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.

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