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Rage-DSSViper-Sigma

[Surviving & gaming till end...]
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Sigh... It's unfortunate the current semester isn't even finished yet, and given the global situation impacting everyone's health and wellness, the remaining weeks regarding most classes will be where the use of technology and an available internet connection are required to keep in touch with the professors. Sadly for some, home may not even be a safe place to live, and the lack of an available wi-fi in the house with a good connection can hinder students from submitting their homework on time.
...
Okay, that's all the small thoughts I have in mind. Despite this doesn't stop from surviving in the "still brutal" Months of Endurance as well as spending the heavy amount of time for studying and homework, at least there is still time for resting and drawing... [only if I'm on mood of it after finishing all the assignments.] Obstacles can happen while going through the semester, but so as solutions to overcoming them. It does take time and efforts though... And in the end, hopefully everyone else too will be doing alright. :O_o:

Anyhow, the good thing is that the next ZapCon event will happen after the semester is over. Unlike the previous year, it goes back to the usual schedule: the last weekends of April. On the other hand, given the situation at this time, I'll have to wait until they announce whether or not the time will be right for guests to attend to this year's ZapCon. And even if the event will certainly be cancelled, there will be another chance to visit next time.
[And indeed it is no doubt that there won't be an opportunity to visit ZapCon this year since they have confirmed the cancellation of the event and will plan for it next year. That's okay for RS regarding the update hours later after writing this journal.] :grump:

And finally, just a few things to share on this journal [Excuse my writing as usual]:

:bulletblue: Nothing much has changed regarding what the modern arcades have asides from a couple of new games in one popular place including a 4-player competitive Pong Knock Out [in which the cost of credit points for playing is almost as high as The World's Largest Pac-Man.] Unlike the regular Pong game, each player is given three chances [at least at the modern arcade I go to] to not lose the match, and the player surviving through the entire match will become the winner before the game goes back to its resting mode. Typical enough. Additionally, the corners of the table are sort of given a special treat: Two across each other trigger the players to challenge using the hand-sized spinner for moving the paddle in reverse directions, while the other two increase the "cube" ball's speed to the maximum until someone loses the round. Other than those features, it's just a Pong game designed for up to four players to compete for fun. And good thing a single player has the option to play against the computer if they don't have anyone to play along. Oh... and the machine also has a screen above the table for attraction and letting the spectators at least know the player's stats. [The table looks quite nice to look at though.]

:bulletblue: Another recent game observed at the modern arcade was Centipede Chaos, which costs around similar to The World's Largest Pac-Man for a credit but higher than Pong Knock Out. The voxel graphics are actually fascinating to look at, though I can sort of understand why they ultimately decide to utilize the control stick for moving the ship instead of the trackball the good ole' Centipede and Millipede have. As a videmption game, this is somewhat interesting since it's among a few games at the modern arcade where skills can be used to earn more... tickets... at least from the time I observed my brother Aces playing the game. [I can't remember much, but I do recall my brother didn't manage to eliminate the last "jackpot" boss in the game.] Up to two additional players can join along to play Centipede Chaos, and of course... this game has to have power-ups and bosses just to double the excitement. Should I ever want to play the game, it's a better idea to wait until the "half-price" sale occurs at the arcade.

:bulletblue: This month is the time I've been on mood of listening to Battle Garegga and Armed Police Batrider really often. And I didn't know before until recently that there were bootleg hacks of Battle Garegga existed, mainly 1945 Part-2 and... uh... Lei Shen Zhuan. Compared to the original game, both have a different attract mode, a different title screen, and obvious enough a different title logo and copyright information. From 1945 Part-2, I noticed one strange feature asides from the few extra amount of hit points added prior to losing a life: An ability to change the player's ship to a different one right in-game similar to what at least a few Street Fighter II bootleg hacks have. It plays a jingle (Pause sound from the Saturn port, I think) when the player changes the ship, and even the attract mode of the game shows that feature. Other than that along with the ability to choose one among modes in the title screen, nothing else looks different. There might be even more I haven't noticed until later on while comparing the hacks to the original version of the game.

