Ever get pissed off at a game?  Sure you have.  So have we, for various and odd reasons.

Roo takes a quick(ie) look and actually gives it a critical eye.

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What you shouldn’t do

• Do not use Windex:

It is hard to believe that this idea still exists in the age of the internet. Video game cartridges use conductive contacts made of a softer metal. Windex has ammonia which is very good at cleaning off grime and tarnish but it also has dyes and perfumes which are really bad for those contacts. Even the cheaper basic version has a little perfume in it and it always has dye, ammonia isn’t blue naturally. It also may have a higher concentration of water than most suggested cleaners for electronics which in the end is also bad and can cause more tarnish at a later date. It is generally just a good idea to avoid glass cleaner, even if the cheap brand stuff has less water and perfume. In reality Ammonia may be a little more corrosive than needed anyway.

• Brasso is also a poor choice

Brasso (and other similar polishes) is not an electronic cleaner it is a brass and copper polish. So yes, it will polish those contacts up really nice and yes it will probably remove some or all of the tarnish. But we do not need shiny contacts to get them to work, we need a clean surface that will conduct an electric signal. Brasso and other polish compounds will leave a film on the contacts to make them shine which can be just as bad when it comes to making a good signal contact as well as be bad for the system contacts as it scrapes off. If you use a polishing compound you’ll just have to end up recleaning the contacts once you have all the tarnish off anyway. For real extreme cases this may be ok but in general you might as well cut out the middle man.

• Stove cleaner is not for electronic contacts

A recent idea getting passed around is to use stove cleaner. This one boggles my mind a bit; why would you ever think to use stove cleaner? I understand that stove cleaner can be used on glass, ceramic and metal surfaces and will certainly peel off a lot of goop. But it is stove cleaner, it is made to spray on thick amounts of burnt on food and eat it away. There is much more to a game cartridge than the contacts and spraying on a corrosive cleaner is not a good idea. Even if you’ve tried it once and everything seems ok, there are just better and safer methods. Avoid this type of stuff!

• Do not scrub your contacts, not with anything.

When I mean scrub, I mean heavy force scrubbing with something abrasive. I’ve personally seen the horrors of someone using something like a scrub sponge, steel wool or sand paper on game contacts. Nothing like this is ever needed! You’re just rubbing away a layer of metal and even worse can sever one of the connections to the contacts and ruin the cartridge. If you do this, stop that now.

Things you can do

• Isopropyl Rubbing Alcohol is your friend.

You can find rubbing alcohol just about anywhere and it is one of the easiest and an effective way to clean your contacts. You can buy it in a few different levels of concentration as well and I suggest the higher ones. Look around for 70% and 90%, the first is easier to find  but you may need to go to a drug store to get 90%. All this percentage means is there is less water in the mixture so you’re getting more rubbing alcohol per volume. Less water to sit on your metal contacts the better.

• Electronic Contact Cleaner is another option.

This product is similar to rubbing alcohol in that most of them contain it. It is different because they sometimes contain other trusted non abrasive chemicals to do an even more detailed job. You can even find them in an aerosol spray that works similarly to compressed air but still has the Isopropyl alcohol (and/or other cleaning agents) that will evaporate after a moment. So you can use this type of cleaner in two ways, use it to give a coat to your game’s contacts and wipe clean or use it to spray out dirt and grime from your game system. The cleaners are safe on plastics so using them as a quick cleaning spray to flush out spots is very useful (always check that they are safe and test first before spraying away).

• Yes, erasers can be useful.

Those single pink or gray erasers can be useful to remove thicker chunks of bad erosion. But be weary, you don’t want to scrub something from the board away and you don’t want to scuff up your contacts. If you want to experiment with a few different ones lightly on a cheaper cart or two, go for it, packs of them are pretty cheap. What is working here is the heat from the friction and the pull of the eraser, you don’t really need to force anything. I don’t usually do this personally but it is an idea.

