Cyber Lip is a game from a much less obscure company on a more common platform than many of my choices, but it still vanished in the arcade landscape. The game, a neo-geo contra-alike, was one of the first games on the platform, and thus got drowned out fairly quickly by Street Fighter and Final Fight clones. Cyber-Lip comes off as a less detailed Metal Slug precursor, or a cartoonier Contra. Some minor interest is provided by the surprisingly bleak ending, as well as the occasional branching path. However, Cyber Lip still comes off like a typical secondary launch title, soon to be forgotten as bigger and better games come along.
Diver Boy is a somewhat obscure arcade title by Electronic Devices, the same Italian developer behind the previously-mentioned Fantasy Land. Unlike that title, though, the art direction isn't scary, and the game is fun rather than frustratingly difficult. In Diver Boy, you play the titular character, who must pick up pearls by, yes, diving through increasingly complex underwater single-screen mazes. Every few levels, you'll fight a boss in your annoyingly large submarine. There are a few powerups, like a 10-second long submarine and a shield which will protect you from one hit, but nothing hugely game-changing. The graphics are charming if low-budget, the game is simple but still entertaining, and overall Diver Boy will provide a fine few minutes of entertainment. While Diver Boy never got an official port, or a fancy 3d remake, it is available to play for free online in a somewhat choppy and shoddy flash port.
Who is Lady Frog? And what exactly is she returning from? Expect to have neither of these questions answered and many more raised by The Return Of Lady Frog, a d-grade erotic game from the decidedly unsexily named Microhard. After getting through a baffling title screen, featuring a picture of a treefrog, and an even more confusing picture with bright red lips telling you to "kiss your lady", you get to the, uh, meat of the game, which involves a sort of mix of Qix and Bomberman, though you are fighting cheaply animated balloons instead of other bombing men, and are revealing very 90's nudie pictures instead of abstract swathes of color. You play as a poorly animated frog sprite that would not look out of place in 1980, but who seems to jibe with the 90's shareware aesthetic and the digitized photos. Those looking for a cheap thrill are advised to look elsewhere, and those seeking an actual good game are, well, probably already playing qix and bomberman.
Before Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball, Irem introduced the first sexy lady sports game with the aptly-titled Tropical Angel. As the titular scantily clad girl, you must survive a rocky waterski slalom course, all from a behind the shoulder 3d perspective. The scaling is somewhat choppy and makes dodging the rocks difficult, and the effects don't even match Pole Position's, but for 1983 it looks pretty good. The game is easy to pick up, the graphics are bright and sunny, and while there isn't much to it, Tropical Angel is still fairly charming.
Back in the early days of arcades, before polygons hit the scene with 1984's amazing I, Robot, arcade games were manufactured with two different types of displays: raster and vector. Raster displays were made up of the colorful little dots we know as "sprites", whereas vector displays were made up of lines and dots, allowing them to display a form of primitive 3d. Though Star Wars and Tempest are undoubtedly the most famous vector games, coming from Atari, other companies also threw their hat into the vector arena, such as Vectorbeam, who had a short run of vector-only games, starting with 1977's Space War, and including today's game, Speed Freak. Speed Freak is a first person driving game, providing simple but clean and aesthetically pleasing landscapes to drive through.
Like the much later Outrun, the goal is not to win the race by outrunning other cars, but to get as far as you can without running out of time. The controls ain't Gran Turismo, being that you only have a gas pedal, 4 gears, and steering, all working in a fairly arcadey fashion, but they serve their purpose well. The course you drive on is randomly generated, and has both roadblocks and other cars to avoid, as well as bits of background color such as hitchhikers, trees, cows, and birds. Speed Freak is a simple game, but a pleasurable one. The minimalist graphics are actually quite soothing, mimicking a night drive through the desert, and the fact that crashes don't kill you also makes the whole experience more relaxing, though you do get to see a neat explosion, as seen below.
