Inside Asian Gaming

inside asian gaming January 2015 6 HE·LIX /’hē-liks/ • a type of smooth space curve, i.e. a curve in three- dimensional space; • the shape formed by a line that curves around and along a central line; • of or relating to the advancement to higher levels through a series of cyclical movements. T he company that created the most popular games on Macau’s bustling slot floors has designed an exciting new environment for its players to enjoy them in. It’s called Helix™—“a cabinet with a few amazing twists,” as Aristocrat cheekily refers to its innovative new platform—and certainly the description is apt. “Very simply it looks better and it does more,” says Vincent Kelly, who arrived in Macau in October as the company’s new managing director–Asia Pacific. “One of my team described it as a graphics powerhouse.” Feature In Focus Players have never experienced their favorite Aristocrat games like they will on the new Helix™ Unlocking the Box Helix™ is all that. Casinos in Australia and the US are deploying it as we speak. Asia got its first look at this striking application of Aristocrat’s technological prowess at the Macao Gaming Show in November, and Mr Kelly expects it will be on Macau’s floors by Christmas and then fan out regionally from there. “We’ve had some very nice feedback from customers around the world,” he says. “Early days, but all the signs are very positive that it’s doing what we hoped that it would do.” What Helix™ does is reimagine the interaction between player and game in ways that have to be seen to be fully appreciated. New processors in a souped-up hardware package power a dual 16:9 LED back-lit interface. Both screens are a spacious 23 inches across (or better yet, sample the 32-inch optional Super Screen) and fully HD at a dazzling 1,080 pixels. But here’s the “twist”—the displays are frameless, infinity-edged, so the action appears to float away from the cabinet surface in planes and proportions that are seamless, continuous, almost three- dimensional. 5 Dragons’ lucky monster head talisman seems to leap into independent space in vivid, lifelike contours. Fortune King Choy Sun Doa showers his coins into an illusion of thin air. Combined with quad sound boosted by a ported, enclosed subwoofer and rear-surface ambient lighting, the total effect is marvelous, completely enveloping from where the player sits. The lighting also can be controlled to draw attention when the game is idle—not that attracting players will be difficult given the market- leading content that finds Aristocrat, a decade on, still firmly in possession of the largest share of Macau’s floors. Helix™ comes in three stylish models, Upright, Slant and Vincent Kelly , managing director‒Asia Pacific, Aristocrat