Eugene Jarvis Shifts From Terror To Fast, Furious

Thanks to GameSpot for its interview with seminal game designer Eugene Jarvis, best known "for arcade titles from the eighties... including Defender, Robotron, NARC, [and] Smash T.V.", discussing his attempts to revitalize the arcade market. The article mentions his recently released, terrorism-themed Target: Terror lightgun arcade shooter, apparently "the number two most profitable arcade game in its first month in general release" - Jarvis comments of the content: "So Target: Terror is this extreme paranoia, but gosh, it could be real. We take it to the extreme--they're taking over the Golden Gate Bridge and you have to retake that." It's also revealed of Jarvis that "This Fall, his three-year-old, self-funded company, Raw Thrills, will debut its second arcade title, The Fast and the Furious, a driving title based on the Universal Pictures film of the same name." We previously covered Target: Terror earlier this year on Slashdot Games.

Comments

Trailer on Raw Thrills' website

[rufo]

Those screenshots look absolutely horrifying, but if you watch the trailer (it's a freecache link, so hopefully it won't be /.ed) it doesn't look quite as bad.

I dunno, I'm still kinda skeptical about it, but if I ever see it in an arcade I'll probably give it a spin. I mean hey - it's a light-gun game, all you have to do is shoot people, maybe I'm wrong, but it can't get that bad, can it?

Are you sure it IS by Jarvis?

[paulcammish]

If it is, where are the Epilepsy inducing strobing/color-cycling scores? (go play any of his old stuff if you dont know what I mean)

It looks a LOT like a slightly more modern version of Area 51 (Prerendered backdrops, badly integrated bad guys pasted over the top), and that ran on the CoJag hardware back in 1995.

Please Eugine, give it up - leave your record with some of the best Coin-Op games ever, and dont do a Lucas...

Re:Arcade must evolve

[cgenman]

I always thought that arcades should have leveraged the control the owners have over them and setup a giant game-playing network, ensuring that even if there wasn't local competition ther would be competition from somewhere. Sadly, now the arcade owners would only be on par with consoles if they networked, but it is something they will have to do... and soon.

They also need to profit share with the people who develop arcade games if they want to survive.

Of course, the best games in the arcade right now (and for a long time) have been DDR and Konami's motion-tracking system setups. Apparently American Sammy was also tremendously successful with that soccerball - kicking game that everyone recognizes. Why we don't have more creative hardware-based games is beyond me, but that mantra of console compatibility that dominated the industry in the 90's needs to end.