Continuing yesterday's theme, Dynamite Dux is yet another obscure Sega arcade game, this time a beat em up. You play as either a blue or pink duck Bin or Pin, trying to rescue your owner from the evil king Achacha the great, who took her away in a "miracle ball" to achacha world. Though Achacha world is supposed to be a different place than earth, it still has places named "texas" and "chicago", with evil penguins in the desert and giant fireballs in the city. Must be sort of a Sliders thing. Though the game plays mostly like a standard double dragonish game, there are a few interesting wrinkles. If you hold down the attack button when unarmed you can charge up for a huge punch, and you can also pick up various types of weapons, such as a squirtgun, a bazooka, and more. The graphics are colorful and interestingly shaded, and even feature some subtle sprite manipulation and scaling. The music is typical 80's Sega, cheery and rendolent of blue skies. Overall, Dynamite Dux is not a timeless classic, but it certainly deserves more than a downscaled Master System port.
Here on woodgrain gaming, I do not only cover games by obscure companies nobody has ever heard of, I also cover obscure games from well-known companies. Now, Sega is still a household name, despite the sad failure of the Dreamcast and also the failure to make a playable sonic game in recent years. During the 80's, though, while they did produce some incredibly popular and revolutionary games, such as Outrun and Space Harrier, they also made a few projects that have mostly been forgotten today, having only received watered-down Master System ports, or Genesis ports nobody played. One of these such games is 1986's Teddy Boy Blues, based on a popular japanese song by Yohko Ishino. After a quirky but well-animated intro screen, you, as a small beret-wearing boy, must shoot his way through increasingly difficult sidescrolling stages full of odd japanese enemies such as blue ninjas, evil dolls, and dragons.
The stages are fairly small, and loop on themselves, only changing when you manage to kill all the enemies onscreen before running out of time, which happens gradually as a scary black furry blob looking something like a langolier eats up your time bar. There don't seem to really be any weapon upgrades, and overall the game is simple but gets more and more challenging as you get overwhelmed with enemies, which you have to collect once you stun them in order to prevent them from eating up your time. There are also two different bonus levels; a shooting gallery and an overhead stage starring Yohko Ishino herself. Overall, Teddy Boy Blues is a visually and aurally pleasing Sega arcade title, with their 80s pastel aesthetics, also seen in Fantasy Zone. Teddy Boy Blues is a simple and charming title, but lacks anything to make it truly stand out. It was ported to the Master System, but without the pop song connection, and with somewhat downgraded graphics, and also a little-seen Megadrive/Genesis port, both of which have vanished into the mists of time.
Fantasy Land is Hard Head 2's slightly less deranged Italian cousin. Like Hard Head 2, you play an ugly little boy who must fight more and more perplexing foes in order to rescue a girl, though in this case you are at least a slightly deformed elf rather than a bald simpleton in overalls. With a variety of magic fireballs you must fight ooga booga tribesmen, leatherboys, killer plants and various other weird creatures as you go through seemingly random settings, from a typical fantasy forest all the way to a more modern city and factory. Despite some hideous character design, Fantasy Land has an appealingly different look and feel to its graphics, more like a gussied-up pc game instead of the usual colorful, rounded sprites of its japanese counterparts. The game also controls fairly decently and plays fairly, though frustratingly at points. At times it feels less than solid, in a sort of floaty Alex Kidd way. Overall, though, a fairly decent game, nothing too special but not as horrible as the ugly characters had me fearing.
Sort of a primitive Pikmin for the Ned Flanders set, Noah's Ark is probably the most strategically complex Moppet Video game, and also the only one to deal with the mass genocide of most of humanity. God in this game is even more unrelentingly unmerciful than the usual yaweh of the Old Testament, not only flooding the earth once, but again and again until poor noah can't take anymore. Noah has to escort the animals back to the ark, one by one, all while the flood waters get ever higher and higher, promising less and less ecodiversity. Once you get a pair in front of the Ark, they enter, and you can keep going until you have rescued all the animals you can, or when you have rescued all the animals you want to repopulate the world. Controls are simple, with just joystick movement to control noah and one button to get animals to follow him. There's a small amount of strategy involved in which order you get the animals, and also a bonus unicorn, though I have never managed to catch it. Overall, a more interesting game than most Moppet Video titles, but still fairly mediocre. The graphics and sound are blah, even for the time, but as semireligious games go, it's as least as good as Bible Adventures, and better than the following Noah's Ark game:
Tugboat is yet another Moppet Video production, and while it's slightly more interesting than Pirate Treasure or Leprechaun, it still is not that exciting for anyone over five. Moppets might have fun with tugboat-steering, horn-honking action, but even they would probably prefer to just pretend to play something more exciting like Donkey Kong. In Tugboat, you steer the titular slow-moving vehicle down a poorly-rendered Mississipi river, all while avoiding logs and collecting lighthouses. The controls are simple, consisting of the ability to steer left AND right, and the power to honk on your horn, which really serves no gameplay purpose at all, but might entertain an easily-distracted child, but only in the early 80's. Today's children require much more visceral entertainments, and the blocky graphics would be laughed off the screen, even by a preschooler.
