MAME ROW #72 - Change Air Blade
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I tried these out last night.
Saturn is a pretty garish looking game, I suspect the colours are screwed up on my cabinet, as it looks a lot more orange than the YouTube video above. The accompanying music is, erm, unconventional for a Galaxian type game, and there is a weird sort of delay after you get hit before your ship explodes which is quite annoying - the delay is just long enough for you to think maybe you didn't get hit, then kaboom, oh yes you did. Not my favourite.
Change Air Blade is a nice bullet-hell game, I had to mess around a bit to get a working ROM, but when I did it I found it was a hectic shooter, with surprisingly short levels. It's a bit confusing as there is an enemy ship that constantly spews powerups out as you shoot it, all through the level, which means the screen is pretty busy.
Pettan Pyuu - this is an odd game, and I couldn't work out how to complete a level. You can turn tiles over by walking over them, and if an enemy is on the tile at the same time as it turns, they die and you are awarded some points. You can also push over yellow walls, and if they crush enemies, they also die. Turning over all the tiles didn't end the level so I thought perhaps I had to kill all the enemies - I tied that but more just respawned all the time. At one point what seemed to be a 'girlfriend' version of the player characted appeared and followed me about, for no apparent reason. Very odd.
So while none of this weeks games are classics, my vote is going to go to Change Air Blade, as it looks nice and doesn't have Saturn's annoying tune.
I may not have much chance to play the winner this week though, as I am off to the UK's Premier Retro Gaming Event - PLAY BLACKPOOL at the weekend, for some classic old-school gaming!
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@gtbfilms Please be sure to take plenty of photos. That looks like a really cool event!
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This week's winner is Change Air Blade
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@gtbfilms soooo jealous:) Enjoy!
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OK, so my 8yo has worked hard this evening to achieve this score, not sure if I want to try and beat him!
(I might have a go later...)
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@fruitybit nice score! This is a tough game!
After a lot of attempts I managed to just sneak past with 1093480. I reckon your kid can beat this!
I got carried away trying to take a photo and the name entry timed out and it put in CAB by default.
I think this is a memory game, practice makes perfect. My only tactic was trying to pick up as many B pickups as possible (I think that's extra smart bombs) then not use them as it increased the end of level bonus. Sometimes there's so much going on that you have to use the smart bomb for a few seconds respite.
I also noticed the pink laser the enemy ship sometimes fires doesn't seem to do you any damage?
Also there appears to be a pickup (don't know what it looks like, I got it by accident) that reverses positions so you are at the top firing down. Getting this ends the level pretty quick as the enemy doesn't seem to be able to fire straight up at you.
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@gtbfilms Ha, he took that as a personal challenge and went straight on tonight to try and beat it!
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Impressive.
This was all on one credit?!
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@obsidianspider It was indeed, he’s getting good at dodging the multitude of bullets!
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He will have to try Dodonpachi then :)
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@fruitybit aaarggh! :-)
Good score! The screen gets pretty crazy on this one.
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Hi!
First time in this sub-category, I like this "try new things" approach :)
I am the one who voted for Pettan Pyuu, because it looked so weird! :D
I only went to level 3 in this one. I'm not very good at bullet hell shooters.
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this is an awesome game!
GamePlay is more then a simple shooter ;) -
I'm just back from Play Blackpool 2018 so unfortunately haven't had a chance to try this one again.
I've made up for it with a weekend of playing other games though, here's some photos if you are interested.
There was even the appearance of a stand-up cab of a previous MAMEROW game - Carnival!
There were probably about 100 restored arcade cabinets there, including a few sit-down racers.
Carnival! My previous practice in the MAMEROW came in useful!
I liked this Battlezone stand-up cab, with a sort of periscope-like screen.
I thought this was an interesting old cabinet - "Video Pinball" - it had a physical playfield with various lights on it, covered by perspex on which a pretty crude white image was projected of the score, ball and the paddles. The controls were side buttons, and the whole control panel rocked to simulate nudging the cabinet. It was pretty cool actually.
There were of course, real Pinball tables as well. Not very many, perhaps 10 or so. They were busy the whole weekend.
There were also retro computers/consoles and modern consoles.
There were a few PCs set up on a LAN for multiplayer gaming.
Red Alert 2 (PC) is a personal favourite, but as a game typically takes an hour or so to play, there wasn't really time for a match, when there was a lot more stuff to try.
And a wheel of Xbox's all connected playing Halo. Unfortunately, being used to Unreal Tournament/Quake Arena on the PC, I've always found Halo horribly sluggish to play.
There were also some talks from various UK software industry legends, and YouTube 'celebrities'.
There was a merchandise hall as well, although unfortunately this wasn't as well attended as in previous years - a few stalls selling retro hardware/software (I picked up a PS2 Dual Shock controller for a few pounds), but mostly T-shirt sellers, Japanese Manga-merchandise (and food) sellers, and that sort of thing.
I resisted the temptation to purchase a boxed Vectrex machine for £200 - but someone bought it!
Overall, a pretty decent event, perhaps not as big or as varied as in previous years. Still well attended, despite Blackpool in February being absolutely freezing (and raining).
The venue is still this shonky old hotel, which looks a lot grander on the outside than it actually is! I didn't stay there, but a friend who did reported the ceiling was leaking rainwater!
Apologies for going off-topic, but I thought some of you might like to see what the event was like.
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@gtbfilms That looked like a rather awesome day! I was playing Carnival earlier funnily enough, although it wasn’t the mame version. Sooo many Star Wars machines there, I’m still jealous!))
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MAME ROW #73 is live!
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@fruitybit yeah the Star Wars arcade machine was busy all day. Most people were pretty decent through and moved on after a single credit (everything was on free play).
The pinball machine was constantly in use -and more annoyingly loads of people playing 2 player games by themselves!
Someone's uploaded a video of the event to YouTube, which gives a better idea of the atmosphere and noise!
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@gtbfilms Wow, that’s quite an event- shame it’s so far away for me:((
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