I looked up Chopper I and The Next Space footage on YouTube. Chopper I looks like it might be one to buy for me, but The Next Space, as far as I could tell, seemed to be one of those games where they just randomly toss enemies at you.
SNK Minis coming soon
(303 posts) (16 voices)-
Atariboy
MemberChopper I is fun.
As I recall, I like the special attack in that game. Instead of something strange like in most shooters (Such as a magical bomb that somehow magically explodes everything in sight except you), you get several jets that carpet bombs the area.
Fits the game well.
Posted 9 months ago # -
I got Monster World IV yesterday. Fun game! . . . as evidenced by the multiple hours that mysteriously disappeared on me when I started playing. There's a little more platforming than I would like, but it has very charming graphics and sound, as well as lots of enjoyable world exploration. I did get hung up right at the start for a while, though, not realizing that doors could exist within areas accessed by doors. The translation appears solid--incidentally, the Japanese version comes with the game (save states are not cross-playable). Additional elements aside from the game include 3 trials ("get through X region within a target time") with leaderboards--not a whole lot of people appear to have played these, and seriously, it asks for 5 minutes through that lava level that took me hours?--and a music player that can mix tracks from all the titles in the Sega Vintage Collection. The framework appears to be similar to how the Neo Geo Station does things, with a separate save file for the overall collection. In terms of the emulator, it allows you to customize the controls, which I should probably do given how often I pressed the wrong buttons, and there are numerous scaling options for the display. I chose "Fine," which seems to be the best balance between preserving the original aspect ratio (which had differently shaped pixels) and keeping as close to integer multipliers as possible. You can also add scanlines and
blurringsmoothing if you want. To fill out the empty space surrounding the game screen, there are 3 cute wallpaper options, as well as the cold, empty nothing option. When running the game, there is a software manual you can access from the pause menu, which also lets you save/load states at any time independently from the original in-game save system.Overall, good stuff for my $5, even better for your $10 with 2 additional games.
Posted 9 months ago # -
not realizing that doors could exist within areas accessed by doors
To clarify, I didn't recognize a background element as a door. Thought it was just a decoration on a wall.
3 trials ("get through X region within a target time") with leaderboards--not a whole lot of people appear to have played these, and seriously, it asks for 5 minutes through that lava level that took me hours?
I've actually successfully completed two of the trials now, including that lava one I complained about above. The lava trial is only the last part of that level; my best run was around 2 minutes, maybe 3, so it's really not that bad. The Tower of Silence trial was only a little longer.
Posted 9 months ago # -
Woohoo! I've beaten Monster World IV and also gotten all the Trophies. It was a lot of fun--well, except for the Castle in the Sky portion. That was filled with the bane of my gaming existence, platforming. Somehow, I managed to get through it (and the rest of the game, too!) only making save states at actual save points in the game. Well, I made save states at important landmarks, too (like dialogue and boss fights), but those were not used for continuing if I died (which never happened) or reset, just for later viewing to get to the good parts quickly. I played the game as if I were playing it on a Genesis/Mega Drive, which really did lead to worrying about Game Over at certain points. I managed to kill the ice boss with only 1 hit remaining of my life (though I did have a full-life refill available if it came to that). And, I beat the final boss having used up my full-life refill during the fight. Still, I never did have to escape back to town and redo any of the dungeons, which is pretty good for a first-timer, especially one who filled up his inventory with gold bars and thus forced himself to run back and forth in the ice dungeon, through all those enemies and environmental hazards, multiple times to get things done with the few inventory slots left.
### BEGIN SPOILER ###
About that final dungeon, though, I took things "the hard way" and went through it in one go. This dungeon features several mini-bosses, some of which hurt me quite a bit, before the final boss. I discovered later, though, that if you exit the dungeon back to town and then return to the dungeon, any mini-bosses you've already beaten will not be there when you come back, which REALLY helps preserve your life. Now, how did I discover this? After beating the game, I reloaded my not-for-continues save state right before the final boss and exited the dungeon, back to town. The reason for that was that I had read that the best sword and shield in the game become available if you do that, so I wanted to see what that was like. Sort of like a New Game+, if you will, though only on the final dungeon. Coming back into the dungeon with the best equipment AND not having to deal with the mini-bosses, that made things so much easier that I went into the final boss fight with full life and a full-life refill still in my inventory.
