first look at Half life 2 Arcade cab

[DYNAGOD]

this thing looks more like a flight sim control scheme than a FPS.
im skeptical.. and i can smell autoaiming..

LOts of pics on this page.

http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20051129/taito.htm

[versapak]

Hmmmmm

The whole thing seems like a pretty poor idea for an arcade cab in the first place, and those controls are definitely wrong for the genre.

I am sitting when I play the game at home, but, for some reason, a sit down cab just seems odd for that game.

[Goz]

I have to admit it might be fun to try but the novelty would probably wear off before I got used to the controls.

on a sidenote that site has some nice pics of Skikigami No Shiro 2 

[Sephroth57]

shmups ftw

[Stingray]

Interesting controls. I don't like FPS games at all, so I'm hardly the one to judge. Looks like it would be fun to try just to check out how the controls work, though.

-S

[RayB]

I think we can trust Taito's engineers and designers to know what they are doing...

Pedals might seem odd, but my guess is this they are simply for strafing left/right. I could get used to that.

Trigger stick is obviously for aiming and shooting. The other weird control is for forward/back and turning movement.

It also possible the pedals are for turning while the left control is strictly left,right, forward, back. If so, the pedals would allow for varying turning speeds.

[versapak]

I think we can trust Taito's engineers and designers to know what they are doing...

Pedals might seem odd, but my guess is this they are simply for strafing left/right. I could get used to that.

Trigger stick is obviously for aiming and shooting. The other weird control is for forward/back and turning movement.

It also possible the pedals are for turning while the left control is strictly left,right, forward, back. If so, the pedals would allow for varying turning speeds.

The pedals are for ducking (left pedal) and jumping (right pedal).

The forward/back & strafing (actual turning is done by aiming) movement controls are actually what I find to be the least weird. When you are moving in a fps on the PC, you are usually using the keyboard, which is going to be a digital control anyway, so an 8 way would be a perfect fit (as far as arcade controls go).

[DYNAGOD]

judging by the massive cost these cabs will have i dont expect to see one anywhere soon.

[versapak]

I doubt we'd see many of these machines ever make it over here anyway.

FPS's are not all that big in Japan, and placing these in their arcades is a way of reaching them. In the western world we are reached on PC or Xbox (as far as Half Life 2 is concerned anyway).

Which I guess kind of ties right into what DYNAGOD said. Very few gaming establishments would bother wasting that much money on an arcade machine of an already popular and widespread pc/console game.

[Zero_Hour]

Actually it's been done before. I played an arcade version of Descent at the Seattle GameWorks in the fall of '97. Been a long time, but I recall the control setup not being too far off of the HL2 cab. Sadly I sucked at Descent, and at 2 bucks a pop, I decided my credits were better spent in the Classics section 

I looked around a bit for pictures, but had no luck. I wonder if it was a One-off specifically for GW?

[erictrumpet]

Am I the only person who looks at this machine and thinks about building a similar sit-down cab with similar controls (pedals and sticks) specifically for playing state-of-the-art PC first-person shooters? I could totally see a machine like this running Q4, Doom3, etc sitting right next to my classic stand-up arcade cabinet. All the necessary controls are available, just like we use to build our Mame cabs. I think it could work and be totally awesome. Some serious experimentation in the area of controls would be required, though. Hmmmm, a sit down fps cab running the latest PC games. The best of both worlds? Take what I know and love about Mame cabbing and make a super awesome custom PC gaming rig? It's got my wheels turning for sure......

Eric.

[Thenasty]

I don't think this is gonna fly. I mean people can play this at home now and why would they go out there and pay to play it.
If I'm an operator, this would be a no no in my cart. 
This may cost 7-10kK and probably be dead then before I make $$  for it.   . Unless I charge $5-$10 a game  (and player last only 1-2min) 

[RayB]

I don't think this is gonna fly. I mean people can play this at home now and why would they go out there and pay to play it.
If I'm an operator, this would be a no no in my cart.