Movie review: Pixels

Hollywood made a movie about classic arcade game characters and I write a blog about classic arcade games, so I had to review Happy Madison Production's new flick Pixels, whether I wanted to or not.

Anybody who calls themselves a gamer, anybody who grew up in the 80s and anybody with kids under 12 will have had Pixels on their radar for the last few months, and the trailers show you everything you need to know about the film. In 1982, NASA sent a probe out into space that contained, among other things, footage of several hit arcade games. Decades later, a race of aliens find this footage and take it to be an act of war. So they launch an attack on Earth using that very same footage as the inspiration for their weapons of mass destruction. Cue Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Frogger, Galaga, Centipede, Arkanoid and a whole host of other classic sprites tearing up city streets around the world as giant, voxel monsters, while Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Peter Dinklage, Josh Gad and Michelle Monaghan try to stop them.

Galaga kicks things off by attacking an air base

The movie actually starts in 1982, with young friends Sam Brenner and Will Cooper heading to a newly opened arcade on their BMXs to check out the hottest games. Sam, it seems, is a natural, able to spot the patterns that were intrinsic to games of that era and exploit them. Such are his skills, that he and Will enter a national arcade competition, where the pair meet the even younger Ludlow "Wonder Kid" Lamonsoff and the devious Eddie "Fire Blaster" Plant. And this, it turns out, is the source of the ill-fated footage that NASA sends out into space.

Fast forward 30 years and Sam (Adam Sandler) is now a divorced 40-something, installing TVs for a living, despite his promise as a youth, while his chubby best friend Will (Kevin James) is the freakin' president of the freakin' United freakin' States of freakin' America! The only possible explanation for this is that it puts both characters in positions that allow them to be involved in the ensuing chaos. Enter also Violet van Patten (Michelle Monaghan), a hot single mom who's also happens to be a Lieutenant Colonel and weapons specialist. Sam and Violet cross paths when he is sent to her house to set up a new TV and PS4 for her son. Naturally, there is a clash of personalities, with an undertone of attraction, as you might expect from a film like this.

When a US military base is attacked by unknown forces, capable of rendering people, hardware and buildings to little glowing cubes, President Cooper brings both his friend and the Lieutenant Colonel on-board as advisors. On studying footage from the attack, Cooper has a hunch that the aggressor's formation resembles that of the aliens in the Namco classic Galaga and he wants his friend to confirm or deny his suspicions. It's around this time that an adult Ludlow (Josh Gad) is brought into the picture as a "typical gamer", i.e. a 38 year-old virgin, living with his gran, obsessing over fantasy female characters, namely Lady Lisa from Dojo Quest. This is the only non-authentic video game and character portrayed in the movie and also the only circa 1982 video game character to appear as flesh and blood, rather than a bunch of primary-coloured cubes, because bewbs! As well as being a true-to-life representation of us gamers [insert sarcasm here], Ludlow is also a conspiracy nut, who already knows about the invasion and has come to the same conclusion as Sam and POTUS Will.

The Arcaders, Lieutenant Colonel Violet, Sam, Wonder Kid and Fire Blaster.

The aliens then reveal themselves through a montage of 80s icons, such as Madonna and Fantasy Island's Mr. Roarke and Tattoo to throw down the gauntlet to planet Earth. Each side gets three chances or lives, if you will, in a series of battles based on the games contained in the space probe. Only, Sandler and crew had already lost two rounds before anybody had figured out WTF was going off, so the next battle is an all or nothing fight in Hyde Park, London. Here the aliens attack using the Atari classic Centipede. Armed with "light cannons" (developed by van Patten's team), Sam, Ludlow and a bunch of US soldiers battle the Centipede through the streets of London and Earth gains its first victory. The story then continues with a giant game of Pac-Man through the streets of New York. It's at this point that the team break Eddie Plant (Peter Dinklage) out of jail to help with the fight, because he was the world's best Pac-Man player. It's a decision that costs them later, as Eddie is not to be trusted. Things soon escalate, with a chaotic showdown that doubles-up as a who's who of classic arcade gaming. In terms of plot, there are no surprises, but did you really think there would be?

The Centipede scenes are genuinely great

Pixels has been mauled by both movie critics and the gaming press alike, but I will say this: the Centipede and Pac-Man scenes are intense and authentic, right down to the movement patterns, rules and colour schemes for each wave. By the end of Centipede battle, I had a big smile on my face and I was willing to go along with Sandler and co for the ride. To be fair, this is probably the highlight of the entire film, but throughout Pixels does do justice to its source material. But there are problems, not just with its cookie cutter plot and characterisation, but also its portrayal of women; they are shown as being either pretty and insubstantial or simply prizes for the men to win. There are other problems too; Sandler and James seem uninterested in the proceedings and Dinklage has very little to work with, other than being a sneaky, diminutive Billy Mitchell look-a-like. Gad's character, on the other hand, is very muddled, alternating between being so obsessed with Lady Lisa that he has written and published his own book on how she could be real, to lusting after the muscular soldiers and touching their asses (as the Americans say) whenever he can. Michelle Monaghan's character is also ill-defined. At one moment she is a strong, confident woman who can hold her own with the big boys and the next she's reduced to crying and drinking in a cupboard because her husband has dumped her for a 19 year-old bimbo. We can only assume the speed at which she falls for Sandler is a classic case of rebound. The movie also wastes the talents of Jane Krakowski, who plays Will Copper's wife and is therefore First Lady, Brian Cox, who plays a typical crotchety US army general and Sean Bean, who plays a British commando who gets shown up by Sandler when the chips are down.

