Xexious Promotional Video

Xevious is one of those games I wish I was good at. I can generally get a few minutes in before giving up. Sure, if I practiced more, I would probably get better and when I was younger did just that. I'd play these games over and over until I got somewhat decent and could get pretty far. Unfortunately a game like Xevious is like a martial art, you've got to keep at it or the skills will fade away. The game was originally released by Namco in Japan before Atari released it here in the states. Atari and Namco had a working relationship back then which lead to kids like myself not knowing they were different companies initially. I recently discovered this little video produced by Atari when they were introducing the game to arcades. It's a fun little look into Xevious's backstory and game play from back in the day. It's hard not to appreciate these older promotional videos these days.

Wild Fang/Tecmo Knight

When it comes to violent and bloody video games the same ones are brought up. Mortal Kombat or Splatterhouse usually. One particularly violent game from 1989 is often not remembered... and for good reason. It was pretty under the radar and your local arcade probably chose other 'barbarian' games at the time. That game would be Wild Fang or Tecmo Knight as it's known outside of Japan. At first glance you might think it's a generic beat 'um up style belt fighter. However after inserting a coin you'd find that it's REALLY bloody. Surprisingly so, blood splatter and decapitations every few seconds. I'm pretty surprised there's not more notoriety for the game considering the time, but like I said... it's a little under the radar. You probably were too busy playing Golden Axe or Rastan to notice it in the corner of the arcade.

Depending on if you're player 1 or 2, Duke and Fleet are your heroes. The two warriors have to face The Beast Demon Army in their mission to resurrect The Great Beast Demon Delgomes by large amounts of human blood gathered from sacrifice. The heroes become 'Wild Fangs' and take on these evil forces. Oddly, if you're playing Tecmo Knight the bad guy is named Wild Fang. How do the heroes become Wild Fangs? They are paired with 3 protective deities. Smokeman (a big strong giant), the tiger (a tiger), and the dragon (a dragon... as you probably guessed). Your character actually rides these deities throughout the game.

Thanks to a button on the controls you can swap between them during your adventure. Smokeman is a really strong giant, but slower. Riding the tiger is much faster, but a little weaker. The dragon is actually a special form and only granted when found. The dragon is invincible flies around breathing fire for a short time before reverting back to Smokeman or the tiger. Power-ups are gained through the skulls left behind after defeating enemies.

Enemies are various demon/beasts/monsters that make up The Beast Demon Army. You progress through each level fighting assorted army members as you go and kill them in gory glory. Nothing is safe from getting bloodied up either. A recurring enemy is a large King Kong style gorilla whose hands reach around the edges of the screen. After so many hits to these arms and they're pouring blood... it's insane. Game play is fun and swapping out deities keeps things fresh. It's unfortunate the game is lesser known. I could easily have seen a SEGA version.

Double Dragon 4: Underground Nightmare!

I was a big fan of Double Dragon as a kid. Don't get me wrong, I still love it, but back then... man. I'd draw the characters, play out adventures using action figures and so on. I still remember the first time I played Double Dragon. My brother and I would go to the neighborhood Circle K. We'd play the arcade games, eat candy, and drink Slush Puppies. It was a pretty popular place for kids in the neighborhood. Much to the obvious annoyance of the cashier.

Occasionally the games would be swapped out and one day there was new game called Double Dragon. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before (never played Renegade until years later on the NES). You had these cool guys fighting other guys, they could pick up things to hit the other guys with, and they all looked like Mad Max. It was amazing. I spent the rest of the day talking about it until I was finally told to not say another word for the rest of the night. Which I did and gt in trouble. I was surrounded by folks who never played Double Dragon. They didn't understand.

Soon enough I was hooked on the NES version and it's sequels. What really added to it all was the instruction manuals. Back in those days game manuals were usually more than just instructions booklets. Often they were the source for a lot of the games fiction. The backstory and characters would get covered with some cool art usually. It was somewhere during this time that I came up the perfect Double Dragon game. Double Dragon 4: Underground Nightmare! Being 12 and not having much of an understanding how the video game world worked, my solution to creating this game was to write and draw the story and characters for the instruction book. Then send it in to the game companies and they'd just throw it together. To be fair I was 12 and admittedly a pretty weird kid. Not at all like the well adjusted adult I grew to be.