Pirate Treasure was yet another simple kid's game from the child-loving company Moppet Video, who made a business out of smaller, simpler arcade games aimed at the really young crowd. It plays almost like a palette swap of Leprechaun/Pot of Gold, with similar treasure hunting/chase mechanics. You have to get to the treasure island and not get hit by various infamous pirates such as blackbeard and captain hook, though all of them have the exact same ship, all while gaining points through running over the islands, which can be then transformed into killer volcanos by the pirates. If you hit a volcano, you sink, and so the game goes. Though the volcanoes make the game a bit more interesting than Leprechaun/Pot of Gold, Pirate Treasure very quickly gets mundane, though for a moppet audience it might've been just right. The graphics also fail to excite, and the sound is just sort of there.
Just in time for St. Patrick's day, here comes Pot of Gold/Leprechaun, a single screen arcade game where you must seek out the little green man's pot of gold all while evading the evil warwick davisesque leprechaun. The longer you avoid the leprechaun, the more points the pot of gold gives you, as well as the trees that you can run through and change the colors of.Not much to say about this game, really, it's just a sort of mundane chase game with a unique setting and goal, and two versions, one for the wee laddies and lassies, and another for the embittered potato farming catholic drunkards. Leprechaun is the easy version, from the appropriately named "Moppet Video", and supposedly came in a special cabinet just for kids, whereas Pot of Gold is much more difficult and was for the adults, or at least the sullen, smoking adolescents. Not many games got a special kid's version, so i guess that makes this one different, but there just ain't much to it.
Ultra Balloon is SunA's take on the perennial arcade classic Bubble Bobble. Though it again features repulsive art direction and puzzling surrealism, Ultra Balloon is surprisingly quite playable, all things considered. Instead of a cute dino, you play as an almost as adorable penguin who must, yes, trap enemies in bubbles in single screen levels in order to advance. This is despite the fact that the story screens feature an ugly little boy, but we should probably be glad to be spared deformed child protagonists ala Hard Head. The game plays exactly like Taito's prehistoric bubble-popping classic, down to the collectible points-giving tchotchkes, trapping bubbles, and swarms of enemies, only with different, more unpleasant graphics. However, the weirdness is actually sort of charming, and the game is smooth enough to be much more playable than the majority of SunA's output. SunA only put out 7 arcade games, only 6 of which seem currently emulatable, and while none of them were classics, all of them have enough quirkiness to be at least worth a quick download. Ultra Balloon and Back Street Soccer were their last titles, and came after a 6 year absence from the scene. SunA no longer exists, probably swallowed up by some random Panchinko company, but their odd legacy still remains with us today.
SunA up and vanished as a company for several years, only to reappear in 1996 for two last games, just as obscure as their earlier titles. This time, they take on arcade-style soccer with the same engrish and mutant character design they apply to all their other titles. Instead of playing in official leagues and on the regular field, this time you play soccer on the streets. Soccer on the streets doesn't really seem to vary that much from regular soccer, besides the ability to execute special charge moves and a more edgy, extreme palette. Though the mangled storyline is amusing, just like the hideous outfits the teams wear and the ugly mutant children in the background, nothing about this title really stands out.