Verdict

Despite all this, I must confess to enjoying the film. There is no denying I got off on all the obscure gaming references and it was great to see Q*Bert getting another moment in the spotlight (he also appeared in 2012's Wreck-It Ralph). I will also admit to laughing from time to time too, but then this is only my fifth Sandler movie (the previous ones being Eight Crazy Nights, The Wedding Singer, Big Daddy and Airheads — yep, they are really the only ones I've seen), so his schtick is still relatively new to me. I also got a strong Ghostbusters vibe from this movie, although I won't pretend it's in the same league as the original. They both have a group of no-hopers in jump suits trying to save the world from forces they don't really understand, they both feature futuristic, bespoke guns, designed to deal only with the enemy at hand and the pixel monsters can be likened to the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. My kids (who are 5 and 9) loved it too and the only video game characters they knew were Donkey Kong, Pac-Man and Frogger. So as someone who has had to suffer such kid-friendly dross as the Nativity movies, the Tinkerbell movies and Post-Man Pat: The Movie, Pixels really did not seem all that bad. In fact, I'd happily watch it again and if I had to chose just one kids movie to see this summer, I would chose Pixels over Minions every time. Yes, I really did say that.
However, if you're a big gamer who wishes the medium was treated with more dignity or your're an adult with no interest in video games, you probably won't enjoy this movie at all.

MTW

P.S. They actually made an 8-bit mobile game of Dojo Quest, which is available for free on iOS and Android.

Nostalgia Trip - Hunting High Scores

Completing the story mode of some sprawling adventure game is like finishing a long book; there is a sense of triumph and closure that you just don't get from watching a movie or TV programme and it's one of the many reasons why I've always felt a strong connection between the act of reading and the act of gaming. However, back in the days of arcade gaming, even if there was a story mode, it was really all about the high score, destroying enemies in as an efficient a way as possible and getting your three letter moniker on the electronic leader board (MTW in my case). If you were at the top, those three letters were like planting your flag, staking your claim. With those three letters you were saying, "I am the best!" It was an open invitation for all comers to try to topple you and even if you didn't know who belonged to a particular name, seeing your initials above theirs was a tiny bit of a rush. If you were a regular at an arcade, you might even see the same names appearing on the leader board of your favourite game. But of course, nothing could be better than beating a friend's high score, both in direct competition or just beating their score when they weren't around, knowing they'd get a nasty surprise next time they played.

My earliest memories of competing with friends for high scores were on a trio of games back in the mid-80s. There was Irem's Jackie Chan beat 'em up Kung-Fu Master, Konami's Olympic mini-game collection Hyper Sports and at number 1 by a considerable margin, an oft-forgotten shoot 'em up by Tekhan called Star Force. 

Star Force's highscore board

Yet again, these were games I played on holiday in Caister-on-Sea. As I met up with the same friends for several years in a row, the rivalries continued year-in-year-out, with the games changing every few years. Other games that sparked similar rivalries included Taito's bat-and-ball space epic Arkanoid, macho light gun blaster Operation Thunderbolt, pop culture phenomenon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Atari's stunt simulator Hard Drivin'. The latter was a difficult one for me as an 11 year-old, as I was trying to compete with my brother and brother-in-law, both of whom were a decade older. Talking of my brother, I still have vivid memories of people gathering around him while he played 1942. While he never finished it, he was one of the best players in that little seaside arcade. 

It wasn't just the arcade. At home, my friends and I would compete on our 8-bit computers and consoles, though very few games stored the scores between sessions. Of course, there was always the risk that either you or your friend would go off in a off if you beat each other at your favourite game you got for your birthday.

High scores go legit

While arcade gamers the world over competed for high scores, in Iowa in the early 80s, Walter Day had plans to take it one step further. After opening his own arcade Twin Galaxies, Day set about collating high scores from hundreds of different arcades, as well as organising contests at his own venue. Then in February, 1982, he released his records as Twin Galaxies National Scoreboard. Throughout the 80s through to the early 2000s, Day and his black and white striped referee jersey, came to symbolise serious arcade competition play and official high score record keeping. If you thought you were good, it was the high scores on the Twin Galaxies' database you had to beat.

Then in 2007, two independent films brought Twin Galaxies to the attention of the whole world. Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade was very much a celebration of Day's work as a national record keeper, but then just months later, King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters portrayed Day and his organisation as corruptible and dishonest, pandering to the whims of celebrity gamers.

In 2013, Twin Galaxies appeared to have folded, only to be resurrected the following year by American TV personality Jace Hall. Now, the organisation mixes its origin as gaming record keeper and competition organiser with a combination of sport commentating and Twitch's live streaming of gameplay. You can check out their YouTube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/user/TwinGalaxiesLive.

