Category: Arcade

Disney has a new Tron movie coming out at the end of the year, Tron Legacy. For this, they’ve pulled out all the marketing stops. Viral sites, an ARG campaign, A recreation of Flynns arcade at Comic-Con, and, of course, a tie-in video game.

But that’s not what I want to talk about now. Instead, let’s have a look at the viral site Arcade Aid. Within it is a visual quiz, where they have hidden 56 classic game titles. Check it out.

Personally, I got up to 35 by myself, then I found the rest by collaborating with a couple of friends. How many can you find? Post your scores!

Note: If you are gonna post an answer in the comments, make sure to provide a clear warning first, so nobody gets spoiled.

Billy Mitchell, your barrel-dodging reign has come to a screeching halt. Say hello to the new king of arcade game Donkey Kong, New York City plastic surgeon Hank Chien!

Chien has dominated over Mitchell’s old score by 10,000 points, as verified by Twin Galaxies, the official name in arcade scoring.

The real kicker behind this? Chien has been playing the game less than a year. He says he started playing it just last September. “It’s something to add to my resume,” says the Harvard graduate.

Chien said that he was turned on to the game by watching the 2007 documentary The King of Kong, which depicts how Billy Mitchell defended his title from those who would contest it.

“This film made me realize there was a whole group of people that were playing the classics,” he told the New York Daily News. The overtaking occurred during a February snowstorm when Chien decided to take a day off and attempt a shot at the record on the machine he keeps at home.

“It’s something I can be proud of,” he added. “Donkey Kong requires reflexes, it requires strategy, it requires foresight planning and timing. It requires everything, which is the beauty of the game.”

According to Joystiq, Steve Wiebe has reclaimed his title as the #1 Donkey Kong, Jr. player in the world.

Wiebe lost his title last fall to Oklahoma man Mark Kiehl, but on Valentine’s Day, he managed to score 1,190,400 points, far surpassing the score of 1,139,800 points he achieved in April of last year.

The lesson here is that if you want high scores in arcade games, spend your Valentine’s Day playing instead of with your wife or girlfriend.

Major Nelson recently wrote in his blog about the release dates for games on the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Current release dates
Xbox LIVE Deal of the Week:

Feb. 15: Battlefield 1943, 800 Microsoft Points

Xbox LIVE Games on Demand:

Feb. 9: Street Fighter IV
Feb. 9: Halo Wars (Europe, Australia and New Zealand)
Feb. 16: Resident Evil 5
Feb. 16: Beautiful Katamari
Feb. 16: Viva Piñata: Party Animals (Japan)

Xbox LIVE Arcade:

Feb. 10: Darwinia +, 1200 points

Feb. 17: The Misadventures of PB Winterbottom, 800 points

Xbox Avatars Marketplace:

These are just a few of the collections scheduled for the Xbox LIVE Avatar Marketplace.

Feb. 11: Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising
Feb. 16: Resident Evil 5
Feb. 18: Metro 2033

Get your credit cards out. Time for more stuff.

Welcome to space. Aliens live here. Angry ones.

That’s the premise behind Team 17’s new top-down shooter for the Xbox 360, a remake of the original Alien Breed for the Amiga, Alien Breed Evolution.

The game has gotten a new coat of paint and a new set of wheels, so to speak. The graphics and musical score have been updated for the Xbox 360, and the controls rely on both analog sticks for movement and aiming. Movement is done with the left analog stick, while aiming in any direction is done with the right analog stick.

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As you may recall, Adon, Cody and Guy were confirmed for Super Street Fighter IV in Famitsu recently, and now we have a video showing off the characters in all their HD, 3D glory.

Fans will no doubt be impressed with how well these characters’ moves have been translated to Street Fighter IV. As an avid Adon and Guy player myself, I’m especially impressed with what they’ve done with these two characters.

Check out the trailer for yourself, after the cut.

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This one is sure to please the Street Fighter fans. Famitsu has just announced Adon, along with Final Fight’s Cody and Guy (looking like they did in Street Fighter Alpha 3) as playable characters in Super Street Fighter IV.

The scans from Famitsu show the characters in their Street Fighter IV interpretation. and they’re extremely faithful to their original designed, but updated for the HD generation.

Check them out below.

According to a story on Siliconera, Super Street Fighter IV will be cranking up the nostalgia. The car smashing and barrel breaking bonus stages from Street Fighter II are making a triumphant return. This is revealed in a scan from Famitsu magazine.

Famitsu could also reveal details about SSFIV’s online modes. New options will include Team Battles, supporting 2 on 2 and 4 on 4, and a Replay Channel. The matches themselves are still one on one, but Team mode will allow clans to meet up and get a common score.

