NeoGeo/Dreamcast/iPhone Shooter Fast Striker by NG:DEV Team

[emphatic]

Ficken, ja!

Das ist so geil.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

Ficken, ja!

Das ist so geil.

So I'm thinking to myself hey, it's a beautiful day, let's check out that Fast Striker thread again, and I stumble upon this conversation... what ze shit

[Jockel]

Seems like you were heavy on the woodway. (i'll better stop with those shitty denglish translations)

[MintyTheCat]

Hahahaha!

Wir sind alle glücklich.

Ja Denglisch ist sehr komisch für mich auch.
Könnte Denglisch die Zunkunft für us alle sein oder was?



I am glad we all have similar interests in Shmups.
Ich hatte deutschland viele zeiten besuchen, es ist spaß und bequem für mir.

Could any of you German guys tell me about any good places to visit for German Retro and Shmup gaming at all please?

Also I go to Berlin fairly often, which Spielothek can you recommend?

Cheers

[neorichieb1971]

Worth the price?

It looks fairly decent.

[DJ Incompetent]

I am glad we all have similar interests in Shmups.
Ich hatte deutschland viele zeiten besuchen, es ist spaß und bequem für mir.

Could any of you German guys tell me about any good places to visit for German Retro and Shmup gaming at all please?

Also I go to Berlin fairly often, which Spielothek can you recommend?

Cheers

http://www.triggerzone.de/

[ave]

Some fella over at Neo-Geo.com made videos of all stages:



Video1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9OG2t3nUZ8

Video 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsRddNXIFAo

Video 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TajMzpqnwsE

Video 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ftd8n2HWh4

Video 5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyi8pVWH_N0

Video 6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB2hp7yzxOM

[linko9]

Wow, the game really does look great. I had no idea the NeoGeo hardware was capable of those 3d effects. Is this the same hardware that games like Windjammers ran on, or a much later revision of that NeoGeo hardware? (I don't really know too much about NeoGeo). I love the little skull symbol that appears when you break your chain.

[neorichieb1971]

The 3D effect was used in Blazing stars on MVS many eons ago. Its the exact same hardware. I think the only difference is that the meg count is way higher than the conventional games.

[Jockel]

Could any of you German guys tell me about any good places to visit for German Retro and Shmup gaming at all please?

Also I go to Berlin fairly often, which Spielothek can you recommend?

My place
Honestly, there are no arcades i know about.
But i know at least 3 shmups members from Berlin (myself included) that own a candy cab.

[KBZ]

Just watched the first stage run through... wow. I am so damn impressed.

Please bring the working class our DC port!

SOLIDARITY


Edit: LOL @ stage 3 popcorn bullets.

[neorichieb1971]

Some of those videos I can't even track the players ship. It seems to disappear for a few moments and appear somewhere else. So many bullets on the screen as well.

[Ex-Cyber]

The 3D effect was used in Blazing stars on MVS many eons ago. Its the exact same hardware. I think the only difference is that the meg count is way higher than the conventional games.

Yeah, I would expect that prerendered 3D can look pretty nice with 1024Mbit of C ROM. I bet the Donkey Kong Country team wished they had that.

Theoretically you could just stick a GPU on the cart, but then you'd be open to accusations that you haven't made a "real" Neo game.

[emphatic]

For an even greater experience, it would have been cool if the pre-rendered backgrounds would slow down, make sharp turns, or start moving in other directions (like in Ketsui, Futari, Raiden III etc) sometimes instead of just going straight upwards, but this is something I perhaps won't think about when I'm actually playing the game. I really like how at some stage end before the boss, the background had some sort of construction at the sides that was pulled away to the sides.

[ave]

Some of those videos I can't even track the players ship. It seems to disappear for a few moments and appear somewhere else. So many bullets on the screen as well.

When you crash into an enemy you lose all shields and the ship flashes due to its short invulnerability, that's why it sometimes seems to be invisible in the video.

[Ghegs]

The problem with talking about the game now is that any positive comment about it can be interpreted as an artificial justification of an expensive purchase. But I'm trying to ignore the money spent and just think of the game as it is.

So, I got my Fast Striker today.

