What Am I Playing Right Now #10

October 26, 2024 by Leave a comment

Hey everyone. I want to once again say THANK YOU for following me at Indie Gamer Chick. You’ve made this week awesome. Thanks for everyone sharing links to my latest reviews on social media. Closing any social media is tough because you’ve all been so good to me for over thirteen years now. It means THE WORLD to me that you stuck around anyway. And it’s worked out great for me because I’ve been a lot more productive here. I have some FUN projects I’m working on. Contra Force’s review will probably hit Monday, and then Contra III: The Alien Wars. I know that’s the one everyone wants. Sega fans, you’re not left out. I’m doing Hard Corps too. I will have some scary games for Halloween too. Well, Castlevania. I dunno how scary that is to you. I’m doing the family thing this weekend. It’s one of those pinball-centric weekends in the Vice Household. So, what AM I playing?

Pinball

That’s the AtGames Legends Pinball Micro. This last Christmas, myself, Angela, and Sasha each got one from Santa Claus. Or a fat man who dressed like Santa but looked suspiciously like my father. Weird. It’s long overdue we look at some of the exclusive tables that can only be found if you own one of the now army of Legends Pinball models. I suspect in the near future we’ll finally take the plunge on one of the 4K models. When they first launched, flipper lag was brutal, and frankly, you never know if that will get fixed or not. Well, a lot of people insist it’s been fixed. People I trust. AtGames has multiple models and I think it’s likely we’ll be picking one in the near future. You can only play Zen Studios’ output on 4K, so for god’s sake, please don’t buy the standard “HD” tables thinking Zen’s work will eventually find its way to them. It won’t. Ever. BUT, here’s some good news: Zaccaria Pinball is on there. Magic Pixel’s engine for Zaccaria Pinball is Oscar and Dave’s favorite pinball physics engine. Yes, it’s basically the same as the versions of Zaccaria for Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and Steam, only with a lot fewer options but a REAL pinball feel, with a table that you lean over. The lack of bells & whistles is slightly disheartening. As far as we can tell, you can’t do five ball games or change the rules. No special challenges either. It’s just one single build of each table. That’s FINE, by the way, because they’re optimized for the digital pins. Aerobatics shoots just like a real table, with the exception of a teeny tiny stutter at the start of the first ball of each game. I have no clue why it does that.

We keep our pinball ratings sheets live for everyone to view, even when it’s a work on progress. I’ve added a tab for this Legends Pinball Micro project, if you want to keep up with us, or if you want to see our ratings for other platforms like Zaccaria. We know that many of my readers are casual pinball fans who still would like some form of pinball in their family rooms/man caves. Sasha and myself are working to get short-form reviews of all 50 tables that are built in to every Micro PLUS the AtGames exclusive tables with themes like Dr. Seuss, Natural History, and Taito.

Because Zaccaria’s pins, along with 21 tables created by Farsight Studios’ for their Pinball Arcade (which are the built-in tables for the full-sized Legends HD Pinball) are nearly identical to the tables from the Console/PC versions, we’re using the existing ratings for Pinball Chick team members Jordi and Dave (aka Dave Sanders, creator of Alien and Full Throttle for Heighway) for this project, BUT, they don’t own an AtGames device. They’re in Europe, so I’m not even sure if it’s an option where they live. The Vice Familiy ratings will ONLY be from AtGames devices, and we’ve started the review process. We hope to have it done very soon, for those who actually considering it for the holiday season. The Legends Pinball Micro retails for about $500 shipped, and it goes on sale all the time. It’s only $400 right now on Amazon. Here’s a sneak peak of the review, the first alphabetically. The picture is from Zaccaria Pinball but it’s literally the same table.

