I'm so glad that Hamster's Arcade Archives are a thing.

[BIL]

Space Cruiser

Are we supposed to be the villains in this game? I love how you detonate their home planet at the end of every sequence. There's no such thing as a war crime if they're aliens!

Interesting, never heard of that one! Always surprised at the depths of Taito's catalogue. Visibility looks alright, my usual concern with early Taito stuff (though 1981 might predate the Tin Star/Wild Western "death by day-glo" hardware by a bit). Will have to give it a quick tryout. Oldschool Taito + space ultraviolence is sounding promising.

[RadiantAnsel]

You could probably get around that annoying lack of L3/R3 button mapping by having a profile where you remap the buttons via hardware system settings. Only catch is it will remap across all games so you would want to switch to a different profile for games where you need your default controls back.

Some ports even forget there are actually left and right triggers allowing you to map only to L1 and R1. That can be a pain if you're on a six button pad where ZR is now a face button you want to assign.

Yeah, that's one of the reasons why I set up the "accesibility" right on my home menu in the PS4, it shouldn't be like that, but I guess there is nothing else to do as of now.

As for ZR/R2/RT being "C" (XYZ/ABC) I f*cking hate that button mapping, take me back when Hori had the best layout for arcade sticks on the 360, is annoying to travel menus the way arcade sticks try to be on default, same reason why in my custom one, C is L1, much less trouble (And Doujin games have less problems recognizing said button on PC).

[BIL]

OMFG SPACE CRUISER is cool. Surprised I've never seen it mentioned here, among late-70s/early-80s scoot n' shoot canon. Not a pioneer ala Space Invaders, Galaga or Sasuke, but certainly a worthwhile footnote. Should've been called SPACE MASSACRE though, absolutely relentless. "FOUND ALIENS! KILL THEM!" is only mildly paraphrasing the onscreen directive.

Surprisingly filmic despite the foot/floor pace. Goes straight from a vicious vertical exchange (smart mixup of unaimed flak, sniping shots, and periodic god-hammers; being able to shoot a path through the former to evade the latter is great), to a nervy asteroid slalom (I like the way the ship creeps upscreen; not so keen on the "slip zone" effect, a needless handicap for an already tense scene, but I can live with it), to a snipe/dock sequence and my current furthest credit, Galaga-style divebomb onslaught. The latter two are obvious replies to Namco and Nichibutsu, perhaps not having their finer qualities, but certainly done with vigour and style.

Cracked-out BGM, angle-grinding score ticker SFX and blistering technicolour all calibrated to be obnoxious as fuck, dominating the pizza joint or cinema lobby. I'm surprised to see this is, indeed, the same hardware as "death by day-glo" Wild Western/The Tin Star, at least going by the font, coin-in SFX and toggleable copyright display. Mercifully it sticks to flat black space BGs, I'd hate to see another charming little killathon lost to bad visibility ala The Tin Star.

Neat game, worth a look if you're into its epoch.

[Fingolfin]

SPACE MASSACRE

A touch of Space Madness, Cadet Stimpson?
(b/c of the red, red candy like buttons and enemies and backgrounds, oh my!).

It’s 1981 and I want my MTV!

Joan Jett “I love rock & roll”
https://youtu.be/M3T_xeoGES8

Space Cruiser is 1981 like only 1981 was/could be.
Colors are very bright; applying scanlines helps.
The simple single shot single bullet canceling is cool.

Definitely a hybrid of several/many games.

The intro magenta and yellow brick road airstrip in Central Park is...long.

Astro Blaster, Moon Cresta and Galaxian and throw in Scramble‘s meteor level on its side.

As Jeneki questioned...whose side are we on?

Spoiler

Gotta shoot the Space Station in order to dock.

Would love Astro Blaster as that is wonky in emulation but, SEGA.

More fun stuff from Taito via Arcade Archives.

[BIL]

Year of NMK continues, it seems!



Cloudy with distinct chance of ultraviolence. USAAF Mustang out tomorrow. Looking forward to comparing it with the MD version Fire Mustang, one of my standbys for arcade brutality on home console - particularly Hide-Kaz's starkly furied Yamaha post-punk.

[DenimDemon]

Cloudy with chance of ultraviolence. USAAF Mustang out tonight/tomorrow. Interested to see how it compares with the MD cart, one of my longtime favourites for arcade brutality on home console.

Beautiful. Definitely getting this one.

Sent from my EML-L29 using Tapatalk

[Marc]

Looks nice, though I don't think I've really gotten on with any of NMK's stuff properly as of yet.

