Retrogaming Times Monthly 48

Retrogaming Times
Monthly

Issue #48 - May 2008

Table of Contents
01.	Attract Mode
02.	The Many Faces of . . . Sir Lancelot
03.	NES'cade -- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
04.	Apple II Incider: Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting
05.	Game Archaeologist
06.	Gaming Studies with the Tomy Tutor -- Jungler
07.	Game Over

joystick

Attract Mode

by Scott Jacobi

Well, I was looking forward to reading any of the Attract Mode submissions, but unfortunately, nobody sent any in. I dunno if I did a bad job explaining the concept, or if I just didn't advertise it well enough (I'm not so egotistical to think that nobody skips this column), so I'll try a different approach:

YOUR THOUGHTS HERE.

I'll even give people a topic to write about if you want one. Lately, I was reading a video game blog, and I saw an interesting term: Neo-Retro. Now, Neo-Retro has no set definition, but it conjures a lot of ideas to mind. Neo-Retro is mostly being applied to the indie gaming scene, but I would even apply the term to games like the New Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo DS. So I wonder: can the Neo-Retro appeal to general retro gamers? Does a game have to literally be retro for us to enjoy it, triggering the nostalgia of originally playing the game way back when, or is Neo-Retro simply a fad that is being used to crank out relatively easy to make games with interesting and unique twists?

If you have any thoughts about this, or any other retrogaming related topic, submit them to me through the link above, and the best one will be presented here in this space next month. Enjoy the issue!

The Many Faces of . . . Sir Lancelot

by Alan Hewston

We continue our string of 25th anniversary tributes, with the many faces of "Sir Lancelot", a game that resembles much of the arcade game "Joust". We've got the same mix of systems as last month, with some of the same XONOX, double-ender carts paired up with "Robin Hood". Once again, all versions were released, and since all versions are of similar rarity, none will be disqualified. Fortunately, you can play a few of these via a multi-cart and I assume all via emulation. With XONOX only having a limited run on these carts (just before the Crash), it was unlikely that Williams, who released Joust, would fire up their lawyers to suit this small fry third party company. Atari, on the other hand, who owned the home rights was probably licking their chops on this one.

Just like the arcade game Joust, your flying beast moves and flies about the screen in an attempt to knock out the other flying beasts. But a few Joust ingredients are missing – there’s only 4 or 5 enemies total, no eggs to collect, no eggs to hatch, no ledges to stand or run on, no bonus rounds, and no head-to-head play. There’s no lava pool below the regular battlefield, but there is on the second screen. There’s also no arm of lava that can reach out at you. What has been added are a variety of 4 different enemies, one per level - the Flying Snakes, the Monster Bees, the Killer Dragonflies and the Invisible Invincibles. Those final ones are very interesting as they are nearly invisible, and remain your only enemy for the duration of the game. Your mount is the famous flying horse, Pegasus. After you knock off the Dragons minions on screen one, take on the boss, Dragon in his castle lair.

See several classic era screenshots at:
www.mobygames.com/game/sir-lancelot/screenshots

Home Versions:
All home versions were released by XONOX, with the Atari 2600 being the 1st.

Atari 2600 cart 1983 by Anthony R. Henderson for XONOX, Rarity 7
Colecovision cart 1983 by unknown for XONOX, Rarity 6
Commodore 64 disk 1984 by unknown for XONOX, Rarity - unknown
Vic 20 cart 1983 by unknown for XONOX, Rarity 6

Rumor Mill & Classic Era Sequels: None

I forgot to mention last month, that there are estimated cart rarities for both the single and double-ender carts on some systems. For example, the 2600 has a rarity 7 for both types - so one might guess the overall rarity of finding a 2600 cart could be a 5, making it easier than the Vic 20's rarity 6. Regardless, no cart version was extremely rare or easy to find – so as usual none have been disqualified. But . . . the C64 disk rarity is unknown, which in my experience - is probably an 8 or 9. And on that note . . .

C64 screenshot - courtesy of Gamebase64.

Lost Faces Review Wannabe: C64
After saying the C64 disk is probably the rarest, I have bad news. My original C64 disk and its backup will not load so I had to drop it out this time, but I'm not disqualifying it. I've not played the game more than a couple minutes, back in 199? and so I cannot review it from memory. I do hope to some day download the ROM, convert it to diskette, and then soon after provide scores for this port in a Lost Faces review. I’ve spotted some bad things on the C64 screenshot, below, indicating at best lesser medal is in the works.

Sir Lancelot has some of the same carts as seen last month.