Quick Tips and Tricks

There are some methods that work better than others in getting your contacts clean, though I wouldn’t say there is any sure fire way. Do invest in some “game bits”, these little security bits can be helpful when really wanting to do a deep clean on both your games and certain systems since you’ll need them to get the casings off. The special cleaning kits are not required but can be useful since they offer a larger flat surface and a few different types of sponge to work with, so if you can find one cheap enough I suggest grabbing one.

For your periodical maintenance cleaning though all you will need is some q-tips (get decent ones the cheap ones break and fray far too easily) and a little bottle of isopropyl rubbing alcohol. I like to make a little kit to keep in my gaming accessory drawers which includes the q-tips and a little dropper bottle of the rubbing alcohol (and toothpicks for cleaning controllers, but that is another article).

Place a small amount of your rubbing alcohol onthe q-tip. You want the q-tip to be wet but not dripping. You only want to clean the contacts not give the cart a bath. If you have a dropper 3 to 5 drops should be enough.
Tilt the cartridge and your q-tip in an angle anduse the pressure from the gap in between the board and the casing to your advantage. Rub back and forth with pressure but don’t scrub madly. Let the angle and the tightness of the gap work for you.
Now all you need to do is repeat it for the otherside. Once you are finished with that use the dry side of the q-tip to get any access moisuture and dirt off the contacts.

That is all there is to it! Enjoy your undamaged and clean cartridges!

Addendum: I shouldn’t have to mention this but blowing into cartridges is not the way to go. Sure it may get dust off contacts for a quick possible fix but the moisture (aka your spit) that will always be present to some degree is not good for the contacts.

Originally from: imretroactive.com

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Comix Zone Japanese Genesis Cover

      In Comix Zone, you are a comic book artist. The cowboy-esque villain of your comic book comes through your pages and pushes you into your own comic book. You have to fight your way through your own creations to make it back to your reality.

Lightning + Pencils + Inks = ….

Evil Cowboy

      As soon as you fall into the comic world, you meet Alissa, someone who thinks you are the chosen one. She communicates with you throughout the adventure and occasionally gives you hints.

As soon as you begin, there are 3 special items to get you started

      The visual style itself is that of a living comic book. You always see the border of the panel you are in. Villains are drawn in front of you, starting off as black and white, then, eventually, full colored copies you must fight. You fight through mutants, dojo’s, and nuclear facilities straight out of exaggerated comic book concepts.      

     You start off with a punch and a kick, and you can also jump and kick in the air. You can use your punch and kick in different attack patterns depending on the order you press them. You will find a few items you can use. However, you can only carry 3 items as a time, and you’ll normally want to hold onto potions, as you will get hit a lot. One peculiar item is your rat, who is helpful for puzzles. You need him to turn on switches you can’t reach, or find a hidden item under the page necessary to progress. You have to remember to pick him back up, though, or you might accidentally leave him on the previous panel. Other items include a dagger you can throw and a bomb that clears the screen. There is also a ‘?’ symbol, but it can be anything and might blow up in your face. You also have a special weapon which rips a part of the background out and makes a paper airplane, but this cost life, and it’s possible the plane might hit you for even more loss of life.      

     The combat is what is really fun. Many enemies are their own mini-boss, usually taking a few hits to beat, but they are not so numerous that they become repetitive. You have to learn how to combo your attacks, as certain enemies do not respond well to punch, punch, punch.      

     In addition, your punches that connect make a loud ‘Krack’ sound effect as a loud audio cue that you are hurting them, plus, different sound effects appear on the screen spelled out in text, similar to reading comic books. The final death punch always makes a louder sound, and you will hear a 2nd, loud ‘crunch’ if you knock the enemy into the comic book panel. Yes, the panel itself acts as a wall. Your attacks feel like they have weight to them, and combined with the sounds, makes for an immersive experience.

Whoops, I think I cracked your spine.

      One realistic thing they tried, was that whenever you punch a manhole cover, metal door, or box (necessary to progress sometimes) you will lose health. You will lose a ton of health if it’s a metal door. At first, I liked this realistic idea (as you are a normal human) but then found out it requires items you want to use for villains to make your job easier non-existent, as you now need all the special weapons to blow up doors so you don’t hurt yourself. And when you have to defeat an entire Page with only one health bar, losing health this way just adds to the frustration.      