Capcom has also added Endless Mode, which lets eight players meet up and fight.

One word people: Awesome!

A survey being sent out by Microsoft hints at the possibility of a Avatar arcade coming to the Xbox 360, not unlike the PS3’s Home.

The suvey asked: “Which of the following names would most compel you to purchase the product?: Game Room, RetroCade, Game Gallery, Tower of ROM, Tower of Game(s), and “Classics LIVE”, among others. Personally I like Game Gallery and Tower of Games.

Microsoft was quick to act upon the speculation by saying that a survey was sometimes just that – a survey: “We regularly conduct surveys about our products but they’re not indicative of any planning,” said a Microsoft spokesperson to VG247.

New Xbox Live feature or just a survey?

The countdown clock has ended and Square Enix’ new title is… *drum roll*

Lord of Vermillion II! Which is the sequel to Square Enix’ popular card-based arcade game, Lord of Vermillion. (Du’h…)

Characters from Final Fantasy IV, Romancing SaGa II and Magic The Gathering will be making appearances in the game. Who knows what parts they’ll play?

The game will launch in Japanese arcades this autumn, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for a Western release.

A bit of an anti-climax, wouldn’t you say?

A sequel to Street Fighter IV has been “practically confirmed” according to Capcom’s Japanese Q&A blog. In the blog post Capcom was dropping hints of a SF4 sequel, even going as far as to refer it to as “SF 4 DASH”.

This might not be surprising for those who know their Street Fighter History, with new versions of the same basic game being released almost left and right as the engine is being continously refined.

No real information is made available, but Capcom several hints were dropped on what a sequel or future version of Street Fighter 4 might contain:

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During Konami’s press conference at E3, Hideo Kojima took the stage to talk about some of his upcoming games. Obviously Metal Gear Solid was a huge part of the update, but a few surprises were in store as well.

First off it seems Metal Gear Solid Rising isn’t going to be Xbox 360 exclusive as it was initially assumed. Kojima said Rising is for next-gen consoles, meaning 360, PC and PS3. MGS Peace Walker was also mentioned, but nothing new other than what we saw at Sony’s press conference. Kojima wrote the entire game himself and the MGS4 team is heavily involved in the creation of the PSP exclusive.

Metal Gear Solid Arcade was announced and is being built on the PS3 engine. The game will come with special 3D goggles and features an online component so gamers can compete across arcades. Seeing as arcades aren’t as big in the West as in Japan, it’ll be interesting to see if it will even make it to our neck of the world.

Finally, Hideo Kojima’s “mask game” was revealed, and I am definitely excited about this one. A debut trailer narrated by none other than Patrick Stewart showed off Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. The trailer was full of incredible fights, huge bosses and gothic locations. Lords of Shadow is a re-imagining that’s not connected to the other games in the franchise. LoS tells the story of Gabriel, voiced by Robert Carlyle, who’s looking for “revenge and retribution”. According to Kojima, Konami found that the world audience “demands bloodthirsty action with men that wield crucifix-whips”. Could this be one of the few good 3D Castlevania games?

Lords of Shadow is being released 2010 for PS3 and Xbox 360.

This weekend we reported on a remake of the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game “Turtles in Time”.

Below you’ll find a rough, somewhat out of focus video of the game in action. The player goes through the Skull and Crossbones level, beating the snot out of foot soldiers on a pirate ship while some dude offers inaudible commentaries in the background.

Edge magazine’s 200rd issue features a list we’ve often seen before, but with a twist. In stead of merely stating the 100 greatest games ever made, they decided to list the “100 best games to play today”.

Edge magazine poses the question “if you had every game ever made at your fingertips,‭ ‬which would we play right now‭? ‬What are the games,‭ ‬shorn of nostalgia and presumption,‭ ‬that we would actually want to spend time playing‭?”

The list is quite a good readthrough, but the number one game is easily guessed.

Can you guess what it is without looking?

Do you want to win a 48″ TV? Of course you do.

All you have to do to win is beat the UK’s premier Street Fighter 4 player Zak Bennet in a match.

To celebrate the release of the much anticipated fighting game, Capcom and Bennet will be holding a Guinness World Records attempt at HMV on Oxford Street (In London, obviously), for the most consecutive wins. With the game not officially out yet, it should be quite easy.

Representatives from Guinness World Records will be surveying the happening, officially witnessing Bennet’s record attempt as he takes on rows and rows of contenders. The first to beat him takes home a 48″ TV and a home cinema surround sound system.

Good luck.