Sir Lancelot Home Version Similarities - except those in < > all home versions have no choice of a difficulty setting, but all have a choice of starting at (practicing) any of the 4 levels of play (too bad there are only 4 as this game could be so much better than Joust); the difficulty of each screen, enemy type and level builds up from level 1 to 4 <Vic (gets hard too quickly)>; each level has 2 action screens with unique backgrounds, but these backgrounds are the same <CV (screen one changes 2 times - nice)> from level to level; after you defeat 4 or 5 of the Dragon Lord’s minions (screen 1 outside the castle), you then you move to screen 2 (inside the castle) and then after defeating the dragon inside, you advance to the next level, with level 4 being the most difficult; the action then remains at level 4 for the rest of the game; to dispose of the Dragon’s flying minions, you must hit them with your lance while flying forwards and above them; if hovering, hitting them at equal height, or when flying backwards the result of the conflict usually results in a tie and both are bonked away from each other with some increase in their speed; getting hit by their wings (even if you are above them), or contacting them when you are lower usually results in your death; like Joust, you’ll bounce off the ceiling and can fly off (wrap around) the edges of the screen; of course you maneuver just like Joust - pressing the fire button every time you want to flap the wings, otherwise you fall downward; you maintain your current L/R direction and speed unless you alter it, or bump an enemy; while pressing the fire button, move left to fly left (but also upwards), move right to move right (but also upwards), if you do nothing, you'll gradually descend; there’s lots of animation for all your's and the other beasties wing’s flapping, but no animated drama or gore to any death – they just disappear; the winged minions begin in a set formation with each at their own height (altitude); eventually when one is vanquished they can shift to different altitudes; the enemies gets smarter and harder to eliminate and eventually they become and remain nearly invisible for the duration of the game; once the skies have been cleared, you then move inside the Dragon’s cavernous castle, where you have a limited time to save the princess (before she dies) and you too some time shortly thereafter, unless you pierce the dragon in his belly (or thereabouts); the target you are trying to hit on the dragon gets smaller each level; you cannot wraparound the screen, so be careful as you bounce, or maybe try to bounce to keep yourself moving; the Dragon will breath a ball of fire or acid downward which if touched will stun you (unable to flap wings for a few seconds); this breath weapon as well as the dragon’s wings are animated; if you fall downward low enough, you'll hit the lava/acid pool below and lose a life; this pool is constantly rising <CV (the dragon gets lower, the pool is stationary)>, so eventually it <CV (or the Dragon)> will consume the princess, and one of these will soon eliminate you as well; as occurs outside the castle, if you die, you are given a new life, provided you have one in reserve;

Sir Lancelot Home Version Similarities continued.
Except those in < >: your remaining lives are always displayed, but not the level you are on; fortunately there is never a chance for a double-death as you are placed is a safe haven; at the start of each screen, or new life, you can remain on the ground and as long as you do not move, there are no consequences; outside the castle you can do this at any time, just land and the minions cannot fly low enough to harm you; - at least I tried this for 10 minutes or so; despite no actual pause button, you can thus pause at many times during the game with no consequences; but inside the castle, once you move, you cannot take a brake, the dragon will attack and/or the pool will begin to rise; after a new life, the dragon screen resets completely, whereas the minions outside will remain eliminated and/or at various heights as they were; when you land you’ll hear <Vic> a misleading sound effect, as if you scored some points, but you’re just coming to a screeching halt, no sliding like Joust; you score points for each minion bonked, and can earn a much larger score for each if you eliminate them in rapid succession; the rapid strike score increases with each successive minion, but only occurs if the hit occurred within approximately 1.5 seconds of the previous hit; the dragon is worth quite a lot of points, much more than a minion, but less than the rapid strikes of 2+ minions, and the princess is worth significantly more points than everything; inside the castle, you earn a miniscule amount of points for every 1.5 seconds you survive – hardly worth milking this; so you really want to defeat each dragon quickly to save the princess to maximize points relative to staying alive; with each increased level, the scoring of enemies ramps up to the maximum at level 4; for every 100,000 points, you earn a bonus life, up to a maximum of six; like Joust, there is quite a lot of randomness with al the beasties in flight; there are no Joust like ledges outside the castle; inside the Castle, there is a ledge for both the princess and you to begin on, and you can land <CV (no landing once you take off)> any time to rest; no version has a full musical score, but there are a fair amount of sound effects to be heard; these effects include: flapping wings, landing <Vic>; defeating an enemy, getting defeated yourself, having a tie or equal collision, rapid hits <Vic>, end of round <2600 & Vic>, lava reaching a deadly height <CV>, new life <2600 & Vic>, dragon fire ball, bouncing off <Vic>, and some random background noises. Too bad they did not add more levels to the game, with even more differences in enemies, a slower ramping up in difficulty after say 16 or 20 levels.

Bronze Medal: Vic 20 (35)

Vic 20 screenshot courtesy of Moby Games.

