Over the past week i have been travelling around the east coast, mainly skegness, ingoldmells and mablethorpe - and have stumbled across a variety of new arcade games, usually i would not post about new machines, however, all the games i stumbled across had recent creation dates on - which were actually imprinted on the game screen itself and not the cabinet.
Most people who know me know that im a HUGE arcade fan and love playing on arcade games, espically the Time Crisis and House Of The Dead Series - but three of these new games actually distracted me from time crisis, one being a similar kind of game.
So here is a run down of Arcade machines you are likely to see getting the most attention in an arcade center near you.
Rambo & Primeval Hunt:The image of the two deluxe cabinets are shown above, so ill start by explaining Rambo first. Rambo is, to be blunt, a cheap cash-in by SEGA as the game just follows the plot of the first 3 movies and instead of re-creating the cut-scenes with in-game graphics they decided to use High Definition Re-master of the original movie clips, so before the level starts (and after the boss) you'll see a few minutes of clips from the movies before diving into the action - which isnt that good.
The whole point of the game is to shoot everything that moves (other than civilians (if there is any?)) there is no stratergy (such as time crisis or primeval hunt) just shoot everything on screen before you get shot and its no easy task as the screen can be filled with around 20 enemies far and close and sometimes 3 of them will be firing a critical shot (where a red circle around the enemy appears and within 2 seconds you get shot, which means 1 life lost). The only thing that makes this game unique, apart from its impressive HD Visuals, is that after a certain amount of time you fill up a RAGE METER, once this is full pressing a button on the gun will trigger RAGE mode, this is where the player has unlimited ammo and invinciblity for around 30 seconds - it comes in handy and very useful for the bosses which can rather long and annoying.
So Rambo is about destroying anything that moves with shed loads of bullets, however SEGA's other arcade game this year called "Primeval Hunt" - which im guessing is inspired by the ITV's Primeval TV Series is where your a character hunting down dinosaurs.
The Unique thing about Primeval hunt, other than its great visuals, is that not only do you have 3 Health icons like on any other arcade shooter but you also have a strict bullet limit - in other words if you run out of ammo its game over and the only way to beat the game is to kill all the dinosaurs with the ammo you have. All dinosaurs have weakspots which usually , if hit correctly, can be killed within 1 or 2 shots - but these weakspots are usually very small.
Another thing to mention is that a small LCD screen is on the gun holder, where the guns are kept, and it tells you the weakspots of dinosaurs that appear aswell as where you are on the current level - its a pritty clever game but its only for people with higher accuarcy otherwise you will see the game over screen.
Razing Storm:
Razing Storm is a new time crisis / crisis zone spin off from arcade legends NAMCO - but instead of being set in the present day it has been set in the future, 2030 if i remember correctly, where robotics now plays a huge part of war and terrorism - meaning not only will you be defending against hoards of soldiers but youll also encounter small manned robot suits with gattling guns as well as giant robot spider tanks.
If you notice in the picture it says "Complete Destruction Machine Gun Game" and "Shoot Like Crazy, Smash And Destroy" - the reason for this is that EVERYTHING in the game enviroment is destructable, including walls, buildings, tanks etc, if its blocking your view shoot it and it will fall, similar to Crisis Zone except on a much larger scale - at certain points in the game if you manage to destory something well you will even gain some extra bonus points.
Basically similar plot to Crisis Zone you and your team have been sent in to stop a terroist threat that will happen gloabally (as you travel to different locations on different stages) - the game is set out in 3 Main stages, as well as a bonus stage (if you collect all 10 Dog-tags throughout the game and destroy the missiles before the final boss) - each Stage is split up into 6 small Areas - even though each area is small the later ones do get abit tough. The main weapon of the game is a machine gun with 60 bullets, which at times feels like it never runs out of ammo, however during certain parts of the game you will be given a Cluster Shot (basically a shotgun) a rocket launcher (for giant spider bosses) a sniper file (appears once at start of stage 3) and a lazer targeter (similar to Hammer Of Dawn in Gears Of War) - my favourite has to be the Machine gun, mainly due to recoil feeling so awesome.
