(12/12/2015 - 12/18/2015) Game of the Week: Sidearms

[SamIAm]

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December 12 - December 18 : Sidearms
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(chosen by Punch)

This might be one of the most underrated shooters from the early NEC era (at least I don't see too much discussion about it...). Understandable, since not only the backgrounds could be considered a little bit bland but also there's some fair recycling of uninspired bosses. But if you're able to look past the average visuals you will find Sidearms a great shooter, which is even better than the original arcade version! (besides the removal of the two player option of course)

This game is not so hard once you get used to the controls and memorize the enemy patterns, in fact the game should be called "Don't lose the Shotgun!", since that weapon makes the game so much easier (obliterates enemies and projectiles except laser beams) and you'll probably hold on to it for most of the game. Not only that, but the proto-Forgotten Worlds mechanics makes the game much more interesting (as the designers were free to make any enemy patterns coming up from anywhere). The two button "fire left/fire right" scheme is intuitive to use and well suited for a console game (unlike Forgotten Worlds which is a bit awkward even with an ave 3 or the Mega Drive pad).

And lastly, Sidearms is on the cheaper side of turbografx games for some reason, so buying it should be easy. In fact, even if you don't want the US release you could also search for the japanese Hu-Card or the CD with redbook music and a special mode, which I didn't try so I can't really say much about it. But anyway, hope you enjoy this week's GOTW!

If you haven't done so already, head over to this thread and add to next year's submissions!

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GOTW Schedule:
1. 8/22/2015 - 8/28/2015: Override (lukester)
2. 8/29/2015 - 9/4/2015: Rondo of Blood (o.pwuaioc)
3. 9/5/2015 - 9/11/2015: Street Fighter 2 (Nec.Game.head)
4. 9/12/2015 - 9/18/2015: Bloody Wolf (Gentlegamer)
5. 9/19/2015 - 9/25/2015: Kabuki Itoryodan (Sadler)
6. 9/26/2015 - 10/2/2015: R-Type (crazydean)
7. 10/3/2015 - 10/9/2015: Fray CD: Xak Gaiden (Nulltard)
8. 10/10/2015 - 10/16/2015: Wizardry 3&4 (BigusSchmuck)
9. 10/17/2015 - 10/23/2015: Lords of Thunder (SamIAm)
10. 10/24/2015 - 10/30/2015: TV Sports Hockey (gredler)
11. 10/31/2015 - 11/6/2015: Blazing Lazers (escarioth)
12. 11/7/2015 - 11/13/2015: Genpei Toumaden (VenomMacbeth)
13. 11/14/2015 - 11/20/2015: Hyper Wars (JoshTurboTrollX-16)
14. 11/21/2015 - 11/27/2015: Drop Off (turboswimbz)
15. 11/28/2015 - 12/4/2015: World Court Tennis (grolt)
16. 12/5/2015 - 12/11/2015: Atlantean (jtucci31)
17. 12/12/2015 - 12/18/2015: SideArms (Punch)
18. 12/19/2015 - 12/25/2015: Galaxy Dekka Gayvan (tknjin)
19. 12/26/2015 - 12/31/2015: Asuka 120% Burning Fest Maxima (Sarumaru)


Rules:
-All members are allowed one submission. When there are no further submissions, we will have a reset and everyone will be able to submit another game.
-Each game may only be submitted once.
-If you wish to retract your submission, please do so at least two weeks before your game is due. Your next submission will go to the back of the cue.
-Please don't submit games that have a high language barrier or will take too long to complete (particularly RPGs).

[o.pwuaioc]

Who's playing!?

[CrackTiger]

This was one of my favorite arcade games furing my favorite period of arcade gaming. Even before the 16-bit consoles were previewed in magazines, this game was what I always referenced for what I wanted from game visuals. My friends and I called it "glowy graphics", but it's the combination of nice shading and vibrant color. After getting a Genesis at launch, I was so jealous that this game was coming to TG-16. The screenshots looked too good to be true, especially after the drop in shading/color that the Genesis port of Altered Beast suffered. So I believed that they were just using arcade shots. I wouldn't have believe it if you told that the graphics are 1:1 and the parallax and sound is upgraded.

