"It's gonna drive you insane."

Back in 1982 in my youth my first introduction to the Atari 2600 title Megamania was through the TBS aired Starcade during a commercial break. The advertisement is reminiscent of MTV videos of the 80's with music provided by The Tubes, I'll post the commercial below for your enjoyment.




Unfortunately I was not able to get my hands on Megamania until the Activision Anthology was released for the Playstation 2 in 2002. I found it to be an enjoyable but very tasking title. The gameplay is a riff on Space Invaders where you control a ship and must fire a shot upwards to hit moving targets as they descend upon you, however in Megamania the objects move much faster in a cascading effect and will reverse direction which can easily result in the loss of your ship by collision.

To add to the difficulty of the game you have an energy bar that depletes the more shots you fire but at least you can control your fired shot, move it just a little to the left or right so that it helps connect with the fast moving objects above you.

The enemies in Megamania are a little odd. You are not fighting an alien invasion in this title but are stuck in a nightmare where you must defeat bow ties, hamburgers, and steam irons. I'm guessing that Steve Cartwright must have been having sleepless nights when he was designing this title.

I've come to play this title again quite a bit just recently as the X-Box Game Room has added it to its available Atari 2600 titles. It's worth the 240 points because while it may not have the next gen graphics we've grown accustomed to it still has an outstanding and challenging game play. Feel free to look me up by my online gamer tag, Unicron2005, if you want to spend an evening blasting 8-bit foes!

Thanks to Atari Age for the pictures above, check out the box cover, the creator of the title Steve Cartwright signed it!

"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

Battle for Atlantis!

The Xbox Live Game Room launched last week to varying degrees of acceptance. While I am enthusiastic about being able to play two arcade games I've never even heard of and the joy of revisiting old Intellivision and Atari games...most players are not as impressed as we at the Victory Vault and for quite understandable reasons. At the moment there is about 15 games available for purchase and spread across three systems. Arcade, Atari, and Intellivision titles.

Most players I have talked to are reserving final judgment on the Game Room until more titles come out, which is what is scheduled to occur every week throughout the summer.

The title that I really took a shining to is called Battlantis, short for Battle for Atlantis, though I've found nothing beyond a very short wikipedia entry in terms of background history. It was released to the arcades in 1987 by Konami and seems to have had a sequel but that looks only to have been available in Japan.

In the game you fill the shoes or sandals of Cripeuss the III and attempt to repel the monsters invading your castle. While most sites compare its formula of game play to that of Space Invaders as the main monsters move back and forth firing their spells, spears, and arrows at you before dropping another level you must also be on guard for the monsters that run straight at your parapets and if not stopped they will climb up and strike you down where you stand. In later levels you also have to contend with flying enemies that will try to swarm down and unless you have obtained a power-up that allows you to shoot sideways...it's the end for Cripeuss.

I enjoy this game quite a bit but I'll not fool anyone for this is a very, very tough title. I've only been able to advance to level 4 but at the very least it seems the game is made up of clearly recognizable patterns to the enemy movement. So with time and patience I am sure I'll be able to reach the end...someday.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Oh, adding a new bit starting with today's post. Music of the day. Richard asked what might be playing through the Victory Pellet Vault as I observed my world domination schemes and for that inquisitiveness I promise tomorrow's Box Art Wednesday will be featuring Sega Genesis Titles.

It's Still Rock & Roll To Me