I don't know
about our readers out there but things on this side of the screen have
been incredibly busy lately. At first I thought it was just me
but hearing back from much of or usual staff, it seems it was that way
across the board. Even with that in mind we put together an
incredible issue filled with stories and articles that run the full
spectrum of retrogaming, from conversions of the industry's earliest
home titles to modern ways to play decades of its history. What I
enjoy most about putting this together every issue is seeing opinions
and memories from different perspectives, which can take something that
has been talked about endlessly and give it a fresh outlook. That
holds especially true with this issue, so let's get into it!
More C64!
leads off with a rundown of some very interesting and accurate
conversions of popular Atari 2600 games making the leap from console to
Commodore 64. After some time away the Apple II Incider returns
as Donald Lee muses a memory of how he ended up with some unexpected
free software. Handheld emulation devices have been around for
over a decade and while not mainstream they have become far more
commonplace among many gamers. Anbernic's RG300 is a slightly
older device that continues to cling to life. Find out how this
blast from the near past holds up in a detailed review. George
"mecha" Spanos is back with an extremely detailed and researched
chronicle of how the development of Quake began a rift in developer id
Software, setting many industry icons along different paths.
Legendary Wings is an often overlooked arcade shooter that combines
many different mechanics of the genre. Somewhat of a lost Capcom
game, Dan Pettis takes to the skies to review the NES version.
This issue's cover story features the history of Konami's Hyper Olympic
and Hyper Sports and how their frenzied button tapping action took the
early days of the Famicom by storm, along with its special
controller. Cursing the horrible night, George "mecha"
Spanos whips the walls to crack open his thoughts concerning
Castlevania II: Simon's Quest and the era in which it was originally
released.
All that and more are ahead in this issue of
The
Retrogaming Times!
I want
to
again remind our readers if
they
have comments or questions about anything covered in the newsletter, or
there is something they would like featured in a future issue of The
Retrogaming
Times, to contact me directly at trt@classicplastic.net!
Of course article submissions are also always open. If you have
something
ready to go, the address is the same, trt@classicplastic.net. "If
there is something you want to write about, send it in!"
If
you're stir crazy at home and are a retrogamer, there has to be
something on your mind - let us know by submitting an article!
NOTICE: Due to the ongoing
COVID-19 pandemic, many shows and events have canceled, postponed, or
modified their dates. For the latest on the events listed below,
please visit their individual websites or contact their relevant
customer support channels as the current situation continues to
unfold. Thank you.
~
~ ~
Pinball Expo, October 27th - 30th 2021,
Schaumburg, Illinois, USA
The
longest-running pinball event is Pinball Expo which has run 36
consecutive years! Pinball Expo will be holding its 37th annual
event held at the Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center in
Schaumburg, Illinois. The festivities will include a tour of the Stern
Pinball factory, a full schedule of speakers and seminars, pinball
tournaments, a vendor hall to find anything and everything imaginable
for the pinball curious, and a host of other activities that, once
again, will bring the best of what pinball means to so many. Also
at the show will be Retro Gaming Expo. In 2019 the Pinball Expo
reserved a room for retro gaming consoles to be played. It was
our first introduction to this genre. It was a big hit so we
decided to expand on this idea and dedicate a whole section of the expo
to retro gaming.
If there is a
show or event you would
like listed here, free of charge, please contact David directly at trt@classicplastic.net.
Please include a short official blurb about your event along with any
relevant
links or contact information and it will be published in the next issue
of The Retrogaming Times. The event listing will remain posted
until
the issue following the event date. Big or small, we want to
promote
your show in our newsletter.
Check out
these great events, shows,
and conventions and let them know you read about them in The
Retrogaming
Times!
More
C64! - Atari 2600 to C64
by Merman
The Atari VCS console
may be even older than the Commodore 64, but in recent years there have
been some impressive conversions from the 2600 to the home computer.
Achim entered the RGCD
16K Cartridge Coding Competition with this title inspired by
Activision's KEYSTONE KAPERS. Chase the thief through the floors of the
mall, avoiding obstacles and moving hazards. Catch the thief before
time runs out and you get a bonus score before moving on to the next
level. You can use the escalators at the end of each floor or move up
and down in the slower elevator. The graphics are upgraded from the
cartoon style of the 2600 game and it is quite good fun. It also has
four fun Easter Eggs to discover by moving in the right place. There is
a problem with the thief getting stuck on the roof, but it reached a
respectable seventh place in the voting.
In 2018 Achim released
an updated version known as RENT-A-COP
RELOADED (https://csdb.dk/release/?id=166946),
with multiple background styles and the ability to shoot enemies. Ste
Day added a fantastic loading bitmap too, linking it to the games
mentioned below. It is a much tougher game to play but worth a look.
Patrolling
the
mall in Rent-A-Cop, then clearing out the airport in the Reloaded
upgrade.
Antonio Savona
Antonio created games
including Planet Golf and the conversion of L'Abbeye des Morts before
putting together a team to tackle some memorable Activision games from
the 2600. Graphics were handled by Ste Day, with music and sound
effects by Saul Cross. The credits / menu screen for each game evokes
the memory of classic C64 games from Activision, giving you the option
to start at later levels. This team also did the amazing Fix-It Felix
Jr. game in 2020.
Bob Whitehead's 1982
title was inspired by Defender, the player taking control of a
helicopter defending a convoy of trucks. Enemy helicopters and jets try
to destroy the player and bomb the trucks, with a useful radar display
to guide you. The graphics are upgraded from the original, with the
"sunset" effect looking very cool. The unpredictable enemy movement
makes later levels harder and this was a good start to the series.
The
intro
bitmap, with jets moving in to attack the player.
This is more faithful to
Garry Kitchen's original design than Rent-A-Cop, with jolly music and
cartoon sprites. Dodge the shopping trolleys and bouncing balls,
collect objects for bonus points and watch out for the
remote-controlled planes that rob you of a life. It plays really
closely to the original too; dedicated players note that timings are
almost identical - including a bug. This is so much fun to play,
gradually getting tougher.
The
comic
bitmap, with a biplane heading right for the player.
Steve Cartwright's
lesser-known game deserves to be remembered, as Frostbite Bailey tries
to build an igloo to escape the arctic temperatures. Jumping on a white
ice floe adds a brick to the igloo; once all the floes turn blue, there
is a short delay before they become white again and can be collected
once more. Complete the igloo and enter the doorway to complete the
level for a temperature remaining bonus, while dodging the patrolling
polar bear. Birds and crabs will try to knock you into the cold water,
costing a life. The improved presentation includes alternating day and
night levels with a pretty skyline effect. Control is spot on and the
increasing difficulty makes this a real challenge to get through.
Another
great
STE bitmap, as Bailey heads back to the finished igloo.
Dan Kitchen's first game
for Activision was inspired by the earlier Kaboom, with Potsy the
rooftop gardener throwing down plant pots to squish the attacking
insects. If six bugs make it up to the apartment windows, a layer of
the wall is eaten away. Lose six layers of wall and it is game over.
The colour of the insect tells you its attack pattern, making it easier
to predict. It is fun to pick up and play, but ultimately it lacks a
little in depth. The conversion is very good, with well-animated
insects and cute flowers. Version 1.0.1 fixed a minor bug with the
first window.
A cute
cartoon
critter, as Potsy watches the blue bugs climb the walls.
As well as these four
titles that have been released in a handy EasyFlash cartridge
collection (https://csdb.dk/release/?id=195565),
work has been partially completed on a conversion of PRESSURE COOKER. This is a game that
never made it to the C64, although a rendition of the theme tune can be
heard as a demonstration file in Garry Kitchen's Game Maker. Working in
a burger restaurant, the player must assemble ingredients and send the
orders off to the customers as quickly as possible.
Antonio is also working
with Dan Kitchen on GOLD RUSH.
Dan found a prototype of the unfinished Atari 2600 game - a follow-up
to Keystone Kapers, with the cop becoming a sheriff on a Wild West
train - and began plans to revive it. It will be released on 2600 by
Audacity Games, and on the C64 in a conversion programmed by Antonio
and his team. This is another one to look forward to.
How the
Atari
2600 version of Gold Rush looks, and Antonio's work in progress on the
C64 version.
