Almost SEGA Good! A 1UP Classic...

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Pardon the lateness of this entry (I usually have something posted before lunch). This time around I wanted to write a little bit about my hometown, the fine city of Long Beach California. There are plenty of places to write about, but I think fans of videogames might like to learn a little bit more about downtown and a stretch of road called Shoreline Drive.

Back in the day Namco/Atari released Pole Position. One of the most famous CART-Champ Car tracks was titled Seaside. A not so subtle lift from the real track featured in the Long Beach Grand Prix.


There are many beautiful tracks all over the world, from Monaco to Mexico, Brazil to Japan. But of all the tracks ever put in a game, or raced in the real world, I'd dare say that Seaside Drive is almost SEGA good!

Almost SEGA good? What the heck does that mean?

SEGA arcade racers have always featured some of the most jaw-dropping visuals in any racing games. Even non race fans like my brothers were wowed by the creativity that went into the track designs in games like Daytona USA and Scud Race (SEGA GT).

Even if the track was an oval for example, the designers at SEGA AM2 wanted it to be memorable. In Daytona 2 the oval track was built indoors, with a nature preserve on the inside track and large sails blocking out the sun high overhead. A building like that would dwarf every other sport stadium. It would only work in a virtual world and I was grateful that SEGA always went that extra step making tracks memorable.

Scud Race had players drifting exotic supercars through tight city streets, Indiana-Jones style temples, under the ocean and through an airport! The best track in my opinion was the Medium Difficulty track on Daytona 2. Not only was the race course challenging but it was built, supposedly, in and around an amusment park. The finish line was directly underneath a dragon boat, part of the track went through a haunted mansion, another part through a smokey western town, then arctic village then through a suspended bridge that roller coasters twisted around.

The only arcade racer ever to come close was Hydro Thunder.


But I digress. This blog isn't about comparisons, at least not between arcade racers. This is about SEGA and the one race course that I think is almost SEGA good.


The main portion of the Long Beach track goes near downtown on Shoreline Dr. There is a skyline and bridges to go under but many tracks real and virtual also have that. What makes Long Beach so special? Go further down Shorline and you'll go under a special bridge.


Wait a minute is that what I think it is?

We've all seen the ferris wheel in games like SEGA's Virtua Racing and even Sony's Gran Turismo. But is that? No, it couldn't be! A roller-coaster track on a bridge?! A roller-coaster track that Indy-cars get to race under?!


Looks pretty damn sweet, but alas it is just a sculpture that pays tribute to the amusment park that used to be located on Shoreline Dr. The Pike used to be a pretty rocking amusement park back in the day. It featured the Cyclone Racer, at the time the second-largest roller coaster in the USA, and built on a pier! From the late 70's to the 90's the Pike was taken apart and Shoreline Dr. was pretty bleak and empty. In recent years however the city has gone back and begun to restore some of the lost heratige.


Back to the subject at hand. The track at Long Beach! Just because the roller-coaster track isn't real doesn't mean we're out of eye-candy. While still racing on Shoreline Dr. we pass Rainbow Lagoon, a park where the famous Long Beach Jazz Festival happens every summer.


The Lagoon is in the shadow of a hotel and the artist Wyland's current largest mural Planet Ocean.

Pull a hairpin turn on Shoreline and head back the way you came. On the left you'll see the Pacific Ocean and the Queen Mary.


You'll also pass the massive bleachers of Grand Prix spectators. Go right next the the awesome Aquarium of the Pacific and even melt your brakes on the infamous turn 3 before getting back on Shoreline Drive


Even though the roller-coaster track on a bridge isn't real Long Beach still has one of the best race courses in the world! A course that is so awesome it defies tradition and is almost SEGA good! If you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

A trip back to 1982. A 1UP classic...

