Art & Magic (and Appeal) team will gather in Charleroi on Friday evening for a conference looking back at their career in the '90s. If you grew up with the Amiga, you obviously know of the very impressive Agony and Unreal games, but these Belgian developers are also responsible for Ultimate Tennis which remained the number one arcade tennis game for a long time (until the release of Sega's Virtua Tennis). Their arcade titles also include the Stone Ball prehistoric football game and the reflex-strategy game Cheese Chase. Common to all Art & Magic games is the impressive quality of their graphics, but the game that PC gamers will certainly remember the most is a title they would develop in their offices in Jambes (Namur) under the name of Appeal: the revolutionary adventure-action game Outcast! With its vast voxel landscapes and its open alien world, this game left its mark on many players mind who remember fondly of the many hours they spent exploring this rich universe. 8 games will be reviewed at this event: Unreal, Agony, Ultimate Tennis, Stone Ball, Cheese Chase, Western Shooting, No Respect and Outcast. No doubt most of the evening will be devoted to this last game, but you can ask all the questions you want to the developers present. The following guests are announced: Franck Sauer, Gil Damoiseaux, Michaël Defroyennes, Iwan Peter Scheer and Yves Grolet. The event will be hosted by Julien Annart of the FOr'J organization. I hope we will have the opportunity to discuss Spellsinger and the Lost Child, an ambitious arcade game that was canceled after three years of development and whose only existing prototype disappeared. See you at PointCulture Charleroi (near the Palais des Beaux-Arts) on Friday, February 27 at 19:30 for a special moment. For info and booking, call +32 (0)71/317.147 or +32 (0)472/675.883 (Facebook page of the event). Note: the conference will be in French language.

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jubeat prop is available today. It's already the 6th title from Konami's rythm game series (excluding updates). In this new version, a type of marker appears: the Hold Marker corresponding to a long note. The Bonus Tune system from jubeat saucer fulfill is back. To access it, the player must fill a circular gauge on the result screen with "bonus tune points". To get these points, the player must meet certain conditions: play a song for the first time, match four people, make a full combo,...

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Wonderland Wars is out in Japan today. With this title, Sega tries a new game genre in arcade: MOBA (Multiplayer-Online-Battle-Arena). As in this type of game, players are divided into teams: 2 teams of 4 vs 4 and the goal is to destroy the opponent's castle. The game universe and the characters come from fairy tales and folklore: Alice, Robin Hood,... The cabinet features a touch screen and a pen. The players move characters using the joystick and the pen is used to activate skills and attack enemies. Characters gain experience and level up. Each character has a speciality (attack, magic, support,...). Like skills and objects, they are represented on virtual playing cards. At the game start, the player can choose to enter directly into the heart of battle with the "National Battle Mode" or to train against the CPU with the "Training Field Mode". Players must register on the game site and possess an Aime or IC card to play. Wonderland Wars runs on the NU hardware from Sega.

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It's today that Tekken 7 hits Japanese arcades. Its development was announced in 2010 and then we had no news until July 2014 when Bandai Namco showed a trailer at the Comic-Con show. This trailer reveals Tekken 7 story and a new key character in the series appears: Kazumi Mishima (the wife of Heihachi Mishima) which is the final boss of the game. The trailer may suggest that Tekken 7 is the last episode of the series since it closes the Mishima saga and reveals the origin of the Devil gene. Four new characters are already available for the release of Tekken 7: Katarina Alves, a Brazilian fighter suitable for beginners, Claudio Serafino that uses magic, Lucky Chloe, a young girl with a cat costume using dance movements and Shaheen a fighter from Saudi Arabia (whose design has been submitted to the Arab fans of Tekken before be included in the game). The game features beautiful graphics thanks to the Unreal Engine 4. For the first time in an arcade version, an online mode is available and allows the players from different arcades to compete. A new interesting feature is the new camera system: no matter if the player is the player a or two, he can fight on the right side or the left side of the screen depending on his preference. The release of Tekken 7 corresponds to the 20 years of the series, to celebrate the event, Bandai Namco released a Noir cabinet "Gold Tekken 20th anniversary" special edition.

