Sega Super Scaler Games #7

Super Hang-On (1987)
By: Sega AM2 Genre: Racing Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 9,950,140
Also Available For: Mega Drive, X68000, Nintendo 3DS, Game Boy Advance, Amiga, Atari ST, PC, Apple Mac, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum

Just thinking of the great names of the other 'Super Scaler' games automatically reminds me of giant hydraulic machines with excited crowds around them in bustling amusement arcades, but that's not the case with Super Hang-On. I had it on my Speccy and later I also had it on my mighty Mega Drive, but I was never fortunate enough to encounter the original in any arcades I visited, so I guess I've always associated it with those two systems. I suppose the Speccy more than the MD, though the version for Sega's own console was obviously far more accurate. The Speccy version was good too, though. As far as I recall, anyway, though I haven't played it for many moons. It may even be among the best racing games on the little home micro. Not that that's saying much, I know. But regardless of all this, I'm way overdue in checking out the super-scaling original, so let's go!

Arcade Shmups #29

Ashura Blaster (1990)
By: Visco Corp / Taito Genre: Shooting Players: 1-2 Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 126,000 (one credit)
Also Available For: Nothing

There can't be a huge number of arcade shooters that never left Japan (they were one of the most popular genres in the West, after all), and even fewer that never received any home conversions, but I managed to find one in the fairly splendidly-named Ashura Blaster, developed by Visco Corp and released by the mighty Taito just as that most wonderful of decades had drawn to a close. Due to this somewhat restrictive release I can't tell you too much about its backstory, but I can tell you it's apparently set in the far-flung future of 2020 (chortle). As you may have noticed, it's a vertical scroller, and a very familiar type too. It doesn't take a genius to work out the probable vague outline though - some dictator or heinous regime has threatened national/global peace and only you (and a friend) can save the day for some reason. Better dig out that chopper license!

Licensed Games #5

Robocop (1988)
By: Data East Genre: Platform/Fighting/Shooting Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 56,800 (one credit)
Also Available For: NES, Game Boy, PC, Amiga, Atari ST, MSX, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Apple II, TRS-80

In my younger years when much of my gaming was done on my trusty Speccy, many of the biggest and most successful games, or at least most hyped games, were adapted from major movies of the time. A lot of these sucked donkey balls, naturally, and were rightly derided, but I always remember one of them being a monster smash hit that topped the Speccy sales charts for many, many months. It was a game based on one of the best movies of its time which starred Peter Weller as a slain cop who was given a new lease of life after being repaired/augmented by electronic devices and assorted mechanical doodads. This would, I believe, make him a cyborg rather than a robot, so technically the film should've been called Cybercop, but name inaccuracies aside, it was a bit of a stonker. The tie-in game was originally found in arcades which was a little unusual, and as good as the Speccy version was, it can't have been as good as the arcade version, surely? Sadly, I didn't find out as I never encountered it.

Overrated! #9

Hard Drivin' (1988)
By: Atari Genre: Drivin' Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 44,091
Also Available For: Mega Drive, Lynx, Amiga, Atari ST, PC, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum

When I recently had the brainwave to include this notable game in my 'Overrated!' feature it seemed like a superb idea and I congratulated myself accordingly, but the more I think about it, the more I wonder if it's a game that was ever all that highly rated to begin with. I mean, I seem to recall the conversions getting decent reviews in the many magazines of the day but it's not really a game that gets mentioned nowadays, nor as far back as I can remember after its release. I first played it on my trusty Speccy and it was pretty good, all things considered, but fairly soon after I did actually find its arcade progenitor too. I seem to recall it being a pretty pricey game for the day but I had to try it, obviously. It was housed in a large sit-down cab and was one of those machines that made it seem like a big deal. It even had a key to start it! Once I started playing it, however, I was rather less impressed.

Run 'n' Gun Games #10

Psycho-Nics Oscar (1987)
By: Data East Genre: Run 'n' Gun Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 93,900
Also Available For: Nothing

I'll be the first one to admit that my coverage of the Commodore 64 has been pretty woeful here. The reasons why could be the subject for another post, but I have been meaning to review Turrican here for a long time. I decided to finally do so recently, only to find it was apparently 'inspired' by an earlier game, and an arcade game no less. Accordingly, my OCD will not allow me to review Turrican first, so here is a look at the curiously-named Psycho-Nics Oscar, released in 1987 by Data East. This puts it in their RoboCop/Dragon Ninja phase which was, in my opinion, their best period as an arcade developer. It doesn't seem to have much in the way of a backstory though. As far as I can tell, the player takes on the role of Oscar, but I'm not sure if he/it is a robot or a guy controlling a mecha. Hmm, anyway, whatever Oscar is, your simple-yet-difficult job is to liberate Ordio City. I am again unsure if this is a city on a future Earth or if it's on an alien planet, but who needs an excuse to neutralise alien (probably) filth?

