50 Great Arcade games #2 - Raimais

Raimais is a relatively obscure title by Taito and is available on Taito Legends 2. The gameplay can best be described as a culmination of all of the ideas Pac-man has introduced over the years. However Taito has introduced their own ideas and changed everything up to create a unique and amazing game.

In the far future bad things are happening and you have to rescue your brother. What this involves is running through levels collecting dots which reveal powerups, avoiding/destroying enemy bots, and maybe even fight some giant bosses. After collecting all of the dots in a level multiple pathways open up, allowing you to choose where you want to go next(there are a ton of levels in this game, though you'll only see a fraction of them in a single playthrough).

Controlling is simple enough. You have a button for speeding up(essential for evading your quick-moving foes) and an action button if you pick up some lasers. Whenever you hit a wall you automatically make a right turn(very important that you remember this while you play). Due to the speed of this game I'd personally recommend you get a joystick for this game and not to rely too much on the speed-up button as it will get you into trouble. Other power-ups like shields(which allow one hit from one enemy/obstacle), "Bs"(which open up a path to the next stage), "Cs"(Which clear dots on the screen), "Ss" (slow down all of the enemies in the stage for a limited time), and special icons that open a path to a boss(which all seem to be insect-themed and are relatively simple to take out, just grab the lasers and blow them away while dodging their fire and very large bodies). For the most part power-ups are random and whenever you reach a new stage all of your shields and laser disappear so you have to start fresh, which helps each stage remain fresh and challenging since you can't simply shoot through all of them. 

Like the ghosts of the Pac-mans your foes in Raimais all have their own unique properties. Some will wander the stages and run away if they come face-to-face with you, others will jump in their allowing you the chance to pass under them(which is required in some levels), still others will chase you down and eventually outrun you, making them very dangerous foes. There are a ton of different enemies in this game and knowing how they behave is essential to progress.

The greatest aspect of Raimais is its constant variety. The argument can be made that the randomness of certain powerups(like the boss-fight portals) can make playing for score a frustrating endeavor but I think it works great as one is still very likely to run into a few in the average playthrough. All in all this is a fantastic game and one of the best Arcade titles I've ever played.

AAA looks at another handful of Namco arcade titles

Xevious is one of the first 2D shooters to offer both ground and land-based enemies. A little crosshair for bombing is always set a little ways out in front of your ship and is your only defense from radars, cannons, and the mothership which appears about four times over the length of the game(though like most other older arcade games this one continues to loop even after the "final" stage). Bombing is also necessary to get the secrets like flags(1ups) and sol citadels(which are worth several thousands of points). The similarities to later titles like Dragon Spirit are quite obvious but I think Xevious is the better game. It's simpler sure and not as graphically thrilling(due to the older hardware) but your ship is not a huge target thus making it much easier to dodge enemy fire. 

Galaxian like the original Space Invaders is considered a classic among arcade fans. I however think Space Invaders wasn't really all that great and Galaxian is just poor all around. It's essentially Galaga except more basic and you can only fire one shot at a time. Galaga introduced a lot of neat ideas like particular ships being worth more points as they get closer to your ship when you destroy them. Galaxian however just feels dull and not worth bothering with. 

King & Balloon is an interesting spin on the Galaga formula. You're a couple of soldiers(who move as one) with a massive harpoon defending a king from a bunch of balloons. Though you can be killed by enemy bullets or by colliding with a balloon you have infinite lives. The trick however is that the King doesn't. If a balloon reaches the bottom they'll capture the king and attempt to take off with him(with an audible "HELP"). If you shoot that particular balloon it'll release the king as he safely floats down to earth. However if the balloon gets away you lose one of your three kings(with an audible "BYE BYE" that caused me to literally bust out laughing). Depending on the colors of the balloons some will combine to form large ones that are worth many points if you destroy them. It's an interesting curiousity and worth at least one play.

Super-Pacman is absolutely terrible. I talked about Pac & Pal in an earlier post and I assume this game was a prequel to it. Essentially you grab keys that open doors where you can grab fruit. There's really no rhyme or reason to which key opens which door and the nonsensical level design has no flow or control. The "Super" in the title refers to special pellets you can pick up which cause Pac-man to grow very large(which is supposed to give off the perception that he's flying and thus far above everything else on the screen). With this power Pacman can fly over doors and ghosts(but not fruit which I guess is a good thing but it doesn't make any sense, even in Pac-mania if you jump over a pellet you'll have to turn around to collect it). So yeah this game is absolutely terrible.

