CAPCOM

[Barry Admin]

Yo, I got "CAPCOM ARCADE CABINET" on the Xbox yesterday, the DLC is on sale, and I saw a screenshot of Black Tiger and I wanted to scream in joy. And it's fucking brilliant obviously. The whole thing... fucking glorious, left me begging for more. And I have not been a retro fan for many years now, but like, 1943 in particular just still is incredible. I'd forgotten about games like Legendary Wings and even Sidearms which I had on the C-64.

Black Tiger got hammered at the youth club, where I'd years later train with Billy Murray after it got turned into a gym. 1987, sort of rpg platformer/dungeon crawler. I remembered instantly to turn around and bash the starting pillar for a hidden thing.

Ghosts'N Goblins is still really addictive and brilliant, but the controls stick for me, don't feel smooth. Might try that on my arcade stick and see if that feels better.

Anyway, CAPCOM in general, eh? Great bunch of lads.

[madhair60]

Pretty much no better dev in terms of consistently delivering excellent games generation after generation through the history of video games. Amazing NES games (DuckTales, Bionic Commando, Mega Man), SNES games (Mega Man X, Street Fighter II, Super Ghouls N' Ghosts), PS1 games (Street Fighter Alpha III, Resident Evil, Mega Man Legends), PS2 games (Onimusha, Devil May Cry, Resident Evil 4), PS3 games (Lost Planet, Resident Evil 5, Street Fighter 4) and now PS4 games (Resident Evil VII, re-releases, that's fucking IT).

Q U A L I T Y
D E V S

[madhair60]

Does Arcade Cabinet have Son Son? That's a fucking brilliant game.

[Phil_A]

The SNES-era Capcom sting is still one my favourite sounds in gaming. Nothing says "fun times are coming!" quite like it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyJXzgaPif8

[Barry Admin]

Does Arcade Cabinet have Son Son? That's a fucking brilliant game.

It does, I had a bit of fun with that yesterday.

I'm enjoying revisiting all this stuff way more than I thought I would, and it's particularly interesting when you find a game you missed at the time.  But I also absolutely loving seeing how they develop and change, and seeing which came out in what year. I love seeing the ideas Capcom regularly reuse, such as armour - which is great as it extended your life/money, and these games were balls hard to get you shovelling in change. They're very fond of "shoot the drop to get a new one spawning" as well, which is a really neat risk/reward mechanic that can easily cause you to mess up.

[buzby]

No Bionic Commando though by the looks of it - shame.
The suicide battery-based encryption systems on their arcade hardware (the CPS-I, -II & -III, and Kabuki Z80 CPU on the pre-CPS boards) were dick moves though (and totally pointless, given how there were loads more bootleg SFII boards made genuine ones).

[madhair60]

Arcade Cabinet is a decent retro package by the looks of things but not a patch on the earlier Capcom Classics Collections, or even earlier, Capcom Generations. CPS1/2 is where it's at.

[Barry Admin]

Gun.Smoke and The Speed Rumbler are a great example of the sort of creativity they brought to bear. I mean, I tend to think of (scrolling vertical) shoot-em-ups as being mostly spaceships, but Gun.Smoke uses the telly show as inspiration instead. These are cracking variations on a theme. Didn't recognise The Speed Rumbler at first, until I saw the wee jails and again, it's a really odd variation on a shooter, crossed with some quite tricky and fun driving controls. You can even jump out of your smoking heap of a car and wait for a new one to be delivered.



I wonder if I was ever aware you could hold button combinations for different fire modes in Gun.Smoke. Probably.

[madhair60]

Is Commando on there? That's a really terrific game, absolute nails too.

One of Capcom's very best games is M.E.R.Cs - that was on Capcom Generations and Classics Collection too, but not Arcade Cabinet. I wish the latter had been more successful so we'd have seen its like available on PS3/360.

[Barry Admin]

Yeah, I remember Mercs, seems it's a follow up to Commando. I had it on the C-64 too I guess. Commando and Gun.Smoke are kicking the shit out of me, it's a bit embarrassing.

