Ever since the unveiling of its Windows XP-based arcade board, Taito has been promising some big things. One of these is the arcade version of Valve's Half-Life 2, for which the cabinet and details have finally been released, via a Game Watch Type X super preview. The cabinet features two control sticks, left for moving, right for shooting (and weapons toggle), and two footpedals, left for jump, right for squat. With a 32 inch display at 1,360 × 768 resolution, and six embedded speakers, the cabinet is certainly an impressive one. Data is saved via an IC card.

This is one of the first examples we've seen of the Type X+ hardware, which takes the default Type X architecture and adds more RAM, more processing power, and a more poweful ATI graphics card. And aside from the normal story mode, the game sports a 4 on 4 battle mode, across Taito's hardwired network. At present, they're calling the game 50% complete, with a full-scale Japanese launch planned for March '06. Nothing has been announced for U.S. arcades yet - one only hopes there are still a few left by the time the game actually comes out!