Finally have a couple of days off, so I'm spending some time with my two new arcade pcbs, Heavy Barrel and Lode Runner: The Dig Fight. Heavy Barrel is like putting on a comfortable old pair of shoes again, and after two plays, I nearly 1cc'd it. I have several boards that use the rotary sticks, so it's something with which I'm rather comfortable, and it's good to play Heavy Barrel that way again.
Lode Runner: The Dig Fight is a Japan-exclusive member of the series, and has multi-player co-op and vs modes to boot. I need to track down the extra cabinet harness, as the same board can run two cabinets in a Nintendo Vs-like fashion for two screen, four player fun as well. Still, I can fully enjoy single and two player modes as is, which is fun. It's fast and silly, loaded with ridiculous and stupid cutscenes between stages. Also, it uses a unique approach of time limits being the governing factor for losing and scoring, encouraging speed run-style play for top ranking. I did the beginner stages A and B tonight, clearing both easily. The cutscenes have atrocious engrish, and even a quick 1cc finish of stages B ends in a gruesome death for comedic effect I suppose. I dig it. Eh? Dig it? Boo. Cool game, though.