QCF: Air Twister

magine if Space Harrier was revamped into an absurdly stylized Rock Opera that cranked the dial on the Surrealistic fantasy themes to psychedelic levels of absurdity over its Sci-Fi roots for current gaming platforms. Well, don't strain yourself too hard because YS Net, the studio started by legendary developer Yu Suzuki, has taken all the guesswork out of the matter with their latest release, Air Twister. Where Team Reptile's Bomb Rush Cyberfunk was a modernized Love Letter to an iconic SEGA property, Air Twister is being presented as the quintessential sequel to the Arcade Classic in nearly everything but name, and the next big release from Yu Suzuki following the studio's crowdfunded debut with Shenmue III. Originally released as an Apple Arcade exclusive in the summer of 2022, the mobile exclusive has now been greenlit as a multiplatform release for digital storefronts on both Console and PC.

The twists (shitty pun intended) don't stop there, as Air Twister offers various flourishes on the shooter's foundation that set it apart from its source material—honestly, to a degree where it more often resembles a Hidden Caravan Level Mode from Panzer Dragoon than anything related to Space Harrier. Despite the inconsistent traces of Harrier DNA though, Air Twister still manages to deliver that trademark Popcorn Shooting frenzy that Suzuki had earned his pedigree on, albeit in a somewhat stunted execution that just manages to breathe a scant new gasp of life into the Arcade classic.

Air Twister is…well, intriguing, to say the very least.

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QCF: Clockwork Aquario

’d say leading up to this review I felt a bit out of my element. For one, I think it’s safe to say that George would be our resident Westone fan with their legacy of games including the Wonder Boy series. And that in the early 1990’s I did not own any consoles, let alone was going to the arcades. However, I do have an appreciation for the arcade genre and its history which is why the release of Clockwork Aquario is such a milestone. For a game that was in limbo for thirty years to finally have a console release is worth all the accolades. And although this may not be a game for everyone, it showcases the expert design and gorgeous artwork that made this developer such a legend in the industry even to this day.

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QCF: Centipede: Recharged

efore games had these rich worlds where players could invest countless hours into game theory videos on YouTube and subsequent dollars on merchandise, Video Games were mostly button-mashing contests of skills with some surface-level premises to hold your attention beyond all of the action. Where some placed you in the role of a frog trying to cross the road, or a Cattle Rancher trying to herd your livestock, a majority of retro video games was shooters, and one of the most iconic among them was Atari’s Centipede.

Most of the software from this era was very limited with what they could do for their presentation, often placing the burden of personality majorly upon the player’s fortitude of imagination, filling the blanks that crude pixels and chiptunes couldn’t do on their own. Centipede was unique in how little it left to the imagination of its players though, unfolding a distinctive world of mutated fungus and humid fauna, teeming with monstrous insects who’re ready to destroy anyone crazy enough to disturb their putrid land. The charismatic shooter’s premise and addictive gameplay has granted it a legacy that’s now spanned decades across the medium, and in an effort to revitalize the title for a modern audience, Atari has called on the folks behind the brilliant Mission Command Recharged, Adamvision Studios, to release the second entry into the “Recharged” lineup, Centipede: Recharged.

Where the previous efforts from the developer were certainly impressive, the lengths they’ve pushed the Centipede formula is nothing short of spectacular—Centipede: Recharged is one of the best modern arcade titles we’ve seen since the likes of Geometry Wars.

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QCF: Sega Astro City Mini

here Names like Nintendo, Atari, and SEGA respectively boast a large zenith of the home console market between themselves the past thirty years, no brand commanded a foothold in the coin-operated world of Arcade gaming quite like SEGA did. Beyond the global hits like Golden Axe, Space Harrier, and Virtua Fighter, the Japanese Gaming giant spanned a wide array of genres and gimmicks that redefined the arcade scene with Astro City line of Arcade cabinets. The horsepower behind their intricate PCB boards made way for unique experiences that deployed a wide array of technical marvels that set them apart from their upright peers like super scaling graphics, over-the-top, and JAMMA quality stereo sound.

As the preservation for Arcade software gets harder with each passing year, SEGA took to celebrating its 60th anniversary with a bang with the release of the Astro City Cab Mini—a scaled-down take of their signature 1993 arcade cabinet that’s packed with 37 games that shaped SEGA’s storied legacy of its quarter-fueled library. While it’s a shame that the retro gaming wizards at M2 weren’t programmers for this nifty little machine, the unit’s nostalgic design and collection of titles more than make up for its above-average emulation.

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PPR Presents Limelight: Atomiswave Dreamcast Ports

o we totally know there’s a lot of hype for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, and they’re currently the biggest deals in video games right now, but what if we told y’all that there was another big deal happening in the gaming scene right now—one that involved another household name in consoles…

Hacker alias MegaVolt85 from the Dreamcast-Talk Forum has taken it upon himself to convert all twenty-seven titles released for Sammy’s short-lived Arcade Haardware line, the Atomiswave. After some extensive review of the Coin-ops internal workings, it would seem that the system’s architecture is nearly identical to that of Sega’s 128-bit icon, making it possible to reformat the coding of these titles to natively run on the Dreamcast.

Yes you read that right, these games aren’t being emulated or ported, they are conversions that’re running natively on Dreamcast hardware—shit’s wild ain’t it?

Join us on Saturday, November 21st, at 7:00 PM Pacific at twitch.tv/presspauseradio as my girlfriend, Val, and I hit up the first  ten conversions made available so far. Games like Metal Slug 6, King of Fighters XI, Dolphine Blue, Faster than Speed, King of Fighters Neo Wave, Samurai Showdown VI, Demolish Fist, Maximum Speed, Knights of Valour: The Seven Spirits, and Fist of The NorthStar.

QCF: Toki

n somewhat of an ironic twist, one of the fondest memories I have with video games from my childhood isn’t a video game that I played on my television, but a show that I watched on my television about video games. As the 16-bit boom kicked off the nineties, Nickelodeon debuted Nick Arcade—a new game show that embraced the gimmickry of its video aesthetic with the grace of cat walking along a floor made of bubble-wrap.

While the show has only gotten hokier with age, it was vital for a Challenge segment that showcased some of the hottest new games in action on my television screen, something no issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly or GamePro could ever do, and one of those games was Toki: Going Ape Spit.

In a climate that was undeniably overwhelmed with action-platformers, Toki managed to stand out from all of the other classics that were lined up for the show with its bizarrely unattractive, yet colorfully sharp visuals, and surprisingly delicate balance of action and strategy for an arcade shooter. Decades later, the lumbering primate has suddenly slouched his way back into 2018 with a remastered remake of the arcade classic that mostly considered to be vaporware at this point, until the development of it was taken over, and then released by a French developer and publisher Microïds.

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QCF: Battle Princess Madelyn (PC)

et’s begin with the obvious point right out of the gate, this game looks like Ghosts ‘n Goblins. Actually no, that’s wrong. I know I will get corrected by retro gamers far more knowledgeable of the genre so I already did an internet search and discovered that its aesthetic is more like Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts. I never played those games, mostly because of the reputation the titles have earned as some of the most difficult games ever made. Fortunately, Battle Princess Madelyn allows fans both old and new to experience action platforming with superior gameplay and a challenging Arcade mode. Sadly, these attempts are muddled and obscured with a literal lack of direction, and a vague Story mode that seems like more of an afterthought than a priority.

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Bullet Heaven HD, Episode 85 - Raiden Fighters Aces

ullet Heaven HD is back, and it's time for the long-awaited review of Raiden Fighters Aces for the Xbox 360! This awesome compilation has some great gameplay for its tiny US price, but how does it stack up?

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