There's not much to report in game news. I'm trying to figure out why they call Cliffy B. "Dude Huge" now. What's that about? He seems like an average size guy to me. Looking forward to Gears of War 2, well at least my brother is. I'm still waiting to see something that piques my interest for the Xbox 360, especially since the new Hulk game wasn't as well made as the previous one. I did find something rather awesome, or kind of sad, depending on your point of view. My brother found an old catalog in the doctor's office while waiting for a checkup, he took it home to share with me. The electronic game section was so amazing that I had to scan the pages in.

The Hartman Catalog Showrooms seem to be no more. I searched online and in the phone books and it looks like they closed shop a while back. These pages were taken from their 1982 catalog. Good gravy! Were some of you even born then? I was 8-years-old at the time and sure-enough, have fond memories of the handheld electronics. Some of the manufactures disappeared along with the arcade crash of the 80's. For a while some of the electronic handheld games were better than the consoles. I remember seeing the Pac Man 2 game and wondered if the handheld version fell in canon with the Pac Man and Ms. Pac Man titles.

Yes, even as a kid I was obsessed with the order and relationships between videogames and sequels. What was the plot and purpose of Pac Man 2? Would the blue and black color scheme replace the yellow and blue of the arcade cabinet? Were these new ghosts chasing Pac Man, were the mazes really going to become horizontal rather than vertical? These things fascinated me. Talk about a kook in the making!

The 3D Dungeons & Dragons game by Mattel fascinated me. My uncle and cousin each had a copy of the LCD D&D game from the year before. The various handheld titles were expensive for the time. Considering we had a couple of led lights in place of a real screen and no memory worth measuring, these titles were the cornerstone of technology and warranted the price tag. The most expensive game in the lineup was the Mattel Computer Chess game. It cost $119 in 1982, if you figure inflation that would be around $250 today.

The idea of having a single handheld game system that had interchangeable cartridges was a pipe dream. Each handheld game had to have a theme and custom-built input. Just like their arcade counterparts. Maybe someday in the far future, in the time of Buck Rogers, would we ever see such technology that allowed for a universal portable gaming device. Seven years later, practically another half of my lifetime, we were introduced to the Gameboy. The era of limited portable gaming was over.

The consoles at the time were pricey and underpowered, by today's standards. The most expensive of these, the Intellivision was $329 in the catalog. If you figure inflation that is like spending $700 today. The Odyssey and 2600 would have been around $425 in today's currency. Suddenly the PS3 doesn't seem so pricey anymore. Parents had to scrape and save to get those items in time for Christmas. My parents made a lot of sacrifices getting the 2600 to my brother. Being the only kids on the block that brought the arcade home was worth it. I have yet to find a person that owned one or two of these systems back in the day and did not have warm memories of them. Most of my generation here on 1UP, and a lot of the editors past and present, they can recall similar stories. The Atari 2600 forever changed us and gave us something to look forward to at the end of the day.

It is very interested to think about how far we have come in 26 years. The three major console developers highlighted in the catalog, Atari, Magnavox and Atari are no longer major players in the game. Even the name of Atari carries little value in the market today. It's kind of sad in a way but the memories of those rare handheld systems and early consoles will forever remain special to us gamers. Before I get all weepy I'll get back to work. Later today I have a live jazz performance. If the weather cooperates then I might have some video for you tomorrow! Keep your fingers crossed and let me know what you were up to in 1982... that is if you were even born yet. If you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

A look at IGS, the Martial Masters. A 1UP classic...

The second studio that I would like to mention in this post brawler series is IGS from Taiwan. This independent developer and publisher has been releasing titles for almost 20 years, the majority of which players in the US have never tried or seen. The company does not go out of its way to promote a strong presence in English-speaking countries and only partially updates their web presence in Asian countries outside of Taiwan and China. Their focus has always seemed to have been based on following trends and becoming very good at imitating styles from developers in Japan. Currently they seem to be testing the waters of iPhone and other smart phone game projects as well as partnering up with MMO developers. They first entered the arcade consciousness in 1994 with Alien Challenge. The fighting game was subpar and even nonsensical when compared to other titles on the market. Their follow up fighter Gouken Kyoutou aka the Killing Blade, released in 1997, was a sort of Chinese take on the sword fighting game Samurai Spirits. Again, it was nothing special considering the number of great fighting games that had been in circulation at that time. However each successive arcade title was better than the previous, they were evolving at a rapid pace and would release a title that would be discovered in latter years through the MUGEN PC fighting engine. Those that managed to see Martial Masters in their local arcade certainly did a double-take.

