Half-Life 2 to be arcade release in Japan

Taito and Valve collaborate on FPS breakthrough offering

Posted by Staff
Taitoland!
Taitoland!
The Japanese gaming community doesn’t like first-person shooting games. No one really knows why, though one suspects they don’t like them simply for the sake of it, arguably the best reason to dismiss the offerings of others.

So it was with some surprise that SPOnG learned that an arcade incarnation of Valve’s Half-Life 2 has been penned in for an arcade release of all things, in Japan.

The game will be released by Taito and will sit astride the Bubble Bobble firm’s Type X arcade board, currently playing host to projects from Treasure, Taito of course, Alpha System, PSiKyo, and Success. Hardcore indeed.

According to the release from Taito, the reworked PC game will come in a bespoke pod cabinet and will see single player modes blended with online multiplayer, with both co-op and battle options available, parsed over the company’s Net Entry System.

No images of the coin-op unit or the final software as yet, though we did find this marvellous Taito ultra-Japanese interpretation of the firm’s operations to keep you going.

For reference the Type X consists of a Celeron 2.5GHz CPU running on a Intel 865G chipset with 256 MB of some fancy RAM and a big fat RADEON 9200SE.


Comments

config 2 Nov 2004 14:36
1/2
What a very odd choice of game for the arcades. I recall a flight sim (Microprose F-15) being stuffed into an arcade box. Oh how is sat, lonely and neglected in the corner of many arcades.
ohms 2 Nov 2004 14:47
2/2
I remember talk of an Arcade version of DOOM back in the mid-90s, don't know if it happened, but there was a kid playing a DOOM Arcade machine in the film, Grosse Point Blank.

Thing is, DOOM was essentially an Arcade shooter, Half-Life is anything but.

Can't wait for the PC version tho', what with EDGE giving it a perfect 10 (I'm sure that was partly to make up for not giving the original a 10, which it deserved more than Halo).

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