With the help of Richard
Bayliss (font and music) and Marukpa (graphics), Australian coder Haplo
took on the conversion of Larry Miller's 1983 VCS shooter. The player
must protect an orchard full of fruit from insects that gradually
mutate into stronger form. If an insect reaches the right-hand side of
the screen, it will pick up one of the remaining fruits at the
top-right and attempt to escape to the left. The player can save the
fruit by shooting the insect in time but run out of fruit and a life is
lost. It is quite a simple game idea, inspired by the arcade game
Stratovox and similar in style to the C64 / Atari 8-bit game Bandits
from Tony Ngo.
The
intro
bitmap by Haplo's partner Marukpa, while the player has just three
fruit left to defend here.
Arlasoft
Nick Sherman recently
produced a series of ports from classic LCD games and has gone on to
tackle some of his favourite 2600 titles. A couple of these were
written in an evening as an exercise in conversion. He is currently
working on Funfair Inc. (inspired by strategy game Theme Park) and
Galaga C64 (a conversion of the old arcade game inspired by the NES
adaptation). These are all free to download. (https://itch.io/c/1718842/c64-atari-2600-ports)
MEGAMANIA
C64 (2020)
Activision never
released an official C64 port of Megamania, although you can find a
recreation of it on the disk version of Garry Kitchen's Game Maker. It
is a straightforward single shooter, with you trying to wipe out all
the aliens in an attack wave before your energy runs out. There are ten
types of aliens. The settings menu before the game is all controlled by
the joystick and allows you to select one or two players, slow or fast
bullets, auto-fire (by holding Fire) on and off, and whether the
bullets "curve" or not. This is an option in the original; by default,
when you fire a bullet, it will follow any movement by the player's
ship until it hits something or goes off the top of the screen.
Changing it changes how the game plays. Purists have noticed slight
differences in the attack waves, and it is currently running on PAL
machines only. But it is a fun implementation of the classic idea.
The
bitmap is
based on the Atari 2600 artwork, as the player tackles wave 3.
TAZ
(2021)
Based on the cartoon
character, the whirling Tasmanian devil must eat food as fast as he can
to score points - avoiding the dynamite that will cost you a life.
Eating twenty items changes to the next food type and increases the
score value. There are three "meals" of eight courses to complete
before the surprise dessert. Extra lives can be earned at set scores.
This is another simplistic idea but ideal for those who want to chase a
high score. The presentation is reasonable, with recognisable food
sprites and an image of Taz on the title screen, but there are no real
options to speak of. It reminds me a little of Mark Turmell's Turmoil
but is not as sophisticated.
The
title
screen Taz is nicely done, as in-game he spins around to collect some
beer (hic!)
FREEWAY (2021)
David Crane's classic
that asked why the chicken crossed the road was originally a 2-player
game only. Neil has added the option of a computer AI chicken for a
solo player to complete against. You have 136 seconds to cross the
multiple lanes of the freeway as many times as you can. In Easy Mode
being hit by a vehicle knocks you back a few steps, while on Hard you
get sent back to the start. The original game had eight levels to
conquer, but this conversion adds a ninth with the maximum number of
vehicles moving at variable speeds. It will probably hold fond memories
for anyone who played it back then but comes across as pretty simple
nowadays.
Joystick
selects the mode and number of players, before the chickens try to
cross the busy roads.
FAST
FOOD (2021)
Another game with food
in, the player here must control a mouth around the screen to eat as
many calories as quickly as possible. But eating six purple pickles
will end the game, as shown at the top of the screen. This conversion
awards double points for items moving at the higher speed. Eating
thirty items displays a message that you are getting fatter, and the
game then continues at higher speed. Another simplistic score chaser.
Faster-moving
food scores more, but I have already hit two purple pickles here.
THUNDERGROUND (2021)
Sega's 1981 arcade game
Borderline was converted to the Atari 2600 under the alternative title
Thunderground in 1983, one of the last titles Sega published as a
third-party developer for the system. There are some similarities to
the later Dig Dug and Mr. Do. The player controls a tank that can dig
underground, trying to destroy the enemy Vector bases at the surface.
Two types of enemy tank are on the defensive. White Core Rangers can
only move on existing paths, while blue Digger Tanks can tunnel through
the earth too. Later levels mix things up by only revealing one base at
a time. Hidden tokens award extra points when uncovered.
This is not a game I was
familiar with before. The premise is quite simple and while the AI does
a decent job, it's not particularly challenging to get far into the
game. The hidden items add a little wrinkle, but with no real options
and simple graphics it's not a long-term prospect.
Digging
up and
across at the start of level 2, with bonus points for uncovering the
hidden flag.
So that was fun to
explore, and there will surely be more Atari 2600 ports to look forward
to soon. Join us next time for More C64!
Apple
II Incider - The Story of My Unopened
Package of Print Magic (Epyx)
I'm writing this on a Friday after I
had to drive 50+ miles to do some work stuff and just got home.
Its been a busy time at work and with other things happening, life almost feels like normal
again. I recalled something of interest I wrote at the end of
July
on the Apple II Enthusiasts group on Facebook:
I
don't think I shared this before. Here's a decades old but yet still
unopened copy of Epyx's Print Magic. Can't remember the full
story but some bits and pieces. I was a big user (even as a teen)
of the Print Shop by Brøderbund. I think I heard about
Print Magic via magazines or something. I seem to vaguely recall
maybe there was a free offer or discount if you showed your were a
Print Shop user. So I ended up getting a copy of Print Magic and used
it for a time though I think I was going to high school soon after.
But
what about this unopened copy of Print Magic? To this day I have
no idea why I was shipped a second copy. I just remember a
package arriving and I was shocked it was another copy. Since I
was already using the first copy this package has remained unopened for
a long time.
Probably
my last remnant of my Apple II software. I think my dad dumped
all my old Apple II stuff we he remodeled his house last year.
So re-reading my post on Facebook, I
should have clarified that my dad dumped all of old Apple II software
stuff (and boxes). However, I still have a box of old Apple II
manuals lying around. I think most Apple II manuals have been
scanned but I still have a bunch of originals and maybe some
programming books, but this gave me the idea to go through them and
talk about them in the future. See you next time!
Anbernic
RG300 - The Emulation Handheld That Refuses to Yield
Linux-based handheld emulation
devices have been around for almost two decades now. The idea is
that a small pocket computer running a lightweight operating system is
the perfect environment for emulation on the go, with everything
specifically tailored around playing video games. The early
devices were impressive for showing that the concept could be mass
produced but were often underpowered, overclocked to the limit, and had
heavy power consumption. I myself had a GP2X handheld during that
early boom and while it was a lot fun to play around with, the
experience was more of a novelty rather than a way to realistically
play games. Within the last five or so years things have really
matured as more powerful chipsets have come onto the scene, coupled
with dedicated software developers, modern battery technology, and a
few companies taking a serious approach in developing quality emulation
handhelds. I finally took the plunge and bought a couple of
emulation handhelds manufactured by Anbernic, one of which is a much
older device - the RG300.
The RG300 was more or less the grand
finale of the previous generation of emulation handhelds before being
surpassed by the RG350 family of devices a couple years ago. It
runs a MIPS-based JZ4760B processor (528MHz but generally overclocked
to 600MHz), 128MB of DDR2 RAM, a built-in rechargeable battery, dual
micro SD card slots, USB-C charging, headphone output, and composite
video output. It also features a 3" display with a 4:3 aspect
ratio, however there are a couple of caveats concerning the display,
which will be detailed later in this article. The overall size is
just a hair shorter and wider than a Game Boy Pocket with a similar
thickness and feel. The directional pad is more akin to what
you'd find on an NES controller in size and response, with the four
face buttons being a little smaller than what is found on that
controller but with a similar feel. Start and Select buttons rest
below and to the middle, as is standard, with an unlabeled system /
menu button and a brightness adjustment button above them. The
back of the handheld has both a left and right shoulder button inset
behind the screen. These shoulder buttons are large and feel good
but I find that they flex a little bit more than I would like.