*cough*

That story? Those characters? After the events of Part 3, Jimmy turned evil again (he was the villain of the original after all) and kicked Billy out of the Double Dragon dojo. Now homeless, Billy lives underground in the sewers (like the TMNT). It's there that he finds his long lost other brother Timmy! Timmy also is  martial arts master and reveals Jimmy has been evil THE ENTIRE TIME and was behind the events of part 2 and 3 THE ENTIRE TIME! Jimmy also wasn't really their brother, but an evil robot from the future (like T2). Now that Billy is living in the sewers and has found Timmy, Jimmy sends The Black Shadow gang to get rid of them once and for all. But now, they're all mutants!

To be honest, I kinda still want to see it made.

Shooting The Chase

Transformers Animated was a pretty good time. A healthy mix of pleasing the fans while doing something fresh. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't jealous of these cool SEGA arcade games featuring the Animated crew. In another time, I could see myself going nuts trying to collect the cards and use them in game. In this time, I could see myself going nuts trying to collect the cards and use them in the game. I'm more partial to 'The Shooting' because there's nothing like a SEGA light gun game. Though 'The Chase' looks fun too. Admittedly I'm a little focused on the generic Decepticons. Specifically the Lockdown based ones. I want to know more about those guys.

The Combatribes Are Good Enough

I love a good old school beat 'em up. These kind of games were the best part of an arcade back in the day. Fighting your way through hordes of bad guys before meeting the levels usually insane boss with flashy graphics and loud music blaring.

The theming of the games usually varied from post apocalyptic gang warfare to medieval fantasy. Often popular licenses would show up in the genre and those games would usually have the biggest crowds. Trust me, there's nothing better than Homer Simpson beating the shit out of a zombie.

 

The Combatribes by Technos Japan Corp was a pretty popular game that's gotten a little obscure these days. Most people see it as the spiritual follow up to Double Dragon. That's not unfair as it's got the same look and vibe of the Double Dragon games. Beserker, the leader of The Combatribes even looks like a beefier Billy Lee.

The level layout is a little more like Renegade which Techno made before Double Dragon. Instead of a ongoing scrolling level, you generally have one large area to fight the hordes of enemies before taking on the boss. Building on the Renegade play style, some levels have more than one area of bad guys to clear out before facing the boss. 

Unlike the prior Technos games, Combatribes turns the craziness all the way up. Each level you face a different street gang who matches a theme. For example, you face The Demon Clowns in a amusement park. All of the street gangs are all working under the big crime boss. However when you finally reach the final battle, he is killed by the true main villain. A cyborg named Martha Splatterhead whom you then have to defeat.

Did that sound a little crazy? That's because it is. The enemies range from bikers to cyborg army men with some roller blade punks and clowns thrown in for good measure. Facing this freak show is The Combatribes. A group former military soldiers turned street vigilantes who are also cyborgs on the SNES version. Because why not? The three members range from strong but slow, fast but weak, and the balanced leader. You have a range of martial arts moves to fight in the neon futuristic streets and can even pick up some items to use as weapons.

Some of those characters, moves and abilities are absent in the home version of the game. Another difference between versions is in the arcade your life meter is in numbers while on SNES it's a standard life bar. When you die in the arcade you're forced to continue with another quarter, but if you insert one while playing that number value on your life meter keeps going up. It's pretty fun to pump a ton of quarters in and watch those numbers rise. Technos had a great habit of putting extra effort their arcade to home conversions. Instead of simply porting it over, they'd make it fit the medium better. The original Double Dragon had a leveling up system and an additional versus mode. The Combatribes has cinema scenes to explain the story better and a versus mode as well. 

The game was fairly violent as you can imagine and featured edgier characters. The Slaughter Troops gang of cyborg army men was lead by a boss named Swastika for example. That was tuned down for the North American SNES version. Blood replaced with sweat and saliva, now the Demolition Troops are lead by Master Blaster. Probably a good idea as your younger brother was more likely to play this than in the more mature arcade scene. It's still a really good game regardless of where and how you play it.

What The WWF

These day's I'm mainly an AEW fan, but back in the day I would switch the channel between WWF and WCW basking in the glory of both companies. The wrestling video games during that time were pretty great as well. I vastly preferred WWF Superstars and WWF WrestleFest in the arcades, but they were long gone by the time WWF Wrestlemania hit my local arcades in 1995. When the home console versions came out, my Genesis found itself occupied with the likes of Lex Luger and The Undertaker. It was a good time. Something I was able to do at home that I couldn't at the arcade was beat the game... and that's what we're here for today. Brace yourselves.

