Creepy Classic of the Month: House of the Dead

Manufacturer:	Sega
Developer:	Wow Entertainment
Genre:	Light gun
Board:	Sega Model 2
Year:	1997

It's halloween at the end of the month, so's time for another creepy classic of the month and boy, is it a doozy.

Zombies and videos games appear to be a match made in heaven. From dedicated zombie games such as Resident Evil, Left 4 Dead and ZombiiU, to the undead appearing in otherwise non-horror games, such as Elder Scrolls, Call of Duty and even western adventure Red Dead Redemption. For fans of arcade games, the number 1 zombie game has to be Sega's light gun series, House of the Dead.

The game is set in the undead-infested Curien Mansion, home and laboratory of the scientist Dr. Roy Curien. Now I won't go as far as to call Curien a mad scientist, but his experiments did lead to the zombie outbreak that permeates the series, so he certainly wasn't all that stable. You and a friend take control of agents Thomas Rogan and "G", as they search for Rogan's missing girl friend. On arrival at the mansion, you encounter a dying man, who hands you a journal containing details of Curien's monstrosities. This becomes essential as you face the game's various bosses.

House of the Dead first made its international appearance in 1997, a few years after Namco's Time Crisis and Sega's own Virtua Cop. Like those two games, House of the Dead featured polygonal graphics, but in the years since those other games first appeared the technology had improved no end. The increased detail in the textured models was essential for giving the zombies and other nasties a suitably decayed and grotesque appearance.

Unlike Time Crisis with its cover/reload pedal, House of the Dead stuck to the old technique of making players to shoot off screen to reload. This only added to the tension of being surrounded by hordes of brain-hungry undead, as you had to readjust your aim when you flicked back to the screen. Whether this was Sega's intention or not I don't know (although I doubt it, given their earlier games used the same technique), but it certainly increased to the sense of desperation.

This first video shows the game in action, but second from FindArcadeGames shows an old cabinet they've recovered, which looks to be in excellent condition.

MTW

Top 10 hack 'n' slash games

More of a sub-genre of beat 'em ups than a genre in its own right, hack 'n' slash games differ from other beat 'em ups and fighting games in that they tends to have medieval and fantasy settings rather than being about dingy backstreet dust ups. So, it's time to put on your elf ears, dwarf beards and maybe dig out your shurikens too, as we look at MTW's top 10 hack 'n' slash games:

Golden Axe series

Of course Sega's seminal Golden Axe was going to be in the list, so let's get it out of the way to begin with. Although there had been co-operative games before, with Golden Axe it felt like the way the game was meant to be played. I've always put this down to how well the three characters' skills complemented each other. My favourite, the dwarf Gilius Thunderhead, has melee range, but weak magic; the barbarian, Ax Battler, has balanced melee and magic; the armoured bikini-wearing Tyris Flare had the best magic, but the weakest melee skills. By playing Golden Axe with a friend you didn't just double your fire power, you increased your tactics too.

Rastan Saga

Taito's Rastan Saga is was one the granddaddies of the hack 'n' slash genre. The titular hero is your typical, Conan-esque barbarian, who has to carve his way through hordes of lizardmen to rescue, what else, a princess. Rastan's gameplay has almost as much in common with platformers as it does hack 'n' slash beat 'em ups, with Rastan having to jump and plunge his way around the landscape in order to reach his destination at the end of each level.

Ninja Spirit

After Tolkien-esque fantasy, the next most common topic for the hack 'n' slash genre is ninjas. Few arcade games give players as strong a sense of being a stealthy night blade as Irem's Ninja Spirit. From the outset players are able to choose which of four weapons they want to use (a katana, shurikens, bombs or a kusarigama), but things get really interesting when our hero, Gekkou, collects the magic gems that summon ninja spirits, which follow him and repeat his actions (with about a half second delay). But don't let all this arsenal fool you, Ninja Spirit is rock hard! 