Martial Masters was released in 1999, after Street Fighter III: Third Strike yet bore an uncanny resemblance to the Capcom fighter. At that point every major publisher and developer of fighting games had shut down their 2D game development teams. The sprite they assumed was a dead format and players would be likely to ignore new fighters using traditional methods. As the success of Sammy, DIMPS and SNK showed through the new millennia the other publishers were wrong IGS bet that their fighting game would grab long time fans of the Street Fighter series and give them a new experience to sink their quarters into. They started with their own PGM system, an arcade console more powerful than the Neo Geo and thus capable of rendering large sprites with dozens of animations per character. These sprites looked closer to those presented on the more powerful Capcom CPS-III system. What IGS did was nothing short of genius or a blatant rip-off, depending on whom you asked.

In order to make a fighter that had the elements of Street Fighter without outright copying the cast. Data East had copied Street Fighter II with Fighters History in 1993 and got slapped with a lawsuit by Capcom a year later. The courts ruled in favor of Data East and the results of which were other studios were able to develop fighting games with eerily similar characters and control schemes. IGS did not outright copy the cast as controls through Martial Masters, they did however poach the Capcom artistic style. Of course copying an artistic style was only part of the challenge. The other would be to fill a roster of fighting archetypes that were unique and memorable. By '99 there had been dozens of fighting games at home and the arcade, just about every possible character combination and fighting style had been explored. The brilliance of IGS was in filling out the roster with characters that were inspired by, and almost direct copies of, the fighters featured in the Once upon a time in China movie series The strict IP laws that curb comics, movies and games in the US seem to be more lax overseas. This loose interpretation of copyright allows for a thriving fan-based comic industry in Asia, as well as hobbyists creating models of popular characters in limited edition runs. Martial Masters was an example of that type of mentality influencing character designs in a game.

The sprites featured in Martial Masters (MM) were large and colorful. The male and female archetypes were all there, including a strong Chinese female lead, just as in the SF series. However the differences between SF design and designs featured in other fighting games were subtle yet more complex than most realized. The SF series succeeded in part because the masters of their respective art were inspired by actual and mythological heroes. They were an amalgamation of the inspirations but done in such a way as that the characters could never be pinned onto one person. Ryu in SF for example was based in part on karate masters Mas Oyama and Yoshiji Soeno with a look from Ken from Fist of the North Star. For MM and some of the other games, the designs were blatantly based on the mannerisms and gestures of popular actors, including Jet Li, Bruce Lee and Donny Yen.

More than that, some of the characters and moves in MM appeared to have multiple sources of inspiration. The Tiger character for example had the size and proportions from SF III's Alex but with some of the slashing moves from Wolverine of the X-Men.

Speaking of Tiger, he was a good example of the proportions that IGS had used to create sprites similar to Capcom's. The design of the characters was set somewhere in between the sprites used for SFIII and SF Zero / Alpha. Tiger appeared very much like a playable version of Chun-Li's partner from the ending of the game.

The other characters used the general proportions and scale made popular by Bengus. The Monk character for example had roughly the same size and proportions of the Hulk from the Marvel fighting game. If not Zangief from Street Fighter Alpha.

Of course not all of the characters were inspired by Capcom characters. Others were inspired by archetypes featured in other games but presented in the Capcom style. The Drunk Master for example appeared like the hybrid of Chin Gentsai from the King of Fighters and Gen from SF Zero. Not to take anything away from IGS because the character was fun to play as and had many original moves and animations. He, and several other characters should have returned for a sequel.