Surprisingly, Hard Head managed to somehow be popular enough to warrant a sequel, the even more ugly and mystifying Hard Head 2. This time, Hard Head is armed and back with a vengeance, once again attempting to rescue his equally hideous love interest from the giant demon monster that seems to be in the process of eating her. Instead of shooting bubbles, Hard Head starts out with a wimpy kick that can be upgraded if you kill the vase-wielding turtles running through the levels. You usually start out with a spiked club,and upgrade to a mace and a bubble shooting gun, among other things. Also, while you start off in your marioesque overalls, getting hit will strip you of all your clothes, showing off your second, smaller, less than hard head. Though it never reaches hentai-level excesses, there is still something fundamentally disturbing about seeing such an ugly character doff trou, though the foes you fight are also nightmarish and ugly. Overall, Hard Head is a bad ghouls and ghosts wannabe with a special emphasis on melee weapons and displeasing weirdness that unsettles the stomach like cheap sushi.
Super Ranger, also known by the more erotic name of Rough Ranger, is SunA's take on Rolling Thunder. Though I'm terrible at it, Rolling Thunder is one of my favorite classic games, with demanding yet rewarding controls, and a sleek, well-animated 60's spy vibe. While Super Ranger is nowhere near as polished or balanced as Namco's 1986 classic, it has a unique charm of its own. As per usual, there's a kidnapped girl, this time abducted by baddies straight from the Take On Me video, hardhats and all. You play as a shirtless village person, sort of the more skinny twink equivalent to the bearish Mike Haggar from Final Fight.
As you work your way slowly through the underground base, you can pick up a few different types of gun powerups, though most of them aren't really that useful against the merciless onslaught of construction hatted clones, who outswarm and outmove you. The biggest thing they failed to replicate from Rolling Thunder was the smooth sense of control, making the hero weak and unable to fend for himself for 5 seconds, much less an entire level. Expect to credit feed a lot if you want to get to the end, as the levels are both long and torturous, especially the vertically scrolling ones. Just like previous SunA titles, the music is cheesy midis of classical and other ripped off tunes, and the graphics, while they do have an appealingly chunky and colorful new wave feel, are unpolished and could use a bit more variety. Worth checking out if you are a fan of Rolling Thunder, but expect to hit continue every six steps.
Goindol, or Homo, as some bootlegs call it, fares somewhat better than Hard Head. This time, SunA decided to take on Arkanoid/Breakout, but add in some interesting play elements that make it more than just a lifeless clone. Just as in Hard Head, the art style is alternately confusing and terror-inducing, such as the two-headed triceratops seen above. The music continues with the loungey feel, with vaguely familiar pop songs played as if covered by the saddest pachinko parlor karaoke machine in the world. However, once you get past the charming but janky aesthetic, the game itself is well-designed. Though the game has the standard ball and paddle mechanics, it adds on well-designed tables, with a mixture of pinball and shooter touches, including bumpers, slots, and an evil caveman(the titular Goindol)who throws enemies and obstacles at you. If you manage to hit the right spot, you are taken to a shooter bonus round, where you must clear out all the blocks in order to reveal the picture below. Goindol is well worth tracking down, even if you don't like cavemen, dinosaurs, or hideous art.
Hard Head represents SunA's attempt to rip off Super Mario Bros, but mixed in with soccer/football, Bubble Bobble, and the ugliest characters to grace a game since the boxart of the original Mega Man. Just as in SMB, you must venture through many sidescrolling levels and hop on the heads of weird creatures, but you also have the ability to trap them in bubbles, and some of the powerups have a distinctly Bubble Bobble-esque feel to them. Also, instead of a flagpole, you have to hit a soccer ball through the goal at the end of the level, a task easier said than done, given the game's incredibly wonky physics, which also make jumping and navigating incredibly difficult. The game overall has this weird janky offmarket feeling to it, from the nightmarish main characters and enemies to the loungeporn music and general confusing aimlessness. The game is almost worth playing all the way through just to see what strange thing they'll throw at you next, but the horrible controls will probably stop you before the end.
