There' no doubt about it-a lot of stuff that comes from Japan is weird. Sometimes it's a good thing, other times it scars us for life. "Liquid Kids" is no exception, falling into the "good thing" category, while overflowing with the as much ooey-gooey-cutesy-wootsy-chibi-wibi-marshmallow covered-chocolate dipped-flower adorned-unicorn barfed weirdness that only Japan can give us. That aside, this game is a lot of fun to play.

"Liquid Kids" was released in arcades in 1990 by Taito. You play as the Bambi-eyed platypus Hipopo, who must find his girlfriend and save his home, Woody-Lake, from the Fire Devil. Somehow, when the Fire-Devil takes over Woody Lake, a “miraculous power” is given to Hipopo-the ability to shoot water bombs. He must use his newfound abilities to save Woody Lake and his gf.  This game wasn’t too popular when it came out as far as I know, probably because it’s a little TOO cute and weird. However, I’m pretty much up to anything Japan can dish out.

 Let's begin, shall we?

Graphics: 7 

I’d say the graphics are comparable to something you would see on an early Game Boy Advance game. There isn’t a whole lot of detail in the backgrounds; instead, the graphics focus more on the foreground. A lot of things can be shown on the screen at once without slowing the frame rate, which is a plus. The colors are bright and vibrant, which is something to expect from an early-‘90s arcade game whose main focus is how cute it can be. The animation is fairly decent as well, so nothing to scream about here.

Every enemy (including the bosses) looks as creative and detailed as they are strange; it’s not every day you fight bombs with huge lips, batteries, flame-throwing flowers, a giant mechanical Easter Bunny, and alarm clocks that pull enemies out of their mouths. I don’t know how the developers came up with these designs, but then again, maybe I don’t want to know.

 

Sound: 8

A cute game can’t be complete without some sort of bouncy music. Each stage’s soundtrack fits the stage itself perfectly. What I find funny is that every song in this game is lined with sound effects, from squeaks to whistles to clicks (even the boss battle themes have these sound effects in them). The game’s sound effects are no different, with many enemies making funny noises of their own (especially in World 3, the factory stage). Every boss is a machine of some kind, and upon defeat, they fall apart to the sounds of clanks and crashes.

 

Addictiveness: 5

Despite being a decent platformer, I probably wouldn’t play this game too often. There isn’t really anything addicting about it; it’s just a platformer game. I think the only reason I would play this game is to show other people how strange and ridiculous it is. Honestly, if I had my choice between this game and several other platformer games, this game certainly wouldn’t be my first choice.

 

Story: 3

The story is pretty basic and has been done to death by the time this game came out: evil force takes over world and steals gf, hero goes and saves the day. We do get 2 cutscenes throughout the game, introducing another enemy, Tamsun, who abducts Hipopo’s girlfriend. Other than that, it’s not too interesting or deep.

 

Depth: 8

This game does have a lot of levels, shortcuts, and secrets. The levels are large, and most of them don’t follow a linear pattern. The location of secret doors aren’t obvious, so you have to throw water bombs in pretty much every nook and cranny to find one. Most of the time, I get luck and find one by accident, which will probably be the case with pretty much everyone. The game does NOT have a time limit, which is a great aid to help you with your exploring.

 

Difficulty: 7

Of course, being an arcade game, it’s going to be hard. Hipopo is pretty slow, so you are dependent on power ups to help you move faster and throw bigger bombs. One unfair aspect of the game is when you complete each level or lose a life, you lose all of your power ups. At least power-ups are plentiful, coming in forms of trains, water guns, and buckets. In later levels, however, the game tends to throw a lot at you, so expect to die often if you are inexperienced.

 

Overall: 8

In a nutshell, “Liquid Kids” is fun to play, but also a bit of a challenge. It can also be trippy at times, which is both funny and entertaining to watch. I suppose this game was probably geared more towards children, but I’m sure anyone will enjoy it.

When Walt Disney's "TRON" came out in theaters back in 1982, it proved to be an immense success, since it was one of the first movies ever to utilize computer generated imagery.  It also dealt with the realm of arcade games, which were extremely popular at the time. Thinking quickly, Disney licensed "TRON" as an arcade game for all to enjoy. And it's actually pretty darn good. 

