I got MAME32 last night and I've been downloading some MAME titles today. Basically, MAME is arcade, like you didn't already know that, and there are a lot of really awesome MAME titles out there because, let's face it, arcades could run circles around the consoles at a similar time period.
Unfortunately, arcade emulation isn't really an exact thing. There are a lot of games that just don't work and some that do work but that have various issues, so it can be a bit frustrating at times when there's a game you really want to play but can't get to work properly.
Well, all that aside, here are some of the games I've been playing:
Asura Blade: Sword of Dynasty
Dangun Feveron
Darius Gaiden: Silver Hawk
Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors
Dimahoo
DonPachi
Dragon Blaze
Dragon Gun
Dungeons and Dragons: Shadow of Mystara and Tower of Doom
Final Fight
Gaia Crusaders
Giga Wing
Gunbird 2
Gunforce 2
In the Hunt
Knights of the Round
Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes
Metal Slug X
Shock Troopers 2
Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa
Impressions to follow shortly!
Gunforce 2
This run-and-gun Arcade game was developed and published by Irem. The team who created eventually left Irem and formed Nazca, the company responsible for developing Metal Slug for SNK. It certainly bears the hallmarks of that later series in fast-paced, explosions-everywhere gameplay, although I think Gunforce 2 actually took the concept much farther than any of the Metal Slug games ever did. The character in Gunforce 2 has two weapons that can fired in different directions and features explosions and debris that can literally cover the entire screen and this is usually what happens all the time. There are hordes of enemies coming at you constantly as well. This is a really fun game, one of the best I've played from the genre and it looks amazing.
Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom and Shadow of Mystara
These two arcade games, developed and published by Capcom in 1993 and 1996, respectively, are beat ‘em up with an emphasis on fast-paced action and some RPG elements. There are a wide range of attacks and magical spells that can be used against the various enemies and bosses that you’ll face. It’s also possible to change your characters weapon and use ranged weapons, like throwing knives and bows. Shadow of Mystara also has several special attacks which are activated through a set of button presses as with Capcom’s Street Fighter series. In between levels, the players visit villages where gold and silver collect on the battlefield can be used to by items and weapons. Both of the games have really good graphics and music. Overall, they’re just really fun, fast-paced games.
http://greatrumbler.wordpress.com/2010/0...s-dragons/
I'd like a good MAME for the PSP. The few I've found are either barely functional or have extremely limited compatibility.
I guess I'm one of the only people, then, that really likes GunForce 1 as well as 2 and the Metal Slug games... :(
Quote:I guess I'm one of the only people, then, that really likes GunForce 1 as well as 2 and the Metal Slug games...
Gunforce 1 is okay, but it's nowhere near as good as the sequel or the Metal Slug games. I think part of the problem is that Gunforce 1 is kind of interchangeable with pretty much any other run-and-gun game, while Gunforce 2 and the Metal Slug games did so much more in carving out their own identity.
First, if you want a list of MAME games i've played, what better than a list of arcade games I've finished, from my "games I've finished" list...
I play Neo-Geo games in a WinXP+-compatible version of NeoRAGEx instead of MAME, because I like it a lot better and it has more features (Neo-Geo memory card emulation, for instance; as far as I know MAME still doesn't have that...), but the games all exist in MAME too, so I included that list as well. I was really into Neo-Geo roms for a while, I've played a good amount of a bunch of the later games. :)
An eventual goal of mine, when I can afford it, is to get a real Neo-Geo system. AES or consolized MVS I'm not sure, but I want one, badly... it's too bad that they, and the games, are so highly expensive or I'm sure I'd have gotten one six or eight years ago, back when I first got into Neo-Geo roms, which of course made me want the system. Sure, I have some in PS2 collections, etc. now, but that's not the same as having the real thing...
As for MAME, for various reasons I've never really liked MAME, so I've used it a lot less than many other emulators, which is why that list is comparatively short, considering the immense number of games in the emulator. I've never tried to collect a complete MAME romset either, mostly for that same reason.
The (Model 2) games were played in the Nebula Model 2 emulator, the only one which will run them.
Arcade (MAME/Nebula Model 2) Roms Finished (incomplete list, probably)
--
Ninja Princess
Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon
Tokimeki Memorial Taisen Puzzle-dama
Gunbird
Gunbird 2
Gunforce - Battle Fire Engulfed Terror Island
Gunforce 2
Mystic Warriors [the spiritual sequel to Sunset Riders. Not as good as the original, but still fun.]
