Mame Hidden Gems - G is for... (Pt2)

Last time out was the turn of Vertical Scrolling Shooters, this time out the theme goes by the pithy title: Other Shooters

How do I come up with these things...?

First up, Galactic Storm released by Taito in 1991.

Good old fashioned fly into the screen the shoot everything that moves action in this one.

Despite shades of Space Harrier, Starfox, Galaxy Force 2 and the likes, the great sprite-scaling 3D effects and some neat original level design help to keep things fresh - and the oddly laid back soundtrack give the whole thing an atmosphere all it's own.

Not a lot more to say than that really, it's just a hell of a lot of fun and, if you can resist spamming the coin button, a pretty intense challenge.


Next up is Gundhara, a shooter in the Ikari Wariors/Commando vein.

This 1995 effort comes from Banpresto, a company whose name I've seen a surprising amount while compiling these posts.

The game gives you a choice of two guys who play pretty much identically. Having chosen from either Jerry or Jinn you press on, ever upwards, shooting everything and everyone with pause only given to rescue the occasional brat tied inexplicably to an oil barrel - I have to admit though, there is something incredibly annoying about these little twerps and if you can resist 'accidentally' gunning them down then you're a better person than me.

There's a simple but effective directional fire mechanic to give you the edge in your quest.
You fire whichever way you happen to be facing, but if you hold down the button it locks the direction of fire allowing you to strafe in any direction.

There's a neat levelling power up system too. Picking up different weapons swaps them out, picking up the same weapon you already hold increases it's power.

There's also a couple of great looking vehicle elements in the game, in one you ride a motorbike and in another you pilot a mech. They both serve to break up the standard gameplay very nicely.

There's a lot going on in Gundhara but it manages to balance it all into a challenging and fun experience without ever seeming to take itself entirely seriously - and that's something that should always be applauded.


A couple of h.shmups to round things up, firstly - Gigandes.

Gigandes comes from a company call East Technology, of whom I have never heard. It also comes from 1989.

It is not the prettiest of games. The sprites are well drawn but the backgrounds fit in the vast range between empty and slightly less empty.

However the hook with Gigandes, like so many of the best shooters, is the power up system.

This time it's all about multiple weapons.
Your tiny spherical craft can equip up to four weapons at a time all of which can be powered-up individually - which, in itself, is nothing new.
Uniquely, in Gigandes each of these weapons is attached to an individual side of the ship - top, bottom, front, and back - and each fires in the corresponding direction.
The weapon will be attached to which ever side of your craft you ram into the icon with, this applies to choosing which weapon is affected by the power-up icon.

Unlike just about every shooter ever, getting killed does not rob you of your accumulated weapons.
You start each new level with just a simple cannon, no matter what you had equipped at the end of the previous one, but soon you'll be firing in every direction of the screen at once - that the game still remains a significant challenge despite this a great achievement.

Whether you have full compliment of weaponry or just the starting cannon pressing the second button allows the weapons section of the ship can be rotated, one section at a time, about the bot of the craft. This ensures that you can always have your most powerful gun pointed at the meanest looking bad guy. There's even a secondary function whereby holding the button moves whichever weapon is attached to the bottom to pivot 45 degrees - basically it can point south, south-west, or south-east.

As I mentioned when recommending Guardian Force previously, directional fire can sometimes be redundant in isolation. But as with that game, Gigandes has the level design and enemy attack pattern to ensure you are tapping away as furiously at B to rotate button as you are at A to fire.


Last up, the answer to what made the dinosaurs extinct, Genshi-Tou 1930's.

This one comes courtesy of SNK and, like Gigandes, comes from 1989.
Also like Gigandes is a power-up system that involves rotation, although this time it is of the more usual 'pod' design.
I never know quite what the correct name is for these things. In R-Type I always called it the 'Force', in Gradius I believe it's referred to as 'Option'. Is there a standard generic term?
Anyway, in this excellently atmospheric game you pilot a biplane to a Jurassic park style island and gun down everything you find there.

