Classic of the Month - White Water

Manufacturer:	Williams Electronic Games
Genre:	Pinball
Board:	Williams WPC (Fliptronics II)
Year:	1993

For the first quarter of this year I've talked about shoot 'em ups and while I could talk about them all year, I realise that would be a bit boring for everyone else. So I've decided to completely shift tact and do a classic pinball machine for this month's CotM.

I've not played nearly as many real pinball tables as I would like, but of the dozen or so tables I have played, the one that sticks in my mind the most is White Water by Williams. As the name suggests, this table is about white water rafting, specifically the antic of one crazy old geezer called Wet Willy. As such the tables objectives and goals all have names like Insanity Falls, Disaster Drop and Boulder Garden, as well as a whirlpool that will claim the ball. The main objective is of course to get down the river, which is represented by some of the most insane ramps I've ever seen in a pinball table, to get to Wet Willy's River Ranch. Along the way you'll go through Big Foot's cave, complete with a tiny mechanical sasquatch who will claw at the ball as it passes. The table has several ways of achieving multi-ball, so combined with the wild ramps things can soon get pretty hectic. It was a blast.

And it isn't just me who remembers White Water fondly.  It has a user score of 8.2 on the Internet Pinball Database, so even those that know what's what with pinball like it - which is reassuring, but I had wondered if only stuck out because of how flashy it was.

Here's a video of it in action:

MTW

What does tilt mean?

Following on from last month's 'What's a pin game?' post, I thought I would follow up with term that is synonymous with pinball, tilt.

Early pin games did not have flippers, instead players jostled the table to get the ball to go into scoring holes. As pin games became increasingly more mechanized, triggers we added to limit how much players could move or "tilt" the table. Often the tilt mechanism comprised of a plumb bob hanging from a bracket inside the cabinet. When the machine was jostled too much, the plumb would bang against the inside of a ring that surrounded it and the game would lock out things like flippers and anything that added to the player's score, allowing the ball to fall out of play. This was known as "tilting", because you had tilted the plumb bob.

When electronic displays were added to pinball machines, they were programmed to display "TILT" when the player had gone too far with jostling the machine. Nonetheless, it remains a legitimate tactic when playing pinball, with top players knowing just when and where to jostle a table to keep the ball in play or activate high-scores.

Incidentally, next time you are on Google, try searching for "tilt". You'll find some interesting results.

MTW

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:

Darius Burst 48

Today on Taito's Japanese website, they annouced a major update of their latest shmup, Darius Burst: Another Chronicle.  And there's nothing I can say that this promo photo can't say with great impact (although you'll probably want to click on it for a bigger view):

According to AndriaSang.com: "The cabinet measures 19,290 x 1575 x 1885 mm and weights 4,080kg. Taito says that it's currently seeking a Guiness World Record for the screen width.

Forty-eight players can play Darius Burst Another Chronicle 48 together. Taito notes that, regardless of player, when your ship is destroyed, it will regenerate at the far left. The player in the far right seat will have to wait about a minute for his ship to arrive in his area of play."

What a shame this annoucement came out on the 1st of April.

MTW

Classic of the Month - Blazing Star

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let's see this amazing looking game in action:

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

MTW

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

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

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

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

MTW

What's a pin game?

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

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

MTW