A great night for Testing...and winning!

Let me start by saying...holy shit I am lucky. The effective boards in this round of no holds bar test was more than 90%!

First off the block we have a Mortal Kombat board...Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 thats is. No silly soundboard daughterboard (like the MK1 bootleg!) Fantastic, it works.

Next is a game I alluded to last time, Konami's G I Joe! Love how they stuck to their Devastator engine for this game...but made it a 100 times better. And plays beautifully.

This board unfortunately did not work, which is a pity, I would feel bad if it weren't the fact I have 2 copies of it already. RIP my friend.

Is Konami racking up some serious love here or what! This board was called Crazy Cop. I dont blame them since the officers in question looks like they are on their way to a Mar De Gra and decided to take criminals with them in a conga fashion.

Now for some SEGA loving, they came to their senses here and decided to go JAMMA with their board. I remember Columns was a release game for the Megadrive to showcase that the console can be a thinking mans machine as well.

CAPCOM comes back with round 2..I tested this game only on the motherboard it was shipped with. Unfortunately there is some background jailbars. Nothing Mon Ami can't fix though..

This one crept up on me, as TAITO does, it Rastan! Finally I got this game in my collection!! I remember a seller was advertising it for $35 as a broken board because it was not producing any sound or music. Silly me put him right and he realised his setup was missing the negative 5 Volts on the JAMMA edge. Well, he bumped up the price to $90 after that. I am sure I got this game for less than 1/10th of the price he commanded..

From the appearance of this bootleg-like board you would be forgiven its a shitty game...but it was not! It was an addicting game that got me wondering what is the reverse of "In the Hunt" where you play as the ship trying to sink submarines and other obstacles. Its a hark to the 80's slow and intense gameplay and definitely one where strategy is key.

As this bundle lacks quite a lot of STG (for the time being) I fired up my second copy of Xevious 3D I received in the pile. It works.

You sure can count on Konami here (on a side note, F you modern Konami, you ruined your legacy and I hope there is a section in hell where you will rot with your pachinko machines!) sorry, back to the subject, Asterix! Beautifully animated, excellent speech samples and gameplay that really pits you into the world. A must play for young and old.

I had to google the specs on this board to make sure its JAMMA pinout. And it was. Its Athena made by SNK. Classic platforming but I suspect it may be a gameplay breaking game...But technically competent side scroller/platformer.

From the sunny days of Rastan, TAITO now pits us in the depth of hell. This is my second copy of Bonze Adventure and let me tell you this, it is a screwy game that will later educate you in Japanese hell mythology. Forget generic zombies or half assed greek mythologies...the stuff here is based on folklore (shiver....)

Just look at the size of this board, just look at it! Its tiny!! But it sure packs a punch. Its Kuri Kinton. I liken the character to Goku from DBZ but he seems to be more akin to Kenshiro of Hokutonoken. Shooting a fireball while riding a chopper is pretty cool I do have to admit.

This was a big board. It occupied 1 box. Its Spider-Man the Videogame. The PCB is huge, the sprites are huge (or small and stage is huge) and the pace of the game was...disappointing. This is how a superhero feels like on a Monday...sluggish, hunched over and heavy. Definitely one for the fans...

Now to something different, Kaneko pumped out this game in conjunction with Jackie Chan. This is my second board and I will get it converted to the second game which boast a far wackier gameplay. Stay tuned...

Oh! An IREM board...Its written R-Type on the bottom board (heart beating faster...) R-Type on the middle board (palms getting sweaty...) On the top board with the coincascade sticker it had "Hero of Tonma" (Whaaaaaat!!!!!) What animal kills an R-Type Board!
But I got to admit, Hero of Tonma is an excellent game...totally made me forget how crippled Magician Lord was on the MVS.

My second copy of Devastator. To think I paid $15 for my first copy...tsk tsk

This is my second encounter with World Rally. I used my broken copy as payment for Mon Ami and he got it working beautifully (you are the best man!) and I had to configure the shit out of this copy to play with the joystick control as it can support POT or OPT wheel! Which is a brilliant design in hind sight. The joystick control is pretty tight and the inertia control of drifts is outstanding.

Data East game on the wing here...Its Cobra Command (whats with the 90s associating attack copters with the venomous snake?!) Its like a refined version of Silkworm without the jeep and more awesome firepower. I love it.

Next is a game I saw on Trademe several years ago. I did not think much of it as it was panned by critics. The presentation was quite good and the animation is smooth. Could this be a worthy adaptation of Streets of Rage for the arcade platform (which was released at the same time)? No is the answer, sorry. However, matters might change if they got Yuzo Koshiro on the job.

You would not beat up on a old man now would yo.....argh, who knifed me in the back?!!

Konami takes the last slot tonight with Crime Fighters.Hokey as gameplay...good luck staying sane with the controls and hit detection in this one. Ding!