Boss Fight - Evil MC (Smash TV, 1990)

Over the course of this series I've tried to pick the more interesting bosses to threaten the progress of arcade goers over the decades, be it one of the earliest bosses, a controversial boss, an iconic boss, a down-right crazy boss or whatever. This month I've gone for one of the most unexpected bosses, the Evil MC from Midway's gloriously over-the-top twin-stick shooter, Smash TV.

Video games are often inspired by Hollywood and in 1990 Midway took a whole host of movies based on violent game shows -- not least Arnold Schwarzenegger's classic Running Man -- to create Smash TV. The object of the game was simple: You are a contestant on the titular Smash TV game show. In order to win cash and prizes you have to blast your way through wave after wave of mutants, robots and monsters.

At the start of each wave the show's MC scrolls into the top corner of the screen, with a top-heavy bimbo on each arm and says, "Good luck. You'll need it!" As you progress through the game and take down each boss, Mutoid Man, Scarface and Die Cobros, you have no way of knowing what faces you at the end. When the host himself turns up as a giant humanoid tank, spitting bloody eyeballs at you, the pay off is brilliant -- even if he is very similar to the first boss. As you take him down, you take him apart, limb-by-limb, each of which fires off him all direction. After him limbs, you blast off his shirt, leaving him in just a spotty vest. Next to go is his head, but bizarrely that doesn't stop him. After that you finally blow up the blody, only to find there's a second head on top of the tank and the eye-blasting

In terms of unexpected boss encounters, few can top this surprise. Check out the video below to see the Evil MC in action.

Incidentally, Smash TV is yet another example of a game or movie being set in a far flung future year that is now history. In this case, all this carnage and disregard for human life is supposed to take place in 1999.

MTW

Taito HQ, circa 1973

Here are some photos of Taito's headquarters, which they occupied from 1973 through to 2007. Got to love the in-house arcade room.

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Classic of the Month - Rolling Thunder

Manufacturer:	Namco
Genre:	Side-scrolling action adventure
Board:	Namco System 86
Year:	1986

Many of the games I choose for the 'Classsic of the Month' feature have had some impact on me as a young gamer and Namco's spy-themed side-scrolling action adventure Rolling Thunder is no exception.

You took control of a World Crime Police Organization (W.C.P.O) agent codenamed Albatross as he battled the evil Geldra Organisation, who have kidnapped his female partner, the laughably named, Leila Blitz. Gameplay consisted of running through Geldra's secret New York base, jumping between floors and opening doors to check for power-ups and weapons. The gameplay was pretty simple, but the formula worked brilliantly. I cannot be sure, but I've always thought Rolling Thunder inspired Sega's Shinobi, which had very similar gameplay, but came out the following year.

Rolling Thunder was also dripping with kitsch espionage atmosphere. When I first saw it I couldn't believe how fluid and natural the animation was. Albatross's cool moves and swagger could be likened to Connery's James Bond, while the Geldra minions, called Maskers, would turn to look at one another and follow your movements. It almost looked rotoscoped. Back in 1986, that level of animation was incredibly rare, which meant the game looked better than rival games, such as Shinobi, even though they were made after its release. But atmosphere is about more than visuals, and like so many Namco games from the 1980s, Rolling Thunder had great music too, which sounded like the theme music from that other classic Ian Fleming creation, 60s spy show, The Man from Uncle. Undoubtedly Namco were aping Ian Fleming's various spy creations, but that didn't stop Rolling Thunder having enough personality of its own to stand out from the crowd in a packed arcade.

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Worth a Look - August 2012

Time for another quick round-up of recently-released arcade-style games. This month I have a futurist racer on the Wii, a unique twist on the match three puzzler and what could be the ultimate score attack game.

Fast - Racing League 

Developer:	Shin'en
Publisher:	Autumn Games/Konami
Platforms:	WiiWare
Price:	1000 Nintendo Points (£7.00)
Demo available:	Yes

What is it?

One look at this futuristic racing game and you could be forgiven for thinking it was a WipeOut sequel, but if you watch the game being played for a few minutes you'll see it also shares something in common with Treasure's sublime shmup, Ikaruga. Basically your racing ships can switch polarity between white and black. The only way to make use of the power ups on the track is to match its polarity. These power ups include speed boosts and jump pads and if you don't hit them you risk not only falling behind but also falling off the track. It's an interesting twist to what would otherwise be an unremarkable game. 

