MAME AND OTHER WAYS OF RETROGAMING

The arcade hall was a good place to hang out for kids in the 70s, 80s and 90s. But then, around 1985, Nintendo and Sega became giants and (at least in the Netherlands) the arcade cabinets made place for even more coin swallowing one armed bandits (just as Charlie Daniels sings in the 1974 song Trudy: Poured a bottle and a half of Red eye, dropped 35 dollars in the slot machine).  Sadly enough, even the pinball machines disappeared. Round this time the tendency that kids used to play on the street and in the woods changed to what we see now, kids that don´t play outside no more cause they all have a gaming console or handheld. 

Somehow people “like” stuff from 2 decades earlier. In the 80s I listened 60s music, in the early 90s the wide pair of trouses became popular just as in the 70s and in the new millennium, Dutch Radio 2 (one of the more “nostalgic” channels) started organizing weeks of the 80s. Nowadays we also get confronted constantly with buggery commercials on blue giant Facebook and its photogenic sister Instagram, you could call it “like hunting or begging”.

There is a huge retrogamer crowd out there.  Just search around on the social networks, they are easier to find than fish for a bear. Start with gamesyouloved on Twitter for example.

Probably because I never really had a gaming console I started “collecting” games for the (S)NES and the Megadrive to play them via emulators. “Movin´ on the queen´s highway, lookin´ like a streak of lightning in Sega´s 1991 Road Rash is tons of fun, racing around hitting other bikers, crashing against a car, a tree or fall off your bike because you take a turn the wrong way and then get busted by the cops….

From a retrogaming point of view, this is not really collecting. Retrogamers buy old consoles (new stock or from a garage sale or they get their NES, SNES, Megadrive, Game Gear or whatever device at a vintage store or flea market), they buy the original cartridges and they connect the console to their telly. But here in Bolivia I wouldn´t know where to get this stuff “legally”. Besides, you can always buy a chinese imitation retro console on the Ramada for only fifteen bucks.

Anyway, if you come across arcade games by Taito, Namco or SNK, then they are worthwhile to play.

My personal favourites would be the following:

5. Cabal from 1988

4. Enduro Racer from 1986

3. Super Hang On from 1987

2. Outrun from 1986

1. Euro Football Champ from 1992

Some time ago I tried to figure out about MAME, an arcade games emulator created by a clever Italian bloke who wanted to avoid the loss of arcade game heritage. After reading thoroughly some instructions I tried to get it running and the Euro Football Champ screen appeared on my laptop, giving me an instant flashback to spring 1992.

Instead of feeding the ferry arcade cabinet with quids, I hit the 5 to get credits, selected a team and started the first match. The loud scream of KICK OFF dashed through the speaker and it didn´t take long before the first ball was in the net and the GOOOOOAAAAALLLLLLs kept coming.

Using the B button you can make very serious FOULS for which you instantly get a yellow card, except when you make the foul outside the view of the referee, e.g. when he is on the ground (as Tweety says in his cartoons: Oh, the poor putty cat fell down…).

Eventually, there are several issues with MAME. First of all, when you find the rom and it can be played, you get a warning cause you “ought to have” the original hardware and stuff. Well… it´s the same with all those illegal MP3 files which are not really that difficult to find. Then there are tons of roms that have problems with missing files (the notorious CHD and rom error).
Now there are also a lot of roms that are not suitable for MAME, because they are created for the NEO-GEO arcade. The Neo Geo console created by SNK was at its time a tremendously expensive machine. MAME won´t read Sega roms either (such as Crazy Taxi or Sonic games).

My favourite genres  are racing, shooting, pinball and soccer games. In 1988, shortly after the Dutch Lions won their one and only soccer trophy in Germany, causing the whole country to live in an orange haze for about a month, we drove to the Sempach lake in Switzerland to celebrate the annual holidays there. The camping site had a small arcade hall with a beautiful tennis game but I can not remember the name. Generally, tennis games are complicated to play on whatever system, they require a lot of practice.

As far as I remember, there never existed a Dutch version for DOS. But in Spain, many people (used to) have a Spanish DOS / Windows setup. As a twelve year old in the late 80’s I just had to learn stuff by myself. Of course the Hercules card limited my game options, but when you visited friends and relatives back then, you´d always bring floppy disks with games for them and they would eventually let you copy their games. And some time later when Daddy got his 486, he bought a VGA card for me and my brothers.

The Sierra adventure games are still considered as the best in their genre.  In the early 90s, a new way of software selling was invented: Split up a game in three episodes, give the first one free with the purchase of a computer magazine and then if you wanted the remaining part of the game, you´d wire some bucks to the USA. Apogee was very successful with this and their games (Keen, Duke Nukem, Crystal Caves, Secret Agent) are quite enjoyable.

