The best of DSiWare - Part 12: Games beginning with 'M'

And so we come to the (alphabetical) half-way mark. With the Zelda franchise putting in an appearance last time out, it shouldn't be too surprising which of Nintendo's gaming goliaths show's their face for the letter 'M'.

Quick recap: To facilitate this exercise I played every game made available on the DSiWare service and, once I weeded out the shovelware, I have divided the remainder into four categories:

Hidden Gems: Games you've probably never heard of that are utterly brilliant
Well Known & Wonderful: Still gems, still potentially brilliant, but perhaps not quite so 'hidden'
Honourable Mentions: Those games that are good, but lack the real spark required to fit into one of the top two categories
Also Rans: Not bad enough to be completely ignored, but probably not quite good enough to warrant higher status

Two caveats: Firstly, I don't enjoy RPGs. Like, at all. So you won't see any of those at any point. And secondly it's very hard to define 'Hidden Gem' on DSiWare, as the service itself was never hugely popular, so please excuse a potential few miss-categorisations along the way!

Hidden Gems

Metal Torrent

What we have here is a bona-fide hardcore vertical shooter exclusive developed by Arika for the DSiWare service. Featuring just eight stages, a tiny hitbox, a screen full of enemy fire to weave through, a special weapon to slow down bullets, and the tried and tested three lives and you're out system... this is about as brutal and 'pure' as bullet hell games get.

But. Should this is all be a bit much, you can play on the game's easy mode.

In this mode your special weapon recharges almost faster than you can use it, the spread of bullets you fire covers the entire screen, getting hit doesn't kill you, and you will finish the game on your first try. Guaranteed.

However, the game is unashamedly built around high-score chasing, and even featured online leaderboards when such a thing was still available. With this in mind the super-easy mode is somewhat forgivable, as getting to the end isn't really the point. The boss designs though, are less forgivable.

There are four in the game and no matter if you're playing on 'Easy' or 'Maniac' mode it is pretty much the same boss each time. The backgrounds, too, lack variety, although there is a lot of style in what we are given.

Even if the 'Easy' mode doesn't really serve as a gateway to the what feels like the game's true form in Maniac mode; for shooter and bullet-hell fans this is an absolute must play that will challenge even the most seasoned veterans of Cave and Capcom, and although the game is very short, it will take many hours of play and practice to get to the end.

Mighty Flip Champs!

I was tempted to put this, and the next game, into the 'Well Known...' bracket as the developer, Wayforward, has carved quite a name for themselves thanks to the often brilliant Shantae series. The two 'Mighty' games on DSiWare have also appeared on a few other platforms but, in the end, I don't think either of these great puzzle games has had the attention they deserve, so here they are in 'Hidden Gem' territory. 

Mighty Flip Champs is a puzzle platform game that makes great use of the dual screens. A fairly simple ladders and hazards style platforming level is drawn out on the top screen. On the touchscreen below, with a wibbly-wobbly effect applied, is another level of similar design. The goal, which (in true idiosyncratic Wayforward style) is to get to and rescue 'Fishman', cannot be reached using just the one level, so you must get our protagonist, Alta, to a good spot in the top screen layout so that the layout on the lower screen can be 'flipped', replacing the existing layout and allowing you to continue.

At first this is quite simple. There will be a gap between Alta and Fishman for example, and flipping up the layout on the lower screen will provide a platform on which to cross it. Later in the game things get much more complicated. There can be up to 8 screens in play, and the feats of memory and lateral thinking required are pretty intense.

Fortunately, Mighty Flip Champs eases you into the experience. The cartoon art and joyful presentation are definitely not indicative of the challenge ahead, but it does gently evolve into the more complex puzzles smoothly over the course of several levels.

When it comes to games developed by Wayforward, the presence of either Matt or Mark Bozon on the production team is key to knowing if it's going to be among their best stuff. Mighty Flip Champs! was directed by Matt, and designed by them both - and this pedigree is clear when playing the game.

It's tight level design, great concept, vibrant presentation, and excellent difficulty curve make it among the very best games I've played on the platform. It has challenge and replay value to spare and will be a game I'll waste no time coming back to once I have completed this blog series.

Mighty Milky Way

Just above, in the Mighty Flip Champs! write up, I mention that the best games from Wayforward are usually easily identified by having either (or both) of the Bozon brothers involved in the development. Mighty Milky Way, however, has neither name appearing anywhere on it's credits. Which means, in just a few short paragraphs, I have rendered my own point completely moot.

In this game our female protagonist (a definite running theme in Wayforward's output) is an alien called Luna who has the ability to create and destroy planets. Each level starts with Luna skipping around the circumference of a small planet that is drawn in simple 2D on the touchscreen. Tap the planet once and Luna will launch into space, should she land back on the same planet a second tap will destroy it, as our heroine sails safely into the cosmos once more. While free-falling through space (during which time you are influenced by the gravity of various bodies) you can tap anywhere to create a new planet to land on or guide you. But to do this you must first have collected enough 'Planet Candies'.

Yes. Sweets that create planets. 

There are a couple of times in the game where it goes full nutzo and collecting confectionary to create planets is just one example. Another would be that Luna, who I will reiterate is an alien, obviously doesn't speak English. She does, however, appear to be quite fluent in French. And there's the chief antagonist who, unlike the cute pink blobs who sometimes hinder your path on the surface of planets, is a giant green robot tyrannosaurus rex that shoots lasers from its eyes.

Wayforward really cornered the market in this happy-go-lucky style of slightly bonkers game design, and I for one lap it up at every opportunity. Mighty Milky Way's gravity puzzles might be a very different to the level flipping of the previous game in the 'Mighty' series, and the development team has not a single person in common, but the atmosphere of joy and fun permeates both, and means that this comes with no less of a recommendation than Flip Champs! did just above. 

