Setting the scale...

Some of you may have seen that I posted a couple of early design mock ups for my cabinet on google+ earlier today - cheers to everyone that gave feedback.

I asked you to choose your favourite from these two:

And the overwhelming majority went with A, we have a lot of marquee fans out there!
I understand why too. It's a very evocative design, as reminiscent of arcades as sticky floors, the Space Harrier intro, and an alcoholic tramp scrounging for change in the coin drawers.

But here's the problem:

That's my games room and, assuming I find somewhere to put it in there, design (A) just won't fit the style.

So I went back to the drawing board (or tablet and and sketchup to be precise) and came up with design (C):

And I'm really happy with it. It's kind of a homage to the classic arcade cabinet design with a more compact, personal spin.
I was going to use the marquee on design (A) to house some electronic gubbins and I lose that with this design, but I have enough space up there to fit the sexy power button that +Dave Whiffin is going to send me so that's something at least.

This flurry of design activity came about as a result of finally taking the cover off the monitor and a decision I have had to make as a result:

I will be leaving the plastic surround on the front of the screen.

This has not been an easy choice to make, the difficulties of attaining a quality looking finish will not be easy with a mix of plastic, softwood, and MDF... but every difficulty I have encountered with CRT monitors has come as a result of removing it from structural security of the pre-formed housing.

Off the back of this I've been able to get some decent measurements, and thus the designs I produced today.

It has also enabled me to formally layout my controls to scale:

As much as it tempting to go for the classic arced layout to mimic the shape of ones fingers, this design give greater versatility, as illustrated by using the upper four buttons as right joystick controls. I'll be aligning those four buttons horizontally with the joystick for same reason.
The only other thing to do was position the whole set on the board, which I've done for maximum movement space and I've left lots of hand-rest space at the bottom too.

That's all I have for now, one of these days I'll actually get out in the garage and start building the damn thing.


#MAME #Arcade #Retrogaming

Setting the volume to 11...

So, yesterday my replacement amp turned up, pretty decent delivery time from China, so I set about putting into the system without destroying it... or my PC... or my house.

This, you may remember, is the amp in question:

First up I should thank a guy called +Paul Huinink whose Youtube video helped me to figure out how to wire my head phone jack to the three pin connector.

Having figured the sound input bit out (with Paul's help) and fiddled around with getting the three wires wrapped around the pins whilst simultaneously watching Match of the Day - after that, everything else was pretty simple.

Here's a video (Yeah, video, I'm stepping up my game with this blogging shenanigans!) of the test rig I set up. (You'll need sound, obviously.)

Link to video

Not sure what's with the the PC needing two attempts to fire up - think it might be a safety feature as it's only done it when the case is open.
You can see that I used the PC for power only and took the sound from my Asus Transformer tablet, it was just more convenient for this test and as the amp is wired to a standard 3.5 headphone jack the sound can come from anywhere.

Having proven the concept to myself and managed to not burn the house down I set about installing the thing inside the PC cabinet.

I had a rummage around in my tub-of-random-stuff that lives in the garage and came up with these.

I then pulled the front off the PC which revealed a honeycomb plate, ideal for my purposes.

First thing I did was insulate the back of the pcb in typically lo-tech fashion (gaffer tape) and I also used the cable ties as plastic washers by wrapping one tight around each screw between the PC cabinet and the PCB.
The bolts turned out to be superfluous - the screws I found may have been varying lengths, but they were exactly the right diameter to hold fast to the board without fixing from the other side - which was a bit of result really as it was enough of a fiddly bastard already.

Eventually it looked like this:

You can see the cut cables from my test power source in the foreground. There was a small connector block in my tub-of-random-stuff so I decided to put it to good use.
I also found some sticky back tabs with holes for cable ties so, after a bit of tidying up, it looked like this:

Both the headphone plug and the speaker wires run out through an open pcb slot in the back of the machine.