My first reaction was the game is just too harried and hard. The action is so fast and hard to follow, and coupled with some questionable (varying) collision detection, that it is hard to learn what you are doing, and then poof - you're playing the next level. With only 2 other ports, this one grabs a cheap medal. The Gameplay is very good (7) clearly that of the original 2600 Sir Lancelot, plus the dragon maneuvers a lot more in 2-D to add to the value of the game. The dragon also stays off the screen a bit, adding a bit more randomness to the encounter. But Sir Lancelot is a bit large and the graphics larger, making for a little less overall room to move and plan your attacks. The physics are the worst here as well, with humongous (laughable) transfers of linear momentum. Overall, the pluses outscored the minuses and on a finer point scale the Vic would have the best gameplay score. Addictiveness (6) is not bad but the collision detection is erratic, and really hard to tell exactly how you eliminate each enemy. You can clearly see that your colored portion of your character did not touch the enemy, but it still counts this as an unfair death to you. That plus the bizarre physics were enough to lower the score a point. Then factor in the jumpiness and shakiness of the action, too fast of action, along with the increased difficulty and I dropped it another point. It is just unforgiving and if you get good at playing, the majority of the time you'll play versus a flickering dragon, or invisible opponents ad infinitum. Despite no actual pause button, since it is so easy to take a brake, I did add +1 to all versions as if they had a pause. The Graphics (6) were decent with a good bit of color variety, nice animation and graphical variety. And although there is some detail, the characters are then too large. The displays are OK and the at least you character was multi-colored. The dragon flickering is bad, but the lava rising is probably the best. There is a title screen, an attract mode and a game over text. There is no musical score, but the Sound (6) is fine, with an end of game jingle and nearly all of the sound effects. Missing are the rapid hits, bouncing, end of round, new life, and landing effects. Controls are perfect (10). F1 resets the game.

Silver Medal: Atari 2600 (38)
My first reaction was this makes for a decent third party 2600 game. The Gameplay (7) is effective, scoring the same as the others, but on a finer point scale, it would finish last. One setback is the dragon simply moves left and right across the screen - not up and down. There is an attract mode, not quite a demo, where you see the minions flying and hear the random background effects. The enemies do not change their altitude, and the Princess does not die until the lava completely envelopes her. I’m probably a bit generous on the addictiveness scores here. They’re all borderline, like 5.5, 7.5 & 7.5. So I may be generous giving the Addictiveness an (8) impressive. It does have fun game elements, a gradual increase in difficulty, and the already mentioned chance to take a brake in the action. The Graphics (7) are pretty good, with a great amount of color variety, decent amount of details, nice backgrounds and good graphical variety. The animation and displays are fine and nearly everything is multi-colored. The Sound (6) is good enough to keep your interest, with nearly all the effects – missing only the new life, end of round, and end of game. The Controls (10) are perfect.

2600 screenshots outside and then inside the castle - courtesy of AtariAge.

Gold Medal: Colecovision (41)

Colecovision screenshot courtesy of Mobygames.

My first reaction was it clearly does everything well and easily wins the gold. This port is atypical of most CV games, since it is the easiest to learn and play at level 4. The Gameplay (7) is very good with everything from the 2600 but now there are 5 enemies and more variety in their attacks. There is no place to rest inside castle, so once you take off, there is no resting that thumb. The Addictiveness (8) matches the 2600 score, but the collision detection is a bit off, being a bit too easy to survive here. Odd that they took out the CV ability to pause, but you can still brake before you begin each screen’s action. The Graphics (9) are outstanding, with more enemies a flight, and the addition of 2 more backgrounds (3 when outside the castle). There’s plenty of good wing-flapping animation, including the fireballs. The details are good, with excellent backgrounds, great color variety, everything is multi-colored and the displays are fine. The Sound (7) is very good with the title screen music and the end of round and end of game jingles. The only missing sound effect is not needed, since the lava never rises to the critical height. Controls nearly perfect using the standard CV controls (10). If the action were any faster, or if you struggle a bit, you can still start the game and then swap to a 2600 controller.

Acknowledgements, Updates and Errata since last month.
I think that this game would have been significantly more fun to play if they would have spread out the difficulty a bit more and had 6 levels to get to the maximum difficulty. Special thanks to Steve Tucker and I am again plugging ATARIMAX.com and his wonderful CV 128-in-1 Flash Multi-Cart, which allowed me to enjoy this fun game on my own CV system.
Thanks go to Matt G. from Cinci who traded me the Atari 2600 manual of Sir Lancelot (for my collage) at the CCAG 2006.
I've been asked to provide past Many Faces of Reviews for the Game Trader Magazine. I finally got around to doing that. So look for some of my reviews to be revised and made available on this fancier medium.

