I did something to the main index page. It seems obvious at first but be sure to look carefully. Some of you young’uns might not get the second part.
Updates will continue to be small while I work on a bunch of stuff including a mini-comic/artbook for a comic convention in May. It’s something that I wanted to do last year but didn’t finish.
S-Files – I’m still making minor adjustments to the engine. The default index page groups characters by the first letter in their filename. One problem is trying to get a sprite background that will keep sprites from blending in with it. There has been a slight change to how the main picture is displayed so please let me know if there are any errors with it bugging out. I finally made a crude “profile maker” to help make and modify profiles for reasons I’ll explain in the lab.
New: Blood, Boomer, Hawk, Kate, Sledge from Crime Fighters 2/Vendetta. Norton and Bild from the Rushing Beat series.
Updated: Mike Haggar, Rolento
New GroupShot styles: the Marvel vs. Capcom 3 “character ring” with two solo variations and one where you can fit three characters.
Characters added: Cable, Marrow, Nakoruru (SNK), Zero (Capcom),
Palettes updated: Chun-Li, Felicia, Rogue (Green/White from MvsC2), Ryu
Other updates: Apocalypse (X-Men: CotA name graphic), Black Widow (logo), Jill (MvsC3 outfit sprite edit), She-Hulk (logos), SoR’s Shiva (custom mini logo), Storm (logo)
Custom Sprites – Zero added to the Capcom page
Mini Logos – Alien Busters & Alien Burgers (from Sega’s Alien Storm), Black Widow (Marvel), Growl, Marrow (X-Men 72 cover), Nakoruru (SNK), Shiva (Sega), Storm, Zero (Capcom).
Logos – added My Hero, Tower of Druaga, Warrior Blade – Rastan III, Wonder Momo.
Moon Diver (official site here), the new 2.5-D platforming action game from Square-Enix hits Playstation Network this week and will debut on X-Box Live at a later date. Just in case you haven’t heard, the game is directed by Kouichi “Shiina” Yotsui (a.k.a. Isuke), the director of Strider (arcade) and Cannon Dancer (a.k.a. Osman). You can definitely see his influence all over this trailer.
Definitely looks like crazy fun to me. I’ve been waiting for this since it was announced and I’m impatiently waiting for the Playstation Store to update so I can finally play it. There will be a separate post about the game once I’ve played the game.
Update: Just bought and played the first stage of Moon Diver. EXCELLENT. You’ll love this if you love Strider. Also up for sale now is Rush’n Attack: Ex-Patriot, the revival of Konami’s Rush’n Attack/Green Beret franchise.
You’ve probably seen this link a lot lately but the areas that were hit are still suffering many hardships. I know that times are tight for many of us in the U.S. (take it from a chronically-broke guy like me) but please think of kicking in a few spare dollars when you have the chance. Every little bit helps.
Google: Resources related to the 2011 Japan Crisis
S-Files – Upgrade time! Most of it looks the same on the surface but a lot of things have been rewritten to allow more information and to make it less of a pain-in-the-butt to modify in the future. New features include sections for official game bios from each game, overall move & ability lists, listings for stats from individual games (along with room for a potential “Universal Scale” to rate all characters), an improved screenshot area and a tag section that links to Vernacula-X definitions when they’re available. The new data structure is here and seems solid so new characters will finally be added. This is just step one and you’ll see minor tweaks and changes happening.
Updated profiles: Guy, Cody, Haggar, Damnd, Poison, Rolento, Roxy, Sodom, Ax Battler, Tyris Flare, Gilius Thunderhead, Death Adder.
New profiles: Joe Musashi
Game Index – Final Fight 2 (SNES) added.
GFX Generators – Updated: Mega Man (an edit of his Rockman intro pose added), She-Hulk (improved sprite)
Beats of Rage – Nothing new this time but I fixed the link to the Final Fight (arcade) pick-up items. Shout-out to Sidd the Kidd letting me know about that screw-up!
Happy Birthday to Wizzy, CPS2 Soundmaster Supreme! This is his theme music. Every good hero should have one! (/jackslade)
I also need to wish a Happy Belated 10th Anniversary to the Double Dragon Dojo website. The Dojo has spent ten years building a solid temple of Double Dragon appreciation that the series truly deserves. Anyone who even remotely likes any Double Dragon game needs to give that site a long visit if they haven’t found it by now. You’ll find all kinds of information about the series from English and Japanese manuals to the an interview that explains what the full version of Super Double Dragon would’ve been if the developers had more time. Thank you for over ten years of the representing the Sou-Setsu-Ken legacy to the highest degree!
There have been some minor adjustments to the sidemenu navigation including the new Info Center page that leads to the Game Index, Company Index, S-Files, Vernacula-X and information-related things like that.
GFX Generators New characters to celebrate the release of Marvel vs. Capcom 3: She-Hulk, Tron Bonne and Taskmaster (with a new sprite edit). Captain America has new palettes.
Custom Sprites – She-Hulk and a new Taskmaster taunt sprite added to the Marvel gallery.
Sprites – New Denjin Makai page started with a few sprites of the heroes along with their pictures from the intro and their portraits. Villains and more will be added in a future update then I’ll move on to finally getting some Guardians/DM2 stuff here. Added two six-player cinema graphics to the X-Men (Konami arcade) gallery.