Aerobatics
Type: EM
Set: Zaccaria Pinball Pack 1
FREE WITH EVERY LEGENDS PINBALL MICRO
Based on “Aerobatics” by Zaccaria (1977)
Vice Versus Winner: Sasha (9,065,700 – “KID”)

We LOVE Aerobatics in the Vice Household. Don’t think of this as a typical EM. It’s more like a high-concept early Solid State. This has some very unusual game flow, with two spinners that feed a saucer, which in turn lights targets on the playfield or advances the bonus. The inlanes are semi-open and a ball is capable of rolling up them and out of play. To make up for this, both outlanes are easily lit, and if the ball falls down a lit outlane, you get an extra ball. Not only that, but every outlane has a puncher’s chance of bouncing back into play, something you can affect directly with a well-timed nudge. Aerobatics can get repetitive, no doubt. Our duels usually devolve into who can get the most extra balls, but it’s every bit as exciting as it is strange. This is the only Zaccaria I’ve given MASTERPIECE status to for a reason. In my opinion, this was their finest hour and one of the most underrated pins ever.
Cathy: MASTERPIECE (5 out of 5)
Angela: GREAT (4 out of 5)
Oscar: GREAT
Sasha: GREAT
Jordi: GOOD* (3 out of 5)
Dave: MASTERPIECE*
Scoring Average: 4.16 – CERTIFIED EXCELLENT
*Played on Zaccaria Pinball for Consoles/PC

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What Am I Playing Right Now #09

October 25, 2024 by Leave a comment

I’m not out of the 8-bit Contra woods yet. In fact, I have two Game Boy games (one of which is Super Game Boy enabled) and the Contra that isn’t a Contra in Contra Force left. I can’t believe the Sega Master System didn’t get its own Contra, or even a port of the NES/arcade ones. So, that puts me three games away from Contra III on the Super NES. Actually, two games away. Yes, I’ll do it before the Game Boy port. No, I’m not doing the Game Boy Advance version. In fact, it’s unlikely I’ll ever review many Game Boy Advance versions of SNES games here at IGC. It just doesn’t interest me as much, with one obvious exception: the Super Mario Advance series. If I ever review the NES Mario games, I’m far more likely to do the GBA versions. Besides, I have a lot of other older games to play. Like Konami’s Metamorphic Force, which just released to Arcade Archives. I think it’s the first ever release of this game. I might do that.

That’s Haunted Halloween from my friends at Retrotainment games. They offered me a demo of this, but I have a strict “no demo” policy and so I’ll wait for the finished game. For your consideration, here’s their (already funded) Kickstarter campaign. If you want the NES cart and not just the ROM, that’s where you get it. I don’t want to know very much about the game. I didn’t even watch the trailer above. I’m going to review this when it comes out, and I want to be ice cold for it. But, they’re good folk. So, what AM I playing?

WXTA0683

Nope.

I have a busy IGC/TPC weekend. Contra Force is next. We’re delaying Camp Bloodbrook coverage, at least for Pinball FX. It’s not ready. I assume the mode start isn’t meant to drop balls between the flippers to the degree it does. This is not “challenge.” This is just awful design, BUT, it doesn’t happen on “normal physics” so we assume this isn’t meant to happen. The problem is, we don’t happen to like the normal physics either. Our options are (A) review now and give it straight scores of THE PITS because none of us can have fun with a table where the mode start might qualify as the worst pinball shot of the year or (B) assume the table is broken but it will be fixed. We’re going with option B for now. In attempting to duel on “realistic” physics we had a Vice Family first: everyone tilted at least once. This weekend, we’re going to play on Pinball M and might have to split the review, assuming it works on M. Also, Princess Bride was patched extensively, including fixing some houseball issues. So we’ll be playing that.

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And, we’re going to look at some of the tables exclusive to AtGames Legends and Legends4K tables. Now, almost all Zen tables will eventually be on the digital pinball machines built and sold by AtGames (UPDATE: I meant ONLY the 4K tables. Zen’s tables will NEVER be on the standard Legends Pinball or the Legends Pinball Micro), but the magicians behind Zaccaria Pinball have AtGames exclusive tables, including ones based on Taito games. The Taito pins are mostly tables inspired by classic 70s and 80s pins. For example, the table based on Elevator Action above is actually a reworking of the 1984 Gottlieb (Mylstar) classic Alien Star. Sasha, heir apparent to IGC, wants to work on these with me. Let’s do it! And hey.. wait.. if Zen is working with AtGames and Magic Pixel are working with AtGames.. does this mean older Williams/Bally pins could possibly hit? Throw us a bone, gang! Surely the two companies can come to some kind of arrangement.