For those of you not familiar with the movie, here's a summary from IMDB:

Hacker/arcade owner Kevin Flynn is digitally broken down into a data stream by a villainous software pirate known as the Master Control Program (MCP) and reconstituted into the internal, 3-D graphical world of computers. It is there, in the ultimate blazingly colorful, geometrically intense landscapes of cyberspace, that Flynn joins forces with Tron to outmaneuver the Master Control program that holds them captive in the equivalent of a gigantic, infinitely challenging computer game. Written by Anthony Pereyra {hypersonic91@yahoo.com} 

The point of this game is to guide Tron through 4 different levels to help defeat the MCP. These levels include getting to the Input/Output Tower, driving tanks, the iconic Light Cycles, and finally the entrance to the MCP.

 On with the games!

 

Graphics: 9

 This may seem like a high rating for a 1982 arcade game, but if you compare this games graphics to other games that were out at the time, "TRON" is pretty superior. The detail level is actually pretty good, considering how small the sprites are. The colors are bold and vibrant, so you can easily see what you're doing.

 

Sound: 7

Definitely some decent audio in this game. The game's music and sound effects make it unique and pretty recognizable. You've got revving light cycles to exploding tanks to the dinks and donks of destroying the MCP Cone. The music used is also in the movie (kudos to you if you recognize the music while watching the movie).

Addictiveness: 5

I wouldn't say this game is addicting, but it does have a nice replay value to it. I think the only thing that would want me to play it over and over is the light cycle level, which is pretty much the highlight of the game. The rest of the game is pretty basic, but I wouldn't mind playing through the other parts just to get to the light cycles.

 

Story: 2

Not really much to say here in terms of story. As stated before, you take the role of Tron as you go through 4 challenges to defeat the MCP. The MCP himself never shows up, though, so don't expect an epic boss battle or anything. There is no ending, either, so you’ll be playing the same levels over and over with increasing difficulty (although this is common in pretty much all arcade games that were out at the time).

 

Depth: 3

This game is pretty much composed of 4 mini-games. You get a level select screen, but the game doesn't TELL you which levels are which. Using the joystick, you move your cursor up, down, left, or right to select what level you want. If you lose a life or complete a level, and icon will show up on the level select screen showing which level you previously played.

These 4 mini games are as follows:

*Inupt/Output Tower: Guide TRON to the entrance of the Input/Output tower by shooting your disks at Grid Bugs that bounce around the screen.

*MCP Cone:  Destroy the rotating wall to enter the MCP Cone. This is technically the final level, although you don’t necessarily play it last. This game is the easiest in my opinion.

*Battle Tanks: Drive around a maze and shoot the enemy tanks. It's kind of  like a top-down version of the fictional arcade game "Space Paranoids" (one of Kevin Flynn’s arcade games) mixed with aspects from the real arcade game "Wizard of Wor".

*Light Cycles: Race your light cycle around the game grid and try to make the other cycles crash into your light wall. This game is the best out of all of them. However, I feel that this game could’ve been made into a standalone arcade game just by itself.

 

Difficulty: 6

This game is a little hard to play, but it's partially due to the fact that you're playing it on an emulator. The original cabinet had a large joystick controller with a trigger, and a disc that you would rotate with your free hand for aiming in the Input/Output Tower, MCP Cone, and Battle Tanks levels. Using a keyboard to play the game feels awkward at times. You may want to reconfigure your keyboard to make your hand positions more comfortable. Other than that, the game is challenging, but in an enjoyable way. You'll definitely get better and better with practice.

 
Overall: 8

Without a doubt, "TRON" is a true arcade classic that many will enjoy for years to come. 

When you think of Pac-Man, you think of a yellow circle that goes around a maze eating dots and avoiding ghosts. This is NOT the case with "Professor Pac-Man". In fact, it has nothing to do with Pac-Man at all. This game is a quiz game. That's it. Oh yeah, and the slapped the name "Pac-Man" all over it. That means it HAS to be good, right?

The game is a quiz game, where you must answer multiple choice questions as quickly as you can within a certain time limit. There range from memory questions, to mirror images, and visual puzzles. The sooner you answer the question correctly, the more points you get. Simple. And boring. Ugh.

Graphics: 3
Nothing to scream about here. The graphics aren't terrible, but they aren't great, either. This game came out in 1983, and compared to other games that were out at the time (Tron, Dig Dug, Donkey Kong), they look a little too pixelated. It seems like the designers tried to make this game as quickly as possible without adding detail to make everyone look nicer. Honestly, Bally, you can certainly do better than THIS.

