Worth a Look - April 2013

What new games are coming this month that will tickle the fancies of your average arcade throwback? Let's take a look.

Badland

Developer:	Frog Mind Games
Publisher:	Frog Mind Games
Platforms:	iOS
Price:	Around £3
Demo available:	Unknown

Five years ago, indie game scene was ignited by the release of Jonathan Blow's cerebral platformer Braid. The game started in silhouette, before revealing its lush, oil-painting aesthetic. A few years later, Play Dead Studios released an all silhouette game, Limbo and since then there has been a deluge of (mainly indie) games using the same look. Enter Frog Mind's Badland on iPad and iPhone, a single touch puzzle-platformer where the objective is to get one or moe shadowy fur balls through a fast moving, trap-filled world to the exit tunnel at the end. With power-ups to change the size, shape and physical properties of the fur balls (like making them sticky), it's impressive that Frog Mind has managed to squeeze so many mechanics into a game that only needs one "button".

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit I haven't played this yet (I don't own an iOS platform), but from the reviews I've seen, it looks and sounds great. Don't take my word for it, here's AppSpy's review:

Injustice: Gods Among Us

Developer:	NeverRealm Studios
Publisher:	WB Games
Platforms:	PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii U
Price:	Around $40
Demo available:	Yes/No

I don't know much about comic books, in fact before my little boy started watching the Avengers and Batman: The Bold and the Brave cartoons, I couldn't have told you which super heroes were Marvel and which were DC. What I do know is that after Midway went belly up in 2009, Ed Boon became the creative director of NeverRealm Studios, who developed the 2011 Mortal Kombat game. Now they're giving a host of DC super heroes the NeverRealm treatment with Injustice, a 2D fighting game which wears its Mortal Kombat heritage in plain view on its sleeve. It's more than a MK game with DC characters, it has plenty of its own mechanics, as well as borrowing a few from other games. Along with over the top super that look more like a summon from Final Fantasy, it also features transitional stages (a la Dead or Alive) and interactive backgrounds that can be used to attack your opponent. Fighting games fans are sure to enjoy this one.

Sacred Citadel

Developer:	Southend
Publisher:	Deep Silver
Platforms:	XBLA/PS3/PC
Price:	Around £12.99
Demo available:	Yes

While I'm not familiar with the Sacred RPGs, I understand that this spin off is nothing like them and instead plays more like Sega's classic Golden Axe. The game's story is as cliché has they come, as is the choice of a warrior, ranger, mage or shaman, but there's something about its blend of hack 'n' slash and RPG that I find appealing. It has a pleasing, water-colour aesthetic and music that is bound to remind you of some classic arcade games. It isn't getting amazing reviews, but if you fancy something akin to Golden Axe that you can play with your mates over the internet, then for £10 you can probably get a decent couple of hours entertainment out of Sacred Citadel.

MTW

Top 10 driving games

I'm not the biggest fan of driving games, but I do love a good arcade driving game. Here are my 10 favourites.

Super Sprint

Atari's Sprint is the grandaddy of top-down racers, inspiring countless clones and sequels alike. In 1986 Atari release two such sequels, Super Sprint and Championship Sprint. There's little to separate the two games, but Super Sprint is the one I remember most fondly.

Ridge Racer

In the mid-90s, sprites started to give way to polygons and one of the games that spear headed that revolution was this street racer from Namco. The tight, winding tracks through cities and along mountain sides were like nothing arcade gamers had seen before. It was exhilerating and it inspired clones on every platform going.

Chase HQ

If all the other games on this list were about driving, Chase HQ was about driving down criminals — for justice! Ahem, anyway Taito's Chase HQ was a genre defining game that combined racing with demolition derby and the kind of heroic action normally associated with action adventure games. Brilliant.

Hang-On

The Pole Position of bike racing, Sega's Hang-On was fast and exhilarating. And it made you feel like Barry Sheen to straddle the big plastic bike, even if you couldn't reach the floor.

"Iron Man" Ivan  Stewart's Super Off Road Racer

Us Brits had no idea who "Iron Man" Ivan Stewart was, but we did know that Sprint clone, Super Off Road, was a riotous racing game. You did not so much control your little off road racer as will it around the twisty, uneven track, as you spin the stirring wheel around frantically. Somehow, that was all part of the fun.

Manx TT Super Bike

Sega's Max TT did for motorbike racing what Ridge Racer did for car racing. I can't say how accurately the track emulated the narrow, winding streets of the Isle of Man, but it was everything Hang-On was and more.

