Posted on

Taito’s Arkanoid II: Revenge of DoH was the very first computer game I ever bought

Arkanoid II: Revenge of Doh for MS-DOS, Taito/Nova Logic (1987)
When Dad bought the family our first computer, a 286 AT computer back in the summer of ’89, I bought a simplistic, 2-button analogue computer joystick. It came loaded with a bunch of crappy shareware games, most of which used colored ASCII characters. But the first real game I bought for that computer was Arkanoid II: The Revenge of Doh for MS-DOS. It came on a big 5.25″ floppy disk, yeah!

A:\>arkanoid.exe was the command that ran it. I’d switch to the A: floppy drive and type “arkanoid” to run the game.

I had to calibrate the joystick every time I played the game, going from the top right position, click the button, go to the bottom left position, click the button, and then center and click again. That analogue joystick provided decent control for this game, which of course used a knob in the arcades to control. Later we bought a mouse for our computer, but for some reason the paddle in the game didn’t move as fluidly as it did with the joystick for some reason.

Arkanoid II was ported to MS-DOS by Nova Logic and it let you customize your own levels. Later when I got a Thunderboard (Soundblaster clone) to upgrade the sound, I ended up playing it to death all over again to experience the game with proper sound.

Another Taito game I bought for MS-DOS was Qix. I somehow do not remember ever encountering Qix in the arcades as a kid, and I would have loved playing it since it sort of reminds me of Tron.

One year for Christmas I also got Sky Shark, the famous Toaplan shmup distributed by Taito, also ported to DOS. The cover art for this game (as well as the NES version) prominently featured Flying Tigers-inspired artwork of a P-40 Warhawk attacking battleships, and Mom knew I was really into the Flying Tigers at that time. However, that didn’t survive for long because I had once left it in the disk drive by accident. When Dad booted the computer he realized a disk was in the drive, and mindlessly he took it out while the floppy was reading the disk, which ruined the data on the game. The other Taito games I had were Operation Wolf (which worked great with a 2-button mouse) and Rambo III, which was a sort of Metal Gear-inspired stealth-focused game.

Posted on

Dragon Quest campaign at Loft 2025

Last month when we went to Keyaki Walk Mall in Maebashi, I found another big display of Dragon Quest merchandise at Loft! I showed the Dragon Quest sale at Loft last year on my blog. This time it was for the release of DQ I and II.

“Welcome to the Loft Dragon Quest I & II 2025 goods campaign!”

The first things I noticed were all the plush dolls. These retro character sprite cushions look cool.

Cups and silverware.

So much random stuff. Soap dispensers, clips, pins, stickers, and so on.

A DQ raincoat! Wild.

Posted on

Space Invaders Counter Attack

I was in a small mall in southern Maebashi City this past weekend when I noticed Space Invaders Counter Attack. I have posted before about Space Invaders Frenzy. Counter Attack is a semi-similar game, but this time you’re shooting ping pong balls from a gun at a touch-sensitive screen. I’d never played this game before, and at first I was confused because I didn’t realize that I was supposed to shoot balls at the screen. Defeat the invaders and turn your attention downwards. You then have to repel the Invaders with your shots as they get closer to your base. No matter how much I shot them, I still lost. I really couldn’t get the hang of this game on my first try. Someday I’ll give it another shot, but this is the only place I’ve ever seen this game. I like Frenzy more.

Posted on

The Mikado game center in Ikebukuro

On August 21st I returned to Japan from my trip to Arizona. I stayed a night in Tokyo before proceeding home. I looked up how to find the Mikado game center in Ikebukuro. This was my first time visiting there.

I didn’t take a whole lot of photos, actually. By then I was getting very hungry, so I went to Ueno and went to an Irish pub called The World’s End where I had fish & chips with two pints of Guinness. It was great.

That night I also went to Taito’s HEY game center in Akihabara and took these photos there.

