7 replies to this topic

[Shaggy the Atarian]

There are still arcade games being made and at the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA) convention last week, coin-op games had a solid presence to show.

BTW - before anyone gets into the tired and incorrect idea that venues for such games are dead, check these sites for locations: Aurcade.com or Arcadefly.com. There are still thousands of places out there which buy coin-op games but for whatever reason some in the gaming media wish to pretend that it's just a couple of places left.

With that out of the way, I was at IAAPA last week with my camera and I've got a bit of footage of the games seen there. I chronicled it all at http://arcadeheroes.com - I know this will all be a shameless plug post but it's really the only site that gives arcades their proper dues. Here are some highlights:

My most viewed video from the show so far is about Quasimoto Interactive's "Let's Kinect", a legal coin-op cabinet that let's operators put in just about any Kinect game and run it in their venue.

http://arcadeheroes....to-interactive/

Sega videos are always popular, and that company had a pretty nice booth setup - GRID, Let's Go Island, HUMMER, Rambo, Harley Davidson, Hopping Road, the quirky Golden Gun and even a new Super Monkey Ball made an appearance

http://arcadeheroes....aapa-2010-sega/

Namco brought a new, innovative robotic coin-op game called Robo Restle (this is a lot of fun), a new racer called Dead Heat which includes an integrated webcam, a couple of Pac-Man arcade games including Pac-Man Battle Royale and Pac-Man's Arcade Party (the latter has a home version too for collectors who want a licensed multi-game cab with Pac-Man)

http://arcadeheroes....10-namco-booth/

Raw Thrills had two new drivers to show off, sequels to Tokyo Drift and Super Bikes called Fast And Furious Super Cars and Super Bikes 2 respectively. They were celebrating the 10th year of Big Buck with a new update called Big Buck World; the new DDRX2 was also there although I filmed it causing a problem:

http://arcadeheroes....-thrills-booth/

Some companies brought along stereoscopic 3D games and motion simulators

http://arcadeheroes....-simuline-unis/

Music games were there in different varied flavors. Music fans were going crazy over a Chinese made game called Mozarc; I personally was excited about World's Fastest Drummer

http://arcadeheroes....astest-drummer/

There's more up on Arcade Heroes - a 47" multi-touch screen game; a new kind of 4-player air hockey table; footage of the new Sea Wolf: The Next Mission and more

[rmaerz]

HOLY CRAP!!!!!!!!

SEA WOLF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Modern Games I would love to play...

Do you have any info on prospective locations to play this game???

[Shaggy the Atarian]

rmaerz, on Mon Nov 22, 2010 11:17 AM, said:

HOLY CRAP!!!!!!!!

SEA WOLF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Modern Games I would love to play...

Do you have any info on prospective locations to play this game???

Well it was originally billed as a video redemption game but it also has options to switch it over to video-only.

It's also a Green label game so given those options, I would say that it's likely to find one of these at a Dave & Busters or even Chuck E. Cheese. I wouldn't mind having it setup as a video-only game at my own arcade as it's a fun game. There are two versions of this BTW - the first one was shown in 2008, then about a year later they did this version, but it's the first time I had a chance to film it.

EDIT: I just remembered to check Aurcade.com, here's some places that have one, although it's certainly not all of them

http://arcades.mythr...ew.aspx?id=1352

Edited by Shaggy the Atarian, Mon Nov 22, 2010 12:30 PM.

[onmode-ky]

I think I saw the Sea Wolf game a few weeks ago at a Chuck E. Cheese, when I saw an H2Overdrive there for the first time (and my first time seeing/playing it, too, over a year after first hearing of the game).

Does Taito's absence from this show mean we won't be getting DariusBurst Another Chronicle in the US at all? It's bad enough the PSP original has not been released, despite an ESRB rating months ago. Heh, speaking of Taito and DariusBurst, I happen to be listening to Zuntata's L'ab-normal Limited CD right now.

