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JAMMA Show Shenanigans
AM Show - Arcades Flag but Innovation Abounds The 37th annual Amusement Machine Show recently took place in Tokyo, and despite the fact that the Asian market contraction has meant suffering arcade patronage throughout the East, there were still plenty of interesting titles shown there. However, it does now seem that only the major manufacturers such as Konami, Sega, Namco and Taito, and Capcom have the ability to get enough distribution for their titles to have big hits. The cost of the increasingly custom cabinets for today's arcade machines also price everyone but the big boys out of the market. However, the larger manufacturers are now pairing with smaller arcade/home developers in almost a 'publisher' scheme. Capcom has recently been doing this for niche 2D shooters such as Giga Wing and now Great Magic Taisen with Raizing. So it's not all doom and gloom for smaller arcade developers. Capcom Spawn’s A Monster
By far the most impressive Capcom title on display was Spawn, played from a third-person, Tomb Raider-type view, but with FPS-style action. Happily, it runs on Naomi, so the creation of a Dreamcast version should be a relatively simple task. The game also boasts a multiple cabinet-linkup with co-operative and battle modes, allowing for up to 5 machines to run together. Although Spawn is to this point unfinished, it appears that the completed product will be graphically spectacular, as well as fiercely competitive. There has also been some information on the long-awaited SNK Vs. Capcom, probably the biggest fighting-game team-up in history. It will run on a Naomi board, but will be in 2D (another easy Dreamcast conversion), and like the super-complex Street Fighter Alpha 3, will have multiple fighting styles, this time called things such as CAP-isms and SNK-isms. Word is, the game should be out next spring – can’t wait! Can Namco Kick It? Yes it Can…
I’ve also got some very big news for all of you Time Crisis fans, as Namco showcased the third in the series, Crisis Zone, once again using the pedal, the unique feature that worked so well in the original two games. The pistol seems to have been replaced with a machinegun, too, and the multiple branching structure of the original titles is also still in place.
Despite the continuing music controversy with Konami, Namco also showcased a number of music games. One of these was Umjammer Lammy, the sequel to the music game which arguably started the whole craze, Parappa The Rapper. The arcade version uses guitar controllers and is quite a close Playstation conversion, using the System 12 board, by the look of it. Does this mean Konami will leave Namco alone now that they're working with Sony on the title that so influenced the Bemani series? Probably not, but we'll have to see. Also shown was Million Hits, combining both karaoke and guitar-controller playing, and getting round the problem of limited music tracks by having an exchangeable CD-ROM for upgrades. Sega Makes Strong Showing
Sega Tetris is yet another version of the all-time classic, this time on Naomi with up to 4 players, which seems like a great idea considering there hasn't been a good arcade version for a few years. Also, Emergency Call Ambulance is a sequel of sorts to Crazy Taxi, and has you rushing all over a city to take people to the hospital. Jambo! Safari, rumored by some to be another Sonic Team game but actually not, involves you trying to catch animals in Africa by shooting a rope at them and pulling them in, so it’s like Get Bass, but on land. Outriggers, an excellent shooter from R+D#2, was also present, along with Puyo Da, a Bust A Groove-style dancing game (incidentally, there are no longer any AM divisions, since they've been integrated into the main part of Sega. Thus, games now carry the 'R+D#?' name on them instead of AM1/AM2/AM3 and so on). So, did you think that the afore-mentioned titles were crazy? Well, how about The Typing Of The Dead? It's a House Of The Dead sidestory, with monsters coming towards you and a keyboard. You need to type the right word into this keyboard before they reach you in order to kill them. No, before you ask, we have not been dabbling in hallucinogenic drugs again. And no, we are not making this up. Also, since the machine at the show was using Dreamcast keyboards, it should be another easy Dreamcast conversion. Konami - Did Someone Say Bemani?
