MAY 2017 UPDATE
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Four new shrines have come into the fold! An even mix this time around with wrestling and rapid-fire shootout titles!
WWF SUPERSTARS: As one of the earliest arcade titles for WWF in the late 80s, Superstars has a very basic and bare-bones mechanic for a 2v2 arcade game. It is more reminiscent of Technos’ own Kunio-Kun / Renegade as a wrestling beat-em-up featuring only six of the 80s wrestlers including Hulk Hogan, Ultimate Warrior and Randy Savage, culminating with a championship fight against Ted DiBiase and Andre the Giant, along with cameos from Gene Okerlund, Virgil and Ms. Elizabeth.
WWF WRESTLEFEST: The sequel is a vast improvement from the first game. While the attack mechanic remains largely the same, relying on the positioning between two wrestlers and unlocking more signature moves as the target’s health goes down, the game feels much more fluid with the character movement and the more interactive ring. The playable roster has been bumped to 10, and the championship bout is now against Hawk and Animal of the Legion of Doom. The Royal Rumble and Cage Match events can have some of the game’s most memorable fights -- with its great graphics, it’s like making your own wrestling match straight from the arcade screen!
ALIEN 3 THE GUN: Sega’s tie-in for the movie captures its essence of solitude amidst the swarms of aggressive alien creatures despite deviating from the movie’s core events as possible. Take control as two Colonial Marines under orders to clear the Alien-infested Sulaco, only to crash land onto the prison planet Fiorina 161. Armed with only a modified Pulse Gun, you need to gather extra ordnance like grenades, flamethrower fuel and medical supplies. For a supposedly barren and weaponless and defenseless location, Sega took great liberties from the movie by littering it with tanks, robots and androids(!) aside from the usual fare of battling various stages of a Xenomorph’s life cycle. The game is much closer to an shoot-em-up version of Aliens while having the bleak and desperate atmosphere of the namesake movie, especially the ending.
BLOOD BROS: Fabtek’s Wild West sequel to Cabal, it’s basically a shooting gallery version of Capcom’s Gun.Smoke and Konami’s eventual Sunset Riders. Featuring great background detail and vibrant environs, play the roles of a Cowboy Deputy and a Native warrior: sworn brothers to take down the vile outlaws and rogue tribes of the Old West. Even as you mow posses of varmints across towns, waterfalls and hot plains, you never know what’s coming with the boss battles, including an entire supply train, fire-throwing birds, a fire anaconda, and the gang boss himself, Big Bad John. The game even has a Hogan’s Alley style can-bouncing mini-game, which allows you to gain bonuses in the heat of battle!
I hope you like the new shrines! I set aside working on Groove On Fight and WWF Wrestlemania for a future update, as both will conclude the Power Instinct and WWF hub pages respectively.