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Elevator Action Returns Again
The-Excel | 11:16 AM on 09.30.2008 4 comments


[Note to the administrator: This really belongs in an Arcade category. Maybe you should consider adding one?]

The Siliconera reports that Taito is making an Elevator Action sequel due out in Japan next summer in the spirit of the current revivals of their past franchises such as Space Invaders Extreme and Arkanoid DS, this time in the form of a light gun cabinet with working elevator doors that close over the screen. Elevator Action Death Parade features a button on the panel to open and close the door, presumably to engage and hide from the enemy in a botched Time Crisis kind of way. Little other information has been released at this time.

I don't know how this is supposed to work. The two original games were platformers about secret agents either retrieving enemy intelligence or disarming nuclear weapons in a variety of typical target or covert buildings by entering conspicuous red doors. How this is going to carry over in what appears to be a game all about shooting from a cramped elevator is anyone's guess, but it's still going to be interesting to see how it's going to work out. I've never played a Taito light gun game (did they actually ever go down that route?), but Elevator Action II (Elevator Action Returns outside North America) featured only three weapons: a pistol, a machine gun and a missile launcher. For their sake they better come up with better weaponry than that. The design of the cabinet also appears to preclude any tense in-elevator battles like in Crisis Zone, but whatever.

Also note that neither of the games before this one actually had conventional elevators like this cabinet simulates. They were more like lifts than anything else, really.

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Feel the Hatred: My Television
The-Excel | 10:12 AM on 09.08.2008 2 comments



I swear, if I have to struggle with the inputs on my piece-o-crap Sharp TV one more freaking time then I'm going to drive an axe through the screen. Does anyone other than me have to fiddle with the RCA jacks every 10 minutes just to maintain or even get a good picture or sound? I'm like, oh my God, I just want to look through the Nintendo Channel and I can't even do that thanks to the inputs being all loose and whatnot. Losing to your 11-year-old brother because you aren't able to see and counter his Ganondorf Punch at just the right moment is one thing, but come ooooon. It doesn't even have the red one needed for stereo sound. I mean, what is that about? The thing was manufactured in 1998, for goodness sake. There's really no reason not to have it, you know? Do I even need to explain why this is a bad thing?

God.


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Chou Aniki on Virtual Console
The-Excel | 4:32 PM on 09.05.2008 13 comments


Due out on 8 September.

Basically just read this earlier post of mine and replace all instances of the word "Europe" with "North America".

[Edit]It's rated E10+. Something's not right here.

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Gradius Rebirth Response
The-Excel | 3:31 PM on 09.05.2008 5 comments


I wouldn't consider this an impressions post since I haven't played it. Rather, I decided to watch some gameplay videos of Gradius Rebirth which came out in Japan this Monday. I read a little about it from a forum thread and felt slightly miffed upon learning it is only five stages long. Then again, it being a WiiWare game, that doesn't sound too surprising. Then I decided to see for myself.



I have absolutely no idea what to think of this. From the above video, it seems that this game has the weapons of Gradius II, the sound effects of Gradius 2 (MSX), the voiceover and music from Gradius III and the graphics of Gradius Gaiden. On the one hand, it's really cool that they took all of the best elements of the classical games (that is, the ones before Gradius IV came out), especially since now they're giving the MSX game fair exposure beyond its niche but the elements seem to clash at times. It just doesn't feel as unified as I would have liked, but in practice that won't be a problem for me, because at least it doesn't lag.

Still, I will buy this when, if, I can.

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Bangai-O Spirits Elite Design Contest
The-Excel | 6:40 PM on 09.03.2008 2 comments


First off, if you haven't yet gotten a copy of Bangai-O Spirits for the DS, stop reading and get it immediately. D3 Publisher recently put together a level editing contest for Bangai-O Spirits among select American game developer veterans, to be voted on by IGN readers through 8 September. The author of the winning level will have a check for $10000 in tuition from D3 sent to a graduate student at SMU in their name. This is one of the coolest things I've ever heard and I hope that more companies would involve industry professionals in this way in the future, simply because it allows them to showcase their skills and design philosophies in a different light (read the designer's thoughts wherever present). Right now I'm playing "Verticality" by Uncharted designer Benson Russel and I can't wait to try out more of them (I'm having a time just making it halfway up). I just wish that the Sound Load could hold more levels.

On that note, does anyone know of any community sites that hold Sound Load levels?

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Gradius Rebirth Due on Japanese WiiWare September 2
The-Excel | 10:53 PM on 08.29.2008 5 comments




The Siliconera posted more images of the upcoming WiiWare entry in the long-running Gradius series. These new screenshots definitely have a Gaiden-like feel to them and for that I am even more vengeful that we can't have this sooner. Some of the images look too familiar to regular Gradius locales, but since no video has yet been released, I don't want to think too much about it. Other known information includes that it will allow all four controller types, the two-level weapon system will return, it will have some kind of online function and I'm going to drill holes into my arm for every day I don't get to play this.

In unrelated news, Japan is also set to get Secret of Mana later in the month.

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The world would be a better place if all the leaders of all the great nations of the world would spend a little more time sitting on the potty.

My name is James A. Calwell III and I'm legal. I play shmups, mostly of the horizontal, non-danmaku variety, but once in a while I like to do something different. My personal site is located at http://whatistheexcel.com. I go by a number of names throughout the internet, including:

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No my name does not have any intended connection to Microsoft Excel, Excel Saga, the Exhibition Center of London, the Excel Energy Center in St. Paul or anything else you can think of. Don't ask where it came from; I don't remember and I don't care to. Exy was adopted as a shorthand form from the (female) character of the same name in DoDonPachi dai-ou-jou.

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My favorite games include the Gradius series, Darius Gaiden, Picross DS, the Metal Slug series, Twinkle Star Sprites and the bemani games (beatmania IIDX, pop'n music, etc). In other words, I'm not like you and I don't try to be. I respect that you're different from me, except you're not. I cannot believe how ignorant you can be sometimes. Incidentally, if you ever feel the need to get destroyed at Twinkle Star Sprites, just let me know and we can set up a match over 2df.



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