Article: Will 2009 be the year of the arcade?

When this decade started, things weren’t looking terribly rosy for arcades. But they have held on thanks to a few companies sweating it out and continuing to bring us games; that and some lcoations have remained dedicated to their palyer base, importing if they had to and providing something that players would be hard-pressed to find elsewhere. While I still think that we have a ways to go, from recent news of different game releases and a number of new locations popping up all over the place (whether they are FEC or not), I think that 2009 is going to be a fine year for arcades overall, especially if the games we saw at IAAPA live up to providing a fun and exciting experience.

UK gadget website T3 has just released an article that takes an overall look at arcades and with ATEI coming up with the promise off showing off even more arcade releases for ’09. The article is very optimistic, which contrasts starkly with the standard ‘arcades-are-dead’ fare. They discuss many of the new releases that are expected to make an impact on the scene and they will also be attending ATEI and providing some coverage of the event there for more people to see.  Of interest in that article, we find our friend Kevin Williams of The Stinger Report making an interesting revelation:

The Stinger Report man teases T3 with talk of “a brand new concept in game platforms for public space in 2009” debuting at ATEI, “with the first ‘Game Gate UV’ cabinets on display that bring consumer gaming into a Pay-for-Time package.”
He adds that a number of major arcade players “have signed up to support a machine, which opens a brand new chapter in the amusement industries history.”

So has someone finally managed to create something like the Xbox 360 powered T2 arcade machine without all of those legal troubles? It sure looks like it (as you can see it pictured to the right there) but we’ll have to wait until next month to see what it is all about. If several arcade companies are part of the deal that is also very interesting news and it should be cool to see how it all pans out.

[Article: Will 2009 be the year of the arcade – T3] [Discuss on the Forum]

More details on Smart Industries’ Battle Stations

Among the many new games coming to the market that were shown at IAAPA was Battle Stations, a submarine action game that is coming to us from Smart Industries. Smart generally deals with redemption titles of all kinds but from what I can tell, this is primarily targetting the video market, which is good news to me.

I talked with Kevin Williams of The Stinger Report about Battle Stations and it sounded like he was impressed by the game – it is very action-oriented and it even features boss battles at the end of each level. We will try to get some direct screenshots or video of this game in action soon, but in the meantime Smart has created a webpage for the game that includes a new shot of the cabinet and a flyer for the game (pictured above; click on the thumbnail to the right to see the full cabinet in more detail). One surprising thing that I didn’t hear about prior to this flyer is that the games can be linked together although whether that’s for head-to-head or co-op action is unclear. Stay tuned for more.

[Battle Stations @ Smart Industries] [Discuss on the Forum]

More details on Smart Industries' Battle Stations

Among the many new games coming to the market that were shown at IAAPA was Battle Stations, a submarine action game that is coming to us from Smart Industries. Smart generally deals with redemption titles of all kinds but from what I can tell, this is primarily targetting the video market, which is good news to me.

I talked with Kevin Williams of The Stinger Report about Battle Stations and it sounded like he was impressed by the game – it is very action-oriented and it even features boss battles at the end of each level. We will try to get some direct screenshots or video of this game in action soon, but in the meantime Smart has created a webpage for the game that includes a new shot of the cabinet and a flyer for the game (pictured above; click on the thumbnail to the right to see the full cabinet in more detail). One surprising thing that I didn’t hear about prior to this flyer is that the games can be linked together although whether that’s for head-to-head or co-op action is unclear. Stay tuned for more.

[Battle Stations @ Smart Industries] [Discuss on the Forum]

Three Silver Strike Bowling players win big prizes in time for Thanksgiving

This was meant to have been posted on Thanksgiving (last Thursday for the US) but I overlooked the mail then but figured that even though I’m almost a week late, it’s still worth posting. Despite the state of the economy here and elsewhere, arcade companies continue to hold national online tournaments where players can win some pretty big prizes. This comes from Incredible Technologies in reference to the Silver Strike Bowling 2009 tourneys where “three average people became superstars for a day because they play Silver Strike Bowling”. The press release after the break contains the full story but they have recently awarded a total of $25,000 in prizes, which is nothing to sneeze at.

