Arcade Heroes Podcast #10 – IAAPA!

I’m not sure whether to count this as an “official” podcast or not as it’s technically unfinished but it is what it is and it’s the first time Kevin Williams and I had a chance to sit down together and do this without Skype. While we should’ve came better prepared, Kevin saved the day with his nice Palm PC device that allowed us to record something but we were interrupted about 15min. in by some guy in the press room who thought we were just sitting around talking and had to restart later which is why this is broke into two parts.

Still, there are about 40 minutes of talk here where we go over what we had seen up to that point at IAAPA and go over what we were thinking/feeling about the numerous games at the show. These are in .WAV format and aren’t very large – LMK if anyone needs MP3 instead.

Podcast #10 part 1

Podcast #10 part 2

UPDATE: Fixed the second link

Pics from IAAPA 2009 (Part 1)

VIDEO UPDATES WILL BE COMING LATER TODAY/TOMORROW

Well I’m back from IAAPA 2009 and it was an excellent show. I had always heard how large it was but you have to see it (and walk it) to believe it. I am going to start off with some picture updates here since that is a bit easier to get up and later I will be uploading videos to my Youtube channel. I took more video than any of the other shows I’ve been to which in part is due to the amount of content I found there.

Here we go – because this post is going to be quite large when I’m finished with it, I am going to put everything after the post break. Click on the images to see them full-size. Games to look for below: Cooking Mama, Tank! Tank! Tank!, Dead Storm Pirates, Terminator Salvation, Big Buck Hunter Open Season, Sega Racing Classic, Hummer and more.

IAAPA 2009 preview (updated – w/Cooking Mama arcade and more)

Tomorrow I head off for Las Vegas to attend the annual amusement industry tradeshow IAAPA. This will be the first time I will have a chance to visit this particular show – I have previously visited other arcade-related shows such as AMOA and ASI but from what I have always heard, IAAPA is much larger than either of those two shows. I will be capturing pictures and videos from the event and I also hope to record a podcast at the show with Kevin Williams of The Stinger Report (which is one reason why I’ve been waiting to do another podcast).

UPDATE: I am updating a few things here with what I have seen so far. No videos or pictures to upload yet as I don’t have the right USB cable to plug my camera into at the moment. I have seen some VERY interesting things so far however.

As for what I expect to see at the show, here is a rundown of that in alphabetical order:

Andamiro

I did see a press release that made a brief mention of Andamiro launching a new Pump It Up Jump (PIU for kids) at the show so I expect to see this and some of their redemption items here.

GlobalVR

I don’t see GlobalVR listed in the exhibitors so then must have decided to sit this one out for some reason.

GlobalVR has a booth after all, most of it is dominated by their new Twisted racer which I haven’t had a chance to play yet but graphically it looks really good.

Konami

While Konami will be at the show sharing a booth with Betson, I have not heard anything about the line-up of games that will be there. DDRX is something I expect and if we are lucky perhaps Metal Gear Arcade will be making an appearance as well but my hopes may be too high for that to be showing up already (even though the cabinet has been revealed and screenshots seen).

UPDATE: Konami is not showing off anything new – not even DDRX this time around.

Incredible Technologies

IT doesn’t have a large booth from what I can see on the map but I do expect them to be showing off all the games they have produced this year including the new Golden Tee and perhaps we’ll see or hear something more about the new Silver Strike LIVE.

UPDATE: I haven’t had a chance to visit the IT booth yet.

Namco

We should definitely see Tank! Tank! Tank! making an appearance at the show and perhaps some of their other 2009 releases such as Razing Storm and Nirin. Whether we will see any other products like Dead Storm Pirates or another rumored racer from them, I’ll know tomorrow.

UPDATE: Namco’s was the first booth I saw as it’s right there when you walk in. They have four Tank!Tank!Tank! units and I got to play a round of free-for-all on this one. It is a lot of fun, the forcefeed back is pretty cool and the generous destruction make this a really good game. Not crazy about the price though.

