Worth a Look - August 2012

Time for another quick round-up of recently-released arcade-style games. This month I have a futurist racer on the Wii, a unique twist on the match three puzzler and what could be the ultimate score attack game.

Fast - Racing League 

Developer:	Shin'en
Publisher:	Autumn Games/Konami
Platforms:	WiiWare
Price:	1000 Nintendo Points (£7.00)
Demo available:	Yes

What is it?

One look at this futuristic racing game and you could be forgiven for thinking it was a WipeOut sequel, but if you watch the game being played for a few minutes you'll see it also shares something in common with Treasure's sublime shmup, Ikaruga. Basically your racing ships can switch polarity between white and black. The only way to make use of the power ups on the track is to match its polarity. These power ups include speed boosts and jump pads and if you don't hit them you risk not only falling behind but also falling off the track. It's an interesting twist to what would otherwise be an unremarkable game. 

Graphically, this is one of the best looking Wii games I've seen full stop, let alone Wiiware game and the music is as brilliant as Shin'en's past releases, such as shoot 'em up series Iridion and Nanostray. Playing this, I can't help thinking if this was in an arcade with a hydraulic cabinet, it would be major crowd puller.

10,000,000

Developer:	Eighty Eight Games
Publisher:	Apple AppStore
Platforms:	iOS
Price:	£2.99
Demo available:	No

What is it?

Just as the commercial games market is drowning in first person shooters, the indie scene is similarly drowning in match three puzzle games. Of course one of the most famous arcade puzzle games of all time, Puzzle Bobble (AKA Bust-a-Move) was a match three puzzle, so when a clever and different example of the genre comes along, I can't help but check it out. 10,000,000 is one such game. The game takes typical match three puzzles and mixes in a dash of RPG and infinity running to create something surprisingly fresh. Your character runs along the top of the screen and constantly faces various enemies and obstacles. Below is a grid of objects, which you must match in order to conquer threat preventing you from progressing. This adds both a sense of urgency and the need to plan that will quickly draw you in. As the title of this thread says, it's well worth a look.

Rock Band Blitz

Developer:	Harmonix
Publisher:	EA
Platforms:	Xbox Live Arcade, PS3 (via PlayStation Network)
Price:	1200MSP/£12.99
Demo available:	XBLA only

What is it?

A few years ago rhythm games were all the rage, with developer Harmonix first creating Guitar Hero for Activsion, then switching publishers to EA and creating Rock Band. For the next few years, Guitar Hero (under the stewardship of Neversoft) and Rock Band battled it out for a piece of the market, with each new installment upping the ante. Guitar Hero even made it into the arcade, with industrial grade guitars that weighed more than Karl Palmer's stainless steel drum kit. Quite frankly, it all got a bit ridiculous in the end, with Activision releasing four or five Hero-branded games in the space of a year. So just when it seemed the fad was over, Harmonix, the people who kicked started the whole trend, come back with a game that may have the Rock Band name, but more closely follows the gameplay of their earlier games, Frequency and Amplitude.

For any fan of arcade games and the pursuit of high scores, Rock Band Blitz is the perfect score attack fix. There are no fail states in this game, no difficulty settings, instead you play it to the best of you ability and you will be able to play every song in the game, plus any in your own Rock Band library, but if you want to top the leaderboards you have to learn to juggle each track (drums, bass, guitar, vocals and keyboards) to maximise the multiplier for each. The further you push the multiplier across all of the tracks before you reach each tracks check point and the further you can push the next multiplier. The result is you enforce the difficulty on yourself, purely by trying to do better. It's a fantastic system and possible the purest form of score attack I've ever seen.

That does it for this month. Check the Worth a Look tag in the coming months for more tasty, arcade-inspired treats.

MTW

Boss Fight - Pendragon (Raystorm, 1996)

It's my son's 6th birthday tomorrow, so this month's Boss Fight is in honour of my favourite little guy.

Like many dad's from my generation, I play video games with my kids and although his favourites are the Lego games, driving games and anything with Mario in it, I encourage him to play a broad spectrum of games from across all genres and eras. As such he's played a fair amount of arcade games and the first boss we ever faced together was Raystorm's stage 1 boss, Pendragon.

I have a fondness for Raystorm, which is why I play it with my son. At the time of its release Raystorm was a technically impressive game, but as shoot 'em ups go it is a little tame. However, the multi-limbed tank, Pendragon, is a pretty good boss, with lots of tricks up its sleeve. It has a laser turret, missiles and a homing laser and like most bosses it has weak spots you have to target and attack. Raystorm's R-Gray fighters have primary and secondary weapons, but you can only destroy certain parts of Pendragon with each. The challenging part is the way it moves out of view, sometimes exposing one of its weak spots, sometimes shielding them and attacking. If you aren't on the ball you'll either use the wrong weapon or miss your target altogether.

The result of which is that Pendragon takes quite a while to defeat; even if you're really good at the game it can take longer to beat this first boss than the whole of the first level. That is why, despite how average Raystorm is overall, Pendragon is a boss worth fighting.

MTW

Classic of the Month - Track & Field

Manufacturer:	Konami
Genre:	Sports
Board:	M6809
Year:	1983

The London 2012 Olympic Games is well underway and not only is the BBC providing some of the best technology to allow people at home to watch whatever events they want, my family and I were at the Women's Football at Old Trafford just yesterday to see USA face off against South Korea.

I've been in training in my own special way, by playing one of the greatest arcade sports games of all time, Konami's 1983 classic, Track & Field, the first in a series which included Hyper Sports (1984), Konami '88 Games (1988), Hyper Athlete (1996) and Negano Winter Olympics '98 (1998), as well as numerous non-arcade spin offs. The events in each game varied, but for Track & Field there were six:

• 100 Meter Dash – Running by quickly alternating button presses.
• Long jump – Running by alternating button press and correct timing for jump. Hold jump button to set angle.
• Javelin throw – Running by alternating button presses and then using action button correct timing for angle.
• 110 Meter Hurdles – Running by alternating button presses and using action button to time hurdles
• Hammer throw – Spinning initiated by pressing a run button once and then correctly timed press of action button to choose angle.
• High jump – Running (speed set by computer) and then action button must be held down to determine angle of jump. Once in the air, the run button can be rapidly pressed for additional height.

I'm not sure if this game is the reason the term "button basher" was invented, but it's certainly the game that introduced me to it. Nonetheless, as well as frantic button bashing the game did require considerable skill when it came to timing jumps and throws and actually getting through all six events is not easy.

Often when I'm working on a Classic of the Month feature I'm going on sheer nostalgia, but for this month, I've been putting in a lot of time playing the game, courtesy of the elegant Xbox Live Arcade port. In fact, I've played it so much, I've got all completed all of the events and got the best times and distances I've ever achieved on the game. Don't say I don't do the background work for these articles.

MTW