I'm so jealous

Hands up who would like to own an arcade machine?  As I thought, most of you, but in reality it's incredibly impractical.  None the less, if I had the money and floor space for a cabinet, I would buy an SNK NeoGeo MVS.  Aside from the fact SNK made lots of great games during the late 80s and 90s, it's one of the most powerful sprite-based machines ever made and it is one of the few that took multiple cartridges.  With a NeoGeo MVS you would not be restricted to one game, you could have several in the machine at once and swap them around with relative ease.

So why am I so jealous?  Because my 23 year-old nephew has one gone and done it.  Furthermore, he got his MVS and a Fatal Fury cart for just £40--the jammy ********.

MTW

Were old games bad?

It was the DICE Interactive Arts and Sciences Awards last night and Kotaku's Stephen Totilo was there to see the show and meet the legends--past and present--of the video games industry.  Now, I like Kotaku, they cover an incredibly broad range of video game-related news and they are one of the few sites that dares to review games without attaching a meaningless score to the bottom.  However, I did not realise that Totilo was a retro game-hater and such an attitude makes me a little bit sad.  Anyway, Totilo was on the red carpet at the event and asked various video game luminaries, "Were old video games actually good?" and "Weren't they just milking me of my quarters?"  Among those who answered were industry legends Ed Logg (designer of Asteroids) Rich Adam (designer of Gravitar) and Ed Rotburg (designer of Battlezonem, a game I plan to cover in a future CotM).  You can watch the interview on Kotaku.com or by clicking the link below:

http://kotaku.com/5885859/we-asked-the-red-carpet-were-old-video-games-actually-bad

Here's my (perhaps predictable) two-penneth worth:

In any generation of video games there are good games and bad games.  Even today, for every Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim or Portal 2 there's a Duke Nukem Forever or Postal III.  If you were unlucky enough to live near an arcade that only had bad games in it, then sure, you may feel old games were a waste of time, but are you really going to call out Pac-Man, Space Invades, Street Fighter or Tekken as bad games, especially when they are all still relevant today?  No, I didn't think so.

And yes, old arcade games were deliberately hard to make you put more money in, but you could argue modern console games, with their 8 - 12 hour campaigns, are designed to be completed so that you buy the next release as soon as possible.  And yes, I would include Skyrim in that, because even Bethesda admit the main quest can be completed in under 3 hours.

Oh alright, I admit it, I've spent nearly 60 hours on Skyrim and I'm only ²/_3rds through the main quest, but my point still stands--I think.

MTW

Boss Fight - Tree Stump (Fantasy Zone, 1986)

I started my new Boss Fight feature with the first game to introduce the concept of boss fights to arcade games; this month, I wanted to talk about the game that introduced me to the concept of boss fights. I would love to tell you that boss encounter was some classic end of level guardian, such as Dobkeratops from R-Type or Sagat from Street Fighter, but it was actually the Tree Stump from the first level of Sega's cute 'em up, Fantasy Zone. I first saw this on my friend's Master System console and the idea of one really tough enemy that you fought for several minutes floored me.

Like all shoot 'em up bosses, the Tree Stump had a weak spot: when it opened the hatch in the front, you had a few seconds to fire off a few shots before it sprayed bullets at you. It was a simple routine to master, but since the Tree Stump was invulnerable everywhere else, it was one you had to learn to succeed.

Arcade ambience

One of the things I love about Microsoft's forlorn Game Room service is the background sounds of other games being played.  It effectively recreates the buzzing, beeping ambience of an arcade that was such an evocative part of the experience - even if you didn't notice it at the time.

During this week's Giant Bomb podcast, the guys mentioned a website containing downloadable MP3s of arcade ambience.  Rather than just going for a generic mash up of games, the creator Andy Hofle, has chosen four years and used the sounds of classic games from those eras.  Each recording is about an hour long and was done using MAME.  The games you'll hear are as follows:

1981

Asteroids, Astroblaster, Berzerk, Centipede, Crazy Climber, Crushroller, Defender, Donkey Kong, Frogger, Galaga, Galaxian, Gorf, Missile Command, Moon Cresta, Mousetrap, Ms Pacman, Omegarace, Pacman, Phoenix, Qix, Rally X, Scramble, Space Invaders, Spectar, Tempest, Venture, Wizard Of War.

1983

Bagman, Bump n Jump, Burgertime, Congo Bongo, Dig Dug, Donkey Kong 3, Donkey Kong Jr, Elevator Action, Food Fight, Galaga, Gyruss, Joust, Jungle Hunt, Kangaroo, Mappy, Mario Bros, Millipede, Moon Patrol, Mr Do, Ms Pacman, Pengo, Pleiads, Pole Position, QBert, Robotron, Sinistar, Stargate, Star Trek, Tapper, Time Pilot, Track & Field, Tron, Xevious, Zaxxon, Zoo Keeper

1986

Arkanoid, Bank Panic, Bubble Bobble, Commando, Excite Bike, Flicky, Galaga 3 (Gaplus), Galaga, Gauntlet, Ghosts N Goblins, Gunsmoke, Hat Trick, Hogan's Alley, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Jail Break, Kid Niki, Mag Max, Marble Madness, Ms Pacman, Pacland, Paperboy, Punch Out, Rampage, Road Fighter, Russian Attack, Sky Kid, Spelunker, Super Sprint, Star Wars, Tiger Heli, Time Pilot 84, Two Tigers.

