Random crap.
Here is my hobby room, late at night. This is where I keep my retro game collection, my plastic models and hobby bench, and my Linux desktop. You can see my Pac-Man lamps, my Dragon Quest Slime lamp, and on the wall my Pac-Man LED neon lamp. The pixel art is done with iron beads. The posters from left to right are: Puyo Puyo 2 (SFC), Cardcaptor Sakura Tetris (PS1), Bubblegum Crisis, Sakura Taisen (Sat), and Dead or Alive 2 (DC).
I’m a jibungous fan of the Wipeout game series. Soon after I bought myself a Playstation in 1996 or so, I played the first game and I loved it. Antigravity racecars on futuristic racing courses, picking up powerups for weapons, speed boosts, and defensive capabilities, firing at each other in an attempt to slow down the competition… I loved it. Then came the sequel Wipeout XL, which had faster action, the ability to eliminate competitors, and had a hard-hitting techno soundtrack. That game introduced my cousin and me to techno. It was famous for Future Sound of London and Chemical Brothers, among others. Then came Wip3out, the third game. The music had changed… it was trance rather than techno, with Paul van Dyk, Sasha, Orbital, and others. It’s not what I expected, but in the end I now listen to trance far more today. The graphics were sharper, and it introduced the afterburner button. In the first two games, you needed to pick up a powerup for a speed boost, but in the third you can use the afterburner to do this, at the expense of depleting your shield energy, which puts you at risk of elimination.
I had a friend in my college years in the last half of the ’90s. I met him on an anime BBS just before I discovered the internet. He went to DeVry, gradauted after 3 years, and had a condo in the San Diego area while I was still a student. In the summer I’d go spend 2 weeks at his apartment. Heworked, but he also took time off to do stuff together, and we’d attend the San Diego Comic Con together. That was back when you could just show up, buy a one day ticket and attend. While he was at work, I’d park my ass on his sofa and play video games. He had a shy cat that would stay under his bed all day, but eventually she got used to me and made friends with me. I played the crap out of Wip3out, setting out to get the gold metal for every racer on every track on every difficulty level.
I loved the aesthetic that remained consistent among these three games, as the graphic design and stylized fonts and such were all done by The Designers Republic. I tried emulating their style when I made the index page for my homepage, full of stripes, bold colors, incorporated decorational Japanese text, and futuristic fonts.
On the PS2 there was Wipeout Fusion, which really changed the game and everyone was disappointed. It was developed by a totally new team, and they failed to live up to everyone’s expectations. Then on the PSP they released two solid Wipeout games that were closer to the original. I have Pure, but I never got around to buying Pulse. In 2012 though, Psygnosis merged with another company and was no more.
Last weekend, on Steam I discovered a game called Ballistic NG. It is the spiritual successor to the Wipeout series, developed by just two fans of the series. One guy is the lead developer, and the other guy specializes in the Linux and Mac programming. They even call themselves Neognosis Games, a reference of sorts to Psygnosis. Ballistic remains faithful to the first three games, and particularly the third game because it has the afterburner feature. I bought the game for only about 900 yen or so Sunday night, then Monday evening I played it, got used to it, and love it. I’ve been playing it every day as soon as I get home, and will likely do the same this evening.
I even remember the names of the different racing companies from the Wipeout games: Feisar, Auricom Research, AG Systems, Qirex, Assegai, Piranha… The racers in Ballistic are extremely similar to those in Wipeout, and their stats and handling make them feel very familiar.
The graphics are greatly updated, yet they still have a bit of an earlier Playstation feel to them. There are options to add emulated CRT scanlines and such, but I prefer not to have them.
Ballistic NG is available on Steam OS, so it runs natively on my Linux desktop flawlessly.
I always thought it would be cool if there were plastic models of the racers in the Wipeout series. I did a search and found 3D print files for many of them! They’d require decals to look nice, though.
One last thing about the old PS1 Wipeout games: you know the BGM track “Body In Motion” by Cold Storage? There’s a part when a distorted voice says repeats “body in motion” repeatedly. From the beginning, I always heard it wrong and thought it was saying “Easter Bunny” repeatedly instead. I’ve shared this with people and they can now hear it too.
We were in Takasaki last night and we stopped by the Mandai there. A few months ago, Mandai relocated from its large two buildings into a smaller building, sharing the location with Gunma Leisure Land game center. It’s confusing, but Mandai is located on the first and third floors, while Gunma Leisure Land is on the basement and second floors. Mandai has its own area of UFO catchers.
