Gradius (Arcade) Commentary and Tips - Completed 1-Life exmosquito 2024-10-18 | Gradius (Arcade) Commentary and Tips - Completed 1-Life
Game Room Tour Extravaganza 2024… exmosquito 2024-01-29 | I haven’t done one in 7 years, so here it :)* The thumbnail picture is from my bedroom in 2002*
TAIKOLLER - Taiko no Tatsjin - Arcade Controller exmosquito 2023-10-23 | A quick overview of the new Gamo2 / DJ DAO Taiko no Tatsjin arcade controller.dj-dao.com/en/taikoller
ONE-HANDED Gm Rank - Tetris: The Grand Master - TGM1 exmosquito 2023-04-10 | ONE-HANDED Gm Rank - Tetris: The Grand Master - TGM1I haven’t uploaded in a while and this is kinda a rehash of previous videos, but I thought I’d have a go at getting a Gm rank on TGM1 with one hand. I didn’t go for any elaborate over hangs/tucks because playing with one-hand really restricts my movement options and doing precise inputs, so I kept it simple and just try to stack efficiently and went for doubles/singles to keep it all neat. Saying that, I still had MANY countless fudged inputs rotations and misplaced pieces :/I do plan on doing more replays eventually but I haven’t felt motivated to learn any new arcadey type games recently. I have mostly been playing a lot of Point & Click games, RPGs and relaxing and less punishing experiences lately, arcade games aren’t very relaxing! :) Also try the TGM series if you like Tetris, they’re goddamn masterpieces.
MisterFPGA - Level 7 ALL PERFECTS - Super Nintendo/SFC - Street Fighter 2 World Warrior exmosquito 2021-04-06 | Like this title says, this is a no-damage/all perfects clear of SF2-WW on Level7 difficulty. This was pretty tricky to get recorded, even the slightest sloppy joystick input on button input can result in chip damage or getting hit by a random stray jab/short..... :/ which may or may not have happened a few times while making this..*unfortunately the joystick can is slightly out of sync, it seemed okay when I tested it briefly, I need a more reliable method to sync is up in the future I think**Played on the MisterFPGA*
MisterFPGA - The Punisher (Arcade) - Completed 1 - Life exmosquito 2021-02-21 | Here is a 1-Life no-death clear of arcade The Punisher. I finally caved in and got a MisterFPGA. Now that the arcade side of it is getting interesting I just had too. With native resolution through a CRT and with zero lag compared to the PCB it’s pretty damn nice. The arcade cores seem to be coming out pretty frequently recently, it almost feels like the old days of Mame in the 90’s :)This was a pretty decent run, if little sloppy in places. I thought I was going to get a no-damage on Mr Big because I got a nice throw loop going, but no :/*Played on default settings*
PC Engine - ‘ Hori Fighting Stick PC ‘ Joystick mod + reconfigure exmosquito 2020-10-09 | A quick video on my PC Engine Hori joystick mod. The best PCE joystick as stock but I like meddling :)
Wonderboy in Monsterland (Arcade) - Completed - No Potion Used + No Waggle - 1cc exmosquito 2020-05-13 | *i had to mute the opening intro music due to a copyright claim resulting in restricted access in some countries, which is pretty strange because I have a lot of videos with the same intro and aren’t claimed.*Here is a 1 credit clear of the arcade version of Wonderboy in Monsterland without using revival potion. It didn’t take much practice to get this run after being familiar with the PC Engine version, you can tell Hudson had the source-code when doing the PCE port because everything is pretty much identical. There are a few differences with the hit boxes that I noticed that make it very slightly harder. The knight bosses are way harder to trap in the corner because of the extended hitbox on their sword , on the PCE version they’re flat, and unless you have temporary invincibility form the cloak or throw some when timed magic to trap them they’re way trickier. Also there is an extra boss, the laser-gun boss, he can be taken out pretty easy and trapped in the corner without too much trouble luckily. On the arcade version there was a well known bug that causes you to get 67-69 gold from hidden money, this is done by spawning hidden money whilst ‘waggling’ the joystick left and right VERY fast. I didn’t do this for the run because of the damage and wear & tear it puts on the the joystick. It’s a whole skill in itself though. The recent M2 ports have a dedicated ‘waggle’ button just for this purpose.It’s a pretty easy game to be honest. You can make it harder by not buying armour or a shield.Anyway here it is!