[BIL]

Out now (on NTSCJ PS4 at least) - hoooly cow, the MD cart plays admirably close, but I'd no idea how much better the AC version looks compared to its no-frills workhorse. Super-deep parallax, and vast pixel vistas with painterly attention to detail, like st1's waterfall that becomes a river then a lagoon, and st3's dawning towers of cloud. The vintage WWII machines really pop out. Bullet visibility isn't as good as Task Force Harrier's supremely practical magenta, but I'm surprised at how trackable the strobing B&Ws are. Fingers crossed it doesn't pull a Sunset Sky~ howler like P47's second stage. Handling-wise, it doesn't feel too different. Relentless as expected (one thing the cart does maintain is the rushing scroll speed). Feels good having both AC and home versions on tap, ala Task Force Harrier a few months back.

While its relation to P47 is more than apparent, it doesn't play much like that one's Scramble-esque. Even calling it P47 minus terrain doesn't quite cover it, with the upped rate of attack on both player and enemy sides. Closer to Hacha Mecha Fighter's aggressive simplicity and artful density. Rocketing hori with a nippy ship, ripping spreadshot and great screen-mowing bomb. Speaking of, manual's got that same Thunder Dragon energy. Bomb or you'll be sorry!

STRIKE FORCER aka BOMBA = FULLSCREEN FUCKOFF DAMAGE (+iframes)

Spoiler

Expecting brutal rank if the MD cart's any indication. Reach the Central Asian weather balloon stage with deaths = LMAO pop the balloons ROFL! Reach it on a life and MEIN SCHEISSEVOGEL IN HIMMEL

That Under Defeat-prefiguring casualty tracker though.

Spoiler

You better start believing in war, sonny. YOU'RE IN ONE Loving the generational shift from Okamura's inimitably breezy humoresques to Hide-Kaz's sullenly fiery garage racket. Is be all contrapuntal, and shit.

EDIT: Aww hell yeah, got that ACA Thunder Cross II / Raiden ship switch option. Seems important too.

[OldSkoolShmuper]

Quoting myself here from May 29th:

I really want Hamster to bring over UPL's Bio-Ship Paladin and USAAF Mustang
(Fire Mustang on Mega Drive, and Bio-Ship Paladin is aka Space Battleship Gomorrah.

The Mega Drive versions of those games are both really good IMO,
but would love to have the arcade versions.

EGM made me aware of these games in 1991.


(from Gamest)

https://i.imgur.com/f2XGwvg.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/b2JnbiY.jpg

What a treat for me that the arcade version of USAAF Mustang just came out!

[Creamy Goodness]

Had 900 Yen leftover from some previous purchases burning a hole in my pocket so decided to pick this up. Looks pretty good.

[Jeneki]

Mustang really heats up after a few stages. So much never ending popcorn.

[trap15]

Hope y'all are ready for Stage 8, aka BOSS RENPATSU JIGOKU

Game's great otherwise, such amazing backgrounds, gritty hard-boiled sprites, and an aggressively powerful soundtrack.

[Marc]

Had a quick credit last night, made it to the ST3 boss, seems cool so far. Not sure what you're all on about with the soundtrack though.... shit hurts my ears.

[BIL]

Hope y'all are ready for Stage 8, aka BOSS RENPATSU JIGOKU

I vaguely recall the MD version doing some grand infamy to end its first loop, I'm uneasy to think it captured the AC version too closely though.

Had a quick credit last night, made it to the ST3 boss, seems cool so far. Not sure what you're all on about with the soundtrack though.... shit hurts my ears.

Daww! ^w^ Definitely a marmite OST. Reminds me of early Joy Division/Discharge demo tracks on a battered tape deck; not the most euphonic nor tuneful stuff, but in the right context I dig the brittle sound and battering, bass-lead threepiece fury.

That said, Thunder Dragon is still my favourite Hide-Kaz OST by a distance (WILD THUNDER and In The Rain exemplify the post-punk ethos of morosely controlled aggression, completely transcending their featherweight lead voices), though Black Heart has at least one track I like as much. Have to admit I can't recall Task Force Harrier's offhand, but its grey grind goes with that game's paranoiac Cold War aesthetic like the gunmetal and permafrost.

Okamura's uncanny control makes Kaz's stuff sound like a bunch of angry kids hammering the shit out of their gear in a freezing garden shed, I like 'em both.

>ARDENNES Irrepressible feelgood! Don't be a bitch, gramps did this shit IRL without the devil music! (｀w´メ)
>BISMARCK Inescapable feelbad, like Raiden Fighters after the Clarky Cat wears off (◎w◎;)
>LA DANSE MAGNETIQUE Okamura fuses easy grooves and pants-shitting STG terror like a one-man ZTT

[Flashman]

Picked up Mustang yesterday, only had a quick few credits so far as I had to get to work. It seems pretty cool, puts me in mind of P-47 from last year, but certainly a lot less jank.

I stuck auto fire on to type 30 but I may have to think about shutting this off as it makes things a bit too easy - enemies destroyed before they even hit the screen and I can take out the L1 boss before it even fires a bullet.