Sound: 4
Most game's sound effects sound a lot like those of "Super Pac-Man", while the rest seem very generic. If it was surrounded by other popular titles from the time it came out, and I tried to listen to see if I could hear the game over the others, nothing about this game would make it stand out from the rest in terms of its audio. 

Addictiveness: 1
This game is not fun or addicting to me. There are plenty of other quiz games out there that ARE somewhat fun (Jeopardy!, Trivial Pursuit), but this game isn't. I see no point in even playing this game.

Depth: 6
For as lame as this game is, it certainly has a wide variety of questions and puzzles to answer. You'll always be treated with a different question every time, or a variation of an earlier question.

Difficulty: 7
Of course, being an arcade game, it's pretty hard. You have to think fast and use that noggin if you want to beat the clock. If you're not good at critical thinking or thinking fast under pressure, this game isn't for you.

Overall Rating: 2
This game is not worthy of an arcade status. This is more like those educational NES titles that no one ever bought because video games aren't really meant to be educational. The reason people play video games is to escape their own reality and enter a virtual world where you can do the impossible and have fun doing it. And this is the reason "Professor Pac-Man" flopped. In short, it's just a boring, boring game.

Singelli : Yeah, there's a bootleg version, a World version, a US version...I just figured they were automatically sorted.

There seem to be quite a few copies of "Moonwalker" for MAME; the most popular one it seems is a glitched bootlegged version. This one in particular is the US version, and it works fine. s there anyone that can merge all of the "Moonwalker" games onto one page like they do for the other MAME games?

Actually, the game was released in 1990. You can read more about it here: http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=10975

I took a look at the control input on Arkanoid. For the "Dial Analog" it has "Mouse X" registered as the control. I plugged in my mouse and went into "Control Panel" on my computer to see if there was anything I could change with its settings, but I couldn't find anything. I don't know if there's any way to turn the mouse into a "PC Controller".

Boo. Thanks anyways!

Is there any possible way to configure MAME to make my mouse a controller? I want to play games like Arkanoid and Super Breakout, but they're difficult to play with the keyboard due to its sensitivity. 

Believe it or not, there was a time when "Wheel of Fortune" was the God of game shows. Although the show started in the 1970's, it never really became popular until the early 1980's. Throughout the '80s and '90s, millions of viewers tuned in to see "America's Game", but since then its popularity has dwindled slightly. During the height of its popularity, however, the folks at GameTek (a division of Rare, Ltd.) tried to capitalize on "Wheel of Fortune" with video game versions for several home consoles, such as the NES and Sega Genesis.

This game here is GameTek's 1989 arcade version, and overall, it's...well...meh.
The game stays pretty faithful to the show as it was back in the '80s: spin the wheel and try to guess the letters in the word puzzle you're trying to solve. You earn points for consonants, but you must use points to purchase vowels. If you solve the puzzle, you keep the points you earned for that round, and each total is added to your final score. The player with the most points wins.

So what's good about this version? Well, the music and sound effects are pretty decent. You get the audience chanting "WHEEL...OF...FORTUNE" on the title screen and the beginning of the game, and also a dance version of the show's old theme song (entitled "Changing Keys"), as well as the fanfare that plays when you solve the puzzle correctly. They even included the dinging sound when a letter lights up on the board.
The game offers 2 difficulty settings: Challenger and Champion. If you're not good with hangman-style word games, Challenger would be great to start out with. If you're a "Wheel of Fortune" nut, Champion is right up your alley.

Now what's WRONG with this version? Well, for starters, the graphics could have been better. For starters, Vanna White doesn't look or sound like herself. Her movements are slow and jerky, unlike the swift, elegant Vanna we all know and love. Also, she only TOUCHES the board to reveal the letters, rather than turn them (the touchscreen puzzle board that's currently featured on the show today wasn't introduced until 1996...perhaps this game was a little ahead of its time in that sense?). As she announces whose turn it is, you'll notice Vanna's voice isn't close to what she sounds like in real life.

The puzzles themselves have no varying degrees of difficulty. I found "Challenger" mode to be too easy, but "Champion" mode to be too difficult. Also, you don't get very much time to select letters, especially when trying to solve the puzzle.

