Monday MAME Club [07/05/05] - Bubbles

[Flack]

Welcome to another Monday Morning MAME Club post! I know technically it's not Monday, but it is to us government workers. Since participation in the club has been going down the drain the past few weeks, I think this week's pick is pretty fitting!

The ROM of the week is: Bubbles (available HERE!)
KLOV Link for the game: HERE



Every Monday, a member of the MAME club will pick a new game for you to play in MAME! All you have to do to participate is install MAME, download the ROM of the week from this message, and then post your thoughts about the game! You can post a full review of the game or simply tell us what you liked/didn't like about the game. Have you played this game before? Have you played it in an actual arcade? Do you like the genre? How did it run on your computer? Did you beat it? If so, how long did it take? What was your high score? How far can you get? Did you have any problems emulating the game? When writing your review, post it right here in the sticky topic and include any thoughts you have about the game. Remember, YOU are the reviewer. Let us know anything and everything you think about the game! Just remember, if you want people to respond during YOUR week, you should play along on OTHER weeks!

Club Members:

digitalpress (Battle Bakraid, Blood Bros)
Gamereviewgod (ESP Ra.De., Gunforce 2)
Wisesalesman (Waku Waku 7, Top Hunter)
!!! scooterb23 (I'm Sorry, Bubbles) !!!
ddockery (Penguin-Kun Wars)
AlanD (Dr. Micro)
IntvGene (Strike Force)
NE146 (Portman)
jonjandran (Bronze Adventure)
Flack (Rollergames, Yie-Ar Kung-Fu, Liquid Kids, Ninja Clowns, Great 1000 Mile Rally)
IGotTheDot (N/A)
zektor (Battle Bakraid, Haunted Castle)
buttasuperb (Blazing Star)
chadtower (Berzerk)
Sotenga (Caliber 50)
Stark (Mighty! Pang)
christianscott27 (Darius Gaiden)
ECWSandmanECW (League Bowling)
TripppsK (Lady Bug)
vespertillio (Rampart!)
<s>ghsqb</s>
TheSmirk (Bomb Jack)
Flukkake (Elevator Action)
BHvrd (NARC)
ManekiNeko (Battle Circuit)
MarioAllStar2600 (City Bomber)
Ze_ro (Pandora's Palace)
slip81 (Biomechanical Toy)
Qbert (Mysterious Stones)
k8track (Go! Go! Mile Smile)
<s>Hamsnibit</s>
Lady Jaye (Chuka Taisen/Cloud Master)
Sofa King Gud (Crossbow)
Schenley (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom)
Kaine23 (Super Burgertime)
Arqueologia_Digital (Burgertime)
Jiscan (Withdrew)
-hellvin- (Splatterhouse)
Acidic_Pain (Armed Police Batrider)
Gamemaster_ca_2003 (Block Out)
Vigilante (Pu-Li-Ru-La)
Hovoc (D&D: Shadow Over Mystara)
<s>Mr.FoodMonster</s>
sniperCCJVQ (WWF Superstars)
A Boy (Satan's Hollow)
JibbaJaba (Solomon's Key)
Cauterize (The Simpsons)
youruglyclone (Vendetta)
Ed Oscuro (Alligator Hunt)
Gapporin (Daisu-Kiss)
Graham Mitchell (Ataxx)
RockyRaccoon (19xx: The War Against Destiny)
XxMe2NiKxX (Raiden II)
<s>brykasch</s>
Xtasy (Metal Slug 2)
DJ_DEEM (G.I. Joe)
The_EniGma (The Punisher)
DaBargainHunta (Combatribes)
cr0n0 (Escape From The Planet Of The Robot Monsters)
Promophile (Pang)
Cirrus (Dynasty Wars)
Stargate (Rastan)
phantomfriar (Prehistoric Isle in 1930)
GobopopRevisited (Elevator Action Returns)
kevates (Gryuss)
Lothars (APB - All Points Bulletin)
SuperGunGuru (Tempest)
Cryomancer (Mega Twins)
Red Hedgehog
SuperNES
Raedon
Leroy

Remember, you don't have to be a member of the club to download the game and write up a review, but by joining you get the honor of picking a game to share with the group during your week. If you would like to join, simply send me a PM and I will add you to the list!

The current MAME Club Pick of the Week can be found Monday mornings stickied at the top of the main forum, and after that stickied at the top of the Arcade Alley forum.

MAME ON!

[Gamereviewgod]

Kinda like a primitive version of Katamari Damacy.

