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The Hottest Arcade Games of 2024!

RetroRalph·video·14m 24s·analyzed·Mar 30, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.022

TL;DR

RetroRalph explores 2024 arcade gaming at Amusement Pinball Expo, highlighting Jaws, Godzilla VR, and industry trends.

Summary

RetroRalph covers the 2024 Amusement Pinball Expo in Las Vegas, showcasing the latest arcade gaming trends including Bandai Namco's Pac-Man lineup, Stern Pinball's Jaws (which he found surprisingly fun), Raw Thrills' Godzilla VR, and various other arcade cabinets and specialty games. The video reflects on how arcade gaming has evolved rather than died, with emphasis on VR experiences, motion simulators, light gun games, and interactive installations.

Key Claims

  • Jaws is generating significant excitement and foot traffic at Stern Pinball booth, with people not interested in other games on display

    high confidence · Direct observation at the show: 'These games over here, no one cares right now because Jaws is out'

  • John Wick is rumored to be Stern Pinball's next release after Jaws

    medium confidence · End-of-video statement: 'the rumor is John Wick is next'

  • Raw Thrills released Godzilla VR with Gen 2 headsets and full motion capability

    high confidence · Direct booth demonstration and description: 'Godzilla VR. This is Raw Thrills brand new offering... they're using their Gen 2 headsets'

  • Bandai Namco's newer arcade systems use bilinear filtering, which some collectors dislike

    high confidence · Repeated observation at booth: 'On all these newer systems, they're using that bilinear filter, which a lot of people don't like'

  • Strawberry is the most popular Skittles flavor according to the vending machine operator

    medium confidence · Information provided during vending machine demonstration: 'the most popular Skittles flavor is strawberry'

Notable Quotes

  • “It's not the same as back in the day, but believe me, when you see some of this new stuff, you'll be convinced that arcade gaming never died. It just evolved into something a bit different.”

    RetroRalph@ 0:23 — Frames the central thesis of the video—arcade gaming has transformed rather than disappeared

  • “These games over here, no one cares right now because Jaws is out.”

    RetroRalph@ 3:47 — Direct evidence of Jaws' strong market reception and hype at the show

  • “I have to say I'm a bit surprised because I'm really digging Jaws, and not because I'm some huge Jaws superfan, but because there's lots of fun shots that really make the game interesting to play.”

    RetroRalph@ 3:52 — Positive gameplay impression of Jaws with specifics about shot design

  • “This is freaking badass. I can't believe that other guy wasn't reacting to this. This is so freaking cool.”

    RetroRalph@ 5:01 — Strong emotional reaction to VR experience quality

  • “It's different, that's for sure. It's not what I remember as a kid, but different isn't always a bad thing.”

    RetroRalph@ 13:26 — Summarizes the video's overall message about arcade evolution

Entities

RetroRalphpersonStern PinballcompanyBandai NamcocompanyRaw ThrillscompanyAmusement Pinball Expo 2024eventJawsgameGodzilla VRgameJohn WickgameExa Arcadiacompany

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Atari returning to arcade market through partnership with Arcade1Up for Recharge game series

    high · RetroRalph mentions: 'who would have thought that in 2024, Atari would be coming back to the arcade with the Recharge games. The partnership with Arcade1Up is exciting'

  • ?

    event_signal: Amusement Pinball Expo 2024 showcases significant advances in VR, motion simulation, and light gun arcade game technology

    high · Multiple VR experiences, motion simulators, and light gun games demonstrated across multiple booths with positive reception

  • $

    market_signal: Bandai Namco prioritizing casual/home market rather than collector audience with bilinear filtering and design choices

    high · RetroRalph's analysis: 'I think this is not geared toward the collector audience. I think it's more geared toward like the casual person that wants to put this like in a man cave or something'

  • ?

    announcement: Godzilla VR officially announced and demonstrated at Raw Thrills booth with Gen 2 headsets and full motion capability

    high · Direct booth demonstration showing Godzilla VR with motion, hydraulics, spectator displays, and Gen 2 headset technology

  • ?

