The concept of this game is pretty generic, you fly between the planets of the solar system shooting all the enemies on the screen, and when you clear the screen you move to the next level. Whenever you reach a planet, you go to a special stage where you can’t die and earn bonus points, much like the special stages in galaga. What makes this game different from the majority of space shooters, if not unique however, is that it plays in the same way as tempest does. Rather than having complete control over where you move, you move in a circle around the edge of the screen, although it isn’t anything like as defined as in tempest, where the movement grid is shown. Instead you always move in a regular circle, skirting the edges of the screen. This poses a couple of issues, the main being trying to judge whether your shots will hit the enemies. This is largely because after their initial entry to the screen, the enemies disappear down to the middle of the screen, where they are extremely small, and since there is nothing to indicate where you have to be to shoot them other than working it out yourself, in contrast to tempest where as long as the enemy was in the same segment you’d hit them, it is very easy to repeatedly miss them by a tiny margin. The other issue comes from the controls. On an arcade machine they would probably be fine, since you would be rotating an analogue stick, but on the emulator,  much like time pilot, you are left in a situation where you press the arrow key and go to the extreme of that direction, and suddenly stop, only to get hit by a shot before you realise. Obviously this is a problem that is made worse by the emulator, but a system where you only move left or right, but keep moving ad infinitum until you change direction would work much better in my opinion, especially since that is essentially the control scheme in the much earlier tempest.

The enemy types are fairly generic, with the majority being seen only as small dots for much of the time, although there are occasional special enemies such as satellites who appear briefly much closer to you and give bonus points when defeated. As with most space shooters each enemy only takes one hit to kill, and shoot fairly rarely on the early levels, so as long as you pay attention you won’t die that often until a few levels in. One interesting feature is that the ship has an upgrade system, although I never figured out exactly how this worked, but gradually your shots would improve, such as adding a second shot at the same time, much like the upgrades in the starfox series. These upgrades go away as soon as you take a hit however, so I rarely had much time to get used to them, although they were undoubtedly helpful.

To conclude, Gyruss is in many respects much like Tempest, and as my review of that game should make clear, it is a concept which I very much like. Sadly while the graphics are a clear improvement over that game, in most other regards it is a downgrade, which is a shame, since had it not changed those things then I think it could have been a very special game. Still good by all means, but struggles to lift itself out of the mass of decent but not special space shooters prevalent at the time.

And I actually went a different route than I normally do when it comes to acquire things for my collections.

…Pawn shops!

I know this sounds like such a given, but you have to understand that pawn shops aren’t exactly abundant. In a nearby area to me, there are two of them. I’ve been to this area more times than I can count, but I always had an agenda of where I wanted/needed to go. I first spotted them a few months ago after a little driving around. This past weekend, I decided to checkout what they had.

Here’s the what the first one yielded.

I never had the pleasure(or displeasure), of playing either of these games before.  8 Eyes is basically a Castlevania clone, and Daydreamin’ Davey is decent from what I gleaned from the 5 minutes I tried it.  The gut at the shop wanted $5each.  He heard me groan, and said that $3 each was the best he could do.  I countered with 2 for $5, and he gladly accepted.  These are games I have not seen in the wild before, so they make for pretty good additions to the NES collection.

These 5 games, as well as what we’ll see next, are from the second of the 2 shops I checked out.

The store was having a 4 for $10 sale on all games not on a current console.  These 5 were the ones that caught my eye(although there were a few others that I need).  Mendel Palace is probably the most uncommon of the lot.  It’s a puzzle-like game that annoyed me when I tried it out.  Nothing super-rare, but nice additions nonetheless.

But the following is, perhaps, the best deal I found that day.

Any NES or SNES games complete in the box for $2.50 will get me every time.  There were a few other CIB games for these systems, but they were “otherwise marked”, so they didn’t apply to the deal.  Gyruss is missing the manual, but it’s the only one of the lot that I already have.  And on top of that, the copy I already had included the manual, which means I now have a complete copy.  The Super Nintendo games are not sought after, but again, I will buy CIB games for $2.50 a pop every day of the week.  $25 well spent!!

Gyruss was designed by Yoshiki Okamoto and produced by Konami.  It was distributed in North America by Centuri.

]]> http://happyrockcoffee.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/video-games/ Wed, 24 Oct 2012 21:52:39 +0000 happyrockcoffee http://happyrockcoffee.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/video-games/ It’s time for our with the old, in with the new! In this case the new being old too. That’s right, old school video games!

We replaced the pinball machine with a multicade arcade style video game machine from Stryker’s Main Street Arcade. It has 60 retro games including Pacman and Frogger!