Namco also decided to bring Dead Storm Pirates over which I haven’t played yet but I did watch some people play through some of the wheel turning scenes and it looks like they implemented that idea very well. It’s also a very colorful game, should turn some heads.  

Raw Thrills

We already know that Terminator Salvation will be at the show and I also expect to see the new Big Buck Hunter Open Season there and H2Overdrive. Hopefully we’ll also see something else that is  new that we haven’t heard about recently (last year they showed off American Idol at IAAPA which was canceled a couple months later).

UPDATE:The main attraction of this booth is Terminator Salvation, with four cabinets setup. They even have a full-size Terminator robot there which is a nice touch. The marquee topper to the game is very cool and should look even better in a differently lit room. The software on this is still in beta form but what they are offering gives you plenty of gameplay. It’s a sleek game and the best part about it is that you have A LOT of robots to blast. It almost feels like a Dynasty Warriors game simply due to the number of targets you have to mow down at certain points.

They also have BBH Open Season there, which I haven’t played yet but I was told that some people from the LA Zoo played the game and were horrified by Safari in particular. They also have Guitar Hero Arcade (with updated software) and H2Overdrive available. 

Sega

I have heard that Sega Racing Classic will be at the show and if we are lucky I’ll be able to find out more about what Sega’s plans are for the game formerly-known-as-Daytona in arcades. I haven’t heard if anything else that is new will be there but I expect to check out Sega Card Gen (which was at AMOA) and Hummer std and some of the other games we have seen at other shows.

UPDATE: I didn’t see Sega Card Gen at the booth but they have plenty of other games there including a setup of four Sega Racing Classic machines, a Tetris Giant (not sure why it’s not being called Giant Tetris), Hummer standard, Hummer Deluxe, SR3 standard and deluxe and some video redemption.

Stern Pinball

I can’t find Stern on the interactive exhibitor’s list I’ve been looking through so I am not sure if they will be there or not. If they are, then hopefully it will be the first time they will have shown their Big Buck Hunter pinball to the public.

UPDATE: Stern has a very small booth with an NBA and Shrek pinball setup there. Haven’t heard anything yet about Big Buck Pinball 

Taito

While Taito won’t have a booth at IAAPA they will have at least one game represented there at the ICE booth which we discussed the other day, Panic Museum. If something like Elevator Action: Death Parade just so happened to be there, I’d be happy to see that as well.

UPDATE – UNIVERSAL SPACE

One company that surprised me at the show is UNIS or Universal Space. They are a Chinese company that has an impressive offering of games at great prices and they have introduced a coin-op version of Cooking Mama at the show. It’s a touch screen fare that’s for kids but it’s in an attractive cabinet. They also have a very interesting game that controls exactly like Namco’s Panic Park but it’s in a sleek cabinet with a 46″ monitor for $4600. They also have an IGS game party game involving pandas but the name escapes me right at the moment. I caught a video of the booth and will be posting it as soon as I can.

I will be adding more later as soon as I can start uploading videos/pictures so stay tuned!

Three more videos from IAAPA with some arcade game footage

While I had hoped for more videos of video arcades in action at IAAPA, I suppose that might have been hoping for too much since there is a lot more there than just arcades. But in this series of vids from the IAAPA floor you get to see several brief snippets of arcades in action in between all of the other stuff. Some games you see in these particular videos (albiet briefly) include NFS: Carbon, Razing Storm, Battle Stations, Sea Wolf, Rambo, Sega Rally 3, Nicktoons Nitro, Go Go Jockey, etc.

Part One

Part Two – most of the arcades you’ll see are in this video

Part Three

Videos taken and posted by youtube user HawTian

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IAAPA Poll: What game are you most looking forward to?

Before we get too far away from IAAPA, I’d like to do a poll concerning games at the show that I meant to do sooner but forgot to. It’s straightforward – of all the games we discussed at the show, which piques your interest/excitement the most? If I missed a game, I apologize but I believe that this list should encompass everything that is brand new that we saw there.

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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. 