Sunset Riders
Magical Date EX (bad end) [it's a minigame collection, pretty much]
Power Instinct 3 - Groove On Fight
Street Fighter III - Third Strike
WarZard
Strikers 1945
Strikers 1945 III
Aero Fighters
Progear
DoDonPachi
Princess Clara Daisakusen
Darius Gaiden
Motor Raid (Model 2) [great futuristic racing game from Sega, sadly arcade only]
Dead or Alive (Model 2)
Battletoads
(Note that Strikers 1945 II isn't there because I have that on PSX, and beat that version instead.)
and probably others
Neo-Geo Roms Finished (NeoRAGEx)
--
Blazing Star [exceptional shmup, one of my favorite Neo-Geo games]
The King of Fighters '98 [the second most popular KOF game after 2002]
The King of Fighters '99
The King of Fighters 2000
The King of Fighters 2001 [one of the weakest of the later KOFs. SNK was dead when this came out though, so it was the team's first effort...]
The King of Fighters 2002 [probably my favorite Neo-Geo KOF, and the most popular]
The King of Fighters 2003 [different but pretty great too, the health and switching systems are different, but I like this game]
Samurai Shodown III
Samurai Shodown IV [my favorite SamSho... great game!]
Samurai Shodown V Special
Metal Slug
Metal Slug 2
Metal Slug X
Metal Slug 3 [my favorite Metal Slug]
Metal Slug 4
Metal Slug 5
The Last Blade (I think)
The Last Blade 2 [my favorite SNK game, slow paced but amazing. Great art, art design, and sense of style, and superb gameplay once you learn it.]
Waku Waku 7 [cute and crazy fighter, but super hard]
Rage of the Dragons (I think) [spiritual sequel to the Neo-Geo Double Dragon fighting game]
Power Instinct Matrimelee [pretty good fighting game, and quite entertainingly silly (look up the words for the songs on GameFAQs! Funny stuff!)]
Twinkle Star Sprites [awesome versus shmup]
The Art of Fighting 3 [hard...]
Fatal Fury 3
Garou: Mark of the Wolves [one of the best Neo-Geo games]
SNK vs. Capcom: SVCCHAOS [disappointing]
Magical Drop 2
Magical Drop 3 [outstanding puzzle game, play this!]
Ninja Masters [under-rated little fighting game, simple early '90s thing but fun]
Ninja Commando
Shock Troopers [great Ikari Warriors/Commando style games, the first might be better but both are great]
Shock Troopers 2 [very different art style from the first game, and all new characters too]
Aero Fighters 2 [Strikers 1945 was inspired by this series]
Aero Fighters 3
Ganryu [good sidescrolling action game, but hard]
Sengoku 3 [by far the best beat 'em up on the Neo-Geo, and one of the few truly great ones]
I've got most of those already, although there are a few that I'm missing.
I just added a bunch of comments about the games, the Neo-Geo ones particularly. Read if you don't know them.
Quote:Gunforce 1 is okay, but it's nowhere near as good as the sequel or the Metal Slug games. I think part of the problem is that Gunforce 1 is kind of interchangeable with pretty much any other run-and-gun game, while Gunforce 2 and the Metal Slug games did so much more in carving out their own identity.
While this is partially true, I listed some things that the game does that both GunForce 2 and Metal Slug both would follow, such as the infinite-ammo main gun paired with limited-ammo pickup weapons which you can only have one of at a time, some of the types of those weapons like flamethrower, rocket launcher, machine gun, etc, the aliens at the end of GunForce (okay, probably a Contra reference, but Metal Slug would of course have aliens too), and of course the vehicles to control, such as the helicopter, machine gun turrets, etc.
Of course they added many things to the formula in GunForce 2 and then Metal Slug, but still, some of the basics were there from the start.
Yes, some of the basics were there from the start, but that doesn't negate my point. Gunforce 1 feels much more like a standard run-and-gun shooter. Even Contra 3 had vehicles, like the tank from the first level.
Gunforce 2 jacked up the formula to a level of insanity that not many run-and-gun games ever reach, even the Metal Slug games pulled it back a little bit, but still retain much of the over-the-top feel. Gunforce 1 just doesn't have that feel.
Great Rumbler Wrote:Yes, some of the basics were there from the start, but that doesn't negate my point. Gunforce 1 feels much more like a standard run-and-gun shooter. Even Contra 3 had vehicles, like the tank from the first level.
Gunforce 2 jacked up the formula to a level of insanity that not many run-and-gun games ever reach, even the Metal Slug games pulled it back a little bit, but still retain much of the over-the-top feel. Gunforce 1 just doesn't have that feel.