PC Engine - Wonderboy in Monsterland / Bikkuriman world - Completed - No Potion Used exmosquito 2020-05-08 | Here is a 1 credit clear of the amazing PC Engine conversion of Wonderboy in Monsterland with no revival potion. It’s pretty much identical to the arcade version aside from a couple of cosmetic graphical differences, the Lazer-gun boss being absent and the Knight bosses being slightly easier to get in a corner loop. It’s a pretty amazing conversion otherwise. For some reason I had more CRT filming artefacts than usual, I think I’ll use the Commodore 1084S next time, the Sony Trinitron has a little too much glare I think.*Played on an RGB modded Duo-R and a padhacked Dreamcast stick modded with Sanwa parts and translated rom on an Everdrive. The Round 5 Boss is a nightmare in Japanese language...
PC Engine - Violent Soldier - Completed 1 Life ( PCエンジン バイオレントソルジャー ) exmosquito 2020-02-24 | *Presented in glorious wonky-vision! unfortunately I didn’t realise the camera was at a slight angle... damn *This is a pretty average shooter to be fair, but it’s a PCE shooter so I’m playing it. At first its a pretty easy game but from halfway through stage 3 onwards the difficulty rams up pretty quickly and it’s a real challenge.
ONE-HANDED CLEAR - Vigilante (Arcade) - Completed 1 life - 1cc exmosquito 2020-02-05 | I had some weird RNG on stage 4 that I hadn’t seen before, I think it was because I had a couple of multiple-hit enemies right at the start which caused a huge drought in the middle of the stage, pretty weird behaviour. Didn’t take any damage until the last boss, even though he’s ALOT easier to kill than the PCE version it’s inevitable I’ll take a few hits.
ONE-HANDED CLEAR - PC Engine - Vigilante - Completed 1 Credit exmosquito 2020-01-26 | I decided to do this after someone in my comments mentioned about doing a game using one hand it so I thought I’d give it a go. For the life of me I could t find a way to beat the last boss without losing a life. On the arcade version he’s a pushover, but on the PCE version IREM made the hitbox bigger on his attacks and his hurtbox smaller, it’s pretty crazy how overpowered he is compared to the arcade version. The best way I could find was to just to kill him before he kills you, no idea why IREM did this, otherwise it’s an excellent conversion.
New recording test method. exmosquito 2020-01-23 | I’ve decided to go back to filming a CRT. This time though I split the signal, one goes to my Sony CRT and the other goes to my Commodore 1084S RGB monitor with a camera pointed in front of it. It needs a little tweaking (stage 2 looks pretty terrible) for some reason I get a weird halo effect on the video from putting up the iso to sync to the refresh and to avoid the black refresh banding, can’t win either way really. Also I think I need to turn up the brightness and turn down the contrast a little. Seems pretty good otherwise.
PC Engine - Strider - HARD + Extra Stage - Completed 1 Life exmosquito 2019-12-28 | *edit: whoops, I just realised I could’ve changed a setting and the capture would’ve been significantly smoother.... ah well*Man, this £5 ($7) RCA SD Capture USB thingy is pretty horrific, I’d forgotten how bad it was. It looks like a bad chinese VCD from the late 90’s... I wanted to try and make direct capture with joystick-cam for easier viewing but my current capture solution is pretty bad. I have just ordered a cheap RCA-HDMI converter & HDMI capture USB dongle to try out for next time, I’m only using to capture not to play. This way I can still play with my hardwired RGB scart modded PC Engines on a CRT and use RCA to capture, hopefully in 720/1080@60fps for my next vid. Anyway on to the replay. Here is a 1-life clear on the Hard difficulty + the extra stage. This version could have been so much more if they’d tweeked it a little, they were almost there. My main gripe are the controls. Firstly, when Strider changes direction from left to right he pivots on his front foot moving him from position rather than just flipping the character on the spot, you know like on every other platform game ever made.... its bizarre. Another oddity that wasn’t in the arcade/MD version is the ability to do a horizontal super-jump using the running inertia. To perform it you need reach running speed by walking down a slop and then release the direction and then do a neutral jump immediately, if done correctly Strider will do a diagonal super-jump with his vertical jump animation covering significantly more distance than if you’d held the direction and did the usual cartwheel jump. Examples are @3:56 @8:05 @3:17. There are a lot of other weird level situations that are a little different from the arcade/MD if you were to try and use the same strats. A major one that sticks out for me are the drills that come out of the floor on the scrolling gravity section after ascending the closing walls. On the arcade/MD version you can hang from the ceiling and bypass them you won’t get hit, but on the PCE version they go a little higher and you have to wait for them to retract to get past them otherwise they’ll hit you. The extra stage isn’t too hot and feels a little out of place, and the bosses are a pushover using when you use the safe-spots. A nice addition to this version are the extra cut-scenes but I skipped them on this run to save time but they’re a nice addition.