Unfortunately, I'm getting a bit of interference with this set up. Seems to be when the HDD is getting a bit of a workout. I tried putting the PCB in different locations but it made no difference.

The problem  mainly manifests at start up and shut down, so it's not a biggy - just an annoyance. 

Because of this I may remove the component from the case and reposition elsewhere in the cabinet when it comes to the final build, but for now...

Link to video

I should add that the noise on that video is some idiot rubbing his finger against the microphone, not the interference I mentioned above!

I'm really happy to have all this together and especially to have implemented the sound without the need for an additional power source.

So as far as components are concerned I'm all ready to go, I just need to find the time to get started on the woodwork - and the inclination to get out in the freezing garage to do so.

#mame #arcade #Retrogaming

Setting things off... again.

Well, here it is, at long last, I finally have a dedicated PC to fit into my MAME Cabinet.





















This little fella came pre-installed with a legit copy of Windows 7 Home Premium 32 Bit.
It has a dual core Pentium 3.20GHz processor, 4 gigs of RAM, and Terrabyte Sata 3 harddrive.

In short, it more than meets my needs for the cabinet.

Unfortunately it had previously been on loan to a woman in her 60's so it also came pre-installed with a fair amount amount of adware and enough browser toolbars to fill half the screen.

Even more unfortunately, in attempting to wire my mini amp from an internal source in the PC I managed to blow it up, the amp that is, not the PC, so I need to get a replacement.

If you take a look at the budget I set out in this post you will see that I have £14.50 left in the budget, with allocated £9.99 for wood filler.

Which leaves me £4.16p for a replacement amp...

Ta-daaa!

Yes, I know that says £4.17 but what's a penny between friends?

So that's my budget spent. Any other calamities and I will have failed my target of building the whole thing for £50 (and a penny).


But lets not forget the main news here, that being the arrival of the PC.
Now that I the base unit it's great knowing that I can kick off 2014 by getting stuck into construction and assembly part of the project.

Happy new year everyone.

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

Mame Hidden Gems A-M Round-up

I had expected my first post of December to be an update on my delayed challenge/project to build a Bartop Style MAME cabinet for £50 or less. Said update would have been fuelled by the delivery of a PC from my brother who, on Saturday, brought his family down to the coast to visit.

Unfortunately forgetfulness is a family trait - so I still don't have a dedicated PC for the cabinet.

The good news is that his company ship stuff around the country fairly regularly and he's agreed to send it down... although I won't be holding my breath!

So, rather than move straight onto N I've decided to mark halfway with a round up of what I've highlighted so far... Maybe by the time I've got to Z I'll actually have something to play these games on!

I kicked things off in the numbers with '99 The Last War - a fun Space Invaders style game with neat sprite scaling, next was 64th Street - a 30's USA set brawler, and finally there was 1-on-1 Government - a very cool basketball game with more than dash of fighting game inspiration.

I tested the limits of the 'Hidden Gem' moniker with Alien vs Predator in the As, but made up for that stretch with the Chase H.Q.-esque A.B.Cop and gorgeous mech-brawler Armored Warriors.

B brought to my attention the incredible Boogie Wings, a game that I now consider one of the best I've ever played. I wrote so much about it that I only had enough room left for a quick mention of simple-but-fun twin stick shooter Bullet.

Cotton 2, the Japan only horizontal cute-em-up started me off in C, followed by the Saturday matinee style Cliffhanger: Edward Randy. Last up was Change Air Blade, the entirely brilliant mash-up of fighting games and vertical shooters.

D began with eye candy v-shmup Dragon Blaze and continued on to mad sprite scaling, multi-directional fighter Dark Edge. Drift Out '94, the isometric/top down racer, was last up although I name dropped the two Dungeons and Dragons games which would have been featured had I been writing the last year, before they were re-released through XBLA/PSN.

