Gaming Hell

This week's Arcade Archives release is... Gee Bee (Namco, 1978)

Arcade Archives (previous-gen consoles)
Just the one ROM for this one, so you don't get the US Gremlin variant, sorry! If you have a USB mouse, you can plug it into your console to use as a replacement for the spinner control (this feature is mentioned on every storefront but I've only tested it on the Switch release), otherwise you can adjust the speed of the paddle in the Controls Settings. Preference Settings allow players to play in either the original black and white or a simulation of the colour cellophane overlay on the cabinet to add colour (this produces colours that appear to be more accurate than MAME, at least as far as I can tell) which is explained in more detail over here.

Oh wow, we are going deep into the Arcade Archives for this one- Releasing in 1978, this is the oldest ACA rerelease, it's Namco's very first in-house developed arcade game, and it's the first of a trilogy of Breakout / pinball hybrids designed by Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani! I'm a little surprised these games haven't shown up sooner, but there is something a little amusing about all these big-hitter 3D arcade games from Namco getting the ACA treatment and then we go all the way back to their beginnings. That's what's nice about ACA, you never quite know what you're going to get in any given week! As for the game itself, it's a bat-and-ball game with some light pinball elements thrown in to spice things up, with blocks to destroy (get the ones in the side pockets for an extra ball), some NAMCO targets to light up (you can earn a double bonus this way) and a spinning bar in the middle that's actually essential to keep your ball in play- your ball will speed up once you hit it with one of your two paddles enough, so roll it through the spinner and it'll slow down briefly. This is one that's definitely iterated upon by its follow-ups (especially Cutie Q) but as well as being historically significant, this is the first time this game's been rereleased as far as I'm aware (I don't think it got any illegitimate ports like Cutie Q did as Pinball Spectacular on the VIC-20 and C64) as it wasn't even in any Namco Museum collections (although Bomb Bee and Cutie Q were). The one complaint I have with this rerelease is that unless you have a mouse, there's no real analogue control option- even using an analogue stick, you have to hold an added 'speed up' button to increase your paddle's speed, although both speeds can be adjusted in the settings and it generally works OK, I just wish I didn't have to plug in my mouse for analogue!

Just the one ROM this time. Preference Settings allow players to add two extra digits to the score display so you can make your score even higher, although good luck with that, this game's hard!

"OSHA violation? The hell you talkin' about, pally? Look, we've got a bit of a problem on the job site, so maybe you can help. Ol' Workman over there- long story how he got that name- is a lil' stranded on one of the parts of the building we ain't finished yet. We got a whole bunch of spare girders to place over there though- straight ones, ones that let 'im walk down to go lower and walk up to go higher, that sorta thing. So, you place the girders and he'll walk across 'em to get to safety on the other side. We only got 15 pieces to spare though, you go over and we ain't gonna be able to build this orphanage we're workin' on. Workman really needs to work on his walk though, 'cause he'll change his walking speed constantly. Yell at him to reverse course and he'll double-back, but he ain't so good at listenin' to instructions so he'll only do that so many times. Oh, and watch out for those cranes, we don't wanna knock the poor guy out. Alright buddy, get to it, I gotta go grab my lunch, good luck!"
 

This week's Arcade Archives release is... Scrambled Egg (Technōs, 1983)


Only the Japanese ROM is included here- there was a localised Western release by Universal, Eggs, with completely different character designs, that isn't available here. No extra options either, sorry!

Jaleco and SNK are one thing- their last ACA releases prior to this month were in 2021- but Technōs is going all the way back, their last ACA release was Double Dragon II: The Revenge in 2016. Almost a decade ago! I was definitely not expecting them to ever return to ACA as they recently put out their own half-arcade game collection, Super Technōs World: River City & Technōs Arcade Classics, but this game isn't included on there, so while I wouldn't expect any of the games on there to show up on ACA, maybe we'll get a Mysterious Stones or a Minky Monkey out of this. What older company will come back next, I wonder?