Choplifter (Arcade) - HARD - All Perfects - Completed 1 Life (loop1) exmosquito 2019-11-23 | ***Re-uploaded due to joystick-cam de-sync***This game has always been a staple of my arcade memory from growing up in the 80’s (I’m 41 now...) I remember this being everywhere as a kid: holiday caravan park arcades, seaside arcades, everywhere. I always wanted a home conversion for the ZX Spectrum but sadly it was never to be.. Anyway here’s a 1-Life run of the 1st loop without dying on Hard difficulty with All Perfects. I played the game unconventionally by flying backwards to whole time aside from the 2nd volcano on Round 3. I find it makes the game a lot more manageable and takes a lot of the threats out of the game. Also the lost points I lose from not firing at ground enemies I get back from milking their projectiles whenever I flying over them. The game seems to loop indefinitely and doesn’t appear to get any harder on the loops. I may go for a long scoring run on this one day. Anyway, Enjoy!
PC Engine SuperGrafx - Aldynes - Completed 1 Life - PCエンジンスーパーグラフィックス - オルディネス exmosquito 2019-11-14 | Here is a 1-Life clear of the underrated Super Grafx horizontal shooter, Aldynes. It’s a shame this didn’t come out on HuCard or Super CD-ROM, it really is an excellent shoot, above the average for a PC shooter. It has great graphics with some lovely Super Grafx exclusive parallax scrolling and an excellent soundtrack. When I was learning the game I was listening to the music in my works van in the day, it’s that good. Overall it’s a pretty tricking shooter, but with clever use of the weapons and drone formations it isn’t too bad.
PC Engine - Altered Beast (CD-ROM) - HARD - Completed 1 Life - 獣王記 PCエンジン exmosquito 2019-09-15 | Here's a 1-life clear of the PC Engine CD-ROM version of Altered Beast done on hard difficulty with no deaths. It's a little sloppy in a couple of places but I think I'm done with this game, it's not the best, ya know..*Sorry about the terrible quality, it's even worse than usual. I didn't have the focus set quite right and it's a little blurry.
PC ENGINE: Audio Commentary + Tips. Soldier Blade HARD MODE - 1 Life Clear exmosquito 2019-08-22 | Here is an some audio commentary + tips/strategy on my old Soldier Blade replay. Excuse the lip/tongue smacking... I swear it didn’t sound this bad while I was recording..
PC Engine - Gradius - Completed 1 Life (loop1) exmosquito 2019-08-11 | This is such a great conversion of Gradius. I’d even go as far as to say the music is superior to the arcade, which isn’t saying much for a 1985 game I guess, but there’s a lot more going on. Also the extra stage is a nice addition. As with R-Type, PCE Gradius has to slightly scroll vertically, this can be especially troublesome when trying to see the turret enemies, I’m pretty sure missiles still take out the lower ones even though they’re off-screen, which is helpfully I guess. One thing that does annoy me about this conversion is that you can‘t individually control your missiles, whenever you fire you HAVE to fire a missile regardless if you wanted to or not. I think they should have given you the option to use select as an extra button like most of the other PCE 3-button arcade games (Image Fight & Ninja Spirit)I also managed to pick up a Micomsoft / Dempa Shinbunsha (the makers of the Framemeister) XE-1 HU Pro joystick. This was a pretty iconic stick for the PCE back in the 80’s, and was frequently shown off in UK magazine import advertisements. It’s a very well-made stick and is fully microswitched with a 4/8-way selector and the buttons that can rotate a full 180* for comfort. It also has variable slider for autofire, unfortunately one of the sliders is missing on mine but fortunately I can interchange the one I have easily enough. I’m not sure if this will replace my usual HORI Fighting Stick PC, iconic as it is the XE-1 has a very small footprint and isn’t as nice to use without comprising comfort, but it’s just so nice I’ll probably just use both.