That's all for this journal. I apologize there isn't a lot to share compared to previously due to the heavy schedule I'm having. Hardship may never end, but persevering is still essential. Don't give up even if the future is and/or becomes uncertain in life. :pencil:

Mood: Really really sleepy... :sleepy:
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[A full ZapCon VII experience will be written in the future. For now, what you're reading here involves RS' biggest curiosity over one of Treasure's arcade games, Radiant Silvergun... and mainly when that particular version of the game has been scarcely mentioned up to now.]

On May 4th and 5th of this year, it was when the 7th arcade convention ZapCon happened. This time, I bought myself a weekend pass since there was a little amount of homework to do prior to the final week of the spring semester in addition to a temporarily long rest away from Months of Endurance.

At ZapCon VII, they brought an arcade cabinet of Radiant Silvergun, a vertical shoot 'em up game developed by Treasures that was located before the cabinet of Magical Night Dreams - Cotton Boomerang, which was seen before in the other past ZapCon event. Somehow, they both shared the same cabinet model, which turns out those shmups used the same hardware: Sega Titan or ST-V. I didn't hear any audio that came from Radiant Silvergun's cabinet, yet in the case of Cotton Boomerang its overall volume was quite low.

During ZapCon VII, I had just some interests though not much into Radiant Silvergun itself despite I'm aware my brother has liked this game ever since the first time he saw. [One among reasons was due to the presence of Konami's Sunset Riders. Plus, I used to listen to the arcade soundtrack more often than watching the gameplay.]

During the first weekend, I attempted to play the game just for the curiosity of Treasure's contents. I noticed this required two buttons to play instead of three on the control table in which the instruction mentioned. The first button was for the Vulcan shot while the second one was Spread. The third button did not do anything. Pressing both two buttons triggered the ship to use the Sword. I'm never that good at yet do have reasons to enjoy bullet hell depending on what game I'm interested in. Though, somehow I quickly got used to how the controls worked in the game, to the point of knowing when to use the Hyper Sword despite I tended to accidentally activate it upon catching the last pink bullet. The game itself was genuinely hard given it was from Treasure, so I stopped playing after using a couple of continues.

From the second weekend, things got even much interesting as I had the feeling of wanting to go deeper into seeing how the game ended regardless of the amount of continues I used. One time, I saw a boss that resembled the ship from R-Type because of the way the boss attacked, and it had something in front that looked similar to the Force. Anyhow, on the first playthrough, I chose Stage 2 after completing the entire Stage 3 segments. I stopped using the continue when only a couple of seconds were left to complete Stage 1. Around an hour and a half prior to the end of ZapCon VII, I went back to playing it again. This time, I chose Stage 4 and went through Stage 1 and the credits. No matter how many continues I used to beat the game, my experience in playing it along with the gameplay and in-game depths made my interests in Radiant Silvergun [and also Ikaruga] elevated even further.

Sunday night prior to bedtime, I started watching some Radiant Silvergun videos on YT in hoping to find the footage of the game on the arcade system. I looked at a few clips of the Arcade Mode along with a few videos of the arcade version from the ST-V hardware in which all have 3 buttons and the Homing weapon used in the game. It seemed odd that I couldn't find the version that was similar to what I played at the arcade convention, where again only 2 buttons were used. Even when I tried to look for that version on the internet, it was scarcely mentioned. Therefore, the curiosity over that one version I played started to live in my mind... in addition to one... simple... thought: I should have had my camcorder with me to record the playthrough regardless of how dull I was at that game.

Such obsession, as part of my interests in looking at noticeable differences between available versions of a particular game, has given me this intense feeling since that night in hoping to see that one version of Radiant Silvergun on the arcade again in the future. Though, I can be patient until the next ZapCon in 2020.

So, I started to write down a documentation of self-experience in describing the contents of Radiant Silvergun based on what I played at ZapCon VII compared to the one we all know well. It may even be the US version of the game because of the "Winners don't use drugs" screen, yet I'm uncertain whether or not I remember it was there.

