I finished all 3 games this week.
For Rambo, I played Rambo: First Blood Part II for Sega Master System. I didn't like it at first, but it kinda grew on me. A bit of a challenge, but not too hard. Rambo walks painfully slow though.
I played Whomp 'Em once before many years ago. It looked like a pretty good game, but I was pretty disappointed with it. I'm still not a fan.
For player's choice, I played Sonic the Hedgehog on Genesis. I didn't get all the chaos emeralds though. I just wasn't into it enough to try again.
For player's choice (if it counts) I played through TMNT IV: Turtles in Time for SNES, then a quick run through MD Hyperstone Heist just for comparison.
I'd never spent more than 5 minutes with either game until now. For Turtles in Time, I thought it was a good game and can totally see the hype/nostalgia behind it. Never played the arcade version so I don't know how it compares to it, but as its own thing I enjoyed it more than anticipated. While I can totally recognize the quality I still don't care too much for the licensed Konami beat 'em ups for the fact the engine doesn't have a consistent grab mechanic. They're more like a hack & slash, even moreso than Golden Axe. Totally underwhelmed after finally seeing the "footsoldier thrown into the camera" trick; it's a 2 frame animation with zero scaling that could have been done on any system.
Hyperstone Heist is decent but fully embraces the Konami half-ass Sega efforts curse. Having a dedicated dash button is awesome, having half the content removed isn't.
18 weeks in, and Scissors sweeps another! Cornelius knocked out Lunar, and Megas fell to the Switch siren song. 'Ems were whomped, and jperryss took down ESPGaluda for the import alt. One day to go! However, for the new week...
-Sunset Riders (Arcade, SNES, Genesis). Extra love if you do it with four players on the arcade version.
-Sol Divide (PS1, Saturn, Arcade)
-Player's choice: pick a game whose title (not including subtitles or numbers) begins and ends with the same letter. Examples might include Super Star Wars, Rough Ranger, Super Troll Islands, Super Sidekicks, Shock Troopers, Rygar, Shadow of the Colossus, Sakura Wars, Gynoug, etc.
-RPG of the month us a Culdcept story mode. Anyone planning on finding out about the goddess Culdra?
-Import Alternative: Download (PC Engine)
Last edited by celerystalker; 05-07-2017 at 08:01 AM.
Sorry, had to update the import alternative for week 19. Forgot I'd already put Space Hunter up two weeks ago, just didn't get any takers as I recall. Download for PCE is the new one, and it's one of my favorite PCE games. Fast paced horizontal shooter with a surprising amount of story and very funny engrish.
Turtles in Time is probably my all-time favorite SNES game. The grab-and-throw is mostly based on whether you're holding the joystick towards your opponent when you hit the button. The foot-soldier-toss animation is a lot smoother in the arcade version. The hit contact and detection actually feels better on the SNES game than the arcade version.
There is a lot of variety in moves that you may not notice if you only play it a couple times. For example, there are three different kinds of jump kicks depending on when you hit the attack button during the jump. There also also four separate dash moves: a shoulder charge, flying kick, flip, and slide.
The SNES game would be just about perfect with a dedicated run button and with six buttons there was no good reason not to include one. The double tap timing to run feels just a little bit off.
I figured I could kill two birds with one stone this week, so I took time off from Mario Kart 8's online play to play through and clear the offline Gran Prix modes. I used Lakitu instead of my usual charater (Daisy) since he's a turtle, and I figured completing the game with an anthro' animal would count for the Player's Choice challenge.
I played a few minutes of Rambo: First Blood Part II on the Master System, but didn't bother trying to complete it. Not because I didn't enjoy it, but I had limited time again this week and it seemed like a Master System game that I would have really liked back in the day (I'd never played it before), so I wanted to play it at my leisure to enjoy it more at the expense of a point.
I've never played more than a few minutes of this game, and if I remember correctly, a lot of people don't like it. I can understand why though. For me, it's definitely a solid experience, hindered by a few shit design choices. For one thing, your hit box is ABSOLUTELY ATROCIOUSLY MASSIVE, which I would be alright with were it not for the stupid, unnecessarily clumsy directional input you have to use in the middle of a combo attack when you perform a melee in this game.
BTW, does this game really not support analog controls on the PS1? When was this released exactly? I can't think of ANY console shooter that I felt I needed a joystick to play well before Sol Divide. It's those damn melee combos. They're really murder for me.
Anyway, I'll find a Player's Choice game to knock out quickly than I think I'll try my hand at whatever Culdcept game I have that isn't sealed. I think I have an open copy of Culdcept Saga on the 360.
Last edited by Emperor Megas; 05-11-2017 at 11:00 PM.
Sol Divide doesn't support analog control despite being a late release. It was a much earlier arcade game that got a very playable, but super half-assed PS1 port by the same folks who did the Mobile Light Force nonsense.
For player's choice I went with Metal Storm (NES). This was a great way to test out my new arcade stick. For some reason DP isn't letting me attach a pic, so: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qotinxl04nc6a3c/ms.jpg?dl=0
I think we talked about Metal Storm earlier in this thread. It has some of the nicest parallax scrolling I've seen on the NES and is probably one of the best-looking NES games. The gameplay is tight and challenging, requiring just a bit of memorization to get through. Stage 7 is a boss rush, but the actual last "battle" is about as easy as it gets. Which is OK because the stage 6 boss will cause screaming. The second loop is brutal and requires memorization and perfect timing in a lot of places (think R-Type, another IREM game). I've never cleared it and probably never will.
The arcade stick consists of a Sanwa joystick and Seimitsu buttons in a tek-innovations plexi case. I pad-hacked original controllers for NES, SNES, GEN, and PCE and mounted them in a project box which connects to the arcade stick with a DSUB15 cable, allowing me to use it with my consoles.
I tried this one last night in MAME and it ran pretty well. Got to a series of bosses fairly early and gave up after having to restart a few times. Might pick it up again this week.
Last edited by jperryss; 05-10-2017 at 08:19 AM.
Yeah, I'm a big Metal Storm fan. My brother and I used to beat the pants off of it, alternating levels and passing the controller. The gravity mechanic is so much more than a gimmick in the game, and it's got some tricky stages.
That stick sounds slick. I prefer the looser feel of the Sanwa sticks over the more stiff Happ stuff. I usually end up using Happ cmpetition sticks on supergun builds for others, as people I know seem to prefer the bat-style sticks, but give me a Sanwa or Seimitsu ball any day.