My game was in Japanese so if there is anything more subtle going on it was lost on me.

The pod style power-up is rotated around your ship with the second button. The type of shot fired changing depends on where you position it.
Position it out front and you get a more powerful supplement to you standard gun, position it underneath your plane and you get a spreadshot fired towards the ground, out back it will drop mines and placed up above it will give you the spreadshot again, only fired upwards.

The need for such a range of fire modes becomes apparent very quickly. You are attacked from the ground by land based dinosaurs who jump to try and hit your plane. They are accompanied by cavemen who will grab onto your plane entertainingly if you get too close - A little joystick jiggling is required toshake them off.
Additionally, as you move further into the game, the levels begin to scroll in various directions, further necessitating the need to adjust the direction of fire accordingly.

For '89 this game is a stunner, great sprites, massive bosses, fun effects and interactions, it all comes together under the original premise to create an experience that should not be missed.


#Retrogaming $Gaming #Arcade #Mame

Mame Hidden Gems - G is for... (Pt1)

Note: Most of this post has disappeared into the void. No idea what has happened but I'll endeavour to get it rewritten soon.

Let me fill you in on a little of the process by which these blog entries come about.

Firstly, about a month ago, I played through every Mame game I could find.
A collection of around 9000 files was weeded out for poker games, Mahjong games, trackball games and just plain old bad games.
This gave me my 'Long List' - about 1300 games.

As I had been whittling down from 9000 to 1300 I made notes of any game that I wasn't already aware of but which impressed me - and it's these notes that I refer to when writing this blog.

I know this sounds like pointless ramblings but I promise you that I'm going somewhere, do bear with me.

For each of the previous letters of the alphabet I have chosen my three recommendations from between 2 and 8 games, from my notes, that fit the bill.
For example I'd noted 4 games originally for A, B had 6 notable entries, E had only 4...

For games beginning with 'G' there were 23.

After eliminating those that that only flew under my personal radar rather the games community's in general (Guwange, seriously, how did I miss that!?) I'm left with 15 'actual' hidden gems.

And I don't want to drop any of them.

So here's what's going to happen:
I'm going to divide them up into categories and the next 4 'Hidden Gem' posts will be themed accordingly.
The first of these categories is, predictably, Vertically Scrolling Shooters.
So - finally - here we go with 3 best slightly obscure V.shumps the letter G has to offer.

First up, G-Stream G2020.
As you can probably tell from that picture, this one is a real beauty, ground and air based enemies are all beautifully drawn and have a real feeling of weight to them.
The game was designed by a guy called Toshiaki Fushino who bloodied some ideas in this that have apparently gone on to become mainstays on the recent hardcore gaming scene.
Primarily, there's a great power-up system whereby the three types of shot fired by your ship are proportionate in power to the coloured cubes that fill the representative bar.
If you manage to fill the bar with a single colour that weapon becomes a super weapon.
It's great system and really adds an extra level to proceedings.
To further as to your arsenal there are two super bomb types.
The first is a standard big-explosion-that-blows-lots-of-stuff-up bomb and is fuelled by simple pick-ups.
This second is a 'black hole bomb' that absorbs enemy fire and is powered by medals that are dropped when enemies are destroyed.
The combination of all these mechanics and the fantastic design make G-Stream a great game, and it's all rounded of by a well pitched difficulty level too.

Note: The post went on to recommend Guardian Storm and Gunnail

Setting up a test bed... again...

Very brief update on the monitor situation:

Basically:

This puppy is a Dell M770 from around the turn of the century.
Its listed everywhere as 17 inch. Corner to corner inside the plastic is only 16, and only there's 15 actually being used by the display.
It doesn't seem quite as crisp as the previous unit (R.I.P.) but it's more than up to the task at hand.

I'm about to strip it down to check the gubbins are in good dismantle-able order... I'll update in the next full post.