[Phase]

Just played for a bit got 378700 and lost my last life at the underwater dead robot remains.
gotta love the shotgun
my friend got me this game for my birthday back when toysrus had it for cheap so 93 maybe so 11th birthday ha!
A fun game to quickly play here and there. Will be giving it some more time this week.

[PukeSter]

Took me 2 straight weeks of playing to beat Side Arms, so I'm not gonna spend the agony playing this time  I couldn't even beat Sidearms Special

Unlike the arcade version, shotgun destroys bullets. Shotgun is your friend.

The Megaman 2 composer also worked on the music for this port, so some songs are new such as the Stage 1 song.

I'll stick with 1943 Kai for my quick and easy Capcom shooter goodness

[Psycho Punch]

This game is great... I should have done the blurb earlier.

[nopepper]

One of my favorites. Unfortunately, I only have Special, and I'm not a big fan of the soundtrack there.

One question for the vets: I see that the hucard supports the "high res" mode. If so, what does that mean and what other games boasts such feature?

[SamIAm]

Updated the blurb. Thanks, Punch!

[fsa]

I really enjoyed playing this game in the arcade and loved it even more on the turbo. This game flows well and if you the proper firepower its really easy. An early classic in the Turbo library.

[Gredler]

Who's playing!?

I'll be trying my hand at it tonight! Wish me luck because I can't even beat Blazing Lazers despite repeat attempts at the final boss rush, so beating this might not even be considerable.

If lukester had problems I am sunk.

This was in the lot of games I picked up after getting my Duo and before getting an Everdrive. I have the PCE version, and have played it a bit, but have not put much effort into actual beating the game.

[o.pwuaioc]

I should have mentioned - everyone playing Sidearms or anyone joining me for Sidearms Special? I've actually never played the regular version. Is there good documentation of the differences somewhere?

[ccovell]

One question for the vets: I see that the hucard supports the "high res" mode. If so, what does that mean and what other games boasts such feature?

Did you read somewhere that it's "high res"?  It does run in the PCE's 320/352 horizontal mode, unlike a majority of PCE games which use 256 pixels across.  There is an even higher mode (512 pixels) that TV Sports Basketball uses in places, so THAT's the true high-res mode.

[Gredler]

I played for about 45 minutes last night, and it was a mixed bag of emotions. I have the PCE Hucard version "Side Arms Hyper Dyne", O.P. and that's the only version I've played so I can't provide any comparisons.

The game, as many shooters like this I've tried, seems easy as long as you stay powered up, but once you die it seems easier to die multiple times consecutively in this than in other games I've played. If I lost one life I often lost two or three before getting my barrings again.

It took me a bit of time to understand the powerup system, and I have to say, those speed boosters are my biggest nemesis. I was able to do well as long as my ship was at speed 2 or lower, but once I went to 3 it was tricky, and got to 4 it was impossible.

My efforts last night saw me through to the end of the 4th area, not sure how far into the game it was, but there were large green patches in the background, and I doubled the default high score. I believe the last boss I had fought was the second time I fought a boss that had the 4 (2 strait 2 opposite diagonals) lasers and two heat sinking missles, it looked like sorta a grey and blue fish like thing. Great description, I know.

The game, for me, is indeed very hard. After I had figured the weapon and powerup system out, it became a lot easier. Initially I was avoiding certain powerups with the Blazing Lasers mentality of not wanting to lose my weapon, or change my speed, so I often avoided powerups at the detriment of my positioning. Once I figured it out I started liberally grabbing all powerups, even if I couldn't change them to what I wanted easily.

I am excited to try again tonight, but man I got frustrated and borderline rage quit after a series of deaths one after the other not being able to get to safety to establish a flow. Fun game, thanks for encouraging us to play it!

[Phase]

I am excited to try again tonight, but man I got frustrated and borderline rage quit after a series of deaths one after the other not being able to get to safety

I heard that. yeah I played a few more time and kept doing worse. I think the main flaw to the game is no invincibility buffer time.

While going down the blue cave a little space man icon popped up but I failed to get it I assume thats an extra life?
Also what do the dragon flys do?
(not in the manual)

[Gredler]

I am excited to try again tonight, but man I got frustrated and borderline rage quit after a series of deaths one after the other not being able to get to safety

I heard that. yeah I played a few more time and kept doing worse. I think the main flaw to the game is no invincibility buffer time.