PC Engine - W-Ring - Completed 1 Life. ダブルリング PCエンジン exmosquito 2019-07-10 | Here is a 1-Life clear on default settings of the unloved horizontal PC Engine shooter, W-Rings, on default settings. It’s a shame this game doesn’t seem to get much love online. It’s a lovely shooter with an excellent soundtrack and some great graphics, especially the water themed stage 3. Difficulty-wise it’s as hard as you want it to be, as far as I can tell the games can be looped many many times and incrementally increasing difficulty every time using the Gradius method by increasing suicide bullets and bullets speed/density. There is also a cheat that can force loop15 difficulty...I’m not sure what loop it maxes out but this sure adds longevity. There are 5 weapons in total that can all have an alternate version by collecting varies hidden ? icons through the stages. Surprisingly all the weapons have their uses and one doesn’t seem to dominate over the other: In this run I use 4 of the main weapons and 1 alternative version. Some stages you get lots of fast dense enemies trying to charge you which requires a fast forward firing weapon and others can are more relaxed with a lot of vertically placed enemies that require a weaker less focused more spread out weapon. It’s a well made game for sure. As always the recording quality isn’t great and pure ghetto, but why break tradition :) I couldn’t bring myself to setting up the Commodore monitor so I just used my standard Sony Trinitron that I have set up 24/7 anyway. Unfortunately I forgot to turn the contrast down on the TV so everything is kinda dark around the TV and the gameplay is extra bright, whoops.
Ten Pence Arcade Podcast - Nemesis 1cc (2-2) 459,500 exmosquito 2019-06-25 | My score submission for the amazing Ten Pence Arcade Podcast. The difficulty in this revision is absolutely ridiculous! Why Konami (USA?) had to make Nemesis way harder than the original Japanese version (among other Konami arcade releases) is just plain greed to get more money out of the player, but I guess they know better than the original creators who carefully balanced the original game.... If you want to play this game I'd recommend playing Gradius instead, this version isn't fun at all, imo.
PC Engine - Download 2 REMASTERED - Completed 1-Life ダウンロード2 PCエンジン exmosquito 2019-04-24 | Here is a 1-Life replay of Download 2 (remastered) on the PCE-CD. This is a release by ElectroHaze (Tim Favro), a guy who remasters the original audio to make it sound even more amazing. You can find him on Facebook and hes also done a couple of other titles that have had the audio treatment. It does make a huge difference imo. Unfortunately it appears that using my joystick on the same table as the PC Engine caused vibrations resulting in the music to cut out near the end of the replay on a couple of levels at various times. It’s annoying because I was playing this the day before (in a vibration free environment... ) and it worked perfectly with no music cutting off, so I’m pretty sure it was the vibrations from the stick. Also the briefcase CD-ROM doesn’t have a buffer/skip feature, meaning the audio won’t come back in until the next track is needed. The SFX are fine though so that’s a bonus! :) Ah well. This way of recording takes me so much messing around to set up, removing everything off the coffee table, dragging the monitor out, unwiring the PCE, linking the laptop up to capture audio etc...that I couldn’t be arsed relaying it, I was in enough trouble with the wife as it was taking over the living room...The game itself, it’s an improvement over the excellent first game with a slight bump in difficulty. Overall it’s still a pretty easy game, I’d say. Like the first game the weapons are a little too powerful and the game gives you WAY too many shields, and the shield is too effective that it make the game easier than it really should be. It’s a shame. Adding a higher difficulty and reducing the shields effectiveness would make this game a lot better. I suppose I could just not collect the shields, but ya know :)Anyway here it is.
PC Engine - Dead Moon - Completed 1-Life 月世界の悪夢 PCエンジン exmosquito 2019-04-17 | Here is a 1-Life clear of the PC Engine shoot em’ up, Dead Moon. This run is a little messier than I would have liked but it took me bloody ages to arrange this gaming monstrosity set-up for recording, what with the wires, monitor etc, I couldn’t bring myself to set it all up again for another day because this run was done pretty late at night and I didn’t have time to do another run. Used in the video was my old Commodore 1084s monitor and my new PC Engine - Hori Fight Commander joystick. The monitor has such an amazing picture I would use it as my primary display its just a little too small when I’m used to playing on a 21”/29” screen, by I thought I’d use it for that retro feel :) The Stick is also pretty decent with a full metal body and from what I can tell full seimitsu parts, budget versions obviously, they’re so good that I’ll probably leave this stick with the stock parts. The run isn’t bad but I ideally wanted to get slightly tidier gameplay, I took too much damage in certain areas and I missed a high-scoring asteroid in stage 2 that I usually manage to destroy. I also missed a couple of 100% bonuses, and my mind went blank on a strategy I use on the skeleton fish bosses 2nd form and I fumbled around a little too much trying to correct myself. The tricky thing with filming a CRT with the joystick and console in the same shot is that you have to turn the contrast down on the monitor as to not over expose the picture and make everything else in the shot dark, this makes seeing the screen extra hard, even though it may not seem like it in the video. Overall the game is pretty decent. I used to have this game back in the day but I didn’t give it much time. I gave it another shot and I enjoy it a lot more now. It’s nothing too difficult as long as you get a maxed out barrier and red weapon and learn a couple of tough dangerous spots and you can pretty much coast through it. Also there is a 2nd harder loop that can accessed when you complete the game, but for some strange reason your score gets reset, bizarre. You can also access the loop with a quick button combination on the title screen, I may try this another time. Anyway enough talk, here it is.
