Here is the next podcast and joining me this week was AH contributor Aaron Auzins. Aaron had the opportunity to visit a few arcade related sites in Chicago in August and in addition to visiting the Gameworks there and checking out several great games (including the new Sega Card Gen), he also had a chance to visit Galloping Ghost studios and see what is going on with the new fighter Dark Presence. If you want to hear some interesting and exciting details on this game, download the podcast.
In addition to that we also discussed the big news items from the past couple of weeks including the SFIV update (which we have now found out will not be getting any arcade love – thanks for being jerks Capcom!), Sega Racing Classic, the JAMMA show, some pinball talk and more. It’s almost two hours worth of discussion, with most of it on Galloping Ghost and Gameworks so we hope you enjoy it!
Capcom has launched a site which teases us with the new SFIV update and while details are scarce right now (like it was when the game was originally teased) we at least know what it will be called – Street Fighter IV: New Warrior. We have to wait and see if Capcom will release this to arcades or not as we know for sure that the consoles will be seeing this.
UPDATE: As it turns out, Capcom has decided NOT to support the arcade with this update. As such, no reason for us to discuss it further since they apparently don’t want to give arcades the support.
It’s been about a year now but last October, we received a tip about an American Idol coin-op game that was being brought to market by Raw Thrills’. Not long after that, the game was seen on location test and a little later it made it’s official appearance at IAAPA 2008. But after that, news on the title grew quiet and we soon found out that the game had in fact been canceled. Details on what happened to the project were scarce but in case you ever wanted to see more about it, one of the guys behind the project has a sort of developer’s diary online where he details the doomed AI project from beginning to end. It looks like this diary has been up since August but I missed it up until today and it’s a rare look at what goes on behind the scenes when it comes to arcade development.
Here is a video of the game in action as found on the page I’m linking to, it’s a pretty interesting use of video technology that they had going there. It’s just too bad they couldn’t do something to enhance people’s voices too (which would have been a plus for me not being much of a singer) 😛
Who wants just still photos of an event when you can have videos?
Sega’s Shining Force Cross. This is less like Gauntlet than I imagined it might be but it’s still cool. I really want a Gauntlet-like game for arcades again however.
Sega’s Giant Tetris
Taito’s Table pounding/flipping tantrum game also translated as “Ultra Low Dining Table”. The guys in each of these videos are a lot nicer to the table than most patrons would probably be.
KOF Sky Stage
Namco’s Tank! Tank! Tank! EDF 2017 wishes that it was this crazy looking. I like the bug parts flying everywhere, at least we know that of all of the titles on this post, this one is coming to Europe and the US.
Who wants just still photos of an event when you can have videos?
Sega’s Shining Force Cross. This is less like Gauntlet than I imagined it might be but it’s still cool. I really want a Gauntlet-like game for arcades again however.
Sega’s Giant Tetris
Taito’s Table pounding/flipping tantrum game also translated as “Ultra Low Dining Table”. The guys in each of these videos are a lot nicer to the table than most patrons would probably be.
KOF Sky Stage
Namco’s Tank! Tank! Tank! EDF 2017 wishes that it was this crazy looking. I like the bug parts flying everywhere, at least we know that of all of the titles on this post, this one is coming to Europe and the US.
By looking at this artwork, it certainly appears that way – unless this is a fake of course, which I am trying to verify. If you listened to our last podcast, we actually discussed Daytona 3 and rumors behind an imminent release of the game. It was thought that the game would make an appearance at JAMMA last week but that didn’t happen. But thanks to some checking by a forum user at Sega Nerds, they have found the poster pictured above and from the looks of it, if this isn’t the new Daytona then it’s the closest thing to it. You might recall that with Sega Rally 3 it was first called “Super Challenge” before getting a name change. Also of note, this is the first game that will be using the Ringwide hardware, which is the less powerful than Ringedge which is running games like Border Break – again, assuming that this isn’t a hoax.