The RG300 running the
RetroFW firmware with my preferred complement of emulators (left), back
of the unit with battery and internal SD card access (right)
There have been quite a few different
releases of the RG300 over the years, many of them shipping with a
lower quality display than what is generally found in most emulation
handhelds these days. To breathe new life into the aging RG300
platform, Anbernic began outfitting them with a more modern 3" IPS
display. Unfortunately other than turning the system on and
seeing the difference, this is only denoted by an "IPS" sticker inside
the battery compartment. There is no reason to buy an RG300 that
does not have an IPS display, so make sure you're purchasing from a
reputable seller or at the very least can confirm that's what you're
going to get. Additionally it seems that while Anbernic was
shipping these with a 3" display at first, over time they have moved to
a 2.8" display as it tends to be a display size they prefer to trade in
for the lower cost devices. It's still an IPS screen and you
really couldn't tell any size difference unless you had them side by
side. Additionally this isn't something denoted anywhere on the
box or device, it's simply a production change. For awhile the
translucent black version still had the 3" screen while the gray
version had moved to 2.8" but it seems that they're now being
manufactured as 2.8" across the board. That all said, the IPS
screen that the RG300 currently ships with is beautiful and vibrant,
even more so than what is found on many more powerful devices. It
almost seems as if it has been tuned specifically to have color
saturation that really makes classic video games pop in a way that,
while maybe not totally accurate, seems absolutely fitting at the same
time.
The current version of the RG300 with
the IPS screen also comes shipped running the RetroFW version 2
firmware. This is a big step up from what came installed on the
earlier incarnations of the device. It also means one less step
in getting the most out of the hardware as RetroFW is a stable and
mature firmware that has years of development and testing behind
it. Installing it is generally the first thing one would do with
a fresh RG300 but Anbernic has taken care of it for you. It
generally will also have an assortment of emulators preinstalled along
with some applications, and depending on the vendor it was purchased
from, will have a host of games already onboard. The emulators
and games can be customized to a near endless degree if you are
comfortable with learning how RetroFW works (be sure to back up an
image of your SD card firmware before tinkering with anything) or are
familiar with this type of emulation. On the other hand, for
someone looking to just buy a device and play what's on it, there will
literally be thousands of games that can be played straight away.
The inclusion of most of these games is totally illegal but that's how
it goes with these devices. This review isn't intended to promote
any games that may come pre-installed as an added value, but rather
to detail the hardware and software performance so that you may add the
games you wish you play yourself and are comfortable with possessing.
Side by side with a
Game Boy Pocket running the same game, the RG300 is more or less about
the same size as the classic handheld
As this is an older generation
processor with less RAM than what is found in the devices that
followed, there is way less power under the hood. Most handheld
systems run great, this includes Game Boy and Game Boy Color
(Gambatte), Game Boy Advance (ReGBA), which both look incredible on the
display. Other handhelds such as the Atari Lynx (Handy),
WonderSwan / WonderSwan Color (Oswan) and NeoGeo Pocket / Pocket Color
(Race-OD) are all very solid as well but you will probably want to
reconfigure the control options for Oswan as they had some conflicts on
my stock setup. NES / Famicom / Disk System (FCEUX) work great
and scale wonderfully on the hardware, as does Sega Genesis / Sega CD
(PicoDrive). PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16 (Temper) also works great
although I had performance and loading issues with PC Engine CD / TG-16
CD games but support for these have always been erratic with Temper in
my experience. Game Gear and Master System (SMS Plus GX) run well
but SG-1000 games have incorrect colors under this emulator, for the
two people out there other than me who play them still. Atari
2600 (Dingux 2600) is hit or miss but generally works well
enough. MSX (Dingux MSX) support is a bit of a mixed bag as the
emulator isn't as robust as some options on other hardware and lacks
proper configuration options but a few games can be played without
issue.
Super Nintendo (PocketSNES) is where
some problems really begin to creep up as the hardware is just not up
to the task of running many of the more processor intensive games,
generally stuff with a lot of sprites on screen or those that
originally used additional cartridge hardware. A lot of the
library can still be played perfectly fine but there are certainly
limits here. Arcade (Final Burn Alpha) emulation is also a series
of hits and misses, with the Capcom CPS1 and CPS2 based games working
the best - maybe around 90% of those games running at full speed.
Neo Geo (GnGeo) support is even better, with about 95% of the games
running at full speed by my estimation. My recommendation with
Final Burn Alpha is to add games to the favorites list upon finding
what works best and then use that to load games under FBA. For
Neo Geo I recommend using GnGeo as I find the performance slightly
smoother than FBA although FBA will run most Neo Geo games fine as
well. If you want to play some Marvel vs. Capcom or Metal Slug on
the go you'll be good here but it will drop a frame now and again in
the process. PlayStation (PCSX4All) really needs more powerful
hardware than what is found here and should best be avoided as the
performance isn't even what I would consider playable.
Game Boy emulation
with my preferred green palette (left), Game Boy Color can be made
quite vivid (center), Game Boy Advance never looked better (right)
There are many other emulators and
standalone applications that can be installed, some of which are
actually already on the device but not installed to the menu
interface. However I would recommend that only intermediate users
pursue such (and only after creating a firmware backup) as most of the
best stuff is already installed. Thankfully RetroFW is a much
more user friendly frontend than some others I've used in the past and
features reasonably easy to understand file structures and
customization options within the GUI. There isn't so much of a
hidden dark art about it, having to do everything in a basic file
interface and punching in text strings to link applications like in
some other firmwares. That said, Anbernic did ship my device with
the firmware language set to something other than English but it only
took a couple moments to find where the option to change it was located.
This will be the third time I've
mentioned backing up the firmware but it is always a good idea with
these devices as they often ship with low quality SD cards. The
main SD card in the RG300 is located behind the battery. Now this
can't be copied directly over on a Windows PC like an SD card out of a
camera or phone. I use the program Win32 Disk Imager to both
backup and restore my emulation handheld SD cards and tutorials on how
to do this can be found online. The process is fairly
straightforward but must be done correctly. With a backup if you
ever do something to muck up your firmware you can simply re-flash it
from the backup image and get back to square one. I also
recommend changing over to name brand SD cards for increased
reliability, especially given how cheap they are these days. I
can tell you that as long as you are using the same size SD card for a
replacement, you only need to flash the image to the SD card with Win32
Disk Imager - there is no need to mess with the partitions in another
application or anything like that, and I've found doing so only creates
headaches with RetroFW. There is a second SD card slot on the
outside of the system that can be used for ROM files and the like, if
you're up for more customization beyond what the unit ships with.
Personally I slimmed down the internal SD card to just the emulators,
applications and required files and use an external SD card for my
custom romsets. The external card needs to be formatted to FAT32
and I use a program called GUIFormat / FAT32Format to take care of
this. As with tutorials on how to backup your firmware card,
GUIFormat and more information about it can be found online easily.
Neo Geo arcade games
on the go (left), an NES screen that our social media followers should
recognize (center), a handheld Sega CD (right)
Something I've seen others not like
about the design of the RG300 is that it has a sliding power switch
rather than a pushbutton. This means after performing a safe
software shutdown (generally accomplished by pressing Menu or holding
Start and then selecting shutdown when prompted) the switch needs to be
flipped as well. This doesn't bother me much but there have been
times when I have forgotten to flip the switch after shutting the
system down. The build quality is also not as nice as some of the
more modern offerings from Anbernic - such as the RG350, RG351, and
especially the RG280V - but feels solid enough and the directional pad
and face buttons are excellent. I also find the overall
design comfortable to hold and use. The external volume wheel
tends to be the most problematic aspect of quality control with the
RG300, with touchy response and an inability to completely mute the
system. There is a volume control in the firmware options where
this can be adjusted and I recommend turning it down to at least half
volume to get a bit more control with the physical volume wheel.
I'm not really sure where the problem is here, possibly something with
the audio amplification circuit, as when using headphones the volume
wheel works perfectly and is smooth with full range.
Most models will come with a
composite AV out cable, which can be tapped from the headphone
jack. Knowing full well it would look terrible, I connected the
RG300 to my regular modern HD TV - no converter, no filter - just
straight to a modern TV. Sure enough the picture was very dark
and the control input had unbelievable latency but it did work.
This piqued my curiosity enough try it connected to a small CRT, which
yielded far better results. The colors were still very flat,
which I suppose is a testament to just how perfectly tuned the IPS
display in the RG300 is, but much closer to how they should look.
Input latency was also far better - not gone completely but perfectly
manageable. A difference I did notice was that processor
intensive games that would run fine on the handheld actually had some
trouble once plugged into the TV. I assume that the additional
processing power required to output the signal tipped the scales just
enough to cause the slowdown. So while the composite AV output
does work, I can't think of any time that I would use the
feature. The output quality is simply too far below what is
considered any form of standard, even for composite video on a CRT.