Splendid Arcade Music #3

Slap Fight (1986)

It has been many moons since I reviewed Slap Fight here but, despite liking it, I have failed to play it since. That is until last week when I got a sudden, unexplained desire to give it another playthrough, and whilst doing so I ultra-remembered just how catchy the first in-game theme is! Not sure how I forgot to be honest, but now I keep playing the game just to hear it and, if anything, I like it even more than I did! It doesn't have a proper name as far as I'm aware - it's merely listed as BGM#1 on the soundtrack - and accordingly it's the first in-game music you'll hear. Enjoy it while it lasts though, which is little more than a minute (unless you keep dying).

(full Slap Fight review here)



Special Note: I didn't record this great tune myself, I'm just an admirer, so all credit goes to the original composer

Scrolling Fighting Games #17

Dragon Ninja a.k.a. Bad Dudes vs Dragon Ninja (1988)
By: Date East Genre: Fighting Players: 1-2 Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 52,900
Also Available For: NES, Amiga, Atari ST, PC, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Apple II
Download For: Nintendo Switch

I've never been particularly skilled at videogames. As if to illustrate this, most of the times I've actually managed to complete one without cheating are lodged firmly in my memory. One of them pertains to a certain fighting game with a very cool name, here in the UK at least. Yes, that's right, it's Dragon Ninja! American gamers knew it as Bad Dudes vs Dragon Ninja of course, and it's actually almost acceptable as US name-changes go since, to the eternal disappointment of both younger and current me, you don't play as ninjas but fight them. Many of them. I first discovered this on my trusty Speccy, for which I had the game (on +3 disk as I recall), and I enjoyed it a lot, black and white graphics and all. So much so, in fact, that I actually kicked every arse in the game and finished it! I'm extremely confident I couldn't repeat that nowadays but I did recently find myself reminiscing about the occasion and the game generally, and was then wondering if the arcade version is much harder, as is usually the case.

Arcade Platform Games #6

Karnov (1987)
By: Data East Genre: Platform/Shooting Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 84,590 (one credit)
Also Available For: NES, PC, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum

The gaming world has seen a lot of unusual characters over the years and this is one that stands out, to me at least, as being an overlooked example. I mean, he's a human which certainly isn't unusual, but he has very specifically been made as hailing from one of the Soviet Union's Central Asian republics. Not only that but he's a fire-breathing, ex-circus strongman. He has even been given a full name - Jinborov Karnovski, or Karnov for short. I wonder what prompted Data East to conjure this fellow up. I'm not even totally sure he's a good guy either. He appears in several later Data East games as a villainous character, and your objective with him here is find pieces of a lost treasure map so he can plunder the resultant booty. Perhaps he's stealing the ancient heirlooms of a long proud and honourable civilisation? Oh well, whatever possibly-nefarious motivation the muscle-bound brute has, it's your job to guide him through nine side-scrolling stages, each brimming with innocent locals trying to resist the interloper.

The Best of Arcade Flyers - Part 2

I'm sure I am not alone in my appreciation of game art, and we certainly got quite a lot to ogle back in the day, what with magazine adverts and the covers of the games themselves, but one major 'format' whose promotional artwork was seen far less often was that of the sacred arcade, birth place and home of many of the most revered and loved games for generations. Therefore, for this series of posts, I'll be showcasing a selection of what are in my opinion the flyers with the most appealing or eye-catching artwork rather than flyers for the best games themselves. The posts will be in alphabetical order - next up is 'A' and all associated games therein.

Arcade Shmups #28

Raiga - Strato Fighter (1991)
By: Tecmo Genre: Shooting Players: 1-2 Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 116,620 (one credit)
Also Available For: Xbox (compilation)

I suspect there's a decent chance many of you won't have heard of this obscure shooter, and that's a surprise. It arrived at a time when the genre was immensely popular and it was bestowed upon us by a well known arcade developer. It was even available in the West (US only, no release for us European oafs), so why wasn't it known to more players? Well, I suppose it may have gotten crowded out by the sheer number of similar games available, but aside from that I've no idea. Of course, your resident herb-flavoured retrohead knew all about... okay, I admit - I hadn't heard of it either! I discovered it simply due to spotting its cool name (Strato Fighter? Yeah!) in my MAME list and giving it a go. With that in mind, I guess it should be part of my 'Random Game' feature, but it was probably around 7 or 8 years ago that I saw it and it has remained on my 'to review' list ever since (hey, in my defence, there are about 1,000-odd games on it!), but I've finally gotten around to playing it.