There were xenomorph figures from Alien in one UFO catcher. I gave it one shot and gave up. Those larger, heavier boxes are difficult to grab. I went into the main store area to look at figures and models while Mayu checked out the dagashiya/candy store area.
Amuro Rey figure, apparently from Char’s Counterattack.
A figure of the Serbine. I’m currently working on the Serbine model by Max Factory.
Plenty of Gundam models. Unfortunately, my camera wasn’t focusing properly on some of this stuff.
Next I went to the third floor to check out the video game stuff.
Neo Geo AES and Mega Drive games.
Boxed Super Famicom and Saturn consoles.
Here are the Super Famicom Mini and Mega Drive mini consoles, plus plenty of handhelds: Neo Geo Pocket Color, Game Boy Color, Wonderswan, Game Boy Advance, etc. I bought my first NGPC for only 1000 yen about 21 years ago in a cramped shopping alley under the train tracks in Kobe called Motoko. This shopping alley stretches between Sannomiya Station and Kobe Station and is home to many used clothing, used appliances, junk electronics, antiques, and retro game shops. At least that’s how it was when I lived in Hyogo Prefecture at the time.
Check out the prices on these Saturn games. Crows 18,000, Twinkle Star Sprites 10,000, Hyper Duel 60,000, Castlevania SOTN 16,000 (I think), can’t make out the price on Radiant Silvergun, Rockman 15,000, Doom 10,000 (NOT worth it), and I see a loose HuCard Parasol Stars for PC Engine laying in front of Dodonpachi. I really wish I had the chance to get Hyper Duel back in the day, but now it is incredibly expensive.
I guess not all retrogaming is terribly expensive. Here are Arkanoid, Arkanoid II, and After Burner for the Famicom, cart only, for decent prices.
I decided to check out their anime soundtracks and found several records for sale: Castle of Cagliostro, Urusei Yatsura, Ashita no Joe, Macross, and Gundam. Pretty cheap, too. I guess the hipsters are leaving the retro record market alone.
At Leisure Land, I played some air hockey with Ulan. There are two lonely Sega Astro City cabinets in the back corner with Shanghai games running on them. 100 yen gives you two credits, so I played this one. Shanghai III was next to it, but an older woman there playing on it.
So what did I buy that night? I bought this nice figure of Mai from King of Fighters, loose, for 1700 yen. It was a fun night.
I recently learned that Wild Guns on the Super Famicom by Natsume has been remade and is available on Steam. I haven’t played this game in over a decade. I have the SNES cartridge but was never able to get it for the SFC. Now it’s been remade with enhanced visuals and music, plus two additional characters (which are pretty meh). the original Clint and Annie are the best characters to play.
Cowboys vs. robots! Neon signs, disco rooms, steampunk contraptions. This is a pseudo 3D shooter, similar to Cabal. A button to shoot, a button to dodge/jump, and another button to ignite a bomb for heavy damage. Tap the shot button to lasso an enemy to stun him. Press the shot button on an enemy up close to activate a melee attack for bonus points.
Shoot bonus items to collect money and limited time shots, such as shotgun, heavy machine gun, bazooka, and this Ghostbusters-esque laser gun.
Cowboys vs. giant robots. Badass. So if Natsume is still around, it’d be nice if they could release their Pocky & Rocky/ Kiki Kaikai games on Steam. This game works flawlessly on my Linux desktop through the Proton utility.
Very cool. This game has yet to be released, but I could download a free demo of the game so far. At first glance, you’d swear that you were watching Star Fox on the Super Famicom/Super Nintendo.
It’s extremely similar in gameplay, although Ex Zodiac adds a lock-on missile attack, which is rather nice.
I haven’t spent a whole lot of time on this game, but it’s pretty fun. It’s available on Steam OS, so it runs natively on my Linux computer.
Alright, this is quite a neat game, which hearkens back to the 16-bit/32-bit era of 2D platformer games. Presented in a retro 4:3 aspect ratio (which my computer monitor is, which I prefer), it also has scanlines to enhance the nostalgic, CRT feel to the visuals.
You can cast zip lines to prevent from falling, as well as for climbing to higher platforms.
I find Steel Assault to be rather difficult. You have an energy whip to lash enemies, and can also punch them when up-close. It seems that I just have to die constantly until I figure out the attack patterns of the bosses and mid-bosses because it is pretty unforgiving.
So far I’ve only made it to the 2nd level. Very hard, but fun game. Fortunately, this game is available on Steam OS, so it runs natively on my Linux desktop computer.