In this installment of my ongoing series about arcade-style joysticks for home consoles, I’m going to talk about two very different sticks in my collection: The Capcom Fighter Power Stick, and…a struggle stick for the Atari 2600?! I also want to talk a little bit about the upcoming arcade stick units from Capcom and SNK. So join us, won’t you (sorry Karina), for Parte the Thirde of Joystickery on Retro Game SuperHyper!
If you haven’t seen the M2 documentary on YouTube by My Life In Gaming, watch it first, then come back for this article. Also, make sure to hit the Like button and subscribe to MLIG to show your appreciation! If you have seen the doc, read on!
Wasn’t that great?
For years, gamers have raved about the work M2 has done in bringing arcade games to home consoles with amazing accuracy and a wealth of added options, customizations, and assorted bells and whistles. And now, thanks to this new documentary, we know a little more about who is behind all that meticulous work: A bunch of crazy hardcore game nerds, that’s who. My kinda people! …and if you’re reading this, probably yours too.
Continue reading “Let’s Hear It For M2!”
That’s right, you heard right — after a long delay, the second issue of the Retro Game SuperHyper fanzine is finally done, in the can, put to bed, uploaded, out and available to buy RIGHT NOW! Continue reading “Retro Game SuperHyper ‘Zine Issue #2 is HERE!”
Dangan is a new homebrew Game Boy game made by two individuals known only as Snorpung (code, graphics, and design) and Nordloef (music and FX) in honor of the Game Boy’s 30th anniversary. And believe it or not, it’s a bullet-hell shootemup! Continue reading “Dangan: A New Game Boy Shmup”
Last October, game publisher East Asia Soft held a giveaway on Instagram that involved some liking and reposting and tagging, and the prize was a limited physical edition of Fast Striker by NG Dev Team for PS4. Somehow, I was one of two winners! Continue reading “Fast Striker PS4 LE Unboxing”
I did a whole blog post a while back about how much I love joysticks/arcade sticks/fightsticks. (Actually, I don’t play a ton of fighters these days, so I guess for me they’re more “shmupsticks.”) Whatever you want to call that slab of arcade-perfect precision control, I have added them to most of my game consoles, and they’ve enhanced my enjoyment of shmups, fighters, and arcade classics immensely.
So when I realized that I had a handful of shmups on the PlayStation 4, I started to want to add an arcade stick to that platform as well. Then I picked up the Street Fighter II 30th Anniversary Collection, and remembered how much I HATE playing Street Fighter games with a pad, so that made up my mind in a hurry: time to shop for a PS4 stick.
But in this day and age of cool custom arcade sticks, I knew one thing: it couldn’t be just ANY arcade stick.
It seems that no matter what game genre we “retro” or “classic” gamers may cite as our favorite — be it platformers, maze games, puzzle games, fighting games, etc. — the shmup, or shootemup, or STG, or shooting game, or scrolling shooter, or whatever you want to call it, is almost universally revered. Despite the various strengths and weaknesses of individual titles, the shmup, as a genre, seems to be beyond reproach for many retro gamers.
Whyzzat?? Continue reading “Why Shmups?”
Sometimes, things get confusing in this hobby. Especially with videogame titles! Occasionally a game’s name or even content has to be changed depending on the region in which it’s being sold. This can be due to copyright issues, cultural standards, or marketing-based decisions by the publisher. Other times, you run into a situation like what I’m talking about today: in which a kickass, revolutionary, and popular game has the unfortunate privilege of sharing its name with a rightfully-forgotten piece of crap that probably actually directly contributed to the infamous 1983 crash of the whole home videogame market.
I present to you: Star Fox and StarFox.
Ever use one of these? It’s a Hudson Shooting Watch. They came out in Japan in the ’80s and were reissued in the late 2000s. It’s a gadget that measures how many times you can press a button in 10 seconds, thereby telling you how many shots per second you can achieve, which I guess is useful information if you’re a shmup enthusiast, which I am. Continue reading “10.5shot”
Retro Game SuperHyper 