    product_strategy: Exa Arcadia updated two-player cabinet design with wider control panel and improved form factor; now shipping marquees with games

    high · Booth observation: 'The control panel was a little bit wider, and they brought it in. It's awesome now... They're going to ship the new game with the new marquee'

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.043

0:00
I'm back in Vegas for Amusement Expo 2024 and it seems like only the other day that I was covering last year's event. I love Vegas, but Amusement Expo is one of my favorite events of the year because I get to see him play with all the latest in arcade gaming. You look so afraid. You look afraid. I know, I know. It's not the same as back in the day, but believe me, when you see some of this new stuff, you'll be convinced that arcade gaming never died. It just evolved into something a bit different. And while I dream of the past, and I'm sure you do too, the present is pretty damn cool as well. So let's go check it out. There was this guy from like 40 years ago and he said something about Pac-Man fever. What did he say again? Any place in the United States you hear Pac-Man fever, it's going to last for a while. Well, it's like 40 years later and I guess he was right because Bandai Namco is all about the Pac-Man and I freaking love it.
1:12
Hey guys, we're here at the Bandai Namco booth. They have a bunch of exciting new products and Pac-Man is definitely the theme. Let's go check them out. Pac-Man is here and he's here to entertain everyone. They got Pac-Basketball, Pac-Baseball, they even have Skee-Balls called Rollin' with the Ghosties. All right, so they also have this cocktail table. It's kind of higher than a traditional cocktail table. Pretty cool, actually. It's one in two players. I don't know how many games it has on it total. It looks like it's got like over 20, but it's got like a lot of the Bandai Namco classics. Galaga's obviously on it. On all these newer systems, they're using that bilinear filter, which a lot of people don't like, but I think this is not geared toward the collector audience. I think it's more geared toward Like the casual person that wants to put this in like a man cave or something.
2:12
Arcade1Up
company
Ataricompany
Godzilla Kaiju Wars VRgame
Laiii Gamescompany
360 Action VRcompany
Malikperson
Adamperson
Masonperson
Pac-Mangame
Fast and the Furiousgame
Mad Bulletsgame
  • ?

    rumor_hype: John Wick pinball rumored as Stern Pinball's next release following Jaws

    medium · RetroRalph states at closing: 'the rumor is John Wick is next'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Strong positive community reception of Jaws pinball with significant foot traffic and player enthusiasm at expo

    high · Direct observation: 'These games over here, no one cares right now because Jaws is out' and positive gameplay impressions

  • ?

    technology_signal: Light gun arcade game technology advancement with improved accuracy, force feedback, and scope-based aiming (Silent Scope style evolution)

    high · Multiple light gun games showcased (Mega Shot, Thunder Attack) with metal construction, force feedback, high-resolution scopes