Well Known & Wonderful

Mario vs Donkey Kong: Minis March Again

Among the reasons I've been accused of being a hipster, a contrarian, and various less polite variations on that theme over the years is that I have no qualms in proclaiming, as I'm about to do, that I don't like Mario platform games.

Being from the UK, and just that bit older than many people who enjoy classic games, platformers - in the guise adopted by Mario et al - weren't really a part of my introduction to videogames. In the arcades and on the ZX Spectrum games tended towards the more immediate such as R-Type, Jet-Pac, and OutRun, or the more cerebral such as Rebelstar, Knight Lore, and Rampart. I always found platform games somewhere in the middle, offering neither the directness of action packed arcade games of the more deliberate nature of exploration, puzzle, or strategy games.

All of which is a lot of background to talk about a Mario game that isn't a platformer. This is major plus for me as I get Nintendo's usual first party quality, with none of the faux inertia and mawkish delivery that plagues their mainstream efforts.

In case you've not played and of the Mario vs Donkey Kong games before, they generally involve an amount of puzzle platforming in which you direct robotic 'Mini Mario's' to an exit as you chase down DK.

Unique to this particular version, the gameplay has a lot in common with Lemmings. This largely manifests in the Mini's wandering about the stage freely, leaving you to manipulate elements of the stage on the touchscreen to guide them to the exit. This is a well worn path, but there's no doubt that it's delivered here with style. There are extra goals to achieve in every level, the addition of a tight window to get all your Mini's through the exit, and the not insubstantial addition of a level creation mode which, despite losing a chunk of it's appeal to closed servers, is still a lot of fun to tinker with.

As you would expect of Nintendo, then, this is a class product that, despite being fairly derivative and having fallen slightly victim to the march of technology, remains just a simple and entertaining puzzle game of very high quality.

Mr Driller: Drill till You Drop

There's a little personal irony in selecting this game in the 'Well Known...' bracket as, until a few days ago when I played this, I had never tried any game in this 20+ year old franchise.

And what I fool I've been. This gloriously colourful and instantly playable series is an absolute joy. 

If (like me a little while ago) you've never played the game, it works almost like a reverse Tetris. You start with a 'well' full of blocks and have a character (4 are available to choose from in this version) who stands on top of them and drills down with the goal being to reach a depth specified at the start of the level.

There are obviously complications on this simple format. Firstly you can drill in all four main directions. Secondly, blocks falling from above will crush you. Thirdly, you have to collect air capsules as you go. And, finally, the blocks here link by colour. This means you can sometimes clear very large areas, that spread in all directions, by drilling a single spot on a large mass of, say, green.

This all comes together into a wonderfully addictive package, with great music, sound effects, and visual design combining with the easy to play, yet hard to master mechanics.

Whether you're an old hand or recent convert like myself, Drill till you Drop is a fantastic action puzzler that has made me an instant evangelist of the brand.

Also Rans

Magnetic Joe

A mobile port that starts promisingly but quickly asks you to be quite accurate with mechanics that are not fit for purpose.

Guiding a ball through a maze using magnetic force is exactly the kind of simple game I can usually get behind - but the inaccuracy of control offered here makes the whole thing unforgivably frustrating.

'N' is, obviously, up next but I have a sneaky suspicion we'll be in for a double bill again.

Until then, thanks for reading, I'd love your thoughts and feedback in the comments.

See you next time.

Day 74: Brute Force (Xbox)

A game billed as a 'Halo Killer' is today's randomly selected title from my 563 game backlog; one played for every day that the UK is in lockdown...

Brute Force for the Xbox
Previous days' entries can be read HERE

One day, probably in the not too distant future, VR is going to catch on, properly catch on and slowly become the norm for video games.

It will take a few things for this to happen. Hardware prices need to come down, obviously, but more importantly software quality needs to improve.

VR is currently a growth market, and more and more games are trying to take their piece of the pie. Yesterday I played ‘PayDay 2 VR’, a free add-on for the main game that was itself free on one of the major platforms not so long ago. It was a bit of a mess; a low effort grab for a slice of the VR pie, but another game ticked off the ‘unplayed’ list nonetheless.

There are very good VR games out there. ‘Half Life Alyx’ may not be the giant leap that many claim (Valve’s control-freak tendencies sadly ruin it’s potential) but it’s a great tech-demo for what can be achieved on the format in terms of presentation and, when games start to emerge with the playability of ‘Superhot VR’ or ‘Robo Recall’ and the polish of ‘Half Life’, VR will finally become the next chapter in the ongoing history of video games.

And make no mistake: Video games need this to happen. The medium has been stagnant for two decades. The last notable step forward was when consoles entered the online space in their sixth generation, and all that has happened since has just been the application of layer upon layer of polish.

When VR finally sticks it’s landing, the knock on effect will be that games from the turn-of-the-century will finally be believably categorised as retro - and first in line for that (dubious) honour will be games like ‘Brute Force’.

Day 68: To the Earth (NES)

Busting out the NES Zapper in my ongoing efforts to play one randomly selected title from my 565 game backlog for every day that the UK is in lockdown...

To the Earth for the NES
Previous days' entries can be read HERE

Did you know there are only seventeen games for the NES ‘Zapper’ accessory? That’s sixteen games that no-one has ever played because they aren’t ‘Duck Hunt’.

Okay. That’s not fair. 

I know there are fans out there of ‘Wild Gunman’, ‘Gum Shoe’, ‘Hogan’s Alley’, ‘Operation Wolf’, and ‘Freedom Force’. And a lot of people know of ‘Bayou Billy’, and ‘Barker Bill’.

But I reckon that about does it for the Zapper games that most people could name off the top of their head; not even half of them, by my maths.

Which is a shame because there’s a couple of games in the ‘other’ half that are better than most of the better known games. I don’t own SNK’s ‘Mechanized Attack’ as it’s US only, but I was able to play it at a game show a few years back and it’s definitely one of the better games for the peripheral and deserving of attention for more than it’s infamous debug screen. 