And it's not horrible. It's not the greatest shmup ever and will probably never make it the Top 25 list (of course the accessibility-limiting price and system also play a factor there), but it's decent, okay, average/above average and any other similar adjectives you can think of. For better or for worse, it doesn't really feel like an MVS shmup to me, though I can't put my finger on exactly why. Might be the technical side of it, might be because MVS has very little shmups with even semi-complex scoring systems.

Generally speaking the graphics are fine and bullets can be clearly seen. There are times when the screen gets very busy with different colored bullets, your own shots and the bonus items drifting towards you. Easy to lose track of things there, but that's more of a problem with me who doesn't play bullethell-shmups that much.

Even if the game was more readily available I imagine many vert/vertizonal-loving people wouldn't like it because it has some stages have the dreaded environmental obstacles. But I happen to like those (and you don't even die from touching them here anyway) and found them refreshing. Makes the stage design more interesting. Stage 3 with the laser-wall things is my favourite so far. There are quite a few places in the game to take advantage of the rear shot, but it's clearly not a 50/50 split between using front and rear shots. Of course with the rear shot you can also hit enemies you've already passed and prolong your chain, so there's that. The secrets and tech bonuses are cool. Not exactly sure how to trigger the former, they don't always seem to appear in the same spot.

Novice mode is certainly that, I cleared it on my first attempt. Simple stuff.

Maniac mode is clearly the main focus of the game. The scoring system seemed accessible and was easily understood. Very forgiving too, since even after you lose your chain it doesn't instantly drop to 0 but instead runs down until you hit an enemy at which point it starts increasing again. Just surviving is way more difficult compared to Novice, after few plays I only made it Stage 2's boss. Lots of bullets flying around. Need to learn to actually use the shield.

This leaves Original mode. And I can't talk about it. Because soon after starting that mode the game crashes and produces an error code. I've sent info about this to the devs so let's see what they have to say. The cart does have that "In-System Software Updates via USB Port" thing going for it so I'm hoping they put it to good use.

Other than that, it's a decent enough game. If it's ever ported to another system with a much more affordable price tag it might be worth picking up.

EDIT: I figured out the cause of the crash. For some reason Original mode doesn't like it when I use my modded controller's autofire capabilities. Playing using normal buttons worked fine. So it's not really a problem with the game itself...still, odd that only Original gets pissy about it, though I did notice the autofire rate occasionally varying wildly in the other modes.

[cools]

I get three impressions from watching the videos.

1) Those circular bullets are really ugly.
2) A lack of "impact" for want of a better word. Stuff goes "pop" rather than exploding meatily. Movement of pickups seems stiff. The continue screen is just a bit of regular text in the middle of the screen. Repeated (fixed) enemy waves in different levels.
3) There's too much contrast in the backgrounds - enemies can be tough to spot in places.

The game looks complete, it just needs a different set of eyes going over it (rather than the developers) to highlight areas that need polishing.

[RHE]

3) There's too much contrast in the backgrounds - enemies can be tough to spot in places.

Quite oddly with the videos I have the same problem. But in-game the contrast should be right. None of the playtesters or the people from the Japan Expo etc. complained about this at least. The (ugly?) circular bullets are good for bullet visiblity btw.

[Ghegs]

3) There's too much contrast in the backgrounds - enemies can be tough to spot in places.

Quite oddly with the videos I have the same problem. But in-game the contrast should be right. None of the playtesters or the people from the Japan Expo etc. complained about this at least. The (ugly?) circular bullets are good for bullet visiblity btw.

Those videos were shot with a camera, after all. cools, if you tell me where you see the contrast problem is most evident, I can record direct feed video from that same spot and we can compare.

[THE]

Those videos are not the best promotion The guy just credit feeds through it without showing the great scoring opportunities and tricks.
Playing and showing a 15khz game on a 16:9 TV stretched with horrible LCD/Plasma technology and filming it with a camera completely shrews the contrast and looks way worse than enjoying it on a J-Candy Cab.

@Cools:
>Repeated (fixed) enemy waves in different levels.

Those are just fill up/bonus enemies that come if you quickly kill other enemies.