### END SPOILER ###
After beating the game, I gave the third (of three) time trial a go, which is a run through the final dungeon (not including the final boss). They give you a target of 30 minutes, but I did it in ~8 minutes, for rank 25 out of less than 60 on the leaderboard; yay, top half finish! I was just outside the top half for the lava trial.
Worth the $5, definitely. Even with all those missed jumps in the Castle in the Sky.
I guess we should go back to SNK Minis discussion now. . . .
Posted 9 months ago # -
I think that's just some confusion, from two SNK press releases being announced close together. If you look at SNK's press release history, they announced Gang Wars and Time Soldiers for Minis on July 24th, followed by Blazing Star for iOS/Android on the 26th.
The only non-secondhand source I can find for Blazing Star being released as a Mini is a Sacramento TV station's website, oddly enough, on July 24th. Other sources point to this article, which, by the way, misstates Blazing Star's original release year as 1989. It's from 1998, pretty far into the Neo Geo's life.
Posted 8 months ago # -
Atariboy
MemberPublishers were starting to make me second guess myself, but we have another decent retail compilation coming home.
It's titled Midway Arcade Origins and will release in November for $30 on the PS3 and 360. Hopefully a Vita port will happen since the Vita seems like it could do these justice with good controls and the Vita's nice hires screen (Plus mentioning it means someone now can't post that this is off-topic since it has nothing to do with the PSP or its successor, lol).
http://www.examiner.com/article/master-30-golden-age-arcade-classics-midway-arcade-origins
Not too happy with the gamelist. Lots of games from the Midway Arcade Treasures trilogy are missing (Timber :was a favorite but is absent here), none of the licensed games (Midway used to relicense games they published in the arcades back in the 80's for compilations on occasion... that's how they did Atari compilations and that's how Moon Patrol and Burgertime showed up in their compilations), and only one of the many missing classics that have yet to appear in compilation form is here (The rare expanded version of Vindicators). AWOL still are things like Domino Man and Solar Fox joining many others in their lineup yet to be included in a compilation.
But it's still an arcade compilation, will be coming on a physical disc, it has 30 games (Many of which are great and have stood the test of time well), it has online leaderboards, has trophies/achievements, gives them a chance to fix past issues (Wizard of Wor in particular was emulated poorly on last gen consoles), and it should look nice on HD sets if their earlier XBLA/PSN standalone releases are any indication.
So at a buck a game, they can count me in even if they don't have me quite foaming at the mouth at the prospects of getting this (Which better coverage of their past compilations, another 8-12 games new to their compilations, and some goodies like wheel support for games like Roadblasters and Hard Drivin' and mouse support on the PS3 for games like Marble Madness, would've probably of accomplished).
Appears set to be a solid collection despite not really treading new ground.
Posted 8 months ago # -
Freelance
MemberRoot Beer Tapper and RAMPAGE!!! Will get if it comes to Vita! I will be very sad if they don't!!! :(
As for the other games, I either hated (ex. Joust), never heard of before (ex. Robotron 2084), or remember playing them on the NES (ex. Super Off Road, assuming it's the same game as this one.)
you'd think ppl would agree that arcade games are best played in short bursts and therefore are perfect for handhelds but nooooooooooooooo. I've always wanted to play Rampage on the go on a big Vita screen :(
Posted 8 months ago # -
I either hated (ex. Joust),
What?!
never heard of before (ex. Robotron 2084)
WHAT???!
:D
Robotron is typically credited with being the first twin-stick shooter. I'm not sure if it's really the first or if it's just the first to do it and become really popular, but it's well known among classic arcade titles. Eugene Jarvis, designer of the game (and currently founder/head of arcade developer Raw Thrills--I met him in 2005, by the way), used two sticks because he had injured his hand in a car accident and needed a control method he could use while wearing a cast.