Roboka Battle With Takara Bots!

This is the kind of thing I'd love to have available in my local area. The Roboka Battle Card Game is an arcade card battle game of the type that's pretty common in Japan. While I'm not sure how much I'd play the game (I like to mash buttons), I'd love the chance to buy the game cards and tie in toys. Who knows, maybe I'd like the game too.

 

The game features characters from Transformers Cyberverse, Shinkalion, and Earth Granner. Whenever companies do these types of crossovers I generally enjoy it. The fictional reasoning isn't always the best and often made even worse by fan resources, it can be pretty fun to pit characters who normally don't interact against one another.

The oddball cards are the kind of thing I'd love to find at older BotCons. It's definitely a plus seeing the Cyberverse characters in a video game, even if it's one I'll never likely play. I just caught up on my DVR recorded episodes of Cyberverse and man I hate that this is the last season. It's just a fun show. Though I'm going to do my best to enjoy it while it's around and things like this is great. I'd really like to experience Earth Granner a little more. It's pretty neat looking and seemingly a follow up to Drive Head. Takara just does things I like, know what I mean?

Kick Some Astyanax

Astyanax is one of those games that people tend to forget about. Not for any particular reason, it's pretty good, though admittedly 30 years after it's release I'm still trying to pronounce it's name correctly. Funnily enough, you don't play as the Greek Mythology character at all, you play as a guy named Roche. In the NES version you play as a kid named Astyanax, I have no clue why.

I'm sure most people are more familiar with the NES game, I was too until discovering the arcade version at my local Pizza Hut. It's one of those cases where a home version plays pretty similar to the arcade machine, but is practically a different game. So much so that it'll get it's own post sometime later. I'm talking about the arcade game today.

Formation Z attract mode

The Simpsons (1991) Attract Mode

Transformers: VR Battle Arena

News broke earlier today of a new Transformers VR game. I'm pretty excited for this, even though I haven't had a chance to play the SEGA TF arcade games yet. A new Dave and Buster's has opened closer giving me a better opportunity to play those as well as this when it's released. So now it wouldn't be an all day thing to make it somewhere that has them, instead maybe an hour drive. Much more doable.

According to what information is available, it will be a 4 player battle arena type game. It's still early, so details are scarce other than news site click bait fluff. Hoping it's more than bots vs bots, I'd love more mission based gameplay. Which is what the SEGA arcade games offer, though they're light gun games (which I love) in cabinets that are pretty close to a simulator type experience (some units more than others depending on the facility you play them at). A full VR experience in mission based combat would be great, but I'll take what I can get.

I do like that the game seems to be using the evergreen designs, which is basically a modern G1. You can't realistically expect 80's vehicle modes in a modern day setting, so the updates work well. Not to mention, I just think they look good. Hopefully the game makes it to my local Dave and Busters so I can give it a try. Also hope they don't clear out those SEGA arcade games before I can make it there. Adulting can be hard, yo.

Spider-Man: The Videogame attract mode

Practically every other Spider-Man games is called Spider-Man: the Videogame/The Game. Of course this is pretty common in licensed video games. Since I'm not a legal expert (because then I'd be working in law) I'm willing to concede that there's probably a legality involved in this naming. Never the less, this particular Spider-Man: The Videogame just might be the very best. It's a SEGA arcade game from the early 90's, even if it was bad, it'd still be really good.

Despite the obvious nature of Spider-Man on an adventure fed by quarters, the game is a great 4-player beat 'em up with amazing graphics. That's actually an understatement. The game switches between beat 'em up and action platformer between stages. You'll be playing to a point and the 'camera' either zooms in or out. Zoomed in with large characters, beat 'em up level. Zoomed out with smaller characters, action platform time.

You can play as either Spider-Man (duh), Black Cat, Sub-Mariner, or Hawkeye. I usually went with Spider-Man or Hawkeye, though no matter whom you played, you could hold your own. For whatever reason the game never made it to home consoles. There was a slew of good Spider-Man games by SEGA on their consoles, but man it would have been great to play this at home (yeah, yeah Raspberry Pi). I wonder if this was based on hardware capability and by the time the Saturn or even 32X was out if the license had expired. Which is likely the case.