Evolution of the high score

For a while, outside of retro gaming and a few throwback games, chasing high scores lost its popularity. Online games, such as Quake and Counter Strike had no need for running high scores, just a kill count from match to match, while adventure games from Half-Life to Ratchet & Clank did away with scores altogether.

Then, in 2005, Microsoft launched their new games console, the Xbox 360, which included a new feature called Achievements. They were integrated into every game, including downloadable Xbox Live Arcade games, and offered players numeric rewards when they activated certain triggers. These triggers could be something mundane like finishing a level or beating a boss, something repetitive like getting 50 headshots or having 10 match winning streak, or something just plain stupid, like jumping off a bridge into water without dying or putting masks on zombies (a real achievement in Capcom's Dead Rising).

It all seemed innocuous at first, but achievements had a couple of tricks up their sleeves that were quite unlike the world had seen before. Firstly, the points you earned from achievements were aggregated across all of the games you played as your "gamerscore". With full price games offering 1000 achievement points, it was possible to get gamerscores in the hundreds of thousands, much like a typical high score. Secondly, the whole world could see your gamerscore and what games you'd played to earn them. Now the contest wasn't between you, your mates and the locals, it was between everyone who owned a 360, no matter where they lived in the world. High scores had evolved and for a period during the late 2000s, people went gamerscore crazy. There were even online forums springing up where people could not only boast about their gamerscores, but also exchange tips on getting elusive achievements. It became so popular, both Valve and Sony retro-fitted similar (but no where near as successful) systems into their games platforms.

Microsoft continued to develop the system themselves with their current console, the Xbox One, but the general consensus is that gamerscore hunting peaked with the last generation.

Full circle

So where is the humble high score now? Well, it's probably more popular now than it has been for 20 years, thanks to the increased popularity of retro-gaming. Not only are old gamers, such as myself, able to go back to games they loved, but new gamers are getting to experience these high score driven games for themselves. It seems to me that this is most apparent in the popularity of Far Sight Studio's Pinball Arcade on tablets and phones. Pinball has always been about the pure pursuit of high scores and Pinball Arcade has high scores that automatically feed into an online database. You can check them out for yourself here: http://www.pinballarcade.com/Leaderboards

But whether you are trying to beat your friends or strangers online, ultimately a high score is also a challenge to yourself. Much like your personal best time in a marathon or the amount of weight you can bench press, beating your own high score means one thing: you're getting better at the game itself.

Top 10 licenced games

It's nearly Christmas, the decorations have been adorning shops since Halloween, the cheesy songs are playing on the radio and everywhere you look there are adverts for toys, gadgets, chocolates, booze, food, DVDs, books, games, you name it. With this in mind, I thought I'd end my run of top 10s genres with licensed games.

Video games have been part of the merchandise for TV shows, movies and toys for a long, long time. These days the term "licensed game" is generally regarded with derision, but once upon a time that wasn't always the case and there were plenty of classic arcade games that were also nothing more than merchandise for something else. Sticking to my rule of one game per franchise (sorry, Marvel), here is my top 10:

Star Wars

Let's start the show with a show stopper! Released in 1980 (the same year as the best Star Wars movie of all), this vector graphics X-Wing simulator set the tone for decades of Star Wars games to come. Despite the psychedelically-coloured graphics, the cabinet, the yoke controls and a samples from the movie meant this was as evocative as any games based on the classic franchise could hope to be. It's probably one of the most highly regarded arcade games of all time, let alone licensed ones.

RoboCop 2

Movie trailers are such delicious teases. I remember when the trailers for RoboCop 2 came out and thinking the antagonist robot, Kane, looked awesome. I can remember recording Film '90 just so I could replay the snippets of RoboCop battling Kane. My 15 year-old self was dizzy with excitement to see the film and sadly I had to wait for several years.

Data East had made an arcade game for the first RoboCop film, but where as that film was superior to its sequel, the sequel to the game was much better. From the gorgeous, sharp graphics to the novel little set pieces (such as forcing the truck back against a wall to crush it, as pictured above), this game let the player re-enact loads of key elements of RoboCop. At times, as a video game character he felt a little stiff, but the ability to shoot in a different direction to the one you were moving in (there was a button to shoot left and one to shoot right) did compensate for his rigidity some what.

WWF Super Stars

"I am a real American, doo doo doo dar dum dee doo dar." Sorry, where was I, oh yeah, WWF Super Stars hit the arcades at the same time as I first discovered "American wrestling". Although this game had a limited roster it did at least feature venerable favourites of the era Hulk Hogan, Randy "Macho Man" Savage, "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan, Ultimate Warrior and Big Boss Man (a favourite of mine at the time) among others. The game features lots of hallmark moves and the context-sensitive controls mean that with just two buttons and a joystick, each wrestler has a pretty good repertoire. The controls were a bit woolly to be honest, but this was as much a game of atmosphere as anything else and it captured the over-the-top action of 80s wrestling brilliantly. And given I only got to see wrestling when I went to a friend's house who had satellite TV, this game formed a major part of my childhood wrestling fanaticism.