The subtle elements that IGS designers missed when imitating the SF character designs became obvious for the more esoteric fighting styles. The characters Scorpion and Ghost Kick highlighted the lack of understanding of how certain fighting styles appeared in the SF universe. The characters in Street Fighter were all representatives a particular style, like karate, kung-fu and wrestling. These characters had moves were not grounded in any particular school however. What the team at Capcom did was apply a stance and set of moves that mirrored the popular concepts but were optimized for use in a game engine. Ken and Ryu had moves that looked like karate strikes, Chun-Li had moves that looked like kung-fu strikes. Most of these moves looked fantastic, even if they were impractical, the purpose was that they could be animated and balanced within the fighting engine. Martial Masters took some of the styles too literally and presented the masters with exaggerated arts and stances. These forms may have appeared in a SF game, however the designs and stances for Scorpion and Ghost Kick were too unbalanced and exaggerated. The characters created a visual distraction that upset the symmetry of the rest of the cast. Moreover they would be difficult to animate moving and fighting convincingly with the rest of the cast.

As well made as the sprites were, the game was lacking substance. This would prove to be the biggest trend for almost all the IGS games. The studio was capable of following trends and even imitating the best developers in the industry, however the games were always lacking something. In the case of Martial Masters the game had decent controls and move sets for each character but it lacked balance. Every great fighting game strives for balance. Balance in the amount of damage that moves take, balance in how quickly characters attack, how slowly they recover and what strikes take precedence. A game that allows for players to constantly juggle opponents with a barrage of strikes and gives them no chance to recover or counter is clearly unbalanced. Almost all of the characters in Martial Masters were able to perform an endless loop of attacks that could completely drain the energy of an opponent. These things would have never appeared in a numbered SF title because of the extensive balancing process.

The flaw for IGS was clearly the lack of experience behind their developers. They could imitate Capcom and even create characters that were animated on par with the best efforts from the Japanese studio but they did not understand how all of the elements worked together in order to build a Capcom caliber fighting game. The levels were nice but lacked the vitality of the SF levels, the controls were good but not precise, the characters were diverse but almost all rooted in Asia rather than the global community that made up the SF cast. If I could describe an IGS game it would be anemic. It lacked the size and energy to have run with the major publishers. Players could see what the studio and designers wanted to do and appreciated the effort they made in bringing a game to market, especially after Capcom had closed its 2D wing. What killed the gamers though was that the games always seemed to be lacking something. Martial Masters looked and played like a SF game that was 80% maybe even 85% finished. At that stage it was good enough to demo at a trade show and get buyers interested in ordering arcade cabinets. For gamers it was not enough, that 85% was still more than a half a year's worth of hard work to make up for. It lacked the polish and level of detail that made the Capcom fighters great. Had IGS only had more time or team members then perhaps Martial Masters could have made an even bigger impact with the community. That, or the very least they could have had larger publishers looking to bring their fighting game to home consoles.

Thankfully, the PC emulation program MUGEN had brought these sprites to a whole new generation. Players could see how the Martial Masters would have stacked up against the Street Fighters. IGS did not create another game that was in the traditional SF vein. However a few years ago they did release a title in the arcades and the Playstation 2 that was similar to Guilty Gear. Spectral VS Generation came out in 2006 featuring developer Idea Factory’s Spectral Force vs Generation of Chaos. The game was fun but lacking. It was similar to Martial Masters in that it felt anemic. The levels were sparse, animations fun but not extraordinary, the character designs familiar but not revolutionary. IGS had fallen into a trap of a "good" game being "good enough" for the publisher.

The publisher would actually release two titles that were better gaming experiences. One of which fell into the trappings of Martial Masters, but in a different genre, and one title which could honestly stand on its own merits among the best arcade games ever produced. If you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

A look at IGS, the Gladiator; Road of Sword. A 1UP classic...

Gladiator: Road of Sword was released in 2001, just a year after Demon Front. I had mentioned this game previously during my Brawler series but decided that it should get an additional mention here. It deserves special mention because it was the best game published by IGS and was easily one of the greatest brawling games ever made. If I had to rank it among all of the brawling games ever released I would say it was in the top 10 of all-time. I would go further and say that it belonged in the top 5. After that it would be a matter of opinion. I would actually rank it in the top 3 for its designs, control, animation, characters, originality and execution. Consider also that this title was completely ignored by the staff at Game Informer when they compiled a list of the Top 10 Brawlers in October 2011.

