Classic of the Month - Blazing Star

Manufacturer:	Yumekobo/SNK
Genre:	Shoot 'em up
Board:	Neo Geo MVS
Year:	1998

So far during this run of classic shoot 'em ups I've talked about games from my childhood. For this month's classic, I've gone for one that came out in 1998, when I was 23 and rediscovering gaming after several years away.  SNK's Blazing Star, for their Neo Geo MVS system, was one of the biggest and most visually spectacular sprite-based shoot 'em ups ever made.  It was an unofficial follow up to 1995's Pulstar, but where that game ripped off R-Type in almost every way, Blazing Star stands up better on its own feet, with numerous gameplay improvements and an attempt at a deeper plot than most shmups, told through a series of anime-style cutscenes and pre-rendered CG.

According to Wikipedia, the plot of Blazing Star is as follows:

Sometime in their past, the planets Remuria and Mutras started an interplanetary war that showed no sign of ending. The endless fight between the human-like inhabitants of the two planets had gone so long that weapon development moved into dangerous territory: Organic Weapon Production combined with alien technology. Soon, a sentient weapon - Brawshella - was born. Brawshella gathered all animal life on both planets and forced them to do its bidding and attack the humans. In a week, the humans were assimilated by Brawshella.

Yet, once they were assimilated, they found no other purpose in life but to continue fighting each other. After a while, four of the assimilated fighter pilots regained their consciousness and remembered their pasts. Upon discovering their humanity, the pilots were conflicted with following Brawshella's orders or fighting it to fully regain their independence. The pilots finally turn against the machine in a battle to rediscover themselves and reclaim their planets.

All of this is pretty much unknown to the player, who simply has to two one of six pilots and their fighters:

• Hell-Hound flown by Caster
• Windina flown by Leefa
• Aryustailm flown by J.B.
• Peplos flown by Asayuki
• Dino 135 flown by Naomi Y.
• Dino 246 flown by Kaoru Y.

Each ship has different speed, power ratings and bullet patterns, but the basic mechanics is the same for all.  Tap the A button for the main weapon, tap rapidly for a more powerful shot, hold the A button for a charge shot (a la Pulstar) or hold A then tap B as you release A for burst shot.

Actually playing the game, it looks as frenetic as any bullet-hell shmup - especially in two player mode - however, Blazing Star is not that hard compared to most shmups.  Where as other games you can't complete no matter how many coins you shove in, Blazing Star can be completed by new players with just a handful of continues.  Some hardcore gamers say this detracts from the game play, even compared to its forebear, which was much harder, however, I would argue it makes a nice change to have an arcade shoot 'em up that isn't completely unfair and littered with cheap bosses.

Here's an interesting bit of triva though, the popular internet put down 'Fail!' apparently derives from Blazing Star's Engrish game over screen, which says, "You fail it! Your skill is not enough, see you next time, bye-bye!" I bet half the kids saying 'Fail' weren't even born when Blazing Star hit the arcades.

Let's see this amazing looking game in action:

There are literally dozens of shmups I could blather about, but there are a lot more other classics to discuss, so for now, that's the last shump I'm going to talk about. Next month, I promise to get as far away shoot 'em ups as I can.

MTW

Capcom pledges ¥100,000,00 to Japan's tsunami relief fund

On Friday 11th March, an earthquake off the east coast of Japan sent a tsunami crashing into the coast of Sendai, destroying cars, boats, homes, businesses and, most troubling of all, nuclear power plants, like the one in Fukushima.  At this point the death toll is over 4000, with nearly 10,000 missing and over 100,000 sleeping in temporary shelters with radiation levels rising all the time and snow freezing them to the bone.  It's one of many recent sobering reminders of the power of mother nature, as this video shows:

Japan may be the 2nd richest country in the world, but the damage done is unprecedented, so they need all the help they can get to rebuild their homes, businesses and lives.  Legendary arcade developer, Capcom have pledged ¥100,000,000 (which is about £780,000) and have dropped the price of Street Fighter IV for the iPhone to 59p with all proceeds going to towards the relief effort.

So this is the perfect opportunity to pick up a great game for a dirt cheap price and help the people of the spiritual home of arcade games get back on their feet.

MTW

What's a pin game?