Aliens

Man alive were there some great movies in the 80s and one of the best was James Cameron's Aliens. There were a number of arcade games made out of the franchise, but this (as far as I know) was the first. You take control of Ripley (with player 2 controlling who I can only assume was Hicks) as they try to rescue Newt from the alien infestation on LV426. There are one or two suspect aliens in this game, which I don't believe ever appeared in any of the movies, including weird bat creatures and mutants, but it's still a blast.

Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara

Capcom made a shed load of side scrolling beat 'em ups in the 90s, though few managed to better their classic Final Fight. However, this D&D brawler's use of simple RPG mechanics, including an inventory (something that was very rare in arcade games), makes it stand out from the pack. Of course it has all the staples of the genre: elves, dwarves, wizards, rangers, paladins, you name it. And all wrapped in a lovely bit of hack 'n' slash action. This game is now available of XBLA and PSN as part of a double-pack with its predecessor, Tower of Doom, both of which are great.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Talking of classic 80s movies, the original Indiana Jones trilogy might be my favourite 80s trilogy; there isn't a dud in the pack. Many people say Temple of Doom was a let down, but the film's cheesy morbidity delighted me as a kid ("Ahh, chilled monkey brains!") and the mine cart chase was superb. As with some other movies in this list, I played the game long before seeing the film. The Temple of Doom game was in the arcade at the Old Hall, so I played it a LOT. There's not a lot to the game and if you aren't bothered about high scores you can always play it in easy mode and get a feel for the whole thing in just a few minutes, but in that short time you do get to play through many of the movies most memorable sequences, including the mine cart chase and the fight over the lava pit.

The Simpsons

There is a pattern to this list of games. WWF, Simpsons, D&D, Indiana Jones and Tron (see below) are all franchises I knew about because of the games as much (or something rather than) the source material. I didn't get to watch Simpson's until the late 90s, when my parents finally got cable TV, but because of this game I knew precisely who Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie were. The game itself was a madcap brawler, with each member of the family sporting their own special (and canonically accurate) moves. Marge's use of a vacuum cleaner could be seen as sexist, but it was funny to see one used (quite literally) in anger.

X-Men: Children of Atom

Here we are again, Capcom churning out loads of versions of basically the same game. Over the years they've made loads of Marvel-themed fighting games, primarily ones incorporating either Street Fighter characters or other Capcom characters. However, I prefer the purity of this super hero-only instalment, even if the roster of fighters is much reduced from the other games.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

What boy in the late-80s and early 90s didn't love the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (or Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, as they were known here in the UK)? I never read the comic, but I watched the cartoon and loved it. However, it was decidedly lacking in actual ninja action, with the turtles usually dispatching Shredder's foot soldiers with a bowl of spaghetti or a rubbish bin. So when the game let you wield each turtle's signature weapon (katana, bo staff, sai and nunchuks), what fan wouldn't lap it up?

Tron

This is an important game for me, because although I had played video games before it was this game, above all others, that made me fall in love with arcade gaming. It was so futuristic, with its neon paint and glowing pistol-grip joystick. In an arcade with a black light (which in my opinion is an essential piece of equipment for any arcade) this cabinet was stunning to behold.

It's 30 years since I first played this game and sadly its bespoke controls do not map to modern controllers very well at all. Whether it's on MAME or on XBLA, there is no good version to play, other than the original. As much as I love Street Fighter, if I had to have just one arcade machine, it would be Tron cabinet.

And that's it, all of the top 10 games by genre. I probably won't publish anything else this side of Christmas, so until next time, Merry Christ and a Happy New Year.

MTW

Top 10 light gun games

Games and guns, it's like an unfortunate match made in heaven. These days there are anxious parents, politicians and religious groups worried that 11 year-olds who play Call of Duty will one day gun down their class mates, whilst simultaneously overlooking facts like 11 year-olds shouldn't be given access to Call of Duty, America's gun laws are way too lax or truly disturbed people need little reason to commit acts atrocity. Anyway, I'm getting a little off topic here. This month's top 10 is light gun games, one of the few types of game you're still likely to see in an arcade, which is ironic, as it's up there with pinball games as one of the very oldest forms of arcade entertainment, going back to the 1930s. This bunch are all a lot more modern than that though.

Operation Wolf/Operation Thunderbolt

Despite the fact light gun games have been arcades for decades before video games entered the amusement industry, for most arcade throwbacks the granddaddies of the genre are Operation Wolf and its sequel Operation Thunderbolt. At the time, Arnold Swartzeneggar was one of the biggest action heroes around and was synonymous with the Uzi 9mm, so getting to hold the replica on the cabinet was a thrill in itself.

Mad Dog McCree

Full Motion Video (FMV) in video games never fails to be cheesy, even when people have tried to use it seriously, but when it's used knowingly, as with American Laser Games' 1990 Western, Mad Dog McCree it's even more fun. The hammy acting, the distinct lack of any actual gun shot wounds and every Cowboy cliché under the sun, it's all here.  This game is now available on Wii, so you can still enjoy the cheese today.

