There is a new racing game set to enter the arcade market this year and this one is coming from Sega Amusements Europe and Codemasters. It’s one console gamers may already be familiar with, GRID (or as it’s called on consoles Race Driver GRID). Thanks to a tipster who only calls himself Bill, we have your first detailed look at the game (we also contacted Sega first to ensure that it would be OK to go ahead with this as we had ran a post on this some weeks ago and were asked to remove it) as it was seen on location test at the Trocadero in London, UK. As you can see from the pictures, they are reusing the Sega Racing Classic cabinet, but have greatly improved the lighting to draw more attention to it. Here is what we know about it so far:
GRID features event based Racing – You chose and event and then chose a car from a selection of 4 per event.
3 Game Modes
Multiplayer – Quickrace
Single Player – Quickrace
Single Player – Championship: 3 Tiered competition, come 1st, 2nd or 3rd to move to the next tier. (Come first to unlock a special event in the next tier)
Many licensed cars to chose from including: Dodge Viper, Saleen S7, Aston Martin DB9, Bugatti Veyron, Pagani Zonda, Jaguar XKR
Real world environments including – Washington, San Francisco, Milan, Nurburgring, Donington
Full damage – Great fun in Multiplayer, damage is only visual and does not affect the handling of the cars
Reset button – puts you back on the track facing the right direction almost immediately so you get straight back into the race after a smash
I have not personally played GRID on consoles or PC so I’m not sure if it’s the kind of game that can just be dropped as-is into arcades or if they will be needing to change it a bit. I imagine that there will need to be some changes made and hopefully they are also enough to make the game stand above it’s console cousin. The addition of the arcade cabinet is already a plus but we’ll have to wait a little longer to find out more. Fortunately, we will have more exclusive information on GRID in the near future as it nears a release, with many more details(beyond the Stinger update below)
UPDATE: As soon as I posted this I checked the e-mail and Kevin Williams of the Stinger Report also sent me some additional information on the game(including a little hardware talk), along with pictures. Here’s Kevin’s deeper look at GRID
Name: ‘GRID’
Manufacturer: SEGA Amusement Europe
Developer: Codemasters
SEGA Amusement Europe (SAE) held a special LocTest for their in-house developed racing title – ‘GRID’; marking the first time consumer game publisher Codemasters has dabbled in the amusement scene – approached by SAE to license the game for coin-op. A location in London played host to two cabinets shown in a 70 per cent completed state. The prototype cabinets displayed were a version of the same system used to house ‘SEGA Classic Racing’ (now painted black). 
The arcade version of the of the original ‘Race Driver: Grid’ – a consumer street racing game launched in 2008, based on the Codemasters ‘TOCA Touring Car Championship’ series started in 1997. The arcade version featured a scaled down version of the original PC game running on a new PC architecture created exclusively to run the Ego game engine (this was not the SEGA Europa-R architecture).
The popular racing game in its arcade clothes includes both a ‘Championship mode’ and a ‘Quick Race mode’ – with the conventional game cockpit layout including ‘Recovery’ button, Up – Down gear shifter and force feed-back steering.
The prototype colourful neon-light ‘blinged’ cabinets were networked for two player racing, and included a ‘Race leader’ light for the audience. The final cabinets are being developed by SAE, and will support six-player simultaneous racing competition (but with no online or tournament support). The game following in the mould of the last SAE release (‘SEGA Rally 3’ in 2008) – though sources suggested that a special deluxe configuration is being considered for release.
The game is expected to be released in fall of this year, though it seems unlikely that a Japanese release will be considered. However sources revealed that SEGA USA will be testing a US specific conten
t version of the game (following the same track as seen with the SAE developed ‘Ford Racing’). SEGA US/UK hoping to make the squeeze on a crowded amusement driving scene, competing with – Namco’s still to be launched ‘Dead Heat Street Racing’, Taito’s ‘D1 GP: Arcade’, Konami’s ‘GTi-Club’ and to be launched ‘Road Fighter’, Global VR’s ‘NASCAR Team Racing’ and ‘TWISTED’ and InjoyMotion ‘Street Racing Stars’.
UPDATE #2 : AH reader RJAY sent us a video he took of the game from the location test.
Arcade Heroes 
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