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Yesterday, the Japan Amusement Expo 2015 ended after two intense days in announcements and events. First, Square Enix delighted the players with the announcement of Dissidia Final Fantasy, an arcade version of the console game series which will be played in 3vs3. A trailer is already available. Square Enix also announced a collaboration between Gunslinger Stratos 2 and Ultra Street Fighter IV (watch the trailer) and the first location tests of School of Ragnarok. Capcom has also surprised everyone by unveiling two new projects: a Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan) game and a musical game named Cytus Ω. Capcom also talked about its two other games under development: crossbeats REV. and Luigi Mansion Arcade. On the side of other developers, there were not surprise announcements but many already announced new games were presented. On Sega stand, visitors could discover among other games Kancolle Arcade, StarHorse3 SeasonIV DREAM ON THE TURF and New Mushiking. Bandai Namco highlighted the very awaited Pokkén Tournament. But their other leading titles were also present: Star Wars Battle Pod, Taiko no Tatsujin: Murasaki Ver., Tekken 7, Time Crisis 5, Synchronica, Yokai Watch and Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 5 (whose Maximum Speed Throne Japan 2015 finals took place on-site). New music games GITADORA Tri-Boost GuitarFreaks, GITADORA Tri-Boost DrumMania and jubeat prop as well as Disney Tsum Tsum were presented by Konami. Finally, Taito introduced its RPG Wizrogue - Labyrinth of Wizardry.

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After a long development started in July 2013 financed through Indiegogo and a Steam release, Yatagarasu - Attack on Cataclysm is finally released in arcade via Taito's NESiCAxLive platform. Initially, Yatagarasu is a doujin fighting game out on PC in 2011 made by 3 former SNK developers (under the name PDW:Hotapen). This new version adds three additional characters to the existing roaster of 8 fighters from the PC version: Kazama Kotaro, Azure and Aja Salisbury (that players chosen via a vote). The characters are in pixel-art low resolution but the game runs in high resolution. The main originality is that matches are commented live depending on what happens on the screen (this option can be disabled). The player can choose the commentator he wants.

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Upon its release in South Korea in 2008 then in North America in 2009, DJMax Technika caused a revival of the music game genre with its touch screen and its mix of techno and Korean pop songs. A dedicated community has quickly rallied around this unique game. DJMax Technika saw the release of two follow-ups in 2010 and 2011. What was the surprise of the players when Neowiz shut down the servers dedicated to the game in 2013, removing three quarters of the game content in the process. Gradually, the community dispersed... It's a sad story to be told in a documentary in preparation. Entitled "Touching Sound: The Technika Documentary", this coverage directed by Nick Dobkin includes numerous interviews with players during the Best of The West 3rdStyle music games tournament held in Sunnyvale, California in August 2014 but also impressions of prominent members of the community. Funding for the making of the documentary is made via Kickstarter where you can watch a video presentation of the project. Currently, there are 7 days left to gather the missing $380 needed to reach the $6,500 goal. By funding the project, you can get a digital version of the documentary for $15, pre-order the DVD will cost you $30 and $40 for the Blu-ray (plus $10 for shipping outside the US). Your support would be highly appreciated because in a time where arcade games lack exposure in the media, this story deserves to be told!

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Capcom just opened a its new arcade game website: crossbeats REV. crossbeats REV. It will be the first rythm game fully produced by Capcom. It will be produced by Naoki Maeda who formerly worked on BEMANI games as DDR. A first location test will be held at Plaza Capcom Kichioji from January 31 to February 1st. During the location test, the players could get 3 different stickers, if they get the 3 stickers, they can get a special CD exclusive to the location test or a special code to unlock the song "Reseed (Another Edit)/quick master" in the game.

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Taito's Groove Coaster sequel starts operation today: this is Groove Coaster 2 Heavenly Festival. The gameplay is the same than in Groove Coaster but the cabinet and the game interface is coloured in green. New features are added like a new ranking function.

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Arc System Works releases Persona 4 The Ultimax Ultra Suplex Hold v2.00 (NESiCAxLive) today. This update brings the 5 exclusive characters from the home console version: Rise Kujikawa, Ken Amada and Koromaru (as one character), Tohru Adachi, Marie and Margaret. The game has also been rebalanced and the "shadow mode" has been redesigned.

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