Gradius Solar Assault pics inside (56K warning)

[Vexorg]

Since it seems that there is little information on this somewhat oddball entry in the Gradius series, I finally made it out to the Gameworks in Seattle and managed to take a few pictures of the Solar Assault cabinet they had there. I attempted to take some gameplay videos as well, but I don't know how they turned out (my camera uses QuickTime format, which I don't have installed on here) and I'd have nowhere to host them anyway. Anyway, on to the pics:

First of all, an overall view of the cabinet. This one's got plenty of screen burn-in, unfortunately.


A closeup of the marquee. The Gradius designation does not seem to have been used here, presumably because the other arcade Gradius releases got different names in the US.



The side panel showing a (rather polygonized) Vic Viper). I got a close-up of some of the text, I might post that later. It's not particularly engrishy, but does lean in that direction a bit.



The stick used to control the game. It has a trigger button to fire, and the button on top fires missiles. I believe that this is an analog stick.



The power up and view change buttons, to the player's left side. The power-up system is basically identical to the other Gradius games, although the Speed-up option is deleted. The game does also provide an auto power-up option.


Finally, a screen from the attract mode, which unfortunately does nothing to show the gameplay, but does show the power-up system. The gameplay can be best described as being similar to Starfox, but with all the standard Gradius stuff, including a 3-D Big Core for the first boss, fire dragons, Moais and all the usual suspects.


I might post a couple more later, or details if anyone needs them.

[Dylan1CC]

Thanks for the great pics. I think someone here managed to buy the board for this last year on the old forum, it's very expensive and hard to find IIRC. Would be nice if Konami would make an uber Gradius comp and put this on it. Gradius in 3D on-rails sounds sweet.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

I attended the World of Atari '98 Expo hosted in Las Vegas (which would later be renamed Classic Gaming Expo or CGE the following year) and just across the street was the famous Las Vegas Gameworks right there on the Vegas Strip. So I proceeded to go check it out. Put in $20 in the Gameworks debit card machine which gave me $25 worth credit instead of the usual $20 in credit.

I was browsing around and lo behold, I spotted a rare full-deluxe sitdown Konami (Gradius) Solar Assault arcade machine! So I went up to it and checked to see how much it would cost to play it. The coin slot was replaced by a Gameworks debit card mechanism reader (so no coins to accept credits at a Gameworks arcade but only properitary Gamework debit cards will be accepted as form of credit). It simply read that $2.00 was need to play this Solar Assault game. So I swiped it once and it gladly subtracted $2.00 off my Gameworks card.

I pressed the Start button and proceeded to play this rare 3-D Gradius shmup odditity that I had read briefly about in the Next Generation magazine that I subscribed a few years back (at the current time). Very different gameplay.

I suppose this same Solar Assault game could've been transferred to the Seattle Gameworks although I haven't been to the Las Vegas Gameworks location since then.

Does the Las Vegas Gameworks location still have a Solar Assault arcade game today?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Vexorg]

I suppose it's possible. I've been to the Vegas Gameworks before once (over two years ago now) but don't recall seeing one there.

[Skyline]

It didn't see it the last time I was there (a good 4 months ago)...I wasn't really looking for it at the time though...just there to play Sonic The Fighters and Mr. Driller, really..and even then a.) the games are really fucking overpriced and b.) a vast majority of the machines don't work correctly anyways.

I'll go there again sometime to see if it's there :o

[LoneSage]

Oh wow, never knew about this before. Could it be that this game plays like the Zarodius unlockable in Zone of the Enders 2? I couldn't find any pics of this game in play.

[Skyline]

Completely off-topic post here...Solar Assault isn't at Gameworks Las Vegas.

Neither is anything worth playing, or anything remotely new. The only "new machine" in there is a DDR USA. And here's some revised prices for ya:

Tekken 4 (on a projection TV that's hardly even fucking visible because of all the strobe lights in the venue): changed from $0.75 to $1.25
DDR Extreme: changed from $0.99 to $1.75
Raiden Fighters, Street Fighter Alpha3. etc.: $0.75
You get the idea.

...I'd hardly reccomend that place unless you've got $35 for the all-day pass, a lot of spending money, some friends who don't mind if their games don't work, and a taste for mid-par booze and sub-par food.

I really wanted to play Solar Assault too....meh fuck Gameworks :/

[popawell]

NO FRICKING WAY!!!

I never knew that gradius had a 3D counterpart!!!!!
Thanks for the photos!!
This game looks awsome just from the artwork.
The vic viper on the side of the cabnet looks like the one from the TV mini series of salamander. Yes there was a TV show based off of the famous game. Pics of it are at vicviper.com. Too bad the website is down for repairs and updates right now.

Here Eddy lots of hurt, hold the onions.

[Vexorg]

I think that they tend to do half-price promotions on weekday afternoons. This one was only 50 cents to play. They've been working on getting newer stuff in too it appears (the most notable newer games I saw when I was at the one in Seattle was a pair of F-Zero AX machines.)

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

I like on-rail shooters. It's one of my fave kind of games. I wonder if Solar Assault is any good. Any impressions on the gameplay?

[Vexorg]

As I've described it elsewhere, the gameplay is somewhere between Space Harrier and Starfox, with Gradius ships, powerup system and environments. You have the standard 3 ships, and lose one for each hit, although there are no checkpoints, and I think you retain at least some weapons on respawn. I haven't gotten too far into the game (it's a tad expensive to really credit feed your way through, especially at Gameworks) but it's definitely a Gradius game, although at the same time not really a shmup. Control's actually a little bit tricky (but that's probably mostly due to wear and tear on the machine.) I tried to take a gameplay video, but wasn't able to get anything reasonable out of that.

[BrianC]

It's not a shmup, but it does play like a shmup in 3D, right? Interesting how 3Dizing a shmup instantly makes it not a shmup.

[Vexorg]

Yes, it does still play a lot like a shmup, albeit not a very manic one, and it also plays from a perspective behind the ship, which can move around the screen at will (again, think Space Harrier.)