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One Video from IAAPA shows Razing Storm, SR3

It’s very brief but in the middle of this video showcasing a bunch of stuff at IAAPA, they do show a couple of arcade titles, including Namco’s Razing Storm. Of course there are plenty of other things you can see that we haven’t really discussed since we’ve just been focusing video titles.

I’ve also found videos of Tecway Developments Go Go Jockey and SkyJet – not from IAAPA but elsewhere. At least you can see these games which were at the show. GoGO Jockey is below and the footage is probably from GTI Expo 2008; Sky  Jet is off-site but the footage is definently from some other unknown event.

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IAAPA Day 2: More Guitar Hero; CSI pinball; NX Absolute; Go Go Jockey; Battle Stations & more

Once again thanks to Kevin Williams of The Stinger Report for getting us this information. I will be talking with Kevin directly later tonight to get some extra details on all the things we are seeing here so that we will fill in the rest of the gaps. Either way, I think it’s clear that for an industry many love to call “dead” there is quite a bit of new content to go around, a little bit more than we’ve seen in previous years. As always, click on the thumbnails for a full view of the picture.

POST UPDATED – New info below

First off, a little extra detail on two games we’ve seen get a lot of attention: Guitar Hero and American Idol. In another surprise for Konami’s part, their name is also on American Idol and not just GH (there had been a rumor to that effect but it hadn’t been confirmed). According to the GH flyer, it will have over 50 songs, 11 playable characters in 8 venues and “Enduro-Ax Industrial Strength Controllers”.  UPDATE: Apparently the build at the show is only 60-70% complete – the final songlist is not complete and the cabinet will be changed for the final release. Here are what the flyers for the games will look like, just poster size. Also pictured is sort of a close up of the guitars, it sounds like GH has been a major hit at the show. Kevin even got Guitar Hero 3 tattooed onto his arm (fake or not Kevin? :P)

Stern was showing CSI pinball at the show and they also had their Spiderman redemption game there, which we first saw at AMOA. My local distributor tells me that they are expecting to receive a couple of CSI machines within the next few days so I’ll get to check it out soon.

Incredible Technologies wasn’t showing any product we hadn’t heard of before there but they had their full line-up of games running on their new pedestal cabinet that looked nice.

We mentioned Andamiro’s NX Absolute yesterday and today we have pictures of it. There were two versions of it there, a standard and deluxe. Not much else on this one though.

Next up, something from Tecway Developments. They are bringing Go Go Jockey to the US which is another game they showed off at the GTI Expo 2008 in Taiwan. This is a horse racing/riding game where you sit on a horse controller. I also believe that the next two pictures are from some redemption product in the Tecway area.

This next game is IGS’s answer to Sea Wolf called Battle Stations. It has what looks to be a periscope kind of controller and at least in the picture below it seems like the graphics are pretty nice. The game is polished and even includes boss battles at the end of each level, it also uses a different torpedo system than Sea Wolf does. While IGS generally releases some product to the US through their company American Alpha, this was found at the Smart Industries booth.

We also got two new shots of Trans-Force in action. It reminds me of Galaxian 3 by Namco with the multiplayer space shooter theme. It can house up to six players, each with their own contoller that moves gun turrets around on a space ship. On top of it having great graphics, the game also uses a motion base to enhance the experience further. This is being made by a Russian company who specializes in simulators.

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IAAPA: Power Boat, Textminator, Sea Wolf, Tank Adventure, more misc stuff

PLEASE NOTE: This post has been updated to include new information from the show floor

There’s more at IAAPA and first off here are some games from a company that used to be called iMotion but is now InJoy. While we had first posted a video for Power Boat quite a while ago, we hadn’t heard anything about it since and I had wondered whether the game was still coming to the US. InJoy answered that question today by showing off the latest build of the title at IAAPA, along with some brand new cabinets for their tank combat game, Panzer Elite Action. PEA has been available for some time in a different cabinet form but I guess they decided to give it a new, more appealing design. They have kept the motion for both games though, which is a good thing, it helped make Panzer Elite a more interesting game when I played it.