FELIZ NAVIDAD

Retrogaming, part 3

In May 2000, after new work experiences in the lovely city Zwolle, I found a new job in a customs agency. The company, that originally started in Germany, had a small and old office in a building from the dutch railway company in the city of Zutphen. This implied that I didn´t have to travel so far anymore and besides I could go and have a couple of pints in my favourite bar on Fridays.

With one of my friends who liked bundles (you know, stuff where the Lovin´ Spoonful sings about) I had already made holiday plans. In July, we were brought to the small railway station Ruurlo and left to the south.

When I finally bought my Interrail ticket in Maastricht, we crossed the border to Belgium, in Liège we hopped on a train to Namur, and from there we went via Luxemburg and Strasbourg to the Moselle area. The train didn´t get further than Saverne and we jumped on a bus there to get to Sarrebourg. There we took a taxi and arrived in Gondrexange, a small village with a lake  on a camping.

Camping sites had changed, I figured. As a kid, I hung out in camping arcades, if there were any. But in 1992 I was injured and in 1993 there was no arcade (former Eastern Block holiday in Hungary), whereas in 1994 I had more interest for the bar in the french village Volonne (area 04, Alpes d´Haute Provence) and the chicks from the southern part of the Netherlands.

There was no arcade on the small french camping in 2000. Well, it was no big deal. We didn´t need an arcade, we came to explore “la belle France”. At the reception we both bought a packet of Gauloises, we sat down in the grass and smoked our cigarette.

Yet in the last week of our holiday, when we finished the 24 hour Strasbourg-Avignon-Strasbourg roundtrip (which started in a Strasbourg night bar at 4 AM where we sang Another Brick in the Wall with great enthousiasm) we stayed in Sarrebourg and took a hotel for only 30 francs per night. We spent hours in the pub, just across the Sarrebourg station, drinking a nice coffee and there was a Tales of the arabian nights pinball machine to make sure you´d get rid of your small change. This was also the place where I celebrated the french EURO2000 victory.

Basically the retrogaming part of the stories starts here. My friend N. invited me over to his place and opened a closet. The bloke had 2 or 3 commodore 64 machines. I still have a C64 somewhere in my parents home, with a lot of floppies. No idea whether they still work, if it hasn´t been thrown away then it has been kept for already 14 years in a dark cabinet behind my old sleeping room.

Due to circumstances I leave my country in 2003. 7 years after my 7 weeks “practical holiday” in Salamanca, I go back to my dear Spain, now to the city of Valencia. But the weekends are dull and I have a lack of social life.

When I finally move to the city of Barcelona 18 months later, the gaming aspect returns. 2 boys from Basque country move in with us (typical “piso” for students) and show their pirate playstation 2 with Burnout Takedown, we play it for a couple of hours, with a Xibeca bottle on the table to keep the glasses filled with beer.        

In a very short period of boredom I spend money on a playstation 2 with GTA San Andreas and Pro Evolution Soccer part 4. One of my friends from Russia plays with me. We both moved out of the small flat to rent a room from a very nice Catalan girl. Naturally we keep on gaming while we listen the Skeletons in the Closet album from the Grateful Dead.

During a visit of Pamplona in the early autumn of 2007, I get introduced to the Nintendo Wii. I sleep a couple of nights in the house of a friend of my homie. Pamplona celebrates the “small” San Fermin, and everybody is busy partying. One morning I wake up and start to play tennis, baseball and golf with another friend. A little later I take the bus from Villava back to Pamplona. Pamplona has a nice square in the centre. After hanging around some time I decide to return to the quarter Txantrea to search for my homie. But he isn´t there yet. His parents invite me another beer, and in the evening we reunite in the emblematic bar Akelarre.

In November 2008 I leave the house in Barcelona, because the girl (George Thorogood would´ve said landlady, but she was a bit young to be called a lady) wants to go and live elsewhere with her boyfriend. My new friend from Pamplona also moves out of the house, he works in a bar in our area and he can stay there temporarily.

One of my colleagues from work offers me to move in his flat, a 6th floor attic without a lift. Since I do not really have any other choice I agree. My friend is from Algeria and his “cuadrilla” are from North Africa as well. A typical Saturday dish they like to prepare is cous cous, and often we enjoy a can of Estrella beer in our street or the nearby square. Arabic is very complicated for me and I only remember the word “sukran”. My arab friends like music such as Zebda and Gnawa Diffusion.

