Oh Capcom, you are spoiling us

Arcades may be dead, but many of the top manufacturers from back in the day are striving to reinvent and rejuvenate their old franchises for modern systems and new players. And arguably, of all the old guard to try to keep their games relevant, Capcom has been the most successful. As well as porting classics with their Arcade Cabinet collection and giving us numerous remakes, such as Bionic Commando Rearmed and 1942: Joint Strike, they've also brought a number of franchises back to life, most notably Street Fighter IV. And this month, they've teased us arcade throwbacks with two new treats. Check out the videos below:

I skipped the last update for SSFIV, but I'm rather looking forward to Ultra, not least because Elena was one of my favourite new characters in Street Fighter III. And as for the Strider remake, I'm getting quite a Shadow Complex vibe from it, but that is by no means a bad thing, as Shadow Complex was awesome, but we'll need to wait for that one until next year.

Big staff cuts at yet another UK developer

Eurocom, an independent UK games developer, responsible for such arcade ports as Super Street Fighter II Turbo, Hydro Thunder, Rodland, Mortal Kombat 3 and Mortal Kombat 4 had to lay off  ¾ of their workforce yesterday.

A statement issued by studio Director Hugh Binns to Gamesindustry International reads:

 "Eurocom are undertaking a restructuring which I regret to say has meant we've made the majority of our workforce redundant today. 

 "This includes many very experienced, talented and highly skilled employees, and we'd like to thank them all for your hard work and efforts. 

 "We've fought to try and save as many jobs as possible, but the steep decline in demand for console games, culminating in a number of console projects falling through in the last week, left us with no option. Eurocom has retained a core staff of just under 50 employees and will be focusing mainly on mobile opportunities moving forward."

Obviously, developers go under all the time, but I mention Eurocom's difficulties because until a few months ago, I worked there and the 3 ½ years I was there were some of the hardest, most humbling and also most interesting years of my working life. There's not many jobs where people wander around the building in shorts and bare feet or have racks full of machine guns in the offices or (my favourite) let their staff install games on their incredibly powerful workstation computers and permit building-wide games of Left 4 Dead, Battlefield and Star Craft 2 at lunch time. There's also very few jobs where 80-100 hour weeks are par for the course coming up to a deadline, but that's the dark truth about the games industry.

Hopefully they can transform their business model and survive the current turmoil in the industry, but it's still such a same so much talent is now out of work. My heart goes out to all of you guys.

UPDMTWE (7/12/12): Despite the best efforts of the directors to move into markets that might keep them afloat, the company announced today that they were bringing the administrators in, so that's it, all over.

Triple threat of Sega fighters coming next week

If you own an Xbox 360 or a PlayStation 3, then as of next Wednesday you'll be about to buy Virtua Fighter 2, Fighting Vipers and Sonic Fighters (which I'd not actually heard of before) and challenge other Sega fighting fans online. These are all Model 2-based machines and the basic polygon graphics have not aged well at all, much like some early sprite-based games. Anyway, they each cost 800MSP on Xbox or £6.99 on PS3 and demos are available if you don't already know you want them.

So until Wednesday, let's have a quick look at the games themselves, all courtesy of YouTube user Ninjasweetheart:

Virtua Fighter 2 (PS3)

Fighting Vipers 

Sonic Fighters

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Magical Drop V is here

In 1995, as a response to the success of Taito's Puzzle Bobble series, Data East released Chain Reaction (or Magical Drop as it was known in its native Japan). The game did well enough for Data East to make two sequels for the SNK Neo Geo MVS, under the Japanese name. Thanks to the success of the Neo Geo, Magical Drop II and III were huge successes, even spawning their own clones, most recently Astro Pop on Xbox Live Arcade.

Over the years there have been a couple of non-canonical sequels, Magical Drop F for PlayStation in 1999, and Magical Drop Touch  for iOS/Android in 2009. Now, 15 years after the last arcade game, Ignition Entertainment is publishing Magical Drop V, developed by the brilliant Arkedo and Golgoth Studios.

The game is available now on PC, with XBLA and PSN versions due next year. In the mean time, here's the trailer.