And then there’s ‘To the Earth’, which, incidentally, has possibly my favourite box art on the system; the lettering alone is pure joy to behold.

Gaming the Pandemic - Day 12: Glory Days (aka Super Army War) (GBA)

Latest in my attack on (at least) one title from my 632 game backlog every day that the UK is in 'lock-down'.

I'm not planning on completing them, just playing them for long enough to know: A) What they're all about and B) If they're good enough to continue playing ASAP

A step forward from the GBC yesterday to the GBA today as the randomiser has chosen...

Glory Days on the Game Boy Advance

Way back in 1984 there was a game on the Apple II called Rescue Raiders. A forerunner of Choplifter, it featured similar gameplay to that later game combined with light Real Time Strategy elements. 3 years later, initially on the same machine, came the slightly better known Wings of Fury. Similar to Rescue Raiders with it's side on view but with a more attack focused outlook and the helicopter swapped for a WWII, carrier launched, Hellcat fighter.

For some reason, 20 years after Rescue Raiders first saw the light of day, a french developer called Neko (who spent most of their days phoning in cash-grab licensed games for whomsoever hired them) decided to take these two classics, smoosh them together, and remake them into a game called Glory Days which was then rebranded to the mind numbingly generic 'Super Army War' in the US.

Being a wholesale rip-off of two good games means that Glory Days is itself a good game. You fly either the chopper or the Hellcat over the battlefield as the good-guys advance from the right and the bad-guys from the left, attacking with the weapons specific to either vehicle.

During their advance your troops capture bunkers, these generate extra cash, which in turn generates extra troops. So in destroying the enemy you help the ground troops advance to the next bunker and eventually to the enemy base for victory. Pretty standard RTS stuff, just simplified into a side on view.

The depictions of the troops, tanks, choppers, and fighters are all small but quite detailed. The style is pseudo-realistic and while it looks nice, to my tastes the pixels of Wings of Fury on the Amiga - or even the GBC - were more attractive. Glory Days is by no means a bad looking game, it just lacks a little personality. Additionally, on the original GBA or even the front-lit SP, Glory days can be quite hard to make out when there is a lot going on. It looks great on the Micro though and if that's not an option the DS is a great alternative.

I'm not generally a fan of the RTS genre but so much is taken care of automatically in Glory Days that I found it didn't bother me at all. In the earliest levels strategy is as light as choosing which targets to hit, more depth follows later in the game but it never takes away from the feeling that your actions in the air are having the most direct impact on the tide of the battle.

Basically, this is game that steals directly from too highly addictive classics and essentially lets you play them both at the same time. It may leave a bad taste in the mouth for some, but on pure entertainment value it's a hard game to fault.

Glory Days (GBA) - Perfect pocket plagiarism. 'Wings of Rescue Raiders' if you will.

Previously...

Day One was the excellent Luminees II on PSP

Day Two was the fun-but-probably-better-in-co-op Sanctum 2 on PC

Day Three was the pretty ropey but maybe worth a second chance on PS2 Dead to Rights 2 on Xbox

Day Four was the utterly stunning Pyre on PC

Day Five was the horribly aged but undeniably addictive skate it on the Wii

Day Six was the endearing and surprisingly competent Enduro Racer for the Sega Master System

Day Seven was the fun for a (very) quick burst Space Pirate Trainer in VR

Day Eight was the disappointingly awkward Draconus on ZX Spectrum

Day Nine was the idiosyncratic Ring of Red on PS2

Day Ten I lost half my text while trying to explain how Assassin's Creed Syndicate on PC was a pleasant, is simplistic, surprise.

Day Eleven was the utterly broken Perfect Dark on GBC

A-Z of MAME Hidden Gems - Y and Z are for...

After starting off way back in 2014 I recently discovered that I never finished my A-Z of MAME Hidden Gems - I only got as far as V... I was pretty annoyed with myself and resolved to knuckle down and get those last four letters squared away.

W and X were covered in the last post, which just leaves me with Y & Z...

If you'd have told me that Y would be by far the most difficult letter to find hidden gems for I wouldn't have believed you. Z I expected to be awkward by Y's just not a letter I'd think of in the same way... if I'd even considered it at all.

And yet, here I have just one game for 'Y', a game I'm listing under it's bootleg name that probably wouldn't have made it into the top ten choices for any other letter:


Yellow Cab

It's not that Yellow Cab (better known as Kamikaze Cabbie) is a bad game - it's from Data East after all and I'm pretty sure they don't know how to make bad games - it's just more 'interesting' than 'excellent'.

Played on a large overhead map the main goal of the game is to pick up a passenger in your cab and take them to another point on the map. From that you may infer that the game is a precursor to Crazy Taxi, but in fact it feels much more like the original Grand Theft Auto.

It's hectic fun and has some extra depth added by the presence of the police and the need to refuel regularly. Despite the my somewhat negative tone here it's well worth a play, but if I was to rank all the games I've covered over the course of this series it would definitely be nearer the bottom than the top.


And so, finally, after four years of intermittent blogging, playing, building, and configuring controls in the tab menu, I've reached the end. It's somehow fitting that this whole thing should finish with that most ubiquitous of hidden gem genres; the vertical shooter.


Zaviga

If you have read many of the other entries in this blog you'll know that I'm far from immune to the charms of a good gimmick.

Zaviga, (like Yellow Cab released in 1984 by Data East) is a vertical shooter whos gimmick is that it takes place both in the air as a jet fighter and on the ground as tank.
The game allows you to switch between the two at will and, from the little I've played, seems to scroll infidelity on a loop, with the enemies getting a little harder each time.

It's fair to say that, being quite an early game Zaviga isn't particularly blessed with complexities.

But complexities was never what this endeavour was about.