    • Oh no! So I was kind of surprised to see they actually added Splatterhouse to this one. So it's kind of interesting. It sort of crops the screen so it presents itself in a horizontal way. This is the class of 81 sort of reimagined. It's got 30 games on it, too. It's got a pretty good game lineup. This isn't like a catered device to a collector really. This is more, you know, kind of the guy that wants to put something in his man cave. It's kind of cool to play these games casually. But it's pretty neat. They put some good games on it, good titles. The controls are actually pretty good. And the cabinet looks nice, so can't really complain about that. What, you thought we were done? Hell no. There's more. So I'm sitting in front of one of their more modern, traditional cocktail tables. So this looks exactly like the cocktail tables that you would have remembered. However, it has a, you know, wide screen display that's kind of standing vertically. but it looks really good. The controls are actually pretty nice so I'm happy that they used good controls on these things. The one thing I would say is again with the bilinear filter, I don't know. I don't prefer that. It doesn't bug me too much but I can see where like a collector would get annoyed by it. But it's pretty cool. This could be a pretty neat thing to have like in your game room or whatever. Well, that about wraps things up over at Bandai Namco. Here's to another 40 years of Pac-Man fever. Vegas is cool but you know what cooler PINBALL BABY I here at the Stern booth and it been busy all week but the thing is it a lull right now so I can finally play the game that everyone is excited about which is Jaws These games over here, no one cares right now because Jaws is out. So let's check it out. I have to say I'm a bit surprised because I'm really digging Jaws, and not because I'm some huge Jaws superfan, but because there's lots of fun shots that really make the game interesting to play. Will I be adding it to my collection? Probably not, but if I was at an arcade bar and they happen to have it, I would definitely play it. It's a really fun game. Why didn't stuff like this exist when I was a kid? Alright, I'm sitting in the Fast and the Furious arcade in the Roth-Rills booth. This was last year's news. We're gonna check out the stuff that they released this year. This stuff is just off the charts. Godzilla VR. This is gonna be super cool. Okay, so this is Godzilla VR. This is Roth-Rills brand new offering. Now why I'm excited about it is they're using their Gen 2 headsets, so I'm excited to see how well these Gen 2 headsets perform. This whole thing moves, it's got motion, you've got the controller, and they have two huge 65-inch TVs for spectators, which is pretty neat. I mean, look how massive this thing is. I can't wait to play this. You have to hit your button, though. Do you hit it? What? You have to hit your button. Oh, dude, this is wild, man. Oh my gosh, I'm gonna throw up. This kind of stuff makes me kind of ill. Whoa! This is freaking badass.
    5:05
    I can't believe that other guy wasn't reacting to this. This is so freaking cool. This is awesome, dude. Cruising!
    5:18
    Oh, wow. It's got some giddy-up to it. Come on! The car had the power, but so did my hippo. I definitely won.
    5:30
    I don't know. Ah, I just love it here. I'm at LAI Games. I love Asphalt 9. I play it all the time on my ROG Ally, but they just released a VR version of the game. So I don't know if you saw it was like a couple years ago maybe they had one that was like a full motion one. Oh snap, dude. Oh my god, dude. So now they've done motion and VR. So let's check it out and see what it's all about. Dude, this is kind of crazy. All right, let's go.
    6:04
    Dude, this is wild. It's like you're in the freaking car, man. That's enough racing for now. So let's go check out some arcade games. Okay, we're back at the X Arcadia booth. We went here last year, but this year they changed their two-player system up a little bit. The control panel was a little bit wider, and they brought it in. It's awesome now. Like, it really makes sense like this. With the kits, they're shipping the marquees, so now you get, like, almost like you did in the old days, right, where you'd get the marquee and the game, and then you'd swap out your game. Same thing here. They're going to ship the new game with the new marquee, so you get the artwork, you get the game, but I just like the new form factor of this. It's perfect for the two-player version. The four-player hasn't changed. It looks the same as we looked at it last time, but I really like these. So I was talking to the representative of Exa Arcadia. Arcade Heroes, Adam, has an arcade down in Utah. He's going to ship them down there. So we thinking about maybe doing some kind of collaboration video So you hear more about Exa Arcadia in the coming months but I excited They making some changes It pretty cool Now this is cool imagine a video game that playable on three walls It's a cool idea and the game we played was a food cooking challenge at first I thought this is gonna be super lame, but honestly Mason and I had a blast playing it. What do I do with it? When I put it wait, where do you put the bread? Get out of here Wait, I don't know what I was supposed to do. Wait, how do we know which egg is whose? Wait, you just took both of them! Dude, you took both! Don't take my damn egg! You're cheating, you're cheating! Oh wait, jeez. Shit, I don't know what I'm... What are you doing? It's really competitive and you can have up to six people, so it'd be complete chaos. Lots of laughs for sure and a fun party game. The interactive wall is made for this cool immersion effect without using VR.