Rygar

Playing Rygar again for this article, I'd forgotten just how bloody fast it is. The game throws everything at the player and there's a surprising variety of creatures and minions to deal with too, like pteranodons, headless hulks, burrowing centipede monsters and rhino dog things. Thankfully, Rygar's flying, spiked shield has plenty of reach, so with a bit of good timing it's possible to stop all of these monstrosities from ever getting close.

Magic Sword: Heroic Fantasy

In the early 90s, Capcom released a load of great fantasy hack 'n' slash games, starting with this, Magic Sword. The game has character classes that will be instantly familiar to anyone who's ever played a tabletop role-playing game or indeed a MMORPG. There's a knight, a priest, a thief, a wizard, a ninja, an amazon, a lizardman and the bizarrely named bigman. Whatever. Each one has their pros and cons, such as the priest who is generally the weakest, but is particularly powerful against the undead. What's different here is that the players do not take control of these different classes. Instead you control a generic warrior and have to rescue the other classes, at which point they will fight alongside you, mimicking your moves (a bit like the spirits in Ninja Spirit). The game also got ported to Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network a few years, in the Final Fight: Double Impact compilation, so there's no excuse to miss out on this one.

Knights of the Round

Released in 1991, Capcom's Knights of the Round is obviously based on the legend of King Arthur. Players get to choose from Arthur, Lancelot or Perceval and in classic style, each one has their own skills and abilities. In a nod to role-playing games, each character can be levelled up during the course of the game (a theme that we'll see repeated a lot in this top 10). Ostensibly, KotR is pretty basic, but it's the game's blocking system that really makes it shine. Hit attack and back at the right time and you gain a few seconds of invincibility. It's a simple and effective system, that was rarely seen at the time.

Shadow Dancer

Despite the ninja hero, the Eastern magic and the white wolf, we switch to modern day (or at least modern at the time) for our next game. Sega's Shinobi series is legendary, but the series really upped its game with this instalment. The addition of Shinobi's canine companion seemed remarkable at the time, especially as you were given limited control of the beast in order to set him on certain, otherwise hard to reach, enemies (such as the sniper in the screenshot above).

Gauntlet Legends/Dark Legacy

Released 13 years after the original, Gauntlet Legends and the sequel from the following year, Dark Legacy, features 3D polygon graphics and an isometric view that's more akin to modern action RPGs such as Torchlight, Path of Exile and Diable III as anything else. I originally played Legends on my Dreamcast, but it was a pretty close conversion by all accounts. As with other fantasy-themed games in this list, Legend and Dark Legacy feature a rudimentary levelling sysem, but the health and gold works much as it did in the original games. Unlike the original, the game has much more focus on melee combat, as opposed to throwing an endless supply of axes at your foe (how did the barbarian ever carry so many?), which is why it gets to join this list.

Strider

When I first saw Strider, I was blown away by how agile Hiryu was and dazzled by the flashing arc of his katana as he cut a swathe through scores of Soviate soldiers and bizarre robots, such as the ape pictured above. The game's future Russian setting and multi-lingual voices also made this one stand out from the crowd. For me, this is the game that first made me pay attention to Capcom and as this list has shown, they were a company to watch in the late 80s and early 90s.

Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom/Shadow Over Mystara

With the official Dungeons & Dragons licence attached to it, Capcom's pair of hack 'n' slash games Tower of Doom and Shadow Over Mystara are perhaps the closer to a proper role-playing game than any other arcade game. Both games are great, which is why they are sharing a spot in this list, but for me Shadow Over Mystara probably has the edge. With all the typical classes and creatures, a rudimentary inventory system for both clothing and weapons, and dripping with fantasy lore, this game has pretty much everything you'd want from an arcade D&D game. Both games are available on Steam, Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network as a double pack called Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara, so as with Magic Sword, there's no need to miss out.