1992

Altered Beast, Arkanoid, Cyberball 2072, Galaga, Golden Axe, Klax, Neo Geo (Magician Lord, Baseball Stars Professional, Nam 1975), Mortal Kombat, Ms. Pacman, Raiden, Roadblasters, Street Fighter 2, Smash TV, Tetris, TMNT, Toobin, Xybots. Pins: Black Knight 2000, Elvira, Fun House, Whirlwind.

I have to say, I think he nailed them all and chose some great years for coin-op games.  Even if you don't like all of the games used, there's no denying you have probably heard them playing in an arcade at some point during your childhood. Sadly, the website hasn't been updated for nearly 3 years and some of the mirrors no longer work, so if you want to have a listen, I suggest you do so pronto.

http://arcade.hofle.com/

MTW

Classic of the Month - Time Crisis

Manufacturer:	Namco
Genre:	Light gun
Board:	System 22
Year:	1995

The year is 1996 and I am failing my degree in computer science.  There are a number of factors contributing to this disaster, such as I lived 17 miles from the uni and spent a lot of time commuting; the course was fluffed up with irrelevant modules such as European History and German that did not interest me; I was drinking too much, relying on mid-afternoon lectures to sleep in and sober up.  Between lectures I sought solice in a number of off-campus locations, which included a Namco Station arcade situated in the old market square in Nottingham city centre.  The Namco Station was the best arcade in the city, with such modern classics as Sega Rally, Tekken II, Puzzle Bobble, Sonic Blast Man and Namco's own Time Crisis.

The plot for Time Crisis was familiar stuff.  Fallen royalty, Sherudo Garo, employs mercenary Wild Dog to kidnap the president of Sercia's daughter, Rachel McPherson, in exchange for military secrets.  You play as VSSE agent Richard Miller--known as the One Man Army--who is sent into Garo's castle to gun down every henchman and minion you see and rescue Rachel.

There had been on-rails shooting games since the earliest days of coin-op gaming, but Time Crisis's combination of a gun with recoil and a cover system made it feel like the most immersive yet - even if the gun was bright pink, thanks to its origins with the Point Blank series.  The cover system was a stroke of genius.  Appearing more than a decade before Gears of War, the cabinets had a foot pedal, which the player had to stamp on to take cover behind whatever they were stood behind at the time, be it a crate, a wall or a pillar.  It gave players a sense of control that games like Taito's Operation Wolf (1987) and Atari's Area 51 (also 1995) simply didn't provide.  The two player mode was great too, because rather than have your characters stand side-by-side, you took up different positions on the map, so you were still taking down the same enemies, but from opposite sides of the room.  This crossfire created an additional peril, as it was possible to shoot each other, providing a great opportunity to grief your mates - if you were that way inclined.

The game was a huge success, spawning ports to home consoles and a whole industry of 3rd party light guns.  I can remember back in 1998, buying it for my Sony PlayStation, along with a light gun that actually had a recoil (unlike Namco's official G-Con gun).  I played a couple of games, then let my 10 year-old nephew have a go.  The light gun caught fire in his hand, which he quickly dropped before he got burnt.  It scared the crap out of us all and needless to say, when I took the melted mess back to the shop I did not have a replacement.

Over the years Namco produced numerous sequels, with increasingly elaborate light guns, but none recaptured the magic of the original. Let's take a look, shall we?

MTW

Sega what have you become

Over the past month and a half I have been travelling up and down the country a lot visiting my wife's family in Scotland.  On my travels I've noticed arcade games have even disappeared from the majority of motorway services. I guess why would kids want to play a 15 year-old Time Crisis or Daytona USA machine when they've got DSis, PSPs and smart phones in their pockets. However, Sega (who I voted my favourite arcade manufacturer only last month) still has the a strong presence, but only in the form of prize machines, such as Sega UFO Catcher and Key Master.

They all have proper (bat-style) arcade joysticks, which I can't help looking at and thinking, "You used to be used for Shinobi, Golden Axe and Virtua Fighter. You used to control PROPER GAMES!"

Like the true journalist I am (ahem), I decided to try these latest "amusements".  It felt good to be using a proper arcade stick again, but much to my dismay, the games themselves are incredibly challenging and addictive.  Key Master looks deceptively simple, but success is not only difficult, but also requires genuine skill, unlike traditional grabber machines.  I sunk a couple of quid into one machine trying to will something for my son.  I could have spent more, but I still hate the things.

MTW

Boss Fight - Mothership (Phoenix, 1980)

For my new Boss Fight feature, I wanted to talk about the game that kick started the whole thing. Unfortunately there is some debate about which was the first arcade game to feature a boss, as I said in my 'What is a 'Boss Fight'?' post. So of the three main contenders, I've gone for the most famous, the Mothership from Taito's Phoenix. This brute turns up on the fifth level of the game and in true end of level guardian style, it's tough and a little bit cheap.

The challenges facing the player were the swarms of minions who attack you, the thick, protective undercarriage, which requires a shed load of bullets to penetrate, the scrolling purple shield, which you either had to survive long enough to blast apart or have the skill to always hit the same spot when it went past -- and all the while avoiding missiles from small alien target sat in the middle. However, if you can land a single hit on the alien, the whole thing blew up and the game started again -- only harder. It's as tough a boss fight as you'll ever face and a great place to start if you want to test your mettle against gaming's most icon bosses.

MTW