Actually, Pachislots put out tokens, not steel balls. They are also called "Skill Stop" machine because you stop the reels manually one at a time using the red buttons, unlike a Vegas style slot machine that stops the reels automatically. So supposedly you can master the "skill" of stopping the reels to get a jackpot, though I've never mastered that on my Speed Racer machine. :P

Got to wonder who would be so serious about the pokies as to want to play them at home on a PS2.

Probably the sort of person who pawned their PS2 to pay their gambling debts...

no giant enemy crabs?

Pachislots are illegal here in California, but I have a regular Pachinko machine, which is fun when people come over. Sort of like a less fun pinball machine that takes up way less space.

there is an indian casino here in okla that has tomb raider slots.

Wait...so they're making a video game...of a slot machine...of a video game? o.0;

This is almost as bad as Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game.

What's with the whole Ridge Racer thing anyway?

> Bad news is there's no way in hell this is ever going outside Japan.

That is absolutely the opposite of truth. In Japan the legal maximum service life of a machine is two years. After their two year service life in order to be sold legally they must be exported. The way this normally works is that they are sold by the container load to refurbishers in the US, sight unseen for pennies on the dollar. Although these machines go for $3000-$5000 new, on the used market they max out around $350 or so, and you can get some really great machines in great shape for under $100. Finding a reputable refurbisher/dealer is a MUST though! There are plenty of folks out there who are happy to sell smoke-smelling, banged-up or otherwise marginal machines. Occasionally some real trash will pop up at places like Sam's club -- cheap machines with the original japanese artwork replaced with inkjetted unlicensed Americanized garbage and the like. I saw some Kyojin No Hito machines at my local Sam's that had Looney-Tunes/Nascar mashup artwork all over them (Originally this is a baseball-themed machine)

Anyway, depending on the production and popularity of this machine you will probably start seeing them trickle over the pond in about a year and you will see a flood of them in two. Judging by the sheer number of LCD's on it (looks to be two up top and one transparent over the reels) and the fact that it is a 4 reel machine, it will assuredly at the higher end pricewise.

@GabrielNeos: Actually, that "skill stop" is an illusion - they're still programmed like slot machines, and if you press the button at the right time, but the programming says "no win", it will go past the designated symbol before stopping. So basically, it feels like you're doing something, but it's the same old crap shoot.

@Chef:
Actually, it is kind of a "skill stop". If the programming says "no win", it's true you won't win no matter how good your hand-eye coordination is. The reel is designed to slip 4 or 5 spaces even if you stop it at the correct time. But, if the program is in "win" mode, you still can't win unless you are able to "skill stop" it. But if you call over the staff when you are in "win" mode, they'll stop the reels on the red sevens for you.