Nice backgrounds (apart from L1 I've just seen cloud and sea so far!) but yes, not raving on the music like some seem to be.

[Udderdude]

Latest game is Pop Flamer. Yeah, interesting choice. Fun in an early 80's arcade game kind of way. I like how there's a bunch of different enemy types right off the bat.

[Flashman]

Agree about Mustang, it seems fairly easy at first but from Stage 4 and beyond the screen gets very full, I've found recovering after a death pretty challenging; usually if I die and loose my powerups my next 3 lives go pretty quick. Some of the bosses and levels put me in mind of U.N Squadron.

[Jeneki]

Pop Flamer

Holy shit this game. Yay I'm a cute little mouse, yay there's a bunch of cute frogs and smiling ballons and ... Barney? Yay! I think I'll burn them down with a flamethrower! Yay they just made a line of tiny cuuuuuute young'ins, Flamethrower intensifies!

[Sengoku Strider]

I'd completely forgotten Pop Flamer was an arcade game. I only know it from the SG-1000 game, which has a reputation of being pretty terrible. I looked it up on YouTube and it actually looks pretty decent. You can tell it's from deeper into the maze chase craze where stuff like this and Devil World were just piling mechanic after mechanic onto the basic framework.

https://youtu.be/iDbkvj1eIGg

[Redfox]

While I love Hamster for releasing this series every week (and its become one of the highlights of my Wednesday morning where I live, believe me, to see their twitter page and find out what the next release is going to be that week), I'm still annoyed. Last year, nearly a year ago, they teased upcoming releases for once and they STILL haven't dropped a bunch of those games, it's killing me. Where the hell is Trio the Punch and Ganbare Ginkun! I'm losing faith lol.

And while i'm at it, while Pop Flamer is cool, can we just have some more pivotal releases like Xexex or Salamander 2

Rant over.

[DenimDemon]

Our new game this week.

https://mobile.twitter.com/famitsu/stat ... 5180558339

Sent from my EML-L29 using Tapatalk

[Udderdude]

Didn't Soldam already get a remake on Switch? Great soundtrack anyway.

[Sima Tuna]

I want an ACA release of Space Mothership Beluga.

[BrianC]

This week's AA games revealed in Nintendo Direct and just became available on the ehsop. Xevious and Pac-Man. I'm not sure if they are also coming to PSN (though there's already a stand alone Pac-Man there).

[Sima Tuna]

Wait, xevious? Hey, that's a pretty neat release. I'm sure it's been ported plenty of times, but still essential to the genre.

[BIL]

This week's AA games revealed in Nintendo Direct and just became available on the ehsop. Xevious and Pac-Man. I'm not sure if they are also coming to PSN (though there's already a stand alone Pac-Man there).

Confirmed for PS4 now.

Happy to see this. The more classic libraries in safe hands - either Hamster's or M2's - the better. I do hope they're a bit more adventurous than the usual essentials, though - would be great to see Splatterhouse and Rolling Thunder 2 on PS4.

[velo]

Pac-Man's in the Switch Namco arcade collection thingy, along with Splatterhouse, RT1-2. (Could use another volume of that...) Ms. Pac-Man still MIA indefinitely I presume.

[BIL]

Yeah, I hope this stuff all gets properly cross-platformed. Ms. Pac-Man is on PS4 via Namco's apparently short-lived (and clangingly-titled) "Arcade Game Series," along with Pac-Man, Dig-Dug and Galaga.

Those were by Gotch... I wonder if they'll be handling the ACA Namco stuff too. Always a name I'm happy to see.

Here's hoping for some longtime AWOLs like Metal Hawk, Fighter & Attacker and Nebulas Ray, too. I'd be down with new releases of old Museum favourites like Dragon Spirit+Saber and Assault, but AFAIK those three have never seen any proper home release.

[BrianC]

I went ahead and downloaded the Pac-Man, despite having Namco Museum on Switch. I'm leaning towards the latter being the better version since it has better screen options, but the AA one is still good and has some features rarely seen in other versions of Pac-Man like the alternate Japanese names for the ghosts and the hidden hard mode (unmarked dipswitch on the board or something along those lines).

Translated tweet says October 7th for PS4 versions. TBH, I was hoping Nintendo's Arm Wrestling was arriving on the Nintendo Switch AA since there was a direct and the AA game didn't appear at the usual time. I personally found it to be the most fun of the Punch Out related AC games, though AFAIK it never had a Japanese release. Despite the name, it uses a similar joystick to Punch Out. No mechanical arm like most AC arm wrestling games.

[CRP]

I went ahead and downloaded the Pac-Man, despite having Namco Museum on Switch. I'm leaning towards the latter being the better version since it has better screen options, ...

Curious in what way has museum version better screen options ?