Here are several differences I've been noticing from the time I played Radiant Silvergun at ZapCon VII compared to the gameplay I've seen on YT:
:bulletblue: [Unsure] "Winners don't use drugs" screen is included.
:bulletblue: The dialogue in Attract Mode is in English.
:bulletblue: The in-game instruction (e.g. how each button is used) is not present prior to the first stage, Stage 3A.
:bulletblue: Two buttons are used instead of three, meaning Sword can be used by pressing both buttons at the same time.
:bulletblue: Players can only use two weapons: Vulcan and Spread, hence the unavailability of three different weapon combinations.
:bulletblue: Towards the weapon level, only Weapon A&B are shown on the HUD.
:bulletblue: Boss information, including Be Attitude For Gains, isn't present prior to the battle.

In mind, there are questions about when this version was released because of such regional contents, why it has not mentioned often, and whether this is a test version, or a prototype version, or just the official overseas version that has not been heard of. Along with is a silly question in the possibility of beating Radiant Silvergun in 1CC using only Vulcan, Spread, and the Sword... emulating what the version I played has.

Further research on this game will be required, and that means I will have to keep an eye on finding that particular version of the game again... unless someone already has taken the footage(s) of it.

And that is all for today. More will come soon whenever I can find time for it. :pencil:
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[Below is the journal from the past months that I wrote about the recent arcade convention that happened on April this year. Excuse my writing as usual if any error is found.]

ZapCon 6 was the third ZapCon visit that I had fun going to. While spring was quite a busy semester and that the Months of Endurance won't quit giving me stressful pressures, at least I managed to see about over 200 different arcade cabinets from old-school, mechanical machines (e.g. vintage baseball arcade games) to the returning modern cabinets (e.g. Killer Queen) and, of course, custom arcade machines. [Yes, I saw there existed a Cuphead arcade cab.]


Lots of arcade cabinets from the previous ZapCon events were returned for people to play in addition to machines that were new to the visit. This year, they had the original arcade game Splatterhouse. Attempted to go through the game and ended up losing the last life at the Poltergeist boss on Stage II. Another was the cabinet of Panic Park, which I managed to play through while holding the camcorder with my right hand. The X-Men beat 'em up arcade game was available, though this time around I only saw the more common 4-player version of the game. Surprisingly, Lethal Enforcers and Space Gun cabinet were also at the convention. It's been years since I saw them previously as a kid. No Point Blank from Namco except for an arcade game clone called Rapid Fire, which, for some reasons, I went through all the mini games while having the same... funny struggle similar to playing Panic Park. A hack of Super Cobra, near the vector Breakout game, was seen that had some bizarre custom texts on the screen while the game remained unchanged. No particular shmup or Puyo Puyo cabinets available at ZapCon though possibly due to their rarity, yet hopefully I'd see at least one available in the future visits. [I only saw the same Macross vertical shmup game there. No Raiden Fighters, still...]

Of course, it wouldn't be ZapCon without some pinball tables and a place where old consoles were put for visitors to play the games. People could still play several tables returned in this year's convention like Super Mario Bros., the custom Data East's Star Wars machine with the film audio, and Black Hole. Something that caught my eyes were the pinball table of Baby Pac-Man and Pac-Man (?). It's so rare to find them nowadays, but at least I had time to play a bit of the former machine. Data East's Jurassic Park was available, but I saw that there's been an issue with the number of balls inside the machine that made it not working properly. Oh well... hopefully the old pinball machine will last a bit longer so that we can still have a chance to play them again. Meanwhile, players could also play some modern pinball machines like Stern's Star Wars [different from Data East's], Batman '66, and Aerosmith. In addition was a score contest only for kids where they competed to determine which of all scored the highest in a few attempts toward a Spider-Man pinball machine. Always glad to see my good friends at my favorite retro arcade.