In the past month and a half I had covered over 100 games in my brawling series. I’ve played them all, and thanks to emulators played several recently just to refresh my memories. When I read Game Informer’s list I was saddened and dismayed. One of the greatest brawlers ever was completely dismissed, possibly because it was a rare arcade title unfamiliar to the console-leaning staff.

Gladiator: Road of Sword got many things right. It was a brawler set in classic Dynasty-era China. However it was more refined than IGS’s other popular Knights of Valour series, which was beat-for-beat a better version of Capcom’s Warriors of Fate. Of course it would stand to reason that IGS was producing sprite-based brawlers that looked better than the Capcom classics because they were released almost a decade after Capcom's! Where Gladiator succeeded was in recreating the best elements that Capcom refined, if not introduced into the genre. IGS then improved on the mechanics and took the experience in new directions.

The first thing that most players noticed were the character designs. They were all well done and quite original, in a style that was closer to the Japanese manga aesthetic than the previous designs which were closer to Chinese manhwa comics. They did not poach the Bengus style as they had in Martial Masters or the Nazca style as they did in Demon Front, this was a new style altogether for Gladiator. The heroes were based on some familiar archetypes. The large burly fighter that moved slowly (Ko), the female swordfighter (Chin), the petit but speedy female fighter (Hsiung), the female weaponsmith (Huang), the elderly kung-fu master with strong special strikes (Mr Wu), and of course the young kung-fu master with great all-around attacks (Chu). The six playable characters had distinct styles and each had their own library of regular and special attacks. They did not all fight with bare hands, some of the characters had weapon-based attacks and special moves. Where the game elevated the standard was in the robust fighting system. Players could parry attacks with perfectly timed button and joystick inputs, perform mid air special attacks and even jump up quickly if knocked down to perform a counter attack. These things would normally be reserved for a dedicated fighting game rather than a brawler.

IGS then developed a new mechanic. Each character could collect special scrolls that expanded their techniques. Players could earn five scrolls with a completely different set of moves applied within. Players could then switch between the fighting techniques with the push of a button. Each style worked better for different bosses and enemy types. Best of all the techniques could be switched in the middle of a combo, or even combined with the special attacks of other players to form specially animated super attacks. The game supported 2, 3 or 4 characters performing super attacks, provided that the other characters also had earned the technique scrolls as well. It was as an impressive a fighting system if not more so than that featured in Guardian Heroes. Unlike GH however these characters were not locked onto a 2D playing field.

The game also featured a leveling system which applied to their health bar and increased their striking power. The more multi-hit combos players could perform the faster they could level up. Bosses offered the most points once defeated. It behooved players to use a string of special attacks to keep juggling bosses for a long combo string and then split the points with teammates at the end of the level. The way the combat system worked was not unlike the magic system in Capcom’s Dungeons and Dragons games. Where IGS trumped both Capcom and Treasure was that this title was a pure beat-em-up brawler. All of the attacks and special moves were based on the fighting arts, not on magic. Characters didn’t have to go searching through a level to obtain magic vials or pick up weapons. The characters had all the screen-clearing moves they needed. Yes, there were fireballs and other explosive attacks, but these were representative of the mythical techniques known only to a handful of masters in the history of the martial arts In this case it would be the main characters.

Having opponents that represented a cross archetype of mythological and historical villains also made the game more interesting. Bandits, soldiers, spies and roving guards were only the beginning of the opponents players faced. The game had bloodthirsty warlords, zealous monks, crooked priests and evil kung-fu masters. These were highly stylized representations of the male and female villains that might have turned up in a classic kung-fu movie. All of the villains of course had their own sets of special attacks that looked as impressive as anything players could perform.

