#fabtek

So I ordered some new marquees from Noodle Shirt.

Unfortunately, in keeping with a poor week of focus, I managed to get the sessions switched around, so I now have this…

Sigh.

'Battle Balls'

[ARC] [USA] [MAGAZINE] [1996]

"Amid a flurry of industry presentations and more than a few snowflakes in the Chicagoland area last month, Fabtek presented its newest offering, Battle Balls, which the company says should bring a whole new group of players back into the arena. The game, which challenges players to connect four balls of the same color as they stack on top of one another, features two competitive modes: player vs. player and player vs. the game’s computer. Battle Balls was developed by Seibu Kaihatsu, the maker of Raiden, Raiden II, and Raiden DX. The game will be sold as a full kit with an AB board system so it will be convertible in the future. “There’s been a whole cross section of people who played it,” said the company’s Steve Ward. “Women really liked it because of the puzzle activity. It’s predominantly a single player game for the first four to six weeks and then you see that competition start up.” Four balls of the same color can be connected horizontally, vertically, or at angles. The ultimate goal for players is to create a chain reaction where waves of balls connect and drop off the screen. Each time a player connects four balls of the same color the game also sends a blocker ball to their opponent’s side of the screen, be it another competitor or the machine. To remove a blocker ball players must connect four balls of that ball’s same color and situate them next to the blocker. “It’s a very addictive game, and our tests have shown that earnings are not effected by the fluctuations of a location or arcade,” Ward added. Battle Balls was scheduled to ship late last month." ~Play Meter Magazine, February 1996 (Vol. 22, #03)

Blood Bros. - 1990 - Arcade Developer: TAD Corporation / TADコーポレーション Publisher:  TAD Corporation / Temco / テクモ株式会社 (Japan) Fabtek (North America)

In episodes of Arcade Funhouse where the video game I review either has no background music, no good background music, or I just can’t get a clean version of the BGM, I tend to use this song. 

JULY 2018 UPDATE www.arcadequartermaster.com

In the name of freedom and justice, three new shrines based on obscure titles are up and running in the site!

P.O.W. PRISONERS OF WAR: One of SNK’s earliest scrolling brawlers, POW follows the captured agent Snake in his escape from the evil army’s camp and demolish their base from the inside out with his fists, knives or machine guns. While not a bad game, it rather laid some groundwork on SNK’s future attempts on beat-em-ups: the stiff and sluggish controls make the experience very tedious across each stage as enemies overwhelm you with longer-reaching attacks. Using the knife and machine gun can easily decimate enemies in a fewer shots, if you can hold them long enough before they knock it out your hands.

LEGIONNAIRE: TAD/Fabtek’s foray for a brawler takes elements from Final Fight and Streets of Rage and had made a decent output despite some wonky hit detection. Choose from three characters with the classic trinity of ability types -- power, speed, and balanced -- to rescue your captive ally Judy from the Crimson Kings gang (curiously sharing its name with the boss in Midnight Resistance). All three characters throw grenades as a crowd-clearing attack, and some special attacks are done by double-tapping Jump followed by Attack.

KARATE BLAZERS: From the companies behind the Aero Fighters games, Karate Blazers is a solid brawling title. Four martial arts students are out to avenge their slain master and retrieve his kidnapped daughter from a nefarious clan of gangsters. Each player has his own signature fighting style and ability type, including a unique Death Blow by pressing both buttons. Scrolls serve the same way as the mutant orbs in Konami’s X-Men: they serve as free usage of Death Blows -- without scrolls in stock, Death Blows drain your energy per use.  

MAY 2017 UPDATE www.arcadequartermaster.com

Four new shrines have come into the fold! An even mix this time around with wrestling and rapid-fire shootout titles!

WWF SUPERSTARS: As one of the earliest arcade titles for WWF in the late 80s, Superstars has a very basic and bare-bones mechanic for a 2v2 arcade game. It is more reminiscent of Technos’ own Kunio-Kun / Renegade as a wrestling beat-em-up featuring only six of the 80s wrestlers including Hulk Hogan, Ultimate Warrior and Randy Savage, culminating with a championship fight against Ted DiBiase and Andre the Giant, along with cameos from Gene Okerlund, Virgil and Ms. Elizabeth. 

WWF WRESTLEFEST: The sequel is a vast improvement from the first game. While the attack mechanic remains largely the same, relying on the positioning between two wrestlers and unlocking more signature moves as the target’s health goes down, the game feels much more fluid with the character movement and the more interactive ring. The playable roster has been bumped to 10, and the championship bout is now against Hawk and Animal of the Legion of Doom. The Royal Rumble and Cage Match events can have some of the game’s most memorable fights -- with its great graphics, it’s like making your own wrestling match straight from the arcade screen!

ALIEN 3 THE GUN: Sega’s tie-in for the movie captures its essence of solitude amidst the swarms of aggressive alien creatures despite deviating from the movie’s core events as possible. Take control as two Colonial Marines under orders to clear the Alien-infested Sulaco, only to crash land onto the prison planet Fiorina 161. Armed with only a modified Pulse Gun, you need to gather extra ordnance like grenades, flamethrower fuel and medical supplies. For a supposedly barren and weaponless and defenseless location, Sega took great liberties from the movie by littering it with tanks, robots and androids(!) aside from the usual fare of battling various stages of a Xenomorph’s life cycle. The game is much closer to an shoot-em-up version of Aliens while having the bleak and desperate atmosphere of the namesake movie, especially the ending.

BLOOD BROS: Fabtek’s Wild West sequel to Cabal, it’s basically a shooting gallery version of Capcom’s Gun.Smoke and Konami’s eventual Sunset Riders. Featuring great background detail and vibrant environs, play the roles of a Cowboy Deputy and a Native warrior: sworn brothers to take down the vile outlaws and rogue tribes of the Old West. Even as you mow posses of varmints across towns, waterfalls and hot plains, you never know what’s coming with the boss battles, including an entire supply train, fire-throwing birds, a fire anaconda, and the gang boss himself, Big Bad John. The game even has a Hogan’s Alley style can-bouncing mini-game, which allows you to gain bonuses in the heat of battle!

🎮 Legionnaire (Arcade)

Complete Gameplay: https://youtu.be/1y33KUu9FoQ