There was also a booth where a Raspberry Pi was seen containing the HyperSpin look-alike emulator with arcade games varying from Puyo Puyo Tsu to 19XX and even arcade games having a hard time to be worked on MAME. On the left of it was a pachinko machine of Lupin the 3rd. Didn't even know how to play it though it had something to do with matching the numbers. Nevertheless, the booth was for announcing the upcoming Game On Expo event which I don't think I'll find time for going there due to school, work, and stuff.

Then came the old mechanical arcade games varying in different genres of gameplay (shooting gallery, pinball, sports, etc.) They were really like decades old, but I still found it fun to play them regardless just like the Chicago Coin's Mini-Baseball I used to see in the past. [Gotta love those old-school noises within those machines. :meow:]

There was a mechanical shooting game machine I played where the player uses the "light-gun" rifle to shoot five balls in making a line of at least three balls horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. The more the number of balls in a row, the merrier for scoring more points. A button next to the rifle is used for putting determined points to the player's score based on the balls' position (in case they screw up their next shot) and then resetting the location of the balls by springing them up. The player has a limit of shots for... 20 times (?) with the exception of successful bullseyes onto any ball. Can't remember the name of it, which is the problem I'm trying to recall, since Williams made like at least five versions of the game: Vanguard, Hercules, Crusader, Titan, and Space Glider. The latter was pretty much the latest and most common based on what I searched on Google Images, while there's only a scarce amount of pictures and flyers that can be found there. Could it be "Williams' 'Bouncing Ball' Gun Game" Vanguard that I played? Only videos on my camcorder could tell.

Another mechanical antique I can't remember the name was the one that shaped similar to a pinball table except there's only two buttons: One for pitching the ball... or just spawn the ball(s) out from the bottom center and other for batting... or swinging the bat to ricochet the ball. All I could do was to press those buttons to shoot the ball onto one of the slots, where different things can happen (mostly Single, Double, Triple, and OUT slots) as the still images of baseball players can be seen moving around mechanically depending on the gameplay. Similar to a regular baseball game, a point is given when the baseball player goes through all three bases and into the home plate which is where they start. The game ends when the player gets the ball into the Out slot for the 3rd time. Like the situation with that "bouncing ball target gun" game, there's a particular number of similar machines... except they have different names, which is going to be difficult... well for me to recognize the difference. [On the bright side, it's fun to see kids from the younger generations enjoying those old antique arcade games.] Again, mostly Williams made those games in the past, so... not quite sure if the one at this convention was among them. Again, videos should be the answer I can find out. :dummy:

Outside playing games, people at ZapCon can buy and grab various kinds of merchandise: glasses with different pop images, lanyards, keychains, pins, clothes, accessories, used games, reproduction cartridges [Once again, Kid Dracula / Boku Dracula-kun was seen from the projector again played via a Retron console], toys, pinball parts, limited freebies, magnets, pixel frames, and more. One among my favorites was a set of models of Pac-Man and the ghosts made from a 3D printer that looked quite really nice. [Still, I do wish there's enough cash to afford for buying more interesting stuff there given that it's not really common to see them around and that it costed as much as a copy of the new game that came out in order to get inside the convention and play hundred arcade games for free. But then, experiencing the world of ZapCon overall is the most fun of all for the day.]

For the game room, I was curious of trying out the giant NES controller that was located on the same area that they put on the previous years. My right hand could only fit one button at a time, and due to the size it's difficult to press both the A and B button simultaneously. [Funny that when I think of it right now, I'm just wondering if I can play other games with that huge controller like Super Spy Hunter / Battle Formula or Life Force. The games they had there was pretty much the same: Mostly Super Mario Bros. and Contra.] Speaking of Contra, I believe I attempted to play it at that time and ended up passing through the first few levels. [Yeah yeah... "You need more practice." Due to other stuff needed to be done as soon as possible, I barely have a lot of time for practicing skills in various old-school games. Sigh... so much for dealing with reality...] At least I had fun playing the game in a unique way different from holding a small NES controller. Oh... Forgot to mention this room also contained some cocktail arcade cabinets as well, including Super Pac-Man which I played for a long while with another friendly player. Too bad there wasn't a sufficient time for playing Streets of Rage 2 since at that moment my time was about to be up in a couple of minutes.