The Punisher (Arcade) - Completed 1 Life / NoMiss - 1cc exmosquito 2019-02-20 | Here is a 1-Life clear of the arcade version of The Punisher. This is only the 2nd Capcom scrolling beat em’ up that I’ve properly tried to play, the first being Final Fight. I’d say this is a lot easier to 1cc. The enemy waves are a lot easier to handle and if it does get out of hand and you get surrounded, The Punisher has so many ways to evade and reset the situation, it’s just a lot less intimidating. For me though Final Fight is still a more polished game, with better enemy types and wave design, even with its restricted move-set. Anyway, here it is!*Played on default difficulty. No autofire, savestates or cheats were used*
Magician Lord - Completed 1Life & No Damage ( マジシャンロード ) - 1cc exmosquito 2018-12-03 | Here is a 1-Life & no-damage replay of the NeoGeo classic, Magician Lord. I have always liked the look of Magician Lord after seeing in it the old Neo-Geo feature in the legendary UK magazine C&VG. The graphics looked so good for the time and still hold up today. Aside from the amazing music this game isn’t the best, but I still love it, mainly nostalgia I guess. My biggest gripe with the game is the awful jumping physics, it feels so odd and inconsistent. First off, the jump is fully controllable in the air but with no inertia, which always feels odd in games to me. And secondly is the weird acceleration you get when you transition from a small jump into a big jump, it almost feels like someone is swiping on a touch screen. Also the jumping while firing is weirdly restricted. For example, when jumping horizontally you can fire the instant you leave the ground, but jumping straight up with no left of right direction restricts your firing until you’re at least a character height from a jump, it’s all very odd and very inconsistent. After a little experimentation I came to the conclusion that the Magician is the strongest character in the game by far. He has the advantage of attacking from a distance which most of the transitional forms can’t, and he also has the fastest firing-rate. The transitional characters just seem kinda pointless and restricted aside from using the dragon on the final boss. Note: There is questionable collision detection @2:00 that looks like I am using invincibility. It doesn’t make much sense because everything else in the game has a huge hitbox..Anyway, here it is.*Played on default setting via MAME on a Sega New Astro City cab using CRT_Emudrivers. No cheats, save-states or auto-fire were used. Gameplay was captured from .inp playback file and synced with joystick-cam.
Metal Slug (Arcade) LEVEL8/HARDEST (メタルスラッグ) - Completed 1 Life - 1cc exmosquito 2018-10-21 | Here is a 1-Life Clear of Metal Slug on the hardest difficulty/Level8 (plus weird CRT screen filming artefacts..) The first game imo is the easiest if you are just going for a clear. Knocking the difficulty up to level8 doesn’t add any extra enemies, rather it just makes the enemies shots a lot faster and more frequent, this can cause a little trouble on the bridge section of the final stage because the enemies are super close and trying to dodge an extra speedy bullet on reaction can be tricky if you get bad RNG. As far as RNG went on this run I had the railgun attack from the final boss wwaayy more than I’ve ever had in the past, being on level8 you can’t jump when you see it but you have to listen for the sound effect of it starting up and jump immediately, it’s pretty harsh. Apart from that it’s a pretty straight forward clear.
ALIENS (arcade) - Completed 1-Life (loop1) - 1cc exmosquito 2018-05-21 | Here is a 1-Life replay of ALIENS. I started playing this game for the 10Pence Arcade Podcast score comp. I wanted to try and complete the game (loop1) with 1-Life while it was still fresh in my mind. The run is a little sloppy in places and I took a few to many hits that were easily avoidable. The first loop is pretty easy imo, once you have a route planned out there’s not much that can go wrong aside from a coupe of random boss patterns. I don’t think I’ll be tackling loop2 though, I like the games aesthetics and it’s a super nostalgic game for me but the game is pretty average.Anyway here it is. *My MamePC is working now, it turns out it was the network card that was casing the crash. I had a very lucky escape there! :)
Ghouls N Ghosts - 42 Loops - 1cc - 1,008,700 - 10Pence Arcade Podcast exmosquito 2018-04-14 | My final entry for the amazing ‘10Pence Arcade Podcast’ score competition. If you’re a fan of arcades from the 80’s/90’s then make sure to give it a listen, it’s pretty damn funny too!http://tenpencearcade.co.ukAfter failing on my 800,000 run I just had to have ONE more try to get a round Million! This was the result of over 4 hours looping the final stage 42 times, I must be mad! :)Things got pretty hairy around the 500,000 mark though, when I killed an enemy with an item pot and it unfortunately spawned into a wall and teleported up EXACTLY where I was standing! resulting in giving me the flame weapon... I couldn’t bloody believe it! Anyway I played on and managed to get a mild upgrade my getting the axe......then I died. Then against all odds unbelievably I managed to get the daggers back from a chest, I was soooooo lucky! I was ready to give up if I died again because it’s pretty tricky without the daggers without taking huge risks. Anyway here it is.