IAAPA: Guitar Hero, American Idol, Justice League, more

OK, we have finally got some stuff from IAAPA thanks to Kevin Williams of The Stinger Report and it looks like it’s been a great show so far. Here are a bunch of pics for Guitar Hero and a few more from American Idol. We’re still waiting on finding out some extra details on the games but at least we have a better look now. Click to enlarge them:

UPDATE: Bemanistyle has more details on GH Arcade. They say it’s very similar to GHIII but the controllers are built to the standards of Konami’s Guitar Freaks (i.e. much better quality than the home version). They also have a pic of Andamiro’s Pump It Up NX Absolute!.

Seeing how Raw Thrills/Play Mechanix has held several online tournaments this year with Big Buck Hunter giving away many thousands of dollars, we can expect to see some really big GH competitions in arcades next year. With the Coin-Up system arcade operators can also hold their own tournaments, usually cash pot style so there will be plenty of tourneys to go around with GH.

While GlobalVR did not have Justice League at their booth, they did release a video of the game in action (which also shows the cabinet). They are not quite ready to release the game yet (thus meaning that this is not the final build) and are still holding onto details but at least we have a teaser video which shows a little bit of gameplay. The game uses cel-shaded graphics and is apparently two players (I had thought that it might be a 4 player game at one point). You can watch below by clicking on the link for GVR’s website. Otherwise at the GVR booth they had NFS: Carbon, NASCAR and Paradise Lost from what we have seen so far. We tried to upload the Justice League trailer but the codec isn’t supported by WordPress’s video player. Go figure.

[Click here to watch the Justice League Trailer]

Since we’re also on the subject of American Idol in this post, it appears that there are a couple of devices at the show which will compete with AI’s video recording feature. First is a game called Dancing Heads, where you can “Be a star, no talent required”. It looks like a photo booth that will take your picture and integrate it into some sort of music video and dispense a DVD of the video for you to use afterwards. The second game which does sort of the same thing (this appears to be the new trend in photo booth technology) lets you select a song and then it records you bopping to the beat where you then get a DVD showing you and your friends dancing around to the song. I can’t make out a specific name for this one although it has giant boxing gloves on top of it, if that counts for anything.

[Discuss on the Forums]

IAAPA news: Guitar Hero to be at the show (UPDATED)

Here is a very interesting rumor to start off with some IAAPA coverage: Guitar Hero will be at IAAPA and there will be a twist in who is involved in the game. According to the source at bemanistyle.com, the game has been developed by Raw Thrills but it will be published by Konami. Konami of course makes Guitar Freaks so if they are in fact involved with the new GH Arcade, that will not just be a big surprise, it also makes me wonder if the gameplay will mimick any certain aspects of Guitar Freaks. Here’s a little more according to bemanistyles anonymous source:

our source has stated the cabinet is going to feature 8-10 speakers, more than 500 LED lights and a 32″ monitor. The cabinet is also reportedly slated to take advantage of Internet connections to provide online cash tournaments sometime starting in 2009.

The online thing would deal with none other than the Play Mechanix/Raw Thrills Coin-Up network and offering cash prizes could easily draw many GH fans to any arcade with an online enabled cabinet to play.

Just keep in mind that it’s still a rumor  – I have contacted some sources about this to see if there is anything else to it but so far I have not heard anything back (which isn’t terribly surprising as it’s Sunday night) but we’ll keep you posted as soon as we find out more.

Tiny update: While I tried to get some confirmation on this, all I could find out is that Konami is going to be at the Betson booth, which is why they are not on the IAAPA map. Raw Thrills also shares the Betson booth so the union on Guitar Hero would be pretty easy to handle. That and our friend Editor in the comments below confirms it so now we just are waiting for the pics and video.

Another update: I have received confirmation that American Idol and Guitar Hero are there at IAAPA. That’s not much considering it’s starting tomorrow but at least it’s no rumor. We’ll have all the info we can get on it when it becomes available.