There's quite lots of videos I recorded throughout that day, which means it's gonna take a ton of time to work on them. I suppose I should start working on the videos when the upcoming long break begins without having to go through the intense Months of Endurance. :saddummy:

[And that's the end of my ZapCon 6 journal. By the time I watched Retro Core's Battle of the Ports towards Cyber Troopers: Virtual On, somehow I started to have some interest in this game given how the players control the mecha and the soundtrack of the game itself. I used to see it as a kid and when the old modern arcade location existed a few years ago. Maybe on the next ZapCon coming up, I can try playing Oratorio Tangram at the point of time for fun before the championship even starts. I wonder if the original Cyber Troopers: Virtual On will also be included in the future arcade convention.]

That's all for now. More will come soon whenever I find time for more writing. :pencil:

Mood: :reading:
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Restless Winter

6 min read
So, the fall semester seems to be over, which means there will be some spare times to rest and do some fun stuff. Though, somehow my mind hasn't wanted to "cooperate" along lately, given the feeling that I have to find at least a few ways to enjoy the rest of the break while having to hear all the insane... beyond crazy stuff happened around the area I live.

Even though the weather in the winter feels pleasant right now, I still have to get through the Months of Endurance. It can be a restless term throughout the time, and so will I having to persevere continuously.

Anyhow, there's only a few stuff to share. Pardon if things here in the journal seems to be shorter than or might be repeated from the previous one. [Yeah, blame my memory on the brain for that. :brainless:]

:bulletblue: There's been a number of video games where very likely I would see people playing on their Nintendo Switch, including The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey. Seems like it's less the chance I will see Puyo Puyo x Tetris or Sonic Mania being played. :(

:bulletblue: Not to mention there are recent trailers for the upcoming games and sequels as well, from Bayonetta 3 to Mega Man 11. Still wondering what Metroid Prime 4 will be like when Retro Studios are not around.

:bulletblue: Speaking of Mario, I've seen some news and a review of Super Mario Cereal lately. The breakfast cereal itself looks a lot similar to Lucky Charms except with the difference in their shapes. I can imagine they may be going to do the same with The Legend of Zelda except with berry flavors. :B

:bulletblue: While most in the modern gaming world have become much ordinary, I've decided to take the curiosity in Genesis / Mega Drive games. From Ranger-X (Ex-Ranza) to Thunder Force IV (Lightening Force) and even Streets of Rage 2 (Bare Knuckle II), those classic and even underrated games do cheer my mood effectively well given to the point that someday in the future I should get a Model 1 of Genesis to try them out. :eager:

[No offense on Model 2 and 3. There's still a chance to get them yet only in case Model 1 will become really expensive to be purchased. Also, I didn't know anything about Genesis CDX before until this [link] came up while I was looking for videos of Genesis / Mega Drive model comparison.]

:bulletblue: Analogue NT is an interesting console used for playing NES or FC games. Unlike those systems such as RetroN, based on the videos I've watched from CGR or GS, it doesn't use emulation in order to play the games. The only downside is how expensive Analogue NT [and even the Mini too] is, even on the online shopping websites. Still, I have to learn more about other systems that can play the NES games asides from those I've known. :reading:

:bulletblue: I've also been watching a few old-school movies related to Christmas just for the sake of relief. Just managed to finish How The Grinch Stole Christmas [Chuck Jones, yay!] and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. [That squirrel scene.] There's still more to go on the list that I should see though in addition to planning to buy copies of certain films for my collection.

[Plus, there are some entertaining activities at school where students can come to watch the movies from the past. This includes the previous course I took in which some of the lectures involved watching films like Aliens, The Princess Bride, and the 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead.]

:bulletblue: Come to think of visiting the arcades, there's quite some changes going on when I had time to walk around.