Virtua Cop

The Sega Model 2 arcade system powered some great examples of the 90s polygon insurgence, which saw more and more video games move away from sprites in favour of 3D models. The Virtua series is worthy of an article all of its own, with Sega attaching the name to everything from sports games and driving simulators, to beat 'em ups and law enforcement. Virtua Cop pre-dates Namco's Time Crisis by a year and like many of the Virtua games tried to be more serious and realistic. Whatever, it was still great fun.

Terminator 2: Judgement Day

Back in the early 90s, Terminator 2 was a cultural phenomenon. Arnie being suitably robotic, Linda Hamilton butching up, but somehow still managing to be sexy, a Guns 'n' Roses sound track that rocked the cinema and the best CG we'd ever seen. Translate this to the arcade and of course we get a light gun game. This shooting gallery of mechanical mayhem may not have looked as good as Robert Patrick's liquid metal T-1000, but who wouldn't want to fill one of those cyborg monsters full of hot digital lead?

Ninja Assault

Ninja's are fast, agile, deadly assassins, employing shadows and camouflage to move through the night unnoticed, so when you think about it, the best way to deal with such a deadly foe is probably to blow them away with a machine gun. I never really understood the disparity between your weapons and the attackers, but it was a blast nonetheless.

Point Blank

So far this list has been full of soldiers, criminals and killer robots, so let's change gear and talk about one of the cuteness, craziest light gun games of all time, Namco's Point Blank. Instead of a cheesy story as with all the other games in this list, Point Blank was technically a mini-game collection, where the player could chose what stage they wanted to play next and no single stage took more than a 30 seconds to a minute to complete. The game used similar guns to Time Crisis, so you got that same great recoil action and in context with the game's visuals, the pink and cyan guns made a lot more sense than with Time Crisis.

Ghost Squad

Nothing Sega's Ghost Squad does is particularly original, in fact it employs every wrote trick and set piece in the book, but there's something about the way it brings all these familiar elements together that makes it a joy to play. It's like a really good cover band, who, despite playing another band's music, still manage to rock the house. This is a game I first discovered on the Wii and it demonstrates Nintendo's uber-popular console is a great platform for light gun action.

Police 911

Taking of motion gaming, before Microsoft's Kinect camera or even Sony's EyeToy camera, Konami's Police 911 used a similar system way back in 2000 to give players the opportunity to dodge digital bullets for real. It worked surprisingly well and made for one of the most energetic arcade experiences outside of Dance Dance Revolution or Final Furlong. As the image above shows though, as with all motion gaming, it required good amount of space for players to fling themselves around.

Silent Scope

Now we're taking serious action. Silent Scope wasn't about flicking the trigger as fast as possible, instead it was about patience and accuracy as you played the part of a sniper. In another brilliant innovation by Konami, the scope on the gun didn't actually magnify the the screen in front of you. Instead it contained a 2nd, mini screen, which rendered your target separately. This provided a crystal clear view of the action (not obscured by the sights rendered on the main screen), whilst still having the main screen for you to do your spotting. The gun was great to hold and required the player to really shunt themselves around to get the best angles. Brilliant stuff.

Time Crisis series

As a self-confessed arcade aficionado, it's easy to think I need to pluck some oft-forgotten treasure to top a list like this, but the truth is sometimes the most popular games are popular for a very good reason. Such as it is with Namco's Time Crisis. It's a former classic here on Arcade Throwback and who would argue with its status as one of the greatest, if not the great light gun game ever. Aside from the great gameplay, Time Crisis's double whammy of the recoil on the gun and the pedal to take cover and reload put it well ahead of the competition. Each new instalment added features that elevated the series even further, with co-op coming in the first sequel and different weapons in the second. It's a game any arcade nut would want in their private collection.

MTW

Top 10 run 'n' gun games

Run 'n' gun games may contain elements of shoot 'em ups and platformers, they can be modern day or futuristic, but whatever elements they're made of, they're all about blowing s**t up and taking names, just like the OTT action movies of the 80s and 90s. Speaking of which...

Ikari Warriors

One of the original top-down run 'n' gun games, Ikari Warriors is an all time classic. After crash landing your plane behind enemy lines, you have to fight your way up the scrolling jungle of enemy soldiers, taking weapons and also vehicles to aid your escape. The game is very clearly inspired by the Rambo films, with player 1's character looking almost exactly like Stallone (player 2 was the same, but blue). It's also one of those games that is difficult to translate to home platforms due to its rotating joystick controls (a problem we'll encounter again later on).

Metal Slug series

If you don't know what a typical run 'n' gun game looks like, you have obviously haven't played any of SNK's Metal Slug games. And if you haven't played any of these beautiful, violent and brilliantly ridiculous examples of arcade gaming, what the hell are you doing on a site like this? Metal Slug is one of the crowning jewels of SNK's legendary Neo Geo system and features some of the most detailed pixel art ever, but it's the high energy, high explosive, tongue-in-cheek gameplay that makes it a classic.

