Newsbytes: Shikhondo Red Purgatory; Do Racing Games Equal Bad Drivers & More

Hello dear readers, and welcome to another round of Newsbytes. There isn’t much to talk about this weekend

Deer Farm Teases Q3 Release For Shikhondo Red Purgatory

I wasn’t able to get around to an Exa preview this week (I also need to do something similar for Polycade), so this will suffice. A game developer known as Deer Farm has highlighted the upcoming arcade version of their shoot ’em up title Shikhondo Red Purgatory, posting this trailer to Twitter. The title is part of the Exa-Arcadia game selection and will be available “Q3,” which means any time now through September. This certainly will be an offering for more hardcore players – this isn’t the kind of game I’d expect to ever see at an FEC. But, it certainly will do well in Japan, where such games still enjoy strong followings and solid earnings.

How the arcade build will differ from the console versions (known as Shikhando Soul Eater and is on every major home platform out there, plus Steam which isn’t mentioned on their website) does go beyond the “Red Purgatory” subtitle, including a new UI, voice acting and balance changes that will make it appropriate for arcade fun (it will be able to operate in either vertical and horizontal modes).

Shikhondo Red Purgatory for ARCADE
Q3 2019 #arcade #indiegame pic.twitter.com/aYoeHnlu6v

— DeerFarm (@TeamDeerFarm) July 6, 2019

Speaking of Exa, they recently posted an update to their website to highlight coverage in a Japanese trade magazine known as Amusement Journal. This post highlighting that also mentions that Western preorders will be open “soon.”

Documentary: Arcadia National Bar – From One Year To The Next

Embedding on this video has been disabled, but click here to watch a 26 minute documentary on the Arcadia National Bar. This is a location we’ve reported on in the past, but if you’d like to see how it has fared, with the trials and tribulations that go into making a business both survive and thrive, check it out!

Do Racer Games Make For Bad Drivers?

H/T to Arcade Belgium for highlighting this article at the UK Telegraph that touts a new poll to make some news and help with a slow news day, I suppose. The poll claims that people who play racing video games every day are worse drivers, as they apparently have terrible real world driving records. I’m not convinced that this is something that should be taken as gospel like the headline proclaims – it’s not exactly following the scientific method to arrive at the vaunted conclusion. But that never stops articles from being published these days.

Of course, it does seem logical that driving video games can make for unrealistic expectations of how you handle a vehicle on the road, but anyone who has a bit of time driving under their belt knows that it’s a very different experience to have a real car, with the weight and physics all around you versus a game pad. That’s also part of the equation that the poll seems to have missed – arcade driving games are also going to be different from stuff like Forza or Gran Turismo, as the arcade cabinet provides a much closer to real simulator experience – but even then it’s not quite the same (the feel of steering, weather conditions, other drivers). If anyone was going to scientifically look at this, they would also have to test it across a large variety of drivers, as driving in Cruis’n Blast is quite different from Mario Kart Arcade, which is very different from Maximum Tune or Initial D, etc.  I have a feeling that the final results would be different from what that poll claims, but what do you think? Have you ever double tapped the gas and expect to have your car start drifting around a corner (or to do a barrel roll)? I can’t say that I have…

A New Trailer For Overtake VR

With that in mind, how about some very unrealistic racing, in VR? We’ve mentioned Overtake VR before, having seen it at certain trade shows, although I can’t recall if there was a trailer like this for it. This new trailer posted to YouTube by IGS highlights all of the intense ACTION that you get in the game, something that I’ve joked before should have this game called Stunt Driver. Overtake VR is available now and has been for a while, although I’m not sure how common it is to find here in the West.

Taito To Launch Space Invaders Invincible Collection On Consoles Next Year

News is slow for the newsbytes, so let’s get into something sorta arcade related for consoles. Taito never gets tired of celebrating the game that made them huge, and next year you’ll be able to enjoy loads of Space Invaders goodness on the Nintendo Switch. I can’t find any trailer of Space Invaders Invincible Collection yet, but it will come with some great package items, including a board game and art book. The official site for this release is here.

https://twitter.com/shmups/status/1147202877225443328

LAI Games Takes A Look At The Future of the FEC

What is in store for FECs in the future? Game manufacturer LAI Games has a new blog post up looking into that, with some history on how we got here and what is coming up. I do hope that more investments are made into AR & MXR technologies, as there is a lot of interesting potential there for amusement, that doesn’t require wearable tech to work (thus broadening the market of potential buyers). Read it here.

Well that’s all I’ve got for this week, excepting this great piece of art that shows the ground while the overhead mayhem of Raiden takes place. Very clever! Have a good weekend everyone!

https://twitter.com/AndrewGeorger/status/1147192136279961600