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Sega's new dream

Last December I said I thought Sega were the greatest arcade manufacturer of all time, then not a month later I was bemoaning the fact all they are making in the second decade of the 21st century are prize machines. Earlier this month, they unveiled their latest arcade machine and looking at the specs, photos and trailers, I think I may have been a bit hasty.

It's called Dream Raiders and it's a rail shooter with what Sega are calling a "motion platform", which basically means the seat moves. The controls resemble the twin-sticks of Atari's vector classic Star Wars (another rail shooter), with strange glowing domes on top. I can't decide if they're just ornamental or actually serve a purpose. The screen is a big, HD flat panel and it features a surround sound system too, both of which are pretty much par for the course these days.

Superficially, this all looks pretty ordinary, but when I read that it was inspired by the superb Christopher Nolan film Inception, I thought I should pay a little more attention. The basic premise is that each level represents a dream, which the player or players must battle their way through before choosing the next dream to tackle. As such the levels include a dragon hunt, some sort of mine cart through a volcano, a snow mobile chase (which is probably the most Inceptiony of all the levels), a battle with a sea monster, a cowboy world, an alien invasion, an asteroid belt and various other dream-like worlds.

I think Sega have been smart by offering players so much choice right out of the gate. I can see people spend a fair few quid on it, if only to try a different level/dream. The only problem now is finding one to play.

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Dragon's Lair comes to Xbox Kinect Arcade

Digital Leisure seem intent on squeezing every last drop out of Don Bluth's legendary LaserDisc arcade game, Dragon's Lair. According to the game's Wikipedia page, it has been released on 65 different home platforms since 1984 and now you can add a 66th with the Xbox Live Arcade version released today. Unlike the PS3 version released in 2010, this version is also available in Europe for the modest sum of 800 Microsoft Points, which works out at around £6.50.

Like this PS3 version, this is in 16:9 widescreen and looks better than ever before. As well as being able to play it with a traditional controller you can also play it "controller-free" using an Xbox Kinect. I don't have a Kinect, so I can't tell you what that's like. Instead here's a trailer:

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Twilight Zone licenced for Pinball Arcade

I've spoken recently about Far Sight Studios superb efforts to bring classic pinball tables to the masses with Pinball Arcade, but because so many classic tables are licenced it's easy getting them made. I recently read an article in GamesTM about how the Addams' Family table is being held up because they not only need the licence from Bally, but also the Addams' Estate and every actor from the film. And that then causes other issues, because sadly Raul Julian passed around almost 20 years ago.

Well today on Facebook, Far Sight announced they had acquire the rights to make another one of the most popular and highly rated tables of all time, Bally's Twilight Zone, but licencing issues have raised their ugly head again. Here's what they had to say:

"We have good news and bad news to report on the issue of licensed tables. We’ve finally succeeded in negotiating all of the licenses we’d need to bring the Twilight Zone to the Pinball Arcade. This is unquestionably one of the greatest pinball tables of all time (and is currently #1 in IPDB’s user rankings). However the licenses are VEY expensive- so expensive that the table probably isn’t commercially viable. Some of you have suggested a Kickstarter project to raise money for the license costs and we’re considering this. We’d like to ask your opinion- is this a good idea? If we did it what should the rewards be for backers, and at what contribution levels? We’d appreciate your thoughts!"

What do you think, would you be willing to fund development of the conversation via Kickstarter?

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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?

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Has Irem gone bust?

It appears as though Irem Software Engineering -- the company that rose from the ashes of the original Irem back in 1997 -- has gone bankrupt. I'm having trouble confirming this, but they have certainly removed their back catalogue from Sony's PSN Store. If this rumour is true it's very sad news indeed, especially as the current Irem made some great R-Type sequels for home consoles, namely the first polygonal R-Type, R-Type Delta for the PS1 and the expansive R-Type Final for the PS2.

Here is a reminder of why Irem is such an important part of arcade history:

Update (25/03/12): All of the Irem stuff on the Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console store has now been deleted, which lends some weight to last summer's rumour of their bankruptcy.

Raiden Fighters compilation finally coming to UK

Back in March 2008, Japanese Xbox 360 gamers were treated to a compilation of Seibu Kaihatsu's sublime shmup series, Raiden Fighters.  The compilation was called Raiden Fighters Aces and contained ports of Raiden Fighters, Raiden Fighters 2: Operation Hell Dive and Raiden Fighters Jet, which were released in arcades between 1996 and 2000.

