Newsbytes: Big Buck Hunter WC XVII; Alice In Wonderland; Beatmania IIDX Pinky Crush; More

Welcome to Newsbytes, our regular series of posts that curate some quick news stories from around the world of arcades & pinball. As we slowly approach IAAPA, news is starting to tick up a little, so perhaps these will switch back from irregular to fairly regular posts now. Let’s get started with the Big Buck Hunter World Championships XVII:

Big Buck Hunter World Championships XVII

The Big Buck Hunter World Championships XVII (i.e. 17) have just come and gone. As usual, these were in Chicago (it’s thanks to this that reader and Big Buck player Fed was fortunately able to snap some pics of GoldStorm Pirates on test nearby – check that post out here if you missed it), and saw Jamie Rundall bring home the win for Minnesota. If you haven’t, catch up on all of the excitement from day 2 in the livestream:

And for those who aren’t watching the stream to the very end, in a big break with convention it was announced that next year the championships will surprisingly be moving from Chicago to way out South in Nashville. That’s a bit of a trek for those people who are more used to the former, but then these events are called world championships for a reason… and it’s the first time it will be held elsewhere in many years:

Also, despite RT quietly dropping screenshots for its new chapters on their site the other day, Godzilla Kaiju Wars VR was oddly not there altogether according to Fed. Besides Big Buck, the other few Raw Thrills games avaliable at the event were the tethered model of Halo, a couple of standard Fast & Furious Arcade cabinets, and NBA Superstars (from that, it sounds like they just didn’t have much space to work with).

Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland Pinball

We last mentioned this new Dutch Pinball piece based on a Zidware design (long story) back in a June edition of Newsbytes, where Lewis Carrol’s classic children’s tale would be transformed into a new pinball experience. Up to now, Dutch has been known for The Big Lebowski, but it is looking like this game might become their keepsake title. Visually, it’s a striking machine, especially with the Chester The Cat topper:

That said, it’s not going to be an easy one to find outside of some private pinball collections – with production limited at 500 units and a price tag of a little over $12k, the number of locations to grab one probably won’t be very high. It will be at Pinball Expo this week however, where I will get a chance (maybe my only ever one) to give it a play. Find more over info and pics at the official game page.

Beatmania IIDX Pinky Crush Releases… But

Another month, another arcade rhythm game update. This is the one that comes with the same regularity as Golden Tee every year, as Beatmania IIDX has now inevitably got its 32nd edition entitled Pinky Crush out there after being location tested back in July. However… whilst Round1USA locations have traditionally got updates for this game on their cabinets at the same time as Japan and Asia, this time it is apparently being delayed by a week. Why? No official reason has been given by anyone so far. Never change, Konami…

In other rhythm gaming news, MASH VP! Re:VISION, the new effort from former Bemani superstar NAOKI, has interestingly been testing at revered independent spot World Game Circus in Tachikawa, Tokyo. Ted’s said this is a bit of a headscratcher though as only a Steam release has been announced so far, and that’s what’s been put into a few Namco Grigio cabinets here… nonetheless, it would still be interesting if it ever did get a proper arcade version (some may remember NAOKI was involved with Capcom’s CrossXBeats for arcades after leaving Konami, which did also get a Round1USA release – though that didn’t last long).

Stern Updates (Metallica Remastered, Making of John Wick)

For a few updates on what Stern Pinball are doing ahead of the next couple big events they’re at, they will debut a new remaster of Metallica at Pinball Expo (this went to the wire just after this post):

Alongside appearing at Pinball Expo, that and Uncanny X-Men should help their IAAPA booth in November feel even fresher too. And this new John Wick video out of them is self-explanatory:

If you liked that, then you’ll also probably be interested in their John Wick Sweepstakes Winner.

Just for the record again, I will also be at Pinball Expo 2024 this week, although not for the entire event. I hope to visit a couple of places outside of the expo in and around Schaumburg, although I likely won’t have the time to check out everywhere arcade/pinball related on this trip.

Two Cancelled Games (Dinosaur, Fire & Forget II)

Not all arcade news has to be about new games, as this part shows. Over at Games That Weren’t, there’s recently been some coverage on an interesting couple of obscure cancelled games that have came to better light. The first of those is Dinosaurs, which is thought to have been only made in very small numbers by Eastern Micro Electronics. This looks like it could be a fun Mr. Do-like game (as the piece notes, Eastern were interestingly selling officially-licenced kits of that as well…), but just one board is known to exist now:

Then they received some new photos of the unreleased Fire & Forget II cabinet (kind of looks like a modified After Burner upright), which was going to house an upgraded arcade version of the futuristic racing-shooter Amstrad/Master System console game from defunct French developers Titus. This appeared once at an expo for the former company in France during late 1990, where it may have not even been playable, then disappeared from view entirely. More details on that one here, though a lot remains murky.

The LBX Collective Launches New Weekly Show

Lastly, after a brief hiatus, the LBX Collective podcast is back and with a new weekly format instead of the daily one. This show tackles the news from all around the “location-based entertainment” world, and I am contributing to that in the form of the Arcade Corner again. Long time site friend Kevin Williams also has his own Sound Off segment, and there is a lot more to enjoy here, so check it out:

Headlines

Arcade Businesses Showcased In Hurricane Milton Reporting – I heard that one FEC in Tampa had a leaky roof but otherwise saw minor damage – allowing them to co-ordinate local relief efforts in the community.

GoldStorm Pirates Goes Back On The Scene In Japan As Well – But is this a location test? It doesn’t say that in Japanese on any of the promo graphics…

Ace Amusements’ Skull Of Shadow Gets Location Tested Out In Japan – Will be interesting to see the competition between this and GoldStorm soon

QR Code Payment For UFO Catchers Tested By Sega At Select Japanese Locations – Could it be implemented for other games as well in time?

Taito’s Tetote X Connect Rhythm Game Is Going Offline At The End Of November – Shame that this one didn’t get a better shot because of Covid

Galloping Ghost Arcade Launches New Challenge Cards

This House Of The Dead 1 Beta Went Up For Sale On Ebay…

First Subsoccer Arcade Trial Units Go Out To The UK And USA

Taito Celebrates The 59th Birthday Of The First Japanese Crane Game

Adrenaline Has Posted A Listing For The Drakons 85″ Models – They also changed their domain from “aagames,” which is a pretty wise move

Strong Museum Of Play Holds JAMMA Show 1993, Early Daytona Footage

SNK’s First Arcade Game Machine Flyers Added To Flyer Fever

How Sega’s 20-Year-Old Kids Card Game Love & Berry Was Made

INOWIZE’s QBIX Now Supports Six Languages

LAI Teases A New Coin Pusher For IAAPA 2024 – Possibly one of two new Playmore pushers

[Console Headlines]

The Next Halo Is Going To Unreal Engine – Hopefully this doesn’t follow the trend of terrible AAA games that we’ve been seeing lately

Pump It Up Is Coming To Steam

Arcade1up Gets Into Claw Machines

Toaplan’s 40th Anniversary Collection Coming To Console

More Tomb Raider Remasters Announced

Crow Country Trailer – PS1 style horror game

Checking Out The New Atari Lynx Shoot ’em up, MicroVaders

Along Those Lines, New Shoot ’em Up Revealed For The Atari Jaguar

Tetris Forever Announced

The Atari 50th Anniversary Collection Releases Its First DLC Pack, Adding Berzerk & Frenzy Arcade (among others)

Playing DOOM On A DVD Player From 2001

That’s all for this Newsbytes; expect another before the month is out. Which of this week’s news (e.g. the Big Buck Hunter World Championships XVII) interested you most?

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