Go And Save The City!

A little late to the party on this announcement but the Konami arcade classic X-Men after 18 years is finally coming to home consoles on X-Box Live and the Playstation Network! A big thank to Pixel Enemy for the above video. No pricing or release date info has been given at this time...but I'll gladly take the Dazzler slot for online play!

Jail Break.

It's been a little too busy here at the Victory Pellet Vault the last couple of weeks but yesterday I was able to put in a couple of hours playing X-Box Live. I decided to check out Game Room on Live and was very happy to see that they had updated the arcade with quite a few new title choices as well as a ton of Activision Atari 2600 titles.

The game that I spent the most time playing yesterday was a little gem released by Konami in 1985 called Jail Break. The premise of the game is that a mass riot has broken out in a Federal prison, the inmates have captured the Warden and are holding him hostage, while they also roam the streets terrorizing its citizens and killing any law official they happen to see.

Jail Break is a side-scrolling game where you are in control of a lone police officer called in to deal with the riot, starting off with merely your service revolver you can obtain two more weapons (a bazooka and tear gas launcher) by saving the civilians you come across, I was stuck with the revolver most of the time as my run and gun method unfortunately didn't lend itself to civilian safety.

This is a pretty tough game as the inmates do not just merely walk towards you, they swarm you while at the same time throwing Molotov cocktails at you and using their own firearms to try to kill you. I wasn't able to get very far in the game during my limited play time but I definitely had a blast playing it. You have to be pretty careful on how fast you advance on the screen as more often than not you'll end up walking into an oncoming bullet.

At one point I shot a barrel with my bazooka and a shirtless Batman appeared...smiled at me and then disappeared. I'm not sure what that was all about but at least it gave me a pretty hardy chuckle.

A little research shows that this game was inspired by John Carpenter's Escape From New York and that there is an Easter egg of sorts...a type that I've not heard of before...if you use your tear gas gun on the first sniper in the window it will reveal a brief glimpse of a pixelated topless female. I am going out on a limb here and saying that Microsoft made sure that was removed before it was released on X-Box live.

Thanks to the Twin Galaxies scoreboard, the high-score holder for Jail Break is Martin Deem with 265,450 points, recorded by referee on February 21st, 1985.

Universal Theme - Nigel Godrich (Scott Pilgrim Original Score)

Box Art Wednesday Interrupted for...

...Super Mario Bros. Crossover! A big thanks to the awesome Retroist, more than usual that is, for finding this absolutely killer game. The creator of this title, Jay Pavlina, apparently worked for over a year on creating this beautiful flash game and the love he has for the NES is quite apparent from spending a few minutes playing his first ever offered title.

Beside the mustachioed plumber you can also choose the vampire slaying Simon Belmont, the intergalactic bounty hunter Samus Aran, the jungle fighter turned alien slayer Bill R., the mega-awesome Mega Man, and the Hero of Hyrule, Link. These brave companions have sworn to set out and rescue Princess Peach from the villainous clutches of Bowser.

This isn't a simple mash-up, the music for the game changes for each character, the music from their own titles. Each character brings with them some of their special abilities, like Simon's axe throwing, or Samus's bomb drop.

I can only hope that Nintendo, Konami, and Capcom see what a wonderful piece of work has been given to the masses this day. Take a moment to play and I think you'll agree this is worth its weight in Koopa shells.

Thanks to Wired for the picture above.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/534416

"Guts!"

Thanks to the Xbox 360's Game Room I have found a new favorite for a classic arcade game that I had never had the chance to play before. Konami released Shao-Lin's Road (Also known as Kicker in some countries) in 1985 and what little information I can find says it is the sequel to the arcade hit, Yie Ar Kung Fu. It was also released to various home computer systems as you can see from the Spectrum box art pictured at the top.

This game is deceptively simple, you play Lee who has finally mastered the fighting art of Chin's Shao-Lin but you have become trapped by a gang of Triad. Your goal is to escape the temple grounds by kicking anything that you meet, Triad thugs, sumo wrestlers, Kabuki fighters, geisha girls, a bowl of rice...yeah, you actually kick a bowl of flying rice at one point as well as a cake.

The controls are simple, you are allowed to move in the usual four directions, you can jump forward, and of course you can kick. There is much enjoyment to be had by leaping between two buildings and planting your foot in the back of a thug's head...I might have found one of the secrets of enjoying life playing this game.

You start each first level of a stage by defeating all of the thugs as they try to chase you across the screen, they'll try to drop down on you and jump up from below as well. Four hits and you lose a life, but if you succeed in knocking them all out you are treated to Lee shouting out, "Guts!"...which I don't quite understand.

Every second stage of a level challenges you with boss as well as the normal thugs you encounter. They usually have as much agility as you possess so the key to defeating them is not to stand still too long, place a foot in their face and drop down a level, when they follow you apply the same treatment. Of course around the third stage when the Kabuki fighter sets you on fire...you need to develop another strategy.

My scores so far have not even ranked me on the Leaderboards but an enjoyable feature of the Game Room is that you can watch the game play of the top players. So I was able to watch the entire game played by the current champ while drinking a cup of tea, picked up on where I could get some more points by doing so.

Overall I highly recommend Shao-Lin's Road but I warn you that it is quite addictive once you start playing it.

Score: 10 out of 10

Lithium Sunset - Sting