Hard Drivin'

Hard Drivin' is a game my brother excelled at, but I could not play Hard Drivin' to save my life.  At the time of its release, it felt like a proper driving simulator, because he had a clutch and a proper 5 gate gear stick.  Looking back now it's has not aged well at all; the primative polygonal graphics are incredibly slow.  Compared to sprite-based driving games from the same era, Hard Driving is ponderous.  Nonetheless, in its hay day it was a game that really separated the men from the boys.

Mario Kart Arcade GP/GP2

Released between the Mario Kart: Double Dash on GameCube and Mario Kart Wii, the Arcade GP games have everything you'd expect from a Mario Kart game, but in an arcade machine. The game also features Pac-Man, Ms Pac-Man and a red ghost. It also features a camera, so each of the four players can be super imposed into character cards, as can be seen in the pictures. It's a little touch that gives the arcade versions of this long running series something above the home and arcade versions.

OutRun 2

The original OutRun holds a dear place in so many arcade gamers' hearts, but the oft-forgotten sequel is the real gem in the series. Released in the mid-2000s, OutRun 2 added a brilliant drift mechanic that outshone even Ridge Racer. A skilled player can balance drifting to maximise their speed as they flow around the corners. A perfect drift is one of those truly special gaming moments.

Sega Rally

Another superb racer from Sega. I played this one when I was doing my degree. A lot of my student grant was spent on this machine — in fact I don't think I've spent as much on any other driving game in the arcade. The simple co-driver instructions were vital to success and it added that extra dimension that other racing games did not have. Quite simply, I've yet to find another rally game that I've enjoyed much as this classic.

MTW

Now that's how to play classic games

I remember about 15 years ago, Nottingham indie cinema Broadway putting the PlayStation version of Tekken 2 on their big screen, but this (posted by one of my favourite websites, GamesYouLoved.com, on their Facebook page) is something else. This is the Super Nintendo version of Street Fighter 2 (probably the best conversion of the classic arcade game at the time) and the original Super Mario Bros playing on the IMAX screen at BFI in London. Absolutely incredible stuff.

MTW

Classic of the Month - Spy Hunter

Manufacturer:	Bally Midway
Developer:	Bally Midway
Genre:	Vertical scrolling shoot 'em up
Board:	Bespoke
Year:	1983

Dum-dum-dum-dum-dedede-dum-dum  dum-dum-dum-dum-dedede-dum-dum woah-wow woah-wowow. Wow wow wow wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wow wow wow wow wow. I almost feel like I could end this month's CotM right there, because anybody who played this spy game will know precisely where I'm coming from. Arcade games are full of funky, addictive little ditties, but Spy Hunter brought the A-game with its chip tunes version of Henry Mancini's "Peter Gunn Theme".

The game itself was undoubtedly inspired by every car chase in every spy and cop film going. The game presented the car chases from a top-down, vertically scrolling view. Your mission was to chase down enemy agents in the G-6155 Inceptor, a spy car worthy of James Bond himself. The car on the cabinet artwork was based on the  Mercedes-Benz CW311/Isdera Imperator 108i and looked every bit like the kind of futuristic super car a Hollywood spy would drive. Unfortunately the sprite in the game did not match the artwork at all, but this was 1983, so I'll give Bally Midway a break — this time.

The similarities between the G-6155 and the CW311/Imperator are undeniable.

The enemies came at you in a variety of cars, some just ramming you, others armed with guns and spiked wheels and a whole lot more. Thankfully, the G-6155 can be kitted out with all classic spy car weapons. To begin with you just get machine guns, but periodically the button in the middle of the steering wheel would flashing, informing you that you could call the Weapons Van for a random upgrade. This could be a smoke screen, an oil slick or missiles even missiles. Both the upright cabinet (pictured right) and the cockpit version featured a button for each weapon, so you could stockpile them if you wanted. In fact not only was there a button for each weapon and one to call the Weapons Van, there was also an accelerator, a gear stick and of course a steering wheel. All of which actually made Spy Hunter one of the more complex machines around in 1983. It was fast too; only the best reflexes could cope with driving in high gear.

As you raced up the screen there would be branching pathways, leading to different environments. Eventually you would see sliproads leading to boat shacks. Drive through them and your car would transform into a jet boat (or rather the car sprite would swap while you were in the shed). You'd then have to do battle on the water, until the shore led to another shed that would transform you back into a car.

Between the brilliant cabinet art, the music and, of course, the G-6155 itself, it was an evocative game to play and more than worthy of being called a classic.

MTW