Graphically, this is one of the best looking Wii games I've seen full stop, let alone Wiiware game and the music is as brilliant as Shin'en's past releases, such as shoot 'em up series Iridion and Nanostray. Playing this, I can't help thinking if this was in an arcade with a hydraulic cabinet, it would be major crowd puller.

10,000,000

Developer:	Eighty Eight Games
Publisher:	Apple AppStore
Platforms:	iOS
Price:	£2.99
Demo available:	No

What is it?

Just as the commercial games market is drowning in first person shooters, the indie scene is similarly drowning in match three puzzle games. Of course one of the most famous arcade puzzle games of all time, Puzzle Bobble (AKA Bust-a-Move) was a match three puzzle, so when a clever and different example of the genre comes along, I can't help but check it out. 10,000,000 is one such game. The game takes typical match three puzzles and mixes in a dash of RPG and infinity running to create something surprisingly fresh. Your character runs along the top of the screen and constantly faces various enemies and obstacles. Below is a grid of objects, which you must match in order to conquer threat preventing you from progressing. This adds both a sense of urgency and the need to plan that will quickly draw you in. As the title of this thread says, it's well worth a look.

Rock Band Blitz

Developer:	Harmonix
Publisher:	EA
Platforms:	Xbox Live Arcade, PS3 (via PlayStation Network)
Price:	1200MSP/£12.99
Demo available:	XBLA only

What is it?

A few years ago rhythm games were all the rage, with developer Harmonix first creating Guitar Hero for Activsion, then switching publishers to EA and creating Rock Band. For the next few years, Guitar Hero (under the stewardship of Neversoft) and Rock Band battled it out for a piece of the market, with each new installment upping the ante. Guitar Hero even made it into the arcade, with industrial grade guitars that weighed more than Karl Palmer's stainless steel drum kit. Quite frankly, it all got a bit ridiculous in the end, with Activision releasing four or five Hero-branded games in the space of a year. So just when it seemed the fad was over, Harmonix, the people who kicked started the whole trend, come back with a game that may have the Rock Band name, but more closely follows the gameplay of their earlier games, Frequency and Amplitude.

For any fan of arcade games and the pursuit of high scores, Rock Band Blitz is the perfect score attack fix. There are no fail states in this game, no difficulty settings, instead you play it to the best of you ability and you will be able to play every song in the game, plus any in your own Rock Band library, but if you want to top the leaderboards you have to learn to juggle each track (drums, bass, guitar, vocals and keyboards) to maximise the multiplier for each. The further you push the multiplier across all of the tracks before you reach each tracks check point and the further you can push the next multiplier. The result is you enforce the difficulty on yourself, purely by trying to do better. It's a fantastic system and possible the purest form of score attack I've ever seen.

That does it for this month. Check the Worth a Look tag in the coming months for more tasty, arcade-inspired treats.

MTW

Boss Fight - Pendragon (Raystorm, 1996)

It's my son's 6th birthday tomorrow, so this month's Boss Fight is in honour of my favourite little guy.

Like many dad's from my generation, I play video games with my kids and although his favourites are the Lego games, driving games and anything with Mario in it, I encourage him to play a broad spectrum of games from across all genres and eras. As such he's played a fair amount of arcade games and the first boss we ever faced together was Raystorm's stage 1 boss, Pendragon.

I have a fondness for Raystorm, which is why I play it with my son. At the time of its release Raystorm was a technically impressive game, but as shoot 'em ups go it is a little tame. However, the multi-limbed tank, Pendragon, is a pretty good boss, with lots of tricks up its sleeve. It has a laser turret, missiles and a homing laser and like most bosses it has weak spots you have to target and attack. Raystorm's R-Gray fighters have primary and secondary weapons, but you can only destroy certain parts of Pendragon with each. The challenging part is the way it moves out of view, sometimes exposing one of its weak spots, sometimes shielding them and attacking. If you aren't on the ball you'll either use the wrong weapon or miss your target altogether.

The result of which is that Pendragon takes quite a while to defeat; even if you're really good at the game it can take longer to beat this first boss than the whole of the first level. That is why, despite how average Raystorm is overall, Pendragon is a boss worth fighting.

