NAMCO'S TAKE ON THE NBA
Ready to play some NBA?
*Sees people with basketball jerseys, basketballs and shorts*
Sorry, this time is not the NBA we ALL knew. Namco has a different, VERY DIFFERENT view of the NBA.
The NATIONAL BATTLING ASSOCIATION, so put the b-balls back on the locker, put your best military uniform and hop to the tanks 'cos we're on the tank arena with Grobda.
Old school tank shooting
In this spin-off/sequel of Xevious, Grobda takes place after the events of Xevious. The storyline goes like this: The invaders made a fast withdrawal from Earth and left plenty of their war equipment behind. Humanity decide to use the Grobda tanks to play war games in a combat arena, leading to the formation of the National Battling Association. The gameplay mechanic is pretty simple, you have to take down the enemies in the arena without going down, if you die, you have to start the level all over again. Your tank has not 8, but 16 firing angles, making it a very complete vertical scrolling shooter for the time being, Not only that, you are given a shield for temporary invincibility. But you have to pay attention when you're gonna use them as both the laser weapon and the shield share the same energy bar. Because the shield will weaken when your gauge is in the yellow levels and it won't deploy on the red indicators. Fortunately you can recharge the gauge by not doing anything. Being stationary recharges the bar faster, while it takes more time when you're in movement, so you've gotta find a good safe spot when you're considering a fast recharge because you'll be on the offensive almost all the time, even on the later levels when the game throws you enemy shielded tanks.
Busted and Blasted.
The fun part of the game actually lies on how to perform score multipliers, which were quite a novelty back then. Like Missile Command, your enemies generate large explosions which can damage or even destroy other enemies and take a few more in a chain reaction depending on how close they were on the moment of the blast. But you have to pay attention and stay far enough when blasting tanks, because the explosion can destroy you, but you can take'em down before you die. If the last enemy dies with you you'll automatically go to the next stage. Other obstacles to deal with will be the wrecked tanks. After being blasted away, the explosion is not the end of your enemy. Its wreck will be in the middle of the arena and if you walk over it you'll be slown down, making you an easy target and that would be troublesome after the 11th level, when the game changes the rules by throwing you fast enemies that shoot bullets with pseudo-homing capabilities. You can "lure" enemies into stack on groups of three or at least two by moving around using your shield and then shooting to one of them in order to make a small multiplier.
That's how to make a basic chain reaction.
The American relase wasn't in charge of Midway or Atari, it was Magic Electronics who brought Grobda to the arcades on this side of the planet. With vast advertising blurbs such as "The Earnings of Pac-Man", "The Power of Defender", "The Explosion of Missile Command", "Namco Long Term Earnings" and a girl pointing with a gun saying "Do you have the guts to play?". As for home porting the game, this game wasn't released on the Nintendo or the Genesis, but it did on a few Japan-only home computers like the NEC PC-8801, PC-6001 and Sharp's MZ and X1. It really got a worldwide release as part of Namco Museum Vol.2 on the PlayStation where it was a solid port but the screen was slightly different in order to cover the space of your TV, something that was later corrected on Namco Museum Megamix which had the original Arcade perfect port. With Namco working with Hamster's Arcade Archives, it was only a matter of time until Grobda got a release there, and here it is, with its two extra mods Hi-Score and Caravan and all the arcade adjusting stuff in the style of dip switches like starting lives, extra life required score, and even going retro adding scanlines on the screen, but also the essential trophies which might be challenging, unless you know the ins-and-outs of the game.
A glitch in the system or someone screwed up with the block placement?
Here's a trick that you can use in your favor, in some stages, the blocks are placed in a way that you can make your shots pass through them, granting you a safe firing spot. But keep in mind, the AI knows this and can use it against you.
In terms of graphics is quite colorful, but with solid animation, being the laser effect quite amazing as it does that color changing effect that combiend with the speed makes it look like a large beam rather than a 5 bullet stream. The explosion effects are virtually identical to those of Missile Command as we have these expanding circles that flashes with several colors.
Sound department is the weakest aspect of the game. Aside from the Game Over and Name Entry tunes, the game is silent most of the time as we only have the sound effects breaking that silence. But the innovation on this game was the DAC (Digital-to-Analog Converter) used to provide the "Get Ready" sample for the game (Magic called it "Accu-Speech"). It was less than Bosconian's voice samples, but despite being used once, back then it was a suprise to hear a game that "talks".
Here's a playlist for Grobda
Michael Jackson - Jam
Metallica - Better Than You
ZZ Top - Delirious
Maxx - Fight
Anthrax - C11 H17 O2 N2 S Na (Sodium Pentathol)
Guns N' Roses - Paradise City
Metallica - Bad Seed
GROBDFACTS
Welcome to NBA Jam indeed.
The only rule of this game is to "Jam or be Jammed".
- This is one of the few Namco games not released by Midway or Atari.
- Magic Electronics flyer mentioned the origin of the Xevious Empire was from planet Pacmanus.
- Speaking of Xevious, the NES release of Xevious: The Avenger called the Grobda "Grobder".
- On the other side, the "Atari Edge" flyer of Xevious spell Grobda correctly.
- This game had the guts of using NBA as an acronym at the risk of being sued by the National Basketball Association.
- One of the Emmerian ground units from Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation borrows its name from this game, the Grobda Tank Company. This unit played a role on the Invasion of Gracemeria.
No big deal.
Just some classic tank-blasting action.
Since Grobda didn't had a too much console releases beyond Namco Museum, this release is a great chance to revisit this arcade classic.
With the game already reviewed, the big question is "Do you have the guts to play?"
Its always great to see more positive results.