For those interested in picking one
of these up, I have to emphasize to be very cautious that you are
purchasing the IPS display model. There are a lot of older
RG300's in the supply channel that vendors are trying to unload, both
authentic Anbernic devices and clones. This is why buying from a
reputable seller is important for the RG300 in particular.
Anbernic's official stores are generally the best bet but prices have
begun to climb and the further you get away from that $50 - $60 price
point, the closer you get to more powerful handhelds that can run a lot
more emulators. I purchased mine from Anbernic's eBay store, from
one of their USA-based listings. I attempted to purchase a
translucent black model but they realized the USA warehouse was out of
stock after I made the purchase and offered the gray model
instead. After it was sent my way I noticed that they had marked
both colors as out of stock from the USA-based listings, although both
are still in stock if shipped from China. Additionally they have
begun to sell what they call a "Dual System" with some strange
multi-boot setup that will boot into a distribution of Linux in
addition to an emulation firmware. This seems rather totally
unnecessary and only serves to further complicate the marketplace for
the RG300. So if you're going to go down the road of the RG300:
reputable seller, IPS screen, Single System.
Capcom CPS1 support
and performance is surprisingly good under Final Burn Alpha - pictures
really don't capture how great the screen looks
It may not be the best emulation
handheld, have the most stellar build quality, the most powerful
hardware, or the highest resolution screen. Yet for the emulators
it runs, the Anbernic RG300 runs them very well, with a display that
seems specifically tailored for the era of gaming that it is most
comfortable with. If you were to use it as a modern Game Boy /
Game Boy Color / Game Boy Advance handheld and nothing else it would be
an almost perfect device. In addition to that it's a great
portable Genesis / Sega CD, the ultimate Turbo Express replacement, a
handheld NES library, and an excellent Neo Geo on the go. For the
price point you really can't go wrong in my opinion, even with a sea of
other options in the handheld emulation marketplace. We truly are
spoiled for choice when it comes to these systems right now, a time
where the question isn't so much, "Which one is the best?" but more,
"Which one has the features that match my gaming tastes most?"
There's also a bit of a collecting aspect here for some, as it can be
fun to have a couple of these with different designs and control
layouts. Regardless of personal preference, it's wonderful that
the technology has gotten to the point where you can get in some
serious retrogaming on the go - all in one device - with a high quality
modern display.
id Software were
constantly pushing the boundaries of what PC gaming could be in the
early 90s. Starting with Commander
Keen upon their founding in 1990, John Carmack introduced screen
scrolling to PC gaming. He then popularized the first person shooter
(FPS) with Wolfenstein 3D.
Finally, the envelope of the FPS was pushed even further with Doom, introducing networking
multiplayer and crashing the networks of many office buildings and
college campuses. So at the end of 1994, a plan was being put in place
for what would become the next big thing in PC gaming. By 1995, the
next project known as Quake
was coming to fruition. Many obstacles lie in the path of making this
dream a reality, and little did anyone know it would inevitably spell
the end of the original team that comprised id Software.
Wolfenstein 3D was a
huge success with the shareware distribution format. Shareware was a
method of a game developer sharing the first episode of a game for
free, where consumers could freely copy games on floppy disks and share
them with other people. It was a novel approach of word of mouth
promotion. The remaining episodes of id Software's Commander Keen and
Wolfenstein 3D franchises were sold commercially by Apogee Games. This
form of distribution would also be known as "The Apogee Model."
Commander Keen was making $30,000 in sales, and by Wolfenstein 3D that
number rose to $300,000. Apogee's staff were unable to keep up with the
demand. With Doom, id Software added Jay Wilbur to handle the business
end and resorted to an aggressive method of shareware distribution.
Shareware was supposed to be free, but when retailers were selling it
in stores, Wilbur made no attempts to stop them as a means of getting
the game in as many hands as possible. When Doom's release was delayed
and it inevitably hit the University of Madison's server, the school's
network was demolished instantly. The shareware episode titled Knee
Deep In The Dead, was the game's masterfully crafted sampler engineered
to get fanatical players to buy the full game. This was achieved
entirely in-house with a mail order system, costing consumers a cool
$40 to obtain. Although this approach was relatively successful, the
company would have fared even better selling the full game in stores.
They then brokered a new distribution deal with GT Interactive (GTI),
to release six titles. GTI offered up the promise of pushing over 2
million units on their next game housed on Walmart store shelves. Doom II: Hell on Earth would see a
full commercial release popping up in big box stores in 1994 and indeed
shipped over 2 million units. With the Internet beginning to gain
traction with the advanced Doom editing mailing list, custom levels (or
in FPS terms, "maps") for Doom and Doom II were becoming highly
plentiful. Entire packs of WAD files (the file format for Doom add-ons)
were being distributed online and on compilation CDs. id Software
weren't profiting off this, so they opted to produce their own
commercial add-on pack called Master
Levels For Doom II. Sourcing some of the best mod authors for
the project, a 21 map collection was compiled and sold at the end of
1995. This would eventually prove to not be the final release within
the Doom realm however.
id Software had been
licensing their technologies, or more commonly referred to as engines,
to other game developers throughout their existence. During their brief
stay in Wisconsin between moving from Louisiana and before heading to
Texas, id Software got to develop a working relationship with Raven
Software. Their first licensed game was called ShadowCaster, which was an
in-between hybrid of technologies post-Wolfenstein 3D but pre-Doom.
When Raven Software got a chance to produce a game with the Doom
engine, they created Heretic.
Essentially Doom in a medieval setting, it featured a host of unique
features including the ability to look up and down within the Doom
engine, and an inventory system for holding various items and
power-ups. In order to get a handle on how to develop a game with the
Doom engine however, John Romero who had programmed all of the editing
tools for id Software was given the role of Executive Producer on the
project. Heretic was distributed the same way as Doom in December of
1994, only through mail order, and with the first episode as shareware.
Heretic was not as big of a seller as Doom, but a follow-up was
warranted titled Hexen: Beyond Heretic.
Much grander in scale in every way, Hexen was class-based featuring 3
different playable characters with different weapons and attributes to
provide a unique gameplay experience for each. The biggest innovation
however was the hub system, a structure where a singular "hub" map
would have unlockable entrances to a series of other maps to enter and
backtrack to. The game wasn't as linear or straightforward like Heretic
was, instead providing an elaborate set of puzzles to progress through
the hubs before reaching the climactic ending. The Hexen project took
place during approximately the first year of development on Quake,
putting John Romero in the Executive Producer role on the project while
Quake engine development was taking place.
id Software's
previous Doom engine offerings were plenty playable on PCs of the time,
but in the infancy of the project in 1995, Pentium-based computers were
very costly, leaving an abundance of the base being dominated by 486
processors still. In spite of this, John Carmack was setting out to
produce a fully 3D engine, optimized as much as humanly possible to run
on computers of the time. So ambitious was the project, Carmack
enlisted some other help. One of his programming heroes, Michael
Abrash, was tapped from his job at Microsoft to assist with programming
the 3D engine. John Cash entered the company in a very intriguing
fashion, having discovered the broken network code in Doom, and wrote
to the company about the inability to achieve the desired four-player
multiplayer the game had been billed as supporting. Having submitted
his fixes, he was placed in charge of building Quake's network model,
which was a large scale project all to its own given the game would be
playable on the Internet too. John Romero was the project lead, intent
on crafting an elaborate adventure rooted in their Dungeons &
Dragons campaigns with an H.P. Lovecraft twist. Quake was hinted as
being a future nemesis in the Commander Keen universe years earlier,
but the series was placed on hold indefinitely while they set out to
dominate the FPS genre instead. Quake's hero was to be a character with
a large hammer like Thor, but as the development cycle progressed plans
would wind up changing drastically.