     The character you play, as well as the villains, occasionally talk to you, and they talk with a speech bubble directly above their head that moves with them (as sometimes people will fight and talk).

Just because you can talk doesn’t mean you have anything to say 

     One downside to the game is that it is very short, and very hard. This being early video game days, the short video game is made incredibly hard so you can’t beat it immediately. There are 6 pages total that you fight through; that’s it. However, you will die a lot along the way and have to learn what to do, but sometimes it can be a little cheap. For instance, a tall vertical panel makes it hard to fight flying insects that retreat beyond the panel where you can’t reach them. Add some obstacles that you need to progress through that drain your health as you punch them, plus only 1 continue, and you have a game that will take you hours to learn.      

     One bit of humor is the way your character reacts to the situation. At the end of the level, he turns into a superhero and freaks out. You can actually turn into this superhero for a split second as a bomb that clears the screen when you find a certain item.      

     The game has only 3 bosses, and the first one has an item that you can use to kill him pretty quickly if you look around his lair and figure out what to do with it.      

     Eventually, you will get 1 of 2 endings. At the final boss, Alissa will be captured and stuffed into the rocket, with rocket fuel slowly filling her cage. You have to defeat the boss under a certain time limit, for if she drowns, you get the bad ending.

Can you save Alissa before her lungs fill up with rocket fuel?

She’ll yell, “Help, I’m Drowning,” to let you know you haven’t saved her yet.

Also, did Evil Cowboy suddenly become an insect robot?

      You have to get the final boss to follow you into a rocket jet, then run to the other side of the screen to turn it on. However, there is a glitch in the game: I defeated the boss myself using only my character’s fists and kicks the first time (no jetfire), and the game didn’t progress; it didn’t give me either of the 2 switches to beat the game with either ending. All I could do was jump around the stage staring at the lifeless body of my friend.       In Comix Zone, the design is what made it stand out from other games. Each battle takes place in a very small comic book panel, and when you are done, you swing beyond the comic’s borders to go to the next panel. Eventually, you make it to the end of the page.      

     Story: 8 out of 10

The story focuses on a comic book artist trapped in his own comic book. He must face the villain he created that has trapped him within the comic, as well fight off various mutants, bugs, martial arts fighters, and more. Since this is the time of Genesis, it’s story is better than most action games and is pretty original.      

     Music: 7 out of 10

Slightly above generic music. I listened to some of those beats forever since each Page takes a long time to complete and never got bored of them. However, the track selection is rather limited.      

     Challenge: 8 out of 10

Did I mention this game is hard? Yeah, you will get frustrated, you will cry, you throw controllers around, but you will keep playing. The challenge is hard, but adaptable. The only problem being the doors that cause you to lose health when you punch them making it harder than it needs to be.      

     Fun: 17 out of 20

I had more fun with this game throughout most of it than I realized. It’s satisfying to punch through enemies where you can feel yourself doing real damage to them. Plus, jumping around the panels into different areas, choosing multiple pathways, and using fun items makes the game a blast to play.      

     Control: 10 out of 10

The controls are very response and nothing feels like you have to wait for your character to react. The odd thing was they removed the original way you selected items from your Genesis for the PlayStation Network version, as pushing L1 makes you use the left most item, L2 for the center, and something else for the right weapon. Too often I accidentally used the wrong special weapon trying to remember this.      

     Graphics: 8 out of 10

It’s graphics rate higher more for originality in the concept in addition to everything stated in the review above. Your attacks break the page, a fire catches hold of the page and you have to outrun it, plus cool and original character designs for the enemies, bosses, and backgrounds.

Poke, poke.

      Replay: 5 out of 10

There is not much reply to be had, unless you count having to replay it multiple times just to be able to beat it. However, it is fun to play through, and I know I’ll most likely be playing it again soon with Unlimited Health to see how it is without any of the frustration.      

     Extra: 5 out of 10

You can access Unlimited Health and a State Select code. This seems necessary given how hard this game is. Unfortunately, I didn’t find these out till after I had beaten the game.      