The levels were very well done, populated with a diversity of enemy types each representing one of the warring factions. The stages ranged from rural and small towns to open fields, deserts and mountain paths where soldiers defended secret fortifications. The architecture was a cross section of Asian influences, including Chinese, Mongolian and Korean. Villages could have been located in any major city of the classical era, some temples and statues had Buddhist themes while others were non-secular. This diversity made the game more appealing to the countries that IGS was targeting Players could chose which path they wanted to explore in between levels, thus increasing the replay value.

Players that had grown up on fighting games and brawlers could find no better marriage of the two genres. Those that wanted to experience the game as only a brawler could do that by using basic moves over and over and exploiting techniques learned from past games. Those that wanted to experience the game as a fighter could try out the various styles and attacks that could be unlocked through the course of the adventure. The balance between the characters and their moves was very well done. There was no right or wrong way to play Gladiator, but those that dug deeper found out that it was a solid playing experience and quite possibly the pinnacle of the genre. It was the best experience from the studio that also developed the memorable Knights of Valour and Oriental Legend series. Game Informer be damned for leaving it off the list of top 10 brawlers!

Unfortunately this game suffered the same fate as Demon Front. Very few people ever saw it, let alone played it because it was only released in the arcades. Unless you lived in an Asian country, or were lucky enough to live in a city with a strong Asian community then you were out of luck. I was fortunate because the Los Angeles area has Little Tokyo, Chinatown and Korea Town, not to mention the numerous suburbs where arcades and stores with IGS games could be located. Had I never known the experiences of the PGM system then I would have been at a loss as a gamer. With the majority of the titles un-emulated then YouTube would be the only way for gamers to see the good times they missed.

Hopefully the brawling series has given readers a chance to learn a little something about some of the best games ever made. Perhaps players might be willing to explore their town for some rare arcade experiences and share them with the community as well. I had a fun time writing about brawlers over the past few weeks and hope to start enjoying some of them very soon. I am sorry that I have not replied to more of your comments. I do read them all but my 14-hour days limits how much time I get to respond or do anything else. I hope you understand and thank you for being good friends. If you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

A look at IGS, Demon Front - A 1UP classic from December 27, 2011

IGS had developed a handful of memorable titles only a few of which were ever released outside of the arcade. The best titles featured on their PGM arcade system never saw home release. That would be one of the biggest tragedies in all of gaming. The one featured today was easily one of the best titles they ever produced. Like Martial Masters, the first title featured was copying the artistic style and mechanics of a rival studio. In this case they would be copying SNK and Nazca's masterful Metal Slug series. The perpetrator in question was Demon Front. The game came out in 2000, around the time of Metal Slug 3. The pictures featured here are courtesy of NGGames.

Artistically and design wise the games were so similar that arcade visitors were likely to overlook the title. Just like Martial Masters though players often did a double take when they realized this was a completely different studio. This curiosity would cause them to take a closer look. As they dug in they realized that the game had slightly different mechanics and a slightly different take on the genre, which was actually refreshing for fans of the Metal Slug series. The game took place on the alien planet Andres, some 20 light years away from Earth.

Every three years the planet had a lunar eclipse. According to legend during the eclipse the inhabitants could become demons. This was just a myth as none of the inhabitants had turned to demons during the previous eclipses. That was until one eclipse lasted for 3 months causing most of the population to mutate into horrible creatures. Few escaped before going mad. One of the main characters, Maya, had survived his mutation and was drawn back home to clean out the demons. That was where the adventure began for players.

The game featured four main characters, each highly stylized and with the familiar Metal Slug proportions. Two were humans from Earth, Jack and Sara. The bearded humanoid Dr. J from the planet Loukai and Maya from Andres. What separated these characters from the MS ones were the additions of tiny pets. Each character was accompanied by a small avatar that could form a protective shield around their owner but also possessed a special attack power. Jack had a red ghost-looking creature called Rage. He could perform middle distance attacks. Sara had an alien-rabbit type creature called Bunny which had long range attacks. Dr. J had a one-eyed robot called Chip that had a powerful close range attack and Maya had a bat-like creature called Flip which could perform middle-distance shots.