There are also so many spin-offs and variants it stretches belief; indeed, Dancing Stage: Dreams Come True uses a Jap-pop band's music in a variant Dance Dance Revolution cabinet, while Konami is producing a handheld Tokimeki Memorial (dating game) music title. Guitar Freaks Second Mix and Dance Dance Revolution 3rd Mix also kicked ass, as did Beatmania 5th Mix. Pop N Stage hybridized Pop N Music and Dance Dance Revolution to excellent effect, as well. Other News Because this edition of the report is being published before the Tokyo Game Show opens, we'll be covering most of the TGS/PSX2 announcements in the next MGT Report. But at this early stage, it's already obvious that a number of next-generation Playstation games are being unveiled at or around the Tokyo Game Show, including Armored Core 2, Capcom/Arika's Street Fighter Ex 3 (also due on PSX2 arcade hardware, further cementing Capcom's "we'll release titles on every single machine we can" resolution of late), Konami's Gradius IV and baseball/soccer titles, as well as Square/EA's X-Shooter. There will be, no doubt, many more to come. The Japanese Top Ten (week ending August 29th)
The chart this time round features, my word, a Konami Bemani-series game at the top of the chart. Will wonders never cease… This time it's a new version of the dancing game Dance Dance Revolution, complete with new songs and some other minor enhancements. Because all these music-games have a central theme and a limited amount of tunes per CD, Konami are making millions by continuing to release upgrade discs with new tunes and graphics on them. It's a clever concept, and with the Beatmania expansion CDs being priced at only fractionally more than a music CD in Japan (2800 yen, 14UKP, 20USD), it's easy to see why they sell hundreds of thousands of copies in no time at all. Dance Dance Revolution 2nd Remix has knocked out a tidy 200,000 in its first week alone. It's good to see 2 Dreamcast games making it into the Top Ten, despite both being in their first week. Bandai's Gundam 0079 is an almost Mechwarrior-type robot simulation title that has rather pretty graphics but suffers a little from control problems. However, the license and the look of the title have ensured over 60,000 sales in the first week, even on the relatively under-represented Dreamcast. Additionally, Nadesico is a very Japanese RPG title that's unlikely to get a release Stateside, but still busts into the Top Ten Japan-side. Some of the first fruits of the cross-pollination that brought Square and EA together are showing in Japan, with EA's FIFA 99, significantly assisted by the Square name and marketing muscle, has sold 50,000 in its first week of release, despite being based on an entirely European theme. Finally, many of the old suspects hang around in the chart. Interestingly, in last week's chart Everybody's Golf 2 had popped back up to No.1. It's now back at No.3 again, and selling 50,000 copies a week with already 750,000 in sales. Konami's Yu-Gi-Oh 2 has now cranked out an unbelievable 1,150,000 sales, despite it and its prequel still not being available anywhere but Japan. I wonder if Konami will ever release it worldwide to capitalize on the Pokemon phenomenon? Simon Carless is a game designer/project director at a UK games developer. His game credits include design on PC and Playstation titles for (amongst others) Eidos and GT Interactive. He can be contacted at h0l@mono211.com. Simon would like to thank Magic Box, Re:Tokyo, Gamespot, FGNOnline, Core Magazine, and his other Japanese sources for the information that helps to write this column. |
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News
Analysis 
Capcom
showed some other titles as well, including Strider II (still apparently
'early in development', although it's been around for a few months now).
The game looks excellent, although noticeably old school and Playstation-like,
probably because it runs on PSX-based hardware. Capcom have traditionally
been very picky about arcade titles being absolutely right, and will delay
them until they are (witness Final Fight Revenge, which is only
now about to be released on the ancient Titan hardware).
One
of Namco's standout cabinets was World Kick, utilizing an idea
that I believe originally came from Western arcade games. There is an
actual football tethered to the front of the cabinet, with both where
and how hard you kick the ball being relevant to the gameplay itself.
The game is great for multi-player action, too, as it actually has 4 balls
and up to 4-players competing simultaneously.
The
worldwide arcade slowdown has hit Sega, too, but the company came out
of its corner swinging, offering a very impressive line-up. Popular, yet
with a predilection toward the utterly bizarre, is Team Sonic's Samba
De Amigo, a music game where you have to play maracas in time to the
music. Yes, you heard right, maracas. Gamespot reports that one of the
titles you had to strut your stuff to was a Ricky Martin track - what,
no Happy Mondays tunes? It's two-player simultaneous, and as it's a Sonic
Team title and Naomi too, it seems likely that the Dreamcast peripherals
are going to be swelled by the addition of some maracas controllers sometime
in the next few months, assuming, of course, that the title is converted.
Konami
showcased myriad new titles, almost all music-related. Perhaps the highlight
was Rap Freaks, which uses voice input and includes it in the game’s
songs. The player shakes and hits the controller as an input, which is
much more interesting than normal button-pressing, yet another fascinating
innovation for the music game genre to toy with.