Posted on

Dragon Quest Coffee Boss cans

Coffee Boss is doing a retro Dragon Quest campaign where entries to the contest can win limited edition prizes, as seen in the top picture. I love the pixel art on the cans. I didn’t buy the Black ones since I just cannot drink coffee black. I did buy the Cafe au Lait and Premium ones. I’ll feature this in my next Japanese Snacks video at the end of the year.

Posted on

Visiting The Outpost Arcade in Chandler, AZ

My friends and i visited the brand new Outpost Arcade on August 16th. It’s small, but cozy. No booze at the time of the recording, which was a shame because I could’ve gone for a beer if one had been available. I settled for an IBC Root Beer instead. Lots of great pinball games and video game cabinets too: Tempest, Star Wars, Tron, Marble Madness, Joust, Afterburner II, and a couple of games I’d never seen before!
https://www.theoutpostarcade.com/

From left to right, here are Star Wars, Tac/Scan, Robotron 2084, Joust, After Burner II, and Centipede. I’d never seen Tac/Scan before and it was a very cool vector graphic game by Sega! I also didn’t know that there was an Atari 2600 port of this game which uses the paddle controller. Neat!

Here I am, playing Tron. It’s one of my favorite movies, but I admit that the game is only so-so. As a kid, I really enjoyed the successor, Discs of Tron, far more. That said, this game cabinet is an exquisite work of art, with all the glowing detail which matches the movie, and the blacklights that create that fantastic glow. These two aspects really capture the ambience to the movie so well.

This really matches the Syd Mead/Moebius design work of the Tron movie so well.

Star Wars. Oh, heck yeah!

Somehow, the arcades when I was a kid only had Asteroids and not Asteroids Deluxe. The 3D look to Asteroids Deluxe is quite exquisite, with the background and the vector graphics projected onto it. Fantastic.

And of course, plenty of pinball goodness. I really liked the Doctor Who Daleks.

My friend Lou knows this Star Trek: TNG pinball game well. How appropriate, since he’s the biggest Trek fan I know.

Posted on

A visit to TiltStudio Arcade at Arizona Mills Mall in Tempe, AZ

So while I got to spend time with friends on my recent trip to Arizona, on the day which I visited Andy’s Hobby HQ and Book Off, we also went to AZ Mills Mall in Tempe. TiltStudio is there, and this is where I found the Pac-Man Capsule Factory I posted about earlier. Tilt is what used to be Gameworks which opened in the ’90s when I was in college, and I took videos of Gameworks back in 2010 in the early years of my YouTube channel. Here is the playlist for those videos. At the time, the guy who ran that arcade was focused on bringing in many arcade cabinets from Japan, including an incredibly awesome air hockey table I’ve yet to even come across in Japan even.

Tilt now focuses on a great selection of pinball games, thus the name.

This is cool! It’s a Beatles pinball game. My friend Kevin is a huge Beatles fan, and so is my wife.

An OT Star Wars pinball game! Righteous.

Ghostbusters pinball!

This is a JIBUNGOUS UFO catcher! Holy crap. I had to have my picture taken with it.

Tilt also has a nice collection of some great classic arcade games. The rest of these photos are a collection of pictures of those games.

Posted on

Namco Capsule Factory (Pac-Man)

I was at the Tilt game arcade in Arizona Mills in Tempe, AZ (formerly Game Works) with friends when I came across this neat Namco gachapon attraction. I didn’t give it a try, but it looked neat. Of course, I’m a sucker for anything Pac-Man. Apparently you have to slide the capsules into the holes to gain the prize inside.

Posted on

Pac-Man Battle Royale

This game has been around for a while, but today I played it for the first time. I’ve seen it before at game centers. This would be more fun playing with other people. I was kicking ass, but the CPU still beat me. Oh well. Four players can play as Pac-Mans (Pac-Men?) in a survival match. You can bump each others into ghosts and even eat each other (cannibalism!). Whomever survives 2 out of 3 rounds wins. I was focusing on eating the ghosts rather than my opponent for points. I’ll change my strategy next time.

Recorded in the Apina game center in Iida, Nagano Prefecture.