Come back next month for another 1983 review – as yet undecided.
Contact Alan at: Hewston95@NOSPAMstratos.net or visit the Many Faces of site: http://my.stratos.net/~hewston95/RT/ManyFacesHome.htm






 NES'cade -- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 


 by David Lundin, Jr.

First off my apologies to our readers and staff for missing the previous issue due to sudden illness. While the majority of NES arcade ports concentrated on classic easy to port arcade titles of the early 1980's, from time to time a then current arcade release would find its way to the platform. This doesn't mean attention to detail and true quality wasn't crafted into the simpler single screen arcade conversions by any means. A look at previously reviewed games such as the Donkey Kong series proves that when done right, classic arcade games on the NES could hold their own against the first run titles of the time. Yet a current hot commodity in the arcades was looked at as a license to print money in cartridge form. Couple that with a pop culture juggernaut on the level of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and you have the formula for near instant guaranteed sales, regardless of what the finished product may be. Thankfully what we ended up with would at the very least be a well attempted recreation given the limitations of the home hardware of the time.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was arguably one of the most popular arcade games of 1989, heck if you were under twelve years old it most certainly was the most popular arcade game of the day. It was with good reason too. There were few gameplay experiences as entertaining as being crowded around the arcade cabinet with three of your friends, each playing as one of the heroes in a half shell. I can't think of another arcade game I spent as much money on back during its original release. Of course that was the idea of a beat 'em up, to eat quarters while the players were blind sided with gameplay that required constant repetitive input and uneven odds. None of us cared about feeding the machines though. It was the 'Turtles, it had beautiful graphics ripped right out of the popular cartoon, great sound design that was comprised mostly of remixes of the catchy theme song, tight controls and of course the ability to play with friends and make new ones as people left and joined game progress. All these things make it a perfect candidate for an arcade to home transition. Since an original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game already existed on the NES, arcade Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was released on the NES platform as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game in 1991.

For the conversion to the NES hardware certain limitations would come into play as they always do. The first and most obvious being the graphics. The NES simply cannot replicate the color richness and detail of the arcade original. Yet looking back what surprised me most about this has nothing to do with the actual game at all but instead how Nintendo's inhouse propaganda magazine, Nintendo Power, attempted to explain the drop in visual detail and color. According to Nintendo Power it all had to do with the NES outputting in RF and arcade monitors outputting in true RGB. A technical explanation isn't necessary as it has very little to do with the graphical capabilities of the NES and why Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles looks the way it does on the home console. Not to say that the visuals on the NES version are bad. Everything is there for the most part: the different types of Foot Clan soldiers are represented, the stages carry the same theming and design, boss enemies look and behave how they should - it just looks like there's a thin layer of grime over everything. While not as vibrant as what you'd see in the arcade a real effort was made to recreate the backgrounds and level design, again it's just nowhere near as sharp. Then there are the infamous Pizza Hut signs throughout the game that were added in the NES version. Almost anywhere there was a sign or billboard in the arcade original it is now an advertisement for Pizza Hut. Even some stages that don't have walls for billboards will have Pizza Hut signs stuck into the ground. Of course not-so-hidden advertising in games is common today but this is one of the earliest mainstream examples.

Since original control was a joystick for movement and a pair of buttons for jumping and attacking, the NES control pad is a perfect candidate for home control recreation. It all works as one would expect it to and while the controls are mapped out the same as in the arcade, there are some very slight differences in attack range and delay when performing a jump kick for example. This is nothing that can't be overcome after a few minutes of play but it does feel over all stiffer than the original. Audio however does suffer on the NES. While a good effort is put forward to recreate most of the music it's simply not of the quality present in the arcade version. However the biggest audio loss is that of the voice clips that were sprinkled throughout the original game. Originally every boss would speak a couple lines when the end of a stage was reached, sometimes engaging in a short witty conversation with one of the turtles. While this little banter has no effect on the game itself, it did further round out the original package and make the game feel more like the animated series. Every time a character would speak there would be a text bubble near them as well. In the NES version only some of these text bubbles are present and of the ones that are there a few of them have been changed. It seems like pure laziness to have some of the text bubbles there for select game events yet not have them be present for things like boss introductions. This also lends itself to some of the intermission screens being dissimilar with different layouts, alternate text and again, no spoken audio. Granted that spoken audio is on the edge of the NES hardware limitations but at the very least it could have all been supplemented with text bubbles, which were originally there anyway.