But basically - back in the game.


#Retrogaming #Arcade #Mame

Setting me back...

The other day I was remarking to myself how lucky I'd been so far on this project, every potential issue or shabby piece of planning turned into nothing more than little hiccough on my journey to cut-price Mame cabinet glory.

Today, not 5 minutes ago, I blew up my monitor.

I was being an idiot, I have the screen out of it's casing, as you may have seen from pictures in previous posts, and for some reason I decided to try and rotate the whole thing with the power still connected.

I guess if I want to find something lucky about this then the fact that I'm not dead would probably be it.

So it's back to Freegle to find a replacement - I'll probably go back and contact some of the people who I rejected first time around, see if they're still feeling charitable. Needless to say this feels lie a bigger set back than anything that has happened previously.

But anyway.

This all happened because of a conundrum I have regarding the design of my cabinet. 

I'm toying with the idea of spinning my monitor 90 degrees - just to offer that extra bit of authenticity to the many (many) vertical shooters and older games that have made the cut into my Mame selection.

There are pros and cons to this approach, the big (and probably only) Pro is how great V.shmups look.
I wouldn't have believed this to be such a profound difference if I hadn't seen it for myself, so it's tricky to put into words.

The best stat I can offer is that, as the diagram below illustrates, it increases the size of the image size by 37%

The cons are that, for every other genre of game, the screen size is reduced by the same 37%.
Remember that this is 14" screen, when mounted vertically you would have a usable screen size of 6"x7"  - a diagonal measurement of just 9 inches - in which to try and appreciate beautiful games like STUN Runner, Powerdrift, or Street Fighter 3.

It shouldn't really be a question at all, I have far more games suited to a horizontal screen than a vertical one, and as much as a enjoy v.shmups they are not my favourite genre, fighting and old school racing games would both rank higher on a personal genre preference list and both suit a horizontal set up better.

But there is something a little bit special about a vertical screen that is unquantifiable in words and numbers.

So I've devised a third option.

It is feasible that I could mount the entire screen with its PCB inside a cube housing that was removable from the control deck and PC section.
This would allow me to physically rotate the screen to suit whichever game I'm playing at any given time.

This is a great solution in theory, but there are downsides.

The original dimensions for the screen area of the cabinet would have been about H35cm x W38cm.
To create this rotatable arrangement that increases to 40cm in both directions - it's not a massive increase, and the height is the main victim which is preferable to the width.

But, considering what happened a few moments ago, is it worth it?


#Mame #Arcade #Retrogaming

Mame Hidden Gems - F is for...

First up, an apology:

I was reading back a few of these blog entries last night and was appalled by the number of typos I make - I think there are at least 5 in every post.
I will endeavour to do better in the future!

I'm also a little disappointed in the games listed under E. The pickings were slim and, while I stand by the choices and think they are all games everyone should play, I'm not sure they were all keepers.

Anyway, onwards.

I'm starting to see themes in the games I like on this format, Finest Hour falls into the "non-stop-balls-out-noisy-action" theme.

It's a 'Contra' style effort in which you pilot a mech-suit and travel left to right wielding an auto-targeting gun and a set of booster jets for massive jumps.
It has a couple of neat tricks up it's sleeve, both of are things that modern games consumers have learnt to hate.
First up, there's the time limits.
Each level has a timer tied to a bonus, so speed  is of the essence.
You can double tap to run and it's quite a blast to surge into the unknown, hammering the fire button whilst ready to hit the brakes, or the boost, at the first sight of a bigger than normal baddie.
As well instilling the game with this extra urgency the timer also prevents abuse of the second game mechanic, the very mention of which has classic FPS fans exploding into fits of nerd rage...
The game is the earliest example I've seen (note: I've seen) of regenerating health.
Well, technically it's not your health.
As you take fire from the swarms of other mechs that assail you, your own suit starts to overheat, take too much continuous fire and you start to fry the circuits and eventually 'die'.
Even the continue screen keeps up this design, asking if you want to engage the emergency cooling system (bpay up to continue) or bug out and go home (Quit).
This one may be a little simplistic for some tastes, but if simplicity has a place in video games then the arcade is surely that place.


