The Tetris and Breakout playable piggy banks

 

Way back in the early 80’s, at the height of the arcade craze, some companies produced some portable or table-top games based on popular arcade titles. The screens used weren’t anything close to what we have today but they also were not bad for the time. I have a Galaxian table-top game and it’s actually playable.

Now someone in Japan has brought the idea back with similar units although they have also added the feature of it being a piggy bank as well. You can get either Tetris or Breakout for about $40 each (which doesn’t include shipping from Japan)  and from the video below it looks like they play close to the originals, although I’d prefer for Breakout to have a proper paddle controller.

[Video game Piggy Banks @ Strapya World] [Discuss on the Forum]

IAAPA 2008: Final Round-up (now with some release dates)

We’ve received a final batch of pictures from the IAAPA show in Florida (thanks again to Kevin Williams of The Stinger Report)and it’s only fitting to ‘finalize’ our coverage of the event. Overall I think that it was a great show, in terms of new games and what we can look forward to coming into 2009. While there isn’t any new game seem here, we do get a better look at a few games.

Slambot was at the show – I know that they have been to previous IAAPA events and I’m glad to see that they were there. In case you have missed previous coverage of Slambot, it’s an arcade game that uses robots inside of an enclosure as they slam into each other and colored buttons around the edges. I almost got one for my arcade but there was a few month waiting list so I wasn’t able to get it at the time. (Videos of previous Slambot versions here and here)

Here is a new game, Xball by Unis (or Universal Space). It is similar to a couple of games we’ve seen in Asia that came up with the ‘throw a ball at the screen’ concept. I’m just waiting for someone to make one of these games where it’s a virtual snowball fight, which could be a lot of fun without the need of getting pegged with iceballs.  While Universal Space’s website doesn’t list Xball on it yet, I noticed that they do have IGS’s Pirate Revenge game there, which I had thought would not come over to the US.

For another video redemption title we have Jungle Drummer. It says that it’s part of the Percussion Master series so I wonder if this has something to do with Pump It Up Jump (which was not at the show but I talked with Andamiro about it at AMOA). I like the cabinet design, very eye-catching for kids.

Similar to what you see above is a DDR clone called Boogie Down. The dance pad is simplified and with the brighter color scheme this also should attract kids pretty well.

Here’s a couple more shots of Brick People. I heard that when the game is finished, the game clears the bricks itself but at the moment it sounds like that feature is sort of clunky with how it works and may not clear it properly every time. They still have time to figure that out though.

 

Big Buck Safari Deluxe was at the show and from what I heard it was working better than it was at AMOA and ASI. I’m still not sure when we’ll see it though.

Here’s a little more on Textminator by LAI Games. Here is a picture of the promotional flyer for the game where you get a look at what it’s about and notice that there is a pad on this much like DDR but no foot controls of course. I wonder if it’s DDR meets texting. It probably won’t be my cup of tea but for it’s target audience it will probably do really well, especially where it has ticket payout.

 

Here’s a variation of the new pedestal cabinet from the Fun Company for Incredible Technologies. I like the lit up version on the right better than the standard ones.

These racing simulators are cool. I’m not sure what racing game they are playing but they would be quite attractive at any amusement park.

And finally, what post would be complete without more pictures of girls playing Guitar Hero?

 

As for release dates – Guitar Hero has been given a date of February and I hear the price tag is around $7000. The game will also include a hook-up for a separate TV so more players can see what’s going on. American Idol is scheduled to come along in January and while I haven’t heard a price, it’s going to use the CoinUp network extensively. Also according to some distributor sources of ours, Namco is planning to release Razing Storm and Nirin in March, just in time for ASI/AMOA. R-Tuned Racing is set for January, Hummer for March and Harley Davidson for “1st quarter 2009”.

So where does that leave us off? I counted at least 24 new games if you count video game redemption titles and I know there was more for just regular redemption. Still, for the video sector that’s pretty good and not what I’d call a dead and buried industry. Of course we will have to see how operators take to all of these games next year. 

[Discuss on the Forums]

How much would you pay for an arcade poster? Would you pay $1400+?

[Thanks to Oga Shi for the tip]

One cool thing I miss about arcades is that they use to produce a poster for every game that the operator could put up as advertising for that title at their location. While some games today do occasionally come with a poster (mostly ones from Japan or Taiwan – I got one with Oriental Legend 2 and I was told that the BlazBlue kit comes with a bunch of promotional materials), many just have a flyer and not much else. Some old posters have become collectors items, like the nude Centipede poster by Atari or as is the case with this Gradius poster in Japan, which went for approximately $1445 USD or 138,000¥ in Japan. Rarity, condition, the quality of the artwork and the game that the poster belonged to is always a factor with these things but if I ever happen to come across for one of these Gradius posters for cheap then at least I know where to sell one now.

[IT Media – Gradius arcade poster auction goes for 138,000 yen] [Discuss on the Forum]

Interview with Konami about GTI Club+

Konami is updating the original GTI Club for the Playstation 3 (the full name is GTI Club+ Rally Cote D’Azur) and releasing it over PSN as an exclusive title for the platform. It will play like the arcade original but with better graphics and a few other updates. In an interview with Philip Macdonald, producer of the game, they discuss the upcoming title in detail and surprisingly the new arcade version is mentioned. While they will not be the same games, it looks like they may offer tracks from the new arcade racer (see details on that one here and here) as downloads for the remake on PSN as well. Hit the link below for the interview, unfortunately there is not much else on the new arcade version of GTI Club(perhaps we’ll hear more at ATEI) but at least the interviewer knows about its existence.

