Welcome back to 80s August, The Splintering’s month-long celebration of the greatest decade since the martians built the pyramids. Today, we’re going to look at Capcom’s very first game, a 2D, vertically scrolling, space shooter titled Vulgus released in 1984. Humanity is under attack! Maybe. Who knows? I wasn’t able to discern any plot from my time with Vulgus, but that was pretty much par for
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Welcome back to 80s August, The Splintering’s month-long celebration of the greatest decade since the unification of Japan under the Tokugawa shogunate! Today, we’re going to look at Thunder Cross, an a side-scrolling shoot ’em up (or simply “shooter,” as we called them back then) released in arcades by Konami in 1988. It’s important to note up front that I am looking specifically at the US
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Welcome back to 80s August, The Splintering’s month-long celebration of the greatest decade since the chicken laid the first egg… or, wait… Today we’re going to look at Chack’ N Pop, an arcade puzzle platformer released by Taito in 1983. A horde of monsters has stolen all of Mr. and Mrs. Pac-Man Chack’n’s hearts, so now they don’t love each other, or something
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Before the world went nuts and people turned into whiny-ass vanguards of social righteousness, video game advertisements were frequently quite awesome. Welcome to Cheeky Gaming Ads, where we highlight samples of how the video game industry didn’t take itself so seriously and let their advertisements reflect the spirit of their games… through fun. For this go-around, let’s look at a
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Street Fighter II originally landed in arcades on 6 February 1991 (Yep, 30 years ago). To mark the occasion, let’s have some fun with one of the finer details of the game. Fans of Street Fighter II and other Japanese games may have noticed that a character’s blood type is often listed in their bio. There are some important cultural
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Welcome back to the Festival of Dread, The Splintering‘s month long celebration of all things cookie, spooky, and altogether ooky. It’s been a while since we’ve done one of our “Cheeky Gaming Ads” galleries, and while Halloween doesn’t quite lend itself to the same level of “cheeky-ness”, we thought it would be fun to gaze at a few horror-themed arcade
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Welcome back to The Splintering‘s Festival of Dread, our month-long celebration of all things hideous and horrid! Today, we’re going to review a lesser-remembered arcade beat-em-up now available on the Nintendo Switch, Johnny Turbo’s Arcade: Night Slashers. Originally released in 1993 by Data East, Night Slashers is an arcade brawler for up to 3 players. While the early 90s was
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Before the world went nuts and people turned into whiny-ass vanguards of social righteousness, video game advertisements were frequently quite awesome. This is the second post highlighting samples of how the video game industry didn’t take itself so seriously and let their advertisements reflect the spirit of their games… through fun. In this go-around, we’re looking exclusively at Japanese game
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There’s quite a selection of SEGA’s 3D Classics line on the Nintendo 3DS: After Burner, Space Harrier, Fantasy Zone II; many of them are considered to be highly-regarded classics, but Thunder Blade isn’t usually part of the conversation when SEGA fans reminisce about the company’s glorious arcade past. Why is that? I contend that one reason is that Thunder Blade
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In 1991, Data East released Captain America and The Avengers in arcades. It became a moderate hit, prompting Data East to develop a console version on the Genesis/Mega Drive in 1992. Now, 30 years later, justice has finally been served as Marvel Entertainment has released the MCU Avengers movies, all based on Data East’s arcade classic! Okay, so that last
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The dogfighting arcade classic SEGA Ages G-LOC Air Battle has landed on the Nintendo Switch and is available now via the Japanese eShop for ¥999 (about $9). Remember, the Switch is region-free, so even if you’re in a western territory you can create a Japanese account and download the game. You can check out the launch trailer below, which is
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Monday at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Arcade1up announced that a Golden Axe themed arcade unit will be part of their 2020 releases. This machine includes several of SEGA’s “Team Shinobi”-developed arcade classics such as Golden Axe (duh), Shinobi (double-duh), Altered Beast, Wrestle Wars and Golden Axe: Revenge of the Death Adder. **rEcOrD sCrAtCh** You read that last one right.
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Welcome to yet another review celebrating Attack Helicopter Week here at The Splintering! Today we’re picking apart another retro arcade game port, this time it’s Steel Talons for the SEGA Genesis. Before we get going, however, I have to note that this game is ROUGH. I couldn’t play it through in a normal state, so the only solution was to
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Square Enix recently revealed that Final Fantasy VII‘s Tifa Lockhart is the next post-launch DLC character for Dissidia Final Fantasy NT. You can check out Tifa’s announcement trailer below. Nice looking character design, don’t ya’ think? Very ethical. Developed by Koei Tecmo’s Team Ninja, Dissidia Final Fantasy NT is a crossover action game featuring characters spanning the entire Final Fantasy series.