Hidden gems remain hidden because at first glance they may look simple, they may seem derivative or dated - but dig a little below the surface and you reveal a game that makes you happy, makes you nostalgic, or just makes you wish you hadn't overlooked it so many times before.

Zaviga captures all that brilliantly.

It may not be as gob-smacking as Boogie Wings, as surprising as Change Air Blade, or as awe-inspiring as Outfoxies... but it has charm in abundance. And really, at the end of the day, what more could you ask for than that?

A-Z of MAME Hidden gems - W and X are for...

So it's been a while...

One of the many things I enjoy about videogames is talking about them online and, unsurprisingly, the subject of MAME often comes up.

This happened recently when I pointed someone who was asking about lesser known arcade classics on the r/retrogaming sub-reddit to this very blog.

As part of the ensuing conversation they suggested I turn this weary old text dump into a nice new, easy to navigate database.Great idea, I thought, and immediately set to work...

A few days later I discovered that I never finished my A-Z of MAME Hidden Gems - I only got as far as V... I was pretty annoyed with myself and resolved to knuckle down and get those last four letters squared away - and that brings us to right now.

So first up, a fighter from the Capcom stable that has nonetheless remained somewhat hidden:
War-Zard

Okay so, full disclosure: Way (way) back when I was writing up the recommendations for 'R' I found this game under it's western title of 'Red Planet' - Knowing that the options for 'W' were likely to be very limited I tucked it away to unearth at the very moment.

It's worth the wait though!

War-Zard is primarily a fighter and, coming from this particular era of Capcom, you can be sure it has all the qualities you would expect.
The art is stunning, the character design is ingenious, and the special moves are very familiar.
With that said, the single player campaign of War-Zard goes far beyond that normally found in an arcade fighter.

Named 'Quest Mode' a lone player chooses one of the four main characters and proceeds to do battle against a wave of CPU controlled bosses.
Furthermore, items can be collected during fights that provide buffs and experience points are also gained that can be used to level up your chosen combatant.

It's pretty much the perfect fighter to play at home, at even includes a password system to pick up where you left off - which makes it all the stranger that this is the only CPS III game that Capcom made that never got ported to a home console or PC.


And if you think not getting a home release keeps a game under the radar, this next one never actually got a release in the arcades:
Wing Force

The story goes that this prototype game was lost forever until a PCB was found, bought for a considerable sum, and then (very generously) dumped to MAME so it could be enjoyed by all.
You can read all about it on this archived thread from the Shmups form: https://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?p=1155828#p1155828

It would have been a shame to lose Wing Force as it's a great little game. Very much in the Raiden mode it features wonderful animation and very smart craft design - with each power-up physically changing it's appearance.

Even without the intriguing back story this would still be well worth your time.

Onto to 'X', and more shooters, firstly:
X-Multiply

Being a horizontal shooter from Irem, X-Multiply is never going to avoid comparison to R-Type.
With a plot based on the cellular occupation of a woman by a microscopic alien force it would appear that the developers were keen to draw the line under their seminal genre example - but in truth niether this nor the organic style of the enemies and environments really manages to create any distance between the two games.

Luckily the ship design and unusual play style it generates more than make up for it.
Your craft has two tentacles that extend up and down from the hull, on the ends of which the weapons are mounted. These mechanical arms move fluidly around your ship as you manoeuvre through the levels and are impervious to enemy fire.

This makes for a great balance of offence and defence and you learn to shift seamlessly from positioning the arms for the best offensive alignment to ensuring they are a well place barrier between you and enemy fire.

Finally for today, a game that follows on the X-Multiply not just on this page, but in the evolution of weapon design.
Xexex

Despite coming from Konami Xexex actually looks and plays more like R-Type than X-Multiply ever did.
In a fair and just world a game that so blatantly steals all its best ideas from elsewhere wuldn't be any fun to play - luckily for us that isn't the case!

Xexex takes the tentacles from X-Multiply, adds a third arm, and then attaches the whole thing to a force orb.

Lets not pretend this is a life-altering innovation - but it offers just enough to make itself well worthy of inclusion here.

See you next time for 'Y' and 'Z'.

MAME Hidden Gems - T is for...

Play Thunder Jaws. I'm not going to give it a slot here as any credibility I have left after recommending Pachinko Sexy Reaction would be lost forever. But yeah, play Thunder Jaws. It's like Russ Meyer and Ed Wood got together to make a rip off Rolling Thunder... neither having made a game before... Genius.

Onwards...

Tenkomori Shooting fuses v-shmup mechanics with the slightly mental quick-fire style of Bishi-Bashi Special - and if that sentence doesn't make you want to play it then I'm afraid we can't be friends.

The front end of the game has something to do with a monkey going up a tower and beating a Game of Death style challenge on each floor for some reason.

However, unlike a yellow jumpsuit clad Bruce Lee, your challenges are less about fighting ex-basketball players and more about achieving a high-score on a bite sized vertical shooting game.

There are Galaga clones and 1942 clones, there are games where you fire hearts at a singer and others where you fire arrows at apples, you will try to serve sushi and assassinate a Shogun, you will even have to blow up UFOs with fireworks.

Tenkomori Shooting is one of those turn-the-sound-up-and-revel-in-the-madness games and, for me, there is no higher recommendation.

I'm doing it again I'm afraid, Touki Densyou Angel Eyes is a game that is fairly well known in Japan.

It has had releases on the Saturn and the Playstation and is pretty common on the tournament fighting scene.
It is, however, pretty much unknown to the vast majority of western gameophiles.

Yes, I did just make up that word.

There's always a voice in my head telling me not to bother with listing fighters, they seem like a bit of a hard sell.

This example stood out to me initially for the quality of the characters and animation, and for the bizarre way it combines the 2D hand drawn sprites with pre-rendered 3D ones.