I'm pretty sure that there's been a shmup in every one of these 'Hidden Gem' blog entries. Representing F we have Fever S.O.S. from the lovely chaps at Cave.

You do have to wonder what would have become of the the shooter genre without these guys in the market to continually offer up fresh takes on the standard format.
Fever SOS is not one of the companies better known IPs, it never saw action outside the arcades and there are no sequels.
Nevertheless, this one's that's an absolute belter to crank the volume on for the full arcade experience - because what they've done this time is create the first, last, and only Disco V.shmup.
How could I not list that here?!
To be honest the Disco theme is mostly cosmetic, the soundtrack, enthusiastic announcer, and end of level score counter are all in a gloriously cheesy seventies style but the game itself is a fairly straightforward, albeit very high quality, v.shmup.
It offers a choice of craft, a choice of bullet pattern, and a choice of speed.
The idiosyncracy in gameplay comes from a score multiplier system based on collecting the little dudes that float down and back up the screen after you have destroyed the enemy ships. If you let just one guy float off the top of the screen then your score booster is reset.
The rest of the gameplay is the usual classy Cave stuff; Fantastic bosses, challenging difficultly level, screens full of laser fire. Tie this to the hugely infectious Disco motif and you have a winner on your hands.


Last up is Fast Lane from Konami.

You will have seen something like Fast Lane before. Games where two icons travel in different directions around the same basic maze style track, one collecting dots, the other trying to prevent them doing so, exist in their dozens on Mame alone.
I don't know how old this style of game is, I'm fairly sure I remember playing a variant of it on a Game & Watch style device, but what Konami have done with it here is take that old idea and turned it into a fantastically addictive arcade puzzle game.
The first thing they've done is to imbue the game with simple, detailed, effective graphics.
You travel the map in a close approximation of a Ferrari GTO, your enemy(s) come at you in a blue 'Bigfoot' style monster truck, and all about the course are girls in bikinis on roller skates who hold the game's power-ups. The sprites are tiny but each is remarkably characterful.
The powerups work in the tried and true Pac Man style - variations on the theme of the hunter becoming the hunted - albeit very briefly.
A favourite touch for me is the design of the power up menu at the top of screen. It lists "Normal - Jump - Shoot - Attack - ? - Flash" in the classic Konami style that will be familiar to anyone who has played Gradius or any of its many sequels or spin offs.
Fast Lane isn't a game that will show of your Mame cabinet in all it's glory. Nor is it the most original game ever made.
But it has hidden depths, is incredibly addictive, and most importantly of all - it's a hell of a lot of fun.


#Retrogaming #Gaming #Mame #Arcade

Mame Hidden Gems - E is for...

I've made a bit of a rod for my own back.

I keep finding games I've never heard of that, after a little research, turn out to have been fairly recently re-released in classic collections or on XBox Live or PSN.

This means, by my own rules, I can't include them, and unfortunately there's a whole bunch of games that fall into this category in the E bracket.

So a quick recommendation for Esp Ra.De. and EspGaluda from Cave, Eco Fighters from Capcom and Exzisus from Taito.
You should find and play all of these games if you haven't done so already. They are excellent.

With that out of the way, on to three real hidden gems, the first of them being Equites.

This vertical shooter from the dark days of 1984 is an early example of mixing up the genre a bit.
Your robot fighter guy walks up the screen blasting all in his path as you would expect.

The mix up comes by giving you the ability to jump or hover to defend against attackers from a higher plain.
Certain parts of the levels require you to do this to clear dividing walls, other areas use the two tier element to turn levels into a simplistic kind of 'canyon run'. 

As well as the two above ground tiers there are occasional tunnel entrances marked on the landscape. Walking into these take you to a third tier; underground corridors. 