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When other E3 presentations bore you to tears and the hollow platitudes and corporate speak of other game companies pushes your head to the brink of exploding, the delightfully bizarre E3 offerings from game publisher Devolver Digital come to the rescue just in time. At E3 2019, Devolver did not disappoint. Ripping off the Nintendo Direct format, Devolver also used
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Konami has announced the full list of titles included in the upcoming Contra Anniversary Collection. Without further ado, here’s the list: • Contra (Arcade) + Japanese version w/free update • Super Contra (Arcade) + Japanese version w/free update • Super C (NES) + Japanese version w/free update • Contra III: The Alien Wars (SNES) + Japanese version w/free update •Contra: Hard Corps (Sega Genesis) +
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Abandoned in 1998, 2-D fighting game The Fallen Angels will finally see the light of day both on consoles and in arcades. At the 10th anniversary event for the Takadanobaba Mikado Arcade on Sunday, City Connection announced that they intend to partner with exA-Arcadia to finish the incomplete 2-D fighting game The Fallen Angels (known as Daraku Tenshi in Japan),
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If you live in the United States, your SEGA Saturn console is very possibly now 24 years old. (You still have it, don’t you?) The announcement of the Saturn’s surprise US release was in May 1995, and what followed was a very rocky and admittedly short lifespan for the console. However, several great games graced the Saturn during its short
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It’s already available for Japanese Switch owners, but for gamers waiting for the arcade classic Virtua Racing to arrive in the west, SEGA has released a new overview trailer detailing some of the game’s unique features. The Nintendo Switch release of SEGA Ages Virtua Racing is being promoted as the first arcade-faithful port of the game. Our Japanese is
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In 1992, 13-year old Richard Hunt was awake in his room, well past his bedtime, playing away furiously at Street Fighter II on his Super Nintendo. Richard’s mother, Debra Hunt, recalls walking into his room at nearly midnight. “I was really angry with him,” she says “It was a school night. I remember I threatened to take the TV out
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Before the world went nuts and people turned into whiny-ass vanguards of social righteousness, video game advertisements were frequently quite awesome. This is The Splintering‘s third post highlighting samples of how the video game industry didn’t always take itself so seriously, and sometimes let their advertisements reflect the spirit of their games… through fun. For this third installment, we’re specifically
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Bandai Namco has released a new trailer for their upcoming arcade game, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Last Survivor, this time featuring quite a bit of actual gameplay. You can check out the full trailer below. Based on the ongoing manga series JoJo no Kimyō na Bōken, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Last Survivor is described as a “stand battle royale” game in which
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While SNK’s actual 40th anniversary was in 2018, NIS America is set to release a PS4 version of the SNK 40th Anniversary Collection on 19 March. Available on Nintendo Switch since last fall, now PlayStation owners will get a chance to enjoy the girthy retro gaming collection. To mark the occasion, NIS and SNK released a retro-themed trailer, which you
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Bandai Namco has announced JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Last Survivor, a new game scheduled for release in Japanese arcades in summer 2019 based on the ongoing manga series JoJo no Kimyō na Bōken. According to Japanese website PR Times, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Last Survivor is described as a “stand battle royale” game in which players will use “stand powers” to be
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Last week, Bandai Namco released the first part of a retrospective documentary celebrating their weapons-based fighting series Soulcalibur. Bandai Namco followed up this past Wednesday by releasing part two of the documentary, and while part one focused on Soulcalibur‘s origins in arcades and on SEGA Dreamcast, part two focuses exclusively on the upcoming release of Soulcalibur VI. More specifically, the
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Since it’s apparently “Terry Bogard Week” and nobody told me ahead of time, I’m a bit late in reporting that the main protagonist of SNK’s Fatal Fury series is joining the roster of Arika’s Fighting EX Layer for PS4. “Terry Bogard Week” or not, Fatal Fury’s “hungry wolf” is certainly making the rounds in this year’s announcements at EVO 2018.
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Publisher Microids has announced that their retro arcade platformer Toki is coming to Nintendo Switch in November along with a special edition that features a physical arcade cabinet. This remake published by Microids not only features upgraded visuals and re-orchestrated music, but there will also be the ‘Retrollector’ edition which includes a physical copy of the game, a comic book,
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NIS America has announced that the SNK 40th Anniversary Collection will be available November 13th in North America and November 16th in Europe. This collection includes over a dozen old-school SNK arcade games, and by “old-school,” I mean pre-Fatal Fury fighting game era SNK, though publisher NIS has teased that more games will be revealed at a later date. This collection
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I’ve attended the Too Many Games convention in Phoenixville, PA for several years now, and over that time I’ve seen it grow and expand into quite a girthy experience. I only had one day (Saturday) to see and do as much as I could, but I was not lacking activities to jump into. Below are the highlights of the trip.
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In January, SEGA of Japan displayed a new installment in its arcade light gun series House of the Dead at its Akihabara building. Now it looks like House of the Dead: Scarlet Dawn is heading to Western arcades. SEGA Amusements recently updated their arcade page with the following: “Horror has never looked or felt this real… This is terror like
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