It's a bit of a jar at first, but when you start to play, the game's Street Fighter style controls come so naturally, and the games technicalities are so user friendly, that I could not fail to be won over by it.

I hope it does the same for you.

There have been a few games I've detailed in this blog that have put me in mind of Nintendo's classic StarFox, but none moreso than Thunder Ceptor.

A bit of a caveat to it's selection: The arcade cabinet featured an analogue joystick, as most MAME Cabinets tend to go for a 4 or 8 way digital stick it may be something to bear in mind if you're a stickler for the genuine arcade experience.

But, as I've said before, the vast majority of people use MAME on a PC controlled with an Xbox 360 controller, so there's no problem there.

Anyway, Thunder Ceptor is an into the screen on rails sprite scaling shooter. It has more than a little in common with Space Harrier and while it doesn't really do enough to move itself out of the shadow of Yu Suzuki's masterpiece (how could it?) it has enough differences to make it worth your time.

Principle among these is the fuel meter. Rather than having lives, Thunder Ceptor instead puts you on the clock, challenging you to complete the level before your fuel runs out.
This overtone of the racing genre if further supported by inclusion of an accelerator alongside the usual shooting controls. Fortunately, none of the levels have corners, so steering is not required, otherwise we'd be into full on SCI territory.

There is a sequel to the game that was released less than a year after the first game called 3D Thunder Ceptor II, it featured stereoscopic 3D and power-ups but little else to recommend it over this original version. MAME does replicate the display by splitting the screen but for me this is just another reason to play the original... unless it appears on Oculus Rift, that is.

There were a couple of other games I decided against this time out:
Typhoon is a game I remember playing back in the day but I couldn't really recommend it on nostalgia alone, and Twinkle Star Sprites is a fusion of shooter and two-player Puzzle Bobble who's mechanics just seemed to elude me, the limitations of single player weren't in it's favour either.
Give them both a look though, if only a cursory one.

MAME Hidden Gems - S is for...

A quick run down of the nearly men before I get into the top 3 for 'S'...

Space Fury is a vector shooter in the asteroids style. It has a cool powerup system and looks great, but not only was it released as an unlockable on one Sega's myriad collections, but it also stops calculating the score after level 4, which annoyed me.
Suprise Attack is a game in the style of Rolling Thunder but set in space. Again it has some pretty neat power-ups but doesn't really do enough to stand out in the glut of this type of game.
Super Cross II is a very simplistic isometric motocross game, a little too simplistic to make the cut unfortunately. But it does offer a fun few minutes diversion and the sprites are impressive considering it's age.
Finally, Shock Troopers - 2nd Squad is another game that has seen fairly recent re-release. This evolution of the Commando/Ikari Warriors style shooter is definitely worth a look if you're unfamiliar.


Now, if you're anything like me you'll look at the screenshot below and think:
"That looks like a rather smart late 80's racer, got to be worth a look!"

This game is called Slipstream, just 150 prototypes were made by Capcom and it never entered full production.

According to the very helpful Arcade-History.com this makes it one of the rarest arcade machines of all time.

It's fast, fun, features three game modes and a neat boost gimmick based around staying in an opponents Slipstream. So what went wrong?

It was 1995.

To put it in perspective, that's a year after Sega Rally came out, 2 years after both Ridge Racer and Daytona USA first saw the light of day.

On the day it rolled off the production line, Slipstream was already old-hat. The spite scaling graphics rendering it an impossible sell to a market into which Sega and Namco were unleashing some of the most exhilarating driving experiences the arcades have ever seen.

However, playing the game now, unhindered by juxtaposition to such behemoths, its four brilliantly realised tracks, 9 cars, and OTT boost mechanic make for a game that has aged very well and is a joy to play.

When I played The Super Spy I didn't make it as far as this boss...

So I can't tell you if it's supposed to be a woman or a guy in drag, although looking at the size of those hands...

The Super Spy is an example of a lifeline that has helped me out of a spot with these entries more times than I can remember - A Neo Geo game.

There always seems to be something a bit mental about games on SNK's wildly expensive hardware, and that makes them a perfect fit for this blog.

This particular effort could lazily be described as Operation Wolf with fewer guns, but it reminded me most of the Aliens game released for ZX Spectrum, C64, Amstrad, and the like back in 1987.

As with Aliens, you control the movement from the first person perspective and move predominantly sideways, only occasionally being able to move 'forwards' through doors.

However, in Super Spy, you eventually come to a lift and entering it takes you, literally, to the next level. 

Each floor is crammed with an array of bad guys for you to despatch in a variety of ways.

You start with a pretty effective knife, however the power of this weapon reduces with each use.

You can also pick up a pistol that will despatch most enemies in one or two shots, but uses ammo very quickly. 

At some points a rescued hostage will even give you an insanely powerful but limited use machine gun.

The initial weapons, though, are you hands and feet. And this is what earns The Super Spy a place on this list.

The game features an incredibly in depth combat system that almost seems out of place alongside some of the other, somewhat rudimentary, elements.

It allows you to bob, weave, throw jabs, hooks, uppercuts, straight kicks, and knee bombs. It even has a timing based block mechanic.

It may not sound like much when described here, but when you take the time to fully understand the minutiae of the system it becomes immensely satisfying.

Luckily for me, following its arcade release Sōkyūgurentai made its way to some of the 6th generation consoles, but never outside Japan. 

Sometimes it feels churlish to be grateful that so few people have played these games - particularly when they s wonderful as this... but I'll get over it.

Often described as a spiritual successor to Rayforce, Sōkyūgurentai is a sprite based v-shmup that features a version of the lock-on mechanic that is synonymous with that series.

Considering the lack of true 3D the game has an incredible sense of depth. 

It's in view of this that the lock-on targeting system on each of the 3 available spacecraft is cone-shaped, each slight variation capturing all enemies that pass through it no matter their location on the pseudo 3D plane.