One modern arcade replaced SNK vs Capcom: SVC Chaos with Marvel vs Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes, while on the area where pinball machines are, they included Stern's recent pinball game Star Wars. [I almost got confused with Data East's Star Wars pinball table.] Other things I noticed was when a few of the tables had a price tag, hence the arcade selling those pinball machines. :hmm:

On the other modern arcade where the World's Largest Pac-Man cabinet was, they had the arcade cabinet of Injustice [which is actually the mobile version rather than the actual fighting game itself.] It felt weird playing it even with my brother as if we're like playing rock, paper & scissors rather than the game itself. Meanwhile, I've heard there will be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cabinet from Raw Thrills included in the arcade at some point. With the addition of the redemption setting [...very obvious enough...], I doubt the chance of getting 1CC in that upcoming beat 'em up game will be the same as from the classic beat 'em up arcade games by the old-school Konami.

:bulletblue: I've only heard of Donkey Kong 3 on the arcade and NES. Though, I haven't heard of Donkey Kong 3 on the old PC or Sharp X1. Well, particularly the one where Hudson Soft was also involved along with Mario Bros. Special and Super Mario Bros. Special. [link]

And that's all for this journal. More will come soon whenever I have time. :pencil:

Mood: :saddummy:
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ZapCon IV was a really exciting arcade convention last year, so certainly during the time I decided to spend for something fun I'd choose to get to another ZapCon event and this time under the name ZapCon 5.

Around 9AM on Saturday, I arrived to the convention center. Upon entering the building, it was important to wait in line until my turn had come for purchasing a ticket only for that weekend [because tomorrow I had to work on my homework] with a sufficient amount in my wallet. However, at the time I approached toward the vendor table, the assistant told me that I had to wait until 10AM since only people who pre-ordered their ticket to ZapCon 5 could enter at that time. I wasn't sad nor mad even though they didn't have the board saying "All visitors are welcome from 10AM. Please purchase tickets at the vendor." or something like that. So, I walked out of the entrance and sat down in a place where I could feel the silence as a way to kill time while calming my mind down. Minutes later, I stood up and entered the building again and this time waiting until it's absolutely 10 o'clock. All of a sudden, one of the assistants told me that I could buy tickets to the convention as the line was already done. And so, the my time having fun at ZapCon 5 was started.

Earlier after that, I was curious to see if there was anything changed in a small room where consoles were set up for everyone to play, so I took some time to explore the inside in which the room was officially called "Console Lounge" judging by the sign on the left of the doors. It seemed like nothing had changed when I walked around as I could see tables and chairs at the center, while around the edges were several old-school gaming areas being decorated neatly. Each generally contained a comfy couch, a CRT television, and a retro system such as NES, Master System, SNES, Genesis, Atari 2600, or whatever old-school console was available. Other areas included a system to play a Pac-Man fan game that looked like an old-school version of Pac-Man Championship and that Fruity Pebbles game which I saw from the last year. Moreover, the large NES controllers, which my hand could only press a single button, were back when I saw them attached to the system with the original Contra. That made me wonder if there was already a giant version of the Famicom controller. Nevertheless, same ole' same for a console room that brought everyone back to the pleasant past of gaming life. :)

Entering the world of ZapCon 5, I took a look first at mini custom-made arcade cabinets and a mini Monopoly pinball machine that looked pretty much like those small pinball tables I used to play in the past childhood. More and more, I saw a few tables in the row from one where people sold mechanical parts used for keeping retro pinball machines last longer to another where those working at the video game stores displayed used and custom-made cartridges of games old-school fans know and games translated to English, originally as digital hack versions. The latter table also sold Retron consoles as well or systems that were similar.

Then came a pair of Vs. candy cabinets: One near the wall had the PCB of Street Fighter Alpha 3 being used, while another was Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. Both were my most favorite Street Fighter games, to be exact, yet I didn't have time to play them since I had to walk around and see what other games available deep inside.

