NASCAR Team Racing updates roster with Roush Fenway Racing team

GlobalVR has added content to their NASCAR Team Racing game once again, adding the popular Roush Fenway Racing team to the roster of drivers. If you are not familiar with them(as I wasn’t), they are a pretty big deal in the NASCAR world and you can visit their website here.  While no game tweaks have been made in the update, the addition of four Roush drivers from that team is one way GVR seems to be using to keep NASCAR fans continually interested in the game.

I haven’t been keeping track but NASCAR seems to be one of the most frequently updated arcade titles in recent memory as they constantly add new cars and drivers. I can think of a couple of other games I’d love to see receive some content updates to give the game more to explore.  As for GVR, I am wondering what their next game might be, so far the new content they delivered this year was shown at Amusement Expo and that has been it so far. IAAPA is right around the corner though and there is usually something new to talk about there, especially since AMOA is no longer around in September. It would be great if they can have NTR online at IAAPA, I haven’t had a chance to play that “in the wild” so to speak and try out the online mode against another human player(s) and I’m still curious to see how that plays.

As for the NASCAR update, for more details check out the press release below.

Pics from the AAMA 2010 Distributor Gala

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The AAMA (American Amusement Machine Association) held it’s 7th annual Distributor Gala this week, an event that generally gives us a sneak peek into what to expect in arcades in the fall. Replay Magazine was there and took plenty of pictures from the event, giving us a good look at these new games. You can see all of the pictures here on Replay’s Facebook page; click the link below to see the video arcade highlights, including the new Super Bikes 2, Dead Heat and AVATAR Pinball.

GlobalVR's NASCAR Team Racing goes online today

GlobalVR’s NASCAR Team Racing title is scheduled to have it’s online features activated today, allowing you access to new tracks as well as the ability to race against people in other connected arcades. As this feature wasn’t available at the shows I can’t say what it’s like but I certainly would like to test it out. Since we haven’t seen online play with this level of interactivity in US arcades for a while now (i.e. where you play an active game against someone else as opposed to posting scores), it’s a notable development.  A few other companies currently have plans to put their racing games online as well (Taito’s Top Speed and UNIS’s Crazy Speed) but I do have a hope that we will see games that aren’t racers receive a similar treatment down the road. We could, if rumors about GlobalVR next taking Blazing Angels online hold out to be true.  You can visit the official page for NASCAR here.

What are your thoughts on the online arcade gaming scene?

GlobalVR’s NASCAR Team Racing goes online today

GlobalVR’s NASCAR Team Racing title is scheduled to have it’s online features activated today, allowing you access to new tracks as well as the ability to race against people in other connected arcades. As this feature wasn’t available at the shows I can’t say what it’s like but I certainly would like to test it out. Since we haven’t seen online play with this level of interactivity in US arcades for a while now (i.e. where you play an active game against someone else as opposed to posting scores), it’s a notable development.  A few other companies currently have plans to put their racing games online as well (Taito’s Top Speed and UNIS’s Crazy Speed) but I do have a hope that we will see games that aren’t racers receive a similar treatment down the road. We could, if rumors about GlobalVR next taking Blazing Angels online hold out to be true.  You can visit the official page for NASCAR here.

What are your thoughts on the online arcade gaming scene?

New trailer for GlobalVR’s NASCAR Team Racing

GlobalVR has updated their website with full details on their updates to both NASCAR and Twisted. We’ve covered those details before but here is a new trailer for the game that GVR posted to the site. They also put up some screens of the game which you can see here if you are interested. The game goes online on June 15th but cabinets featuring the update are available now.

New trailer for GlobalVR's NASCAR Team Racing

GlobalVR has updated their website with full details on their updates to both NASCAR and Twisted. We’ve covered those details before but here is a new trailer for the game that GVR posted to the site. They also put up some screens of the game which you can see here if you are interested. The game goes online on June 15th but cabinets featuring the update are available now.

GlobalVR releases NASCAR Team Racing kit, cabinet versions soon to follow

First revealed to us at IAAPA, and later seen at Amusement Expo 2010, GlobalVR has released their latest update to their arcade exclusive NASCAR Racing title called NASCAR Team Racing. If you missed out on the features that this update brings to the table you can check out the post & video from Amusement Expo 2010. The most significant addition to the game of course is the online play, which will allow games connected across the US to race against each other. The online features weren’t available at the show but from what information I have received, it sounds like it will work out similar to matchmaking on something like XBL or other online services that find the best pings available and matches those players up in a lobby. The game will also feature voice chat, which can be activated by pushing a button to talk (you might recall that Taito’s yet-to-be-released racer Top Speed was also bragging about using such an option).

