Category: video games

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Annalynn, a retro arcade-style game on Steam!

This game came out last year, but I just now learned of it. Annalynn is a new game with an early ’80s arcade game appeal. It is a sort of a cross between Mario Bros. and Pac-Man.

The intro to this game introduces a miner named Annalynn, who finds herself in an underground construction zone. These four cute snakes, Randy, Candy, Handy, and Mike are down there and they don’t like this intruder and will chase you. Anna’s pick axe is broken, so now she is defenseless.

It took me a bit to figure out how to play. As you can see, it’s a side-view platformer arena, sort of like Mario Bros. The goal is to collect all of the gems, just like Pac-Man. But you can’t jump up to hit the beams to stun the snakes like Mario would. Your only button allows you to jump. The snakes cannot jump, but they can slither into the snake holes in the background to move up or down to different platforms. Also, there are some half platform sections where you can jump through.

The snakes respawn by falling from holes in the ceiling. They fall way faster than I would expect for an early ’80s game. I’m not griping, but I think I just need to get used to how this game works.

When you grab a power jem, the snakes all turn blue for a brief while and you can kick the crap out of them, so it’s just like Pac-Man in that regard.

You’ll be alerted when a bonus appears in the arena, like a cupcake in level 1. Once you’ve collected all the gems, you proceed to round 2. Each round appears unique.

After the 4th round, ropes are introduced, harkening to Donkey Kong Jr.

As expected, there is a simulated CRT mode with scanlines, but this takes it a bit further and simulates the curvature of an old monitor. Wow, that’s a neat effect, but I think I’ll leave it standard. There is also an option to give the snakes hats and sunglasses too.

The Proton utility allows this game to run perfectly in Linux. A 4:3 aspect ratio can be selected, which is always a welcome feature for me because I prefer 4:3 for my desktop. Actually, the 16:9 was enabled by default and I didn’t really notice it. All it really affects is the side art, which is very fabulously retro as well. The snakes are so cute! I think I will make iron bead versions of them.

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New addition to my Pac-Man obsession.

This lamp was over half off on Yahoo Shopping Japan, with free shipping. I couldn’t resist. It arrived last night. It now sits on top of my CD rack, next to my Diamond Select TWOK Enterprise, under my fabulous Nadia poster. This is on my side of the bedroom.

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The Sega World game center in my town has finally been renamed to Gigo. No more Sega Game centers…

Before:

After:

It was bound to happen eventually. The Sega World in my small town is finally being rebranded as Gigo. The iconic Sonic sign is in the process of being replaced and you can already see the Gigo sign above the door. Granted, nothing is changing except the name, but still, Sega has divested their arcade management division. You can read about this here:

https://www.nintendo.destructoid.com/sega-to-remove-its-name-from-arcades-in-japan-to-rebrand-to-gigo

I asked the manager if they were going to toss out the Sega flags, and he said no. He said that several others asked about the flags already, but he said that they will remain as decorations. The staff’s uniforms still say “Sega” on their backs. This rug is still in the front doorway.

I’d love to have a brand new rug like this in my home. I’m sure the female spouse unit would protest, though.

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My new Sega arcade stick arrived this evening!

Oh yeah! A month or so ago I was outbid on one of these on Yahoo Auctions Japan, but this month I scored. It’s a Virtua Stick for the Sega Saturn. Over 20 years ago, I had the opportunity to get the double-sized (2 players) version for about 8000 yen, but declined. I couldn’t afford it at the time, and plus it was just too big. This Virtua Stick gives you the feel of playing on an Astro City or Blast City cab at home. It has autofire switches and a slide to set its rate of fire. It was sold as “junk” because it hadn’t been confirmed, but so far it seems to work just fine. It was a bit filthy, but I cleaned it up. FYI: Zippo lighter oil works well to remove price tag residue.


Oh, and what’s that next to it? That’s my Mayflash Saturn to USB converter. It works in Linux and this evening I played some Pac-Man on my new Virtua Stick in Final Burn via RetroPie.

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Space shooter game ships—which one looks the coolest?

 I have model kits of half of these ships: Vic Viper from Gradius, R-9A Arrowhead from R-Type, Raiden, Solvalou from Xevious, Ikaruga, and the Silverhawk from Darius. There is a model kit of Twinbee, but I haven’t picked it up yet. Since Starfox is the only one in the picture that isn’t a 2D shmup, if we were to replace its Arwing fighter with the R-Gray1 from Layer Section/Raystorm, my vote would probably be for that one. But since it’s not there, I’d probably vote for the Ikaruga. Even though I don’t care for the game as much as others, the design is just so simultaneously elegant and deadly. I have models of the Ikaruga and Ginkei from that game.

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Hacking my Sega Megadrive Mini with Project Lunar

I’m on summer vacation this week. I finally did it. I haxxored my Mega Drive Mini. Mixed feelings. I had to install filthy Win10 onto a spare HD in order to run the Project Lunar software. It’s weird. My PC desktop is Linux, and these mini consoles are essentially small Linux boxes. Yet the software to interface with the Mini is Windows-only. WHY? Barf.

To hook the MD Mini to the PC, a USB cable capable of data transfers is necessary. Press and hold the reset button, connect the USB cable, then turn it on and wait for the power button to stop blinking. From there, the Project Lunar software lets you add games. Then at last you press the Synch button. Easy. The MD Mini’s internal HD has quite a lot of free space inside, so I was able to load several games.

