Character select screens of ... the Nintendo DS!
Please, no jokes about her pyramids.
(Civilization: Revolution)
Very appropriate attire for archery.
(Psionic Sentry Infinite)
Because snowboarding with a butcher knife is just more fun...
"Blood Boarders"
Title screens of questionable arcade games: Part VI
This probably won't end well for the lady in the pink dress.
("Devil World")
What's a nice genie like you doing in a place like this?
(Shantae: Risky's Revenge)
One of the more weirdly - and unnecessarily - experimental arcade games of 1987 - this offered a split (3 screens split vertically) take on a alien blaster. You guided your character left/right through a base, shooting at alien monstrosities.
Putting aside the novelty of a vertical split screen, the game's controls were also a bit strange. The arcade cabinet had a control stick that was more similar to that of a flight simulator game (instead of the generic "stick-with-round-ball-at-end) - and had a separate crouch button - which you needed to use for certain actions in the game. It was a bit awkward, and I never got comfortable with it - and thus didn't play it very much.
I always thought that was a shame because I wanted to like it; the graphics were attractive and alien blasting is always fun!
1987's "Xenophobe"
And another monster hit from the arcades in 1987...this one had an unmistakable replica of an Uzi submachine gun on the cabinet. Putting your coins in there would see you shooting your way through hordes of enemies in various bases. Tanks! Guns! Grenades! Attack helicopters! A white knuckle rush to kill the bad guys - and of course, avoid the hostages and nurses (and if I recall correctly - an occasional girl in a bikini). The game essentially kick-started the whole genre of "light-gun rail shooter" games. (And yes, it also became a terrible coin eater in the later stages...)
For a young lad such as myself, this game was simply in a whole other level. So many childhood daydreams of mowing down bad guys Rambo/Arnold-style....it was what early-mid 80s movies had trained us for! This was total badassery power fantasy enablement. We had come a loong way since Duck Hunt...
Yep, 1987 was indeed an amazing year for arcade games. Good thing we have a video coming showing most of them...
"Operation Wolf".
When I think of arcade 80s gaming, one of the most common genres to pop into my mind is the vertical scrolling run and gunner. These were a staple of the 80s arcade scene, and there were so many great ones. They were usually two player as well - which made for some great arcade co-op fun, and even better if they were ported home.
This is SNK's "Guerilla War" (known as "Guevara" in Japan) - and was an evolution of their previous hit Ikari Warriors. It's a great deal of fun - and had an awesome port for the NES which also featured 2-player co-op play. Interestingly, in the Japanese version of the game - the two player characters are officially identified as Che Guevara and Fidel Castro; outside of Japan, they were nameless.
(Oddly, the current wave of indie developers who are cashing in on nostalgia haven't mined this genre...maybe that's a good thing_)
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Mostly Retro gaming.
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