The compilation came to America in 2009, but I had given up hope of it coming to Europe.  However, several online stores here in the UK are saying it's out in July and priced between £14 and £20, which is a bargain as far as I'm concerned.  And talking of concerned, if you're worried these are shoddy ports, just check out the American reviews.  Other than the short length of the games, the lack of online multiplayer and the fact the gamees look there age, nobody can fault Gulti's conversions.

So until July, here's a video to whet your appetites.

UPDMTWE (02/07/2011): Looks like the release date has slipped.  Most online stores are now saying September, but the actual date varies, which makes me think it won't be out that month either. Oh well.

UPDMTWE (01/10/2011): September has come and gone and still no EU release for this compilation.  I think it's vapourware and I won't bother covering it again until I have a PAL copy in my Xbox!  Thank you for your time.

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Radiant Silvergun comes to XLBA

I heard a rumour Treasure were bringing their legendary debut shmup, Radiant Silvergun, to XBLA, but I had no idea it was ready.  What's more, it'll be here tomorrow.

If you haven't played Radiant Silvergun before, it goes out of its way to give players a unique shoot 'em up experience.  There are no power ups, instead you get seven modes of fire, activated by pressing different combinations of the three buttons.  It also features a brilliant colour-coded point system based on the order and patterns you kill (or avoid) enemies.  There's a nice overview of the mechanics on Hardcore Gaming 101 here.

The XBLA version features local and online 2-player co-op modes, both the original arcade version and Saturn version of the game (with its frankly superfluous animated cutscenes), an option to enable Ikaruga's scoring system and multiple display filters - some of which do a great job of making it look high def.

So until Wednesday, let's have another look at the trailer they released last year.

Street Fighter III Online Edition comes home

There's no denying Capcom's Street Fighter franchise is one of one my influential and popular arcade series ever created and thanks to 2009's Street Fighter IV, it help revive the fighting genre after years of neglect. However, while the various Street Fighter spin-offs and versus games enjoyed huge success, the third "proper" sequel was something of a slow burner. For many the new parrying system was too hard to execute and ignored as a failed experiment, for many more the strange and unappealing cast of fighters was just plain off-putting, with only Ryu and Ken returning from the myriad of other SF games. Thankfully, Capcom continued their trend of releasing updates to their Street Fighters and the third iteration, subtitled 3rd Strike, nailed it. Perhaps it was the improved roster that encouraged people to stick with the game and master the parrying system or perhaps it was because fighting fans had to go nearly a decade before the true king of fighters returned, but whatever the reason, Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike is now recognised as perhaps the greatest 2D fighting game ever made.

Today Capcom released this seminal game on Xbox Live Arcade for 1200MSP and PlayStation Network for £10.20.  As well as a near-perfect emulation of the original arcade game, Capcom have included multiple display filters, from sharpening up the aging, lo resolution sprites, to applying a scanlines and curved edges, as though you're playing on a tradition arcade cabinet, rather than a HDTV.  More important for all you budding Daigos out there is the inclusion of the GGPO net code, which provides the best online fighting around.

If you have any love for the genre, I cannot recommend this port enough - especially if you own an arcade stick for your next gen console.  Let's take a look at the trailer, shall we?

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Tron: Legacy pinball is on its way

Tron and arcades are synonymous. Aside from the arcade references in the film, it also spawned two coin-op machines, Tron and Discs of Tron.  The former was a landmark machine for me; the latter was pretty, but lacklustre.  So it's hardly surprising that a coin-op machine was planned for the sequel, Tron: Legacy and given the state of modern arcades, it's perhaps not surprising that this new machine is actually a pinball table.

Announced last week, Parts4Pinballs.com has the following information about the table:

Not much details has come out yet but here are some of the features on the game:
Illuminated Motorized Spinning Disc in the center back of the playfield is protected by the Motorized Bank of 3 Yellow Targets, that retracts into the playfield. The Spinning Disc shoots the ball randomly across and around the playfield.


3rd Flipper at the left, half way up the playfield. Shoots beautifully into the one of the two plastic ramps. This Flipper is fed by many shots, including an orbit shot, a small loop shot, a skill entry shot.