These sections don't actually change much from the outside environments aside from removing the ability to jump, but they do offer the opportunity to enjoy some fun enemy destructions.

It's a great game and, for it's age, the attention to detail imagination on show is pretty impressive.

Next up is Enforce from those prolific boys and girls at Taito.

It's a bit basic this one, you walk into the screen (I think you're in control of a mech, although it's never really made clear.) blasting everything in sight with one of two weapons. A standard chain gun on the right and a more powerful plasma type thing on the left that has to charge between volleys.

It is simple and a little repetitive but it has a balls-out mania to it that I can't help but love a little.
It also features a hilarious example of that old Video Game trope; the damsel in distress. 

Simpler times, happier times.

Finally, Explosive Breaker, fairly standard v.shmup fair, you head up the screen, flying through space, shooting the alien bad guys. So far, so average...

No I didn't just photoshop a picture of an Apache Gunship onto a screenshot of Axelay. that's the first level boss of this shooter set in deep space.

It's like they did a whole game and then, when it came to designing the bosses, they couldn't be bothered and just scanned in a bunch of images from Warfare Magazine.

You only have to play the game for about ten seconds when this happens...

That, if can't quite make it out, is an aircraft carrier.

It's not always an aircraft carrier, oh no! 

On one play-through I saw a Jaguar jet at this point in the game, on another it was an eighteenth century sailing ship. 

And they all move about the level as if they have been cut out from photographs and are being pulled across the screen by an invisible thread.

They say it's a fine line between genius and madness, and I'm not sure which of those two things best describes this game, but you should certainly find out for yourself.

#Gaming #Retrogming #Mame #Hidden Gems

Setting up a test rig

Without really planning to I've had a weekend of tests and trials, with largely positive results.

I mentioned at the very beginning of all this that over the past few months I've been building rustic/industrial furniture from pallet wood. I've been working through a few pieces that need finishing off recently, one of which was this "Monks Bench".

The back section of this is double thickness, two pieces of wood screwed together.
Due to the unevenness of the wood there were gaps nearly 5mm thick in parts of the join - so I used this piece to test the two part resin filler I'll be using to finish the cabinet..

It works phenomenally well. When fully dry it's like working with fine sandstone, or that chalk you get in a puncture repair kit.
My god does it stink though.

With that win under my belt I decided to celebrate with a session of Outrun - only to discover, when cranking the volume for Magical Sound Shower, that one of the speakers is blown.
I took a hacksaw to it to see if there was anything I could salvage but it's broken for good.
Luckily this isn't a complete disaster.
The Amp I bought is only single channel anyway, and the remaining unit pumps out a good meaty sound - and to put a positive spin on it, it will save space in the cabinet. Just need to remember to set the output to mono output on the PC when I get it.

Lastly, I decided to throw together a mock up control deck using some scraps of wood I had knocking about in the garage.

I know what you're thinking, the buttons are arced the wrong way... I did say I threw it together.

I've learnt a lot about the space needed for the cabling and buttons, the hole size I need for the Joystick, and it's helped me to allay my fears that 120mm strip of timber wouldn't provide adequate space for all the controls - it does - in fact it's pretty much perfect.

Then there,s the button arrangement, obviously these being upside down was a mistake, but it's helped me with something anyway.
This diagram shows the two buttons I plan not to have and their rough replacement position.

This may not be a conventional layout but it allows me to use the 4 central buttons in a diamond as a second set of  up/down/left/rights for playing twin stick shooters and other games that require two joysticks.

I did have one worrying mishap when putting the jostick together.
You'll notice on the left there is the start of another button hole, such was my eagerness to get this thing made that I tried to put a hole through a steel screw.
The holesaw is a little battered - these things usually cost about a tenner, a tenner that my budget won't cover, so I guess a little brute force and maybe a tickle with a sharpening stone might be in order.


#mame #retrogaming #arcade #gaming