Konami knew of these limitations and attempted to make up for them by reworking a few areas of the game and adding two totally new NES exclusive stages. While it may sound like nothing other than a hype machine, there truly are some differences that make the NES version both a more difficult game as well as a longer one. Right away, the first stage takes longer to complete than it did in the arcade since the level was originally much shorter with only one staircase to pass. Things are pretty much the same until after the sewer area with Baxter Stockman. Upon completion of the sewer area, a new stage begins with New York under a blanket of snow and ice due to the actions of a mutated polar bear named Tora. Over all this stage is rather uninspired and feels simply like filler as opposed to adding something to the game. After Tora's defeat and the thawing of the city, the game picks back up in the parking lot area from the arcade original. However the end boss of this area has been changed. Instead of fighting both Rocksteady and Bebop together, April is now guarded by Baxter Stockman's mutated form, Baxter the Fly. Things continue more or less the same until after the boss fight against the first stone warrior. Instead of going directly to the Technodrome after the battle, a new stage is presented that takes place inside a New York high-rise. Thankfully this new stage feels like some real thought and planing went into it. The graphical detail and design here is far more solid than any other part of the game, with cool moments such as tiger paintings coming to life and leaping off the walls. The boss at the end is the Shogun Warrior who also has a unique design and the battle against him is different and entertaining. After that the game rejoins in the Technodrome where things continue as they did in the arcade, right down to the final battle.

As arcade conversions on the NES go, one could do far worse than Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game. Yet the game still feels like it falls short from providing an entertaining experience on par with its arcade counterpart. The graphics, audio and play control all have obvious flaws. I suppose that if only one of these was lacking the game would still be fine but the combination of all of them are what ultimately pulls this title down to the level of a mediocre home conversion. The NES port also only supports a maximum of two players while the four player arcade cabinet was part of the game's original draw. The big problem is simply that the original is such a great game. Beat 'em ups had existed before but the lush graphic detail and comic book style of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles made it a showcase of arcade game design at the time. Since the arcade original was so detailed and fluid no matter how good the NES version could have been, it had a big game to replicate. While it's a good effort and is still a fun game to play on the NES, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game is simply no substitute for the arcade original.

"InsaneDavid" also runs a slowly growing gaming site at http://www.classicplastic.net/dvgi






 Apple II Incider: Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting
(Karateka by Broderbund)


 by Donald Lee

I don't know about the rest of the contributors to Retrogaming Times Monthly, but in the past six months or so, my columns are "spur of the moment" deals. When I first started, I had plans to write more diverse articles than simply about the Apple II gaming world. I've somewhat succeeded but talking about gift giving and the 30th Anniversary of the Apple II.

Karateka

But recently, due to a combination of being busy, a little tired and maybe being a procrastinator, I have coming up with ideas and writing articles on the spur of the moment. It's funny, despite being written in less than a day, the articles have generally seemed ok to me. Hopefully you readers have not minded the typos that have occurred because I like to write the articles in a text editor and they don't have spell checks. Writing in MS Word is fine, but I like to keep things simple.

In any case, my latest "spur of the moment" article is influenced by a movie that came out two weeks ago (as of the writing of the article) and which I saw last night. The movie is "The Forbidden Kingdom", the kung-fu action/fantasy film which stars two of Asia's biggest kung fu stars, Jackie Chan and Jet Li. Both men, despite being huge stars in Asia and having some cross-over success in the United States, have never worked together on the film. For your information, I liked the film and would give it a 7.5 on a 1 to 10 scale. It's worth catching if you are a action/kung fu fan.

Thanks to watching the film last night, I will focus on one of the biggest 80's kung-fu/action games ever. The game was called Karateka and was programmed by Jordan Mechner and released by Broderbund in 1984. It was initially released for the Apple II and then ported to other systems.

If you're used to more recent kung-fu fighting games like Street Fighter (and others), you will likely be disappointed. Karateka is a simple sidescrolling game that is more like Double Dragon than Street Fighter. You do not have multiple moves or special powers. Your player can either run or side straddle when he is fighting someone. Your player has six combinations of fight moves: Kick-High, Kick-Middle, Kick-Low, Punch-High, Punch-Middle, or Punch-Low.

Akuma

While Karateka is an action game, you do have a goal to complete. The evil warlord Akuma had kidnapped Princess Mariko. The player's goal is to rescue the Princess by fighting through a slew of bad guys (and some other obstacles) before finally facing off against Akuma. If you defeat Akuma, you and the princess will live happily ever after. Well, one word to the wise. Approach your lady with some respect or you will be in for a rude surprise. Don't say I didn't warn you!

My initial experiences with Karateka was that it was a fun game and I had fun beating the bad guys. However, at one point in the game, I was simply unable to proceed. It took me quite some time to figure things out. I won't mention at one point my problems came around, but I'm sure you'll figure it out when you get there. Once I got past that one obstacle, the final showdows at the end of the game can be frustrating. However, if you can get by those obstacles, you will feel very happy in completing the game.

