The last time I went to the bowling alley was about four years ago when I play Aero Fighters 2 on the Neo-Geo MVS. It was also sadly my last shmup played in a public place.
So anway I finish college class early today and I was really bored. I decided to check out what the bowling alley has to offer in the arcade department, since I know no body will be at the arcade at 1:00 P.M. A lot has changed in the arcade area. Two new pinball machines (one Williams and one Midway), a Midway racing game (Super Off-Road), a redneck hunting game, Target: Terror light-gun game (developed by Raw Thrills, former employers of Midway Games, Eugene Jarvis worked on the game (famous for making Robotron: 2084)), a air hockey table, and a orginal Pac-Man cab from the 80s. I was about to leave the small arcade when I saw this arcade cab with Klax on the screen.
"Holy Shit, KLAX!"
I love Klax and I still do, but I look at this machine even more. It appers to be one of those emulation cabs with a bunch of games in them, all legal. In the cab I have a choice to pick the games I want to choose in the main menu. Of course if you want to play the game it'll cost you 25 cents per credit. I was looking thru the menu and there were about 40 games to choose. When looking in the menu, I saw one title I love very much:
Zero Wing, yes, the shmup.
I said "Holy Shit" to myself and I quickly put in 25 cents in the machine and start playing it. Now, this is not the Genesis/Megadrive version, all of these games in this emulation cab are all arcade versions, which is very cool. I was playing Zero Wing until stage four when I lost my credit. The emuation was actually good but at certain times the emulator start losing frames well you know, it's a emulator. The joystick and the buttons were in great quality. The joystick was very stiff, which is important when playing a shmup. The sound emulation is just about perfect (unlike the graphics emulation which the frames goes down in crazy areas).
Now, after playing playing Zero Wing I wanted to see if there's more shmups to play on this emulation cab. In about three seconds I saw another Toaplan shmup:
Truxton II
Was playing it for a while, but the problem was the screen became too dark so after playing Truxton II I was telling the people who work at the bowling alley that the screen of the emulation cab is too dark. Well they say the person who work on these cabs comes in later today so he should adjust the screen at that time.
After that, I was looking at the list of games you can play very carefully. I saw plently of Toaplan games in there. I remember:
Truxton II
Zero Wing
Hellfire
Snow Bros.
Snow Bros. 2
Outzone
Demon World
And that was the ones I can remember at this time. Now, if the game plays in a vertical screen, it plays in yoko on the cab (since the cab has a hozi screen). The good news that yoko mode in the cab is great. You can still see everything very clearly.
After Truxton II, I was playing Outrun. Sadly the frames drop a little too much for my taste, but the game is still very playable and fun.
Now, let me look at other games from different companies: Tons of Capcom stuff (yes, tons of shmups).
I remember these Capcom games:
1941 Counter Attack
1942
Commando
Gunsmoke
Legendary Wings
Section Z
Side Arms
Varth
Vulgus
Strider
Street Fighter I
Street Fighter II (Orginal, Champ, and Turbo)
From listing Street Fighter II, the controlers are set up with the Capcom six-button output, but trust me, the controllers were great. Also from looking at this list a good number of Capcom shmups are on the list.
They were more games than the ones I listed, but I really can't remember all of them.
While the cab is a emulation cab and it's not perfect emulation (about 85-90% perfect), it's better than having none. Also it's only four minutes away from my house, and there's tons of games I can play and enjoy (take that redneck hunting game). Plus it's only 25 cents per credit helps out as well.
Have to go there more sometime next week, knowing the cab is a emulation cab. Also by going there at 1:00 P.M. (when I have a lot of free time), I pretty much have the whole arcade by myself.
Cheers.