Although a portion
of Quake's team were carryovers from Doom or Doom II, very few members
had experience with working on a game from start to finish. In
interviews Romero had stated that in the past for Carmack to build a
new engine and have it workable to create the graphical and map assets
within it took about two months. For Quake, it would wind up taking all
of 1995. American McGee was one of the map designers on the project,
having logged some time in id Software's tech support for a time before
being promoted to mapping in Doom II. He worked directly under Carmack
to design test maps, occupying much time building and inevitably having
to scrap his work as significant changes were being made to the game
code. Artists Adrian Carmack (A. Carmack, no relation to John) and
Kevin Cloud would draw textures for worlds that inevitably wouldn't
even be used. Other map designers Sandy Petersen and Tim Willits would
sit idle, pondering when they could start constructing Quake's dark
world. Then somewhere in the mix was Romero, the project's lead
designer, likewise left without direction beyond creating QuakeEd, the
engine's level designer. Doom would see a commercial release through
GTI branded as The Ultimate Doom,
the original game plus an all new episode called Thy Flesh Consumed. In
1995 alone, Romero was overseeing Hexen's development, The Ultimate
Doom's release, and production of Master Levels. He was also in another
precarious position, being id Software's gateway to the fan community,
famously spending much time playing Doom II against other players, but
handling all media as well. Carmack on the other hand was isolated from
any press relations, intended as a means to keep him entirely focused
on the project at hand. So valuable was Carmack, the company had
actually taken out a key person insurance policy on him if the event
anything bad happened, valued in the millions.
Towards the end of
1995, actual game development outside the engine design was still
frozen. Artists and mappers alike were already burned out and restless,
eagerly awaiting a time to start churning out material. Romero
completed his missions in getting The Ultimate Doom and Hexen out, with
Master Levels on the way. He had taken notice of a project put out by
an amateur modding group called TeamTNT, titled TNT: Evilution. The TNT
mod was a 32 map megawad, the same size as Doom II, but with new
texture assets and a menacing new soundtrack. So impressed with TNT,
Romero offered for id Software to buy the mod and commercially
distribute it. The team ultimately agreed, on the eve of when they
would have released it for free as they initially intended, striking a
nerve with the fan community decrying them as sellouts. How much Doom
was too much Doom though? With Quake seemingly still at a standstill,
it made perfect business sense to open up another channel to make money
off the megahit franchise. TNT would be rolled out as one half of a
game branded as Final Doom.
TeamTNT mappers, brothers Dario and Milo Casali, submitted the
equivalent of a map "demo" to American McGee weighing in at eight maps.
Impressed was McGee, along with the rest of id Software, and the
brothers were assigned to produce another 32 map megawad of their own
design. This would become The
Plutonia Experiment, built to be the most difficult Doom
campaign yet for masters of the game to appreciate. It would take time
to produce Plutonia though, which roughly coincided with the last
brutal six months of Quake's development.
Romero's seeming
absence, trying to build a bigger name for the company in multiple
ventures, was beginning to grate on John Carmack. Although the engine
development had left the rest of the team with almost nothing to do for
months, Carmack was ready to give them a forceful boot into game design
overdrive. It was 1996 now, the engine finally assembled, it was
finally time to get to work. The last six months of development would
become a virtual hell on Earth, the office walls torn down to erect
what would be known as the "War Room." All of id Software were now
occupying one singular space. Romero spoke of how they made Commander
Keen under similar circumstances, in one room of the house they rented
when they lived in Louisiana. The great bastion of creativity it was,
everyone enjoyed the experience of making Keen and changing the PC
gaming world forever. The War Room however, nobody wanted to be in the
War Room. Having already logged twelve months on the project, it was
getting to the point where they just wanted to be done with the game
and move on. Romero's plans of a hero wielding the Mjolnir were going a
similar route to how his friend Tom Hall's design document The Doom
Bible was washed away in favor of Doom having nearly no story to speak
of in favor of just pure unadulterated action. Hall himself was washed
away by way of Carmack's insistence on the more simplified format,
unanimously axed by all the founders of the company months before Doom
dropped. Carmack said Quake should be made to be just like Doom, with
very similar weapons with a very similar premise. Doom after all seemed
to work out just fine sans Hall's extravagant narrative, so the team
set out to build the best game they could with Quake's advanced
technology minus its own set of lore. Everyone was tired and miserable,
plodding away just to get to the finish line. A release date was
nearing in June 1996, but it would wind up just being John Romero
sitting in the office by himself laboring away at putting the finishing
touches on their technical masterpiece. Much of the rest of the team
fell completely off the radar. McGee had become deathly ill and was
completely unreachable. Romero having lost out on his vision and having
to operate under the stringent direction of Carmack, had felt he'd
achieved all he could with the company he helped create. He phoned his
former stablemate Tom Hall and requested that after they'd both
finished their projects that they would leave to form a new company.
Although Romero had seemingly done everything right during his tenure
with id Software, it was Carmack that decided he would be the next to
go, with Romero seemingly bowing out on his own accord before it came
to that.
Final Doom and Quake
would be released on June 17th and 22nd, 1996 respectively, capping
what would go down as the end of multiple eras. The classic Doom
lineage was coming to an end, and although Quake's legend would just be
beginning, only half of the original id Software would remain with
Romero's exit. Half of the entire id Software team would leave the
company after the nightmarish development cycle. Despite being
philosophically nerfed in favor of basic FPS simplicity, Quake would go
on to rewrite all the standards of FPS and become one of the first
Internet online games shared by players the world over. Multiple online
gaming services were spawned supporting the game, and multiple
tournaments and ladders for competitive play sprung up. eSports were
equally synonymous with the game, acceptably beginning with the Red
Annihilation tournament in 1997, which saw Dennis "Thresh" Fong as the
victor and winning John Carmack's 1987 Ferrari 328 GTS as the prize.
The company would ultimately rebound from Quake, with its sequel Quake II released at Christmas 1997.
With Romero gone, Kevin Cloud became the project lead, and the dark
H.P. Lovecraft medieval setting was abandoned in favor of a futuristic
sci-fi romp with the protagonist crash landing behind enemy lines,
facing a mechanized race of monsters known as the Strogg. Quake had
become a full fledged franchise, followed up with the ultra successful Quake 3 Arena, featuring all new
technologies from Carmack to push 3D graphics in the PC market to new
heights. id Software continued to be independently operated until they
were purchased by Zenimax Media in 2009. Zenimax was later purchased by
Microsoft this past March 2021.
Legendary
Wings - Go From Zero to Hero in No Time Flat
At a time when most auto-scrolling
shooter
games, or shmups as they're
more commonly known today, starred a spaceship usually killing hordes
of other enemy spaceships, Legendary Wings dared to be unique. Very,
very, unique. Featuring a post-apocalyptic style all its own, it
certainly is not what you'd expect from a flying shooter from the 8-bit
era. But is this game as Barney Stinson used to say on the hit show How
I Met Your Mother, legen... wait for it... DARY?! Or is it just another
ordinary shooter with a fancy coat of paint?
Released for the Nintendo
Entertainment System in 1988 by killer third party developer Capcom,
Legendary Wings is a scaled down port of the arcade original for two
players. This port was interestingly enough released only in North
America in an attempt to diversify the shooter genre. Legendary Wings
combines a wide array of influences to create an incredibly unique
game. The story and design of this shooter is an interesting mix of
Greek mythology, dystopian futuristic sci-fi, and ancient Egyptian
iconography. Since there are no cut scenes, the game unfortunately
doesn't give you the full story but the NES and arcade operator's
manuals do. The lore of Legendary Wings involves a super computer named
Dark that had helped mankind prosper since ancient times, suddenly
going haywire and deciding to instead wipe out the human race.
Fortunately, two warriors are given a pair of Icarus-style wings by the
Greek God of War Aries, and must use them to fly and to destroy the
giant evil computer to save the human race.
The gameplay is a pleasant mix of
both a top down perspective and a side scrolling section, and each
stage plays out in the same way for one or two players. You'll start
each stage with a difficult vertical section, featuring a bizarre cast
of enemies to gun down. There is a lot of variety in enemy types, with
the instruction manual listing a surprisingly high thirty-two different
types of enemies. They do however all seem to attack in fairly
predictable patterns, many of which may give you real Galaga
flashbacks. After battling your way through the first part of the
level, you must fight and slay a fire breathing dragon mini-boss before
you can move on to the second section, dubbed "The Palace." This
tomb-like area switches the perspective horizontally as you fight from
left to right. When you reach the end of the palace, you must face off
against a creepy evil bio-mechanical being with flying eyes and brain
matter. The stages have a very similar progression which some may find
repetitive, with a bit of lather, rinse, and repeat, but I enjoyed the
routine structure to each stage.
