8-bit Friday's - The Diaries: June 3, 2016

Well welcome to the month of June. It's been pretty hot one here in Northern Illinois, which to me is a good sign we'll have a real summer. Anyway, it's been a long week even if it has been only 4 days long, all I can say is Tuesday and Wednesday were real doozies, and I'm happy to have made it to the weekend.

This Friday's Buys 

Image Fight (NES) - Yes, after a week hiatus the SHMUP buying has started again. Image Fight is said to be one of the best SHMUPS on the NES, and I'm eager to find out if that's true. In all actuality this is also somewhat of an obscure title too so that makes me all the more glad to get this one. 

Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection (PS2) - I guess I'm following a trend I started last week and adding another pinball themed game to my collection. There are actually a lot of pinball themed games available on a variety of systems but this one is said to be one of the best, not only as a pinball themed title but as a late PS2 title as well. 

Revenge of the Gator (GB) - This is another one I've heard a lot about since it was first mentioned as a game of the week on The Retro League some months back. Yes, this is another pinball add and it goes to show you how many pinball games are out there. To me summer is also the season of the Game Boy, so maybe this will be the start to some additional Game Boy adds this summer. 

This Friday's Plays 

D-Force (SNES) - This is one of those games you've seen in stores and at conventions and probably ignored since you had know idea what it was about. To be honest I had run into it a number of times at my local retro video game store, and thought it must be some sort of Contra type rip off. Believe it or not it's actually a SHMUP, and a mediocre one at that. Now if you do you know anything about this game you know it his reputation for moving slowly, however don't confuse slowly with being easy. I played this game about four times straight and each time died in the same place.  It goes from barely moving to becoming a bullet hell in the blink of an eye. But hey the crashing graphics are pretty cool! 

As far as the plot, something about a nuclear (powered or armed?) Apache helicopter and fighting a “mid-eastern dictator” presumably Saddam Hussein. 

U.N. Squadron (SNES) - I’ll plug my friends at the Retro Rewind Podcast by saying I first heard about this game from them. This is also considered one of the 10 best SHMUPS on the SNES, and unlike Earth Defense Force this is the real deal with being a great game. It’s also a pretty tough one to get far on. U.N. Squadron is an airplane based horizontally scrolling SHMUP, that was ported to the SNES from a Capcom arcade game and you can see that while playing it. What I like most about this game are the aircraft themselves, which are all based on real aircraft sharing the same identification numbers, albeit the flight characteristics are utterly unrealistic. 

As far as the plot, the title should fill you in about the whole U.N. Squadron thing is formed to protect the world against super-baddies. 

Super C (NES) - I don't need to say much about this one other then it's a classic run and gun and excellent sequel to Contra. I'd like to thank the 2 Dudes Traders a trading page set up on Facebook  by the host of the 2 Dudes and a NES podcast for hooking me up with a trusted seller for this one and a few other games. 

Plot- Super Commandos vs Alien Baddies (see Contra)













Well that was some of this weekends plays, and it was definitely a weekend of challenging games this time around. Well, I have another long week ahead so until next time...