Next up is Tecway Developments and their entries into the US market. They had demonstrated Tank Adventure some time ago in Asia and with them bringing it to the US it will compete directly with the Panzer Elite Action game mentioned above. Also from them is a new game called Ski Jet – from the pic below you can see it lets you choose a boat or plane to play and it’s a shooter in the same vein as Sea Wolf.

Speaking of Sea Wolf, Sea Wolf : The Next Missions was at the show with it’s new cabinet designs. With an upright cabinet and new gameplay it should be interesting to see how this is received as at ASI it was very popular.

For the next game I am not sure who is creating this but LAI games has developed an interesting idea targeted towards the “text generation” and it’s called “Textminator”. The game turns the ‘art’ of texting on a cell phone into an arcade game but right now it’s still unclear as to what the gameplay entails at this moment. “Typing of the Dead” pops into my mind for it but I doubt this is about using text messages to fight the zombie hordes.

Games that use motion capture (immersive reality) in some manner were abundant at the show. 1st is a pic of two people playing a pong game using their whole body (by a company called PlayMotion); 2nd is called Chatterbox (by Anmialive) where you sit in a green screen booth and chat with a virtual character; the 3rd I’m not sure what it’s called but it puts you in front of a green screen and simulates something close to the Playstation Eye Toy.

There also was something called MagiQuest at the show which had a huge booth, Kevin snapped several shots of this one. Labelled the “World’s Largest Interactive Video Game”, one component we see here seems to be some sort of sensor grid that detects your arm movements above it the movement of a wand in your hand so you can throw spells. The control panel allows you to take different actions and the game plays like a more interactive version of those old CD games that were popular, like 7th Guest, etc. MagiQuest will also roll out a waterpark version of their idea next year using gloves instead of wands (pictured below)

Finally, a very interesting picture that Kevin got was of something called Trans-Force, which even features the Transformers font. When looking online, I found a site about a company that makes 3D/4D amusement rides using the Trans-Force name so I assume this setup @ IAAPA is from them but it looks like the dome screen concept. There are flight joysticks inside but it’s not clear at the moment what kind of game[s] it plays. Check back later for more details on this and other games at IAAPA. UPDATE: More information found on this in this post.

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IAAPA: Brick People, Hummer, Harley Davidson, Razing Storm, Nirin, more

Next up from the IAAPA floor today, Sega and Namco. As always, click on the thumbnails for a full view, thanks to  Kevin Williams of The Stinger Report for sending us these pics. One big surprise from Sega is the game Brick People, which we first showed you a few weeks ago where it was testing in Japan. I didn’t expect to see this one brought over to the US so it’s a pleasant surprise. The object of the game is to get the brick people to the food by placing the bricks down in front of the screen, which they then climb up on. It does have enemies which try to block your path but I’m not sure how you get rid of them, it will be interesting to see this one in action.

Next up, Hummer Extreme. Hummer has a motion base and uses a setup similar to Outrun2 Super Deluxe where two people can play with the game switching between the two as they navigate an obstacle course.

Below: Sega Rally 3 and Harley Davidson. We had figured that HD would make it to the States when it was shown in Japan recently although there hadn’t been any official confirmation of that until now. As you can see below, there are two deluxe cabs of the game there, not sure if a standard cabinet was shown and they also changed the SR3 cabinet from AMOA (which they had told me would happen). It looks like the screens are bigger in this cab then they were at AMOA. Also several deluxe Rambo models were at the show.

Finally for Sega today, R-Tuned Street Racing was there, no word yet on how it plays but it rounds out Sega’s diverse line-up of racing games overall.

Now onto Namco. I had hoped that they would be showing some new product and they have. It’s now confirmed that both Razing Storm and Nirin will be available in the US. No word on how soon though, just sometime in 2009. We’ve covered a little bit about both games previously, Razing Storm is a sort of spiritual successor to Crisis Zone, Nirin is a street racing motorcycle game.

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