The first time I actually played Tower of Druaga was the Mystery Dungeon game based on its world(for the un-familiar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_Dungeon ) . After playing the arcade game I can honestly say everyone is better off sticking to the Mystery Dungeon version instead. Essentially you're tossed into a maze where you have to find the key and the exit while fighting or dodging various monsters. Fighting however consists of holding down an attack button and running sword-first into creatures. Your score is almost entirely determined by how much time you have left at the end of each stage so combat really isn't worth bothering with. There are apparently several hidden items to look out for as well but ToD is just not an interesting enough game to be worth the trouble. The pacing is positively glacial and every stage feels like an eternity to get through.

Galaga 88 is what I would have liked to see future itinerations of Galaga build off of instead of Galaga Legions. While Pacman CE maintained many of the rules that helps maintain it's identity Legions felt so different compared to previous Galagas it may as well have been an entirely new game. 88 however keeps the staples that we're all familiar with. Movement is limited to either left or right, particular enemy ships can still capture your fighter(and thus can be destroyed to retrieve the fighter for double the firepower), and enemies still fly into formation. 88 changes things up rather often(new formations, areas where you fly through asteroid fields, etc) but the fundamentals remain the same so its identity is preserved well. All in all it's excellent update well worth your time.

50 Great Arcade games #1 - Crazy Taxi

Note: The first few paragraphs are copy & pasted from an old Neogaf thread. If you've read this stuff before feel free to skip ahead.

1. Crazy Taxi is a pretty obvious pick for best arcade game because not only does it have a simple premise(pick people up, drive them to their destination, repeat until you run out of time) but the execution is perfect.

One of the major things to consider is that you have a limited number of people available in the city of Crazy Taxi. That means during prolonged games you'll find that nearby customers start to become more rare, forcing you to consider different routes in your next game to maximize your earning potential. And even though all that point A point B crap sounds fine on paper you have to keep in mind the constant unforgiving traffic. Getting the most crazy money also requires chaining skills like the crazy through(driving close to cars without smacking them), crazy air(hitting a ramp and catching lots of air), and crazy drift(crazy drifting..whoo). All of these factors are involved in just one trip. Then when you have to consider getting your customer to their destination ASAP and making sure you get enough time to reach your next customer...well it's a lot to absorb.

Which is why design and execution is paramount to making a great arcade game. Seriously folks without design and execution everything falls apart. I have a very low opinion of the rest of the Crazy Taxi series because I think execution falls short on them and some of the new ideas(picking up multiple passengers, jumping) really don't work as well as they could. Maybe the ideas would have worked out better if the stage design was as good as the original CT's city. Granted the city is pretty basic in design but that's part of the appeal. It's easy to memorize and destinations are simple to keep track of, allowing you more time to focus on your driving. Some of the later cities in the CT series are just outright confusing and it's hard to get anywhere.

So as a gamer your goal is to shoot for a "CRAZY" rating in Crazy Taxi. Hell I don't even mind if you set the timer options all the way for your benefit. I used to do around $35k but these days I'd be lucky to claim half that.

-----New Stuff-----

I think one of the most important ideas in Crazy Taxi is the constant feedback you're getting. In a game where every second counts it's good to know that almost everything you do will get an audible reaction. Little things like nearly running over a customer when you go to pick them up will result in you get chiding as well as losing precious seconds since they have to run a bit further to get into your car. The voices are corny and anything but subtle but they're also clear and immediately understandable so you're constantly aware of your progress. Another important aspect is your car's pliability. Very rarely will you make a dead stop when you smack into a wall(unless you're purposely doing so to drop off a customer) as instead the car maintain a constant amount of motion. This is a great idea because there is nothing more frustrating than a single mistake costing the entire game. There should always be a sufficient amount of leeway to salvage any mistakes in a game no matter how major(though in the end if we expect to become the best at a game we can't make any mistakes at all either). 

To be honest I can't play this game anymore. Back then my time with Crazy Taxi was notable because it was the third Dreamcast game I bought and it was my only system. These days however I own several systems with several times as many games(not to mention a full time job and other things) so I really can't play Crazy Taxi like I used to. Not to mention the number the controller does to my hands.

AAA looks at a handful of Namco arcade titles.