I didn’t want to just dump a butt-ton of roms since I couldn’t care less about Rug Rats or Barbie or crap like that. I selected the games that I felt should have been on it, like Strider and the first Sonic (the MD Mini has Sonic 2 while the North American Genesis Mini came with the first Sonic).

Son, I am slightly disappoint. So get this. Project Lunar puts Retro Arch onto the console, yet there are compatibility issues. Sonic, Rolling Thunder 2 & 3, Thunder Force 4, Twinkle Tale, and several games I loaded onto it work just fine. HOWEVER… Devil Hunter Yohko gets to the title screen, but once the level begins, the screen goes black. Verytex and Tatsujin/Truxton are silent. Phelios causes the unit to crash and force a reboot. Panorama Cotton has a few glitch issues. There is a compatibility database, the “Mega Drive / Genesis Mini Compatibility List” located here:
https://megadrive-compatibility.netlify.app/

I didn’t know this before installing. I just figured with Retro Arch taking care of it, there would be no problem. Is the architecture of this MD Mini considerably different than a Raspberry Pi? I did not expect any games to not work as I figured there would be no such compatibility issues. That said, I can go ahead and remove the malfunctioning games and just focus on the excellent games it already comes with, plus games I must first verify compatibility before installing.

Something else that’s weird: I deliberately put the English fan translated rom of Gleylancer, yet it only detects Japanese. Even when I switch the unit’s language to English, it’s still in Japanese. That’s… weird.

Is it worth hacking the MD Mini? Yeah, I think so. Battle Mania 1&2, Arrow Flash, Road Blasters, and Gaiares work, but I am a bit bummed that Burning Force, Hellfire, and the others I mentioned above do not work.

So, this MD Mini console is a lot of fun, but in the end it still cannot compare to a Raspberry Pi running Retropie and using a Saturn controller through a Mayflash Saturn to USB converter, as it’ll run Gen/MD, CD, and 32X games.

Side note: I frickin’ HATE Windows10. Bloaty McBloaterson. The install ISO wouldn’t even fit onto a regular DVD-R! I had to use a dual-layer DVD-R. Sheesh! With Linux, you can boot to the install disc and run the actual OS off of it!

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Infinos Gaiden: a fantastic shmup that would be at home on the Sega Saturn

I picked up Infinos Gaiden via Steam’s summer sale. This is a fantastic game, reminiscent of Thunder Force and other 16-32 bit shmups. Via the Proton utility, this works perfectly on my Linux desktop. Not only does fullscreen mode work fine, but this game supports a 4:3 aspect ratio, which is perfect for my monitor and the overall retro feel. I breezed through the first level, then the difficulty picked up quite a bit.

These are scenes from the animated intro.

Here’s the first level. I cleared it without taking a hit on my first try. Pretty easy. The S powerup is for speed, the B is a barrier/shield similar to Gradius and Darius. The colored orbs provide you bits similar to the Craws from Thunder Force. They can also be used as shields.

I’ve seen a lot of newer shmups that just get repetitive, like Eschatos. It’s a fun game, but it’s just the same enemies charging at you over and over again. In the first level of Infinos Gaiden, you will see the city you are defending getting blasted by the invaders’ lasers in the background. As you can see here, there is quite a variety of enemies that come after you, and they aren’t even the final boss.

The second level takes you to a jungle, and you have to have to deal with this giant, walking mecha on your way into the enemy base!

Inside the base, the boss is this big tank. Neat!

Now you’re in a desert, and oh rats! It’s a sand storm.

This badass sandcrawler mecha is the boss of level 3.

Level 4 is so cool. You fly around this giant airship, and then fly into it.

Oh crap! I ran out of credits. So yeah, this game seems to work just fine on my Linux desktop. I just need to press Ctrl+Enter to get it to full-screen mode. What a neat game! With the 32-bit style pixel graphics and music, you’d swear you were playing a Saturn game. Actually, I saw a comment on Steam that the man responsible for this game’s music also did the music to Hyper Duel and Thunder Force V.

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Super Hydorah: a fun Konami-style shmup on Steam

I’ve had this game on my Steam wishlist for a while, and as soon as it went on sale this month, I bought it. It has a “silver” rating on the Proton Database, but after installing it, I had no problems running the game at all on my Linux desktop, without having to make changes.

Super Hydorah is obviously inspired by Konami side-scrolling shmups like Gradius and Salamander, but doesn’t try too hard to duplicate these games. The game features simulated CRT scanlines that look nice. Usually I opt to not enable such a feature because it just doesn’t look right for some reason.

Right off, you can see that this is not exactly a Gradius clone. You can start the game in which shields protect you three times but you only get half a score, or a shield that protects you only once but you get full points.

As soon as the game starts, it looks exactly as you’d expect from a Konami-inspired shmup. Weapon powerups, however, are handled differently. You can slowly charge up your shot to become a double shot (fortunately it’s autofire), but don’t expect any bombs until level 2.

The first boss is a creepy eyeball with tentacles, fairly reminiscent of the first boss in Salamander.

After you clear a stage, it brings you to the Mission Select screen. Apparently after the second level, divergent routes can be selected.

Now you can equip your fighter with bombs and missiles.

The second level presents a twist: here are human buildings you must not destroy, lest you be docked 2,000 points per building! Space insurance must be at a premium.The bombs are launched along with your regular shot, so be careful. They take several hits before they are destroyed. Hold your fire and shoot only when you are clear to do so.

I’ve only played the game for about an hour, and have yet to get past level 2’s mid-boss. So far, it’s pretty great. I just noticed that the stupid mouse cursor shows up in these screenshots! Nuts.