GunForce was released in the arcades in 1991, and on the SNES in late 1992. The original arcade version came out before Contra III for the SNES, which was released in 1992 in all regions. So if you say "even the first level of Contra III had a tank", well, no, GunForce had vehicles first. :)
Of course though, the first Ikari Warriors had tanks, so it's not like it was the first ever shooting game with vehicles... though Ikari Warriors is topdown and not sidescrolling, I don't know what the first sidescrolling run & gun/action shooting game with vehicles is. Anyway though, GunForce had vehicles before Contra, and the game is pre-Contra III, which is a relevant point I think, though even if it was post Contra III I'd still like it. :)
It is a bit more standard, with how it doesn't have the distinctive Metal Slug art style at all but instead has a much more generic style, and the bosses, while large, aren't Metal Slug crazy, but when you look the origins of it are there, I think, and even though it's certainly less "extreme" and not as great (and certainly not as polished) as the Metal Slug games, I do still like the first game and have fun with it. Really, the short length and somewhat easy difficulty levels are its biggest problems... perhaps that's one reason why Metal Slug dropped eight way firing, it makes the game harder. Whatever the reason though, it was an annoying decision, I love Metal Slug a lot but that you can't naturally shoot diagonally is sometimes annoying.
Weltall Wrote:I'd like a good MAME for the PSP. The few I've found are either barely functional or have extremely limited compatibility.
That just means your emulator is crap.. The rom should be an exact copy of the cartage image so it can't be at fault.
I would try switching to a better emulator.
I know it's the emulator. That's why I said I would like a good MAME.
Quote:It is a bit more standard, with how it doesn't have the distinctive Metal Slug art style at all but instead has a much more generic style, and the bosses, while large, aren't Metal Slug crazy, but when you look the origins of it are there, I think, and even though it's certainly less "extreme" and not as great (and certainly not as polished) as the Metal Slug games, I do still like the first game and have fun with it.
Yeah, I had fun with it too, but that doesn't change my opinion that it was completely blown away by its sequel and the Metal Slug series.
It's a nice little game, but nothing particularly special.
Quote:Power Instinct 3 - Groove On Fight
I played the first two, they were okay but nothing all that great. I noticed the Range Murata designs in the Groove On Fight and I knew from that instant that I was in for something a bit better than the others, and I was right!
Quote:I played the first two, they were okay but nothing all that great. I noticed the Range Murata designs in the Groove On Fight and I knew from that instant that I was in for something a bit better than the others, and I was right!
Yeah, the first two games aren't anything special, but the third and fourth games really are pretty fun... (the fourth one is Power Instinct Matrimelee for the Neo-Geo, one of the system's last games and a pretty fun, if overly difficult, fighting game that I've mentioned) as usual in the series the characters are new each time I'm pretty sure, so the ties are loose, but they're both pretty good games, certainly. And yes, nice artwork too in Groove On Fight. :)
Oh, and I could list a lot more arcade (mostly MAME) games and I'm sure I will, but given how many arcade games there are I don't know how much of a point there is... there are far too many arcade games to make some kind of "all of the good arcade games" list or something, that's for sure.
Here's another good one: Elevator Action Returns
Much like the title suggests, the game features lots of elevators. The view shows the entire interior of a building in 2D, with lots of rooms that you can enter as part of the mission or to get points and health. Enemies sometimes comes out of the rooms or from behind things and shoot at you while you're running around in the halls. It's a really fun game.
Elevator Action Returns is in Taito Legends 2 for PS2, which I have. I don't like it that much, it feels like a boring and frustrating version of Rolling Thunder...
Well, Rolling Thunder feels like a boring and frustrating version of Elevator Action Returns to me.
Elevator Action Returns has a good pace to it, unlimited ammo, special pickups, and the levels are pretty tightly designed so there's not a lot of wandering around. And if you play the arcade version you get unlimited continues.
As I said in the other thread I don't like MAME too much and don't use it that often, but I've had it for years so I have played bits of a bunch of games in it of course... I could list a bunch of random stuff and have a partial list I was working on, but one I do want to mention is Tatsujin Ou, aka Truxton 2. The game was only released for the arcade and Fujitsu FM Towns, so the arcade is the more playable version because while I have the iso and have tried two FM Towns emulators, with one the graphics are fine but there's no CD audio, while with the other there's horribly choppy video that makes just about any games unplayable. Bah. So the arcade version it is... and it's a really good game.
Truxton II's soundtrack is pretty awesome. The gameplay doesn't really strike me as anything beyond the norm the for shmup genre, though. Still, fun game, like most shmups.
I agree actually, the gameplay is conventional, and the soundtrack amazing. I really love that level 1 theme, it's fantastic. Good thing too though, considering how crazily hard the game is... I think I beat level one once. And that took a LOT of trying and a lot of memorization, because one death and it's pretty much over. It's a relentless, unforgiving game... in two player mode, where you could respawn where you died, it'd be easier I'm sure. Being sent back makes it quite harsh. I think I like it a lot anyway because of the music, in part... well, and that it makes me want to memorize the next part so that hopefully next time I get a little farther. But it's very hard, harder than many in the genre at the time I'd say. Gradius III arcade is still harder... but it's tough.