Half-Life 2 Goes Arcade! . . . In Japan

I thought this was interesting and totally unexpected.

In a private exhibition in Tokyo today, Taito announced that it is making an arcade version of Half-Life 2 called Half-Life 2: Survivor. It runs on an arcade cabinet that looks like a typical racing game cabinet. You control the action using two joysticks on the side arm rests and by pressing the foot pedals (I presume you use the foot peddles to walk and run, one joystick to look around and the other to fire). The arcade cabinet is network ready so up to eight players can join in on the fun in a variety of different modes including deathmatch and a cooperative mission mode. The game is also playable offline in unnetworked play through a single-player story mode.

It’s amazing to see Japan getting arcade machines like this in this day and age. It’s interesting beause first-person shooters aren’t all that popular in Japan, so I assume this is one way to give the Japanese a piece of the action while wrapping it up in a unique package that they might actually accept, thanks to the still thriving Japanese arcade industry. Too bad that the likelyhood of the US seeing this crazy arcade version of Half-Life 2 is next to never.