[kainemaxwell]

The character from Bubbles reminds me of that from one the soap commericals, I can't think of which one right now. In general, pretty fun title and a good game to pick up and kill some time with to try to beat your high score or whatnot. Nice pick!

[Graham Mitchell]

Bubbles is a decent game. It shows up a lot in the Williams/Midway Arcade Hits packages. I've got it on two separate discs!

I guess one of the things they were going for when designing Bubbles was to get the feel of analogue or trackball control while using a joystick. It works, I suppose, but it makes for some really damn slippery gameplay. It's pretty much impossible to stop on a dime, which doesn't come across so well in a game that's all about testing how precisely you can move the onscreen character. I end up crashing into a lot of razor blades. I've had Bubbles for a long time, and because the control is so difficult for me to get the hang of, I pretty much always hitting game over by about the same level every time I play; I can never get any better at it.

If bubbles used a trackball, it would have been an amazing game. But since I don't care for the controls so much, I think it's just so-so. Good, but not great.

[Humanoid]

I have an interesting Bubbles story...
My father knows the man who prgrammed it!

In fact, the programmer got pissed off with the amount of money he got from it, stopped working at williams/midway, and started working at abbot labs where my father works. My dad worked with him in the early 90's!

(P.S- that gives me 2 degrees of seperation from Eugene Jarvis )

[RetroYoungen]

As soon as I picked up Midway Arcade Treasures it was the game I got addicted to. For some reason I just couldn't get enough. Maybe it was because at CGE one year (2002 I think) there was a high-score contest on a handful of cabs, and I was one of the high scorers in Bubbles (until the guy waiting behind me shattered my dreams) and Mappy (same situation).

Bubbles I love because it's fun and completely non-violent. Unless killing roaches with a broom is violent. Then it's kinda violent.

Great game I think.

[scooterb23]

Since this was my pick, I have to tell my story of course. Bubbles is one of the first games I truly remember getting addicted to "back in the day." At the bowling alley by my house in Muncie there was a really big (for a 7-8 year old) arcade. I remember they had Pac-Man and the other usual suspects, but in the back (right next to Satan's hollow) was this bizarre game with ants and a scrubbing bubble on the screen. I immediately got intrigued, and I instantly got hooked.

It was a brief affair, as I only lived in Muncie for another year or so after I first discovered Bubbles, and here in southern Ohio, the concept of an arcade was and still is a foreign concept. I spent a lot of time in arcades when I lived in Muncie, and there was only 1 Bubbles machine in the 3 arcades I used to go to, and to be honest, I have never seen that cab again, but Bubbles remains one of my favorite games. It may not be the most complex game, but wow, is it fun.

I also credit Bubbles and Discs of Tron as the two games that made me far more interested in the offbeat game, and less interested in the usual popular games. A trend which I still feel like I follow most of the time.

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

Bubbles is great fun. I'd never made the Katamari connection before that someone else did - up until now, I'd been saying that Marble Madness + Shark Shark = Katamari Damacy, but maybe now I need to revise that.

I play Bubbles via Williams Arcade's Greatest Hits on the PS1 with my mighty joystick controller, so I don't know much about how it handles on MAME, but this is a fun little game. For some reason, back in the day, the appearance of the big mama bug that shows up every so often really freaked me out. I always start having real trouble on about the third wave, which I don't think I've ever gotten past.

[stargate]

GREAT CHOICE !!

I have always loved this game. Not exactly sure why. Maybe because it is a fun yet simple game that is innocent in its design. Maybe because it is so different from anything else. I mean, the play field is a bathroom sink for pete's sake.

I guess the plastic cabinet version (forget what it is called, duramold or something) is insanely rare. I remember some guy online writing that he found one in an old arcade warehouse in brand new condition and bought it for like $100 or something.

As for the controller, I could swear reading something about a special controller being used. Not sure if it was optical. But, I could be mistaken as KLOV just lists it as having a standard 8 way.

In any event, this game brings back a lot of memories.

[Flack]

Weekend bump!

[Leroy]

I think Bubbles was Williams' attempt to cash in on the surge of cute Japanese games that were taking over the arcades at the time (Pac-Man, Dig Dug, Mario, etc.). I don't think they managed to capture the charm of those games but it's still a pretty fun game. It has a definite Williams feel to it. It also has that "eat up your quarter in as little time as possible" feel that the Japanese games were straying from, so I'd have to drop it a few points for that.