The Best of Arcade Flyers - Part 1

Oh hey, what's going down? I'm sure I am not alone in my appreciation of game art. Back in my day when life made sense (kind of), that was usually in the form of adverts in the magazines of the time or the covers of the games themselves, but one major 'format' not covered by either of those is that of the sacred arcade, birth place and home of many of the most revered and loved games for generations.

For arcade games, these 'adverts' usually came in the form of flyers that were sent to arcades the world over to try and tempt said arcade's operator to bring in the game. Obviously, unless you were one of those owners, or at least knew one, these flyers went largely unseen. To that end, please join me in a celebratory tootle for this new series of Red Parsley posts which will feature what are in my opinion the finest flyers to grace... umm, paper I guess, or whatever they were printed on.

These posts will be by letter in alphabetical order. First up are games whose titles start with a number. There obviously wasn't much choice here so the selection isn't great (or plentiful) but I present it nonetheless. Greater things are to come...

Sega Super Scaler Games #6

Thunder Blade (1987)
By: Sega Genre: Shooting Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 958,160
Also Available For: Mega Drive, Master System, PC Engine, X68000, Nintendo 3DS, Amiga, Atari ST, PC, MSX, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum

When you think about Super Scaler games, I'd wager most thoughts are immediately of Space Harrier, Out Run, or After Burner. There are many others of course, all of which should be featured here eventually, but of the major earlier releases, Thunder Blade seems to be one that has been rather forgotten in more modern times. Why could that be? It was well-received in its day after all, so why the lack of love these days? A Nintendo 3DS release aside, even Sega seem to have abandoned it to a degree. Has its choppery-shooting action aged worse than its brethren? Is it now as unpleasant as a gravel-filled burrito? This is a question your possibly-favourite herb-related blog was made to answer! Much of my time with the game was spent on my Speccy for which I had the magical +3 disk version but this review will, as always, focus on the original arcade version.

Arcade Shmups #27

1942 (1984)
By: Capcom Genre: Shooting Players: 1-2 (alternate) Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 62,520 (one credit)
Also Available For: NES, Game Boy Color, PC-88, Fujitsu FM-7, Sharp X1, MSX, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum

Capcom have been responsible for some truly wonderful games over these long years but one series that seems to be somewhat overlooked nowadays is the 19XX shooter series. It isn't even one of the 13 series mentioned in the company's summary on Wikipedia! What has the series done to deserve such scorn? Does it suck ass? I doubt that, but in order to find out I will play through the entire series starting with this original which graced arcades long before their mighty CPS boards were introduced. It is therefore a simple enough game as you might expect. Rather surprisingly for a Japanese-developed game, however, it sees you on the side of the Americans against the entire Japanese Air Force!

Single Screen Platform Games #17

Lode Runner (1984)
By: Broderbund / Irem Genre: Platform / Puzzle Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: ???,???
Also Available For: NES, Game Boy, SG-1000, PC Engine, PC, Apple Mac, Apple II, Amiga, Atari ST, Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, Vic 20, Amstrad CPC, MSX, BBC Micro, ZX Spectrum, Pravetz 82/82M
Download For: Wii Vitual Console, Xbox Lives Arcade, PlayStation Network, Android, iOS

I've been reviewing games here for a long time now, and a good few of them have been platform games as they're one of my favourite genres, perhaps my very favourite, but I don't think I've ever come across a game that was ported to more systems than this one. Just look at that list - I haven't even heard of one of them! Despite this, however, I never really encountered it in its day (I was still largely-dependent on my parents for new games back then, or even magazines to let me know about the games), but I still keep hearing its name after all this time so I figured it was finally time to give it a proper once-over. I had assumed the arcade version would've been the first, as it usually is, so I got stuck in to that version only to find out the game actually debuted on several American home micros first. Oops! Oh well, too late now!

First Look Arcade #2

Gee Bee by Namco (1978) - Arcade

My hunt for so-called 'brick-breaker' games has revealed many examples to me. I've not even heard of some, like this one which was released way back in 1978 - only two years after the progenitor itself, Breakout. Sadly for me, it's an arcade exclusive (not that there would've been much to convert it to anyway), and like many such games it uses a paddle to move the bat so I can't play/review it properly, but it seems pretty innovative for its day. It looks and plays a little more like a pinball game than a Breakout clone too. There are bumpers, channels at the side for the ball to fall down, a twirly thing and lights to turn on, etc, but there are also numerous bricks and not one but two paddles (one at the bottom of the screen, the other about halfway up), and the object at least appears to be to take out all the bricks. It's hard to say for sure as, 1) it's extremely hard to play the game with a control pad (even one with an analogue stick), and 2) the bricks seem to replenish themselves every now and then. It must be bloody hard though, even with the correct controller, as the ball gets really fast quite quickly, but it's definitely an interesting title, especially considering its age.

