For the operator, there were some stand out games including World Combat, House of the Dead III and F.A.S. A quick roundup;
SEGA
- - House of the Dead III - excellent graphics and game play, however shotgun is a little too heavy after repeat play. Game board is XBox/Sega combo.
- - Initial D Version II - new features to be released in overseas market next year.
- - VS2002 - many more stadiums, teams and using pretriforce board.
NAMCO
- - not much for the western market with Time Crisis III not shown. Namco did show some impressive games designed soley for the Japanese market including Dragon Chronicle & Contactee.
KONAMI
- - World Combat - a cross between "Saving Private Ryan" and PC game "Medal of Honor", this game was a standout at the show.
- - Winning Eleven - based on the popular Playstation series, the Japan version has memory card allowing players to save their team information.
Quick mentions to Capcom's F.A.S, a Street Fighter game with Tekken styling, and, Sammy's "Atomiswave" - a new PCB platform based around Sega's dreamcast hardware which has been used to build a new motherboard system featuring Premier Eleven (soccer), Maximum Speed (driving), Sports Shooting USA (shooting) and Dolpin Blue (joystick adventure).
There was a lot more to write about, and we hope to have photos and images from Jamma2002 (as well as AMOA2002) together with new editions into the products section daily, starting from next week.
Thanks for everyone's help during our visit to Japan.
Steve Josifovski