R Type - (Arcade) 2 Loops 2ALL - Completed 1 Life - アール・タイプ - 1cc exmosquito 2018-03-15 | Here is a 2-loop clear of the arcade version of R-Type. In the past I was been happy with just completing the first loop, but a recent score competition on the amazing ‘10pence Arcade Podcast’ for R-Type made me go for the loop and finally get this game done. In the past I’d not given the loop a decent try but in practice it’s not that much harder aside from a few gameplan tweaks for some of the beefed up enemies hp. Warning, the quality isn’t great. I recorded the joystick-cam and made an .inp Mame replay file and then I played it back and filmed the screen. Unfortunately R-Type has a funky refresh-rate of 55htz and using the CRT_Emudrivers it’s plays the same as the PCB. This proved tricky to film @30/60fps because it caused terrible strobing on the video, so to combat this I played Mame in a window and stretched it fullscreen. In windowed mode it stays 60htz (the same as the desktop) but you don’t get the correct resolution so unfortunately it looks a little funky, but it’s the best I could do. I tried using OBS but my main computer is an iMac and I couldn’t figured out how to do it and play the .inp back properly. It doesn’t look too bad though....in a way.
*New arcade cab recording method! exmosquito 2018-02-26 | I have been thinking about doing more arcade replays but to even start thinking about it I’d need a new way of setting the recording up without having to get the ironing board and iPad out, or alternatively, having wires across the the floor with a webcam to the computer on the opposite side of the living room. These restrictions made the window for making arcade cab replays either very early in the morning (I’m talking 6:00am before my boy wakes up) or late at night (10:00pm+) with my boy running around it made it pretty much impossible, then I had a brain wave!I’d thought about making an .inp file in Mame and then playing it back to make a video, unfortunately because I play my cab in 240p a screen cap program wouldn’t really work and my Mame PC (core2duo running XP) lags when I use the Mame record-inp feature. Besides, even if this did work I personally like to have a joystick cam to prove there are no Billy Mitchell type shenanigans and I think it makes it feel more authentic. Then I remember I had an old IPhone5s, and I thought to myself I could use this as a joystick-cam and I could keep it powered by using the USB of the Mame PC. So basically what I did was, I record an .inp while filming with the joystick cam, and then when the replay is done I play back the .inp file through the cab and film the screen with my phone (this I can do just before bed when its quite) and then I sync up the two recording in iMovie afterwards. Doing it this way I can pretty much have a quick impromptu session on he cab with my ‘nearly’ wireless recording setup with no trip hazards across the room or balancing iPads on ironing boards!I obviously need to work out how to put titles on the right hand side, iMovie is pretty restrictive so I’m not sure if I can. Beside, this is pretty good solution even if it’s not the best quality.
PC Engine - Ninja Spirit - ARCADE MODE - 1 Life Clear / PCエンジン 最後の忍道 exmosquito 2017-12-17 | Here is a 1life clear of the PC Engine port of Ninja Sprit on 'ARCADE MODE'. The default 'PC Engine Mode' is significantly easier, mainly due to the inclusion of an energy bar and reduced threatening enemy types eg: the removal of the Samurai on stage 3, making it waaayy easier. The arcade mode however is an entirely different beast with instant 1-hit death and more enemy types and increased spawn rate. Imo, Irem should have kept the same enemy types as arcade mode and have the player maybe x3 hits, removing threatening enemies and x5 is a bit overkill and makes the game too easy. *Played on genuine hardware through a CRT in RGB with a padhacked Sega VirtuaStick Highgrade, and captured in glorious 480i with my £5 USB capture dongle...
