This week our team here at Home Leisure Direct travelled to the ExCel Exhibition Centre in London to check out all the latest products and news in the amusement and leisure industry at EAG International 2015.
In this blog we share new releases for the coming year that made their debut EAG appearance this week, along with lots of our favourite amusements that prove to be popular year on year.
New Releases
A lot of the new machines this year were to do with the two biggest films due to be released over 2015; Star Wars and Jurassic Park.
The Star Wars Battle Pod was one of the most impressive machines at the show. The pod looks great from the outside and is even better inside, with a pilot seat and film inspired handles to control the flight. You can then select from five levels allowing you to fly a selection of space craft from the films.
Once you start a level you are surrounded by a projection within the pod, giving a fully immersive experience. You are thrown in the midst of one of the battles from the Star Wars films and have to survive by shooting enemy ships and working with your virtual team.
We were all really impressed with this machine, because of the immersive game play, it’s faithfulness to the films and the fact that we’ve all always wanted to fly those ships! Some players should be warned that you may be left with motion sickness!
There were several new Jurassic Park games and themed amusements, including coin pushers with huge dinosaur models and shooting games.
Dave and Ted tried out a two-player Jurassic Park rail-shooter. Covered by a booth, this is a pretty straight shooting game, with a motion simulator in the seat to make the game even trickier.
In the game you have to hold off an ambush of escaped dinosaurs who are thirsty for your blood - although it seems unfair to have bred the dinosaurs just to shoot them all down again...
Time Crisis 5 is the newest game of the popular Time Crisis arcade machine series and was looking pretty smart at the EAG, with crisp graphics on huge screens and a sleek looking double cabinet. This is sure to be a hit in gaming arcades over 2015 among fans of the franchise and gaming enthusiasts alike.
New Pinball Machines
There were a range of new pinball games at the EAG this year, and unusually this wasn't dominated by Stern.
Medieval Madness, was originally manufactured in 1997 and was one of the most popular pinball machines ever made, topping the charts as No.1 on the Pinside 100 ratings of the best pinball machines ever made. There only only 4,414 units made, so for these reasons, the re-make has been long anticipated by pinball fans wishing to get hold of one for their own collection. I only managed to get one game on the model on display at the EAG, so I didn’t have much time to get a feel for it, but it certainly looked the part. It would be great to hear your views on this new remake if you’ve managed to get a few games on it.
We were happy to finally see the Jersey Jack Hobbit pinball machine in the flesh. As you can imagine there was quite a queue to get to see and play it as pinball fans flocked to get a chance to play on it themselves.
As in Jersey Jack’s previous pinball machine, The Wizard of Oz, the backboard boasts an LCD monitor for scoring and to guide the player through the game. The graphics on the Hobbit machine really look stunning and I’m sure will prove to be popular among groups of players as well as solo players, as the animated screen is really entertaining to watch. It’s a clever move of Jack Guarnieri, President & CEO of Jersey Jack Pinball, as this new animated screen will certainly bridge the gap between pinball and video games and could be pinball’s best shot at getting a young generation into playing pinball.
[Me with my game-face on trying out the new Hobbit pinball machine - and doing quite badly too!]
Dave L tried out the new 'Pindemption' software on the Jersey Jack Wizard of Oz machine, giving you a set amount of time to play the game.
WWE WrestleMania is the new pinball machine from Stern and looked really smart at the EAG show in a silver and blue themed cabinet and play field.
It is an interesting game with a few novel ideas such as the wrestling ring made up of four slingshots, two of which can be controlled with the flipper buttons in order to get the ball in the central shot in the back corner.
LED lighting, licensed songs and audio from famous announcers will ensure wrestling fans will enjoy the experience, although I found it to be a very different type of gameplay, so we will have to wait and see if it is a hit among pinball fans too.
Heighway Pinball were at the show in force, with multiple models of their Full Throttle motorbike racing themed pinball machine along with the promise of a new licensed Alien machine and more exciting news yet to come.
Full Throttle has been a few years in the making, with UK based pinball enthusiasts, like us here at Home Leisure Direct, eagerly waiting for a British company to produce pinball machines to rival the US.
Working on an original theme - now a controversial decision for a pinball manufacturer - Heighway Pinball have been developing Full Throttle with an LCD screen built into the play field. The theory is that this will create a more immersive gameplay due to the player never having to look up from the play field for scores, animations or guidance, which can often draw attention away from the ball, causing you to lose it.
This seems to be a similar direction to where Jersey Jack Pinball are going with their LCD animated screens, bridging the gap between video games and pinball and also forcing pinball manufacturers to keep up with the times and evolve their pinball games as technology advances.
Meanwhile, throughout the rest of the exhibition, the place had become overrun with Minions from the Despicable Me films...
...they were bigger in real life than they looked on-screen.
The two Dave's of our team went head-to-head in an intense dance-off to Step's 5,6,7,8 on a Dance Stage Euro Mix 2 machine.
When Dave L lost, I decided to show Dave M how it's done, raising it up a level with Cotton Eye Joe by Rednex. Unfortunately for me, Dave M beat me hands down and was crowned reigning champion...until next time.
Dave M celebrated with an epic Guitar Hero solo.
There was also a classic Out Run 2 cabinet - Dave M's favourite game as I remember from his article Sega vs. Namco: The Best Driving Manufacturer of All Time.
...but we didn't get to try it out as I got side tracked by the amazing Go Go Pony.
Ted challenged me in a tense race to claim Go Go Pony champion.
The SEGA stand was great fun as always, packed with top class licensed games and fantastic looking cabinets such as Transformers and Kung Fu Panda.
The BANDAI / NAMCO stand was good fun as usual, boasting lots of Pacman themed games along with an Aliens shooting game and old favourites Alpine Racer and Mario Kart.
We had an amazing 4-player game on Mario Kart, but unfortunately this wasn't recorded on camera as we were having too much fun!
Also on display at the EAG this year was a Sound Leisure 1015 in a black finish with a wood grain, which looked stunning and is a smart alternative from the traditional oak finish that these machines are most often made in.
Over at SAM Leisure, Ted and Dave tried out a curved bed air hockey table in a bright neon orange, followed by a heated game of Neuron Race.
All in all we had a great couple of days at the EAG International 2015 this year. We got to catch up on the newest arcade and amusements and tried out loads of machines too. If you visited the EAG, let us know your thoughts in the comment box below.
Written By: Abi Ponton