     Bonus Points:      

     + 5 Immersion

Seriously, how often do you punch a bad guy or swing your sword and not feel like a part of the action? Comix Zone makes you feel your attacks connecting with the enemy.      

     Total Points: 72 out of 90

Comix Zone does a fine job of mixing comic book athletics within a video game, while also being fun to play. Despite its hard learning curve, it is a fun game of the Genesis. It’s available for Playstation Network, as well. 

Your reward for beating the game are free 90′s sunglasses and leather jackets.

X-Men Arcade Cabinet (6 Player)

X-Men Arcade Start Screen

X-Men Playstation 3 Start Screen

      X-Men: The Arcade Game was released into Arcades in 1992.  It was released on the Playstation 3 & X-BOX 360 in 2010.  For me, it was available only at the local Putt-Putt Golf in the Arcade section.  Nothing was as cool as playing with 6 friends, and even other strangers, all while fighting various marvel villains.  I remember sometimes our group would wait for some players to play a bit, then continue where they left off once they quit so we didn’t have to always start at the beginning and spend so many quarters. 

      This review will cover the Playstation 3 version and it’s various special feature.  First, there are 2 Cabinets you can play; 4 Player (Full Frame) and 6 Player (Wide Screen).  The 6 Player is better in either game, as in the 4 Player game you will occasionally be shot by the armored men with guns before you can even see them, while the 6 Player version gives you more room to move.  However, the 4 player allows you to get to enemies quicker.

      When the game starts, you will see a strangely out-of-place screen with the Marvel villains.  It looks out of place after watching the 1990’s graphics of the original opening before it.

      You can chose 1 of 6 different X-Men from the comic books (however, all the designs for the characters are based off of the failed 1989 TV Pilot:  X-Men:  Pryde of the X-Men).  You can chose from Cyclops, Wolverine, Dazzler, Nightcrawler, Colossus, & Storm.

Come, Cyclops, Wolverine, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Storm, & Blond Woman.

      Now, onto the controls.  Your options are Punch (Circle), Kick (Up + Circle [but only while near an enemy]), Jump (X), and Mutant Power (Triangle).  There are no weapons to pick up, but none would really match X-Men anyway unless you were playing as Cable or Bishop.  Each character also has a sort-of screen clearing move (Cyclops uses a wide beam that destroys everything in front of him, but not behind him).  That’s it.  The controls are very basic.  As such, it can get repetitive if you want to play through the game as every single character, but for a short 30 minute session with friends it’s a fun experience to beat up Sentinels and X-Men villains.

      Your main goal is to stop the Sentinels (controlled by Magneto) from destroying the city; then it’s to save Kitty Pryde, then to save Professor Xavier.  In the comics, Sentinels kill mutants, but you just assume that, being robots, they are Magnetic and Magneto can easily alter their body and/or processors. 

      You start out in the streets of an unknown city that has been devastated by Sentinel attacks, then go to a Factory, Island M (I assume this is Muir Island or the Savage Land), and then Asteroid M.

      Along the way you will fight Pyro, Blob, Windigo (?), White Queen, Juggernaut, 2 unknown Super Sentinels, Mystique, & Magneto.  Over the course of the actual levels, however, you mainly only fight 2 types of enemies; re-colored Sentinels and re-colored armored men with guns.  There is the occasional addition of moving lasers, fire generators, Reavers (comic villains), and monsters that grow out of the ground.

 Are these the Reavers?  Or just a random coincidence by the developers?

You must beat all the bosses again in the final level.

      Some of the enemies are severely underutilized, such as the mechanical bugs, the flying bat robot, killer plants, and the killer bees (though the bees are the most annoying).  Why make so many villains if you’re only going to use them once in the whole game, but keep using the same two enemies over and over?

      There are also 2 country versions; you can play the Japanese or the American version.  The Japanese used the English audio, but has Japanese subtitles in cut-scenes.  There are only 3 differences between them that I could tell.