PC Engine - Soldier Blade HARD MODE - 1Life Clear - ソルジャーブレイド exmosquito 2017-11-22 | Here is a 1-Life clear of Soldier Blade completed on 'HARD'. I used to play his game back in the day on my Turbo Express but I was put off it a little by how easy it was on the default difficulty, it really is a pushover, a very nice looking and sounding game but waaayy to easy. I decided to revisit the game recently but this time playing It on Hard difficulty and boy does it make a difference! I hadn't thought about changing the default difficulty before but I think it makes this particular shooter a lot more fun than the snoozfest it was is on Normal, it's a real challenge but still not overly hard. I think this is the way to go for most console shooters thinking about it, it pushes the difficulty more in line with an proper arcade game. The main differences on Hard are the suicide bullets that the enemies leave behind when killed, it can get pretty busy on the screen at times and you have to take extra care of point-blanking certain enemies as to not get hit buy suicide spreads/bullets. There are also a lot more fast aimed sniper type attacks that have to be pre-empted.*Played on genuine hardware through a CRT in RGB with a padhacked Sega VirtuaStick Highgrade, and captured in glorious 480i with my £5 USB capture dongle...
Joystick Setup + Podcast exmosquito 2017-10-19 | Hi! I've had a few questions about my joystick setup so I thought I'd make a quick video explaining it. Also I forgot to mention that the PC Engine pad is still fully functional as a normal pad due to the padhack being soldered directly to the IC chip inside the pad rather than the traces/input pads.Here's the link to the podcast I was a guest on!....why did I speak so fast! I blame the double expresso...http://retrogamingdailyshow.libsyn.com/rgds-202-memories-of-a-retrogamer-exmosquito
PC Engine - Image Fight - 1 Life Clear - LEADER CLASS - PCエンジン イメージファイト exmosquito 2017-10-09 | Here is a 1Life clear of the PC Engine conversion of Image Fight on Leader Class*Played on genuine hardware through a CRT in RGB with a padhacked Sega VirtuaStick Highgrade, and captured in glorious 480i with my £5 USB capture dongle...
PC Engine - R Type COMPLETE CD - 1 Life Clear exmosquito 2017-08-06 | Here is a 1-Life clear of the legendary conversion of R-Type on the PC Engine. Unfortunately the Japanese HuCard release only had the first 4 stages and the latter 4 stages were released on a separate HuCard, I think was due to the cost of memory back in the day and would have been costly. The American TG16 version took advantage of the price drop and came with the whole game included on a single TurboChip. Not to leave the Japanese PC Engine owners out, Irem released a SuperCD version with all the stages. This version also includes lengthy cutscenes, Tbh I have never had the patience to sit through them, its a nice extra I suppose. Also it comes with a questionable arranged soundtrack. For the most part I think I prefer the original HuCard music, though.*for some reason it took a while to load stage 7 after I completed stage 6. I am not sure if it was the CD drive having trouble reading the disk or it was loading a particularly long cutscene, luckily it loaded and didn't crash!*Played on genuine hardware through a CRT in RGB with a padhacked Sega VirtuaStick Highgrade, and captured in glorious 480i with my £5 USB capture dongle...
PC Engine - ORDYNE - 1 Life Clear PCエンジン オーダイン - exmosquito 2017-04-15 | Here is a 1-Life clear of the classic PC Engine arcade conversion ORDYNE, first on YouTube? This game always impressed me the first time I saw the screenshots in the legendary C&VG guides 'The Complete Guide to Consoles' If you grew in the UK then you'll understand how this series of magazines (along with the normal C&VG monthly mag import coverage) blew our young minds exposing the magical videogame consoles that were on sale in Japan and the current UK 'grey import' boom of the late 80's.This was a pretty decent run. Luckily I managed to get the optimal weapons I needed from the roulette bonus game. I have a timing method to semi-consistently get the exact number I need, luckily I pulled them all off in this run. As you can tell I used auto-fire. This isn't a HUGE advantage, but it's definitely easier on the fingers. This was done using a stock CoreGrafx autofire pad, hacked to work on my preferred Sega VSHG stick (full Sanwa parts) I find you don't get the same precision on the stock pads compared to a nice stick, they're terrible for shooters imo. *Played on genuine hardware through a CRT in RGB with a padhacked Sega VirtuaStick Highgrade, and captured in glorious 480i with my £5 USB capture dongle...
PC Engine - Dragon Saber - 1 Life Clear - PCエンジン ドラゴンセイバー exmosquito 2017-04-05 | Here is a 1-Life run of Dragon Saber on the PC Engine. I have recently decided to try and capture my runs with a better quality solution so I ‘invested’ in a £5($8) usb composite capture card off eBay! It’s no framemiester/1080P set-up so it's not the best quality but I think it beats an iPad balanced on an ironing board pointed at a CRT. Luckily it works out good capturing in composite because I don’t need a splitter because I use my PC Engine through a CRT using RGB scart, so this lets me use the spare composite jacks on the PCE briefcase system to plug into the capture thingy without too much trouble. I also included a joystick cam to prove the run is legit, unlike 99% of the replays on the ‘World of Longplays’ YouTube channel....It was nearly a no-energy-lost run but unfortunately I took a single hit stage 6, but it was such an injustice! Looking back at the replay afterwards I mysteriously took damage from a phantom icicle that for some reason has an extended hitbox that is bigger than the actual graphic(@20:52) It’s strange because getting this close to any other icicle in the entire stage doesn’t cause any damage……just this one!More PC Engine runs coming soon.
