What I’m Playing Right Now #05

Hey everybody! Well, this IS a blog and I’m going to start treating it like such. That means more updates. So, what AM I playing?

In a time before patches..

Xena: Warrior Princess is the next review coming to IGC Wednesday. What a turnaround this table has made. Upon release, it was unplayable, with some of the most mind boggling rejections in Pinball FX. Now, if you play Xena today in the standard physics mode, we’d still consider that build to be OUT OF ORDER. Don’t play it. Don’t base your opinion of Xena on it. It still has nonsense rejections where a flush shot right on line will still reject. Check to make sure you’re playing with realistic physics. Because, with those physics, Xena is saved. It’s not perfect yet. They should continue to patch it. But, following a patch, Xena’s excellence has been revealed. This is a FANTASTIC table by Anna Lengyel, who is getting her first ever MASTERPIECE ratings with this pin from Oscar and me. Yep, I went there. Angela, Jordi, and Sasha think we’ve lost our mind. They think it’s REALLY good, but not upper-echelon good. Xena is going to win an award. The only question is what’s the margin? That post is coming to Indie Gamer Chick and The Pinball Chick shortly.

Yo uh Adrian, where’s uh, you know, my royalty check?

It’s Super Contra time, and this time around, I’m starting with the coin-op, THEN doing the NES game. Even though I’ve played through both versions once, when Contra Anniversary Collection came out, I really don’t remember much about them. That’s an ominous sign. I’m not going to do any other version of Super C besides the arcade and NES. I also have this:

That’s Contra Force. It’s not even a real Contra game (it started life as a non-Contra game called Arc Hound) and it never came out in Japan. That’s ominous, but I’m reviewing it. And, I have a weird NES Super Contra bootleg that James Rolfe fans might recognize (and I only say that because he’s listed on the Wikipedia page for Super Contra) that I’ve had a few people ask me to look at it. It’s called Super Contra.. 8? WTF? Needless to say, I’m not close to finished with Contra. Oh, and what about the SNES game? One of the downsides to taking down my Twitter was all my #IGCvSNES stuff is gone. But, the big games I will redo as proper IGC reviews. Contra III will be part of this marathon. Don’t worry, Sega fans. Hard Corps will be too.

And this will go last, if at all. Seriously WTF? (Contra “8”)