse in the Minecraft Dungeons-like card battler race, Picture Book Land, made a reappearance on their booth at GTI after being revealed at AAA 2024 in May. Unlike Wahlap’s already-released Kingdoms Fantasy though, this one is now looking a little different… but we unfortunately cannot demonstrate how, as it was among their photo sharing bans on this occasion. The basic cabinet and 2D gameplay is still much the same as the below photo from AAA, but the theme of the game has been updated to use several new cartoon characters, based on the Chinese tokusatsu series Armor Hero. This seems like a grab at Wahlap’s moves in that space, with them carrying Bandai Namco’s Ultraman card game as covered yesterday.
The concept could well work out West, though it’d definitely help more if it had a licence attached like Minecraft, instead of the original Asian IP seen here. That also goes for Wahlap’s Kingdoms Fantasy.
Bigfoot Mayhem
The other aforementioned two screen racer that UNIS have made is Bigfoot Mayhem, and though it has already been out for a little while across the world, this one is now receiving a lower-cost version. This is yet another photo banned title of theirs, so here’s an earlier picture from last time at AAA 2024 of the original model. Though the new scaled-down version keeps the two screens, they are smaller this time, and the Bigfoot part of the cabinet is dialled back to the point that it does not resemble a truck – more a sports car.
UNIS did additionally have a new Bigfoot game at AAA 2024, Bigfoot Smash, but that one was seemingly nowhere to be seen here. If it doesn’t turn up at IAAPA, that will likely be a sign it has been cancelled.
One Piece United Fight (Bandai Namco)
Like Wahlap, UNIS have a number of reciprocal links to other factories internationally; we’ve seen them collaborate with Taito most of late on things like OnPoint, but they have also worked with Bandai Namco on a number of projects, e.g. Pac-Man Power Pellets. Here’s a case where they are selling a kids trading card game by Bandai Namco into China, namely One Piece United Fight. Interestingly, similar to BN’s new Ultraman game that Wahlap carry, this has not been released anywhere else yet, not even Japan.
Bandai Namco have been pushing the non-arcade game TCG for One Piece in Western regions over the past year or two, but it’s hard to say if they will extend that to this, whether with UNIS or without.
Fast & Furious Arcade (Raw Thrills)
As mentioned before, alongside their own original two-screen works UNIS have been selling Raw Thrills’ Fast & Furious Arcade into China for a little while now. Raw Thrills product currently seems to be split between them and Wahlap in the mainland – UNIS have tended to take their bigger experience cabinets of late e.g. F&F here, whilst Wahlap have sold smaller things like those we saw yesterday.
Plus, with China releasing two-screen motorbike racers first, you have to wonder whether RT have their own for Super Bikes in the works currently… if not right now, they could well do in the future.
The Rest
As said a couple of times earlier on in the post, UNIS did have several more new titles on show at their booth, but these cannot be revealed fully at present due to their photo sharing bans. We have however been sent some details of these privately by Oga-Shi (including glimpses of their pages in UNIS’ latest product catalogue), so these basic descriptions and a few pieces of older related media can suffice for now.
Alongside Neon Rush, UNIS have got another new motion racer in the pipeline, Super Kart. This original kart racing game has a sit-in kart, similar to Namco and Sega’s old Kart Duel and Club Kart from the early 2000s for those who remember them. Unlike those though the kart is fully motion-based, and the style of the game looks much more similar to your average cartoony kart racer. Another new motion-based offering of theirs (which seems to be using the same motion base as Super Kart) is a rafting game in the Rapid River mold. Those with good memories will remember UNIS did have a game like this in the works around 2020 called Rowing Champs, but that never saw a wider release – and this one seems to be a new attempt.
UNIS have additionally complemented Picture Book Land with a second new original card vending battler, under the name of Amazing Universe. This one looked a little confusing, but Oga eventually told us it is another Minecraft Dungeons-like effort, this time with anime girl-style characters and 4-way movement resembling the old Legend of Zelda games. Elsewhere in the vending category there was Carnival, which made an appearance at AAA 2024 and can be just about seen in the below photo from it (also with a photo ban… but at the end of the day you can’t make out much). According to Oga, this one is like Point Blank but with a prize vending aspect, similar to a few shooting games out of Firestone Amusement.
Last of all, there was also what appears to be a sequel to Sailor’s Quest VR, UNIS’ VR motion simulator shooting game that just about got in there before Godzilla Kaiju Wars VR did. It seemingly hasn’t been as successful as that release (it certainly isn’t so common out in the wild), though that has not stopped UNIS and IGS (who have made the game part again here, like with certain Wahlap titles) from following it up. This time they have apparently reworked the cabinet slightly with an eye on bringing costs down, and have still made the experience better on user end; the headsets it has got are supposed to be lighter now.
Other
For a bit other than UNIS, whilst it is still not so common for companies to post their own coverage out of Chinese shows like GTI, there is a small number who have done just that already. Besides Yuto Games and Firestone Amusement, another one who has is FunInVR, makers of various VR-based motion simulators. They have got a few new pieces there, however it’s not entirely clear which they are from that video they have uploaded. Another from their booth has been posted unofficially elsewhere… seems like some still want simulators like these in Japan, despite their popularity waning over there.
UDC out of Europe (who sell titles from Wahlap and Ace Amusement, among others) have also been posting a few fun photos of their team and partners at the show on Facebook. Always nice to see when arcade companies make their social media feeds more personable 🙂
It’s a shame we could not show more of the new works by UNIS here fully, but they have their reasons for banning photo sharing. That will affect a few titles in our day 3 coverage of all the other relevant companies and a few odds and ends too, albeit to a lesser extent (UNIS enforced their bans a lot more shall we say strictly – not too easy to do in the age of mobile camera phones, of course). Anyways… of what we could reveal, which of these new arcade games out of GTI Asia China Expo 2024 interest you the most?