For an Apple II game, the graphics, sound and music were solid and used well. The programmer, Jordan Mechner, followed up on his success of Kararteka with a game called the Prince of Persia (also released on the Apple, maybe I'll discuss this at a later time). The Prince of Persia spawned several sequels which were not released on the Apple II.

See you next month!

Game Archaeologist

by Scott Jacobi

This month, my guide writing efforts focused on eight particular games, many of which are quite memorable, and some of which are a little obscure, but almost always just as good. I recommend that you try out each one, even the ones you may never have seen before. Let's get to it.

Castlevania is a game that needs no introduction. As the defining whip snapping, vampire hunting action game, Castlevania sees Simon Belmont going up against zombies, Medusas, Frankensteins, mummies, grim reapers, and Count Dracula himself. We often equate all of these monsters as standard members of the horror movie genre even though each of them have entirely different points of origin around the world (mummies from Egypt, Medusa from Greece, Dracula from Romania, etc.) Castlevania blends all of these concepts into a gothic tale of a single man whose only purpose in life is to put an end to Dracula's reign of darkness before it begins. I doubt that those who constructed this first version of Castlevania could have foreseen the longevity that the title would have as a series, with new games be developed for the Nintendo DS to this day. The original Castlevania, in fact, was remade no less than 4 times, with one of those remakes being released as Super Castlevania IV for the SNES. While Konami of America tried to reconcile the time line of CV1 and CV4, Konami of Japan (and the Japanese market) were content to accept the new version of the game as a remake, considering that they had seen similar remakes appear on the MSX and X68000 home computers, and in the arcade as well.

Commando is probably another game that needs little introduction. There was something about this game that captured a lot of attention from teenaged arcade goers. One could attribute that fact to the game's one-man army concept and violence, but in truth, I think it was Capcom's excellent control design that allowed for such fluid play, and allowed you to truly feel like a one-man army, wreaking havoc in an entire enemy base. For a game that was fairly complete to begin with, it's interesting to see how much Capcom added to it for the Famicom, and later NES release of the game. Capcom saw fit to include hidden bunker entrances that had to be bombed open with grenades. Inside of these bunkers, you would usually find hostages which you rescued for bonus points, but on occasion, you might find gun or grenade power ups, or even gas-filled death traps from which you had ten second to find the hidden exit or perish. While these did add to the games content, they didn't necessarily enhance the game's fun. I often felt that my attention was pulled away from making my way through the enemy forces to finding all of the well hidden bunker entrances in order to maximize my point and power potential.


Castlevania	NES Commando

Terra Cresta is a vertical shooting game that I wrote a short minimal guide for. Terra Cresta follows in the footsteps of much older game Moon Cresta. Moon Cresta attempted to enhance the Galaxian/Phoenix experience by providing the player with multiple ship components that would expand the player's firepower the longer he or she managed to stay alive. Along with the expanded firepower came a much larger, and therefore vulnerable, space ship. Terra Cresta attempts to do the same as Moon Cresta by expanding on the typical Xevious-like vertically scrolling shooter in the same way. By passing certain outposts along the terrain, the player could collect ship attachments that expanded both the player's firepower, and exposed area. If the player managed to survive and collect all five pieces, the ship would briefly turn into a blazing phoenix. Unfortunately, that form could never be reentered unless the ship pieces were all lost and collected again. Terra Cresta doesn't have any true stages, or an ending, but it is a significant challenge that even today's shooter experts would probably enjoy.

Bump 'n' Jump is an older arcade game that Data East developed in 1983. It's a surprisingly fun and addictive game. There's just something satisfying about bouncing your car high up into the air, and landing on top of an opponent car in order to squash them. The original arcade game depicted many similar scenarios, one stage after another, with the difference between them being a change in the seasons. Like Commando, the NES version of Bump 'n Jump (known as Buggy Popper in Japan) attempts to expand on an already well developed concept, but adding relatively little fun to the game. On the Famicom and NES, you now have to watch your fuel gauge, as it may empty if you take too long to complete the stage. Oil drums are encountered on the road, not as obstacles, but as small allocations of fuel that should be collected. A story of a kidnapped love was added to the game, although it plays a negligible role in the actual game play.


Terra Cresta	Bump 'n Jump

I was never a big wrestling fan, but even I can remember playing with Pro Wrestling when the game was released early in the NES's lifetime. At a young age, I only had a fuzzy concept of how the input could be manipulated to create different types of moves. I often felt lucky when my wrestler executed a particular move, as I thought it was largely out of my control. Having grown up alongside the burgeoning fighting genre created by the popularity of Street Fighter II, I now have a far greater appreciation for the sophistication of Nintendo's design of Pro Wrestling's controls. The ability to execute nearly 12 different moves with just a direction pad and two buttons is pretty amazing, considering that many of the moves are context sensitive. The biggest flaw, however, with the overall design of Pro Wrestling, is the decision to force the player into 15 matches that are nearly 5 minutes in length before allowing the player to face off with the final boss of the game. In a worst case scenario, that's 75 minutes of playing straight with no opportunity to save or continue. Alas, I have never summoned the patience to make it all the way to face the Great Puma.

