Gaming Memories - Part 9

Back in 1992, Sega were at the very height of their powers. Business was booming for their arcade division and they had turned around their initially faltering fortunes as a console manufacturer as well, releasing the mighty MegaDrive at the end of the 80’s which went on to dominate in most of the world’s territories. This period also unsurprisingly coincided with the height of my Sega fanboyishness too. Never was I more convinced of their superiority and it seems they bought into it somewhat themselves as well.

What should a company do when things are going so well? Expand, innovate, anything but stand idly by raking in the cash, however much of it there may be. It certainly wasn't their idea - many computer manufacturers were seeking to expand into the burgeoning world of CD-ROM based upgrades. One console had already been furnished with a flashy device of this nature - NEC's magnificent PC Engine, which had been making pretty good use of the format for some time already. Spurred on by this success, as well as the desire to prolong the life of their 16-bit wonder, it wasn't long before Sega announced their own CD-ROM upgrade, known as the Mega-CD (except to those perpetual name-changers in the US where it was simply called the Sega-CD) and there were high hopes for it.

MegaDrive Shmups #8

Gynoug a.k.a. Wings of Wor (1991)
By: Masaya / NCS Corp Genre: Shooting Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Sega MegaDrive / Genesis First Day Score: 255,400
Also Available For: Nothing
Download For: Wii Virtual Console

As I'm sure many of you already know, a splendid fellow by the name of Bryan runs an equally splendid blog over at The Gay Gamer. One of his features is called 'Second Chance' where he revisits a game from his past which is supposed to be good but which he didn't really 'get', to see if it grabs him at the second time of asking. If I were to 'borrow' this feature for use here at Red Parsley, I think the first candidate would be Gynoug. The main reason for its strong candidacy is my fondness for shmups which arguably started with my MegaDrive. I used to read near enough all of the magazines of the day, always keeping my eyes open for the next great example. One which consistently scored well was... you guessed it - Gynoug! Inevitably, I soon had a copy of my own and yet, as soon as I started playing it I was wondering what the fuss was all about. I'm determined to 'get' it though so Bryan, if I may borrow your idea... Gynoug, here is your Second Chance!

Lush Food #3

Adventures With Chillies - Part 2

For most of my life I've been very keen on spicy food but, as recounted late last year in the first post of its type here at Red Parsley, this interest was accidentally bolstered by my discovery of some rather hot peppers. This incident has since seen a strong resurgence in my love of all things spicy, and it's a resurgence that has already yielded some fine results.

The five peppers of incredible power and mystery...

For a while I merely continued buying the recently-discovered scotch bonnets but, even though they continued to provide the scorching experience I had been unknowingly missing, I was intrigued by the apparent existence of far hotter peppers. As if in answer to my prayers, I recently changed upon an enticingly-named store: Akram's Spice Centre! This would surely be like a treasure trove to me, a Mecca for me all other spice lovers in my area! Venturing inside, I quickly gazed upon the most extensive range of chilli sauces I'd ever seen. Further browsing revealed all manner of unknown products imported from the Middle-East, Subcontinent, and Far-East. I even noticed some unusual fruits and vegetables familiar to me from my time in Brazil, including Jaca - huge spiky things which can kill you if you're unlucky enough to be beneath one falling from a tree!

Action RPG's #1

Neutopia (1990)
By: Hudson Soft / NEC Genre: Action RPG Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: NEC PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16
Also Available For: Nothing
Download For: Wii Virtual Console, PlayStation Network

Ahh, RPG's! Contrary to the firm belief of several friends, this isn't a genre I dislike or have some sort of issue with. My biggest problem, and the main reason for my limited time with games of this type is... time, or a lack thereof. Well, that, and a short attention span I suppose! I have played a few over the years though and it’s a genre I really need to see more of, so with this in mind it’s high time I started covering a few here at Red Parsley. For my first, I thought I’d go for one that I’ve heard of but know very little about - Neutopia, released exclusively for the mighty PC Engine by one of my favourite companies, Hudson. It's a game renowned as a Zelda clone but it's hardly alone there! Original or not though, something vital for the enjoyment of RPG's is an engaging story and characters. This is something else that's not very original here so let's hope it makes up for it...