Bosconian is a free-roaming overhead shooter. In a rather unique design decision your cannon fires both in front of and behind you, allowing you to take out enemy missiles on your tail while simultaneous clearing the way in front of you(and more importantly keeping you from awkwardly turning around to take out the missiles). The goal of each wave is to destroy all of the enemy bases. There's a small weakpoint that must be attacked from either horizontal or vertically and as the stage progresses these bases produce small shields and missiles to defend themselves. Bosconian is probably nothing special but for a game developed in 1981 it shows very impressive use of mechanics. You can actually have enemy bullets touch the outer edges of your ship without costing a life, resulting in some very close shaves. Also neat is the radar system, which tracks the threat level. If there's nothing around you're green, danger nearby: yellow, and if you take too long to clear a stage the threat level goes to red and you're constantly assaulted by enemies. A voice also announces particular things to look out(like if an enemy formation approaches) and is a great method of helping the player keep track of everything around him or her. Anyway I highly recommend it.

Dragon Spirit is a vertical shooter where you play as a Dragon and have to fight off a ton of monsterous plants and animals and destroy a great evil. It's pretty standard fare but unfortunately this game is plagued with issues. For example although you can grab powerups that allow you to grow extra heads for more firepower, this also causes you to stop firing for a brief moment while the head grows in. That's just a poor decision. Worse however is the mechanics of the Dragon you play as. For a 2D shooter you're a rather large target and though bullets that clip the wings won't harm your heads and body are still incredibly easy targets and dodging a heavy amount of enemy fire feels really clunky and is just frustrating. Also although you can take more than one hit before losing a life you also lose a head(if you have more than one). It would have made more sense to go with one or the other but doubly screwing the player doesn't really work out in this game. The ability to fire on the ground is also a nuisance since there's still no way to attack enemies outside of a very limited range and it's easy to miss powerups or worse enemies that are still very capable of firing on the player even from off-screen. At any rate you're better off playing the much older Xevious, one of its sequels/remakes, or well some other 2D shooter, just avoid this one. 

Baraduke is an interesting bird. Each level is broken up into multiple sections. Each section is comprised of a handful of screens where you have to find all of the alien generators, destroy them, and reach the exit. To keep you moving random aliens will show up to try and kill you and in general more firepower will be flying your way. After destroying a generator you can grab a powerup which results in points, a gun powerup, an enemy alien, or a friendly alien that depending on the situation will run away or towards you. Shooting him is a bad idea since in-between stages you have a chance at recieving an extra shield. Also neat is that when you face the boss all of your remaining friendly aliens will suicide attack the creature. Another interesting design decision is that as you fire the recoil will push you back a short distance. It can be handy for certain purposes, not so for others. Personally I think it's worth a look.

I never saw the big deal with Mappy. I guess you're a mouse cop who has to stop catburglars(ho ho) by grabbing various expensive-looking objects. Your only means of defense is by opening doors that knock the cats out for a couple seconds(you also can't be harmed while bouncing on a trampoline, of which there are many in each stage). I really didn't find this game entertaining at all. It's probably well-made but I didn't see anything worthy of note and everything just feels dull and lifeless.

Pac & Pal is an interesting twist on Pacman(Namco produced a ton of these over the years it seems). Well your Pal isn't so much a pal as a sort of good-intentioned screwup. The game plays like any other Pacman except there are no dots and you have to pick up cards that serve as keys which open doors to all of the fruit/powerups. Your pal however will go towards the items, pick them up, and carry them to the ghosts spawn point where they disappear. Though you finish the stage if you get all of the items your points will really suffer if you let your Pal get away with any of them. Oh and I can't forget all of the ghosts floating around causing headaches. Pac & Pal also changes up the power-pellets by turning them into items based on other Namco titles(like Galaxian and Rally-X) and when you collect them you have to press a button to fire off a short-range attack that stuns the ghosts and gives out points(and like any other Pacman game it goes 200, 400, 800, 1600) it's entirely possible to actually continue to take out ghosts as long as you have the power for repeated 1600 point bonuses. Fans of Pacman: Championship Edition on XBLA might remember this design decision. The only real nuisance I have with the game is that every now and then I mistake Pal for a ghost. It's worth a look I think simply because it shows how Namco has evolved and changed the Pac-series(even if it isn't always for the better).