While going down the blue cave a little space man icon popped up but I failed to get it I assume thats an extra life?
Also what do the dragon flys do?
(not in the manual)

There is a gold star icon, and a cow icon as well.. are they just point bonuses?

[Bardoly]

While I still have yet to beat this game...,     it is this game along with Cadash that I remember the most from back when the TurboGrafx-16 first came out.  My friend got this system and these were 2 of the games that he had, so I would play them every time that I was over at his house (if he wasn't hogging all of the play time.)

[Phase]

There is a gold star icon, and a cow icon as well.. are they just point bonuses?

(from the manual)
Cosmic Cow
Pick up this little "dogie"
along the way and collect
an additional 10,000 points

Space Barrel is 3000
Interstellar Strawberry is 1000

the star adds up and down firing to some weapons
not sure which ones or if you have to have that weapon equipped when you grab it? I've never notice anything yet
These are all in the manual but no sign of spaceman or dragonfly

We only have to the 18th to destroy Nemesis 10 folks!
Does anyone have what it takes?

[nopepper]

One question for the vets: I see that the hucard supports the "high res" mode. If so, what does that mean and what other games boasts such feature?

Did you read somewhere that it's "high res"?  It does run in the PCE's 320/352 horizontal mode, unlike a majority of PCE games which use 256 pixels across.  There is an even higher mode (512 pixels) that TV Sports Basketball uses in places, so THAT's the true high-res mode.

I think I read that at videogameden.

Are those the only two games that use the higher resolutions?

Thanks for replying!

[NecroPhile]

Are those the only two games that use the higher resolutions?

R-Type and the two Sherlock Holmes games use higher resolutions, and I'm sure there's more.

[CrackTiger]

Are those the only two games that use the higher resolutions?

R-Type and the two Sherlock Holmes games use higher resolutions, and I'm sure there's more.

lol, I wouldn't be surprised if as many as half the library makes use of higher resolutions. The last time I started a list, I got up to over 100 games which use a higher resolution for the main gameplay segments and something like 30 that use them for misc.

[NecroPhile]

Yarr, though it's usually a middling resolution like in R-Type.  The ultra high def 4K used in Sherlock Holmes is pretty uncommon.

[nopepper]

Very cool, thanks for the info guys.

I noticed last night that Rtype was running at a wider resolution as well (through PCE for PSP), so now I know what to look for, at least through that emulator. Unfortunately, I can't tell the difference when playing on actual hardware through the Framemeister, although I only spent a couple of minutes trying to notice the difference between Side Arms and "standard" resolution games.

[CrackTiger]

Very cool, thanks for the info guys.

I noticed last night that Rtype was running at a wider resolution as well (through PCE for PSP), so now I know what to look for, at least through that emulator. Unfortunately, I can't tell the difference when playing on actual hardware through the Framemeister, although I only spent a couple of minutes trying to notice the difference between Side Arms and "standard" resolution games.

Most/all of Irem's PCE games run at a medium resolution, as well as Hudson's port of R-Type.

[johnnykonami]

Dynastic Hero has some kind of higher resolution in use for the file cabinet screen.

[esteban]

I believe the HuCARD actually offers the more "kickass" version of the soundtrack...

...but once you know the songs from the HuCARD, it might be fun to hear the arranged versions on the Sidearms Special CD-ROM...

Don't expect to be blown away, necessarily.

But it can be fun with headphones....

[Phase]

I played about ten times last week and only made it to a moving downward technical cave. kinda wish this game had some text stating what level you are on. but that is one of the cool things about it is that it just turns into the next area.

I did confirm that the space suit icon is a 1 up its located in the blue downward cave after you go through the metal gates and its on the left side when you kill this dude on a cliff.

as for the dragon flies, these are weird I think they are for points but I'm not sure. I think you have to shoot them and then collect them. I cant figure out what spawns them but it may be shooting an invisible trigger. the first location you can get them is on the second level before the strawberry on the other side of this floating cave.

I managed to grab the ss but i didn't shoot these first so I failed to collect them. Its a mystery still I guess

Any one manage to pass this game last week?