Playing the first
stage in two
player mode (left), the evil computer Dark attempts to
swallow the player (right)
Along the way in each level there are
also two optional sections for the player to encounter, both of which
involve getting sucked into a tornado. One of these you'll most
definitely want to avoid called the "Danger" area. Whatever you do, try
to avoid taking the highway to the danger zone, because when an
onscreen version of the evil computer Dark draws you inside of him,
you'll find yourself in a disgusting and dangerous vertically scrolling
area full of bones, guts, and brains. The enemies you'll face inside of
Dark are equally grotesque, like flying bugs and wasps. But on the
other, happier side, there is an area full of Egyptian culture
influences that the game calls "Lucky." It sure is because the area is
full of various power ups, and bonus point adding items. There is one
of these special sections per stage that can be accessed if you bomb a
particular enemy base, and then touch the tornado that comes out of it.
Finding and reaching this stage is a huge help if you want to complete
the game.
That's because you'll want to power
up your legendary character to his maximum status as quickly as
possible and maintain it for as long as you can. The power ups of the
game each progressively improve the style and power of your blaster,
but each time you get hit, it takes you back down a level. When you are
completely unpowered and get hit, your character loses a life. Once you
collect four power ups in a row without getting hit, you reach your
highest level, which the manual calls the "Firebird" level. Once you
become the Firebird, you become a shining pink and yellow screen
clearing badass, with a super powered gun that shoots in large waves.
You can also then take two hits before dropping down a power up level.
Be careful though, because after taking a few hits you pull a reverse
Hercules and go from hero to zero in no time flat.
The power up system of Legendary
Wings practically demands you to keep your player powered up if you
want to go the distance. That's because some of the enemies in the
later stages are nearly impossible to beat unless you are powered up.
But you don't need to panic if your character suffers some pain, as the
game does give you ample opportunities to power up. As previously
mentioned there are also the Lucky sections. It seems like these Lucky
stages were the developers attempt to ease up on the difficulty by
giving players some easy upgrades, as long as you know where to find
them. I wouldn't say this game is easy, but thanks to the frequent
power ups, it is on the easier side for a shmup from the NES era. But
it'll still take a quick trigger finger and a lot of skill to beat this
game and destroy the evil computer Dark, especially if you're playing
without a turbo controller.
A gross view inside
of
Dark in a Danger stage (left), battling with a dragon in
Firebird mode (right)
Another part of the real challenge of
this game comes from the unique inclusion of the bombing element. There
are bases and turrets below the player that cannot harm you if you fly
above them, but they will shoot extremely accurate shots at your player
like a real Jerkules if you do not blow them up first. You can destroy
them by dropping bombs simply by pressing the A Button. Their shots
have a real tendency of being exactly where you want your character to
be, so destroying them before they shoot is one of the real keys to
victory. It's not exactly bullet hell territory, but dodging their
shots becomes an enjoyable challenge after you get really good at
maneuvering your flying character around the screen.
It should also be mentioned that the
music, graphics, and sound of Legendary Wings is also top notch. As is
the case for most Capcom games of the era, the presentation of this
game is simply superb. The main stages are varied and full of vibrant,
colorful graphics and enemies. The music is at times very up-beat and
catchy, and at other times it is skin-crawlingly creepy. It always
seems to set the mood perfectly whether you're flying over an ocean, or
stuck in the bowels of a disgusting robot. Two of the real standout
songs are the up-beat game over music, and the super catchy, bouncy,
tune that plays in the Lucky stages. Both are sure to be stuck in your
head long after you turn off your NES.
All of this adds up to make Legendary
Wings one of the best, weirdest, and most under appreciated shmup style
shooters on the NES console. Perhaps the sheer overall weirdness of
this game is why it doesn't have a much bigger and deserved following.
It's a fantastic combination of an incredibly interesting setting, fun
gameplay, unique graphics and co-operative multiplayer. Longtime
veterans of the genre may find it a tad easy and perhaps a bit
repetitive, but for others, it's one of the game's strengths. Capcom
certainly helped to diversify a genre that could've gotten stale with
this gem of a game. There truly is no game quite like it, and makes it
well worth strapping on your controller and your very own Legendary
Wings.
Konami's
Hyper Olympic, Hyper Sports, and Hyper Shot
At the beginning of last year,
in preparation for the then upcoming 2020 Tokyo Olympics, The
Retrogaming Times was planning a special retrogaming sports
issue. Of course as 2020 rolled on and the Olympics taking place
as originally scheduled became less and less of a priority the idea was
shelved. Consideration was made to revive the idea in tandem when
the Olympics were rescheduled for July of 2021but the uncertainty
surrounding the event once again prevented the idea from coming to
fruition. With the 2020 / 2021 Olympics now in the past and the
end of the summer fast approaching, let's get one last competition in
with that most classic of Summer Olympic-themed video games - Konami's
Track & Field. While extremely popular in 1980's arcades and
at home on the NES, the button-mashing action appeared on the Famicom a
little differently.
The original arcade game was released
in 1983 in Japan as Hyper Olympic and in the USA as Track &
Field. Released to coincide with the then upcoming 1984 Los
Angeles Summer Olympics, Hyper Olympic featured six events: 100m Dash,
Long Jump, Javelin Throw, 110m Hurdles, Hammer Throw, and High
Jump. Rather than a joystick, control input came in the form of a
pair of "Run" buttons and a "Jump" button positioned in between
them. The events used quick and rhythmic tapping of the Run
button to build either speed or rotational energy, with the Jump button
used for everything else - jumping over hurdles, jump timing and
trajectory in the jumping events, and aim and release in the throwing
events. A year later a sequel made its way to arcades, again with
different titles depending on region - Hyper Olympic '84 in Japan, and
Hyper Sports in the USA. Utilizing the same input scheme, the
sequel added seven new events with more of an emphasis on input
reaction and timing: 100m Swimming, Skeet Shooting, Long Horse,
Archery, Triple Jump, Weight Lifting, and Pole Vault.
Hyper Olympic for
Famicom features four events taken from the arcade version of Hyper
Olympic / Track & Field
Konami converted the games to a
number of different home console and computer platforms, sometimes
simply porting over the existing arcade events, other times adding a
bunch of new ones as in the case of the MSX versions. Hyper
Olympic arrived on the Famicom in June of 1985 and featured four of the
six arcade events: 100m Dash, Long Jump, 110m Hurdles, and Javelin
Throw. The events are run through in that order and play out much
as they did in the arcade, with players competing to make the fastest
times in running events and longest distance in the jumping and
throwing events to earn points. Three months later in September
of 1985 the sequel hit the Famicom but this time using the title the
arcade sequel carried outside of Japan, Hyper Sports, rather than Hyper
Olympic '84. This made sense from a marketing perspective, as
1984 had since passed and using it in a title surely wouldn't sound
modern as Konami continued to build out the series as an early home
gaming franchise. As with Hyper Olympic, Hyper Sports on the
Famicom featured four events: Skeet Shooting, Triple Jump, Archery, and
High Jump. Three of these events were ported over from Hyper
Olympic '84, while High Jump was one of the missing events from the
original Hyper Olympic.
Hyper Sports for
Famicom features three events from the arcade version of Hyper Olympic
'84 / Hyper Sports and one from the previous arcade game
Both games are very reasonable
approximations of the arcade originals, with only a slight downgrade in
visuals and audio. Notably the huge amount of speech featured in
the arcade games is absent but unsurprising for a Famicom
conversion. Most importantly the games still feel and play like
their arcade counterparts and run extremely smooth. I also think
everyone loves the rendition of the "Chariots of Fire" theme that plays
on the title screen. Two years later in 1987 the Famicom versions
of Hyper Olympic and Hyper Sports would be combined into a single game
on the NES, released under the title the series was best known as
outside of Japan: Track & Field. While not reaching the same
level of prominence it held on the Famicom, the NES version was a very
popular game in its own right, especially during the early days of the
hardware.
For the eventual NES release, control
had to be reworked slightly to best accommodate the standard control
pad. Rather than placing Run and Jump crowed together on the B
and A Buttons, the A Button was used for Run while any direction on the
directional pad was used for Jump. This spread things out just
enough and allowed for rapid tapping of Run without drifting over and
hitting Jump in error. Yet the small buttons on a control pad
weren't an ideal method of input on a game that is all about extremely
fast and rhythmic button taps. Not to mention the excessive wear
this could create on the controller, especially with the Famicom where
the controllers are hardwired and require a degree of disassembly
for replacement or repair. Konami seemed to have figured this out
early on and sold an accessory to better mirror the arcade experience,
a pair of controllers called the Hyper Shot. In fact the Famicom
versions of Hyper Olympic and Hyper Sports require a Hyper Shot, they
will not work with the regular controllers. Initially Hyper
Olympic was sold in a special package bundled with the Hyper Shot, with
both the game and controller sold separately upon the release of Hyper
Sports.