You have 3 lives in this game, too. If you guess a wrong letter, solve the puzzle incorrectly, or land on a "Lose a Turn" or "Bankrupt" wedge, you lose 1 life. Lose all three, and you get a chance to continue if you put in more quarters. I know this is nitpicking, but I just find the lives thing to be somewhat useless, since such a thing doesn't exist in the home versions of the game, or the show itself. It IS an arcade game, though, so I suppose its appropriate.
However, my biggest complaint is the game play. Now before I continue, I will say that I do know this is an issue due to playing the game on an emulator. The original arcade cabinet had a small wheel where a joystick would normally be.

The wheel was speed-sensitive; depending on how fast you spun it would depend on how fast the wheel spun in the game. You would also rotate the wheel to highlight the letter you wish to select. Since this game is being played on a keyboard, you might run into some issues. The wheel will only spin at one set speed as a result, and trying to select your letters might be a little tedious, especially when trying to solve the puzzle under the strict time limit.

So in conclusion, this game isn't terrible, but it's not that good. I'm sure it'd probably be more fun to play the actual cabinet instead of an emulated version on the computer. My suggestion is if you want to play a "Wheel of Fortune" video game, stick to the home console versions.

What am I? I'm Popeye...and I yam what I yam what I yam, and I yam what I yam, and that's all that I yam 'cause I yam what I yam-er, sorry...
Ah yes, Popeye. If you haven't even HEARD of that name, you've been living in a cave all of your life. He has certainly come a long way from his Fleischer cartoons in the '30s and '40s, not to mention several TV shows and a 1980 live-action movie starring Robin Williams and Shelly Duvall. This game here is the very first of only a handful of Popeye video games.

In this game, you control Popeye as he collects various items his gal Olive Oyl drops down to him, all while evading Bluto and the Sea Hag's projectiles. The game consists of only three levels, which repeat and become progressively harder once you complete them. The first level consists of collecting Olive's hearts, the second level consists of collection her musical notes, and the third and final level consists of collecting letters from the word "HELP", since Bluto is holding Olive captive. Bluto chases Popeye around, throwing bottles at him and trying to hit him from underneath or swiping at him from above. The Sea Hag appears at the very edges of the stage and throw bottles at you, which you must punch. Bluto also throws bottles as well. A can of spinach is available at your disposal; punch it, and you temporarily become faster and invincible, giving you the ability to knock Bluto down just by running into him.

Overall, this game is a lot of fun, and it's also addicting. The graphics are superb; they are bright and colorful, and very detailed. Classic early-arcade sound effects are sure to please anyone. However, some might not view it as good as Nintendo's other arcade games such as "Donkey Kong", but it definitely is a classic. 

I've been waiting for a long time for the arcade version of this game to be available online. I, myself, own the NES version of the game, and have played the Genesis version for a while. I eventually grew to love this game, and have been itching to play the arcade version. I thought I got my chance a while back when I was at a drive-in movie theater where they had a cabinet of the game, but as luck would have it, the machine was broken. So, needless to say, it was a joyous day when I discovered I could finally play the arcade version online.

So what is "Paperboy"? You take the role of a bike-riding youngster whose job is to deliver papers to his subscribers, all whilst dodging obstacles and hazards, and taking the time to destroy the properties of those who haven't subscribed to you. You can earn points for delivering papers and destroying property. At the end of each stage, you must go through a bonus stage, hitting as many targets as you can. At the end of each stage, you will earn points for each house you successfully delivered to. If you missed a house, they will unsubscribe to you, but if you deliver to all of your subscribers, you will get a re-subscriber. You must work through all of the days of the week, from Monday to Sunday, with each day becoming harder than the last.

This version is by far the best (as almost all arcade games are compared to their home-console ports), and it is definitely a classic for anyone who grew up with arcade games in the 1980's. Its got that certain amount of difficulty to it where if you keep playing it over and over, you will get better and better at it.  The graphics are very vibrant and colorful, and the music is flat out AWESOME.

My only complaint is the sound. It occasionally skips like a scratched record. I don't know if it's the emulator or my computer (I've had the same trouble with Marble Madness). I know for sure that it isn't the game itself.

Other than that, this game is a ton of fun. All it needs is a handlebar controller (if such a thing exists).