Crap Games #6

Dark Castle (1991)
By: Three Sixty Pacific Inc Genre: Platform Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Featured Version: Sega MegaDrive / Genesis
Also Available For: Amiga, Atari ST, PC, Macintosh, CDi, Commodore 64, MSX, Apple IIGS

Poor old Dark Castle, I nearly blocked it from my memory... Along with the previously-reviewed Ace of Aces, it remains the recipient of the lowest magazine review score I ever remember seeing in the usually-generous magazines I used to read - in this case little more than twenty percent! I've been understandably wary of the game ever since but in the best spirit of Red Parsley, it's time once again to be brave and find out if it really is... that bad. The premise is at least a reasonably promising, if rather unoriginal one - predictably, it's set in the titular fortress where the evil, tyrannical Black Knight resides. The courageous Prince Duncan, however, has had enough and decides to topple the cretinous knight from his throne. This, of course, entails successfully making his way through the castle which is fraught with dangers beyond count.

Top Five Van Damme Films

I've got a pretty sizeable collection of DVD's but even a big collection can seem boring at times. It was during just such a period of boredom and indecision that I decided to join the much-heralded Netflix for some additional entertainment options.

As impressed as I immediately was with the service and user-interface, the selection available was a bit disappointing - nearly every title I searched for was 'unavailable to stream'. Based on my searches, however, it recommended that I watch Kickboxer. Hmmm, here was an old favourite that I hadn't watched for... probably at least 15 years, so why not!

Not only did I enjoy it once again but it also reminded me of the former splendour of Jean Claude Van Damme's films. To such an extent, in fact, that I was soon re-watching some of his other earlier films! In most cases I was again met with the already-dreaded 'unavailable to stream' but luckily this didn't stop me! Here are my five favourite from the late 80's/early 90's action legend:

5. Timecop (1994)

This sci-fi actioner was, unknown to me prior to writing this list, based on a comic released earlier the same year, which may account for it being by far JCVD's biggest hit at the time and, surprisingly, it remains his highest grossing film so far. It's also probably one of the best-remembered of his earlier roles. It stars him as a 'Time Enforcement Commission' agent who is charged with policing the recent discovery of time-travel, which of course has already been misused, whilst fighting the urge to misuse it himself to save his wife who was murdered some years before. Cue all manner of corrupt politicians and various other nefarious characters giving him the run-around through the years! Like most time-travel stories, there are a number of plot holes and inconsistencies but they don't stop Timecop from being an exciting and enjoyable nonsense-fest.

Me? Modern Gaming?

As those of you with whom I'm friends on Facebook will already know, as of this past weekend I not-altogether-enthusiastically joined the ranks of the modern gamers! Well, that's not actually correct yet but I do now possess a current generation console, namely a PlayStation 3 - eeek! But what brought this on? What could make a self-professed 'retro king' step foot into the camp of the accursed enemy?

Just about found space for the PS3 beneath the new TV!

Up until now, my experience with the current consoles equates to a few hours with a friend's Wii (mostly playing Sports Resort and Animal Crossing), around an hour with an Xbox 360 at the Replay Gaming Expo back in November 2010 (playing the splendid Split/Second), and a few hours with one of those guitar games on a friend’s PS3 during my last visit to Brazil. None of these brief experiences impressed me enough to ‘take the plunge’ and actually buy one of the system’s in question but I’ve always held the 360 in the highest regard of the three. This is primarily due to the splendid retro-flavoured updates and sequels on offer for Microsoft’s Live Arcade service as well as the mental bullet-hell shmups getting released for it in Japan so I always thought that if I did buy a current system, it would be that one.

