Reliving an Authentic Arcade Experience on the Wii

February 3rd, 2008

Unfortunately when I was a kid I was never big on the arcades. I guess that I can chalk it down to being too young at the time when arcades were on their last hurrah. I also don’t remember there being any arcades in our local area. But despite all this I managed to find a few arcades a little further away or at least other outlets with arcade machines.

With the cost of one play now being $AUD2.00 rather than the previous 20c spending a few hours at the arcade is simply not value for money. So I decided to throw together a few very simple, cost effective ideas on how to recreate the arcade experience at home on your Wii.

Rail Shooters

One of my favourite arcade experiences would have to be the House of the Dead series (right alongside Daytona). As I mentioned in the Best Upcoming Fan-Service games of 2008 article I love playing the original House of the Dead and its sequel at the arcades and on the consoles. Actually just last month a few friends and I snuffed out a small arcade near one of my University campuses with a House of the Dead machine.

Basically these are all the tools you need to recreate a solid rail shooter experience at home:

Sure its not an arcade machine but you don’t really need a cabinet unless you want to go the whole way. In which I’d suggest this article isn’t for you then.

The Nyko Perfect Shot is an arcade style gun mold for the Wii mote. Unlike the Wii Zapper which is much more akin to say a tommy gun, the Perfect Shot’s design is based around a hand gun much like many arcade rail shooters. The Wii nun chuck can be attached as well but not all games require the use of the nunchuck.

nyko perfect shot

If I were choosing a gun mold for the Wii I would buy the Perfect Shot as there are more arcade shooters that use this style of gun. Currently I think that only Link’s Crossbow Training and Medal of Honour Heros would work better with the zapper. It all depends on the types of light gun games you want to play.

The great thing about rail shooters on the Wii is that there already is a strong software line supporting this genre.

All of the games on that list excluding one were all discounted on release. Then there is also House of the Dead on the way and if Sega listens to the cries of fans we may see additional Virtua Cop compilations.

Arcade Stick Gamesk' king of fighters

At the current time there is only one Wii arcade stick on the market which is a Hori Fighting Stick. Just recently though Arcade Renaissance broke news that NeoGeo will be releasing the NEO GEO Stick 2 for the Wii as well.

Both sticks are compatible with all games that allow use of the Wii Classic controller. As for arcade games on offer there is only a few currently on the market such as Metal Slug Anthology and Guilty Gear but later this year more are on the way. SNK Arcade Classics Volume 1 and King of Fighters Orochi Saga spring to mind.

Otherwise you can check out whats on the Wii’s Virtual Console for the time being. NeoGeo are slowing porting some of their NeoGeo fighters across. Theres already an excellent range of great shmps and a few good 2D fighters as well. It all comes down to choosing something that interests you.

Conclusion

If you are serious about arcade fighters then pick up a PS2 as almost every great fighter in existance is on the system in one form or another. As for rail shooters though the Wii is already building up a strong library of titles and its cheap to buy the accessories required to give it theat authentic arcade feel. If the Wii is all you have then know that its still the best current generation console for arcade games and a lot of be fun can be had from it.

  • Comment RSS
  • Link Me
Posted in Retro Gaming | Comments (3)
Tags: , , , ,

Retro Video Review - Totally Rad

January 25th, 2008

totally rad retro review nes

Since I did the last video review on Super Mario Land 2 there has been a a few readers have expressed that they’d like to see more video based content on the site. So I decided to continue working on more video for the site as its a lot of fun to work on and you guys seem to like it. ^_^

This time around I wanted to pay tribute to one of the first games that I owned on the NES; Totally Rad. I chose to review Totally Rad as it was never a very popular title so people might be interested to learn more about it. Get comfy though as the review is a massive 7 minutes long:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP7UIBHLZCk

Matty Jay (my voice man) and I have listened to a lot of the critique that we got back from our first review and we’ve made a lot of adjustments to improve the video. I’ve written a list of the improvements as well as our future goals for the video content on my personal blog.

We’re interested in some more feedback, good or bad. So hit us up via the comment box and let us know your thoughts.

I should also reference The Rad Project for the comparison between Magic John and Totally Rad. Fantastic read for those who had the original.