Yeah I'd be well up for more of these collections. This has casual modes and online scoreboards and stuff, pretty neat. I've dug out "Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection" for my 360 now too :-)

[Barry Admin]

Mate this is harder than a fucking SL1 no bonfires run holy fuck

[madhair60]

Yeah I'd be well up for more of these collections. This has casual modes and online scoreboards and stuff, pretty neat. I've dug out "Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection" for my 360 now too :-)

Also worth acquiring potentially - Midway Arcade Origins on 360. got Marble Madness and Smash TV on there. Just looked it up and for some reason it's expensive as shit.

[BeardFaceMan]

I must have got the arcade cabinet in a sale or for free or something ages ago, I think I only had 3 games on there.  Booted it up and played the first level of Ghosts N Goblins for free about a week ago as it happens, and that made me go and start fucking about with MAME again and playing it on there, so many memories coming back playing that game, its suprising how much muscle memory you still have for these games, remembering little tricks and techniques you havent used for 30 years. Ah, they dont make 'em like that anymore.

[madhair60]

Oh and that Sega Collection on 360 absolutely honks of quality, too. Really excellent little collection of games, classics like Streets of Rage 2 all the way up to more obscure masterpieces like Dynamite Headdy. The only downer is you can't use the "lock-on" with Sonic and Knuckles, so the proper Sonic 3 is unplayable. Still a great set though.

[Barry Admin]

It is rather good, my sis kindly got me it for xmas a few years ago. It'd be nice if it was backwards compatible, partly because I'd then be playing on an Xbox One pretending to be an Xbox 360 which was pretending to be a Sega.

[madhair60]

I did recently play the Mega Man Anniversary Collection on the Dolphin emulator, which meant I was playing a PC pretending to be a Gamecube pretending to be a PS1 pretending to be an NES. Beat that!

[Barry Admin]

I like that! It's so fucking cool you can do all this. I'm trying to save for a cheap laptop so I can get this place sorted, and would definitely get back into MAME. I wonder if I could get it running on my tablet, I'm sure I could. It's many years since I've been into all this, and I got a bit snotty about old games, but I'm having a blast.

Not with Trojan though. Trojan can fuck right off. I mean, you can even get your sword and shield taken away in the first level, and I just can't get anywhere in it. I repeatedly get caught between these knife-throwing centurions in their underpants who know to stay just outside my range, arrgghh this game is fucking rock hard. I don't really remember much about it from the time, didn't see it about too much. I suspect that's because the cabinets ended up getting their cunts kicked in. 

Needless to say, I kind of want to torture myself with it.

[biggytitbo]

There are so many great capcom sidescrolling brawlers, beside the obvious ones.

Love Cadillacs and Dinosaurs and Captain Commando:

[madhair60]

I like that! It's so fucking cool you can do all this. I'm trying to save for a cheap laptop so I can get this place sorted, and would definitely get back into MAME. I wonder if I could get it running on my tablet, I'm sure I could. It's many years since I've been into all this, and I got a bit snotty about old games, but I'm having a blast.

Not with Trojan though. Trojan can fuck right off. I mean, you can even get your sword and shield taken away in the first level, and I just can't get anywhere in it. I repeatedly get caught between these knife-throwing centurions in their underpants who know to stay just outside my range, arrgghh this game is fucking rock hard. I don't really remember much about it from the time, didn't see it about too much. I suspect that's because the cabinets ended up getting their cunts kicked in. 

Needless to say, I kind of want to torture myself with it.

I personally find that the modern games I enjoy the most tend to hark back to the very basic gameplay of the classics - I've been playing (the original) Destiny a lot lately, and that's basically Robotron mixed with Quake mixed with Ultima Online, innit? It's all the same basic influences but done with some real flair.

Actually I'm super jaded these days and only really enjoy stuff that does call back to classics, or is a remake of a classic. It's horrible, I want to play new shit, but I get bored so easily. I played Horizon Zero Dawn for a couple of hours, boring as fuck. Cunt walks into a cave and goes "What is this!? Some sort of cave", I'm not a fucking idiot love. Jesus.