A similar fate befell Esp Ra. De, EspGaluda, Eco Fighters, and Exzisus - all of which fell foul of my controls on what can be considered a hidden gem by being featured in various re-release collections. 
The honours for E instead went to '84 vertical shooter Equites, OTT first person mech shooter Enforce, and slightly mental but entirely brilliant v-shmup Explosive Breaker.

The audio visual barrage of contra-esque Finest Hour was the first to get a mention in the F bracket, Cave made their first appearance with Disco themed v-shmup Fever S.O.S, and lastly the simple but crazy addictive Fast Lane from Konami proved that classic concepts can still be improved upon.

There were so many great hidden gems starting with G that I had to split them into 4 categories. 
There should have been a fifth called 'Games the author has never heard of but which have achieved classic status to everyone else in the world" after I originally included Prehistoric Isle under its Japanese name!
The first actual bracket was (predictably) v-shumps and included the beautiful G-Stream G2020 along with Guardian Storm and Gunnail.
The second batch was 'Other Shooters' and contained into-the-screen sprite scaler Galactic Storm, Ikari Warriors style Gundhara, and multi-weapon-orb-spaceship side-scroller Gigandes.
Penultimately I grouped together 4 brawlers and started with the bewildering attention to detail of Guardians, the satisfying combos of Gaia Crusaders, and the platform infused action adventurer Ganryu. I rounded things off with Gun Master, which I still can't find a pithier way to describe than 'Gunstar Heroes meets Smash Brothers' - even though it pains me to do so.
The final group was the unusual crossover genre that I called Pinball Hybrids. It included Pinball-X-Breakout Gunbird spin off Gunbarrich, Pinball-X-Ikari Warriors stylings from Gunball, and Pinball-X-Vshmup shenanigans from Grand Cross.

When I finally moved on to H I still struggled to choose just three games and gave brief shouts to the original Hoops from Data East, Moon Patrol style shooter Horizon, and does-everything-well-but-nothing-spectacularly v-shmup Hotdog Storm. 
My attention then turned to transforming mech H-schmup Hyper Duel, future sports done right in Heavy Smash, and shameless nostalgia choice Hot Chase.

Such was the dirth of quality on offer that I had to bundle the choices for I & J into one post. 
Luckily the choices included I, Robot which, coming from 1983, seems decades ahead of it's time.
For I there was also the incredibly beautiful submarine h-shmup In The Hunt. 
J only really offered pseudo 3D space-invaders style shooter Juno First - although I still think everyone should play Journey; which is genuinely the game of the band.

Two thirds of the K games were shmups, vertical shooter and racing hybrid Kingdom Grand Prix was kept company by parallax heavy H-shmup Koutetso Yousai Strahl. I also cheekily included boss-brawler Monster Maulers under it's Japanese name Kyukyoku Sentai Dadandarn.

L was a bit of struggle but I finally plumped tap-the-fire-button-like-a-crazy-person v-shmup Lethal Thunder, Afterburner style shooter Lock On, and top down fighter/racer Lethal Crash Race.

And then, just a couple of days ago I got to M and finally got to wax lyrical about the exquisite Mille Miglia before going on to recommend the excellent multi-directional heli-shooter Metal Hawk and wonderfully designed Sunset Riders style brawler Mystic Warriors.

All of which brings me bang up to date.

I hope those of you who have been reading these have had a chance to give some of these games a look, and if so I'd love to know what you thought of them - even if those thoughts are about how completely wrong I am!

I'll be back soon with N and, hopefully, a budget Mame cabinet update!

#MAME #Arcade #Retrogaming

Mame Hidden Gems - M is for...

There are times when I find this blog quite difficult to write, times when the words just don't want to come.
There are times (I'm looking at you 'L') when I find it hard to find anything to say about the games that I'm trying to recommend... which is weird, as that's kind of the whole point, but happily that is far from the case today.