These pets closely followed the players through the levels and were always available to use. The addition of pets actually improved upon the Metal Slug mechanics.

In Metal Slug players had to carefully manage their weapons and ammunition There were ways in which to unlock unlimited ammo in the game, however these techniques were not common knowledge to players. Most gamers would just run from location to location hoping that more powerful ammo would be available.

In Demon Front players could get different ammo types, but they could also supplement a lack of a weapon upgrade by using the special attacks from the pets. More important, the pets could form a protective shield around their masters. This shield energy could be replenished or deactivated by the player during the course of any level. Anybody that has ever played Metal Slug could say how much they wish characters could have had some sort of defensive or energy absorbing mechanism. Players also had backpacks that formed energy wings, allowing them to glide for short moments and clear massive gaps.

The characters and pets could all be leveled up, depending on how many opponents were defeated and which player did the most damage to the boss. A player could have more tiers on their health bar and the pets could have stronger attacks or have their shield last longer. In fact the pets themselves would physically change and become larger and more aggressive-looking as they leveled up. This leveling system was unique among run-and-gun titles.

The world of Andres was fun and fanciful. Because it was based in part science fiction, part alien and part demonic incursion, the artists were able to design levels and vehicles that were unlike those featured in other run-and-gun titles. The balance between animated humor, action and monsters was well struck. None of the bosses or monsters was ever too gross or visceral. None of the five stages poached those featured in Metal Slug. The game offered a sixth and final stage against four possible demon bosses, each one was a sort of gigantic, and gross looking version of the pets of the main characters. The only way to reach the hidden boss was if players could collect the demon claws hidden in each level. Otherwise they would just get to enter their initials on the leaderboard and it would be Game Over.

The game was great but the differences between it and Metal Slug were obvious as players went through it. The opponents were not as diverse or as numerous as they would have been in a Metal Slug game. Nazca and SNK would go out of their way to pack every level with scores of enemies. Some even riding in tanks or other vehicles, all raining gunfire, mortar shells and grenades down onto players. During the most hectic battles in Metal Slug there was actually very little breathing room for players. Of course the same thing could be said of most shoot-em-up titles. They catered to a certain type of player that thrived on nonstop action.

In Demon Front players could select which order they were going to do the levels in. This allowed players to save themselves for the harder stages, especially once the pets and characters had increased statistics. By comparison Metal Slug had always been a linear experience.

Demon Front had great themes, details and solid art direction but it was by no stretch of the imagination as hyper detailed as any Metal Slug game. The difference between level designs, details and the enemy types between the two games was not apparent the first time I played the title. It was not until I looked at a side-by-side comparison of it with Metal Slug that I realized Demon Front was slightly anemic. Not that it was a bad thing. The game certainly had more polish and work put into it than Martial Masters did when it was compared to Street Fighter III. While Demon Front didn’t have the diversity or details from the SNK series it more than made up for those elements by adding a winged backpack, pets, and a level up system.

 

If you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

Art and writing projects are coming along...

 I'm working on new art, and new writing projects. I might do a short dive on the Street Fighter characters announced so far in 2021. In the meantime here's a poster I'm particularly proud of.

If you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

A good dream. A 1UP classic...

About 20% of my dreams are about videogames. Some of them classic, many on the arcade, some of them new, but the majority are about games that have never existed. Two nights ago I had one of the most vivid game dreams I've had in a while. Now you have to use your imagination because I can only draw in 2D. The game in my dream was all in 3D and high definition I might add! It all started out with these soldiers running up a hill in a quiet suburban neighborhood. There were few houses, a great mountain range and nothing but wide open spaces.

I don't play RTS games and especially not war games. My older brother loves RTS games and his favorites have been Advance Wars, and he's looking at getting Batallion Wars now.

The character designs of the soldiers were stylized. Somewhere in between the Advance Wars and Metal Slug designs. Are you starting to visualize my game a little better? Great. Now back to my dream.

As I pan the camera back I notice that the soldiers are advancing to something way in the background. The draw distance in my dreams is always exceptional! The ground was shaking and about 3 miles away Godzilla was fighting with Rodan!

