Sunday, December 30, 2012
Cars: The Arcade Game Location Test
A few weeks ago my family and I took a trip to Disney World for the holidays. Since we only went for three days I didn't have much time to go to many of the arcades, but I was able to go to a couple. When I visited the Tomorrowland arcade I saw one new game hidden between the skee-ball and the eight player NASCAR. One lone unit of Cars sat there and after talking with my friend Damoto he confirmed to me that this was a game on Location Test. So the footage you see above is of a yet to be finished game.
As of right now the game is set on fifty cents per race. You can pick a few tracks and a good number of characters from the movies. When you play you only get two laps per track, so maybe their going to tweak that. The cars have a very floaty control to them, it's not as bad as the new NASCAR game but they feel odd. It's hard to explain unless you play it for yourself. The gimmick in the game is a boost meter that you can first build up by revving your car, then also by drafting other cars, knocking into stuff and collecting canisters that are located throughout the track. Also at random times your car will start to drive backwards. I couldn't figure out why, but whenever they did it would build up the meter.
The other thing I noticed, and you can see in the video above is that this might be running on XBox 360 hardware. You'll see "Press A" and if you look on the machine, there is no A Button anywhere on the console. This game has been in production for a while, from what I remember reading over on Arcade Heroes was they wanted the game out for the second movie, but decided to hold back on it. There's only been one shot of the game's cabinet and from just checking YouTube, this is the only video of the game. Hopefully Raw Thrills will finish this game up and work on the controls and release it out in arcades. My nephew had a lot of fun with the game as did a lot of other kids that played it when I was there. So lets hope more people will get to see this in 2013!
Edit: Well this is interesting.. When I was checking the comments left on Arcade Heroes it turns out that this game IS running on the Xbox 360. In fact it's Cars 2 that was released on the Xbox 360 back in 2011. They stripped out the story elements of the game but the character select is the exact same as the 360 version, down to the "X for Auto Drift" and "A to Continue". Just check any video from the Cars 2 Xbox 360 version and you'll see the exact same game.
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@Nick, thanks for the video and information - fascinated that this may be a XBox360 hardware, and also the whole aspect of the play. Never got a straight answer from the RT team on why the delay, and what was the issue with the no-show at IAAPA.
ReplyDeleteIt's gotta be Xbox because you'll see slightly on the right of the character select it has a Blue X Button and after the race it says (A) Continue and there is no X or A buttons on the console, just the 3 view change buttons and the start button that activates the turbo.
ReplyDeleteAlso no idea why they didn't bring it to IAAPA. My friend thought they were, but didn't. The game, to me, doesn't feel like it's finished yet. When you compare it to any of the Fast and Furious games the controls just feel sloppy, if they can tighten it up, then it'll be something that kids are going to go crazy for. I could see this in just about every Chuck E. Cheeses.
Thanks Nick - I am fascinated at it being a XB rather than a XB360 game.
ReplyDeleteYes, it seems that this game after being shown at AAMA Gala in September has been shelved for undisclosed reasons for the time being. There are five obvious reasons for this - too close to other releases (crowding pipeline), IP issues (we are talking about a lot of licensed content from Disney, not including the voice-over and car clearance), hardware realization problems (MS may have baled on the hardware deal), content realization problems (the game may need major work or had elements that infringed other products), and finally the obvious... poor site testing!
As our friends at Arcade Heroes state - a possibility still exists that the game may appear at Amusement Expo in March'13... but don't hold your breath!
I meant the 360, not the original Xbox. I don't think the old box could pull off some of the character models. The voices in the game seem like sound-a-likes and not the original actors, they sound pretty close. Mater really sounds like Larry the Cable Guy.
ReplyDeleteThe game's playable, but it needs the controls tightened up. The one car I used in the video is way too floaty and he felt like he was going all over the place. Some of the tracks were also pretty short, but that's where having more then two laps would come in handy.