Polygon is reporting today that Bandai Namco Amusement America (not to be confused with the Bandai Namco consumer games side) will be unveiling a brand-spanking-new "Star Wars" based arcade game. Yes, you read that right...an arcade game...that's in an arcade and you put quarters in it to play. Yes, that kind of game. No, they aren't dead; they're just forgotten, but they are seeing something of a retro resurgence these days.
Bandai Namco is being coy with any specific details at the moment, leaving one to wonder what kind of game it will be (Puzzle? Shooter? Pinball? A reboot of one of the many classic Star Wars arcade games?), and whether or not it will be based on the new trilogy of films that Disney currently has in the works. Something similar occurred in 1999 when Lucasfilm was getting set to release "The Phantom Menace." They already had a deal in place with Williams to unleash a "Pinball 2000" game on the public a few months before the actual movie was released to whet the appetite of a rabid and hypercurious public (The pinball machine was launched in March 1999, while the film came out in May 1999).
To be quite honest, while getting a peek at some of the new film elements in video game form would be very cool, I personally would love to see a reboot/re-imagining of the 1983 vector based shooter that put the player in the cockpit of Luke Skywalker's X-wing during the climactic Death Star attack in "A New Hope." 12-year-old me dumped hundreds of quarters into that machine during the summer of '83. And while the upright version of the game was exciting, nothing beat the near total immersion of the sit-down cockpit version.
Bandai Namco is holding a grand event next Wednesday, 10/8, to debut the game, and to kick off the New York Comic Con with style. HNGN will be covering this event, so definitely stay tuned for more on this one...