NTR is available in four different forms, a 32″ standard, 42″ deluxe, 42″ motion platform and a kit for converting older NASCAR’s over to the new software. At least one distributor has posted pricing for these models, with the kit coming in for less than $1600 which is surprising. The kit will be made available tomorrow and the full cabinet versions will be released on different I’m not sure how much a used NASCAR is going for at the moment but a kit at that price means it should be a no-brainer conversion. The real question is how many locations have decent enough internet available to make good use of the kit? That can certainly vary upon the area, when I first opened my place I was stuck with crappy 512k DSL for a while and when I moved the standard options could only give me dial-up. Fortunately I came across an ISP that uses antennas and we’ve been cruising online ever since. I am quite interested to see how this does in the US, while online arcades aren’t anything new, it has been a while since those features have extended beyond posting high scores to leaderboards. Online racing is going to be in play in Japan, with the aforementioned Top Speed, UNIS’s Crazy Speed and also with Konami’s upcoming Road Fighters 3D.

Of course the drawback to this is if for some reason support is ever pulled for the servers in the future, then you loose that functionality. That it unless GVR came up with a clever way to avoid that, which is unlikely. Sadly that is the story of all online games one one level or another (and something that fans of playing Halo 2 online have had heartache over recently) but I don’t think that has kept the masses from playing online.

NASCAR Team Racing’s online features will go live on June 15th.

[GlobalVR’s website] [NASCAR Team Racing @ BHMVending / Weiner Distributing]

Amusement Expo 2010 Wrap-up part 2 (this time in pictures!) UPDATED

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We’ve provided a bit of video from Amusement Expo but there were a couple of things that I wasn’t able to grab with my camera but Kevin Williams of The Stinger Report was also there and captured a few moments with his camera, including something I had completely missed, with Namco getting four girls to wander around with Pac-heads on. Good times. Hit the break for more photos.

Amusement Expo 2010: GlobalVR and Andamiro booths

To save on space on the front page (slightly) here are videos for two different companies: GlobalVR and Andamiro.

First off GlobalVR was showing off two new products, one of which we heard about as early as IAAPA when it came out that GVR was working on an update to their NASCAR racing title. That update was at the show with the name NASCAR Team Racing and it includes some cool new features – online play that will allow players to race against people from around the country; team play which includes team boosts; fantasy tracks, updated graphics, music and a few other things. Players can save their stats to the machine by using *any* card with a magnetic stripe, which is a feature that I think is pretty cool (I should have tried my Subway card). The game will be released in April with the online starting June 15th.  They also had an interesting redemption product there called Kaboom (not to be confused with the classic Atari 2600 title by Activision) where you demolish buildings for tickets, by Adrenaline Amusements. Also they had Twisted there with updated software, which should be available soon and it adds new tracks to the mix which are quite colorful and fun to race on.

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Next is Andamiro. When you first came to the booth you noticed two things – Winner’s Cube and the Pump It Up games. There were quite a few fans there to play both PIU games, giving everyone a good demonstration of how the games play. Better details on these games can be found at Bemanistyle.com

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Stay tuned for more videos, I’m not even halfway done yet.

GlobalVR teams up with Sprint to offer custom NASCAR arcades for NASCAR events

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When I first played GlobalVR’s NASCAR a few years ago, I figured that it would only be a matter of time before the cabinets would somehow find their way into NASCAR venues and now it has finally happened. GlobalVR has teamed up with the JHE Production Group for the  2010 Sprint Experience. The Sprint Experience is a 14,400 sq. ft. interactive NASCAR-themed display that is dominated by eight custom NASCAR motion deluxe game cabinets which are housed in a special trailer. Looking closely at the picture above, I believe that they are using the mini-deluxe cabinets that were introduced with Twisted last year.

From the press release it sounds like the setup was a big hit and where they will continue to show this off through the season, I’m sure it will continue to be such a hit. No word on whether they will be offering the game in the online edition, although with eight linked units located in a venue that is bound to attract many fans to the display, that is probably unnecessary.

hit the post break for the presser.