    8:01
    For those of you that have a sweet tooth, you gotta check this out. Okay, how cool would it be to have a Skittles vending machine? Well, that's exactly what I'm standing in front of, and the sign is so bright because they want you to see this thing from across the bowling alley or the FEC or wherever you put this on location, but it's so cool. So you have all these individual Skittles flavors. By the way, the most popular Skittles flavor is strawberry. I just figured that out, followed by wild berry and mashups. So you go up to the machine, you press start. Now you can do a giant cup or a small cup. The small cup you get three different flavors, the big cup you get five. For this we'll just do this one. You select it, obviously the location sets the pricing and all that stuff. So here's where you can select what Skittles you want. So this is kind of cool because you can't really buy a pack of Skittles with all one flavor. So you could do all one flavor, but that's not very fun. So we'll do strawberry because that's the, you know, most popular. Even though I got crap for it, I like lemon and lime, So I'm going to do lemon and then I'm going to do mashups. I'm going to do the mashup mix. So now you just hit pay. How you want to pay, card or cash. I'm going to say cash. Obviously, that's free for the show. And now you're going to see it's going to start to make my customized thing of Skittles. So you'll see it'll light up. It's going to light up the light of the Skittles that it's dispensing and it's going to dispense it right into the cup for me. This is just super cool, guys. Like, can you imagine if you had this as a kid and you were in a bowling alley with your family and they friggin, you know, you had a Skittles vending machine. It's just super cool. So once it's done, you're going to come down here. This is going to open up. I'm going to take my cup. And then the good thing is they're all right in there, right? So let's try them real quick.
    9:42
    They're good. And then if you want to take a lid, you take a lid. And you can friggin have a whole thing of Skittles. And you're the friggin man now. I'm out of here. I'm going to go eat my Skittles and enjoy the show. Next up is 360 Action VR. Malik has become a good buddy over the years and he's always got cool new products to showcase. This year it's the Super Speed Racing Simulator. Racing simulators are nothing new but this kind of takes things to the next level. You've got hydraulics adjusting as you quickly race over the terrain. The motion is smooth and it feels believable that you're actually driving over the terrain that you're seeing on the three large screens that surround you. There's also variable speed fans that simulate wind as you go faster. Very cool, and I can't wait to see what they come up with next year.
    10:50
    resolution screen I pretty much digging this game Oh, this game is actually like a ripoff of Mad Bullets. It looks exactly like Mad Bullets, but it's kind of fun.
    11:12
    Hi man, this town ain't big enough for the two of us. Yeah, I just got shot. Whatever, I'mma head out man.
    11:27
    So what I'm standing in front of right now is the Mega Shot. So this is their new upgraded game. And look at this gun. So this kind of has silent scope vibes because there's a scope that you look through and then you target what you're trying to hit.
    11:42
    This is so friggin badass. So it's like fully metal. The whole gun is metal. The accuracy is really good. Like they did a good job with this.
    11:56
    It's kind of an upgrade. Check this out. Like look at how fast it shoots. Everywhere I'm looking, more gun games just keep firing in my direction.
    12:07
    Guns are definitely a theme here. There's lots of games with guns and they all have this crazy feedback like I don't know if you can see this mechanism inside it But it's going crazy in it. You can really feel it I mean it kind of feels like You're shooting some kind of big gun and the cool thing about this game is you can kind of cycle through what gun you want You don't really get weapon upgrades. You kind of already have them which is kind of cool now that might be for the demo I'm not sure but it's kind of cool because you can get an idea of every gun This is a brand new game that they just announced this year. It's called thunder attack So this game kind of reminds me of Silent Scope, like almost identical actually, but like a modern day version. But this gun is like way cooler than the Silent Scope gun obviously. It's got major, oh shoot, it's got like major feedback. You get, you get force feedback in the back of the gun, so you can really feel it up against you. But the screen is like a super high resolution screen that you're looking through. Man, these games are so cool. Well, another amusement expo is in the books, and I can't help but reflect on where arcade gaming is in 2024. It's different, that's for sure. It's not what I remember as a kid, but different isn't always a bad thing. Some of these games are really good. I mean, who would have thought that in 2024, Atari would be coming back to the arcade with the Recharge games. The partnership with Alan1 is exciting, and who knows what other titles we might see. The light gun technology was off the charts this year, and Raw Thrills absolutely killed it with Godzilla Kaiju Wars VR, bringing attendant-less VR to a whole new level. This is freaking awesome, dude. Stern has another hit with Jaws, and the rumor is John Wick is next. There's a lot to celebrate here, and as long as we're out supporting local arcades, I don't see any end in sight. Till next year, Amusement Expo. It's been a great time.