There we have it, all the swords, knights, ninjas, magic, princesses and dragons an arcade throwback could want. As with any of my top 10s, there are bound to be games other people would have included in their list (I have no doubt there are a few people screaming, "What about Ninja Gaiden?!" or "Err.. you forgot King of Dragons!" but these are the ones I'd be putting 20p into, given the choice.

MTW

Relabelling session

Adding labels (AKA tags) to posts is a fine art. It's all to easy to add labels that are either too vague (and so you end up with loads of posts with the same label) or too specific (in which case the label gets used once or twice and that's it). For Arcade Throwback's labels I've always used manufacturer names so that fans can find all the posts about manufacturer, but after that my labels have been improvised. So I've decided to have a tidy up. The following labels are now gone :

• Clones *
• Conversions *
• Emulation *
• Feature
• Homages *
• Play now 
• Ports *
• Remakes *
• Show reels
• Tournaments *

* Posts with these labels now have one of the following new labels:

• Clones & Homages
• Expos & Tournaments
• Emulation & Ports

Hopefully things keeps things tidier and also groups up several related posts that were previous separate.

Classic of the Month - Lunar Lander

Developer:	Atari
Manufacturer:	Atari
Genre:	Simulation
Board:	Dedicated 6502-board
Year:	1979

Released in 1979, not only was Lunar Lander one of the earliest video arcade games, it was Atari's first vector graphics game and ushered in such classics as Asteroids, Battlezone, Tempest, Gravitar and Star Wars. But what are vector graphics? Well, if you imagine a child's dot-to-do drawing, but with perfectly straight lines between the dots, you'll get basic principles of the technology. The lines are the vectors and unlike a sprite, which is just an arrangement of pixels of different colours, the shape of a vector drawing is controlled mathematically. This means if you rotate, expand or shrink the shape, each point is moved relative to the position of all the other points; the angles of all the lines that make up the shape stay the same, so the shape itself is never distorted. Again, this is unlike a sprite, which is distorted when its rotated, because the individual pixels cannot be rotated, just moved, so they no longer fit in exactly the same position relative to their neighbours; everything has to be rejigged. Likewise, sprites don't scale well, because the only way to scale a sprite is to add or remove pixels; removing pixels loses detail and adding pixels disrupts the ratio of each coloured pixel (unless scaled by a factor of 2, but now we're perhaps getting a little too technical), so the shape becomes warped. These simple graphics emulate the stark landscape of the moon and the vastness of space beautifully, which is probably why so many early games were set in space. Vector graphics were the precursor to polygonal graphics, which take exactly the same rules as vectors, but apply shaded faces to the area between the points to make the shape appear solid. Later, we learnt to apply sprites to these faces, to give the polygonal shape the detail of a sprite and the flexibility of a vector.

But let's get back to the game itself. Arcade games are usually fast-paced, hectic affairs, but not so with Lunar Lander. The game was inspired by the Apollo 11's moon landing of ten years earlier and puts players in control of their own "Eagle". Play starts with the lander at the top of the screen and the rocky, nay mountainous landscape below. On surface of this vector moon there are several flat spots, each with a point multiplier written below. The trickier the landing (such as on a narrow ledge or in a deep gully) the higher the multiplier. Players must rotate the lander and use their limited supply of thrust to control the landing of the vessel on one of these spots. As you approach the landing zone, the screen switches to a zoomed in view, which gives players the chance to fine tune their approach. And fine tune you must if you are to stand any chance of landing without destroying or at the very least damaging the lander. A successful landing adds points to your high score, along with whatever multiplier was associated with the zone you landed on, then it all starts again.

It's a very simple game that rewards patience and care over quick reflexes or pattern recognition. This makes it a very rare beast among arcade games and about the only comparable experience I can think of is Rampart, not in terms of gameplay, but in terms of the mindset required to play it. As early arcade games go, this is one of the most rewarding and that is in part down to the rarity of the experience it provides - even by today's standards.

