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:
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.
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.
I took this picture at Try Amusement Tower game center in Akihabara in around 2004 or 2005. This poster warns that only women are allowed in the women’s restroom.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
At first glance, you’d swear you were looking at a screenshot from a Wipeout game!
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.
There are some new designs in Ballistic too. A least this one doesn’t resemble any racers in the games I’ve played…Check out the wet effects on the track!
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.