  • Comment RSS
  • Link Me
Posted in Retro Gaming | Comments (0)
Tags: , , ,

DP’s Retro Gaming Compilation Wishlist

January 17th, 2008

retro gaming compilation

If you own a farily new video game console and love retro gaming then chances are you’ve indulged in at least one of the many old school gaming compilations that have hit the consoles in recent years. There really has been an impressive slew of titles. Some of the best include:

As well as a never ending slew of arcade compilations by Midway, Capcom, Namco and other developers from the 80s. The compilations just never seem to stop.

Why Retro Compilations?

Retro game compilations took off a few years back and became hugely popular in a short matter of time. Its no surprise really as they:

What Could Stop the Greatness Retro Compilations?

There is only one thing getting in the way of retro compilations becoming even more popular, that is digital distribution games. Every next generation current generation home console has a service where individual retro games can be downloaded from an online store. Because gamers buy each game individually game publishers can ramp up the price and get away with it. So far developers seem to support both options which is the best outcome for the consumers as it gives us more choice.

DP’s Retro Compilation Wishlist

There is no denying that there are plenty of great Retro Compilation games that I could (and after this) will dream up. But more importantly, I want to see some already existing compilations be released in PAL regions. Now I know that this isn’t going to happen as many of these games came out years ago. But thats why its a wishlist right?

PAL Wishlist

Its absolutely ridiculous that Capcom won’t bring these games out into PAL territories. We ‘ve got Street Fighter Alpha Anthology so it makes no sense for them not to release Street Fighter Anniversary Collection . What this means is that the only legal means that anyone canryu street fighter play a PAL version of Street Fighter III in PAL territories (the UK, Australia and New Zealand) is to either play it on a Dreamcast or in the Arcades. So lets see, the Dreamcast is extinct and the price of playing in the arcades is 10x the price that it was fifteen years ago (and then you need to find the actual machine). This is just ridiculous.

As for DarkStalkers and Megaman well they also should make the jump, its just common sense.

I’d also like to know what happened to Ninja Gaiden Trilogy. I’m not sure if this had a PAL release or not but I can’t find a PAL version of the game so I assume that it didn’t.

General Wishlist

Sega Saturn/Dreamcast Collection

Sega Megadrive Collection was an absolutely awesome compilation of Sega’s brightest titles for the Megadrive. With 27 top titles and only a few duds, this was essential gaming. So, if Sega can make a compilation for the Megadrive then why not the Saturn and Dreamcast as well? Sega have already proven to us that they like to re-release their old games. For example the re-release of Nights for the PS2 in Japan, Crazy Taxi 1 + 2 on the PSP, Sonic Adventure 1 + 2 on the Gamecube and now House of the Dead for the Wii. So you get my drift. With the massive size of a Blu-ray disc and Sega’s obsession of re-releasing old content it all makes sense.

Any Sort of Nintendo Compilation

Something which doesn’t make any sense is Nintendo making any sort of game compilation. The last decent compilation that they made was Super Mario All Stars on the SNES (Game and Watch Galleries don’t count). Remember how awesome this game was? Such value for money. Its a pity that the Virtual Console and the stacks of dough they can make from the GBA/DS re-releases practically ensure that we will never see a Nintendo game compilation ever again.

Just for the sake of it a Mario/Metroid/Zelda compilation would obviously be fantastic. But what I think would even better is a compilation of all of the Japanese Nintendo Wars and Fire Emblem games that never saw a release out side of Japan. This would be an absolute dream for the fans of both game series.

TMNT Collection
tmnt group
TMNT are awesome and furthermore their video games were some of the best licensed games ever made. Some sort of compilation of all the great TMNT games like Turtles in Time, The Arcade and Tournament Fighters would be absolutely sweet. Most of these games go for ridiculous prices on eBay or are just too hard to find.

Theres only one problem with this dream. It would take multiple game publishers to team up in order to get this compilation out on the shelves. There are far too many implications for this to be worth the effort for publishers.

Others

Theres a few more ideas that I have for the wishlist but I can’t write much about them so heres a list:

Conclusion

So after reading this you probably have a few ideas of your own compilations that you’d like to see be released (well, you must because I could go on for days ^_^). So go ahead and let me know by posting in the comment box.

  • Comment RSS
  • Link Me
Posted in Retro Gaming | Comments (8)
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »