Streets of Rage Remake hits v5.0 Final!

Posted Wednesday, 27th April 2011 under New old games
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BomberGames’ epic Streets of Rage Remake project hit v5.0 Final earlier this month!

This is an amazing feat, and the game is work of art. As a huge fan of the Streets of Rage series, having spent countless hours playing through the originals (especially through SoR2 on Mania level!), this game is a masterful tribute to the series, combining new characters, accumulated specials, tweaks, remixes of old levels, and plays perfectly, just like on the Mega Drive.

All the details are on their announcement page – grab it and enjoy it (currently available for Windows/PC). The only way it could be better is if it was on PSN and XBLA and distributed by Sega, because the authors deserve wide exposure of this project and remuneration for their efforts. In turn, the game demands being played on a big screen on a console 🙂

Thanks to elvis over at Aussie Arcade for the heads-up!

Enjoy!

Overhauling the Sega Astro City – Part 8, building a control box

Posted Monday, 25th April 2011 under Arcade cabinets
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Today I’m going to talk about the control box I built as part of the Astro City overhaul.

The purpose of this was to achieve the following:

• Switch between stereo and mono output, with the mono input spliced internally to be two-channel mono audio, all via RCA sockets
• House a -5v output produced by a Negatron with a master switch to enable/disable the function
• Distribute +12v to a fan with a master switch to turn on/off the fan
• Distribute +12v to power the audio amplifier
• Route a GND connection to the JAMMA harness, which ensures GND runs across all connected GND loops on the harness regardless of which power connector is hooked up to the power supply (e.g. ensures GND on the JAMMA harness even if I’m powering a NAOMI board direct from the PSU)

The other aim was for the connections to be modular and terminated with molex connections. This way I could build the control box on the bench before fitting it into the Astro City.

The first step once I gathered all the components was to mark out the holes to drill for the RCA sockets and switches:

Once that was done, I drilled out all the holes and fitted all the sockets and switches.

Next up, I went about wiring the audio components together using a 3PDT (3 pole, double throw) switch to go between the two sources, and brought in a master voltage cable to bring GND, +5v and +12v from one of the extra connections on the Sun PSU that weren’t used for supplying the main voltage to the PCB or harness. From there, using hot glue and some cut-down wall plugs, I created some points to screw in some project board that acted as a voltage distributor and hooked up +12v to the two switches (one for the fan, one for the Negatron), and a second piece of project board to house the Negatron. I also wired in an extra GND point to be distributed to the JAMMA harness with the +5v from the Negatron, and added those along with a GND and the +12v for the fan to a standard 4-pin molex connection as used on disk drives in a PC.

In addition, I also wired a +12v and GND to a plug to fit the power socket for the audio amplifier.

The end result came out like this:

Inside view of the box:

Inside view of the top half:

Inside view of the base:

With this completed, I can start gutting the existing cab and modifying the JAMMA harness to suit the new setup and the various molex connections as part of the project.

As noted before, posts on the refurb are being done ad-hoc, so to keep track of the whole project, just use the Sega Astro City Overhaul tag, as the whole series will be added to it over time.

Is Sega on the right track with Sonic Generations?

Posted Wednesday, 20th April 2011 under New old games
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Over on the Madboards, gaming discussion has turned to the upcoming and recently announced Sonic Generations, Sonic Team’s latest Sonic game for Xbox 360 and PS3.

The initial trailer certainly had my interest piqued, but after checking out an update at Eurogamer, and a subsequent hands-on and new trailer at IGN, my interest is a little bit more than piqued – I might actually be getting excited 🙂

The premise seems to be you have the ability to fire through each and every level as “classic” Sonic and “modern” Sonic. It’s all very post-modern really. The catch is that playing as classic Sonic sets the game to play as a 2.5D platformer with a physics engine theoretically similar in feel to 16-bit Sonic titles, whereas playing through the level as modern Sonic looks like its bringing back a hybrid 3D/2.5D playing field, not unlike the good bits out of Sonic Unleashed or (apparently, because I haven’t played it yet) Sonic Colours.

It’s still early days, with the game slated for a late-2011 release. Sonic Unleashed showed promise (though the werehog disaster will haunt us for years to come), Sonic 4 was fun, Sonic Colours apparently isn’t terrible – could we be seeing a return to form for the series? Mind, considering that Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic 2006 were incredibly rubbish, the only way is up, right?

If this turns out well, I think Sega should give Rieko Kodama a team of genius programmers and talented artists and bring back Phantasy Star for another whirl. Then they can give us a fun Streets of Rage brawler and a proper strategy RPG in the Shining Force series using the same engine they developed for the sublime Valkryia Chronicles.

A fanboy can dream, right?

Thanks to CG from the Madboards for posting the original link!

New CPS2 boards arrived :)

Posted Monday, 18th April 2011 under Collections
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Just a quick update – I recently took hold of two Phoenixed CPS2 boards: Street Fighter Zero 2 Alpha and Marvel Super Heroes 🙂

And because it’s fun to share, here’s a shot of Marvel Super Heroes in the cab:

🙂

And yes, if you’ve been following the blog for a while, that’s a shot of the game running on my recently-completed Astro City overhaul cabinet. I just haven’t gotten around to finish blogging about the whole process yet, but that’ll start happening again in a few weeks I promise!

There should be more love for Explodemon out there

Posted Wednesday, 13th April 2011 under Retrospective game reviews
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I haven’t checked if the internet is a buzz since Explodemon came out, but Curve Studio’s brilliant little platformer deserves accolades and then some.

The game borrows inspiration from Megaman X as its primary influence, but you can see all sorts of tips of the hat to other Japanese platformers (including the hilarious Engrish dialogue from Explodemon), and is imbued with the kind of creative feeling we got from EU devs on the Amiga and Atari ST during the 80s and 90s. This makes perfect sense of course given Curve are based in the UK, and that passion from an era past is omnipresent throughout the production. The visuals look amazing running in 1080p, the soundtrack shines with its chip-tune inspired synth and it controls super-tight, which is essential for a platformer running on a 3D engine, even though it’s only operating on a 2D plane.

If you haven’t given Exlodemon a whirl, go for it – there’s a demo up on PSN and the price for the full version is very reasonable. It’s a great, original title with plenty of charm worthy of your time and moolah.