Pac-mania is another example of Namco trying new things with their beloved mascot. Now instead of the traditional overhead view the game takes on an isometric look(giving Pacman and Co. an almost 3D look) as well as their biggest change...a  jump button. Yep now you can bounce out of bad situations. It's not a free ticket out of trouble though since you can still lose a life if a ghost catches you on the arc of the jump(whether it's ascending or descending) and in the later stages even some of the Ghosts will learn how to jump. It's an interesting idea but due to everything being much larger(or more zoomed-in I should say so as to account for properly timing the jumps) it's hard to see around you. This game would have really benefitted from a Rally-X style radar that keeps track of ghosts and whatever dots you're missing. As it is however it's too easy to lose track of the other ghosts only to run into trouble later. In the end it's an interesting experiment but ultimately rather lacking. 

I'll look at some more titles later on.

AAA looks at: Twinkle Star Sprites

The purpose of this post is not to look at Twinkle Star Sprites as a whole but instead how it holds up as a single-player game. For the unfamiliar, Twinkle Star Sprites is a NeoGeo game by ADK. It can be best described as a VS puzzler/2D shooter. Like most other VS puzzlers the screen is split into two halves with you on one side and the opponent on the other. By destroying enemies so that they combo together you can send bullets raining down on the opponent's end of the screen in an effort to wipe them out, they of course can dodge these bullets and retaliate. By using the power gauge, creating combos(which involve using the swarms of enemies in combination with your enemy's bullets), one can send out extra attacks with unique properties or even send out bosses to hassle their opponent. By triggering fever mode it's not uncommon to see the screen so filled with bullets it starts to feel like something out of Mars Matrix or a shooter by Cave. Amidst all of the chaos however there is a constant focus and direction in the game and with a clear head and maybe a few screen-clearing bombs you can get out of most any situation.

Though this may put out some much of my focus on AAA will be on games that don't feature a directly competitive element. That is there won't be any looks at fighters or any other game where in order to get the most out of it you need somebody playing against you. Besides there's always room for a FAD(Fighter Appreciation December) or something else along those lines.

Anyway the single-player modes in Twinkle Star Sprites consist of a basic 7 stage mode where you fight a series of wacky characters(complete with equally wacky speeches) or a mode where you play solely as the lead heroine Load Ran which has just a bit more emphasis on story. Aside from quite a few endings and practice is there any the real incentive to playing singleplayer?

A scoring system is in place in TSS. At the end of every fight(provided you win) you're scored on how fast you beat your opponent and how high your combo count has gotten. At the end of the game all remaining lives translate into a 100k bonus each and you get an life for 500k points. Over the course of the battle one of the powerups you can collect is a little $ sign that grows exponentially as you collect more of them(i.e. it starts from 10 measly points and moves up). 

I'll go ahead and point this out right now. If you want to attain the highest scores possible in TSS you have to set the difficult to the hardest setting. The bonus you get for beating an opponent quickly is negated simply by the fact that you get far more points for dragging fights out as long as possible. However these fights can't go too long because Death himself will appear and chase you down. Either way however you don't want the battles to end quickly and that means your AI opponent has to survive for as long as possible. Some games like Magical Drop 3 give such a huge bonus for defeating your opponent quickly that it makes sense not to try and drag them out. 

However after a certain point depending on your skill you will hit a brick wall in the form of Memory: the game's last boss. Aside from possessing a very good special attack and the highest stats in the game her AI dodging is second to none. If you can survive long enough I'd argue that most of the points you're going to make in any single-player TSS are going to be off of her. In fact after a certain point those 100k bonuses for remaining lives will seem kind of pointless if you can skim double or even triple that in a very long losing round with Memory. Unlike most of the other opponents in single player you'll have little to worry about Memory being overwhelmed. In fact at this point the design of the game seems to change. Cause really 99% of the time(especially on the hardest setting) you simply can't win against Memory. No matter what you send down on her she'll get around it and if she does die it's a completely random fluke that makes no sense at all. So at this point it's best not to even worry about trying to beat Memory, instead you focus on surviving as long as possible. It's more akin to the everyday Endless mode you see in most falling block(tetris, PuyoPuyo, etc) puzzlers. You play until you lose, there's no other way around it. 

Unfortunately with the random elements in play I can't really recommend TSS as a great single-player game. Although you can create tough situations for the AI you can't directly kill them nor can you guarantee that whatever you throw at them will. Arcade games are no stranger to random elements certainly but even then there are factors that have to remain in place to guarantee that luck should never play a role in determining a high score. Actually hoping your opponent will succeed in evading your attacks is a rather inexplicable idea and flies in the face of good game design. It is still an excellent game however and one of the best when played with a friend. 

AAA looks at: Fifty Arcade games that are worth your time and other things.