Gunforce: Battle Fire Engulfed Terror Island

If I was giving out awards for Most Awesome Subtitle, Gunforce: Battle Fire Engulfed Terror Island would probably win. This Irem run 'n' gun game from 1991 is very clearly inspired by Contra, but has a contemporary setting and two player co-op. Gunforce gives players the ability to lock the direction of fire by simply tapping the joystick and staying still, something many other similar games didn't do (such as Contra which always put the gun in a neutral position when you let go of the joystick). And although plenty of run 'n' gun games give you control of vehicles, there was something more free form about Gunforce's selection. They tended to be the same as the enemy vehicles and included screen-filling examples, such as the helicopter in the screenshot above. 

Total Carnage

In the 90s, Midway were the kings of over-the-top, parent shocking video games, from the visceral digitised action of Mortal Kombat to the worship of the cathode ray tube and total disregard for human life that was Smash TV. Released in 1992, Total Carnage shares a lot in common with Smash TV. Many of the game play elements, weapons and even characters came from Smash TV. As the name suggests, this is probably the craziest, crassest game in this list - a delight for teenage boys who grew up watching Willis, Van Damme, Lundgren, Sly and Arnie in action. The game also features an interesting password system, that will let you warp to sections of the if you know the four letter code.

Cyber-Lip

Here's another one from the SNK Neo Geo. Released a few years before Metal Slug, Cyber-Lip takes the game play of Contra and the plot from Terminator. You and a friend take control of two human soldiers, sent to take out the robotic army that's terrorising Earth after a military super computer goes haywire. Some notable features of Cyber-Lip are the ability to shimmy along handrails and the fact when you die you come back on a flying jet ski thing, which, for a few seconds, not only gives you the ability to clear the screen, but also allows you to position yourself where ever you like.

And no, I don't know what a Cyber-Lip is.

Mercs

Capcom's 1985 Commando was one of the earliest examples of vertically scrolling run 'n' gun games, pre-dating Ikari Warriors by a year. However, sticking to my rule of only including one game from any series, I must confess to preferring the faster, more hectic sequel from 1990. This game not only plays great, it looks great too, with clean, yet detailed pixel art that for some reason reminds me of Bitmap Brothers games. Unlike some of the other top-down games in this list, Mercs doesn't require any specialised controls, which means it translated well to home platforms too.

Midnight Resistance

I have found memories of various Data East games, but none more so than Midnight Resistance from 1989.  Like many of the games in this list, the characters looked like Rambo, but then he was the biggest action hero around at the time. Fallen enemies would sometimes drop keys, of which players could collect up to six. At the end of each level you break into a weapons store and each weapon or ammunition pack would require a certain number of keys to unlock. This was effectively just a coin and shop system, but it was more in-keeping with the story than having a random shop in the middle of the war-torn environment. This is another game that requires a rotating stick and so it didn't translate well to home platforms.

Finest Hour

Despite taking its name from a Winston Churchill speech, Namco's Finest Hour from 1989 is actually set in the future and puts the player in control of an armoured robot, seeking out the enemy in a jungle-like terrain and blasting them to smithereens. Finest Hour has a few unusual features. Firstly, it has an auto-lock on for the main gun and second, although it's not a one-hit-death game, you don't have health either. Instead you have a heat gauge, which goes up when you are hit. If the meter reaches critical, you blow up. However, stay out of danger for long enough and you'll cool down again. So when people talk about the auto-recharging health and shields of modern games like Halo, Gears of War and Call of Duty, you have to wonder if it started here. Officially, the game was only available in Japan, but I do remember it making it over to a few UK arcades. 

Rolling Thunder series

A former Classic of the Month, Namco's Rolling Thunder oozes spy style. The original had super smooth and detailed animation to go along with its great gameplay and atmosphere; the sequels added more locations, improved graphics and two player. The sequels are also some of the few run and gun games that put player 1 in control of a female protagonist (although others, such as later Metal Slug games, had optional female characters).

Alien Syndrome

Firstly, I love, love, love Sega's 1987 classic Alien Syndrome! I mean, I have soft spots for all the games in this list, but I have particularly found memories of Alien Syndrome - not so much the arcade original as the Sega Master System conversion. It wasn't as fast, but I always thought the graphics were cleaner. Nonetheless, this game manages to evoke the sense of foreboding and dread that permeates the Sigourney Weaver movies and with the kind of squelchy, undulating monstrosities found in John Carpenter's The Thing. Unlike the other games in this list, the maze-like structure of the levels of this game force players to explore and the time bomb ticking down in the background only added to the sense of dread.

Contra (AKA Gryzor)

Characters that looked like Arnie and Sly? Loads of big, crazy guns? Soldiers, robots and aliens to blast? What was not to like about Contra - or Gryzor as I knew it in the 80s. I was truly terrible at this game, but it wasn't until I was much older that I discovered it is generally considered one of the hardest games of that period. I own the Xbox Live Arcade version and even when I lower the difficulty and use all my continues, I still can't get past level 3. This game also made it to my original Top 10 list of seminal arcade games from my youth and for good reason. As good as similar games are in this list, Contra is still my favourite. So you can imagine how excited I was a few years ago when the games company I worked for at the time were pitching for the contract to do a modern remake of this classic franchise. Sadly, the bid fell through and it wasn't to be.