Since its a gun-shooter game made by NAMCO a foot-pedal is also here, as just like in crisis zone you have to duck behind your riot shield, the only difference here is that its abit slower than crisis zone, so do not wait until the last possible second before dodging as you will probably get hit. getting hit has slightly changed aswell as they have now implemented the critical shot system from Virtua Cop where a red or blue ring (depending on which player you are) will appear around the enemie, once the 4 lines have disappeared and the circle glow orange that soldier is about to shoot you.
The Graphics are better than Time Crisis 4 on PS3 and it is running on Namco's PS3 Eqvilant hardware, so it would not be surprising if a PS3 Port is released within the next few years, another interesting thing to mention is that the game uses virtual DTS/5.1 Surround sound by utilising the 5/6 Speakers in the game cabinet and it really works well, during the final boss i actually thought someone was shooting behind me it was amazing!
Razing Storm is easily now my favourite arcade "new" machine not because its short but because it is ALOT of fun!
Guitar Hero Arcade:Guitar Hero Arcade will probably be the most popular arcade game this summer, even though the game contents are 2 years old.
The game was developed by Activision, Published by Konami (same people who made Guitar Freaks many years ago) and arcade cabinet provided by Raw Thrills (they make the "Pro Hunter Cabinets" - so the game is really a mixed bunch of developers and publishers.
The game itself is Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock (Guitar Hero 3) with around 8 Different tracks such as Coldplay - Yellow, Bloc Party - Helicopter and Linkin Park - No More Sorrow, however another difference is that the graphics seem more sharper and crisp than the console version - but the really big plus side of this machine is the noise.
Their is 6 Speakers in the arcade cabinet itself, 4 large speakers at the bottem of the cabinet (2 behind each of the guitar controllers) and 2 at the top (opposite sides of the game logo) - the 4 speakers at the bottem generate the music and bass at very loud (literally turn it up to 11) sounds where as the top at the top generate the vocals of the song - it works really well and within a few seconds of playing a song you feel like your own stage doing a live show, not to mention people from outside hear it and start to come and watch.
The game is played exactly the same as you would on the console version, except its timed, as soon as you put your credit it in and press the Red or Blue button (to choose player 1 or 2) it will give you 10 seconds to confirm or wait for a second player, afterwards you get 20 seconds to choose a difficulty (Easy, Medium, Hard, Expert) then 30 seconds to choose a character and guitar (all characters are unlocked from GH3 are here) and then you get 40 seconds to choose a song, once you have chosen a song the song will start and once you have finished it will show you your results and then , if you scored high enough, you will be asked to enter your name - once you have finished the game ends.
Playing the game is the same as the console version, press the coloured fret buttons when they appear at the bottem and strum to hit them - simple - the only difference is that there is no whammy bar, however if your on a long note and its star power it will automatically turn blue (to drain the star power energy) - which i guess is a good thing. To activate star power tilt the guitar as you would normally, but be warned the guitar is alot more heavier than the console versions - probably coz its made of hard plastic / metal.
If you read above correctly you may be thinking "do i only get to play 1 song?" and the answer is "YES" - 1 credit = 1 song, which for me seems abit of a rip off, espically when konami's Dancing Stage gives you up to 3 songs before ending the game.
Speaking of credits each of these games cost £1 per go the shooting games give you 3 lives per credit and guitar hero arcade gives you 1 song per credit - ive already played 3 of these arcade games and i rather enjoyed, so you might even see my name on some of them - espically the guitar hero game.
In a rather interesting and surprising announced UK Satelite company SKY and Xbox 360 will be joining forces to bring UK Xbox 360 gamers Sky TV Player direct to their xbox console - in other words the best of Sky TV, Films and Sports will be beamed (via broadband) directly to your xbox console.
