Welcome to a post centring around a topic that hasn’t been touched on for some time, and is being done in the absence of much else – you may have noticed the site has gone fairly quiet this past week. However, we do actually have several stories that are brewing behind-the-scenes. As these things go at times, we currently have to wait on pulling the trigger, but I promise that things will pick up here very soon.
In the meantime, for the first time in a while I have had some major new games come into my arcade. It’s always good to see this happen, so I wanted to give them a highlight whilst unboxing and setting them up, like I have done previously with other new arrivals (e.g. Enter The Gungeon – House of the Gundead). Those games would be Soda Slam! and Missile Command: Recharged Arcade, both by Alan-1.
As a disclaimer, I have been doing some work with Alan-1, contributing in a few small ways to the game design for Missile Command in particular. With these games at my arcade, I’ve also been providing feedback to improve the hardware/software further. Alan-1 is based out of Utah, where I am located.
Setting Up Soda Slam!
Let’s start with Soda Slam!, the game that is Alan-1’s first release to really target the FEC market. Before we get into things with the unboxing and setup process, it is now worth noting that the version you see here will not really be the one that will be found out there in North America anymore; A1 have a model with a license to be announced soon, which is going to take priority. That said, the license used won’t work for everywhere, so you’ll still see vanilla SS in some overseas locations.
Setting it up is pretty straightforward, however, there are two things to keep in mind:
- You need at minimum two people for this, but four is best
- It will not fit through a standard doorway
Fortunately, the location I’m at has huge “elephant doors” that made rolling it in after it got off of the truck a breeze. The setup itself was also fine – put the TV on, connect it; put the topper on, bolt it; put the marquee in, fasten it; put it into place, test it; and then you’re good to go.
Note that this is the “Deluxe” model, which does NOT come with the giant prop cans that were seen at Amusement Expo and have been seen out on test at a few locations.
There are a couple of things that I needed to refine with them for feedback, mainly with the coin doors and feet (I’m the first person to have the coin doors installed into it, everyone else has used card readers).
Software-wise, I’m also the only operator that I know of who is running it just for points – not for tickets. The verdict is still out on how that will do, although I did notice that the gameplay is still tailored for redemption play (i.e., it has a timer, so you can’t keep playing if you’re skilled to do so, like in Perfect Pour). I’ll see how it does like that, and if need be, let them know of any changes it might need.
Missile Command Recharged
Next up is another entry from the Atari Recharged series of games, this being Missile Command. I opted to try out the Pro+ model, which has the RGB LEDs and the full “toy” package (fans, rumble motors, pinball knocker). I didn’t film unboxing it, as it wasn’t in a box for this instance; normal shipments do have it all packaged up though, so I’m sure those unboxing videos will pop-up online soon enough.
I have to admit that growing up, Missile Command was not a real favorite game of mine to try by any metric. Sucking at playing it, at a time when I was actually good at other titles (like Asteroids), certainly contributed to that. I did eventually warm up more towards the game after playing Missile Command 3D on the Jaguar, although I vastly preferred playing the VR mode where it was in first person.
Anyways…
There are a number of features added to this over the console version, which include:
- Restoring text & screens such as “Defend Cities,” the scoring info at the end of a set of waves, THE END
- The mushroom cloud explosion on cities
- 50 unique backgrounds representing US states
- Select your difficulty
- 256 waves of gameplay
- Better collision detection so you can’t destroy your own cities with a close blast
- Missile sirens, voice overs, and some other sounds restored from the original
- “The Alpha-1 Protocol” & Big Red Button to initiate it
- Trackball controls
- Longer lasting power-ups
- Rumble & wind effects
- Major League eSports (MLeS) integrated for tournaments, score tracking
- They aren’t implemented yet, but there will be secrets (think Konami code type stuff and some other things)
That plus the hand-drawn art on the cabinets makes for a pretty solid differentiator from the console version of the game. Regardless my own bias, I would find it shocking for someone to play this and say that the console version is better or a preferable way to go.
As for the setup, it’s a small form factor of a cabinet that can fit just about anywhere, and the Pro version without LEDs is only $5k MSRP.
Both games are available now, although there is a variation of Soda Slam! coming soon that I think will outshine it. Once that is public, we’ll share info about it here. Until then, let us know what you think about this on our socials.