Random Game I've Never Heard Of #6

Ponpoko (1982)
By: Sigma Entertainment Genre: Platform Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 24,820
Also Available For: Nothing

After recently struggling through the immensely difficult Choplifter again for the latest Arcade Shmup review here at Red Parsley, I was in dire need of something a little more relaxing to play so, what better time to search for and play another previously unheard of game?! These are often selected on the basis of an intriguing or eye-catching name and so was the case once again here. The main reason this particular title caught my eye is thanks to the splendid Studio Ghibli film, Pom Poko. Could this be a game based on it? That would be pretty cool but alas, as soon as I saw the '1982' on the title screen it became apparent that this was not the case. It does cast the player in the role of one of the creatures found in the film though - a tanuki or Japanese racoon dog, which are strange and mythical creatures of mysterious powers. Sounds intriguing so far...

Awesome Nature #11

Sunflower Seastar
Type: Echinoderm Lives In: North-Eastern Pacific Ocean Conservation Status: Least Concern

Not only are starfish pretty awesome creatures but they're also very strange ones too. They're not actually fish, for one thing, which is probably why they're more commonly known as Seastars these days and the Sunflower Seastar is the biggest of them all. Indeed, it can reach a metre in diameter and, unlike most seastars which have a mere five arms, this monster can have up to twenty-four! It can be found in a variety of colours and can also move very quickly for a seastar using thousands of tube-like feet that cover its underside and they are used to good effect for it's an aggressive predator to the many smaller creatures that share its home off the west coast of North America where it is found it not inconsiderable numbers. Few of its neighbours pose a threat to it except for one: the king crab which can rip off the seastar's arms! Like most seastars though, this giant can simply regrow lost limbs meaning they're unlikely to disappear any time soon...

Why It Is Awesome: It's like a floppy sea-vacuum!

Arcade Shmups #14

Choplifter (1985)
By: Sega Genre: Shooting Players: 1 Difficulty: Hard
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 82,500 (one credit)
Also Available For: Master System, NES, Commodore 64, VIC-20, MSX, Apple II, Atari 7800, Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit, ColecoVision, Fujitsu FM-7
Download For: Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network

I think the chopper is shooting the hostages :(

I must admit, I hadn't thought about Choplifter for a good few years until recently. It's a game I've got for my Master System which my good friend Luke and I used to spent a fair amount of time with in our younger years but it always a game we both found unyieldingly difficult. Only during the last couple of weeks did the game re-enter my gaming radar when I had a look at the SG-1000 version. At this time, it transpired that, highly unusually, this isn't a game that originated in the arcades. Well, okay, it's not strange for a game to not have an arcade version, but it is a little strange for such a version to appear after a début on a home system. Indeed, it was the Apple II that first saw a version of Choplifter, way back in 1982 courtesy of Brøderbund Software. Sega were clearly impressed though, as they subsequently tarted the game up for an arcade release!

Arcade Adventures #3

Blaster Master a.k.a. Chô Wakusei Senki Metafight (1988)
By: Sunsoft Genre: Arcade Adventure Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Nintendo NES
Also Available For: Nothing
Download For: Wii Virtual Console

It's long been agreed by pretty much everyone that ever since video games have had stories, most of them have been at best unoriginal and at worst rather ridiculous, and here with Blaster Master we have a bit of both. It's a game I know was well-regarded in its day but my only real memories of it are the rather un-game-like adverts that featured in my favourite mags. Looking into it now, however, reveals another example of a game's backstory being changed to supposedly suit the territory in which it's been released. The Japanese version, whose title apparently translates as the catchy 'Super Planetary War Records: Metafight', finds you as the protagonist in the very familiar role of universal saviour, battling against the odds to rid a peaceful galaxy of an evil dictator. Changing this story for the game's US/European release was not necessarily a bad thing in theory, but what we were left with was.