@Ghegs:
You really should dive into maniac mode and test out the grind mode and maximize your chain using the proximity system (an average chain of 1500 should be minimum). In combination with a maximum rank (devil rank) you may see the game is more fun than just average...

[ave]

The videos are a little boring, just like any shooter that's played with credit feeding. I would do a scoring video to show some humble tricks to get people started in the first 5 stages but I don't have any video capture equipment, just a camera.

The stiff pickups are a result of the credit feeding. If you play properly (in Devil Mode), scoring items will fly rapidly towards your ship adding some pace to the game.

[Ghegs]

You really should dive into maniac mode and test out the grind mode and maximize your chain using the proximity system (an average chain of 1500 should be minimum). In combination with a maximum rank (devil rank) you may see the game is more fun than just average...

I will, it's not like I've already shelved the game, but those were my initial impressions.

Speaking of score, when's the ranking page going up?

[rtw]

I will, it's not like I've already shelved the game, but those were my initial impressions.

Thank you for your write up Ghegs I still can't wait to play it!

Maybe you could do a proper video capture for us of Level 1 to show some of the mechanics ?

Novice/Original and Maniac ?

[PC Engine Fan X!]

The 3D effect was used in Blazing stars on MVS many eons ago. Its the exact same hardware. I think the only difference is that the meg count is way higher than the conventional games.

Considering that the Neo-Geo MVS cartridge of Blazing Star made it's official debut back in February of 1998. My local arcade had gotten a copy in during that same month since the arcade owner was into arcade shmup titles. To play a single credit of Blazing Star was priced at 20 cents or four nickels considering all the arcade cabinets and pinball machines took nickels only, hence the arcade's name of "Nickel Play".

Thanks for that short write-up about Fast Striker, Ghegs. So did you get the MVS Full Kit arcade version of FS that accepts coins/credits, or just the regular non-arcade kit of FS instead, Ghegs?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Ghegs]

Thank you for your write up Ghegs I still can't wait to play it!

Maybe you could do a proper video capture for us of Level 1 to show some of the mechanics ?

Novice/Original and Maniac ?

I was actually planning on doing something like this. I'm working on the captured footage now, I'll put up the links when they're ready.

Thanks for that short write-up about Fast Striker, Ghegs. So did you get the MVS Full Kit arcade version of FS that accepts coins/credits, or just the regular non-arcade kit of FS instead, Ghegs?

I got the normal consumer version with time-released credits.

[AKAperly]

NG:DEV,

any chance of you guys doing another "making of" article with Retro Gamer?

I loved the feature they did on Last Hope a few years back, and I'm curious about your sprite process for Fast Striker.

all the ship designs and bosses look fantastic, do you use zbrush for all your hard surface modeling?

what is your general work flow like?

[J-Manic]

This does look pretty sweet. I'm really hoping to see a DC port.

I have a question. Is the soundtrack composed by Andre Neumann or Rafael Dyll, or both?

[ave]

The soundtrack artists are credited with Christian Werdehausen and Ronny Leuendorf. Rafael Dyll is listed for voice engineering though

[RHE]

Speaking of score, when's the ranking page going up?

Betimes.

In the meanewhile you can use this thingy: http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=32143

all the ship designs and bosses look fantastic, do you use zbrush for all your hard surface modeling?

what is your general work flow like?

Thanks! I'm mainly using C4D for the CGI with special shaders (not that special though) to make it look good on NeoGeo. About Retro Gamer, why not? We don't know if they have any interest on this though. Unlike GamesTM they didn't even cover DUX, AFAIK.

The soundtrack artists are credited with Christian Werdehausen and Ronny Leuendorf. Rafael Dyll is listed for voice engineering though

Yeah, it's by CJoe & KeyOD.

[Ghegs]

Alright, here are the direct feed videos of stages 1 and 2 for all three modes. They're not meant to be superplay-level displays of skill, but at least I get some of the secrets, keep my chain going a bit and even hit Devil Rank in Original and Maniac once in a while. There's still stuff I don't get and there are mistakes in there, especially in Maniac. But I'm slowly getting the hang of it.

For your convenience the videos are available for download as well as on Youtube. The downloadable files are about 60 MB each.

Novice - Download / Youtube

Original - Download / Youtube

Maniac - Download / Youtube