Everyone is familiar with the term 'pinball', but before pinball these games were just known as 'pin games', because that's all that was involved -- no bumpers, no ramps and not even any flippers, just a launcher, a metal ball, a load of pins and holes to score in, as pictured below:

You know when you're talking to a true pinball enthusiast, because they often prefer to use this ancient tern for pinball games. In fact one of the leading pinball magazines is actually called 'Pin Game Journal'. Check out their website here at http://www.pingamejournal.com/.

MTW

Classic of the Month - Saint Dragon

Manufacturer:	Jaleco
Genre:	Shoot 'em up
Board:	Jaleco Mega System 1-A
Year:	1989

In 1989 Irem released Dragon Breed, a horizontally scrolling shmup where the player controlled a huge dragon, whose tail could be used to shield basic attacks.  Also in 1989 Jaleco released Saint Dragon, which was a horizontally scrolling shmup featuring a dragon, whose tail could be used to shield basic attacks.  Whether this was a coincidence or someone plaguerised the other, I do not know; what I do know is that Saint Dragon is argueably the better game.  The main reason I say this is that unlike Dragon Breed, in Saint Dragon you had complete control over the position of the tail. You could wrap it around your head, put it below you, above you, in front of you, whatever.  This added a defininate layer of strategy to what is otherwise a twitch genre.

Saint Dragon also had a gorgeous art style, with lot shiny, metallic sprites and lots of layers of parallax scrolling.  And what's a shoot 'em up without rousing music?  St Dragon's opening ditty is as bombastic as the best of them.

If I had one criticism of this game it's the weapons.  They are not very imaginative nor do they give you the sense of power that some shmups can muster.  It's not a fatal flaw - otherwise it wouldn't be a Classic of the Month - but it is a bit of a let down.

MTW

Is Game Room Pack 13 the last?

In the lead up to its launch, Microsoft made a lot of fuss about Game Room, but almost immediately after it went live it started to run into troubles.  Developer Krome were in financial difficulty and although they had the rights to emulate and distribute Atari, Konami and Intellivision games, the actual releases were all over the place.  Once Krome closed its doors rumours were rife that this spelt the end for Game Room.  Microsoft themselves have said very little about it either way but what is clear is Game Pack 13 will be the last one for the foreseeable future.

It's a shame, because this was the first really serious effort anyone has made to not only provide a legal emulation service, but one with unique and well thought out features that go above and beyond the remit of emulating old games machines.  While I will admit it was never the best interface for actually browsing and launching games, having that little virtual arcade ka-powing and zapping away on my TV brought back loads of happy memories.

So for reference, here are all the Atari and Konami arcade games that are available in Game Room, along with their Game Pack number:

Name	Manuf.	Pack #		Name	Manuf.	Pack #
Amidar	Konami	Game Pack 12		M.I.A.	Konami	Game Pack 12
Asteroids	Atari	Game Pack 4		Major Havoc	Atari	Game Pack 6
Asteroids Deluxe	Atari	Game Pack 1		Mega Zone	Konami	Game Pack 3
Battlantis	Konami	Game Pack 1		Millipede	Atari	Game Pack 4
Battlezone	Atari	Game Pack 3		Missile Command	Atari	Game Pack 5
Black Widow	Atari	Game Pack 6		Mr. Goemon	Konami	Game Pack 5
Blades of Steel	Konami	Game Pack 12		Ping Pong	Konami	Game Pack 5
Centipede	Atari	Game Pack 2		Pooyan	Konami	Game Pack 12
City Bomber	Konami	Game Pack 9		Rack 'Em Up	Konami	Game Pack 3
Crystal Castles	Atari	Game Pack 1		Red Baron	Atari	Game Pack 1
Detana!! TwinBee	Konami	Game Pack 12		Road Fighter	Konami	Game Pack 2
Devastators	Konami	Game Pack 13		Scooter Shooter	Konami	Game Pack 6
Finalizer	Konami	Game Pack 1		Scramble	Konami	Game Pack 1
Flak Attack	Konami	Game Pack 9		Shao-Lin's Road	Konami	Game Pack 2
Food Fight	Atari	Game Pack 12		Space Duel	Atari	Game Pack 4
Galactic Warriors	Konami	Game Pack 10		Strategy X	Konami	Game Pack 4
Gravitar	Atari	Game Pack 2		Super Basketball	Konami	Game Pack 9
Gyruss	Konami	Game Pack 7		Super Breakout	Atari	Game Pack 3
Hyper Crash	Konami	Game Pack 10		Super Cobra	Konami	Game Pack 2
Iron Horse	Konami	Game Pack 13		Tempest	Atari	Game Pack 2
Jackal	Konami	Game Pack 11		The Main Event	Konami	Game Pack 13
Jail Break	Konami	Game Pack 7		Time Pilot	Konami	Game Pack 4
Jungler	Konami	Game Pack 2		Trick Trap	Konami	Game Pack 12
Juno First	Konami	Game Pack 6		Tutankham	Konami	Game Pack 1
Kitten Kaboodle	Konami	Game Pack 9		TwinBee	Konami	Game Pack 12
Konami GT	Konami	Game Pack 10		Video Hustler	Konami	Game Pack 5
Liberator	Atari	Game Pack 5		Warlords	Atari	Game Pack 6
Lunar Lander	Atari	Game Pack 1		Yie Ar Kung-Fu	Konami	Game Pack 7