Anyway, Robotron is quite fun but, for mere mortals like me, quite difficult. Simply passing the first brain stage is a good run for me. It's one of the games on my arcade cabinet (actually, a bunch of the titles in this new Midway collection are on my cabinet, since the cabinet includes most of the PC compilations Midway Arcade Treasures and Midway Arcade Treasures: Deluxe Edition--which themselves are essentially equivalent to MAT1, MAT2, and MAT3 on the consoles, but with the addition of the original Mortal Kombat).
I'm not sure yet if I'm going to get this new compilation. As Atariboy noted, it's kind of a step back, with less content than its MAT-series predecessors and almost nothing new. It makes me wonder . . . maybe the titles not part of the collection aren't there because they're not owned by Warner now. Warner bought most of Midway's properties when it collapsed, yes, but as we know from the Hydro Thunder example, not all. Perhaps what's in this collection is all they've got (Mortal Kombat excepted)?
Incidentally, this is being developed by Backbone Entertainment, but their emulation specialists were in the Digital Eclipse Vancouver studio, which has been closed for several years (some of the members are now at Code Mystics, founded by former DE Vancouver head Jeff Vavasour). Thus, it's a bit hard to say whether their work on this will be up to snuff with their earlier emulation collections. Then again, Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection was done by Backbone without DE Vancouver, and that went well, I believe.
To put this back on topic . . . SNK, this is the kind of thing we'd like to see, please. :) And DO include the rotated-screen mode for your vertically oriented games, even with being on home consoles.
Posted 8 months ago # -
Atariboy
MemberExcept for Space Harrier. The emulation on that unlockable coinop was botched completely on Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection. Pretty much complaint free otherwise except for the lack of manual scans like various 2600 compilations have seen (Which is pretty darn good for such a large compilation to have so little issues). Oh and not including Sonic 3 + Knuckles was an underhanded way to get those that bought this disc to double dip with the digital releases.
I fear though about most of their emulation team being gone these days like you said where this release is concerned. Wizard of Wor for instance was far off the mark on MAT2. So I'm worried we're merely getting ports of past work and that such issues won't be addressed here. Will be easy when this releases to tell simply by firing up that game. If it's still running at twice the speed it's supposed to (Not to mention numerous audio issues), it will tell us the true nature of this release.
As for the missing games, perhaps, but we're also not getting the original Vindicators in this compilation (Like we got before) but rather a Championship Sprint type deal that only a few hundred were produced of shortly afterwards (Both of which were basically rereleases with some things removed and some stuff added, but otherwise the same game more or less and all but indistinguishable at a glance).
So it doesn't seem like they'd own this but not own the other in this case (To me, both falling under different ownership almost would be like the B&W version of It's a Wonderful Life being owned by one company and a colorized version by another... just doesn't make sense). So going off Vindicators and what's basically Vindicators 1.1, I suspect many of these missing games are under their ownership but that they made some decision for one reason or another to not include them here and instead cherry picked just 30 games from their library to release here.
At least that's what I'm hoping. Would be ashame if some classic properties are more or less in limbo if the trustee wasn't able to lineup a buyer or if they went to someone that isn't going to take advantage of them. Need a certain critical mass to do a compilation or a digital rerelease program and if some oldies were sold off in small numbers, it all but guarantees that they're going to remain hidden in the future. So I hope most of the coinop library remains in common ownership barring a big name property that can stand on its own feet like Hydro Thunder.
Sadly we all know how common compilations are these days so I'll refrain from saying that perhaps they held things back like Paperboy for a potential sequel since chances are it won't get one. Maybe the contract just called for a 30 game collection from the former Digital Eclipse studio and these were the ones that simply just made the cut when they created a roster.
Worth getting here just to satisfy my curiousity. But hopefully things like Wizard of Wor run better, the audio in Root Beer Tapper will be perfect (Only is in the XBLA release, it's off for certain sounds in every compilation so it would be nice to get a perfect version in physical form), and the problem free games like Defender will remain problem free so this will be useful for actually enjoying the included games.