In my dreams I have about 4 seconds to figure out the control scheme before the game ends. I pushed some buttons and noticed that I could zoom into the troops, select them and move them around with a few button presses. I guessed that my job was to slow down the advance of Godzilla and keep him from wandering into residential neighborhoods. It seemed easy enough since Rodan was keeping him busy and we were fighting way out in the boonies.

I clicked on the soldiers and noticed that there were specialists mixed in with the infantry. These are the characters I remembered. A demolitions specialist, a medic, machine gunner, flame thrower and general.

As the game progressed (there was no loading time). Godzilla and a different monster would begin a new fight and they'd drop the troops in the middle of the action. Way off in the distance I could see the lights from the city. I figured that sooner or later the harder levels would be taking me closer and closer into the city.

I would get to call in air strikes and artillery against the rampaging monsters. As the levels progressed I was able to get more special weapons to use such as the electric cannons on the beds of diesel trucks and even the flying Super-X.

The units under my command became more and more advanced the closer Godzilla got to the city. Eventually I got to use G-Force members, the elite task force called in when everything seems hopeless. They had access to special weapons that regular army folks didn't have, such as phaser rifles, the Super-X and even Godzilla's son Minya.

There was even a way to control the alien invaders that had brought some of the monsters to Earth. If you've ever seen the old Godzilla movies you'll remember the aliens were the people with curly toe shoes and razor thin sunglasses. With access to their UFO's, lightning rifles and ability to move some monsters around they added a whole new dynamic to the game.

Right before I woke up one of the last levels was starting up. King Ghidora flew into Tokyo to challenge Godzilla. Right away buildings were being toppled as monsters were being tossed through them. Too bad I woke up because the camera angles and particle effects of the buildings collapsing were great.

I can trace where most of the concepts in my dream came from. Aside from Godzilla movies, Metal Slug and Advance Wars I was a big fan of the King of the Monsters games from SNK - Neo Geo. I liked the first one more because it was a wrestling game, the second was more of a side scrolling brawler like Final Fight.

The second game that influenced my dream must have been War of the Monsters by Incognito. I've played that game backwards and forward and have unlocked everything and figured out all of the combos by myself. So there's no way I could give you and exact amount of hours spent playing that title. Needless to say the scale and scope of my dream was much bigger than what ended up in any other game. Ah, too bad I couldn't have recorded it!

If you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

Which game toy would you make if you could? A 1UP classic...

Friends, I am having a great time thinking out loud about our favorite games and rides. Corey had a great choice with the Hornet 41 from Daytona USA. It's a very realistic choice that could be easily adapted to the real world. Of course a stock car might not be a great daily driving car but if you absolutely have to get somewhere fast it would be the only choice. I'm more partial to the Chums Gum car myself.

We did get a lot of votes for the Batmobile from Arkham City. However any Batmobile is always a good choice for awesome rides. But with that said Chris takes the prize by suggesting S.O.P.H.I.A. would be his dream ride. The all-terrain vehicle from Blaster Master could handle everything and even jump. I don't know about you but I've been in many a situation where I wish my car could simply jump over traffic or off the freeway so I could take surface streets. Plus hopping in and out of parking spaces would be awesome, especially during the holiday season. The new question for you requires a little more imagination. 

Many of the people on 1UP are fans of their toys and collectables. I would like to know what videogame item or series do you think would make for a great toy. The foam Lancers from Gears of War and plastic Blades from God of War were great toys. But I am wondering about the toys that have never been made that you wish existed. Like Big Daddy hoodies, the Walking Dead edition of Operation, Journey plush dolls or Epic Mickey vinyl figures.

I wish that they made a second generation Sweet Tooth remote control car. The first one, based on the ice cream truck was cool but what if it was able to transform and walk around shooting plastic missiles? Take a look at the Brave Robotics remote control transformer and imagine the possibilities! 

What about you? If you were put in charge of designing toys based on videogames then what would you create? If you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!