Jamma 2000, Tokyo Japan.

This article comes from Highwaygames.com

They say if you throw enough mud at a wall, some of it will stick. Japan's manufacturers introduced a great number of new games today but according to both Japanese and overseas visitors, there ain't much sticking.

In addition to the latest sequels of their music games, Konami showed an innovative gun game called "The Cop". The innovation lies in the sensor surround that senses the player's movement to duck, and movement to the left and right to avoid bullets. Konami had a similar dancing game using sensors and it did not live up to the pre-release hype so it remains to be seen it the good idea translates to good game.

Sega had two new 2-player gun games in "Confidential Mission" and "Death Crimson OX". New storylines but nothing technologically different. "Sega Strike Fighter" uses the same cabinet as "Airline Pilots". It is a plane

shooting game like "Sky Target". "Planet Harriers" is a 2-player 3-D shooting game with joystick controls like "Virtual On". There were only two new driving games on display; "NASCAR Arcade" from Sega and "Ridge Racer V Arcade" from Namco. Neither game seemed like the next Daytona but NASCAR in particular was very short of players.

Namco's "Ninja Assault" 2-player gun game was not creating many waves. It is a Japan-themed shoot-em up with lots of ninjas jumping up and down to keep the shooter guessing. Namco had a second gun game "Gunbalina", a comical gun-shooting game in the spirit of "Point Blank". For the record, Konami showed the following sequels; "Dance Maniax 2nd Mix", "Guitar Freaks 4th Mix", "Drum Mania 3rd Mix", "Keyboard 2nd Mix", "Beatmania II DX 4th Style", "Punch Mania 2", "DDR 4th Mix" and so on.

A survey of players and operators listed the following games as most popular:

Player Survey

1. Rival Schools 2

2. Tetris T.A.

3. Ridge Racer V Arcade

4. Gun Spike

5. Planet Harriers

6. The Cop

7. Punch Mania 2

8. Shakatto Tambourine

9. Giga Wing 2

10.Shiper 13 #2

Operator Survey

1. Rival Schools 2

2. Tetris T.A.

3. Virtua Striker 3

4. The Cop

5. Ridge Racer V Arcade

6. Gun Spike

7. Beatmania II DX 4th Mix

7. Giga Wing 2

7. Planet Harriers

10. Ninja Assault

10. Beatmania Core Mix

10. Pop 'N Music 5

Special thanks to Manjiro Works for this report.

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Manjiro Works Inc. exports top quality coin-operated machines from Japan around the world.