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

Welcome to Newsbytes, our regular series of posts that curates 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:

Sponsor

Geek Alliance LLC

Big Buck Hunter World Championships XVII

The 17th annual Big Buck Hunter World Championships 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 missed it, catch up on all of the excitment from day 2 in the official livestream:

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 effort 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 modern pinball experience. Up to this point, Dutch is 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:

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

Alice’s adventures in Wonderland by Dutch Pinball Exclusive

That said, it’s not going to be an easy one to find – 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 high. It will be at Pinball Expo this week however, where I will get a chance (maybe my only one) to give it a play. Find more over info and pics at the official game page.

The LBX Collective Launches New Weekly Show

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. Long time site friend Kevin Williams also has his Sound Off segment and there is a lot more to enjoy here, so check it out:

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 release (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).

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.

Making of John Wick

Self-explanatory:

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

Again – I will 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, although I likely won’t have the time to visit everywhere arcade/pinball related on this trip.