Super Star Force was my surprise game of the month. I find it very difficult to write detailed guides for vertical shooters. I find that all I can really do is explain the mechanics of the game, and let the player's skill take over and get them through each scripted level. So I was not prepared to write a detailed guide to Super Star Force until I started playing it. I expected to find an enhanced version of regular Star Force, but what I actually found was an attempt to cross a vertical scrolling shooter with the dungeon exploration portion of The Legend of Zelda, and a time travel aspect mixed in for good measure. Super Star Force contains 8 time periods in which you pretty much fly over the same strip of terrain. Therefore, it is possible to go back in time, destroy some feature of the terrain, and return to a later time period, only to find that you have changed some aspect of the stage. In many cases, this means exposing the entrance to a dungeon, which you must dock your ship with and exit in order to explore the dungeon on foot. Ultimately, you must not only explore each dungeon in an effort to find all seven secret time zones, but you must learn how to reveal each dungeon entrance. The game provided decent hints in Japanese, but that doesn't do much good to English speakers, so the guide that I wrote spells out most of the necessary steps to complete the game.


Pro Wrestling	Super Star Force

Milon's Secret Castle is a game by Hudson Soft that I never had a lot of love for as a child. I have come to realize that I didn't give it a very fair shake back then. True, it is a rather difficult game that sometimes punished the player for being curious, but it's built upon an interesting design that I came to appreciate as I forced myself to explore the game more deeply. The goal of the game is to explore different rooms of a castle from the floor that you are currently on, in order to acquire items and power-ups that will help you defeat the boss which guards the entrance to the next floor up. In the process, you'll have to explore wells, reveal fake princesses as crows in disguise, and fight some very difficult boss battles until you reach the fourth and final floor. When you do, you'll have to figure out which of the four boss characters is the real one in order to win the game. As you progress, you need to find tiles of money to purchase valuable equipment, and honeycomb tiles which increase your health. Once you have a better idea of how to play, and better yet, how to survive, the game does become a little more enjoyable. Still, it's not really one of the NES's top 20 games.

Moero Twinbee is better known in the United States as Stinger. Stinger, like Milon's Secret Castle, is another game that I didn't give a fair chance to as a child. I didn't really understand that the game, like the rest of the Twinbee series, is meant to be more of a parody than a serious game. My sense of humor was not sophisticated enough to realize that the vegetables who were attacking me were meant to be funny. The other aspect of it that I had difficulty with was the bell power-up system. At that age, I didn't want to have to bounce a bell x number of times in order to get a power-up. I wanted the game to just give me the power-up. Therein lies Twinbee's sophistication as a game. As a shooter, it's not incredibly difficult. The game doesn't overwhelm you with enemies or bullets. Rather, Moero Twinbee, like it progenitor Twinbee, is an exercise in multi-tasking. It's not about whether you can kill the enemies. It's about how well you can fight enemies while bouncing a bell in the air, and bombing ground targets, while attempting to stay alive. The more attention you begin to pay to the bells that you are juggling, the more likely you are to slip up and crash into an enemy. When it occurs to you what you just did, you wonder how you could have been so stupid as to crash into a very slow-moving and predictable enemy just as the bell you were hammering turns into the precise color that you were attempting to collect. Moero Twinbee, unlike most Twinbee games, features 3 horizontally scrolling stages out of its seven total stages. The rest are vertically scrolling, which is traditional for the series.


Milon's Secret Castle	Moero Twinbee






 Gaming Studies with the Tomy Tutor -- Jungler 


 by David Lundin, Jr.

Allow me to introduce my old friend, the Tomy Tutor 16 Bit Graphical computer. Years ago when I was all but four years of age one of these was brought into the home to much interest and a bit of misunderstanding. I still have no idea why my grandparents decided to purchase a Tomy Tutor. The marketing was for the most par nonexistent, no one else owned one, and my only previous entry into digital entertainment was playing my uncle's Atari VCS - which I took to fondly. I don't remember which I got first, the Tomy Tutor or my Atari 2600 Jr. but I do remember them arriving within the same year, the Atari at Christmas. Either way the Tomy Tutor was occasionally connected to the black an white TV in my grandparents bedroom. Later it would make it into my room along with my shiny new Montgomery Ward 13" color TV which arrived along side my Atari that glorious Christmas morning. As with many of the lower popularity home computers of the time, the Tutor had a built in programing language, a tape driven data recorder and the promise of many peripherals to come in the future - that would never arrive. In Japan the Tutor was known as the Tomy Pyuuta with a couple different hardware revisions that saw limited release. I'm going to stay away from the technical aspects of the computer itself, simply because I don't have a lot of technical experience with other home computers of this vintage. Instead I'm going to concentrate on the games that were available for the Tutor as they were always the main draw for me. A handful of games were released on cartridge for the Tutor and they were something the system did very well. The usual form of input was via a pair of Joy Controllers. They used a disc similar to the Intellivision control disc (but stiffer) for directional input, as well as a pair of fire buttons marked SL and SR located above the disc. I thought we'd kick things off with a look at my favorite game on the platform, as well as one of my favorite arcade games, Jungler.