UPDMTWE (20/02/2011): On the 17th February, after four months of silence, a new message appeared on the Game Room Facebook page talking about technical problems people are having with the service.  This was followed on the 18th with two posts, one saying they can't recreate the technical problem and another saying this:

"..re GR plan. We are wholly focused on the mobile extension right now. We r also sorting through the bigger plan for GR, but expect us to be dark on that topic for a while because we have a lot to work through. I wish there was more to say at this time, but this is the situation as it stands for now. I cannot emphasize enough how much we appreciate your support. Thank you."

While that doesn't answer any questions, it is evidence that Game Room may not be dead after all. 

MTW

What is JAMMA?

Short for apan Japanese Amusement Machinery Manufacturers Association, JAMMA is an association of arcade manufacturers Atlus, Capcom, Konami, Namco, Sega, Taito and Tecmo.  They started out as a rights movement in 1981, but by 1989 it turned into an organisation that established a set of standards for arcade cabinets, which included standard connectors and video displays.  Chances are, when you've played an arcade machine you have played one built to JAMMA standards, as it allowed distributors and operators to swap out boards without lugging around entire cabinets.

MTW

Classic of the Month - Truxton

Manufacturer:	Toaplan
Genre:	Shoot 'em up
Board:	Toaplan 68000/Z80-based hardware
Year:	1988

I ended last year with a classic shmup, Lifeforce, so, when it came time to decide what game to cover for January's classic, I found myself thinking about other brilliant, but perhaps lesser known shoot 'em ups.  So for the coming months, I'm going to discuss some of my favourites, starting with Truxton by Toaplan.

I first saw Truxton in a Computer & Video Games annual from 1989.  Now I've always been a fan of shoot 'em ups, but the screenshots for Truxton blew me away, especially the ones that showed the Borogo fighter shooting great arcs of lightning at the enemy Gidans.  I finally got to try it at The Mint in Great Yarmouth several years later and playing it was even better.  It quickly became my favourite shoot 'em up after R-Type, but unlike Irem's classic, I was rubbish at Truxton.  Unfortunately, as amazing as the power-ups look, they take a long time to acquire and are actually severely under-powered.  There are still enemies you can kill with one shot, but there are also lots of enemies that take dozens of shots to kill; playing Truxton is hard work, even by arcade shmup standards.

Truxton is also noteable for having a playfield that extends beyond the edges of the screen.  It really pays to move as far left and right as you can as frequently as you can, because you never know if there's an power-up waiting out of sight.  Something my teenage self did not realise is that Truxton is not a stages game, as most arcade games of that era were.  Truxton is one long, continuous level, that takes about 40 mins to complete - if you're good.  As far as I know, in this regard, Truxton is unique and well worthy of being this month's classic.

YouTube user MamePlayer has uploaded a 3-part play through. Below is the 1st part.

Here's an interesting side note: when Toaplan folded in 1994, a bunch of the dev team went on to form a new company called Computer Art Visual Entertainment, better known as Cave, makers of bullet hell shooters such as DonPachi, Progear and Death Smiles.  Their pedigree certainly shows.

MTW