Paragon forthcoming new line-up - SNEAK PREVIEW
Posted: Thu May 28, 2009 12:33 pm
I and another member of this forum had the honour of being invited up to Games Warehouse earlier this week for a look at the forthcoming new Paragon version which is, as I understand it, to be rolled out within the next month or so. We were also told we were very welcome to post our thoughts about the new system on here, so here are some thoughts to keep appetite whetted.
Overall, the new release looks good and should provide a much-needed fillip to the SWP market which seems to me to be flagging a bit at the moment. There's a number of new titles for players to get their teeth into, and all in all it looks like a pretty decent-quality package. I've not always been the world's biggest Paragon / GW fan, but with ItBoxes continuing to disappear, GamesNets getting rid of anything worth playing on their cabinets and making the rest £1 per play, and the general rarity of Ind:es and Opens (at least where I play), a playable Paragon line up is in everyone's interests.
There is a redesigned front-end menu, with a number of different menus sorted by genre (e.g. "skill games", "new games" etc.) - it looks good and seemed to work well. It's slightly reminiscent of the old ItBox menu which I think divided things by genre as well.
There are new cabinets as well - I saw two new cabinets, both had a row of buttons beneath the screen (I think I've seen this in the wild somewhere already but can't quite remember where). One of the new cabinets had a dot-matrix display which could be used for e.g. the host pub to advertise a drinks offer, or to advertise the machine, or whatever.
There are a good clutch of new games which will form part of the new release, and some (very) preliminary thoughts as follows:
- Match of the Day - I think Istenem saw this at ATEI. It looks promising - the idea is to answer questions (both football and GK) to advance across a pitch and win games in a cup tournament. It borrows / adapts some elements (the pitch, mainly) from the rubbish Football Manager game on the Opens, but looked a much better all-round game than that. There are also some skill sub-games. This will be 50p play with a £10JP. I can see this being pretty popular - MOTD is a pretty strong franchise.
- Track and Field - again, I think Istenem saw this. It's a licence of the old computer game title with a deliberately very retro feel to it, which was rather fun. The idea is either to play skill games (ported from the old computer game) or take part in Q&A rounds, to rack up points and eventually reach an endgame. Being a malco I didn't play any of the skill games, but I can tell you they make use of the buttons on the new cabinets (although they can be done using the touchscreen as well, as I understand it). The Q&A games were fairly approachable and the game is generous with bonuses etc. so can and does last a long time (I must have got 15 minutes or so out of each of the games of it I played!). The endgame is Q&A based, which might not please skill game specialists: the endgame was fairly tough when I played it, but I was told it can and does get easier - let's see. I think it was either a £25 or £50 maximum prize on this, so nice and generous.
- Beat the Landlord - a straight Q&A game in the vein of Pub Quiz (tho' better looking) or Trivia Whiz Bar Quiz (tho', one hopes, easier). One unusual aspect is this only has one prize - the JP, which will be either £3 or £6 and is apparently intended to be fairly achieveable. It will be interesting to see whether that JP is enough to attract players to it.
- All Clued Up - crossword clues / trivia game which is like a better looking Quids For Grids. I thought this looked pretty good although I onlyed played it once. Can't remember what the JP was on this.
- Trailblazer - pure skill game involving tracing a winding parth from one side of the screen to the other as quickly as possible. Not my cup of tea, but the skills boys will like this, I expect. I was too rubbish to tell how difficult it is but the time deadlines did look demanding.
I think we'll also see Family Guy and Tresure Quest make their Paragon debuts for those who like them. Also, Bullseye has a new two-player mode in addition to the existing suite of games.
Overall, the new release looks good and should provide a much-needed fillip to the SWP market which seems to me to be flagging a bit at the moment. There's a number of new titles for players to get their teeth into, and all in all it looks like a pretty decent-quality package. I've not always been the world's biggest Paragon / GW fan, but with ItBoxes continuing to disappear, GamesNets getting rid of anything worth playing on their cabinets and making the rest £1 per play, and the general rarity of Ind:es and Opens (at least where I play), a playable Paragon line up is in everyone's interests.
There is a redesigned front-end menu, with a number of different menus sorted by genre (e.g. "skill games", "new games" etc.) - it looks good and seemed to work well. It's slightly reminiscent of the old ItBox menu which I think divided things by genre as well.
There are new cabinets as well - I saw two new cabinets, both had a row of buttons beneath the screen (I think I've seen this in the wild somewhere already but can't quite remember where). One of the new cabinets had a dot-matrix display which could be used for e.g. the host pub to advertise a drinks offer, or to advertise the machine, or whatever.
There are a good clutch of new games which will form part of the new release, and some (very) preliminary thoughts as follows:
- Match of the Day - I think Istenem saw this at ATEI. It looks promising - the idea is to answer questions (both football and GK) to advance across a pitch and win games in a cup tournament. It borrows / adapts some elements (the pitch, mainly) from the rubbish Football Manager game on the Opens, but looked a much better all-round game than that. There are also some skill sub-games. This will be 50p play with a £10JP. I can see this being pretty popular - MOTD is a pretty strong franchise.
- Track and Field - again, I think Istenem saw this. It's a licence of the old computer game title with a deliberately very retro feel to it, which was rather fun. The idea is either to play skill games (ported from the old computer game) or take part in Q&A rounds, to rack up points and eventually reach an endgame. Being a malco I didn't play any of the skill games, but I can tell you they make use of the buttons on the new cabinets (although they can be done using the touchscreen as well, as I understand it). The Q&A games were fairly approachable and the game is generous with bonuses etc. so can and does last a long time (I must have got 15 minutes or so out of each of the games of it I played!). The endgame is Q&A based, which might not please skill game specialists: the endgame was fairly tough when I played it, but I was told it can and does get easier - let's see. I think it was either a £25 or £50 maximum prize on this, so nice and generous.
- Beat the Landlord - a straight Q&A game in the vein of Pub Quiz (tho' better looking) or Trivia Whiz Bar Quiz (tho', one hopes, easier). One unusual aspect is this only has one prize - the JP, which will be either £3 or £6 and is apparently intended to be fairly achieveable. It will be interesting to see whether that JP is enough to attract players to it.
- All Clued Up - crossword clues / trivia game which is like a better looking Quids For Grids. I thought this looked pretty good although I onlyed played it once. Can't remember what the JP was on this.
- Trailblazer - pure skill game involving tracing a winding parth from one side of the screen to the other as quickly as possible. Not my cup of tea, but the skills boys will like this, I expect. I was too rubbish to tell how difficult it is but the time deadlines did look demanding.
I think we'll also see Family Guy and Tresure Quest make their Paragon debuts for those who like them. Also, Bullseye has a new two-player mode in addition to the existing suite of games.