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Classic of the Month - Track & Field

Manufacturer:	Konami
Genre:	Sports
Board:	M6809
Year:	1983

The London 2012 Olympic Games is well underway and not only is the BBC providing some of the best technology to allow people at home to watch whatever events they want, my family and I were at the Women's Football at Old Trafford just yesterday to see USA face off against South Korea.

I've been in training in my own special way, by playing one of the greatest arcade sports games of all time, Konami's 1983 classic, Track & Field, the first in a series which included Hyper Sports (1984), Konami '88 Games (1988), Hyper Athlete (1996) and Negano Winter Olympics '98 (1998), as well as numerous non-arcade spin offs. The events in each game varied, but for Track & Field there were six:

• 100 Meter Dash – Running by quickly alternating button presses.
• Long jump – Running by alternating button press and correct timing for jump. Hold jump button to set angle.
• Javelin throw – Running by alternating button presses and then using action button correct timing for angle.
• 110 Meter Hurdles – Running by alternating button presses and using action button to time hurdles
• Hammer throw – Spinning initiated by pressing a run button once and then correctly timed press of action button to choose angle.
• High jump – Running (speed set by computer) and then action button must be held down to determine angle of jump. Once in the air, the run button can be rapidly pressed for additional height.

I'm not sure if this game is the reason the term "button basher" was invented, but it's certainly the game that introduced me to it. Nonetheless, as well as frantic button bashing the game did require considerable skill when it came to timing jumps and throws and actually getting through all six events is not easy.

Often when I'm working on a Classic of the Month feature I'm going on sheer nostalgia, but for this month, I've been putting in a lot of time playing the game, courtesy of the elegant Xbox Live Arcade port. In fact, I've played it so much, I've got all completed all of the events and got the best times and distances I've ever achieved on the game. Don't say I don't do the background work for these articles.

MTW

Worth a Look - July 2012

I never wanted to make this into a review site and the few reviews I have done have taken more time (and money) than I'd like, so instead I'm introducing a new, ad hoc feature, Worth a Look, where I take a handful of new arcade-inspired games and put them in the spot light.

This month I have a Space Invaders clone, a Breakout/Arkanoid clone and a modern fighting game that inspired this feature in the first place.

Skull Girls 

Developer:	Revenge Labs
Publisher:	Autumn Games/Konami
Platforms:	XBLA/PSN(PS3)
Price:	1200MSP/£10.99
Demo available:	Yes

What is it?

If you like Guilty Gear or Blaz Blue, check out Revenge Labs's debut, Skull Girls, which actually hit Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network for PS3 a couple of months ago. There may only be eight combatants, but Revenge Labs have done a great done of making sure they are as different from one another as possible. There's also a pretty solid tutorial mode, which Revenge hopes will teach people who are new to fighters how things like combos, launchers, cancels and juggles work.

Titan Attacks

Developer:	Puppy Games
Publisher:	Steam/independent
Platforms:	PC
Price:	£2.99
Demo available:	Yes/No

What is it?

Almost as soon as it was released in 1978 people started copying Space Invaders' formula. Most of the time developers do nothing to distinguish themselves from the pack, but Puppy Games manage to be both be highly retro and brilliantly redesigned at the same time. As well as the usual wave-based, single-screen action you'd expect from a Space Invaders clone, Titan Attacks includes an upgrade shop, which appears at the end of every level. If you simply want to survive you can top up your shield after each wave, but if you want to power up your tank, you need to save your coppers for several levels. Whether it's worth the wait is entirely up to you.

WoOOPup 

Developer:	Bedroom Studio Entertainment
Publisher:	Independent
Platforms:	XBox Live Indie Games
Price:	80MSP
Demo available:	Yes

What is it?

Breakout clones are even more commonplace than Space Invaders clones, but good ones are rare. WoOOPup! by Bedroom Studios is easily the best on Microsoft's Xbox Live Indie Games service. While not as distinctive as Shatter, WoOOPup has very high production values and a few new ideas of its own, including coins that appear when you break a block and can only be collected by the ball, stackable power ups and coin collecting bonus rounds.

That does it for this month. Check the Worth a Look tag in the coming months for more tasty, arcade-inspired treats.

MTW