Recently we reported on 2Spicy – the game that never got ported – a missing classic, a rare beast in a world of re-enhanced primates…. We thought we would follow up with Five other arcade games that we never saw again.
Mach Breakers
Arcade athletics games are great. Smack the buttons, over and over again, until you hit the finish line/throw the thing a long way/jump over the tall object. But wouldn’t it be great if those athletes were on insane performance enhancers and could outrun trains, lob missiles and generally do superhuman things? That’s Mach Breakers in a nutshell.
R-Type Leo
R-Type was a pretty big deal back in the day, so we’re not quite sure why Irem never gave this semi-sequel the chance to do business in the home. I mean ALL old-schoolers know and love R-TYPE!!! The lack of the series’ signature Force gimmick doesn’t endear it to every player, but this is a really solid horizontal shoot-’em-up regardless.
Martial Masters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEI7GOgTYvQ
If Martial Masters had been released a few years earlier, it would have launched IGS as one of the world’s premier fighting game developers. Instead it arrived very late into the Nineties and didn’t see worldwide release until 2001, when 2D fighting games had fallen out of favour somewhat. It’s a real shame – the game matches up well with Capcom and SNK’s finest, But Streetfighter and Mortal Kombat had already DOMINATED the market in the mainstream gaming.
The Outfoxies
The love of a scrolling Shinobi, the shooting of E-Swat and the addictiveness of Contra? The Outfoxies has just that style of platform-based fighting action going on, but without all the Nintendo characters and the 3D graphics. Instead, you get sprite scaling and guns. Namco created something awesome here, so of course it was criminally overlooked in the great migration to 3D graphics. Damn kids and your evolution!!!
Planet Harriers
Space Harrier had a huge impact in the arcades of the mid-Eighties, and Planet Harriers was Sega’s way of reviving all of that. It’s a beautiful game, but one which got lost in the shuffle as the company transitioned away from its own hardware and towards third-party publishing. I mean, what arcade geek do you know has never had a bash at Space Harrier…
Now , all you need to do is source these games get them on your cab and your’e up and running with REAL RETRO!!