MTW

Top 10 pinball tables

In celebration of The Pinball Arcade's first anniversary, here are our top 10 pin games, many of which I've only been able to play because of Far Sight's simulator.

Star Wars Episode 1

I'm going to start with one one of the few in this list I can remember playing and it's mainly because of the special tricks it pulls, such as the light sabre that lights up during the game and the holographic back screen, which allows you to blast droids with the ball. This technology was coined "Pinball 2000" by Williams and was an attempt to re-vitalise the floundering company. The objective of the game was to become a Jedi spirit (whatever that is), which means ascending the ranks of the Jedi and eventually battling Darth Maul. It says a lot about a film when the pinball table is a more memory experience.

Black Hole

Gottlieb's Black Hole is former classic of the month, so it's hardly surprising it also made it to my top 10. Like video games, atmosphere can carry pinball tables a long way and Black Hole's gaunt sound effects and simple layout are very atmospheric. It's tough to get the multi-ball mode to activate on this one, but when you do it's actually possible to have balls on both the main playfield and the inverted lower table; managing balls on both playfields, especially when the balls drop out of the top on the lower field, is only for the true pros.

White Water

If you like tables with lots of ramps, you'll love White Water. In fact, when I saw this table in a bowling alley back in the 90s, it was precisely because of its rapids-themed ramps that I started to play it. The object of the table was to make your way down the river rapids to Wet Willy's shack, encountering dangerous ravines, dark caves and even a yeti along the way.

Taxi

For me, personality also goes a long way when it comes to pinball tables and William's Taxi has personality in spades. The object of the table is to pick up and drop off its colourful cast of passengers, which includes Mikhail Gorbachev, Marilyn Monroe, Santa Claus, Dracula and Pin*Bot (although I have no idea how a planet-sized robot is supposed to get into a Crown Victoria). It still makes  me smile hearing Pin*Bot saying, "Taxi, taxi, taxi" in his robotic voice. The looping ramps, which cross over in the middle also help to give this table a real sense of pace.

The Machine: Bride of Pin*Bot

Talking of Pin*Bot, William's trilogy are true legends of pinball, but when I decided to only include one of the series in this list I had to go with the first lady of pinball, The Machine. Not only did The Machine feature the pinball eyes of its predecessor, players also had to shoot their ball into her mouth to give her speech (which is a little counter intuitive). With each stage of The Machine's unique ball-locking mechanism her whole face rotates. Once she has balls in her mouth (ahem) and eyes, the multi-ball mode kicks in and you can rack up a serious score. I don't have any tattoos, but if I got one, I reckon it would be of this giant, sexy metallic lady.

Big Shot

Originally released in 1973 (when pinball was actually still illegal in New York City), Big Shot is the oldest table in our list. It's also the only electro-magnetic (EM) table in this list, but I love how deceptively challenging this table is. At first glance is looks pretty basic, but lighting all 14 of its drop targets with a single ball is surprisingly tough. There are few purer tests of pinball skill than to light them in order. I certainly can't do it.

Space Shuttle

A lot of the tables in this list are historically significant because of features they introduced to pin games, but Williams' Space Shuttle from 1984 is significant because it not only rescued the struggling Williams company, it also helped with the pinball resurgence that lead to so many great tables in the 1990s. As much as anything, for me it's the sounds this table makes that sends me into a nostalgic swoon. This is before digitised background music, so there's no rousing patriotic score or epic sci-fi theme, just a whole lot of awesome buzzes and beeps that wouldn't be out of place in Defender.

Theatre of Magic

Harking back to the days when magicians like David Copperfield, Siegfried and Roy and Lance Burton were master entertainers, Theatre of Magic really captures the feel of those big, complicated and above all extravagant tricks. As your score goes up the sense of the stakes also escalating is palpable. Among this table's many tricks are the rotating magic trunk, which can make balls disappear, the spirit ring and deadly tiger saw. All of which would look perfectly at home in a Las Vegas stage show.

