Spring cleaning

Spring is in the air and in the coming weeks I will have some spare time on my hands, so I have decided instead of just sitting around playing games I should improve my blogs. For Arcade Throwback this means coming up with new ideas for more features, as well as going back and completing half-finished posts that have been sat in my drafts list all this time.

I hope you enjoy the changes and expect more posts over the coming weeks than ever before.

MTW

Akai Katana Shin hits UK in May

God bless Rising Star Games. Last year they brought Cave's Gothic side-scrolling shoot 'em up, Deathsmiles and the futuristic bullet hell shoot 'em up DoDonPachi Resurrection to west Xbox 360 owners. Next month they are releasing another Cave classic, a port of Akai Katana for the Xbox 360. It's never been a better time to be a shmuppet, as long as you can take the intensity of Cave's creations. Hey, Rising Star, how about Progear next?

MTW

Boss Fight - Giant Cow Mary (Deathsmiles, 2007)

So far we've had one of the earliest boss fights in arcade gaming, my first boss fight and one of the more controvertial boss fights. This month, I'm going to talk about one of the silliest, Mary the Giant Cow from Cave's sublime shoot 'em up Deathsmiles.

As bosses go, there's not much to say. She simply charges the player from the left (which is quite unusual), firing purple bullets from God knows where and conjuring protective cubes. She takes damage where ever you hit her and if you use a combination of our own conjure magic (AKA bomb) and power up mode you  should despatch her in a few seconds. Nonetheless, the first time you see her you will wonder what the hell is going on.

MTW

The devil is in the details

As with any social networking site, Twitter requires a profile picture. So, for my new Arcade Throwback account I decided to use a classic arcade joystick (in the site colours). I edited a picture of a red ball-style stick, making the shaft longer and the ball green and voila, one profile picture. Trouble is, I can be a stickler for detail, so I wasn't happy that the image was not present on the blog itself. Therefore, I've updated the blog logo with the stick and

Original image (right); joystick cut out (middle); finished logo, recoloured and stretched (right)

I've also fixed the fuzzy stars on the 'T' I took from Track & Field. I've also made a favicon (the little pic you get on the browser tab) with my new motif. I think it looks pretty good, especially since I am no artist.

MTW

Insert Tweet(s)

Arcade Throwback is now on Twitter, so for regular chunks of arcade chatter follow me @ArcadeThrowback.

Thanks.

MTW

Classic pinball collection now available

If you love pin games then you'll want to check out The Pinball Arcade from Far Sight Studios, which effectively emulates loads of real, classic tables from Williams, Gottlieb, Bally and Stern. The game is available on XBLA, PSN (PS3 and Vita), iOS, 3DS, PC and Mac. The basic released with Tales of the Arabian Nights®, Ripley's Believe It or Not®, Theatre of Magic®, and a personal favourite Black Hole™.

Over the coming months Far Site are promising additional tables will be made available for download, including Black Knight®, Monster Bash®, Medieval Madness®, Creature from the Black Lagoon®, Funhouse®, Attack from Mars®, Space Shuttle®, Pin•Bot®, Circus Voltaire® and Big Shot®.

I've tried the demo on XBLA and it's pretty good. While the interface lacks some of the bells and whistles of say Pinball FX (AKA Zen Pinball on PS3), there's just something about the tables that's better than the vast majority of video pin games. The models look authentic and hearing the sounds of these classic tables is enough to send any pinball wizard into a day dream. I particularly like the camera modes. There's only three (high, medium and low angles), but each one can be set to follow the ball or stay locked with the flippers, which is a welcome features, because I find losing track of the flippers can make the difference between getting the shot you want and just bouncing the ball around the table.

For more information check out http://www.pinballarcade.com/

Classic of the Month - Dance Dance Revolution

Manufacturer:	Konami
Genre:	Dancing
Board:	Bemani System 573 Analog (deprecated in later versions)
Year:	1998

There are only a handful of arcade games that truly revolutionised both the artform and the industry: Pong, Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Street Fighter 2, Virtua Fighter, Donkey Kong, Mr Goeman all instantly spring to mind, but even among that elite company, Konami's ground breaking Dance Dance Revolution (or DDR for short) is one of the most significant.  As the PlayStation and the rise of online PC gaming during the mid-to-late 90s slowly choked and killed the arcade scene, DDR dared to stand out, force people to pay attention and keep our beloved amusement halls alive.

Like so many true classics, DDR barely needs a description.  It's one of those games everyone, from toddlers to old codgers have played -- and who can blame them. For those who are uninitiated, the cabinet consists of a touch sensitive floor panel with up, down, left and right buttons on it (plus a couple of start, back, etc). Gameplay consists of stepping on these arrows in time to a flow of arrows on screen, while popular Japanese pop songs play at increasingly breakneck speed.

When you see a DDR machine it screams, "Play me!" and who can resist, especially when you see someone with two left feet missing their marks and stomping around like they're trying to squash cockroaches? When you get good at DDR it actually raises your overall confidence about dancing in public, be a night club, a work Christmas party or a wedding, the moves you learn on DDR transfer to the real world, making you look like you are a born dancer, with natural rhythm. And people say video games are no good for you.

There are loads of DDR videos on the internet, but I've chosen the trailer for the Disney Mix game that was released for home consoles a few years ago, because it shows precisely why this series took gamers all over the world by a storm.

If it wasn't for DDR, we probably would have Dance Central or Just Dance on home consoles and I'm sure you would agree, the world would be a duller, sadder place to live.

MTW