Come by and check it out. Games are only $0.25

And also some Famicom Disk games; Gall Force, Gyruss, Arumana No Kiseki, Falsion and Kiki Kaikai: Dotou Hen with a guidebook:

I can’t wait to try them all out! :D But that will have to wait until tomorrow, since I spent this evening watching Iron Sky (a Finnish/German/American movie set in 2018 about Nazis who had been hiding on the dark side of the moon since 1945).. interesting..

I also got an early birthday present from my favorite japanese import game seller :D He had included a Hudson Turbo Controller for the Famicom  ^__^ YAY!  Perfect for all the shooters I have just bought :D

The game has been described as “Tempest meets Galaga”, and for good reason: Anybody who has played either of those two arcade games will recognize strong elements from both.

One of the most memorable features of this game is its soundtrack, which consists of an extremely catchy synthesized rendition of Bach’s Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor. Click here for a well-done YouTube video that lets you hear this classical organ piece (Go ahead, give yourself a little bit of culture…) It’ll let you appreciate the snazzy in-game music all the more.

This game was ported – rather terribly – to the SNES system, as well as many other systems (including an ill-fated attempt to port it to the Atari 2600!). My favorite port is the version of the game that Konami put into their Arcade Classics cartridge on the Gameboy Advance (along with Frogger, Timepilot, Skramble, and Rush n’ Attack.) Whenever I’m waiting in the doctor’s office, or some other boring place, this cart is always with me. =)

Gameplay is simple: Move left or right, in a circular motion, and shoot at incoming waves of enemies. After they have stopped zooming into the center, they will then randomly swoop out and attempt to destroy you. Levels get progressively more difficult, and after reaching each planet in the solar system you get a bonus round in which you attempt to shoot as many targets as possible.

To view a brief video of me playing the first few levels of Gyruss click here. In my MAME arcade emulator the original bezel artwork that surrounded the monitor is put into place – which is a nice touch. When I recorded it via FRAPS there was some minor audio garbling, but this isn’t present in the actual game.

Uploaded a ready-to-play package of this game on April 19th, 2012 for both PC and Macintosh users. Check the Downloads section to see if it’s still available.

Default key commands are: 5 to insert a coin; 1 to start playing. Arrow keys to turn left and right, and the left CTRL key to fire. As with all games in MAME you can press TAB to bring-up the menu of editable commands, and press ESC to exit out of it.

For MacMAME users, just drop the ROM file into the appropriate folder, same with the artwork file.

Enjoy. =)

TIPS:
- Each wave comes in a pattern, and anticipation of those patterns is a big key to both survival, and a high score.
- Don’t be reckless when the waves are spinning into the playfield. They will be firing at you in tight clusters, and if you just sit there and attempt to shoot them down you’ll get nailed every time. The key is to move and shoot with skill.
- The bonus rounds are all pattern-based as well.
- The triple bonus items that appear are well worth your time to shoot. First of all, they don’t appear randomly, but after a set period of time on each level they make an appearance. This means that even on the 1st level they’ll make an appearance if you just wait. If you haven’t gained the double-shot ability you really need to shoot the center of the 3 targets (and careful: They shoot back!).
- The game is endless: There is no end boss or ability to “beat” the game. It’s all about high scores. After clearing Earth you’ll be right back on the outskirts of the solar system (Yep: Venus, Mercury, and the Sun are skipped). The game just keeps getting progressively more difficult.
- Like all high-score bases games, such as this, I recommend that you keep a note of your highest score on a notepad – the game itself doesn’t keep it.

I found out that Netflix has the show “Family Ties” available for streaming. You may remember that “Family Ties” ran from 1982 to 1989, clocking in a respectable seven seasons. It was also the start of Michael J. Fox’s successful career.

It was one of the shows I watched frequently. And, since I was watching that I figured I should fire up the Atari emulator and play some old games. In my head, then, I was back in the 1980s, up in my bedroom, without a care in the world.

I found out that while I’m just as good as watching half-hour sitcoms as I was when I was a kid, I really suck at playing the games I was good at back then. That’s a hard pill to swallow. Optimistically, it could just be that I haven’t played them for 20-30 years. Oh my God, what a long time that is. It’s always a shock to the system to realize that, which is why I try and forget the amount of time it is as quickly as possible. Which is pretty easy when you get old.

I’ve also come to the realization that my left thumb isn’t quite as durable as it used to be. After a couple of rounds of Gyruss it was ready to fall off. I feel a bit like the big time baseball player who realizes he can’t hit the ball anymore.

One of the first games I ever got for my Atari 400 was “Canyon Climber.” On cassette, no less. The premise of “Canyon Climber” is kind of questionable: you play some kind of anarchist that blows up bridges while avoiding sheep and then make your getaway by avoiding angry native Americans and birds dropping “bricks.” But this was the 1980s, before political correctness was invented and people still had a sense of humor.

Create confusion by planting charges and then blowing up bridges!

Avoid angry Indians shooting arrows at you!