The miniature TRON video game is mounted above the Scoop near the right side, about half way up the playfield. Shooting into the Scoop starts exciting features and collects big points.


In addition to the Motorized Target Bank, this game has 4 TRON targets on the left, 2 Spinning Targets, numerous other Targets, and of course 3 Pop Bumpers to the right side.

So there's no other details at the moment, so I guess we'll have to make do with a few images:

 

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Burger Time returns to home consoles this summer

There was a surprising number of arcade games based on food and drink.  Food Fight, Root Beer Tapper and my favbourite, Burger Time.  It seems I'm not the only one to think Burger Time was awesome, because the boys and girls at Frozen Codebase and Monkey Paw have gone and remade it for Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation 3 PSN.

Due for release this summer, Burger Time HD appears to retain all of the game play from the original and liven things up with a rotating worl to explore (a la the Commadore 64 classic Nebulous) and gorgeous hi res 3D graphics.  It also looks like you can play as your Xbox Avatar, instead of the original Peter Pepper - although that wouldn't make sense for PS3 owners, so maybe that's my imagination.  For now, here's some screenshots:

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.

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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. 

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Irem Arcade Hits comes to PC

Arcade legends Irem, in association with DotEmu, have brought out a collection of 18 classic coin-op games called IREM Arcade Hits.  The full list of games is as follows:

1. Ninja Spirit
2. Gun Force
3. Gun Force II
4. Superior Soldier
5. Undercover Cops
6. In The Hunt
7. Blade Master
8. Battle Chopper
9. Legend of Hero: Tonma
10. R-Type Leo
11. Image Fight
12. Mystic Riders
13. Hammerin' Harry
14. Cosmic Cop
15. Kung-Fu Master
16. Dragon Breed
17. Vigilante
18. Air Duel

They've even produced a nice little video to highlight what you get for your money:

Priced €9.99 (approximately £8.60) compilation is download only, but DRM free.  For more information visit: http://www.dotemu.com/en/download-game/24/irem-arcade-hits

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Dragons Lair comes to PSN

Dragon's Lair was simultaneously one of the most revolutionary, shallow and infuriating arcade experiences of all time. I remember being wowed by it's cartoon visuals back in the early 80s, but a few plays revealed that there was not much of a game underneath. Despite this fact, Dragon's Lair has been ported to pretty much every platform you can imagine, to 8-bit computers of the time, such as the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and Commodore 64 to modern handhelds including Nintendo DSi, Android smartphones and iOS platforms. It has now been ported to the PlayStation 3 via Sony's PSN downloadable service in the US. Judging by the screenshots and videos it looks like the closest the game has ever come to matching the visual quality of the original LaserDisc arcade game and it's just as impressive to look at today as it was 27 years ago -- it's also just as repetitive and annoying. Nonetheless, this is an important piece of arcade history and if you don't mine forking over $10.

Here's the trailer:

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50 Greatest Arcade Cabinets

Whilst idly browsing the internet tonight, I came across this article on I-Mockery from a couple of years ago. Every fan site likes to do compilation of their favourite things, but I-Mockery takes that to an impressive level with their compendium of the 50 greatest arcade cabinets of all time.

The article includes photos of all 50 machines, which although small, do give you a sneak peak of the wonderful designs of both the side art and the mechanical aspects of the machines.

While I think there are a few glaring omissions (no Space Harrier or G-Loc 360) and I'm not sure about number 1, it is a great reminder of what made arcade machines so special. They weren't just games, we had games on our Commodore 64s and Sega Master Systems, they were tailor-made, mechanical works of art.

Check out the full article here: http://www.i-mockery.com/minimocks/50arcadecabinets

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Krome closure threatens Game Room future

Krome Studios, the developers behind Microsoft's underrated Game Room service, are in big financial trouble and have confirmed they will be closing their doors on Monday 18th October.  Krome were once Australia's biggest game developer, responsible for Ty the Tasmanian Devil, several Spyro games, some Star Wars conversions and, most importantly to retro junkies like myself, Microsoft's Game Room.

Microsoft have not yet confirmed what this means for Game Room, but rumour has it there are still several Game Packs yet to be released (we're up to 10), so even if Krome are the only ones who can produce that stuff (which doesn't sound right to me), Game Room isn't dead just yet.