      1)    In the American version, when you want to use your mutant power, you must use it from your own life energy first.  You have a mutant power glob that you can get every time you start a new life, but you can only use it when you have 1 or 2 energy bars of life left.  In the Japanese version, you use your orbs first, then once depleted, you start using your own life energy.

      2)    The Japanese version is also easier, as it removed the grated lasers on the ground that you have to avoid throughout the entire game.  They are fun in the America version because you can also knock enemies into them.

      3)    Finally, the Japanese version has power-ups that give you more mutant powers, however, this is not present anytime you play with just a Single Player.

      Story:  10 out of 10

The X-Men (Nightcrawler, Cyclops, Storm, Colossus, Wolverine, Dazzler, Kitty Pryde, & Professor Xavier) must fight Magneto and his army (Pyro, White Queen, Juggernaut, Mystique, & Sentinels).  You start out trying to stop sentinels, then the story actually does change as people get kidnapped, you fight people from the comic books, you play as people from the comic books (with appropriate power), and you even go to locations from the comics (Asteroid M). 

      Music: 7 out of 10

Most of the time, you would not hear the music in the Arcades.  But now on your home console, you can hear the music, and it’s actually pretty enjoyable.  It never gets repetitive or boring, and it’s just plain strange to me for some reason, but a strange I enjoy.

      Challenge: 5 out of 10

Since this is an arcade game, I have to just give it an average score.  X-Men gives you unlimited quarters to beat the game.  Though this removes the challenge, it simply means it’s meant for a multi-player game to relive the entire game of your youth without having to spend tons of loose change. 

      Fun:  10 out of 20

X-Men is fun in short bursts, but when I tried playing 2 playthroughs in a row, it got boring.  I usually went 2-3 weeks between picking it up again to play with another character.

      Controls:  10 out of 10

The controls are simple to use; anyone could play this game.  However, just because it’s really simple does not count against it. 

     Graphics: 8 out of 10

The graphics are really polished, and you can tell all the character and locations look as they are.  The graphics and cut-scenes give it a comic-book / cartoon look (a serious one), and the character sprites and enemies actually match the cut-scenes (the openings and endings).  It seems they only re-colored many Sentinels, but they designed a lot of extra enemies that appear very briefly, along with missiles, lasers, etc, so an effort for extra graphics was made.

      Replay:  5 out of 10

It won’t be getting any single player usages for many years, but if any friends are over and we want to play a video game that supports 6 players, I can start X-Men for a quick gaming session.

      Extras:  4 out of 10

The Trophies are pretty lame, and completely unnecessary, with one that says to Not Jump at all on Level 4.  Three of them require all 6 Players playing throughout the entire game; if they leave for any reason, the trophy will not work.  The choice of 3 difficulty settings (Easy, Normal, Hard), the Japanese and American versions of the game, plus the 4 or 6 player cabinet from each makes for a pretty good feature.  

      Bonus Points

      +5 for 6 Player Game

      + 5 for Cheesy Dialogue

“I am Magneto, Master of Magnet.” (Yes, that’s what he says)

Seriously, how many 6 player games did you know of back in 1992?  How many do you know of in 2012 that don’t require internet only co-op?

The dialogue here is the most fun to listen to, just for its awfully cheesy dialogue, especially from Magneto.  It’s not just the dialogue, but also the delivery.

Magneto surprises you in level 3 and says, “X-Men, Welcome…To Die.”

Magneto shouts at you randomly:  “X-Men, you shall meet with my wrath.” 

You die while fighting Magneto:  “You Are/Dead.”   The tone is abruptly cut as if it’s two different voice samples together without a space or pause

Sometimes when you are punched by Magneto:  “X-Chicken”

      Total Points:  69 out of 90

Overall, this is a fun game to play with friends, and it requires no long term commitment.  Single player is fun, but only once or twice, and not worth a huge investment.  If you enjoy the X-Men, you will enjoy this game with its representations of many characters from their world and it will make for a fun game session with friends.

A highlights video of some retro gaming magazines in my collection. Vintage arcade games, rare Nintendo articles, ads for games lost forgotten and much more.