Edit - Being concise and to the point was never my strong suit. :)
Posted 8 months ago # -
The emulation on that unlockable coinop was botched completely on Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection.
What was wrong with it? I remember playing the collection's Space Harrier and not thinking anything might be off with it.
So going off Vindicators and what's basically Vindicators 1.1, I suspect many of these missing games are under their ownership but that they made some decision for one reason or another to not include them here and instead cherry picked just 30 games from their library to release here.
Well, you could also view it in the sense that, since the two Vindicators are nearly identical, there wasn't any point in including both if the later one was like a "final version" of the first.
So I hope most of the coinop library remains in common ownership barring a big name property that can stand on its own feet like Hydro Thunder.
I'm kind of curious whether Microsoft got Hydro Thunder alone or the entire Thunder series. Mildly interested in Arctic Thunder, since it's the last of the series.
Of course, I'm still gunning for a home version of Specular Interactive's H2Overdrive. :)
Posted 8 months ago # -
Atariboy
Member"What was wrong with it? I remember playing the collection's Space Harrier and not thinking anything might be off with it."
The audio is really screwed up in it. Fire it up and them compare it with videos of the arcade game or to the accurate ports of it on the 32X and Saturn (I assume it's also accurate in the Japanese budget Space Harrier collection for the PS2). You won't have any trouble telling that it's far off the mark.
It's still very playable though and the audio isn't off in the grating way that some emulation programs are (Like that Genesis collection Sega released for the Dreamcast... was painful just to listen to it).
"Well, you could also view it in the sense that, since the two Vindicators are nearly identical, there wasn't any point in including both if the later one was like a "final version" of the first."
It isn't though. It's basically a stripped down version of it that was sold as a conversion kit for Gauntlet machines. Only 10 of the 14 levels from the original are there, the voice work was changed from a robotic voice to a more human voice, a few powerups were added, and the ability to fire multiple shots was added. Otherwise it's the same game, the same levels (The one's that they kept, at least), the same graphics, the same music, the same sound, etc. If one is superior to the other, I'm thinking it's probably the original unless they added new levels to Part II to compensate for those levels that were stripped out of it (I've never played Part II, just going off what I'm reading at KLOV and Wikipedia).
I suspect your theory is why Cyberball isn't here and the tournament edition is though. Has everything the original has while having several enhancements. But the Vindicators situation seems more akin to a deal like Super Sprint and Championship Sprint, both of which are included here.
"I'm kind of curious whether Microsoft got Hydro Thunder alone or the entire Thunder series. Mildly interested in Arctic Thunder, since it's the last of the series.
Of course, I'm still gunning for a home version of Specular Interactive's H2Overdrive."
Same here on both counts. In fact I loved H20verdrive so much that Hydro Thunder Hurricane, Microsoft's take on a sequel, left me rather disappointed. Hope Raw Thrills (Aren't they the publisher? I'm guessing Specular must've been the developer?) considers bringing it home eventually.
I don't think it's of any use for you since I don't think you delve into older consoles much, but Arctic Thunder at least got a last gen home port on a couple of consoles. The PS2 version had a poor frame rate that disappointed me but I hear the Xbox version does justice to it (At least as much as a home port could without the fan blowing air on you, the sitdown cabinet, the arcade atmosphere, etc.).
Posted 8 months ago # -
Hope Raw Thrills (Aren't they the publisher? I'm guessing Specular must've been the developer?) considers bringing it home eventually.
Yes, Raw Thrills produced and distributed the cabinets. Not sure who actually owns the IP, come to think of it. Specular was assembled just to create H2Overdrive; Jarvis got several of the original Hydro Thunder team to come together and start a new development studio after he received multiple requests from his clients for something akin to Hydro Thunder. After H2Overdrive, Specular has gone on to make a land-based racer, Dirty Drivin' (named in homage to the Hard Drivin' series, maybe?), as well as a secret current project.