[Barry Admin]

I do know what you mean, given my enormous love for CoD: Zombies and Horde modes in general. Gets you right back to the basics - endless waves of baddies like Space Invaders or something. And although they've added in all these ridiculously complex Easter eggs, it all comes back to the simplicity of running round in circles to kite enemies. A handful of power-ups to help you on your way, score matters too as you use it to buy things. And when you die, seeya! Right back to the beginning you go... so I also love that sense of competing primarily against yourself, trying to get to a higher wave each time. Within that simple loop, there is huge room for the player to strategise and find better ways of doing things.

I'm trying to take the Capcom games like that... see how far I can get on one credit each time, rather than just cheat my way through. The score attack mode is great and designed for exactly that, of course.

[the]

Still intermittently plugging away at trying to do Ghouls 'n Ghosts / Daimakaimura on one life on MAME. Done it on one credit a good many times, never one life.

Nearest I got was defeating Beelzebub the second time around, but had stupidly forgotten to pick up the special weapon, so got slung back to start of level 5 again and then farked it. They should make Public Information Films about that shit.

I'm trying to take the Capcom games like that... see how far I can get on one credit each time

Well precisely - this is a MAME discipline for me. When extra credits cost nothing, so does the acheivement.

[madhair60]

Yeah, it's a complete waste of time powering through by credit-feeding. That's why so many people dismiss older games these days. When you can save-state and credit-farm your way through everything seems homogenous and shit.

[madhair60]

Adding to that, the proliferation of emulation and massive emulation collections tend to devalue these games to people who don't really have the discipline to put time into them - it's a lot easier to just move on to the next thing when it's just one item lower of the menu.

Sounds like I'm being curmudgeonly, but nah. Affects me too. Download the entire NES library in 20 seconds, give each one two minutes. Not immediately into it, "that's shit, next". Not a good way to experience games.

[biggytitbo]

Still intermittently plugging away at trying to do Ghouls 'n Ghosts / Daimakaimura on one life on MAME. Done it on one credit a good many times, never one life.

Wow impressed, thats both runs on one credit? Ive never got past level 4 I dont think.

[BeardFaceMan]

I wish score attack modes were in more modern games. Thats what made Gears 3 stand out for me, the score mode. Made it feel like a proper arcade game, your strategy for completing the levels had to change to get high scores and looking at your friends list leaderboards is always satisfying. Gives the game a longer shelf life too as you keep coming up with new challenges for yourself, scores in games massively increases the replayability. Thats what I miss about arcade games, score was king, and was also a clever way to make a single player game a multiplayer game.

[Bhazor]

Ghouls 'n Ghosts / Daimakaimura

Isn't that where you fuck a pillow?

[Barry Admin]

Beardy, yeah I agree, I remember us battling over scores in the past.. what in though? One of the Trials games, certainly. Yeah that's what it was, right - particularly the novelty modes where you have to do crazy shit. And then I think Xbox would even give you a notification when your score got topped. Oh, and SSX! That was quite competitive wasn't it?

I was wondering about starting some kind of CaB Arcade Leaderboard earlier. Post up a score you think is alright and others can try to top it. Not sure anyone would bother, it's been very quiet in this sub-forum as it is, but might be worth a go.

[BeardFaceMan]

God yeah, SSX was fucking ace for beating your friends times and scores, so satisfying when you finally pull it off, there was a great thread on here at the time, that was a lot of fun. But still, there really is nothing quite as satisfying or rewarding as entering your 3 initials after a hard slog when you just died and seeing your name in the leaderboard, would love to see something like that on here neil.

[the]

I was wondering about starting some kind of CaB Arcade Leaderboard earlier. Post up a score you think is alright and others can try to top it. Not sure anyone would bother, it's been very quiet in this sub-forum as it is, but might be worth a go.

Just had a quick blast on Daimakaimura, stopped when I died on my first life (as I always do):



Bit tricky to make out, but it's 69300, on one life. _{Would probably have got further if the bloody dagger had turned up.}

Dip switch settings, for those interested (pretty sure they're the defaults).

[buzby]

Adding to that, the proliferation of emulation and massive emulation collections tend to devalue these games to people who don't really have the discipline to put time into them - it's a lot easier to just move on to the next thing when it's just one item lower of the menu.

That's one of the reasons I built up my small collection of  my favourite arcade PCBs and built a supergun to play them. I tend to concentrate more on a game after I've gone to the trouble of setting it all up to play it.