Year-by-Year the AOU or All Nippon Amusement Machine Operator’s Union Show taking place far, far away from Tokyo at Makuhari Messe, tends to shrink little by little. Yes, like almost everywhere around the world, arcade games do not attract as many as people as they used to, but small does not necessarily mean boring and actually this year, AOU was quite interesting.

BANDAI NAMCO

I believe that Tekken does not need any introduction and today Bandai Namco introduced their latest iteration of Tekken with Tekken TAG 2 Tournament. If I am no longer a fan of this kind of games, I have to admit that Tekken and its gameplay do not get old! With gorgeous graphics and impressive arcade cabinet, this new Tekken TAG2 will give hours of fun to the fans of the series and will definitively warm-up the atmosphere during friendly matches.

Bandai Namco also introduced a new “racing” game similar to Konami’s 3D Road Fighters, call here Maximum Heat 3D. With a very basic Gameplay,you are racing against other virtual or non-virtual player and have the choice between a 2D mode and a 3D Mode with 3D Glasses.

The last game that we enjoyed a lot at AOU was Dragon Ball Zenaki Battle Royal. Sure I may not be really objective on this one since I am one of Dragon Ball biggest fans EVER! But really this game is just gorgeous, graphics are amazing, the gameplay really interesting with enough tactics to make it more than just a fighting game and top of all you can now fight against Virtual or non-Virtual adversaries!

KONAMI

Konami did not have much to introduce this year that we didn’t already know, sure they announced some interesting upgrades to their music game series including Jubeat as well as their Guitar Game, but the most interesting section on Konami’s stand was Love Plus Arcade. Love Plus, for those who where hiding under a stone for the last couple of years, is a “Girl Friend” simulator, and here you can play with your favorite character or virtual GF at many different games such as choose the best outfits for her, card games and so on. Once again, this kind of game is not really my cup of tea but you have to admit that the character design is just fantastic and that Konami put a lot of attention on this game and this at so many levels that it would be a shame to just ignore Love Plus Arcade entirely.

SEGA

SEGA had with BANDAI NAMCO the biggest stand this year at AOU and among many very interesting games including CHOAS Code (Fighting), Project Diva Arcade and 3D (Music Game), Virtual Fighter 5 Final Showdown (Fighting), Boarder Break V2.0 (Mecha) and Let’s Go Island 3D (3D Shoot), SEGA introduced two major tactic/manager games with STAR BOAT where you will have to build your team of speed boat racer and fight against other teams,and using the same concept but on a different sport, Horse Race 3, here you will have to select the best horse and jokey and win races in different locations.
Once again these sort of Tactic games are really not my kind of thing, but Sega has built-up an incredible set-up for both games giving each player the sensation to really manage a team of professional sport players and face the difficult challenge to manage each aspect of the game during an entire season.

TAITO

The last but not the least, TAITO did not have a huge stand this year but has several nice little games upgraded of already available games like Haunted Museum II and Music GunGun 2 (Shoot).
But the most interesting one was by far their new “Sonic Blast Hereos” a “punching game” with five different stages where you will have to “punch” your way through to get to the final stage and save the earth from a meteor shower!

GOODIES

There are no AOU without goodies and you will find in the gallery below some of the best Goodies that can be only found in Japanese UFO Cather games!

Anyway do not forget to watch our 10-minutes video (above) and the gallery below with over 90 High-res pictures of the event!