Alien Storm attract mode

I'm far more familiar with the Genesis/Master System version of Alien Storm than the arcade (or Master System). I play it regularly on the portable SEGA Genesis player that I keep on my nightstand. Such a great game. I love side scrolling beat 'em ups and SEGA made some of the best during their glory days. Alien Storm is a little different in this genre as the fighting is done mainly with shooting weapons. There's a variety of game play as well, shooting areas like in Shinobi or even a few running while shooting spots give the game breaks in action to keep you on your toes. Saturday night, after my wife had fell asleep, I played good old Alien Storm until I ran out of credits. Got pretty far too. It's a shame the game never got any sequels or has a better legacy. Though it's regularly available on various compilations or on e-shops, so at least the option to play it is still present.

Golden Axe attract mode

I spent many hours and quarters with Golden Axe at the Circle K and Gold Mine. I never get tired of a good beat 'em up and this is one of the best. Swords and sorcery with that classic SEGA flair, Golden Axe is an all time classic. It's readily available on any SEGA compilation and always worth the time and money to keep a version handy. Seriously love this game. 

The Real Ghostbusters attract mode

I was very happy to learn of the new Ghostbusters film planned to be released in 2020. Sure, the 2016 Ghostbusters movie didn't set the world on fire, but I was having such a good time with all the cool Ghostbusters stuff out that I didn't mind. That's what I hope happens again, though if the movie is a giant hit I wouldn't complain. I think what I want most is a repeat of those great blind bagged mini figures. It was a lot of fun collecting those. I talked last week about Meikyuu Hunter G, so in response to the great news, here's the attract mode for the Ghostbuster game made from Meikyuu Hunter G! Think I'm going to put some time in this weekend with it and some homemade Ecto Cooler out of happiness!

Bad Dudes vs. DragonNinja attract mode

Internet meme all you want about Bad Dudes, but it's still a great game. There's an onslaught of ninjas as you punch and kick your way through for your reward of getting a burger with President Ronnie (or George depending on which version you're playing). I don't know why Karnov is a boss in the game, but I do appreciate his return later in the game as a green skinned zombie. Not to mention, the truck that makes up level two's battlefield is a Diaclone Optimus Prime trailer with Diaclone Ultra Magnus as the cab. That's likely a coincidence, but it's a cool one regardless.

Mighty Orbots/GodMars into a New Year

Mighty Orbots/Godmars intros

I'm sure my regular readers are probably noticing the lack of postings the past few days, and as you can probably guess it's due to the holidays. I didn't make a programing note post as I figured most people would have figured that out on their own already (folks stay pretty busy themselves this time of year). I did carve out a little time to refresh the sites look which usually I do around this time of the year. I tried to keep the same overall space station arcade look, but went neon space arcade. Because I like neon, arcades, and space. I'm probably the only person who sees it because I'm crazy.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, some of the things I plan to do during this long holiday weekend (I had one for Christmas and now one for New Years with a few work days in between... I have no clue what day it is right now as result) is watch the Mighty Orbots DVD set my wife got me for Christmas and some episodes of Godmars (since they're super similar looking) that's been on my watch list for a while. Since I got a metric ton of cool stuff for Christmas, I plan on breaking out the light tent for some good picture posts of some (just some) of the neato toys I got for Christmas. That and play some of the great arcade games that came on this neat retro game console my wife got me. I also plan to play some Monster Hunter. Because I like Monster Hunter and got the newest game for my Switch with some gift card money on boxing day. I know you're concerned.

Shadows Rising promotional video

Shadows Rising trailer

I talked about this game earlier this year when the first looks at it were peeking out (of the shadows hur hur) and I still really want to play it. I've yet to play the prior game, so here's to hoping I make it to a Dave and Buster's soon... or maybe if Fun Spot has it... I should check into that. I love a good SEGA light gun game.

Shadow Run and Gun

I've talked about the new SEGA Transformers arcade game before, and I've still yet to even play Human Alliance somehow (man, time can get away from you when the closest machine is over an hour away). Watching this new video of the game's development process so far is pretty encouraging. I love a good SEGA arcade light gun game (and SEGA in general) and this looks like another quality thrill ride from them. This is the kind of thing I'd love to see a special edition Studios Series of. A Shadows Rising edition Optimus or something. That'd be super neat. Maybe the current Optimus Prime Voyager with some brighter paint aps and some different weapons. Maybe his backdrop could be a scene from the game. Or hey, what about using someone like Crowbar and making a generic Decepticon figure of with game tie in items. That'd be great.