Join me again next month when I'll be counting down my top 10 light gun games.

MTW

Top 10 sports games

It's a scorching summer here in the UK, so it seemed like the perfect time to talk about Arcade Throwback's top 10 sports games.

Track & Field/Hyper Sports

Here I go, starting the show with a show stopper! Konami's Track & Field series is legendary and there are more games in the series than most people remember. In 1984, a year after Track & Field, there was Hyper Sports, which is the first one I played. Then there was Konami '88, International Track & Field (1996) and Negano Winter Olympics '98, as well as numerous spin-offs on home consoles. For most people, myself included, it's those first two games, that kick started the whole button mashing sports genre, that really stay with us. 

Tecmo World Cup '90

There were no football fans in my family, so first time I got into the beautiful game was during Italia '90, when I was 15. And what England fan didn't caught up in the moment when Paul "Gazza" Gascoigne's emotions got the better of him during our semi-final game against Germany? Even my mum watched it! Anyway, the football game to play that summer was Tecmo's World Cup '90. The simple controls made for a fast paced game that anyone could pick up and play and it remains one of my favourite video game interpretations of the sport.

F1 Grand Prix

Video System Co. Ltd's F1 Grand Prix could have gone in my top 10 driving games, but as one of the few properly licenced arcade racers I could remember, I thought I'd save this excellent top-down racer for the sports list. The game features all the teams and drivers from the early 90s, including such legends as Nigel Mansell, Jean Alesi, Nelson Piquet, Alain Prost and of course Ayrton Senna, all beautifully drawn and instantly recognisable. And while F1 begs to be made into simulators as opposed to arcade games, the top-down perspective works brilliantly, like a helicopter cam, letting you get a birds-eye view of all the jostling for position.

Side Pocket

If there was one sport that was on the telly in my house as a kid, it was snooker. I can't remember any snooker games in the arcades, but there were a few pool games, many of which came from Data East, including the dubious Pool Gal series. However, Side Pocket is the game I remember from the arcades I visited. With its top-down view, the mechanics were greatly simplified, but as always that suited the arcade.

Punch-Out!!

Nintendo's Punch-Out!! is perhaps better known for the NES and Super NES versions, but it did start out in the arcade in 1984. I remember it being a technically impressive game for the time, with the player's green-haired character (later known as Little Mac) appearing as a transparent wireframe model, so that you could get a better view of your opponent. And what a cast of characters they were! Glass Joe, Piston Hurricane, Dragon Chan, they were all brilliantly drawn and full of personality. The simply controls provided enough variety that you didn't just mash the buttons and the opponents' combinations of attacks, blocks and feints kept you on your toes. Nintendo resurrected the franchise in 2009 on the Wii and it's a brilliant update of the game.

Wind Jammers

You can look at SNK's Wind Jammers one of two ways: either you can disregard it because its a made-up sport or you can play it and enjoy one of the best one-on-one video games ever! The premise is simple, mix a little tennis and squash, but played with frisbees and add in special movies that wouldn't look out of place in a King of Fighters game. This is definitely one of those games that's easy to pick up, but very hard to master. Doing the special's is easy enough, but countering your opponent's specials and send them back at him with deadly force is much harder and also much more satifying.

Pigskin 621AD

Okay, if you thought I was pushing my luck with WWF Super Stars, you'll think I'm way over the line with Pigskin 621AD, but you won't deny it's a riot to play! This crazy medieval version of American football is almost as much a beat 'em up as a sports game. The field is also full of traps, like ponds, muddy puddles and boulders, which prevent you from zig-zagging wildly down the field in an attempt to avoid being clobbered by a mace-wielding warrior-jock. Unlike many other football games, you only control one player, the team captain, Thor Akenbak, but you can control the tactics (in a basic way) of your team mates by pressing the red button. When the player's team is in possession of the ball you can swap between "Block" and "Scatter", and when your opponents have the ball you can swap between "Get Ball" and "Man-to-Man". In either situation you can also set your team to free-for-all by selecting "Bad Attitude" — assuming you have enough time to think that far ahead in all the chaos!

Hit the Ice

Ice hockey is fast and frequently violent and so it's perfect for translation to video game. Few versions of the sport are as manic as Taito and William's Hit the Ice. Take control of a goalie and one member of either the Reds or the Blues, then skate, pass, shoot and, if need be, punch your way up the rink to score a slot shot. There are plenty of quite serious ice hockey games out there, but Hit the Ice is a bit like Pigskin in that it takes neither itself nor the sport it's based on too seriously. The result is a game that's full of comedic violence, like hitting your opponents in the head with the puck and making them see stars.  

Virtua Tennis

When it comes to tennis, us Brits have never had so much to celebrate, with Andy Murray winning just about every grand slam he enters and several young stars, like Laura Robson, doing us proud as well. For gamers, there is no finer tennis game than Sega's Virtua Tennis series, which was developed for their Naomi system (which shared its guts with the Dreamcast console). The game manages to be both accessible and authentic in equal measure, allowing players to feel like they could take on the grass courts of Wimbledon as well.