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Arcade Archives: Bells & Whistles (Review)

May 2, 2020 by Leave a comment

I’ve somehow managed to play multiple versions of TwinBee over the last year. The arcade version was included in the putrid Konami’s Arcade Classics Anniversary Collection, while the NES version is free with Switch Online. I wrote off the formula as being unworkable and dumb. The concept of a shump where items come in the form of bells that must be juggled via shooting until they become useful is, frankly, kinda not good. That doesn’t change here. While playing Bells & Whistles, you’ll want to shoot a lot. But if the bell changes to a useful item, a second shot changes it back to gold, which is only worth points. And you’ll make that mistake a lot because, you know, you’re supposed to shoot a lot. That’s by design, too. The screen is often spammed with enemies at the very moment the clouds that contain the bells arrive. That’s useful in the typical Arcade Archives Hi-Score or 5-minute Caravan modes, but not so much when you’re trying to go as far as you can in the game without losing a life. It’s a bizarre mechanic for sure, and while it has fans, I’ll point out that TwinBee as a franchise is comfortably on the fringes of gaming and never rose above it. Maybe that’s why?

I’m happy to report that bosses are a LITTLE more than “spam with bullets until dead”. I mean, they really are still that, because Bells & Whistles is a shump, but the bosses are each different and open themselves to attack in ways that require a bit of finesse. I’m a finesse type of chick, so I appreciate the effort. Also, they’re some of the coolest looking bosses in a shmup.

Having said that, I’ve played two very decent entries in the series this last week. Bells & Whistles was chosen by a fan to be included in this Arcade Archives marathon, while a previously Japanese/Europe-only SNES release, Pop’n TwinBee, is now included globally on the Switch Online SNES lineup. Surprisingly, they’re both pretty decent. It’s not entirely a “realized potential” situation because I don’t think these represent the maximum “as good as TwinBee CAN get” situation. You still have to juggle those fucking bells, but at least the enemy formations are more rational (at least early on) and the speed, pacing, and reliability of projectiles feels more modern and slick. I wish the power-up system was handled differently, since getting the desirable guns was a pain in the ass, but otherwise these were both pretty decent shmups. Focusing on Bells & Whistles, it has some clever enemy & boss design, a charge shot that is bad ass, and a decent variety of power-ups. The cutesy setting is also a welcome break from your typical bleak space setting.

Don’t let the adorable facade fool you, though, because Belly & Whistler dips its toes in bullet hellfire late in the game. And that can be problematic, because the visually loud background and relatively small, under-developed bullets are often very hard to see. Some fans of the genre disagree with me, and I’ll fully admit I’m not a hardcore bullet hell fan, but I think the key to a really good bullet hell is to make the bullets visible. In a screen full of projectiles, the challenge should be dodging them, not trying to locate them and dodge them. In a fast-paced, auto-scrolling shump, having to do both isn’t a reasonable challenge. It’s just not. Granted, this game was made to earn money 25ยข at a time, and if the person is deep into the game, that means they’ve been sitting there for a while. If they’re there by virtue of being good, that machine wasn’t making money. Spamming the screen with low-visibility bullets against backgrounds that bleed into the bullet colors is a cheap, borderline dishonest way of getting the person occupying the cabinet to put more money in it, but it works.

For its time, this probably was visually impressive, but it needed to make bullets stand out more.

Still, this is the first TwinBee game that’s fun enough on its own merit to warrant a recommendation. I’ll be talking about Hamster’s misguided $7.99 price tag when this marathon is over with, but needless to say, eight bucks might be a bit too much for a one dimensional (albeit finesseful.. yes, finesseful, it’s a word as of now) shump. This should have been in the Konami Anniversary set, which had a miserable lineup outside of Life Force. In fact, I’d go so far as to say Bells & Whistles is comfortably better than everything in that set but Life Force. I’ve played a lot worse, and I’ve played a lot better, but if you’ve got an itch for a decent shmup, you won’t hate Bells & Whistles, even if it’s lacking, um.. something that indicates extra effort.

Arcade Achives: Bells & Whistles was developed by Hamster
Point of Sale: Switch, PlayStation 4

$7.99 never learned how to whistle in the making of this review. Hey, I only learned how to snap my fingers within the last year.

A fan purchased this game for this review.

Bells & Whistles is Chick-Approved and will be ranked on the IGC Arcade Retroboard when it debuts July 1, 2020.

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