[Kikizo: GTI Club+ Konami Interview] [Discuss on the Forum]

NY Arcade with SFIV and Tekken 6

While arcades in the US with some of the most desired fighters in one place might be rare, they are out there. Kevin Williams of The Stinger Report stopped by an arcade in New York that has Street Fighter IV and Tekken 6 along with a number of other games.  Called the Chinatown Fair (thanks for fubarduck in the comments for clearing that up), they have four SFIV cabinets on location, all of which appear to be homebrew cabinets although they don’t look bad. It looks like they did the same thing with Tekken 6 and we are also told that they have a BlazBlue cabinet there to boot.  Click on the thumbnails below to get a full view

[Discuss on the Forum]

CSI Pinball in action

I got a chance to play and film Stern’s new CSI pinball game today and overall I like the game – I wasn’t sure what to expect since I had never really watched the show before but the game has some cool features like the centrifuge that I really enjoy. Unfortunately the volume was quite low on the machine that I played on so I didn’t get the ‘full’ experience but I could check out the features at least. While it wasn’t shown in the video below, I did get the skull multiball on another round I played and it was nice, although it would have been better if they threw more pinballs onto the playfield for one of the multiballs.

Here’s the video I shot, at first I had to do it with one hand, then a friend grabbed the camera so I could go from there. Not that it helped me much. 😛

UPDATED: Here’s a couple of extra CSI Pinball videos (thanks IcePagoda for the links)

[Stern Pinball] [Discuss on the Forum]

Footage from Initial D5

It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything about Sega’s Intitial D5 – we first had news on this one back towards the end of June and have been waiting to hear something more since. Well here it is, footage of the game in action. There’s no doubt that it looks absolutely great, I wonder what hardware it is running on. The funny thing for me is that just yesterday I had a couple of people asking about getting an Initial D at my arcade but I have never seen one personally and I don’t know if my distributor carries it or not (although they probably could get one).

Here’s the embedded video, it does look like Youtube has added widescreen capability to the videos now but I have only seen that on the site and not on embedded material.

BTW- This is the 300th newsfeed we’ve received from The Stinger Report, time has sure flown by as we approach AH’s 2nd year in operation and again, thanks to the Stinger for the great news they send us.

[Discuss on the Forum]

How about a little hypnosis with your arcade game? Try Waking Dead.

Some of the things that ‘magicians’ get into these days are not close to what I’d call magic but endurance. Standing in ice for a couple of days or hanging upside from something outside in the cold? Big deal. At the very least try something that seems like magic. We all know it’s fake anyways but I find some forms of ‘magic’ far more entertaining than others. When it involves hypnosis and an arcade game then count me in. While this particular video is nothing new, it’s at least two and a half years old, it’s still fun to watch. Called Waking Dead by English magician Derren Brown, this is an arcade title that puts the subject into a hypnotic state and then they take him to a place where he ‘plays the game’ he was just playing but in real life. They have to go through a bit of trouble for just one person and perhaps it’s a bit morbid to laugh about how the guy acts in the ‘game’ while they show his friends all disturbed by his behavior but I know a couple of people who would love to participate in this sort of zombie apocalypse shooter and I could see them in it.

Be warned that there is a little bit of mature language in the video when the player starts fighting the zombies.

[Discuss on the Forum]

Pinball Tournament @ GameWorks in Dec., more coming soon

I have only been to a GameWorks once and that was recently in Vegas. I was quite impressed with their setup along with the kind of games they had in there, it really seemed like it was top notch. I didn’t think about seeing if they ran any kind of tournaments or not but we did get an e-mail about an upcoming pinball tournament at the Gameworks in Chicago (Dec. 12th-14th on Ripley’s, Family Guy and NASCAR) and they said that more would be coming along soon. Tournaments are always a good thing in any arcade so hopefully this will help pull in a crowd.

[Gameworks] [Discuss on the Forum]

The SuperAuction that came and went in Brockton, MA

If you’re an arcade collector then one of things you always keep an eye out for are arcade auctions. They always can be a good place to find some cool games. If you live in or near Brockton, MA then you had a chance this weekend to attend a pretty big auction where the arcade inventory was valued at at least a million dollars. The inventory comes from Good Time, who is needing to close their doors after IKEA wanted in and they couldn’t get the financing to get into a $25 million complex. I hate it when things like this happen – I’m going to have to move my own arcade very soon because they are rushing to make way for a sidewalk so people can enter the mall without having to make the long trip of 100 feet to get to the other nearby entrance.

Anyways, the Good Time auction on Nov. 8th attracted between 300 to 400 people who could enjoy the games on free play prior to them going to the auction block. They had a large collection of “classic arcade games, go karts and skee-ball” but there were no pictures in the report of the auction or information on how much many of the games went for, except that I found out that a Pac-Man cocktail cabinet went for $1000.

[Via Enterprise News] [Discuss on the Forum]