PC Engine Controller Frustration. exmosquito 2017-03-30 | Found this on my phone the other day. To be fair the PCE controller isn't the easiest to plug in :)
PC Engine - Download - Completed 1-Life exmosquito 2016-12-27 | Here is a 1-life clear of the excellent PC Engine shooter, Download. It's a little sloppy in a couple of places, especially on the last boss battle where I was out of position to dodge his attack. Unfortunately I was againest the clock and I didn't really have time to re-record a run. Enjoy.
PC Engine - NEXZR - Completed 1-Life exmosquito 2016-12-10 | Continuing with my PC Engine replays here is a 1-life a clear of NEXZR on default settings. This was a pretty easy clear to be fair. The default settings on console games is generally pretty easy, ideally this needs to be played on at least 'HARD' to get any real arcade-level difficulty challenge, or even better the difficulty above HARD (it's in Japanese so I'm not sure what this is called 'HARDER'?) This difficulty is brutal! It rivals the Psikyo 2nd loop for harsh suicide bullets imo. But on Normal, yeah it's pretty easy.
PC Engine - Splatterhouse HARD MODE - Completed 1-life exmosquito 2016-11-14 | Hi! I got some rare free time home alone so I thought I'd do a replay of the PC Engine version of Splatterhouse on 'HARD' mode (hold select on title screen for 3seconds) while I have a chance. The default difficulty is a little easier than the arcade, but the HARD mode feels a tiny bit harder than the arcade version with some enemies taking double damage. I made a fair few mistakes that I'm not too happy with but I was against the clock so this will do :) Played on a PC Engine briefcase unit RGB modded with an Everdrive (damn, I wish I still had my original PCE games..) and a hacked pad so I can use my Sega VSHG joystick (same parts as my cab) The PCE pads are brutal compared to Sanwa parts!
Tetris: The Grandmaster - Mono Mode + 20G - Gm Rank - 1cc exmosquito 2016-06-19 | Here is a Gm rank on Tetris: The Grandmaster 1 using 'Mono mode' + '20G' codes, played on a genuine PCB. More details at the start of the video.This video is taken of an image of the arcade board # tgm_series http: / /www.arika.co.jp/tgm_g.htmlTGM series are properties of Arika Co., Ltd.The videos are released by following the guidlines below.Publisher information:http://www.arika.co.jp/tgm_g.html -#tgm_series
NDS: Tetris- The Grandmaster - HOMEBREW exmosquito 2015-12-17 | Here is a quick video of the now cancelled Nintendo DS homebrew version of Tetris - The Grandmaster. Unfortunately is was cancelled due to legal reasons but its still very playable even in it's unfinished state. Enjoy!* I forgot to mention this game is soooo hard to play on a pad, ideally you need a 4-way joystick so excuse the sloppy play...
My latest obsession... Beatmania IIDX exmosquito 2015-08-25 | http://www.gamo2.com/en/index.php?dispatch=categories.view&category_id=274
21 Arcade Game Completed 1-Credit In 40Minutes exmosquito 2015-05-05 | Here is a compilation of all my arcade replays from the past 2.5 years. I have a few others 1cc replays that I captured direct from emulators that I made in the early 2000's but I left them out of this video in favour of 'Camera pointed at Arcade Machine' only replays for that arcade authenticity :) I have also sped them up 1000% for quick viewing...For realtime replays can be viewed here:youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUlu-Rj2Mu1wHX0J4mdauk-3oVvRLpsRtGames featured:GradiusRobocopStrider TokiVigilanteOutrunGhouls N Ghosts / DaimakaimuraWonder 3 - Midnight WanderersTetris - The GrandmasterWardnerR-TypeAtomic RunnerShinobiHyper DualSunset RidersFinal FightSplatterhouseKiller InstinctStreet Fighter 2: Champion Edition (ALL PERFECTS)Mortal Kombat 2House Of The Dead
ESWAT 1Life / Megadrive - Audio Commentary + Tips exmosquito 2015-04-29 | Hi! This is a 1-Life Complete replay of ESWAT on the Megadrive that I made last year but this time with Audio Commentary + Tips.