A game starting with M, Mille Miglia - The Great 1000 Miles Rally, is what that inspired me to build a Mame cabinet and that in turn inspired me to start this blog.
So here it is, slap bang in the middle of the alphabet, marking the halfway point with ultimate style.

Mille Miglia is special in quite an evasive way; it's difficult to pin down exactly why it feels like one of the best games I've played, it's exactly that - a feeling - and those are always such a bugger to quantify!

Obviously the graphics are beautiful, some of the finest sprite renditions of classic sports cars you'll ever see.
There are ten to choose from ranging across several makes and models; from a D-Type Jag to a huge Merc SSKL and even the beautiful Ferrari 250 GTO. All the cars appear to official licensing too.

Then there's the sound. Mille Miglia has no in game music but each of cars has a unique engine note that is punctured by the squeal of tyre as you throw your vehicle full bloodedly into hairpin bends and unforgiving chicanes.

The tracks are special too - not visually, you view the action from kind of isometric top-down view and, some neat detailing aside, most of the 13 courses look fairly similar as they blur by in the 60 seconds you have to complete each of them.

The quality comes from the track layouts which are always fun and always challenging.
The game's HUD constantly gives you an indication of the next corner to come, and this always flashes up a set time before a corner begins. Because of this, when you get in the zone, you'll be starting your turn before the corner has even appeared on the screen.

When it comes down to it though, the controls are probably what makes Mille Miglia so special.
All the cars handle identically, I suspect this is because it's impossible to have ten different variations on perfection.
You hurl your car into every corner at top speed, tail sliding, tires squealing, emerging through the apex with a huge grin as the game auto-centres in the direction of travel, just in time to be flung in another screeching arc before you can catch breath - Ridge Racer at it's finest never made you feel like this much of a driving god.


Although different in every quantifiable way, Metal Hawk does share some of these less measurable qualities.

In Metal Hawk you control a Helicopter from an overhead view. You can move forwards, backwards, left and right to track down your targets.
The game is given an extra dimension, both figuratively and literally by also having altitude control.
Each level has a time limit and set targets that must be destroyed in this time - they are highlighted with a yellow reticule when on screen and when they're not you are given an arrow to show the nearest targets direction and an indication of whether you need to be higher or lower also flashed on screen.

Unlike some of these Hidden Gems the production standards are pretty damn impressive too - I my have mentioned previously that I'm a huge fan of sprite scaling, I don't know what it is about the effect that gives me so much pleasure, but it always does. In this game it is incredibly smooth and both your helicopter and all the enemies are very neatly realised.

I guarantee that after you've been playing Metal Hawk for a while you start to feel like a bit of a chopper ninja; climbing and diving between targets and picking them before quickly moving to the next, what higher recommendation could there be than that?


Finally, and with another change of genre, we come to Mystic Warriors.

I could simply suggest that if you've played and enjoyed Sunset Riders then you need to play Mystic Warriors. And, now that I have, there may be no-one left reading this... but, assuming you've resisted, I'll add this - Mystic Warriors, made by the same team that put together Konami's western classic, is a better game.

The general controls are pretty similar to those of the better known game, you move left to right flinging shruikens  instead of bullets and the firing up and into the background effect is also retained here. There are melee attacks and magic as a bonus, and a very handy sliding move too.

It's the inventiveness of the levels that sets Mystic Warriors apart from pretty much every other game of it's ilk.
There's a great nod to Sunset Riders near the end of the first level but to take level two as a better example (I wouldn't want to spoil the discovery of anything later in the game) you spend the first half of the level making your way up a snow covered mountain.
You make use of a ski lift at one point and engage in a game of grenade hot potato at another.
Then, having reached the summit, you spend the second half of the level skiing down the other side whilst fighting off waves of goons with your projectile weapon.
It's all very Roger Moore era James Bond only with a ninja instead of a middle aged misogynist - and we all know that the skiing stunts were the best parts of those movies.


#MAME #ARCADE #RETROGAMING #HIDDEN GEMS