[Thanks to Bemanistyle] [Discuss on the Forum]

Konami testing GuitarFreaks V6 & DrumMania V6 “Blazing” in Japan

Konami is location testing the next version of their GuitarFreaks and DrumMania games in Japan (the original use-a-music-instrument-as-a-controller games) and it seems like it wasn’t long ago that they were doing the same with GFV5 and DMV5. We don’t have any details on what is different about these games yet from V5 or previous versions of the game but with Raw Thrills’ beginning to make a move into the music game arena with American Idol and possibly Guitar Hero Arcade, I wonder if Konami as well as other arcade companies are going to start making a stronger push towards music titles. With games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero makes boatloads of cash on the consoles, I think it’s a given that the video music genre will be one to be reckoned with, even in arcades. If you ask me, I think that these sort of games are the kind of game that can be even more fun in arcades, in part because you don’t need to spend all that money to buy instrument controllers in addition to the game and mostly because of the social aspect where people will have fun showing off their skills in public.

[Konami’s GuitarFreaks & DrumMania V6 Blazing test page] [Discuss on the Forum]

Konami testing GuitarFreaks V6 & DrumMania V6 "Blazing" in Japan

Konami is location testing the next version of their GuitarFreaks and DrumMania games in Japan (the original use-a-music-instrument-as-a-controller games) and it seems like it wasn’t long ago that they were doing the same with GFV5 and DMV5. We don’t have any details on what is different about these games yet from V5 or previous versions of the game but with Raw Thrills’ beginning to make a move into the music game arena with American Idol and possibly Guitar Hero Arcade, I wonder if Konami as well as other arcade companies are going to start making a stronger push towards music titles. With games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero makes boatloads of cash on the consoles, I think it’s a given that the video music genre will be one to be reckoned with, even in arcades. If you ask me, I think that these sort of games are the kind of game that can be even more fun in arcades, in part because you don’t need to spend all that money to buy instrument controllers in addition to the game and mostly because of the social aspect where people will have fun showing off their skills in public.

[Konami’s GuitarFreaks & DrumMania V6 Blazing test page] [Discuss on the Forum]

Sequel to Sea Wolf at IAAPA – Sea Wolf: The Next Mission

When I was at ASI earlier this year, there wasn’t a lot of new content around but there were a few pleasant surprises. The video/redemption game Sea Wolf was one of them as it’s old school gameplay with new graphics was a lot of fun and both my brother and I ended up playing this title several times during our short stay in Vegas. In case you are not familiar with Sea Wolf, it was originally a Midway title from 1976 where you torpedoed passing enemy ships and you used a periscope to view the action; the remake held some changes in the cabinet design but gameplay wise it was essentially the same. While fun, it did have the problem of not containing a lot of depth for those accustomed to such things these days but the new version promises to address that with 7 missions to play (instead of no ‘missions’ at all). To describe it further, Coastal Amusements said the following:

As the player advances, each mission becomes increasing more difficult.  Enemy ships lay mines and return fire and enemy planes drop torpedoes, all in an effort to sink the Sea Wolf.

The new Sea Wolf requires more strategy from the player, and has much more depth to hold the players’ interest.

They also will be releasing the game in three different configurations this time around – the standard sitdown (which the release earlier this year used) and two upright designs with 26″ or 32″ LCD screens. The controller appears to be the same on each design and it’s good to see artwork plastered over most of the cabinet. Now we’ll just have to see what the prices are for each unit; last time it seemed like they priced it in the same field as redemption titles (it can work as video only, which is why we’re covering it). In case you’re going to make it to IAAPA, you can catch the new Sea Wolf at booth 1624.

[Coastal Amusements] [Discuss on the Forum]

Video footage of Sky Bandits

Graffiti Entertainment, the developers behind the new Sky Bandits game for GlobalVR’s Vortek V3 system has released some videos of the new game in action. I’m not sure how other games compare on the same platform but this doesn’t look bad considering the age of the system. My distributor tells me that it can also run on Tsunami motion cabinets, which is an interesting prospect (too bad I still can’t get the joystick to mine working properly, even after replacing it). Here is a video of Sky Bandits, you can also check GVR’s site for extra info.

(Thanks to Kevin for the tip)

[SkyBandits @ Graffiti Ent. \ @ GlobalVR] [Discuss on the Forum]