When I grew up, I found arcade games when I was 13 or so. And while the whole idea of arcade games was fun, it wasn’t until I played Flying Shark (Sky Shark for you US lot) that everything really clicked. I played lots of arcade games with my buddies as we rode around town on our bikes to find all the spots where we could play games. I lost most interest in the arcades as fighting games came around, it’s just not for me. Then I found emulation (while looking online for a PC port of Rygar) and I’ve spent most of the late 90’s playing most of it’s library.
A couple of years later, I went to a shmup meet and played Do-Donpachi Dai-Ou-Jou Black Label and Ibara Kuro as well as Progear. It was overwhelming. The next meet was based around Ketsui, and I felt that tingling in the back of my head that I haven’t felt since those first credits with Flying Shark in 1987. It wasn’t nostalgia, as I felt with MAME, but pure excitement of finding something new and powerful. Nostalgia is great, but wears of quickly. Since I found Ketsui, I have started to play for score, not just getting the 1 Credit Clear and it’s much more rewarding. As soon as a Ketsui port was announced for the NTSC-J 360, I took the plunge and bought one, along with the beautiful DeathSmiles. I’ve bought all CAVE ports since, and the latest, Akai Katana Shin is superb, although I haven’t had time to really play it yet (I have kids because I’m old). Laugh.
My Guwange stick (HORI Tekken 6 based):
My EGRET II’s of course “dressed” for shmups only:
Emphatic, I have been following you on the shmups forums for a while, and I have foundyour website very useful ,thanks for posting everything that you have, I am currently building my first vert machine because your site inspired me, thanks a ton! btw, check out the work jeepguy81 and I are doing here… http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10242
Technically, we should all keep the “I love shmups” type of discussion here. And save this thread for things like, building shooting game cabs and sticks and more technical things.
That’s an interesting livery for the cab. It looks familiar, like I’ve seen it somewhere before, can’t remember where though.
sorhp: That Vewlix clone is coming along nicely. I love to see more pics as the build progresses. The candy type side art is snazzy. Oh, and I’m glad you found my site useful. I might have some artwork awesomeness coming there soon, just need to visit and awesome shmup-meet in Hamburg, Germany this weekend first.
Ah man. Literally less than a second after seeing the screens and SML music was already playing in my head.
I got Jamestown on Steam during the sale, will probably fire it up after Evo. I need my weekly 5 minutes of distracted fighting game practice until then.
Anyone try Espgaluda II on iPhone yet? I know, I know… touchscreens are awful. But you’d be surprised how playable it is with the way they’ve set it up. Deathsmiles is coming too.
I wanted to play Espgaluda on my iPod Touch but it ended up not working x_X. Touch screen shmups are pretty frustrating at times. I have ISUD on my iPod Touch and it gets really annoying when you die because of your screen.
Has anyone ever experienced the shock of playing on a way larger screen at the arcades? (I actually did remarkably worse when I went to CHQ compared to when I play at home)