Attack from Mars

This is one of my absolute favourites. Pinball games are famous for their crazy highscores, but Attack from Mars takes it to the extreme. Within seconds of playing even a newbie can rack a score of a few hundred million. As an experiment, I once played a game where I did not press a single flipper, I just launched the ball and let it drop and I still scored 192,000,000! It's a really good beginners table, because of its relatively simple rule set and its open playfield, which helps players to keep track of the action. Just don't be too disappointed when you go back to a different table and find you can only score a tenth of the score you got on this.

Tales of Arabian Nights

Based on the classic saga 'One Thousand and One Nights', this is another table with bags of personality. The objective is to rescue the princess from the demonic genie. Along the way players will be collecting gems, visiting a bazaar, flying a magic carpet and spinning Aladdin's lamp in the middle. I also love tables with great lighting and this table certainly has that. After each ball out, the gems you've collected disappear in time to the music, then with a final flourish from the oud, the whole table briefly illuminates. It looks beautiful. Also, if you haven't tried The Pinball Arcade on your Android or iPhone, this table is free with the basic version.

Choosing the first nine tables for this list was fairly easy, but choosing my final table was tough. The Pinball Arcade really showcases the best the pin games have to offer from the last 50 years and narrowing it down to 10 has been as hard, if not harder, than any of my other top 10s. In the end it was down to Tales of Arabian Nights, Cirqus Voltaire, Black Knight, Centaur and Funhouse. In the end, I had to go with the tables I played the most, which is why three of Pinball Arcade's launch tables are in this list.

Join us again next month for another top 10.

MTW

Classic of the Month - R-Type Leo

Developer:	Eizo
Manufacturer:	Irem
Genre:	Shoot 'em up
Board:	M-92
Year:	1992

After Gradius, the R-Type games are probably the most famous, popular and revered side-scrolling shmups of all time,  but unlike Gradius, there were relatively few arcade sequels.  After the 1987 original there was R-Type II in 1989, a spin off called Armed Police Unit Gallop in 1991, then this installment in 1992 and that's it.  All the other sequels were for home consoles and computers, but that's hardly surprising; R-Type was converted to almost every home platform going, from the ZX Spectrum and original GameBoy to the Xbox 360 and even smart phones - a good 12 years after the original arcade release.

Set before the events of the original game, R-Type Leo tells the story of mankind's exploration of the galaxy and the construction of an artificial world called Eden.  However, Major, the super computer designed to operate Eden, goes haywire and starts to attack the human inhabitants using the planets defence system.  And so a newly developed star fighter, the R9 Leo, is called into action to take out the maniacal AI.

The Leo differs from other R-Type fighters by having neither a Wave Cannon (the main gun that can be charged to release high-power blasts) nor a Force (the satellite that multiplies and increases the fire power of the R9).  Instead when the Leo is powered-up it gets two small pods, later given the name Psy Bits. These Psy Bits stay in formation with the Leo, but can be aimed forwards or backwards by moving left and right.  They can also be charged and released to deliver a one-off high-power attack, similar to a charged Wave Cannon, however you charge them by not using them, meaning you can keep firing your regular weapon until it reaches full power. However, when they launch the Leo is temporarily defenceless, so there is a real risk/reward to using them.

Like other R-Type games, the power-ups in Leo come in three forms:

• Red lasers, which fire powerful horizonal beams
• Blue lasers, which bounce off the scenary and enemies
• Green laser, which are semi-homing lasers, capable of bending at 90°, much like a Tron light cycle's jet stream.

Officially the game was only released in Japan, however the odd unit made it over here, including the one I used to play in Great Yarmouth (yes, that place again).  So why have I made such a little known game a Classic of the Month?  Well, it might be little known and it might not have been developed by Irem, but it's still a great shmup and its influence was felt all the way up to the 2005 PlayStation 2 sequel, R-Type Final.

MTW

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.