It seemed there were more than the amount of games in ZapCon IV. [About 80% of the arcade cabinets were returned from the previous ZapCon convention... I think.] Despite that there was no 6-player X-Men cabinet around, they had the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Simpsons beat 'em up game instead. It was also the first sight in real life seeing an actual upright cabinet of Aliens (US version, of course) in which I actually played the whole game as Corporal Hicks (Player 2). The last 90s Konami arcade game I spotted was the Japanese version of Sunset Riders projected from the screen on an object that resembled a heavy-duty case. [I also took some time talking to the nice guy working on that vendor because of that one video from that past which I saw years ago in addition to mentioning about the PCB of Sunset Riders he had.]

I didn't see Magical Night Dreams: Cotton Boomerang either, nor did I find any Raiden Fighters game, Two Crude, and Heavy Barrel around. Sad... though I saw more than one Macross shmup arcade game this time. :saddummy:

Meanwhile, a cabinet of DemolishFist by Sammy brought me to such curiosity towards an obscure 3D beat 'em up arcade game since my brother mentioned it days before after this year's ZapCon visit. Other interesting cabinets included Capcom vs SNK 2, Ace Combat, The Last Starfighter (The Game), Spider-Man: The Video Game, Golden Axe: The Revenge of Death Adder (?), Space Gun, and more... along with the most recent arcade game Skycurser, which I could only watch its attract mode before the game was switched to Mr. Driller.

They had a plenty number of mechanical arcade games at ZapCon 5, additionally, from shooting gallery machines to pinball tables and others such as Data East's Slap Shot. Very glad to find out that they still have been existed up to this year. :dummy:

Back to the subject of vendors inside the event, there were another couple of rows from the middle area to the other edge. One among included a table from my favorite retro arcade location, which was also the place where the Arcade Round Robins took place. One could also visit the row where people sold video game sprites in hama beads, fashion accessories, marquees, merchandises, more used cabinets and systems, homemade plushies, glasses with media characters, pins, and hey, even (fan) arts. Candies were shared to everyone for snacks in a few tables along with free thin, small-sized marquees that look like they could be used as "bookmarks". At the vendor where people purchased ZapCon tickets, there were free Retro magazines, current ZapCon flyers, and priced merchandise related to this convention... Pretty much that's all I could describe. :movingon:

Anyhow, focusing on pinball machines, I saw several returning tables from ZapCon IV like Hyperball, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Star Wars (Data East with the actual original soundtrack from the movies), Super Mario Bros., Tales From The Crypt, Black Hole, etc. The pinball tournament was also back in addition to more sets of pinball tables I didn't see from the previous convention. Among those were Last Action Hero, Secret Service, Lethal Weapon 3, and several machines spotted at one modern arcade I often go: Aerosmith, Metallica, The Addams Family, Pirates of the Caribbean, Ghostbusters, and Batman (TV show). [There were additional machines I can't remember further. Still no Jurassic Park nor Time Machine from Data East, though.]

Were there any other arcade games I played besides Aliens? Can't say "nah" for that. I did play Panic Bomber [... horribly], Mr. Driller [still failed at clearing 1000m Mode], 10 games I will describe in the Arcade Round Robins tournament experience, and a few games I played with an enthusiastic, energetic guy named Rex. Some were my first times playing, while others were what I'm already familiar with.

As for the Arcade Round Robins event, I participated [as someone who was curious, lost, and confused] since I would like to have fun and that anyone at any level could join in and do their best to score as much as possible in 10 chosen arcade games (Sinistar, Marble Madness, QIX, Make Trax, Tournament Arkanoid, Elevator Action, Bump 'n Jump, Jr. Pac-Man, Gyruss, and Tutankham).

Three attempts to score in each specific game summed up the player's overall points for each specific row. I had to bring my score sheet given by Sid, the tournament manager, to the table to verify the scores until everything was done and that I didn't have anymore "credit" to record my scores again. [10 overall points from a player summed up together in a column to make the total points that would be used to compare to the other players'. Only three top players would be chosen to receive the rewards based on the highest amount of points.]