PC Engine Shmups #7

Override a.k.a. Last Battalion (1990)
By: Sting / Data East Genre: Shooting Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: NEC PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16 First Day Score: 269,550
Also Available For: X68000

The PC Engine is rightly famous for the large number of shoot 'em ups that have graced its card 'slot' over the years - some were arcade conversions, some were ported from other home systems, and some were even exclusive to NEC's little box of tricks. Such is their abundance, in fact, there are even a few I'd never heard of until recently! One such title is Override, also known as Last Battalion in its X68000 guise - a Japan-only release and one of the first games by Storm Entertainment who, unlike many 80's and 90's developers, are still going strong today. Not many of their games have been shmups though, which makes this an even more notable game, but it's also one competing for space in a crowded genre. It managed to escape my attention in its day but does it deserve yours?

Single Screen Platform Games #10

Zupapa! (2001)
By: Face / SNK Genre: Platform Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: SNK Neo Geo MVS First Day Score: 138,300
Also Available For: Nothing

As great as the Neo Geo was (and still is), it was never anything other than a hardcore gamer's system, and one for rich hardcore gamers at that! With that in mind, it's pretty damn impressive that it lasted as long as it did - over a decade in fact. After the world failed to end at the turn of the millennium, however, releases started drying up as SNK suffered financial problems. There were still a few releases though. These were mostly the fighting games that had made the system so famous over the years but a few other games sneaked through. One of these was Zupapa!, released around the same time SNK were being reborn as Playmore, and an unusual game by Neo Geo standards. It wouldn't have been a particularly unusual release on other formats of the day but it stood out a bit more on SNK's machine...

Sega SG-1000 Round-Up #2

Summer time is unfortunately busy time for me here in RKS Land which includes working most Saturdays. Why waste time actually working at work though, when I could be playing some more SG-1000 games? To that end, inspection of another random selection of five titles yielded the following:

Pacar (1983)

It was actually Sean, custodian of the splendid Famicomblog, who made me aware of this little-known game which is to date the only SG-1000 game he owns! Owning only one game for a system isn't too bad if it's a good one though, so is this? It's certainly a simple game which is a combination of Pac-Man and Rally-X. Accordingly, it has you racing around mazes collecting dots while avoiding the evil enemy cars. The car moves a little differently to Pac-Man though - it will keep moving in the direction indicated until it hits something for one thing and it can't turn on the spot either. You can move it backwards but it moves much slower which means that stages require a decent degree of planning. The best way to describe the graphics is 'functional' and the sound is practically non-existent but, like most Pac-Man-inspired games, Pacar is quite enjoyable in short bursts and rather addictive too! ... 6/10

Exploring the Sharp X68000 - Part 2

Crikey, things have been pretty busy here in RKS Land of late - regular readers may have noticed that the number of posts here has slowed down somewhat. I blame work for making me all stressed and not in the right mood to delve into the world of retro games as often!

One victim of this whole thing has been my X68000 feature, the first part of which was all the way back in March now, which looked at the legendary ability of Sharp's imposing system to cope with conversions of arcade games of the day. It turned out to be more than adept at this, as was already widely known of course, but it's always nice to see for yourself!

Something the X68k is less celebrated for, however, is the quality (or indeed the existence at all) of games which are exclusive to the system, or at least found on very few other formats. Having once again sought the advice of jolly helpful Retro Gamer forum buddy, Oli, I find myself armed with the names of some such titles. Here are the results:

Aquales (1991)

Many X68k games are a mystery to me (titles exclusive to the format, at least) but I was sure I knew at least something about this one. Of course, it turned out I was wrong, but what I discovered was certainly no disappointment! Aquales, you see, places you in command of one of those big mecha things the Japanese love so much. It's not the meanest-looking one of all-time but it's pretty agile as it can shoot a variety of weapons with one arm while the other is equipped with a grapple which can be used to swing around the multi-tiered stages which look gorgeous for the most part - filled with huge sprites, super-parallax scrolling, and all manner of special effects. The music is also fantastic which makes exploring the large, superbly-designed stages a pleasure in spite of a slightly inconsistent difficulty level.