One of the guys is from Guelmim, a hot desert city in the southwest of Morocco. He´s got a Dr. Hyde inside himself after 3 beers which can cause pretty annoying situations.

After an old fashioned Dutch Christmas holiday with a new years eve in Enschede, I come back to Barcelona on the first Saturday of January, and we hit the town with another arab friend from France.

3 months later I meet Yina for the first time. We start to develop a relationship and in November I move into her place in a whole new quarter.

My Play2 comes with me and I connect it to her small TV to play Crazy Taxi and Flatout. After a couple of years we move to the republic of Bolivia.

Wow, I just crawled out of a time machine in this whole new continent for me. March 20, 2013. The cans of beer in the plane were small, but I´ve slept wonderfully well. It rains outside, we pass the customs, do not need to open our suitcases and stash everything in the early 90s Toyota of my brother in law. The stores and houses are more “messy” than in Europe. After approximately 1 and a half hour we arrive at El Torno. This village is about 33 KM southwest of Santa Cruz on the national route 7. From this village it is 24 KM to La Angostura, that is where the mountains begin, and even more to the west is the touristic town of Samaipata.

OK, so the country looks a bit old fashioned. Every city of village has a small collection of arcade machines. For a half peso you get a coin that you can use in an arcade machine. For what is just one US Dollar, you can buy 14 credits.

After some exploring on Twitter I found many retrogaming fans. When I uploaded some pictures of the Sega games Road Rash and Columns, which must´ve been part of a torrent, suddenly I received a lot of followers. It is very cool to see that there are so many fans of 20 & 30 year old consoles and their games.

Because of misfortune, the retrogames on my laptop were gone for a long time, the harddisk suffered damage. Also my PlayStation 2 has been out of the running for some time because the controller was completely worn out.

In the meantime, we bought a chinese retro console here on the Ramada in Santa Cruz. The Ramada is a crowded dirty open market place where you can buy a lot of stuff; food, veggies, chemicals to kill insects, clothing, and generally it is cheaper than in the supermarket. At some place there is an arcade with an Outrun game. However I would get lost on the Ramada cause it has a strange structure, generally the streets here do have names, but the people don´t usually know them. If you ask directions, they will never give you street names, they will say: 4 blocks, then left, 5 blocks, then right, or they will tell you that a place is between the 1st ring and 2nd ring. But after a few years, if you come to the city often enough, you´ll know which minibus to take and also if you fetch a taxi, you´ll know at which amount he starts to rip you off.

So, the chinese console, worth 14 bucks, consists of Super Mario Bros 1, 3, Galaga, Bomberman, Dig Dug, Arkanoid, Millipede, Pinball, Pooyan and a lot more 80s games. It´s connected on the AV1 of my TV, because my wife has become fan of the bomberman game.  On the AV2 I reconnected the playstation 2 because I bought a new controller (the non original controller costs 11.50 dollars) and also my harddisk has been repaired, so I´ve got my MSX, C64, NES, SNES and SEGA stuff back…

Greetings to all retrofans, I hope you´ve all enjoyed this little trilogy, I wish you all the best for 2016.

Retrogaming, part 2

We returned from an afternoon walk alongside a beautiful creek in the Dutch province capital of Overijssel, Zwolle. Immediately, we booted up the PC and opened a Sierra folder, writing sierra on the dos prompt. Immediately we heard the tra la la la la la la la la la la la laaa opening tune and a guy in a suit tries to catch a doll. And now, because of the “kinkiness” of the game, we´re being asked to “lie about our age” and answer 5 questions correctly.

My niece checked the sierra handbook. “Just hit Alt-X to avoid the questions…”

Thanks to the German emulator, I played Space Invaders, Digger and Conquest (sort of variations of Dig Dug and Joust) and when my dad bought himself a 486 PC, the old PC, still working fine, was placed in the alley between the livingroom and bathroom.

My new “routine” to borrow the Sega Megadrive or the Super Nintendo with a friend on a Friday or Saturday evening began somewhere in early 1992. I was 14 years old, my friend was 1 and we both had some dough earned from delivering newpapers, but yet we were too young to appear in the pub and ask for booze.

One night at my place, just having arrived at Sonic´s marble world trying to cross a path through lava, my mommy comes back into the living room and asks me to go to sleep. Gaming always made time fly. So we went to bed and got up only a few hours later and continued where we left off.