Honestly, I was not very good at QIX because of that titular enemy in addition to those sparks and the ignition when the cursor was stopped during the point of dominating an area of the screen. However, I wasn't that bad at playing Sinistar, Jr. Pac-Man (Turbo), and Gyruss. It's also the first of all attempts in Sinistar that I managed to get to the Warrior Zone. As for Jr. Pac-Man, ...somewhere around 150,000 points as my own new record. And I didn't manage to reach to the Earth on Gyruss either. To my surprise, I was told by Sid I WAS among the top 3 players with the most amount of points when I came back to the vendor table to check my backpack and then had a seat to rest my legs. The reward was something I could pour my favorite healthy drinks to enjoy. [Even the other two players received the same thing. We're all fair and squared, overall.] :woohoo:

In my mind I expected I wouldn't reach that far to be included in the record of 3 people with highest total points considering that there were only close to half of the games I'm intermediately skilled at. Still, it was a miracle... actually hard but fun effort I did, that the history of RS' gaming life would describe the expression of being the 3rd winner in a friendly all-ages tournament. [I'm gonna make fun of myself upon saying this...] Most importantly, we all had an amazing time playing those ten old-school arcade games, having conversations together, and in the end wishing each other joy and prosperity for the rest of the days in their life. [I hope Jewel is doing alright up to now...]

But wait a second. What was going on? It was when the 1st winner named Rex took an interest in inviting me to play a few arcade games with him. He didn't mind sharing those he often played around the area from obscure to well-known, while we spent the remaining hours playing Blasteroids, Asteroids, Asteroids Deluxe, Robotron 2084, Joust, Joust 2: Survival of the Fittest, Last Action Hero (pinball), Tales From The Crypt (pinball), that one mechanical pinball game I forgot the name of, and might be a few other games I could barely recall. Of course, I also shared several arcade games I heard of before to him, including Mr. Driller, which Rex admitted was fun to play despite that I was about close to getting to the last 100m on the 1000m Mode gameplay.

During that time as well, my friend whom I often see in the school's cafeteria along with her guy looking around the vendor tables saw me sitting inside. After a hug, I didn't mind walking around with both sharing particular games I played. As I knew before, they did have a good time in ZapCon when they came in, mostly for fascinating pinball machines. I also mentioned and introduced Rex as well, and we ended up playing just a pinball game of Tales From The Crypt... almost. Though, the time we all had fun didn't last long; she had to leave and would attend to the convention tomorrow. As for me, I had my homework that had to be done prior to Monday, so no Sunday at ZapCon 5 for RS because of more important stuff to do.

Before 9PM, I was able to have some time to talk to my friends working at my favorite retro arcade. Though, I didn't see anyone around when I had to leave, so I left them a small note on the table giving best wishes to them when I was busy with things during the rest of the days [and being kicked on the rear by reality]. Only on Saturday as usual would ZapCon be closed that late, yet I had to get home before 11PM to watch the new episode of Samurai Jack on Adult Swim. [Managed to watched all ten episodes of Season 5. It's bittersweet at the end, though I was very satisfied about it over the typical "happily ever after" ending because it brought me more... real emotions and such dark yet beautiful moments in which... it was worth to be able to move forward after all the hardship happening in life. I will never forget the samurai who finally got back to the past, and so as the whole cartoon series itself that has brought a lot of positive things to those who have enjoyed for long.]

My thoughts toward ZapCon 5 were pretty much speechless... well, with the feeling of satisfaction and enjoyment I had after hanging out around the convention for over 10 hours. [Yeah, that would likely make my legs very tired if it wasn't for the availability of small areas for people to sit.] Despite that I wasn't able to play certain games like Skycurser, It was like another day/night of awesomeness seeing over a hundred of arcade cabinets "united together once again" except with an additional amount of machines I didn't even see on the previous ZapCon and a few extras. As for the opportunity of going to "ZapCon 6"... I'm unsure whether or not I will be able to because... real life issues I'm having to deal with and schoolwork. Nevertheless, memories of ZapCon to me are worth to be treasured deep in the mind of those who have such pleasant times there.

And that's all for this journal. More will come soon whenever I have time... :pencil:

Mood: :dance:
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