In the vein of the very best V-shmups, of which this definitely an example, the game features some deeply beautiful set pieces and some incredible boss battles.

During the latter, the unusual 4:3 display zooms far away from the action, just so that you can see the enormity of the foe you are trying to take down.

I understand if you're a bit burnt-out on schmups but this one is definitely worth your time. 

Moreover, if you prefer your shooters to be more about the shooting than avoiding a million brightly coloured bullets - then you won't be disappointed here.

MAME Hidden Gems - R is for...

I had very high hopes for R – Looking down my list of candidates I made way back when I played through the MAME catalogue there was a good haul noted here.

A little research has decimated the field though.

I probably should have realised that Ray Force was the first in the popular series that went on to include Ray Storm and Ray Tracers, and re-releases on the Playstation and Xbox (among others) meant I had to eliminate the excellent top-down open world car shooter Rush and Crash (AKA Speed Rumbler) and Rohga Armor Force (AKA Wolf Fang: Kuhga) in which you assemble your own mech before piloting it into H-Shmup action.

All of these games are more than worth a play, but my self imposed selection criteria means that I’ve had to pick others from my list for this entry.

The second and third choices were easy, and probably would have been selected anyway, but up first is Rabbit, a fighting game that I have to recommend with a rather large caveat – The rom is broken.

The main fault is that there is no sound, but there are other issues too, most notably that sprites occasionally blink momentarily into invisibility.

Another point of note is that it just barely squeaks past my criteria – it is a game with a release on console, namely Sega’s much maligned Saturn. However, as it was a Japan only title, and one that happened very close to the launch of the machine, I’ll allow it. On the plus side, this means that if you fall in love with it on MAME you have the option of tracking down a fully functional version.

In it’s favour though, on MAME Rabbit retains a recognisable but innovative fight system and beautiful character art.

Each of the ten highly original combatants come with a 'familiar', a spirit beast that can be summoned and used in combat.
The great thing about this mechanic is that it has both positive and negative effects – A heavy beast might increase the power of your attacks, for example, but it will also slow you down and shorten your jumps.
It adds a dimension I've not before in the genre and, while it may lack the fireworks of others of the era, it has enough going for it to recommend a play to fans of 2D fighters.

Sega's X arcade hardware was most famous for Yu Suzuki's excellent Afterburner and Power Drift games. But it was also the basis for much lesser known Racing Hero.

If you spot the branching pathed map during the attract mode for the game you would be forgiven for expecting Outrun with motorbikes... and in truth there is an element of that when you start playing, but the USP on this one is the structure of the stages.

Each is broken down into 2 elements: The first is Outrun style, racing through traffic to make a checkpoint before the timer runs out.
Make the checkpoint and you're into the second section. The traffic and scenery disappear and are replaced exclusively by other racing bikes and traditional track markings.

At the end of the two sections you're given the choice of two locations to race next, this is why the map on the scoreboard has that classic Sega look.

I don't know if it was the intention to give the impression that you're running late for a race and the first section involves speeding to make it on time - but that's the feeling I get every time I play this game. It's fast and fun, it looks great and has the full on Arcade feel that only comes with Sega's best efforts.


You won't see too many Tetris style games as I run through the alphabet in this blog, but I could not resist the brilliant Risky Challenge - despite it barely squeaking part my criteria.

The game (under it's original name Gussun Oyoyo) was released on SNES, Saturn, and PlayStation and this could have instantly excluded it from selection - were it not for the fact that none of these releases made it outside Japan.

Using elements that will be familiar to anyone who has played either Tetris or Lemmings, you have to build your little egg shaped guy a bridge to the level's exit using blocks that drop in from the top of the stage.

Challenge is added as the timer runs down and the level fills with water, and also by your guy wandering around aimlessly and doing more to help than hinder as you attempt to save his none existent neck.

I don't generally believe that puzzle games are a good fit for the arcade format, but Risky Challenge is an exception to that in a big way.

Obviously S is up next time, none of you guys have heard of Street Fighter 2, right?

MAME Hidden Gems - P & Q are for...

There are several excuses for why it has taken me so long to get around to writing this blog entry.

I moved house (quite unexpectedly)

As result stopped building my MAME cabinet.

I discovered my new boss has massive hang-ups about people using the internet at work.

I don't have a dedicated games room or even TV in the new house...

There are many sob stories and weak explanations I could offer but, when it comes down to it, on the three previous occasions in the past few months that I’ve tried to write this entry I’ve been stopped by a single unavoidable fact:

It may be where you'll find Pac Man and Power Drift, but the relatively unknown games in P and Q are rubbish.

This all means that you’re going to get just two games today; one for each letter, both of which are really interesting curios rather than fully fledged hidden gems. Both are definitely worth a look though. 

Pachinko Sexy Reaction is quite possibly the first game I ever played on MAME. I’m comfortable listing it as a hidden gem here but it does hold a relatively high profile and certain notoriety in the MAME community.

Pachinko is often described as Japanese pinball, which is nonsense. It’s a ‘game’ with far more in common with those coin waterfall things you find on every pier on the British coast – Pinball requires skill, Pachinko is entirely based on luck.

Rather than coins, Pachinko machines dispense a quantity of ball bearings to the player, who precedes to drop them in the top. From here they drop, hitting pins, bumpers, and scoring points on their way to the bottom. It’s a game as pointless as it is oddly addictive.

In a move that will delight anyone who buys into the spurious stereotype that all Japanese people are sexually repressed weirdos who buy used panties from vending machines during a grope filled commute to work on an overcrowded train… Pachinko Sexy Reaction aims to liven up the core game’s ‘mechanics’ by offering the player some soft-core hentai animation as a reward for achieving certain scores.

Now I can’t be sure if this was originally designed to titillate or amuse, but I can tell you that - through the sheer absurdity more than anything else - these scenes are very, very funny.