An unusually clean
Hyper Shot controller, Hyper Sports, Hyper Olympic and Hyper Olympic Genteiban! for the Famicom - author's
collection
Plugging into the 15-pin peripheral
expansion port on the Famicom, Hyper Shot has two cables that run to
two separate controllers, similar to the arrangement of Atari 2600
paddle controllers that many may be more familiar with. Both
controllers are identical in design, roughly the same thickness as a
bar of soap and a little larger than an index card. All edges are
smooth and nicely rounded and the underside of each has small rubber
feet to keep the controller from sliding while being used in
play. Spaced equally apart in the center of each are two large
red buttons, Run and Jump, featuring a gentle concave design and
surprisingly quick button response. This is because in addition
to a very short button throw, each button has a spring in between it
and the rubber actuator. The spring tension is decently stiff and
the actuators are much larger and thicker than what is found in a
regular control pad, designed for heavy duty and high frequency
use. The artwork on each controller is mirrored like a tiny
cocktail table, with a large Roman numeral in the middle to denote
which controller number it is. The Hyper Shot logo is styled
after the arcade Hyper Olympic logo, complete with an American flag
motif, and everything is set against white plastic for a very unique
and high quality look.
As Hyper Olympic was a bit of a
phenomenon on the Famicom, the Hyper Shot was immensely popular in
Japan as Famicom accessories go, making it possibly the best selling
Famicom controller just by how many of them are still out there in
circulation. Of course it being required to play the games has a
lot to do with that and it's up for debate on what Konami's motives
were in designing the game in such a way. Was it so they could
sell their game at a premium price due to the inclusion of a special
controller? A way to make Hyper Olympic stand out on the store
shelf next to all the other small box early Famicom games? Or did
they simply not want to be responsible for consumer complaints directed
toward Nintendo for players wearing out their Famicom controllers while
playing the game? I suppose all three are valid points and all
three could be true.
There have been various tricks used
to facilitate more rapid button tapping in the arcade versions of these
games, probably the most widely known being to use an implement such as
a pencil to quickly rock between the two Run buttons alternately.
It seems everyone who played these games back in the day developed some
sort of trick for faster times and less fatigued fingers. The
arcade control panels also would often take a beating, especially when
being played by someone pounding on the buttons as fast as possible
rather than using a lighter and more advanced touch.
How most Famicom
Hyper Shot controllers look these days after decades of hard use
On the Famicom, the most popular
technique seems to be that of rapidly rubbing one's fingertip or
fingernail back and forth across the Run button in quick, short
movements - just enough to come off the button and back on. The
wear pattern on most surviving Hyper Shot controllers seems to confirm
this, as many of them have an arc of smeared printing and scratched
plastic on the controller face across the Run button. The
scratching doesn't surprise me but how smeared and melted the printing
tends to be does - undoubtedly from the heat generated by rapidly
sliding a fingertip back and forth across the controller for
years. While this method is effective, after playing for awhile I
ended up with a small blister on the tip of my index finger - the full
arcade Track & Field experience at home for a lot of people.
Shinya Arino
demonstrates the ruler technique on episode nine of the very first
season of the television show GameCenter CX
Another apparently popular technique
in Japan among students was to use a flexible ruler to tap Run.
The ruler is held flat over the Run button with the end hanging off the
side of the Hyper Shot. The player then flicks the edge of the
ruler upward with their fingertips in a quick wrist motion, causing the
ruler to vibrate against the Run button. The vibration resonance
can be adjusted depending on where the ruler is being held, with
optimal run speeds dependent on a smooth ruler flicking rhythm.
This technique was so well known and nostalgically remembered, it was
featured in one of the very first episodes of the of the popular
Japanese retrogaming television show GameCenter CX. Show host
Shinya Arino demonstrated the ruler technique when tasked with beating
the in-game world records in each event of Hyper Olympic, instantly
recalling how to perform the method as in his youth. Sure these
"special techniques" essentially boil down to cheating but if everyone
playing is using one then it still comes down to skill, competition,
and fun.
One last item of interest is a rather
peculiar version of Hyper Olympic for the Famicom that often gets mixed
in with all the regular cartridges. Both the box and cartridge
are that of a normal copy of Hyper Olympic except for a small foil
sticker denoting it as "Genteiban!" (limited edition) along with a
jumping sprite of a very non-Hyper Olympic character. The game
itself still starts up as Hyper Olympic but the player's character has
been changed to resemble someone out of the Edo period or dressed in
festival attire complete with kimono, hair in a topknot, and
celebratory fans that he pulls out once completing an event.
Additionally an extra options menu allows selection of the starting
event, with each event continuing as usual after. Aside from the
player sprite and starting event selection, the game seems otherwise
unchanged and plays as Hyper Olympic does. While uncommon
compared to a standard copy of Hyper Olympic, there does seem to be
quite a few of these Genteiban cartridges out in the wild. In
most complete emulation sets the Genteiban version is included along
with all the other Famicom games, not as an alternate or a hack, but as
a standalone cartridge. It has also been registered in the NES
Cart Database since 2012.
Hyper Olympic
Genteiban! plays exactly like Hyper Olympic with a change in the player
character
The real question that I have never
been able to find the answer to, is if the Genteiban version was an
official special release from Konami or a seemingly large scale fan
hack and redistribution of the game. The PCB has two EPROMs for
the PRG and CHR data along with a bit of rework on the backside, both
an uncommon sight on a licensed production game. I have also seen
at least two different versions of the PCB layout although both are on
Konami boards. If they were handmade by a hobbyist or bootleg
group, the work is extremely clean and professional, only creating more
speculation that Konami may have had something to do with it.
Unfortunately there seems to be little to no information on the origin
of the Genteiban version although it comes up in discussion online from
time to time. If anyone reading knows more about how the
Genteiban release came to be or who was behind it, please
let me know!
A standard Hyper
Olympic (left top) and Hyper Olympic Genteiban! cartridge (left
bottom), the front (right top) and back (right bottom) of the Genteiban
PCB
The popularity of Hyper Olympic,
Hyper Sports, and the Hyper Shot controller means that not only are
there tons of them out there, they are also extremely affordable.
For less than $20 out the door you can often find a full boxed set in
good condition with a little bit of hunting. It's also one of the
few game series from this era I can think of that is just as
universally engaging and enjoyable as it was when it was originally
released. Everyone seems down to play a few rounds of these
games, especially when using the Hyper Shot, whether they're big into
classic games or not. It's also a cool set to have if you're a
Famicom player and looking for a unique hardware-specific experience.
The Myth,
The Legend: Castlevania II: Simon's Quest
Konami's Castlevania
II: Simon's Quest was released in North America in December 1988 in an
eerie time period for console gaming. The Nintendo Entertainment System
(NES) was a runaway success for Nintendo, and with each passing year
new games brought about new and exciting innovations. In the case of
sequels to games from certain franchises, those innovations were
probably more like deviations. Chronologically starting this trend was
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link in early 1987, the next chapter after
1986's The Legend of Zelda. Taking away the overhead combat format and
turning it into a side scroller was an ambitious move for the time. It
set about the precedent that there was no one truly definitive way to
play Zelda, that there could be variation. Although it took a little
while to get to it in the United States, the domesticated rendition of
Super Mario Bros. 2 arrived, likewise changing its core concept from
original Super Mario Bros. and its true Japanese sequel which later
came to be known as The Lost Levels in America. Rather than a
platformer that consisted of stomping on enemies or throwing fireballs
at them, you now were able to uproot vegetables and other objects from
the ground and throw them at your enemies. Technologically however, the
biggest change in the game was the ability to scroll the screen
vertically, making the levels a lot deeper in their layouts. The
takeaway was the late 80s in NES gaming demonstrated there was no fear
to drastically alter the gameplay, and for all intents and purposes,
the format worked, generating massive sales.
1986's Castlevania
was the first outing in the series, starring the hero Simon Belmont.