Neo Turf Masters

All the other games in this list are based on fast, action-oriented sports, but Nazca's Neo Turf Masters for the SNK Neo Geo masterfully adapts the sedentary pace of golf to the rapid-fire world of arcade gaming, without sacrificing the core elements of the sport. For lives you get a strict stroke limit, meaning that you can only progress if you can stay under par, meaning you can be facing the game over screen as quickly in this game as any other in this list. And thank God for one of my school mates showing me Microprose Golf on the Commodore Amiga back in the early '90s, because otherwise I might have totally overlooked this gem, which remains one of my all time favourite arcade games.

MTW

Top 10 shoot 'em ups

I've done a few Top 10s over the years, but as I'm winding down Arcade Throwback this year they also give me an opportunity to quickly cover some of my all time favourites from each genre. So here, in no particular order, is Arcade Throwback's Top 10 shoot 'em up of all time.

Galaxian

There's something almost comforting about Galaxian's familiar formula. The game is barely any different from Space Invaders, but in 1979 it was by far the most visually and aurally appealing game in the arcade. That initial ditty still puts a smile on my face today. Compared to Space Invaders, in Galaxian the player is in far more peril from the get go. There's no cover and the aliens start dive-bombing you almost straight away, but who doesn't get a kick out of destroying a flagship and both its escorts when it's millimetres above your ship.

1942

In a genre that is full of crazy over-the-top weapons, enemies and locations, there is something refreshing about 1942's simplicity. There have been many sequels and remakes over the years, but none have quite lived up to the purity of the original. It also started a trend for having shmups based on World War II fighter planes, one of which is in this list.

Fantasy Zone

In a genre full of glinting metal spaceships and gelatinous alien monstrosities, Fantasy Zone's cute and colourful graphics are completely out of place, but that's partly why I like it so much. There are other cute 'em ups (Twin Bee and Parodius for example), but for me, Fantasy Zone stands out because it's also a solid shmup.

Saint Dragon

Jaleco's Saint Dragon is one of a handful of shoot 'em ups to employ a manoeuverable tail into the gameplay, but for me, non did it as well. Careful use of the metal dragon's tail can protect you from all but the fiercest enemy ordinance, but the spray of bullets, leapest metallic panthurs and environment obstacles mean you cannot simply coil yourself up to avoid the flak. This is a great shoot 'em up, which is often overlooked and well overdue a nice, shiny remake.

Blazing Star

The SNK Neo Geo was a wonderful arcade machine, probably best pure sprite-based machine ever made and few games demonstrate this better than Blazing Star. Sequel to the rather poor Pulstar, Blazing Star is busy, beautiful shoot 'em up to behold.

Raiden series

Seibu Kaihatsu's Raiden series is a sublime collection of shoot 'em ups that have survived the death of the arcade and made a happy home for themselves on modern consoles. It's difficult to pick one game in the series over any other, but they all play brilliantly. I just wish that Raiden Fighters Jet compilation for Xbox had made it to the UK.

Radiant Silvergun

When it comes to Treasure's two vertically shoot 'em ups, there's always debate as it which is better, the polarising Ikaruga or the diverse Radiant Silvergun. Personally, I like that RSG gives the player loads of choice about how they deal with each enemy encounter right out of the gate. Add in the colour-coded score bonus system and I can't help thinking it has more game than its younger brother. And thanks to the recent (and brilliant) port to home consoles, it's no longer a mythical game nobody's played. Any shmup fan would be a fool not to pick up.

Akai Katana Shin

Released in arcades in 2010, Akai Katana (as it's known here in the UK) is by far the most recent game in this list. I love pretty much all of CAVE's games, but this probably my favourite. Balancing collecting steel to arm your spirit form and energy to power it up takes thought and plannning, which would seem impossible among the chaos of this bullet hell shooter, but a steady hand and a stiff upper pays incredible dividends. Seeing your patience and care pay off in a shower of giant Gs is one of those pseudo-orgasmic experiences that only a select few games can offer.

Gradius series

I love Gradius, although the first game I played from the series was actually Salamander - also known as Lifeforce. These games are tight, precise shoot 'em ups, with brilliant environmental challenges. Ironically, although I'd struggle to pick a favourite among the original arcade games, my absolutely favourite Gradius game is Gradius V, which is a Playstation 2-only game made by Ikaruga developers Treasure.

R-Type

This is the one, the shoot 'em up that has stayed with me longer than any other. I played it in the arcade, I owned it on my Sega Master System, Commodore Amiga 500, Nintendo Gameboy, Sony PlayStation, Sony PlayStation 2 and now Microsoft Xbox 360, with the sublime R-Type Dimensions compilation.

Honourable mentions

Here are a few other games that almost made it into my top 10:

• Truxton (Tatsujin)
• Galaga
• Ikaruga
• Batsugun
• Mars Matrix
• Progear
• Tempest
• Defender
• Juno First
• Darius series

MTW