They are also surprisingly well drawn and animated.

It’s the comedy factor and surprising production standards that has lead me to recommend PSR here, as a game it is astoundingly limited. It is entirely likely that you will only play it once, spamming the credits button until you have witnessed each of the games bizarre cut-scenes. But playing it once is exactly what everyone (over a certain age) should aim to do with this game.

Quantum is a vector game designed to be played with a trackball – it should be a terrible candidate for MAME.

If you've never seen what vector graphics look like on a dedicated display you’re missing out. The pin-sharp lines and idiosyncratic mapping points are a stunning thing to behold.

When I first saw a Vectrex machine running at the Retroactive event in Leicester last year it went straight to the top of my Christmas list.

Then there’s the trackball. I recently discovered that this method of control is actually one of the cheaper input methods to add to a cabinet – but it should surprise no-one that the vast majority of people use MAME on a PC using an Xbox controller, rather than built into a purpose built cabinet.

So since it doesn’t look or control as it should then why is it here?

Mainly because it still plays great, with the limitations of the 1982 hardware the trackpad controls can be replaced with an eight way stick with very little loss to the fun-factor.

As for the graphics, if you’re playing on a CRT (As you really should for any game released before the turn of the century) they are still sharp and serve the purpose perfectly well.

But more than this, the number one reason for choosing Quantum is probably that it revealed itself to me as the likely inspiration for one of the first smartphone games I played that didn't feel restricted by the input method.

So this is not just a recommendation for Quantum, on MAME, but also a recommendation for Spirit, on Android and iOS (Not to be confused with also-good-but-contextually-irrelevant- Spirits).

Both games have the same central conceit; encircle the items on the screen with your reticule. It's a little like Qix has been set free from the restrictions of the lines.

It’s simple fun to begin with but as the screen gets busier and the types of enemy become more varied in their movements, both games become increasing challenging. Multiplier perks await those who capture multiple icons in a single ‘tail’ but the mechanics remain simple and the gameplay as addictive and any score chaser throughout the game.

Hopefully “R” will be a few days, rather than a few months, away. With the swathes of games I have starting with that initial letter I’m hoping I won’t have to scrabble around for nominations again!

Setting me up, knocking me back...

My god has it really been five months!?

I know this blog doesn't exactly have an army of loyal followers waiting with baited breath for each new entry - but I still feel guilty for not filling you few fine fellows in the the status of the project.

Apologies for that.

To get to the point, the project has been held up twice since the last update.

The first delay was self imposed as I decided to wait for a component that I hadn't originally planned for, but which would, and indeed still will, make building my cabinet far easier and maybe even improve the quality of the finished product. This delay took me to early March.

The second delay was out of my hands, and is the reason the project hasn't progressed. It occurred exactly a week after the first delay had been resolved.

Not long after getting back to work after the Christmas break I asked my boss if it was okay to use the internet briefly to check my Freegle posts, the conversation naturally lead to what I was looking for and when I said MDF her eyes lit up.

Turns out her finance is a painter/decorator and has had a stack of MDF clogging up her hallway for months, over Christmas they had argued about it and he'd finally agreed to throw it out.

It took a while to sort out picking it up from her, both of us have small cars,  live in different towns, etc, etc... But finally, in early March, we handed over the MDF in the car park at work and, for the price of  very uncomfortable 20 mile drive home, my garage was finally stocked with this:

A week later, that wasn't my garage any more.

We got a phone call from the landlord explaining that she had decided to sell the house and could we please find somewhere else to live ASAP, thanks.

As a result of all this my 23 consoles, 2 TVs, a scary amount of cabling, and basically the entire contents of my games room are in boxes in someone else's loft.

The MAME Cabinet project, all the components, MDF, and everything else, is in my girlfriend's parent's garage.
It isn't entirely inaccessible, but it is incredibly inconvenient, to the extent that I haven't been able to get over there at all to even look at it.

And with that my tale ends. The project is on hold, but definitely not cancelled.

There are upsides for me, if not for the project.

I now live here:

Have a view that looks like this:

And have discovered a love of mountain biking through narrow, unsuitable bridle paths in the nearby woods in my spare time.

As for the MAME Hidden Gems side of things. I think that may be more of a psychological block.
I have my laptop hooked up the TV and could easily be playing and writing these up - but I'm not, even though I probably should.

All of my gaming is currently taking place on a 3DS I bought a couple of months back.

Where I used to get a game of something or other in pretty much every day, since I moved both my 360 (the only console I didn't box and store) and my Steam account have lain dormant.

I put it down to not having a dedicated space, the cottage is beautiful but tiny and very open plan, we also only have one TV now.

Well. I think that about catches us up.
We're only staying in this house temporarily and using the savings we're making on rent to hopefully buy a place early next year.
I hope to get some hardcore time in the in-law's garage long before then though. so hopefully it won't be 5 months before the next update. I certainly aim to get a Hidden GEms post up in the near future.

Thanks everyone for your patience.

Mame Hidden Gems - O is for...

There must be something about the letter O.

There's not a lot of games that begin with the 15th letter of the alphabet but the quality over quantity rule has never been more apparent.
Even when you take away the well known classics Operations Wolf and Thunderbolt, Outrun and Outrunners - almost everything else was in contention for a place here.

I say 'almost' because Oriental Legend and its sequel are just average brawlers and Outzone is a commando style shooter that doesn't quite have the personality to stand out.

But everything else you will find listed below...

I'm going to kick off with Osman because this one is a bit special.

Created by the man who put together the original Strider, this game is seen by some as a 'pseudo-sequel' to the Capcom classic, although it has no official connection.

Osman, the titular protagonist, leaps, runs and slides around the game's levels in a way that more than a little echoes Strider Hiryu, but he has a fantastic trick up his sleeve that separates him from not only that character, but any other character before him.

