Emulation is great but it's not always easy. I've been trying to get a different arcade racing game working in MAME for a while now but despite the assistance of a helpful Facebook friend, I'm still unable to play it. So in the meantime I thought I'd take a quick look at this old classic. I say 'quick' because it's a very well know game already, and I say 'look' because it's yet another old classic that I missed out on! It doesn't always seem like it actually, I've been hearing about it all my life so I know how well regarded it is but I've never had the opportunity to play it. Well, not this arcade version, anyway, any it is the version that took the world by storm, making 'into the screen' racing games popular in the process. So, how does it hold up today, and to a first-time player no less?
Whilst I still think it was a good idea, I don't seem to have had much luck with this 'Random Game' feature so far. The first two I chose both turned out to be worse than finding a dead mouse in your hamburger, but surely I can rely on Namco to buck the trend? Actually, seeing as it is by Namco, and an 80's arcade game, I'm rather surprised to find that I hadn't already heard of Motos, but a mystery it was. Happily, first impressions were good. It's a simple game and so was quick and easy to get to grips with - each single-screen stage features a grid floating above the vacuum of space. Starting in the middle of each is a small bumper-car type craft, about the size of one grid square, which you can move around the grid at will, each of which is also populated by numerous enemies.
Love it or loathe it, Dig Dug is (correctly) regarded as an all-time classic arcade game and, despite being converted to a large number of home systems, it has not been one of the franchises that Namco has furnished with a large number of updates or sequels. It received a rather anonymous second instalment in 1985, but the series wouldn't be revisited for another fourteen long years. Originally intended to be Dig Dug 3, the transition during its development to Mr Driller also included a change in the protagonist. The hero of Dig Dug was Taizo Hori but taking his place here is his son, Susumu Hori! As the highest ranked Driller in the world, he was the first one the panicked people called when the cities became overun by mysterious coloured blocks rising from underground...
I think it's fair to say the first true smash-hit videogame that took over the world was Space Invaders. Its simple style and addictive gameplay has been copied and improved by many designers and companies over the years but my favourite of these has always been Galaga, specifically Galaga '88 for the PC Engine. However, that could be about to change. My appreciation of cute, crazy Japanese games is well known and here Namco have given their own classic series of Space Invaders-style games a cute 'n' crazy makeover! The basic premise behind Cosmo Gang varies little from that of Galaga as you might expect. It replaces the evil alien insects from Galaga with strange characters called Cosmo Gangers and the predictably simple objective of the game is to clear each stage of these peculiar creatures before they can clobber you!
Good old women, you can always rely on them getting themselves into some sort of trouble, can't you! In the case of this mid-80's Namco classic it's Leila Blitz, an agent of Interpol's espionage unit, Rolling Thunder, who's gone and got herself abducted by a highly mysterious society called Geldra. Now it's down to you as Albatross, a fellow Rolling Thunder agent, to defeat Maboo, leader of Geldra, and rescue her before she's ravaged or something else equally dastardly. This involves making your way through ten stages filled with apparently infinite hooded 'Maskers' as well as several other kinds of enemies. The stages are all based in various parts of New York and are split into two groups of five - after you've completed the first five stages, they'll repeat but with more numerous and more aggressive enemies.