Just as for every Donkey Kong there is a Sky Ace, and for every Frogger there is an Amazing Adventures of Mr. F.Lea, there is a SunA for every Capcom. While a few companies manage to make it big in the arcade and home arenas, there are also tons of unknown companies that create neglected, little-loved games that only see one pizza parlor in an Ohio pizza place instead of nationwide distribution. I've already mentioned a few of these companies before, such as Zaccariah, but I'm going to spend the next few entries going over the complete oevre of an obscure Korean company called SunA. SunA only put out 7 games, all of which are somewhat derivative knockoffs of other arcade hits, but with quite a few interesting wrinkles. We won't ever get a SunA collection, or even poorly-ported cellphone renditions of any of the games mentioned, but they provide a fascinating glimpse into an otherwise underrepresented country in the arcade scene.
Safari Rally is an interesting monochromatic race through an african jungle. Stark but detailed black and white graphics present a slowly scrolling landscape of suspiciously straight tree lined lanes, which you must navigate through to collect all the dots, all while avoiding running into various jungle creatures like snakes and lions, as well as suicidal drivers going the opposite way. Safari Rally is a simple game, with no powerups and no ostensible greater goal, but also a frustrating one. Your acceleration is erratic, your car's response time questionable, and the obstacles seem unfairly stacked, with many unavoidable collisions. Safari Rally was one of SNK's first games, but they thankfully recovered from the slow start of both this and Ozma Wars to later bring us the incredible and very long-lived Neo-Geo arcade hardware and respective games.
I honestly have no idea in hell what this game is even about. Ok, I'll try, for my readers' sake. Apparently you are a pig in a hoopty who must collect his fellow porkers, all while avoiding the dreaded tnt bombs and disembodied wolf heads. However, your heroic efforts will not be thwarted by wolves so much as obstacles in the road, as your car has less jumping power than Toad carrying the whole mushroom kingdom on his back. So, prepare to see this screen a lot:
Overall, this nonkosher attempt at moon patrol isn't even worth downloading for free.
Red Robin is not just a burger chain with a bird as a mascot. Red Robin is also an italian arcade game from 1986, where you star as the titular hero, a kleptomaniac kid in superhero pajamas, who must collect rings, gems and other precious items through pac landesque scrolling landscapes. There's an invincibility powerup, which is the only way to defeat any of the enemies, and an irritating power-down in the form of a skull, which doesn't let you collect any of the items hovering tantalizingly over your head. You make your way through flat, cheesy landscapes, from forests to castles. If you get to the end of the stage without collecting all the items, you have to run back to the left and try to nab them before the timer runs out. Just like Pac-Land, jumping is unwieldy and awkward, and there's just no there there. There's no real depth of gameplay, the controls are off, and while the graphics might have looked decent at the time, better-looking games came out in 1986, ones that didn't star ugly children in bedtime clothes pathetically grasping for both precious gems and arcade fame.
Besides the colony of Sim Ant and the pillbug protaganist of Bugdom, the video game world has a shortage of insect heroes. Most people regard bugs as obnoxious annoyances deserving of annihilation, and games have followed suit, from Stanley Bugman's Donkey Kong 3 to the Mario Paint minigame Flyswatter. The Amazing Adventures of Mr. F. Lea is an exception to all of this entymological hatred. The hero, the titular Mr. F. Lea, is a charming tophatted flea who must hop on as many dogs' backs as he can, presumably to drain them of their blood and give them all lyme disease. The game plays out on four different types of screens for each level, each with slightly different gameplay. The lawnmower stage is basically frogger, with lawnmowers replacing freeway traffic, and dogs' backs replacing the lilypads of frogger. The Dog Hollow stage is a repurposed Donkey Kong, Dogs' Tails is sort of a more vertical Jungle Hunt, and Dogs' backs involves hopping up a mountain to the William Tell Overture. Though none of these stages are particularly original by themselves, together they create a refreshingly different and varied game experience. Control is responsive and smooth, graphics are detailed and surprisingly cute, and the sound is also good, offering up catchy electronic versions of classic tunes. While The Amazing Adventures of Mr. F. Lea is derivative bordering on plagiaristic, it's still quite fun, and deserves more than to be wiped out by the bugspray of time.
