Pixelcade

Cuphead the hardest platformer I’ve ever played

Cuphead what can I say about the game that hasn’t been said yet? A game looking like the late ’30s / 40’s era cartoon and sounds just as good as one comes to the PC. I’ve loved this game since I first saw the highly original style of it however the difficulty is a bit much for this older gamer. I just don’t have the reflexes anymore to really progress. I believe I’m only 10% finished with the game and the video below will show you why.

Cuphead makes a deal with the devil and I believe for you to beat this game you’ll probably have to do the same. I have picked up a wonderful coffee table art book. The Art of Cuphead. Beautifully illustrated showing everything from the development of the characters to the development of the story and all the way to great finished artwork comps and stills.

The book can be found on Amazon here.

cover

Image 1 of 4

Just to prove how bad I am here’s a video I made of me playing this monster of a game. (Knowing I’d be watched didn’t help the situation!) The intro screen is showing with the DLC installed. Usually, it’s just Cuphead and his brother.

My horrible ability to play this game.

So in conclusion the game itself is AMAZING, along with good vintage sound. I can’t recommend the game enough. You can purchase it on Steam Here. Purchase includes both Windows and Mac versions which to me was very important. The video above was made on my PowerBook M2 and it recorded and played very well despite me not really playing but getting it handed to me!

(Edited and corrected with Grammerly, Free Version. I’m not a professional writer)

G.O.R.F. (Galactic Orbiting Robot Force)

Let’s take a trip down my memory lane to about 1983/84. I was at an arcade with my favorite aunt when I heard in an electronic voice “Tatatatatata”. The game was taunting me! Oh, how it mocked me with its electronic voice which at the time was unheard of when it was released anyway in 1981.

The cabinet I remember looked similar to a Tron cabinet using the same controller method except for the neon glowing handle anyway. It had everything a person wanted in a shooter! EVERYTHING! We had Space Invaders, Galaxian, a high-speed warp zone shooter level, and the MOTHER SHIP! KA BOOOOMMMMMM! It would EXPLODE if you managed to land that one critical shot.

TOKEN TOKEN TOKEN I was hooked the sounds were outstanding as I blasted away at enemy ships thinking I was piloting my newfound ship against aliens from another world. My aunt saw my love of the game and it would be that year I would find a copy for my Colecovision for my birthday.

With Colecovision’s ability to bring home the arcade. THIS ONE WAS better in my opinion graphically but lacked the taunting voice chip ability. It is still one of my most played games on the system bringing back memories of sitting in my parent’s room playing on the ‘ol t.v. until my wrists hurt. Pushing my rank higher and higher as I’d complete round after round of gameplay.

The game was also ported to the 2600, 5200, and several computers at the time. But none touched the CV in my opinion. I wish I had more hands-on experience with the arcade game in my adult life but finding one is very difficult let alone finding a classic arcade. So my wrists will hurt until I die playing my CV version in the future.

I found a great video showing the CV version of gameplay on Youtube. If you like it be sure to subscribe to the author to give credit where credit is due!

Video of the Colecovision game.

The following was written by ChatGPT and was used because I’m not really great at expressing certain things. THIS IS THE ONLY PART that used that tool. The game consisted of the following aspects.

  1. Space Warp: Players faced individual enemy ships one-on-one.
  2. Astro Battles: Similar to Space Invaders, players had to destroy formations of enemy ships.
  3. Laser Attack: This level involved dodging and destroying enemy laser fire.
  4. Flag Ship: Players had to defeat a large enemy mothership that launched various types of attacks.
  5. Galaxians: A variant of Galaxian-style gameplay where formations of enemy ships would dive down to attack the player’s ship.

That’s all for ChatGPT. I highly recommend this game based on my childhood fun with it and the difficulty that it provides. As well as the ability to play different types of games within the overall game.

(The document was edited for grammar by Grammerly)

Opinion: Carrier Air Wing / U.S. Navy

Today I’m going to talk about one of my favorite side-scrolling shooters. In the United States, it was called Carrier Air Wing and in Japan, it was known as U.S. Navy. Virtually the same game just different names.

Released in 1990, the American version was ported to the SNES and was as faithful of an arcade-to-home port as one could get on the system at the time. The game really portrays the United States as a global hero with no one else could do the job. Almost like a Michael Bay film portraying the U.S. Armed Forces in the greatest light possible. Which he should! Being a former Army Medic I understand the importance of what Bay tries to do to rally national morale and wonder at our service men and women. It’s really just recruiting, kind of what U.S. Navy /Carrier Air Wing did on the video game front.

I’ve made a couple of animated files of the openings for each of the games. Notice anything different besides the name? I didn’t. I know it wasn’t really a review but more of an opinion piece. Hope you enjoy the mini animated gifs I made.

Carrier Air Wing (American)
U.S. Navy

I also found a video on youtube of a playthrough of the arcade game if you like it give the author a thumbs up!:

Grammer and Punctuation help from Grammerly.

Loot Crate: Witch King of Angmar!

Got this beauty in from Sideshow Collectibles! The detail and fear it inspires are real! It’s a little over a foot tall and the sword is actually metal! Why they didn’t do the same with the mace is odd but perhaps they wanted the chain to sit as it does. Over all I’m super happy with this as the Nazgûl are my favorite species / race? In Lord of the Rings.

Witch King!