This Week's Robots: Pt. 2

On 07/08/2023 at 10:17 AM by KnightDriver

80s retro gaming is the topic today. Here's what I played last week (or earlier this week) on various collections I have.

Taito Legends Power Up (PSP): I wanted to play Space Dungeon but I couldn't get my PSP to read the UMD disc. I tried a couple of solutions but nothing worked. I may try and put emulators on it and such because I don't know what else I can do. Nothing seems broken, but it just won't read or spin up.

Activision Classics (PS1): I played Stampede and Starmaster in this collection. I wasn't pleased with the controls. The game wouldn't acknowledge the analog sticks on my PS2 controller (I played the PS1 disc on my PS2), and so I had to used the d-pad. Not great.

Intellivision Lives (PS2): I looked through all the games, messed with the audio and listened to the rock music tracks seemingly written specifically for the Intellivision, and watched a demo video, which was underwelming. Of all the many games, I only played Shark! Shark! because that game is fun. Control issues again, however, with the game not recognizing the analog sticks. D-pad is unfun.

Xbox 360's Game Room app: Here I still have a load of classic 80s arcade and console games. The store is defunct, so no new buys, but I have a lot there. So I played Stampede and Shark! Shark! and was very confortable with the controls. Analog sticks work great and the the games play perfectly. I wish Game Room was still active. Lots of great Konami games not available elsewhere.

SNK 40th Anniversary Collection (XSX): I played Fantasy here. It's an interesting game with many styles of gameplay put into one game. It's hard though. I got hung up in the Scramble-like sequence.

Namco Museum Archives Vol. 1 (XSX): I played Xevious here. It seemed somewhat less sharp and detailed than I remembered it. I almost felt I was playing the NES version. Weird. I always loved the design of this game. Maybe I needed to change some settings. The NMA collection has tons of adjustments you can make to the games. A fantastic collection.

Xbox Live (XSX): I bought two Konami games again on the Series S released on 360 Live arcade years ago: Time Pilot and Gyruss. I love these two games, especially Gyruss. It's basically Tempest with space ships. Great game.

Rare Replay (XSX): Jet Pac is a great concept but controls are a little difficult. It has a fixed screen with platforms. You control an astronaut with a jet pack and laser gun. Aliens sweep across the screen getting in your way as you gather the pieces and fuel to rebuild and launch your space ship. Such a cool idea, I just wish my spaceman was smaller so I wouldn't get killed so easily. I also noticed special challenges with the Rare Replay collection for this game I hadn't noticed before. It's a fantastic collection with a lot of fun features.

Sega Genesis Classics (XSX): I played all the Genesis games released in the late 80s: Alex Kidd, Altered Beast, Gain Ground, Galaxy Force II, Golden Axe, Revenge of Shinobi, Space Harrier II, and Super Thunder Blade. I really like Gain Ground. It's kind of like playing Gauntlet but in a vertical orientation. It's difficult though. Golden Axe is an old favorite and I played it for a while. Super Thunder Blade was interesting. You pilot an attack helicopter into simulated 3D space like Space Harrier and blast away at tanks and enemy helicopters. The 3D is kind of cool but it's hard, like many old games. I didn't get far. Good explosions though. Mr. Torgue says, "EXPLOSIONS!"

daftman

07/08/2023 at 02:25 PM

So many games! O_O Do you like the Xevious style of having to bomb enemies on the ground? I always preferred being able to shoot everything with my main weapon.

KnightDriver

07/10/2023 at 03:59 PM

Yeah, I love doing that, however, it is a bit distracting to have to switch back and forth especially when you are being bombarded with flying enemies. I have trouble even beating the first boss in Xevious.

Cary Woodham

07/08/2023 at 05:26 PM

When I was a kid, I was really fascinated by Xevious for some reason. It was HUGE in Japan, and one of the first games to use pre-rendered graphics on the sprites. I was always intrigued by the land you fly over. It looks like a golf course to me. When I was a kid, I got a sheet of my dad's dot matrix printer paper, spread it out, and drew a Xevious map on one side and a Zaxxon map on the other and used my toy spaceships to play pretend Xevious and Zaxxon on them. I got in a little bit of trouble for using up so much paper, though. :)

Gyruss and Time Pilot are awesome. Two of my favorite early Konami games. Gyruss was like a cross between Galaga and Tempest, and the creator of that game would go on to Capcom and make a game you might've heard of called Street Fighter 2.

Gain Ground is surprisingly good. It's like they took Ikari Warriors and made it a puzzle action single screen Bubble Bobble game.

07/10/2023 at 04:21 PM

I like the landscape design in Xevious too. I guess it does look like a well organized golf course, a mannered garden of sorts.

Gyruss surprised me one day well after the arcade days. I think I had forgotten about it, or didn't see it in the arcades I went to. I think it's fantastic. I thought Time Pilot would make a great movie. Much better than Battleship, anyway.

I have to play more Gain Ground. I never get very far, although, this time I got several screens into it.

SanAndreas

07/09/2023 at 04:00 AM

Starmaster was one of my favorite 2600 games, and was more playable than the 2600 version of Star Raiders. I have the SNK collection. I mostly play Vanguard (a game I played a lot on 2600 and Atari 8-bit), Ikari Warriors, POW, and Time Soldiers on it. I take occasional stabs at Athena, but that game is brutally hard.

Gyruss was another favorite of mine. I had it on Atari, and I have it on Game Boy Advance as part of a Konami collection. I did have it on Xbox Live when I owned an Xbox. Unfortunately, that version is lost to me forever, as Microsoft locked my MS account and will not release it until I somehow remember information from 15 years ago. They seem hellbent on reminding me that dumping Microsoft and switching to Apple was a good decision.

07/10/2023 at 04:31 PM

This digital collections make me nervous. They could just go "poof!" at any time, I feel.

07/11/2023 at 10:15 PM

Me too. I lost some digital games because I can't remember the credit card number I bought them with from Xbox 15 years ago. Where possible I buy physical. I actually bought Switch versions of games instead of PS4 versions simply because the Switch versions came on cartridge, and to me that justified the (often grossly overblown) drop in graphical fidelity. I have the cartridge versions of Atari 50 and SNK 40th Anniversary. Sadly, Donkey Kong is digital only.

07/15/2023 at 09:55 AM

That is an interesting draw for me, buying Switch versions just to have a physical copy. I got the physical PS4 version of Wargroove even though I play it on Xbox just to have a box of it. Kind of similar with Journey to the Savage Planet which I got the Xbox One version physical but never opened it because I play it digitally on my Xbox Seres S.

PixlBit