MMMC - Week 6: Psycho Soldier

[scooterb23]

Week 6: MAME in Space

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v643/scooterb23/mameclub.jpg

Club Rules

01. You do not need to sign up for the club. If you want to participate, simply download the game of the week and post about it!

02. At the end of the week, I will randomly select a game from a list of nominations.

03. The current MAME Club Pick of the Week can be found every Monday stickied at the top of the Arcade Alley.

Hey everyone, this week...since it was my pick. I decided to take a walk down nostalgia lane. The game Psycho Soldier hid upstairs at Circle D Recreation in Circleville Ohio. That's where the skating rink was, and I didn't roller skate. But I loved playing this game. They never locked the door (back then, that's changed), so every once in a while I would sneak up, plug the machine in...and play a game even when the rink was closed.

http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?game_id=9144

http://www.klov.com/images/11/118124215442.png

Of course, for the arcade historians, they already know that this was the first game with a fully digitized vocal soundtrack that played throughout the game. And they've recreated it in MAME (I know it wasn't for a while).

This game is supposedly a sequel to "Athena" one of the worst games from the NES (if you believe all the Worst NES game lists over the years). But I think this is a decent game, and am happy to share a fun part of my later arcade gaming history with everybody.

With all that said... ROM sources!

Flack is graciously hosting at http://www.robohara.com/mameclub/

and 2DSkillz has the ROMs at http://www.retrogoggles.com/


Have fun everybody.

Previous MMMC choices: Jump Coaster, Rampart, Jungler, Ninja Emaki, Port Man

And because I'd hate myself for not making the joke...

Psycho Soldier
Qu'est-ce que c'est?
fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa better
Run run run run run run away
OH OH OH OHHHHHHHH
AY AY AY AY AY WOO

Have a great week.

[2Dskillz]

That is some epic voice work :)

[boatofcar]

Wow, that song. It's....incredible.

"You'd better run if you are bad."

12950 on my first playthrough.

[XYXZYZ]

I find this game interesting for the elements they used in the King of Fighters series. (Athena, Kensou and the theme song) It's one of those games where you press the joystick up to jump, instead of a button. Normally I don't like that, but it makes sense in this game as you use up and down to switch between platform levels, I didn't find it a problem.

This game had three boards stacked together, covered in ROMs to hold that theme song. It must have cost a fortune in 1987!



I got to level two on one credit, factory settings: 54,850.

[2Dskillz]

I found this one to be one where I just kept jamming in quarters and just hammering through. It is really hard to get going once you loose all your power-ups.

And I agree that this is one of the few times that up to jump makes sense.

[cr0n0]

Strange title. I still don't see how SNK went from Athena to Psycho Soldier in the title. The voice work is interesting when you think about the fact this game came out in the mid-late 80s. Nice graphics, very SNK-ish. The quick music bit that plays when you restart sounds a bit like Ikari Warriors 2.

[2Dskillz]

The only relation I see with Athena is the obsession with destroying blocks in the environment for power-ups.

[Arasoi]

I played through the whole game (Japanese version), and enjoyed it pretty well. It was a challenging but not too much (except for the last level) and the voices actually give Athena/Kensou a lot more character.

I was a tad surprised by the last two stages, I felt like I was playing Life Force or Abadox on NES for a little while with the backgrounds and enemies, especially the final boss.

Overall, pretty fun.

I'm going to nominate Metamoqester again for next week. =)

[scooterb23]

Sorry, I've been out of town this week...and haven't had a lot of time to play. I can honestly say that on one quarter, I have never gotten past the first level.

But I really do love this game. One thing that you may not know if you've never played the arcade game. You can use the second fire button, if you're surrounded by the power balls, to shoot them at the enemies. Not a big hint, but may help.

Arasoi, I have a question about Metamoquester...does it pretty much need a controller to play? I messed around with it a while ago, and couldn't really do much...mainly because I can only play on a keyboard for now. Or maybe I'm just God Awful at this type of game.

[Arasoi]

You can play it without one, to the same extent that some people I know are fighting game wizards on their keyboard I guess.

Basically you have four buttons; a light, medium, and heavy attack and a projectile. When the bar fills up at the bottom you press the three buttons together for a super move.

It's similar to Warzard/Red Earth, a simplified fighting game that sacrifices character roster and gameplay complexity for entertaining enemies and variety. However, 2 players can team up against the monsters which make it a blast.

If its not your cup of tea, I will recommend this fine title instead:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exhIFzH2ubc

Black Tiger by Capcom (1987)

A solid old dungeon crawler (if you will) that I enjoy frequently on my Supergun.

[scooterb23]

I'll give the first game another try, thanks for the tips on it.

I don't want to make it sound like I don't want to pick it just because it's a fighting game. Maybe I'm being a little too sensitive to potential control issues with certain games, since I'm someone without a proper gamepad / joystick for my computer. If anyone else wants to chime in on this, please do so.

[Arasoi]

I have a spare USB gamepad or two around here, if you want a freebie. =)

[Cryomancer]

Good thing MAME means infinate quarters.

Did anyone manage to trigger the transformation? History says if you have all the balls, and full energy, and then open one of those green eggs, you'll turn into a creature. I couldn't get it to happen.

[scooterb23]

I think I did it once, way back when in the arcade. But it's been wayyy long ago.

Arasoi, thanks for the offer :) I'll pass for now though. I was planning on picking one up this week anyway.

As for this week's game. It'll be up in a bit. I've been battling a nasty cold, and forgot to send out teh roms and such last night. We'll get going here in a bit.

[Graham Mitchell]

Ha! I love this game. I've got an .mp3 of the song on my ipod. The Engrish in this game is just delicious.

"Athena, I will go!"

"She's just a little girl with power inside, burning bright/you better hide if you are bad, SHE'LL GET YOU"

I actually found all the chatter a bit unsettling when playing the game in the arcade as a kid.

Anyway, this game is an absolute GEM (mostly because of the speech) and totally underappreciated. Kudos to Scooter for bringing it some attention.