Some of you folks may be familiar with this: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=331544

Unfortunately as all of you can see I never quite got around to finishing this piece. So in honor of AAA it's time I go back and finish what I started. To hopefully make this more than a mere copy & paste I'm going to take another look as to whether or not these games really deserve to be in the list and work in some more details on what really makes them so great.

I also want to take a more in-depth look at this collection: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=342296

Quite a handful of games on Taito Legends 2 are not what I would refer to as classics. However they all have their place and show how Taito has grown as an arcade-game developer. Even the worst games in this collection have some significance and I hope to expound upon that in the very near future.

On April 5th Gamestop is running their Gamerdays sale and one of the listed items is Namco Virtual Arcade Museum which is apparently going to run for only $15. Really it's an absolutely insane deal seeing as how it includes 9 XBLA titles(which altogether would normally run $60) and it even includes 20+ arcade games including a few PSP remakes. I'll go ahead and point out unfortunately that the emulated arcade games aren't perfect(borders and no ability to TATE aka tilt your TV/monitor to get the original aspect ratio of vertically oriented games) but they're a good enough representation so gamers can pick their favorites for when a better version comes along(like the Virtual Console Arcade, which is getting massive Namco support). Regardless there's a large number of Namco arcade classics I'd like to go over so it should be worth a look.

Cause arcade games are the best. Why are the best? It's simply because they have to be. It takes as much as $60 or more to determine if a console game is bad. An arcade game on the other hand? As little as 25 cents. Course I guess that saying loses its relevance these days with the whole death of arcades and all that but I still think it applies.

AAA look: Dynamite Cop

Dynamite Cop is the first game I'm going to look at for Arcade Appreciation April. Developed by Sega and considered the sequel to Dynamite Deka/Die Hard Arcade the plot involves Bruno from the first game(looking a lot less like Bruce Willis) joined by two new characters(who fit the standard female and minority archetype we've come to expect from the beatemup genre) who take on an old foe to rescue the president's daughter from terrorist pirates.

One of the major issues I have with arcade ports is how can I know if I'm getting the game as I should experience it in the arcades? This question tends to come up quite often in Dynamite Cop. The default game mode is actually quite easy. In fact with regular play I see no reason why anyone can't get a one-credit clear(which will be referred to as 1CC from now until the end of time). The game barely hits the 15 minute mark and DC introduces a rather major design decision that makes getting a 1CC relatively easy.

Unlike most beatemups where if you grab a health item while at max health you gain either a bonus to your score or nothing at all. In Dynamite Cop however(at least in the Dreamcast version) all of the health items you can collect actually stack. This means that you can continue to collect health items and have 2 or 3 times the amount of health that you normally would. Though this is somewhat balanced out by making healing items recover a small amount of life it's not enough to really cover what essentially takes quite a bit of challenge out of the main game. To add to this successfully completing QTEs(which are predictable and quite easy, though you miss out on chances to score more points since there are less thugs to beat up) gives health and another DC-exclusive you can find hidden items for the art gallery(which give health as well). 

It's painfully clear that the original mode in Dynamite Cop is not arcade-perfect. Though it matches up well in terms of graphics & gameplay the addition of Dreamcast-exclusive items like the portraits make the game a bit too easy. Upon clearing the first three scenarios one can access three new ones that change up the gameplay quite a bit. These require the player to deal with more unique scenarios like fighting every battle under a strict time limit or weapon damage is quite a bit higher and without the ability to continue. However this doesn't alleviate the original issue of the lack of a mode that actually stays true to the arcade version.

In any case I'd recommend the Survival mode and/or the special difficulty modes. If nothing else they're at least challenging since you have less health to work with(Survival mode essentially requires that you beat up 100 people with one bar of health) and the other modes take away the ability to find art gallery portraits(and thus gain health from them). 

With all that out of the way I will say that Dynamite Cop is a worthwhile pick-up. For one it features quite possibly one of the most impressive movelists I've ever seen in the genre, and for a 15-minute long beatemup it also boasts one of the most exhaustive art galleries I've ever seen. It also sort of helps that Dynamite Cop is one of the very few worthwhile beatemups on the Dreamcast(really what else is there? Zombie Revenge?)

Tranquilizer Gun: Also included with Dynamite Cop is a port of this ancient arcade game. You play as a hunter who has to shoot animals until they fall asleep and drag them to your van so they can get thrown into zoos or made into boots. It's slow, clunky, ugly, and really not designed well at all.