RKS Score: 3/5

Arcade A-Z

As much as I love arcade games, and a good few of my fondest childhood/teenage memories are of amusement arcades, there's no way in the world I'll ever have time to cover all arcade games ever made. That would be ultra-unrealistic, even for my standards. Therefore, for these listings I will try to feature most of the main games as well as some less well-known titles, including a few Japan-only games that aren't too language-heavy, but I will obviously miss a lot too.

Left out on purpose will be the scores of Japanese mahjong games and anything similar. Also, while I've played a lot of arcade games in person, it's not very realistic to expect me to have played all of them in their native environment. Games for this list will therefore be mostly played via emulation, so I will also be leaving out games I can't get running on an emulator, and also ones that can't realistically be played (such as ones that need a machine-specific control method).

That will still leave hundreds, probably thousands of games for me to cover here though, so I'd better get started. Next up is:

O is for...

Ocean Hunter, The by Sega (1998)

I am lucky enough to have played this one for real but it's not common, perhaps due to its size. It's a Model 3-powered light gun game pitting you against all the terrors of the deep and more besides - basically House of the Dead but underwater - and the cab comes equipped with a big screen and two mounted guns.

Arcade Shmups #26

Scramble Spirits (1988)
By: Sega Genre: Shooting Players: 1-2 Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 310,120 (one credit)
Also Available For: Master System, Amiga, Atari ST, MSX, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum

There weren't a massive number of shmups on the Master System - it didn't have a huge number of games of any genre I guess - but of the ones that did find their way to Sega's wonderful console, about the only one I never played was Scramble Spirits. This may have been down to the lacklustre reception it received in magazines of the day, or the fact that it has been pretty much ignored ever since. Perhaps not, but either way, I recently reminded myself that the poor neglected game exists and immediately made a mental note to investigate it forthwith. If I'm going to do that, I then reasoned, I might as well first try the original version of it, so behold: after some problems getting it running, here is the arcade version of Sega's lost shooter. Does is deserve our continued apathy?

Sega Super Scaler Games #5 - Part 2

After Burner II (1987)
By: Sega Genre: Shooting Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 1,343,580
Also Available For: PlayStation 2, Nintendo 3DS, MegaDrive, PC Engine

When I was younger there were a good many things that confused me. Many of these are unsuitable for discussion here but some that are included: Why do frogs throats bulge so much? Why did some cars make that whistling sound as they drive along? Why do electricity pylons crackle when it rains? What would happen if you drilled all the way through the earth's crust into the mantle? All these things and many more questions of varying importance pootled around in the perpetually-distracted mind of my youth, but one thing that puzzled me like no other was this: What the frickin' frack was After Burner 2 all about? Game sequels, and indeed sequels generally, didn't often deviate from the originals that much but you could usually tell them apart, especially if you were actually trying to, but what was the difference between After Burner and After Burner 2? Only the Lord on high knew this hallowed secret, surely?

Run 'n' Gun Games #8

Green Beret a.k.a. Rush'n Attack (1985)
By: Konami Genre: Run 'n' Gun Players: 1-2 (alternate) Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 37,050 (one credit)
Also Available For: NES, Famicom Disk System, MSX, BBC Micro, Commodore 64, Commodore Plus/4, Atari 8-bit, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum (ports)
Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Xbox 360 (on compilations)

Although very popular at the time, and converted to every format under the sun, I'd still only played Green Beret on my trusty Speccy prior to this review. I didn't really like it too much back then either, even though I had it on disk for my mighty +3 which meant I could have it up and running within 30 seconds or so. Despite this, for no readily apparent reason it popped into my head spontaneously the other day, so I figured I'd give it the once over here as part of my run 'n' gun feature. This may make some people's eyes widen in shock but I would say it still counts as a run 'n' gunner - you do run around platforms taking out never-ending enemies after all. There isn't much in the way gunning though, I must admit, with the nameless stock military dude under your control here (we'll call him Gavin for review purposes) apparently preferring bladed weapons. So, it's a run 'n' stabber then? That's good enough for me!

Random Game I've Never Heard Of #14

Guzzler (1983)
By: Tehkan Genre: Maze Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 27,350 (one credit)
Also Available For: SG-1000

I was actually playing a pretty awful old shmup with a view to entering a score in a retro league when I noticed the name of this game just above it. I hadn't heard of it but I thought I'd give it a quick go anyway. Given its name, I expected it to be a blatant Pac-Man clone or perhaps even some some of binge-eating game, like a food version of Tapper, but it was not. While it is indeed a maze game, it's not like the one starring that flappy-jawed yellow gobbler at all. Each stage is a single screen in size and feature mazey-like layouts, but the similarities are not extensive besides that. It even took me a few minutes to work out what was going on when I first tried it. I guess that shouldn't be too surprising!