Meanwhile at school, there were 5 Commodore 64 machines with 1 diskdrive for the “alumni” to be used in large breaks or when you suddenly had an “inbetween hour” due to illness of a teacher.  Then you´d go to the principals office:

“Hello mr. Principal, would you please give me the disks and joysticks for the commodore?”
“Ofcourse Robin, go right ahead and when you´re ready you just bring them back here”

Since all C64s were connected to the same diskdrive, your fellow students would have to play either the same game or a different game from the same floppy. You needed to be able to type LOAD “nameofthegame”,8,1 very quickly in order to be the first to play. I particularly remember a very cool tennis game and Bazooka Bill…

With my “console-borrowing friend” I played many MicroSoccer games on my pc (although it was to be used by my brothers as well, but they didn´t care that much for gaming, until my youngest brother discovered the Retaliator game some years later). 

One of the most popular football clubs in the UK and worldwide, Manchester United, came up with a soccer game, created by Krisalis software, more or less similar to European Club Soccer. My dad had been so sweet to buy a VGA graphics card and monitor so finally I was playing in full colour. On my London excursion week having a small budget, nevertheless I felt the need, or desire, to play Taito´s Euro Football Champ on the ferry and flipped in a quid and then another quid.

When I turned 16 I graduated from secondary and I chose to study Commerce at a “college” where they 

provided spanish classes. ´93-94 was a turning point and I spent less time on gaming, it was more a period of learning new stuff and discovering music, especially grunge.

Most arcades in the Netherlands were divided into 2 parts. Adults came there to play fruit machines, and younger people only had access to the pinball / arcade area.

In May and June 1996, when I was temporarily living in Salamanca, I found an arcade on the Avda. Mirat, an important avenue in the northern part of the city and played tennis there, the 25 peseta coins value was . 20 years ago Spain was so cheap, and yet Salamanca is a place where many tourists and students go to.

2 years later, 1998, was a strange year. I gave up my study and started searching for a job. I ended up in a rock bar and played pinball there. The rest of the year I had three temporary jobs until February ´99.

Internet was not that magnificent yet, my dad would let me spend a little hour every evening on mIRC through a modem dialup connection.  Me and my brothers played a cruel but popular game in 1998 called Carmageddon…

End of part 2, part 3 will start in the 21st century.

Retrogaming, part 1

Four and a half years ago I opened my twitter account. Not that I had any intention to use it a lot, and it was merely to write about dumb, funny, silly or tragic situations, such as the day when a Russian store that used to sell delicious smoked pork chops decided to close down.

Approximately 1 year ago I started to post on my Twitter account about 90´s retro games such as Road Rash, my favourite Sega Megadrive game. It was then that I began to find a lot of gaming accounts related to Nintendo, Sega, Atari, MSX and the Commodore.

Let´s go on a blast to the past.

In 1986, one of my classmates has a Popeye Game and Watch which I play on a Friday afternoon before going to jiu jitsu class. The jiu jitsu itself was kind of boring, so I quit that and 2 years later I started to play soccer.

In the summer of 1987, my parents, my younger brothers and me went on holidays to a small village in the kanton of Zürich, Switzerland. After a few days we went further south to Italy. On the camping in Verbania, close to the swiss border was a small arcade with a sort of grandprix game. Basically it was my first holiday hanging around at an arcade, but unfortunately the Lago Maggiore flooded and we left to Neuenburg in Southwest Germany, near the french border of Chalampé.

In the winter that followed, my dad switched his blue Sierra for a red one. That same particular weekend, with incredibly boring iceskating on the telly, he was very busy in his office with his new PC, one of  those terribly heavy hardplastic suitcase machines. If I remember correctly it could even be locked with a small key.

He showed me the computer and eventually I asked him; Are there any games on this computer?

I found a pacman game in ASCII style, very basic and simple, and in GWBASIC there was a cute blackjack game.

In 1988, you could say that I got stuck in the Nintendo warp pipe. My cousins had the NES and they really had to drag me away from it. Their games: Super Mario Bros 1 & 2, Mach Rider and Tennis.

At a certain point I was more or less addicted to this japanese wonder, then somebody decided to hide the cartridges in a microwave, and a couple of hours later they were damaged enough and the NES wouldn´t recognize them anymore; bye bye Nintendo Sunday afternoon.

Meanwhile, almost all DOS games were for CGA, EGA or VGA, but I still played monochrome. There was a German emulator to play then on Hercules, so I started writing my first batch files. My niece had the same issue. I went to visit her one day and asked her what games she had. Oh well, most of them are for colour computers so…

Her dad, my uncle (a great guy with splendid music taste who rests in peace for almost 6 years now) had a fabulous collection of games. My niece said to me; Hey, I´ve got this strange game about a bloke who is in a bar, he buys a whisky and then he goes to take a piss…

 To be continued…