I did look up the Arctic Thunder home versions, but since the PS2 version got poor reviews and I am not inclined to get an Xbox, I wasn't motivated to acquire either. Besides, there's also the fact that history seems to record Hydro Thunder as being the highlight of the series. At least, I've almost never seen discussions about it even refer to the other Thunder games.
Sooo . . . those SNK Minis . . . I wonder why we never got the first 20 HALs, eh?
Posted 8 months ago # -
Atariboy
MemberI think Arctic Thunder was pretty well recieved. I used to see them almost as often as Hydro Thunder (Which was pretty frequently), although the continued loss of places that actually have arcade game and the progress of time means it has been 3 or 4 years since I've seen either on location anywhere. So I imagine that's a sign that customers were putting in a fair share of quarters into them. And of course it saw standalone home ports just like Hydro Thunder did which can be interpreted as a sign that it was well liked.
Either way, I liked it at least in multiplayer.
I never even saw a Offroad Thunder machine, although thanks to Midway Arcade Treasures 3, I've at least played it. Not a big loss since it's very average so I understand why I never saw one on location.
I think the other two are exceptional arcade racers though when played with a friend.
Posted 8 months ago # -
Atariboy
MemberPicked up 4 Wheel Thunder for the Dreamcast after talking about the series in this thread...
Disappointing game that borrows the branding to help sell itself despite having little in common with the other games beyond being a racing game and having boost that you can pick up. The physics, tracks, and the overall feel and atmosphere is nothing like something like Hydro Thunder.
Seems like a solid but average game. But it fails horribly at being a Midway 'Thunder' release...
Posted 7 months ago # -
JeremyR
MemberLooks like Backbone, which is developing that Midway compilation, might be going under
http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/10/09/death-jr-dev-faces-closure
Posted 7 months ago # -
Atariboy
MemberOh well
They're produced very little of interest to me since shuttering the Digital Eclipse studio. So what would've been a sad farewell at one time instead just elicits thoughts about putting them out of their misery. And since then what they have released that has been of interest to me has still been emulation based which makes it even more difficult to dredge up some sympathy about a company that was once growing so nicely years ago that voluntarily killed its own heart in a mistaken attempt to try to enter mainstream game development and publishing instead of focusing on its core strengths.
I just hope Midway Arcade Origins is uneffected since I'm sure it's not finished yet. Classic compilations always seem to just squeek by under the wire and we're still over a month away from scheduled release. So I'm sure they're busy doing some last minute touches and probably haven't even gone through their own QA process yet with MS certification and actual manufacturing probably being due late this month.
Warner can just go to Code Mystics if they want to create Midway Arcade Evolved for Fall 2013. Their presence, which is composed of the heart of the old Digital Eclipse team, is still going strong as an independent operation. They'd of been my first choice for this project as well if it had been up to me (I picture Backbone simply just porting past work that Digital Eclipse did from source code files instead of actually doing things like addressing numerous issues that existed on the MAT trilogy that need fixing).
So the possible absence of Backbone in 2013 shouldn't be a roadblock if they want to program a 'Midway Arcade Evolved' release as a sequel.
Posted 7 months ago # -
JeremyR
MemberWhat about the Microvision? I had a friend with one of those. The games weren't so great, though.
Posted 6 months ago # -
I'm an old timer and I never heard of the Vectrex before.
Oh, then you should definitely check out the Vectrex pictures I posted about a while back. That was some very nice-looking rare stuff in that collection.
As for SNK Minis, though, the silence on the front is almost eerie. There's been nothing for a good while, and much of what has been released most recently still hasn't made it to Europe, I believe. Will that final Vol. 0 title ever be released?
Posted 6 months ago # -
JeremyR
MemberI've been playing Ikari Warriors on the Vita and it works pretty well. You just map the second stick to the face buttons, and then have square and O rotate left and right. Still not direction aiming, but you can spin your guy around just by pressing and holding, rather than having to tap the buttons
Posted 6 months ago #
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