Jungler is based upon an arcade game of the same name designed by Konami in 1981. Gameplay revolves around survival of the fittest among giant worms that reside underground. Each level is comprised of a single screen maze with a large open vertical area in the center as well as dead ends and hazardous worm traps. Up to two players can take turns playing as the white worm that starts out in the center of the maze. When the game begins two enemy worms will head into the maze from the outermost corners. Movement is similar to Pac-Man in that your worm will travel in the direction you press until you run into a wall. Pressing another available direction will allow your worm to continue until it once again becomes obstructed by a boundary. Each segment of a worm will follow suit behind the head, which gives the game a bit of a Centipede appearance.

Both the player and enemy worms can shoot in the direction the head of the worm is facing. This is where survival of the fittest comes in. Each time a shot makes contact with the rear segment of a worm, the segment is destroyed and the worm is reduced in length. Enemy worms that are equal or greater in length than the player worm will be red. Enemy worms that are one segment shorter than the player worm will be yellow. Finally enemy worms that are two or more segments shorter than the player worm will be green. The length of each worm is important because that's what decides who lives or dies. If the head section of the player worm and the head section of an enemy worm run into one another, the shorter worm will be completely destroyed. So the trick to quickly eliminating enemy worms is to shoot away a couple of their tail segments and then run into them head on. However the player worm can be shot down shorter by the enemy worms as well, which is why the color coding is extremely helpful. Once an entire wave of enemy worms is destroyed the next level begins.

There are a couple exceptions to the basic rules however. From time to time strawberries will appear at specific locations in the maze. Eating a strawberry will add one segment to your worm. An advantage can be gained by having a standard full length worm eat a strawberry and gain one extra segment. This now larger than average player worm will be longer than the fresh enemy worms, which will enter the maze already yellow. Using this technique, a seasoned player can quickly barrel through a wave of enemy worms and rack up a big score. Speaking of big scores, if points are what you're going for then you may want to destroy enemy worms with shots alone. Once an enemy worm is shot all the way down to its last segment, the head, destroying the head will yield the player 500 bonus points. Occasionally an enemy worm will get itself stuck against a worm trap, which will eventually destroy the worm. This is an excellent opportunity to come up behind the trapped worm, shoot it down to nothing and pick up an easy bonus.

The game plays wonderfully with the Tomy Joy Controllers and the control disc does a smooth job of translating movements onto the screen. Either SL or SR button will cause your worm to fire. The opening tune that plays during the attract screen is catchy and is a good example of the rich sound the hardware can create. The same goes for the end of level and game over music. In game the sound effects are unique, it really does sound like a bunch of subterranean creatures are scurrying around. The death sound is the unmistakable Tomy Tutor crash / explosion sound effect that many games use, however it has been slightly reworked to give it a more organic crushing sound. Graphics are sharp and detailed and while the game isn't all that visually complicated, everything is colorful and solid. Flicker and slowdown are both nonexistent, which are rarely a problem on the platform. With the entire package working together so well one ends up with a superb arcade action experience. It's not for everyone (nor is the Tutor for that matter, considering how rare they are) but Jungler is a great fast paced game that requires quick reflexes and a steady trigger finger. Easily one of the best games on the platform and in my opinion a smoother package than the arcade game it is based upon.

I hope to continue this column semi-regularly whenever I have extra time. NES'cade isn't going anywhere and if anything I look at this column as a way for me to make a second submission to Retrogaming Times Monthly from time to time. I'd love to review more Tomy Tutor games but sadly I only have three titles from the catalog, the three that were purchased along with the computer many years ago. If you have any spare Tomy Tutor or Tomy Pyuuta games you'd like to sell me for use in future reviews, please e-mail me via the link in my name at the top of this article. Thanks!

Game Over

Thanks for reading, and don't forget, send in your submissions for Attract Mode! See you next month.

Copyright © 2008 Alan Hewston & Scott Jacobi. All related copyrights and trademarks are acknowledged.