The 40th Amusement Machine Show began today in Japan. So what happened at the Namco and Sega booth?
The 40th Amusement Machine Show (AM Show) began today in Tokyo, and will continue until Saturday. The AM Show is a tradeshow for arcade operators featuring the latest arcade games, UFO catchers, prizes, and token games. Some of the major game companies there were Namco, Banpresto, Taito, Konami, Sammy, Tecmo, Capcom, and Sega. The main attraction at the Capcom booth was their new arcade game Capcom Fighting All Stars. Konami had their famous arcade version of Winning Eleven and World Combat, a shooter, at their booth. Battle Gear 3, a racing game, seemed to be the main attraction at the Taito booth. On to the Nintendo news.
In addition to House of Dead III and Initial D Arcade Stage Ver. 2, Sega had their first Triforce title, Virtua Soccer 2002, fully playable. The latest installment features more countries, more stadiums, and a new stamina system. Please read my impression for Virtua Soccer 2002 for more information.
At the Namco booth, they had the same Triforce exhibit shown at the AOU Amusement Show earlier this year. Unfortunately, there were no signs of Star Fox anywhere. Other than that Namco had one GBA title, Chocovader: The Invaders from Space, on display. Chocovader is a new innovative series from Namco. At the core, it is based on an online game, which can be found at http://www.abduction.jp. The main concept is about collecting aliens, and in order to collect aliens, you will need codes. You can obtain codes from Chocovader snacks, game magazines, or playing the arcade game, Chocovader: Contactee. You can also use these codes in the GBA game to gain new items. From the footage Namco showed, the GBA game looks like their take on the Pokemon series.
More info tomorrow as the Tokyo Game Show opens.