Stay tuned for more on SRC, I imagine that we will be finding out more about this very soon 😉
I would also like to mention a discussion that we have been having on the forums about a Raw Thrills’ game that according to the RT website is also called Daytona. According to Kevin Williams, rumor has it that RT is working on a “Daytona-killer” of their own. It is certainly strange that there is a page on the RT site dedicated to a game called Daytona.
There is another HD fighter out there that is turning heads in arcades and it’s not SFIV but the Guilty Gear-like BlazBlue. Personally I have not played BlazBlue yet although I have had a number of customers call me inquiring about the game and it seems to be generating a decent bit of excitement among those who have played it. As such it should come as good news to fans and operators who bought the arcade that the arcade version is getting an update called BlazBlue: Continuum Shift. The update will add new modes, characters and levels to spice up the game. As a side note, BlazBlue did get an international release outside of Japan in both the US and Europe so I imagine that this update will also be available in those territories not long after it’s release.
For more details, check out the official BlazBlue site here or read the Famitsu article about it here.
UPDATE: Small Rooms Aries is reporting that there was up to a five hour wait time to play the new BlazBlue update at a recent location test.
If you have ever wondered what kind of intense training is required to work at an arcade or similar entertainment facility then here is another video for you (well over two years ago we posted some training videos for Space Port Arcades) . Taken from a Chuck E. cheese training video circa 1991, they go through all of the details that a CEC employee needed to know at the time to make sure that the game room ran smoothly. To be honest I doubt that much has changed although I am sure that they would want to show current employees something more modern (and less cheesy, har har). I also would be curious to know if they now have to train employees on how to deal with unruly, crazy parents who are always fighting with each other.
On another note, having been a trainer for about four years in another line of work, my bosses had some cheesy ideas at time about how they thought training should go but I have to happily admit that they never used the term “entertrainment” to describe how they wanted us to train a class.
If anything one value to this video is seeing some classics in their prime, like a STUN Runner sit-down machine. Click play below to see it.
More CEC training videos dealing with other aspects of the business can be found on Pizzacam’s youtube channel
If you have ever wondered what kind of intense training is required to work at an arcade or similar entertainment facility then here is another video for you (well over two years ago we posted some training videos for Space Port Arcades) . Taken from a Chuck E. cheese training video circa 1991, they go through all of the details that a CEC employee needed to know at the time to make sure that the game room ran smoothly. To be honest I doubt that much has changed although I am sure that they would want to show current employees something more modern (and less cheesy, har har). I also would be curious to know if they now have to train employees on how to deal with unruly, crazy parents who are always fighting with each other.
On another note, having been a trainer for about four years in another line of work, my bosses had some cheesy ideas at time about how they thought training should go but I have to happily admit that they never used the term “entertrainment” to describe how they wanted us to train a class.
If anything one value to this video is seeing some classics in their prime, like a STUN Runner sit-down machine. Click play below to see it.
More CEC training videos dealing with other aspects of the business can be found on Pizzacam’s youtube channel
DDR fans, get ready to compete. Starting tomorrow in Dallas, TX, Konami will begin holding regional competitions at different GameWorks locations around the US, which will eventually lead to a final tournament in December where we will see who is the best DDR player in the US. If you don’t live anywhere near Dallas, don’t worry as other regional qualifiers will be held as follows: October 2 – Miami, Florida; October 11 – Columbus, Ohio; October 17 – New York, NY; October 24 – Minneapolis, Minnesota; November 7 – Las Vegas, Nevada(this will miss IAAPA by just a couple of weeks); November 14 – Seattle, Washington; December 5 – Las Vegas, Nevada (National Finals).
Players will compete on a DDR SuperNova machine, with players achieving the highest scores advancing onto the next round. I do wonder how they might use these events to also promote DDR:X, if it will be promoted at all. A few more details on the tournament can be found at the official site for the tournament, ddruschampionship.com.
with the new fighter Dark Presence. If you want to hear some interesting and exciting details on this game, download the podcast.
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