Incidentally, some of the track backdrops in Dido Kart feature Taipei landmarks. Granted, InJoy is based in Taipei, but it's still a surprise to see Taipei in a video game of any sort.

onmode-ky

[Shaggy the Atarian]

onmode-ky, on Mon Nov 22, 2010 4:48 PM, said:

I think I saw the Sea Wolf game a few weeks ago at a Chuck E. Cheese, when I saw an H2Overdrive there for the first time (and my first time seeing/playing it, too, over a year after first hearing of the game).

Does Taito's absence from this show mean we won't be getting DariusBurst Another Chronicle in the US at all? It's bad enough the PSP original has not been released, despite an ESRB rating months ago. Heh, speaking of Taito and DariusBurst, I happen to be listening to Zuntata's L'ab-normal Limited CD right now.

Incidentally, some of the track backdrops in Dido Kart feature Taipei landmarks. Granted, InJoy is based in Taipei, but it's still a surprise to see Taipei in a video game of any sort.

onmode-ky

Taito doesn't have much of an overseas presence anymore however, at each show we keep seeing a Taito game show up at a different booth. Last year they had Panic Museum at the ICE booth and this time Hopping Road was at the Sega booth. So they have interest in bringing their products overseas but at the same time a lot of their games are made with the Japanese audience in mind and not so much the US.

Back in August I started to get some people to let Taito know that they wanted Darius Burst another Chronicle in the US. You can still e-mail them and tell them why you want to see it:

http://arcadeheroes....pan-tell-taito/

As long as they hear from more and more US fans that they want the game, then it should work out at some point. Some local Darius fans here donated an Astro City 2 cabinet to my arcade to help raise funds just for that game.

[rmaerz]

onmode-ky, on Mon Nov 22, 2010 4:48 PM, said:

I think I saw the Sea Wolf game a few weeks ago at a Chuck E. Cheese

Hey thanks for the reminder...I have a Chuck E Cheese local and see if they have it...

[onmode-ky]

Shaggy the Atarian, on Mon Nov 22, 2010 5:10 PM, said:

Back in August I started to get some people to let Taito know that they wanted Darius Burst another Chronicle in the US. You can still e-mail them and tell them why you want to see it:

http://arcadeheroes....pan-tell-taito/

As long as they hear from more and more US fans that they want the game, then it should work out at some point. Some local Darius fans here donated an Astro City 2 cabinet to my arcade to help raise funds just for that game.

Thanks for the info. I've bugged their Twitter account about DBAC before; now with an e-mail address, I'll make it a multi-pronged attack. We need that otherworldly super-widescreen beast to land in the US. It would also be nice if the PSP original would come here, too, acting as a messenger heralding the imminent arrival of the monster. Surely SE/Taito could see the cross-platform marketing synergy of that.

onmode-ky

[Shaggy the Atarian]

onmode-ky, on Wed Nov 24, 2010 5:26 PM, said:

Shaggy the Atarian, on Mon Nov 22, 2010 5:10 PM, said:

Back in August I started to get some people to let Taito know that they wanted Darius Burst another Chronicle in the US. You can still e-mail them and tell them why you want to see it:

http://arcadeheroes....pan-tell-taito/

As long as they hear from more and more US fans that they want the game, then it should work out at some point. Some local Darius fans here donated an Astro City 2 cabinet to my arcade to help raise funds just for that game.

Thanks for the info. I've bugged their Twitter account about DBAC before; now with an e-mail address, I'll make it a multi-pronged attack. We need that otherworldly super-widescreen beast to land in the US. It would also be nice if the PSP original would come here, too, acting as a messenger heralding the imminent arrival of the monster. Surely SE/Taito could see the cross-platform marketing synergy of that.

onmode-ky

I think that thanks to player feedback, there's a good chance they will be bringing the game over but it's always hard to say since Taito lacks a US distribution network. But they have been bringing one or two of their games over in recent memory. At IAAPA this year Sega was carrying Hopping Road, last year ICE had Panic Museum (also known as Haunted Museum). Both of these games are expensive so one would have to imagine that DBAC would be a good bet since that has a fanbase ready to hunt these machines down.