Anyway, as for Scrambled Egg itself, this game is weird, I'd sort-of never heard of it before! By that I mean I was only familiar with the Datel bootleg ROCK DUCK which has incorrect colours but I mean, you can see the duck thrusting its crotch constantly, right? Anyway, this is a maze chase game with less of the emphasis on the 'maze' part, where as the hero, BOSS (some kind of strange robot thingy) you have to free all the chicks from the eggs by kicking them. Kicking an egg scoots it across in the direction you kicked it, and if it hits another egg, it'll send that one flying in the same direction, until an egg hits a wall, and the whole thing happens again in reverse until they're back in position, but with each egg a little closer to cracking open. Once the chicks are out, kick 'em off the screen to get them out of danger! Poor BOSS gets pestered by two enemy types, the Sukiyaki Bros. who can undo the damage you've done to the eggs or turn freed chicks blue to make them worth less points, and the Tuna Head who usually circles the edge of the screen but comes in from time to time to chase you. You can fire off your eyes (!) against the Sukiyaki Bros. to stun them, but that won't work against Tuna Head, so you need to kick an egg and hit them with it to take them out temporarily. You'll even find a red helper chick to swat away bad guys that can turn into a hen that helps crack the eggs too. Just be careful, if you get sandwiched between moving eggs, you're poached. Save all the chicks and move on to the next board!

I won't lie, on my first few credits I didn't get anywhere with this game and was ready to write it off, but I decided to persist and it does take a little getting used to, but it's pretty fun! The movement in particular is a little strange, it works on a grid system but since there's more open spaces than something like Pac-Man, it can be hard to see where one tile stops and another starts at times, so I found myself not quite moving where i wanted to. I haven't gotten much better at it, but you sort-of adjust to it in time. The main habit you have to stop yourself from indulging in is hanging around on the outer edges of the maze- Tuna Head will spend most of its time circling it, and you can't attack it from there. Instead, you're better off sticking inside the maze, taking potshots at Tuna Head when the opportunity presents itself and dealing with the Sukiyaki Bros. using your eyes while using chain reactions to work on as many eggs as you can at once. The egg patterns eventually become more complex and more Sukiyaki Bros. show up, so it starts challenging and only gets more so as you get through the boards. It'll take a few credits for you to start to 'get' it, but I think this is a neat little game! A few gameplay elements would show up in another Technōs game a year later, Mysterious Stones: Dr. John's Adventure although that game's a lot more elabarote with way more going on, but I suppose it shows just how quickly arcade games were advancing at that time, eh~

This week's Arcade Archives release is... Chopper I (SNK, 1988)

EU

This week's Arcade Archives release is... D-Day (Jaleco, 1984)

PSN
EU
US

Switch
EU
US

Just the one ROM this time, and no Preference Settings either, too bad!

Well, this is a surprise- welcome back, Jaleco! The last time we saw a Jaleco game on Arcade Archives was Soldam all the way back in 2021, so I figured we wouldn't be seeing them again, but here we are! Unfortunately, the game they chose to come back with isn't exactly a classic, and it's not even a Jaleco game- this was developed by E.L.S. as mentioned in the comments of LordBBH's Push to Reject video on the game, who mostly appear to have done work for companies like Jaleco and Sega. This is a weird vertical shmup of sorts where you control a rather awkward battleship making its way across the ocean, taking on land, sea and air targets along the way. The way you do this is by juggling two different targetting reticles- one that fires machine-gun fire upwards to take out anything in the air (this includes missiles launched by sea targets, so keep that in mind) and another that fires missiles to target ground and sea-based targets. These reticles move at different speeds and stop moving at different parts of the screen, so actually aiming where you can get tricky, especially when you factor in that your boat only moves once you drag the aerial cursor to the left or right edge, and it moves s l o w l y. You'll have to master moving this thing too, because land masses along the way will sink you if you graze them!

I can sort-of see what they were going for here, but it's a very slow, plodding game that feels really awkward to play. Keeping track of which reticle you need in which part of the screen gets really confusing, so you'll try and hit something with the wrong reticle and die because there's absolutely no way to course correct fast enough (especially since you can't move diagonally- this is a four-way game only) and dodging any missiles or shots coming your way is not an option. It's just not a game that really grabs me, which is a shame. Still, I get the feling Jaleco may have taken notes from this game for Field Combat, which has a similar slow player ship with a reticle but does more interesting things with it. Field Combat is one of the games not currently in Arcade Archives, so I'd definitely like to see that in the future. There's not a huge amount of Jaleco arcade games left for ACA, but Avenging Spirit and NMK's Jaleco-publoshed Psychic 5 would be nice (especially since the latter's modern remake is apparently not very good at all). The big fish, though, is Chimera Beast. C'mon, it doesn't matter that it never got officially released, make it happen!