Avoid the "bricks" birds try to drop on you!

I’ve finished with “Deep Space Nine,” which means I’m all caught up on the Star Trek universe. Except for the original series and the animated series, neither of which I have any interest in watching.

Now I’m going through all seven years of “Family Ties.” I’ll admit that it’s going to take some getting used to. For starters, the episodes are only about 25 minutes long versus the 45 minutes of the hour long shows. Second, I believe there will be a lot less time traveling and probably no Ferengi. I won’t be able to point out all the errors. I also won’t be able to point out the “technical gobbledygook”  term. All that is lost in the world of 1980s perfect family sitcoms.

It’ll take some getting used to, that’s what I’m saying.

One of the awesome things of watching these shows, though, is all the ancient technology. People still use typewriters. People still use telephones which have wires leading into the wall. You don’t see many microwaves and computers have green letters on a black background. Wow! I remember all of those things!

And then there’s the appearances of actors who weren’t really anybody at the time but made a name later on, like Tom Hanks and Christina Applegate.

There are a number of books that have been recommended to me that I’ve never gotten around to reading. Lack of time or a higher interest in something else is usually the culprit for this. When I got my Nook and was looking for something to get to try it out I figured I would go with a book that I had always meant to read but never got around to it. Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash. This is one of those critically acclaimed books that everyone in the world has read, except me.

The story, published in 1992, involves computers, virtual reality, and ancient Sumerian myths. All things that I am quite interested in. It’s a shame, then, that I really don’t like it. I haven’t finished it; I’m a little less than halfway through. Perhaps it’ll get better and I’ll enjoy it, but as it stands I find it really difficult to get through just because I don’t like it. The reason why, I think, is the style it’s written in. I call this style “chaos.” Everything seems to come out of nowhere, isn’t held together very tightly, tends to be ‘hip’ for no other reason than to be ‘hip.’ It’s a style I usually see in ‘zany’ and ‘wacky’ comedy stories, which I don’t find funny or interesting, either.

I’ll keep trying to push through it, though, just so I can say I read it.

I don’t know how it is around the rest of the country, but in these parts phone interviews are the big thing. You’re more likely to get a phone interview than a personal one, at least for the first interview. I don’t have any problems with that because it tends to speed up the process a little.

For instance, I got called early this afternoon for a pre-screen and I had a phone interview before 5 o’clock. I think it went well. I hope it went well. It sounds like a very interesting opportunity and it’s definitely something I’m interested in. It’s got a heavy basis in Linux and it was fun being able to answer Linux questions to someone who cared. I kind of wish they had asked slightly harder questions, though.

Either way, they were nice guys to talk to so even if I don’t get this job I’m happy to have had the phone call.

It’s interesting to note that, as far as I can tell, their offices are right around the corner from where I used to work.

-The Adventures of Bayou Billy (NES)
-Baseball (NES)
-Blades of Steel (NES)
-Blaster Master (NES)
-Dick Tracy (NES)
-Faxanadu (NES)
-Gyruss (NES)
-Ice Hockey (NES)
-Mario’s Time Machine (SNES)
-Mickey Mousecapade (NES)
-Millipede (NES)
-Rush’N Attack (NES)
-Skate or Die (NES)
-Super Ghouls ‘N Ghosts (SNES)
-Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)
-Super R-Type (SNES)
-Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES)
-Track and Field II (NES)
-Wario’s Woods (SNES)

I told you there was a gigantic Grand List Update coming…

The thirty-second episode of Gobbledygeek airs live tonight at 10:30 PM EST right here. Paul and I travel back to that long-ago time when quarters were plentiful, joysticks your only weapon against the deadliest enemies, and tickets your only reward. Plus you got to turn them in for a prize. So there was that. We are, of course, talking about the video game arcade, an establishment which seems to be dead beyond movie theaters and bowling alleys. We sort of miss arcades, so here we are. In the bonus hour, we’ll have upcoming DVD releases, me talking about movies, and more.

Reminder: Calling into the show is potentially a toll call, but if you’ve got a free Skype account and a free BlogTalkRadio account, you can use the free “Click to Talk” button to call in…for free!

I guess I should have known with great lines like:

• Roses are red
  Violets are blue
  Q-BERT’S A HOPPER
  And this place is too!
• JEFF IS A WIMP
  I am not wimpy!
  I play Popeye!
• COILY’s A SNAKE!
• I got 700 in English
  BIG DEAL!
  I GOT 007
  FOR MY BIRTHDAY
• GYRUSS IS COMING
• I AM NOT SHORT!
• Super Cobra’s the … think you’re good …the squeeze!

And speaking of hopper.  The other day I told one of my kids to throw something in the hopper, and they looked at me like I had three heads.  I told them, back in my day, we used to call toilets hoppers.  I felt really old.  Be sure to teach your kids this word, or it will be lost forever.