+save2600 Posted October 26, 2015 Share Posted October 26, 2015 Surprised to hear Wizard of Wor brought up! Re: TMNT (which I like and love IV on SNES), The Simpsons comes to mind. I remember being at World Wide Distributors in Chicago when this was first released or being tested. Heard a story that day how Matt Groening was "pissed" about the play mechanics of the game. Thought it absurd/proposterous his characters would ever behave like that. Going around town fighting, beating each other up, etc. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dauber Posted October 26, 2015 Share Posted October 26, 2015 Huh? How so?? I totally see this. Now, I never played Journey in the arcades; I had only seen it on Starcade as a tyke. But I played it in MAME on and off. I have only fairly recently (last two or three years, give or take) become familiar with the Tron game. But in the last couple of weeks when I was playing Journey to prep for episode 17 of Pie Factory Podcast, my first thought was: this has a big Tron vibe in it. You have to select a level/phase/planet/whatever, and when you finish, you pick another and it's no longer available for selection. If you lose a life, you start all the way back over from the level/phase/planet/whatever selection screen. In many of the levels/phases/planets/whatevers, you have to do a lot....a LOT....of firing to clear some space, and the spaces are very often pretty darned tight and you have to move FAST through those tight spaces. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dauber Posted October 26, 2015 Share Posted October 26, 2015 Truly, the only arcade game that I've ever played that I could say is just truly, truly *bad* is Juggler. The sounds are annoying, the graphics suck, and the game mechanics are awful. And as often as I've bashed Professor Pac-Man (and will continue to do so), I wouldn't even call it a bad game per se. I think the biggest problem with it is that it's an attempt to make a new Pac-Man game. If it didn't have the name "Pac-Man" in it somewhere, it wouldn't be bad. Mind you, I'd still hate it because when I go to the arcade I want to be firing at things or running around a maze, not trying to figure out what a shape's reverse image is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+FujiSkunk Posted October 26, 2015 Share Posted October 26, 2015 Makes for a good bar-top sobriety test, though, no? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted October 26, 2015 Share Posted October 26, 2015 Journey ... has a big Tron vibe in it. You have to select a level/phase/planet/whatever, and when you finish, you pick another and it's no longer available for selection. If you lose a life, you start all the way back over from the level/phase/planet/whatever selection screen. In many of the levels/phases/planets/whatevers, you have to do a lot....a LOT....of firing to clear some space, and the spaces are very often pretty darned tight and you have to move FAST through those tight spaces. Well, it was from the same company, around the same time period, running on similar hardware. I can't find credits for Journey, but I would not be at all surprised to hear they shared designers and programmers. I would consider TRON one of my favorites and Journey on the opposite side of the field. I should probably give it another chance. Other "terrible games" = anything that has a timer that can't be slowed down or reversed, anything that kills you fast enough to end your game less than a few seconds after you start (laserdisc games), anything that's obnoxious about getting extra money out of you as quick as possible (stuff like T2 arcade was no better than f2p extortion on mobile). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retrorussell Posted October 26, 2015 Author Share Posted October 26, 2015 Truly, the only arcade game that I've ever played that I could say is just truly, truly *bad* is Juggler. The sounds are annoying, the graphics suck, and the game mechanics are awful. You mean Konami's JUNGLER? Yeah, I didn't care for that one either. Another major Konami misfire was JAIL BREAK. Way too damn hard; the game would have been tons better with double joysticks (one to move, one to fire). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted October 26, 2015 Share Posted October 26, 2015 Makes for a good bar-top sobriety test, though, no? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+wongojack Posted October 27, 2015 Share Posted October 27, 2015 As far as somewhat "well known" games go, I vote for Venture and Wizard of Wor. I find these games completely unplayable. I'm totally with you on this. For me, this is when the real spirit of arcade games died... or at least, took a major nosedive. And I'm not even "too old" for TMNT; that was the big game right at the time I was frequenting arcades around the age of 13 or so. I loved it at the time, but in retrospect, it's not much of a game. No good scoring mechanism, no technique. Just mash the "action" button and of course continue, continue, continue. I can understand not liking Venture or Wizard of Wor, but "completely unplayable?" They have some of the most basic controls of any game in the era. I've never actually played the arcade machines, is there something about the arcade cabs that you specifically don't like. . . . Pretty much exact same opinion of TMNT. I loved it at the time, but now I see that the transition to that type of game was kind of a negative thing. However, there's no way I would put that on a WORST games list. The production value on some of those brawlers was excellent and even though they demanded your coins, there was still some real enjoyment in seeing the end. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dauber Posted October 27, 2015 Share Posted October 27, 2015 You mean Konami's JUNGLER? Yeah, I didn't care for that one either. No, I actually meant Gypsy Juggler...I could have sworn that same game was also out as "Juggler".... http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=8058 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retrorussell Posted October 27, 2015 Author Share Posted October 27, 2015 Ah.. I remember playing that a lot when it came out.. it is a pretty weak concept-- a juggling game?? Really?? I loved the peeping chicks that emerged when you dropped an egg, though. I only saw it at the local Malibu Gran Prix, and as Gypsy Juggler. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tickled_Pink Posted October 27, 2015 Share Posted October 27, 2015 I must have been lucky. I'm really trying hard to think of a game I honestly didn't like. The problem is that back then I sucked at video games so there were some games I played a couple of times and then didn't play again. One game that didn't strike me as being particularly good was Cosmic Guerilla. Just reading back now and yeah - Robocop was pretty bad. And yet I put quite a bit of cash into that POS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retrorussell Posted October 27, 2015 Author Share Posted October 27, 2015 Most of the "Cosmic" series from Universal was crap. I rather liked ROBOCOP and thought Data East did a faithful job on capturing the feel of the movie (sans the ridiculous violence). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VectorGamer Posted October 27, 2015 Share Posted October 27, 2015 Most of the "Cosmic" series from Universal was crap. I have a Cosmic Alien cocktail and I love that game. Plays similar to Galaxian but has its own twists... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess Ragan Posted October 28, 2015 Share Posted October 28, 2015 I'm absolutely sure we've had this conversation before. You know what's surprisingly crappy? Vanguard. I had fond memories of the game but buying it during a PSN sale forced me to realize that it was just downright terrible. Lackluster graphics. Brain-dead enemy patterns. An omni-directional firing mechanic that doesn't really amount to anything because the enemies are so dumb. An invincibility power-up that lets you drill through levels with your ship, and appears almost immediately after the last one runs out. Synthesized speech that makes you want to smack the developers. The game's got a lot of innovative features (continues, 4-way firing, a boss of sorts) but they just don't gel together. Konami's Scramble and Super Cobra (although frustrating) are a million times better. Come to think of it, a LOT of SNK's early arcade games weren't worth a hill of beans. Vanguard II is also crappy, but for different reasons. Marvin's Maze is an overly complicated mess, Pac-Man as envisioned by MC Escher, if Escher had hated video games. Munchmobile is slow and painful to play because your stretchy-armed character is always stubbing his hand on something. P.O.W. is an interesting blend of Double Dragon and SNK's military shooters that loses its flavor after ten minutes... it takes an hour and a half to finish. Street Smart was probably fun at some point in time... that time is not now. And on and on it went until SNK released the Neo-Geo and its output gradually improved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retrorussell Posted October 28, 2015 Author Share Posted October 28, 2015 MUNCH MOBILE is definitely wretched and collision-detection happy. The worst NEO GEO title by far has to be LEGEND OF SUCCESS JOE. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VectorGamer Posted October 28, 2015 Share Posted October 28, 2015 You know what's surprisingly crappy? Vanguard. I played this BITD only a few times and didn't like it. But, this summer they had a Vanguard cab at ReplayFX and I spent a lot of time on it. It's not as bad as I thought it was. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cynicaster Posted October 28, 2015 Share Posted October 28, 2015 I can understand not liking Venture or Wizard of Wor, but "completely unplayable?" They have some of the most basic controls of any game in the era. I've never actually played the arcade machines, is there something about the arcade cabs that you specifically don't like. Maybe "completely unplayable" is the wrong descriptor; for me, it's more like "so freakin' maddening that it's not remotely fun". To be clear, I'm not complaining about difficulty; arcade games can be ridiculously difficult but still highly enjoyable (Robotron FTW). But "difficult" and "maddening" are not the same thing. I remember playing both Venture and Wizard of Wor for the AtariAge MAME HSC a few years ago. I was actually putting in a real effort to get the best score I could for the competition, so I gave each of the games a real chance to win me over. I could only get killed by so many blazing fast, invisible enemies in Wizard of Wor before I realized the game was filling me with far more dread than joy. As for Venture, the basic control scheme of your character may be simple, but your character is not easy to control. In fact, that game ranks up there as having some of the worst (i.e., most maddening) controls I've ever encountered in a classic era game--very sluggish. At least the enemies aren't invisible, though. I agree that Vanguard is terrible. It almost seems... I don't know... glitchy? Did someone mention Jungler? I love that game. Once you figure out how it works, it's pretty addictive. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted October 28, 2015 Share Posted October 28, 2015 ...but my sit-down favorites just aren't the same in MAME. That's why I keep this sucka around. G25/27 that works with many of the games for PS2/PS3, MAME, etc. Has force feedback for the steering too. Sadly, haven't used it much since I put it together, but should see if it works with Hard Drivin' and some of the others. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted October 28, 2015 Share Posted October 28, 2015 What kind of interface on that thing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted October 28, 2015 Share Posted October 28, 2015 What kind of interface on that thing? USB as it's a PeeCee wheel, but like I said, even works with a lot of the console games I've thrown at it. Even if they do not advertise wheel support on the back of the box. Haven't messed around with MAME in loooong time, but remember being able to configure it easily for the driving games too. The wheel/pedal combo was like $250 and the stand was another $200 or so IIRC. Kind of an expensive setup, but it truly has a great arcade like build to it. You don't need the stand... can just clamp the wheel to your desk and the pedal base has Velcro or spikes on the bottom so it sits still on carpeting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted October 28, 2015 Share Posted October 28, 2015 Ah, that makes sense. I was confused when you mentioned the Sony consoles, because they have their own connector styles. P. S. I'm not going to ask you if you perceive a gender bias in sit-down driving games. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted October 28, 2015 Share Posted October 28, 2015 Ah, that makes sense. I was confused when you mentioned the Sony consoles, because they have their own connector styles. P. S. I'm not going to ask you if you perceive a gender bias in sit-down driving games. Oh, right - forgot to add MAME at first, but I'll leave this info here in case anyone is interested in getting a little more of the "arcade experience" at home... You just plug the USB connector into your PS2 or PS3 and most/many of the driving games simply work. Or you may have to go into whatever games settings (controller configure, whatever) and tell it you've got a wheel plugged in. The wheel/gear shift column also has a directional pad and a bunch of buttons so you can navigate menus too. IIRC, you can leave your game pad plugged in, but more convenient to operate the system with just the wheel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZylonBane Posted October 29, 2015 Share Posted October 29, 2015 As far as somewhat "well known" games go, I vote for Venture and Wizard of Wor. I find these games completely unplayable. I'll give you Venture, but Wizard of Wor? Cripes... does it at least hurt being that wrong? You've got to suck at gaming pretty hard to find Wizard of Wor unplayable. It's a great looking, sounding, and playing little game. Very rightfully considered a classic. Managing to nail the Wizard in two-player mode when he's teleporting around the maze blasting away at you is still an amazing rush. As for me, I cast my vote for Hunchback. This game was so terrible in arcades, I was pretty much flabbergasted when I saw people bothering to make home ports of it. Note how the only time he actually moves smoothly is in the intro animation. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schuwalker Posted October 29, 2015 Share Posted October 29, 2015 MUNCH MOBILE is definitely wretched and collision-detection happy. The worst NEO GEO title by far has to be LEGEND OF SUCCESS JOE. RR, remember the dedicated Much Mobile used those Centuri joysticks. Although playable in MAME, those joysticks are almost a must to enjoy the game fully. I would love to locate an upright of one of these! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted October 29, 2015 Share Posted October 29, 2015 IDK, I just avoided anything I didn't like. And didn't bother to remember any of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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