Picking up power-ups allows Osman to create up to four shadows of himself. Each time you hit the attack button one of these clones is created and will stay in the spot where he first materialised for about 3 seconds and attack when you do.

Mastery of this deceptively complex mechanic allows you to attack the constant barrage of enemies, bosses and sub bosses from five places at once - and you'll need to - because this game is HARD.

The story, level design, characters, and aforementioned bosses are all entirely mental and rendered in an almost epileptic hail of colour and noise.

But through it all Osman is pure, hardcore, gameplay at it's very finest - You need to put this one near the very top of your 'must play' list.


If you were paying attention back in the Ks you might remember that I talked about discovering a genre I gave the moniker of Boss-Brawlers through researching and writing this blog. Oni - The Ninja Master, is another example of this sparsely populated area.

Unlike the better known Monster Maulers, Oni upgrades the usual brawler 2 button system to a fully rounded 2D fighting game move set.
Each of the three available fighters can string together combos and esecute specials and supers that follow the time honoured fireball and dragon punch template, these are tied to a super bar that can be charged by holding down a couple of buttons - should you get a break in the action long enough to do so.

When you put it altogether and start to understand the system this all makes for some frantic and spectacular battles.

When played in the marquee co-op mode the game's engine (and Mame's emulation of it) handles the massive - and brilliantly designed - boss enemies and two human controlled players on screen brilliantly. It is at it's best in this mode but it works just as well in 1 player, although sometimes frustratingly difficult - with only 5 levels to the game, this does add some welcome longevity.


There are very few of these blog entries that feature one game as good as Osman - but here's another one in the same post - Outfoxies is an absolute belter.

This is a 1-on-1 arena fighter played on a 2D plane with an insane amount of sprite scaling employed at times to keep both avatars on screen.

You pick one of seven available characters, each with their own bonkers biography.
For example there's Eve, the has-been film starlet. Now a thief to support her lavish lifestyle. She has the skill to break into Nox Fortress with the aid of her well-trained Lizard...

Or how about Danny and Demi the ex-Siamese twins, separated by a train crash...

The game's levels are no less ludicrous and if any anything have even more character.
Similarly to Powerstone 2, a game it pre-dates by over half a decade, the environments in Outfoxies evolve the more time you spend in them.
There's a plane that pitches and dives, rotating the level as it does so, and a boat that behaves similarly but occasionally submerges.
Another is a building filled with aquariums that rupture over time, filling the level with water... and piranhas... and sharks.

Weapons ranging from swords to rocket launchers are dropped around these labyrinthine, interactive levels and these are essential to achieving the games simple goal of the killing the other player before they kill you.

The graphics, sound, and music of Outfoxies have the feeling of been thrown together - but it works brilliantly - the game is loaded with manic atmosphere and boundless energy. It's one of those games you simply have to play to understand the full extent of it's appeal - I hope I've done enough here to make you give it a shot.


That's almost it but for a quick shout for Omega Fighter, a v-shmup that doesn't quite do enough for a full write-up, but I love it's concept of the whole game being an assault on a single giant mothership. Check it out if you get a chance.


#Arcade #Mame #Hidden Gems

Mame Hidden Gems - N is for...

Well, I have to admit, this isn't the most auspicious start to the second half of the Alphabet.

Don't get me wrong, I've found 3 games that are worth a look - but that's about it - none of them are going to rock your world in the way others might, and in the way that at least one entry in the forthcoming 'O' section is likely too.

So forgive me if this is a tad brief, but believe me when I say that all these games are worth at least a cursory glance.

First up, the obligatory shmup, Nebulas Ray.

When you first load up Namco's 1994 V-shmup into MAME you get a warning that the sound emulation isn't 100% - I only mention this because the other common warning, that the video emulation isn't 100%, is rather conspicuous by it's absence.

The original arcade version of Nebulas Ray features a couple of 3D effects that don't make it to the MAME version, but even without them it's a great looking game, full of enormous mother ships, fighters coming at you from all directions, and a full on action soundtrack complete with a barrage of radio chatter that makes Fox McCloud and his mates sound positively taciturn by comparison.

The constant broken English dialogue might grate on some, but to me it helps to turn this rather straightforward shooter into something a little more, and it does this by providing a great arcade atmosphere, something you'll never quite get from screenshots and videos.


Similarly, Night Slashers' allure comes more from it's concept than it's execution.

The 1993 brawler from those borderline-geniuses at Data East uses videogames' marketings oldest ally, gory violence, as it's hook.

Fortunately, it builds on its Zombie apocalypse premise with versatile combat mechanics and a good number of beautifully drawn undead on screen at any given time.

There are fantastic bosses two. Horror staples such as Frankenstein's Monster, The Grim Reaper, and Dracula all make appearances and, while offering a considerable challenge, never feel cheap.

Make sure you get the Japanese version if you like your blood red rather than green!


Style over substance would appear to be the theme of the day as I round things out with Numan Athletics.

Best experienced with 3 friends and a case of beer, Numan Athletics is a superhuman take on the International Track and Field style of game.

There are 8 events in total, some of which are familiar in concept, if not name.
Turbo Dash is a straight 100m style sprint, Missle Toss is Javelin, Niagra Jumps is the Triple Jump - although what Niagara Falls is doing in South Africa is anyone's guess.

However there are several others that forgo the button bashing for more skill based mini games.
Numan Sniper, for example, is all about reflexes, Tower Jumper dares you to leave your pounce as late as possible for the best available elevation as you wall-jump between Paris apartment blocks.

There is no hiding the fact that this is all simply a fresh coat of paint on an age old concept.

But it is a pretty great coat of paint; the four available avatars are characterful and nicely designed, the music and sound support the concept wonderfully and the backgrounds are usually great fun too.

One final note, Numan has a sequel, Mach Breakers, which is well worth a look if you enjoy the vanilla version.


#Arcade #Mame #Retrogaming