The game was a linear platformer, pitting Belmont against an array of
enemies navigating through labyrinths to a boss battle at the end of
the level. Rooted in the lore of various characters from monster movies
of the past, the final boss is Count Dracula himself. Castlevania was
designed within the lens of trying to convey a cinematic experience
into a video game or at least within the bounds of the technology
available at the time. Aesthetically the levels had creepy visual
themes with equally haunting music. Belmont had a selection of
different weapons to obtain throughout his quest to aid in defeating
enemies, along with other hidden items. About the only real flaw in the
entire game was probably the jumping mechanic, and experienced players
would find ways to overcome the limitations of this movement in levels
where you can fall into pits. The game is near unanimously considered
to be one of the greatest games ever made for the NES by multiple
publications, both of contemporary 1980s vintage or today. It was the
first step in what would go on to become a franchise spanning 35 years
of existence, and undoubtedly a sequel would need to follow.
Enter Castlevania
II: Simon's Quest, Konami's deviation with this outing was to expand
its horizons, in a huge way. Gone was the linear format of a simple
start and finish from the original game, replaced by free roaming
between towns, fighting in the woods, and entering the occasional
mansion. The game takes place immediately after the first with Simon
Belmont resuming his role as the hero. Although he successfully killed
Dracula before, a maiden informs Belmont that Dracula had placed a
curse on him. In an effort to break the curse, Belmont must reclaim
Dracula's remains and resurrect and kill him once more. RPG elements
were introduced with the ability to build up an inventory and even
upgrade some items along the way with currency in the form of Hearts,
which are dropped from slain enemies. The towns consist of people to
talk to that will give subtle clues about where to go or have items for
sale. Experience points are generated from a portion of the Hearts
obtained, expanding your health meter over time in certain regions of
the world. In all, since you need specific items for tasks, the
majority of the game consists of collecting Hearts to be able to buy
equipment. If all lives are lost and it's game over, all Hearts and
experience points following the last level up will be lost and the
player will have to amass them all over again. The last new feature of
the game is a password system in the North American release (or saves
to disk with Famicom Disk System) to continue previous progress.
So with all the
great additions that came with Simon's Quest, now it's time to talk
about all its flaws and why isn't considered a classic like Castlevania
or Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse. The Angry Video Game Nerd (James
Rolfe) cut his very first review with this game, and watching it for
the first time back in 2006 it was as if all the things I noticed were
wrong but couldn't articulate were all thrown out in a hilarious
laundry list. One such flaw sticks out very much, in the transitions
between day and night. A text box appears and the letters animate in
what seems like slow motion saying the same exact thing you've already
read about 200 times verbally dictating it's daytime or nighttime now.
Its abrupt interruption of the gameplay is frustrating. Many of the
clues that the townspeople speak of are effectively useless in the
English version of the game due to mistranslation. One of the most
famous typos is when you acquire a part of Dracula and it says you now
"PROSSESS" the part. Hidden away in walls that you can break are books,
that actually have useful information contained within them, but when
the text box appears you can cancel it with the press of a button. This
is understandably a problem because you probably don't expect it and
are in mid-button press; there's no way to re-read the hints the books
share. Speaking of famous, there's a part in the game where you have to
kneel beside a wall with the Red Crystal item to have a tornado sweep
you away to the next otherwise inaccessible part of the game. It's
famous because unless you saw an NES tips & tricks VHS tape back in
the day, there's no indication anywhere within the text of the game
that tells you that you need to do this. The mansion levels are either
entirely absent of bosses or made them so easy to strategically defeat
that you can just walk past them entirely. Seriously, the jaunt through
an empty Transylvania devoid of anything dangerous en route to the
weakest boss battle of all with Dracula is borderline insulting. Konami
probably thought you had to occupy so much time collecting Hearts and
going through a near impossible to navigate world was enough that
they'd cut you a break somewhere. Even more amusing is the world map,
like on pages in a book in the official Nintendo strategy guide, the
Game Atlas, also doesn't make any sense.
A fan made
modification of the game titled Castlevania II: Simon's Quest Redaction
was released in 2011 that corrected a lot of the issues with English
translation making the clues useful and speeding up the day / night
transition to not be so much of a nuisance. Angry Video Game Nerd was
able to create a brand off his Simon's Quest review and has since
posted two additional episodes covering the game in a Re-Revisited
retrospective review and also showing Redaction in action. (Not to
mention popularizing the Internet online video review format in the
process!) While it may not be held in the same regard as its two other
NES stablemates, much credit is owed to trying something vastly
different the second go around. The series has so many entries that
I've never even seen myself but have consistently pushed the envelope
over time. The series continues to be highly regarded to this day,
going as far as to extend into other media with a Netflix series in
2017 that's both critically and commercially successful. If Simon's
Quest taught us anything, it's not to trust the floors and to throw
Holy Water wherever possible so you don't fall through.
Every Friday on The Retrogaming Times
Facebook
page (facebook.com/theretrogamingtimes),
we present a Weekly Retrogaming Trivia question. This
just-for-fun
trivia challenge provided each week is an opportunity to test your
arcane
and oddball retrogaming knowledge. The answer to the question
from
the previous week is posted along with a new trivia question every
Friday!
Below is the recap of all
questions and
answers posted between this issue and the previous issue:
06/25/2021 - WEEK 220 Question: The cover
of the Who's 1982 album "It's Hard" features what arcade game?
07/02/2021
- WEEK 221 Question:
Cleopatra, Leonardo da Vinci, Sherlock Holmes, and King Arthur are all
encountered in what NES game?
07/09/2021
- WEEK 222 Question: Son of
Phoenix is a bootleg of what arcade shooter?
07/16/2021
- WEEK 223 Question: What
arcade shooter developed by Toaplan contains no flying enemies?
07/23/2021
- WEEK 224 Question: Hyper
Sports is the sequel to what game?
07/30/2021
- WEEK 225 Question: What
unlicensed NES game features pool tables, bath tubs, and cereal boxes?
08/06/2021
- WEEK 226 Question: What is
the only Pokemon species to be named in the title of a Game Boy game?
08/20/2021
- WEEK 227 Question: Marco,
Tarma, Eri, and Fio are characters in what arcade game series?
Space Duel on the cover of
the Who's It's Hard (left), Mike Jones encounters Sherlock Holmes in
Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II
(right)
Answers: Week 220 Answer: Space Duel. Week 221 Answer: Zoda's
Revenge: StarTropics II. Week 222 Answer: Repulse (1985). Week 223 Answer: Tiger-Heli
(1985). Week 224 Answer: Track &
Field / Hyper Olympic. Week 225 Answer: Micro Machines. Week 226 Answer: Pikachu, in
Pokemon Yellow Version: Special Pikachu Edition. Week 227 Answer: Metal Slug.
The rather striking
flyer Konami used to promote Hyper Sports to arcade operators in the USA
We
need your questions! If
you have a trivia question you would like to submit for possible
inclusion
in the Weekly Retrogaming Trivia question pool, e-mail it to trt@classicplastic.net!
If you question is selected to be featured, you will be entered in our
year-end prize drawing!
In getting
this issue finished up for publication I realized a number of articles
I had been working on wouldn't be completed in time. I hold
myself to
the same deadline as everyone on staff and when that magical date comes
around (almost always the 20th of every even-numbered month) that's
when submissions for that issue are locked. Anything that comes
in
after that date gets collected for the following issue, even if they
are submitted the next day, and that goes for me as well. That
was
exactly the case as I finished up an article after the deadline while
working on the process of final editing and assembly of this issue, in
addition to working on other articles in development. One in
particular has been a bit of a labor of love in getting everything
together to properly showcase a forgotten yet revolutionary concept for
a video game that would have an entire genre unknowingly follow
it. A
couple of those should run in the next issue, which will also be our
last of 2021 - how the time really does fly. November will also
feature our annual Holiday Gift Guide in what has become our yearly
tradition, something I always look forward to publishing.
Thank
you once
again for reading The Retrogaming
Times. We'll be back on November 1st with our next issue.
Be sure
to follow The
Retrogaming Times on Facebook and join our community for the latest
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Retrogaming Times Info Club on Twitter features up-to-the-moment
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and notifications for all things The Retrogaming Times! I
sincerely
hope you enjoyed this issue and that you will return to read the next
issue
and possibly submit an article yourself. Remember, this
newsletter
can only exist with your help. Simply send your articles
directly
to me at trt@classicplastic.net or check out the submission guidelines
on the main page. Submit an article today and join a great
retrogaming
tradition!