Sprite Rip Downloads – MrGrill247 kindly passed along some more rips made by Makron in the form of some background parts from Guardians/Denjin Makai II.
Logo Index – Four Denjin Makai series logos (Denjin Makai, Denjin Makai II/Guardians and Ghost Chaser Densei), two Shock Troopers (parts 1 and 2) and one Earthworm Jim added.
Mini-logos – Tron Bonne added to the Capcom section and Taskmaster added to the Marvel section.
Game List – Another surprise gift leads to a new addition to the list: Marvel vs. Capcom 3. The She-Hulk and Taskmaster sprites were done before I got it so I had to use video stills for pose reference. Reference should be a bit easier for me now.
Wizzy, creator of authentic-sounding CPS2-style remixes and original music that can go toe-to-toe with Capcom’s BGM’s, has an announcement:
As the Tiny Titans would say, “AW YEAH MAN!” Hit the video’s page for more details and download links while remembering to subscribe to his channel. You won’t be sorry, my friends.
Also, Happy Gaming, I mean, Happy Belated Birthday to Rinry of RinryGameGame!
Sorry for the taking so long to get this update but technical difficulties held it back for one week so I decided to keep adding things to make up for that wait.
GFX Generators – The first thing you’ll notice is that they’ve de-uglified. They share a new layout template lets me make changes to any generator using that engine by working on one file. I didn’t want to improve on the generators’ look until I had that mod in place. You can now disable individual characters in the second menu of the GroupShot generator. Finished pictures now have a timestamp at the end of the file’s name so you can save multiple images on a devices that won’t let you change file names or make it a pain to do so. No one complained about it but I’m all about trying to figure out problems before they happen. The character update isn’t that deep this time but you’ll find lots of new screenstyles and most have secondary options for more backgrounds. I also ironed out a minor big in the GroupShot that messed up the placement of some characters. Those adjustments made many of these newly-added GroupShot game box tributes possible.
GroupShot Maker styles: Kenner’s Super Powers toy card, Capcom’s first and third NES box designs (with many background options), old Konami NES box (with a scratch-made Castlevania background) and SNK NES box.
New characters: Black Canary, Goemon (Konami), Phoenix/Jean Grey (with X-Men CotA name graphic)
Characters updated: Arthur (G’nG) gets a new sprite edit and a fixed sprite, Athena (new sprite), Clark & Ralf (Ikari Warriors minilogo), Darkseid (white logo from Super Powers card) and the Shadow Warriors from Double Dragon (currently just Jeff, Linda, Roper and Willy).
(Update Feb. 5, 2011: Magic Sword hero is fixed with a new Magic Sword mini logo along with being added to the Vs.Maker)
Sprite Index – Enemies and Ending pic added to Burning Fight page.
Custom Sprites – Improved Linda (Double Dragon) sprite edits.
Game Index – Burning Fight (Neo-Geo) and E-SWAT (Arcade) added. Growl (Arcade) updated.
Mini Logos – Black Canary, Darkseid (white logo), Goemon, Ikari Warriors, Phoenix, Shadow Warriors (Double Dragon) added. I also remembered to add Green Arrow’s ’70s and ’80s logos.
Game List – I forgot to add Bionic Commando: Rearmed last time after buying it for the PS3 but it’s added now.
My eyeballs are a bit fried after this one so it will be a while before the next update. I hope you enjoy the update and leave a reply if there are any box tributes or backgrounds you’d like to see. I can’t promise to get them done but I’ll try.
My internet connection has been faulty since last week and it’s too unpredictable to upload the next update. It randomly blinks out and causes me to be disconnected for seconds, minutes or even hours. The Graphic Generators upgrade is something that will completely screw things up if my connection decides to stop working in the middle of uploading it. The new features aren’t that major but I need to be sure they’ll all get on site or they won’t work until I’m back online. I apologize for the delay and I’ll keep working on things to make the update even bigger to make up for lost time.
I’m still building up enough content to have a decent update. Beside that preview I posted in the weblog last week, I have some other things done for the generator including minor adjustments to the engine itself. I also have two new GroupShot themes nearly done. Here’s the one I’m 100% done with:
This was something I wanted to do for the big Superhero update last year but I decided to go with the Mego package since it could work for both Marvel and DC. The other is ready to go now but I want to add some more optional graphics before I show you. I’ll have this and more ready in the next update.
Breakin’ News 
LittleBigPlanet 2 is out now and word on the street is that it’s amazing. It’ll be a while before I can get it but I will get it. Here’s something that a lot of people are missing: the Spacesuit costume is back. It’s only available in special instances so get it now. Go to the PSN store and it’s add-ons section but go to the LittleBigPlanet2 add-ons instead of the regular LBP section. The completely free Spacesuit is in there and works with both LBP 1 and 2.
Wizzy has been on an unstoppable rampage of fine, fine CPS2-style music and this one is just filled with magic:
That cool-looking X sprite is by Camo. Great job on that, too! Check out Wizzy’s YouTube page and subscribe if you like what you hear.
Here is a quick update with a cool sprite donation and some news.
Sprite Rips – Makron’s giant pack of Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon (arcade) sprites has been updated. This pack includes things that don’t even appear when you play the game so it’s worth the download if you plan to make a fan game or are just a fan of the Sailor Scouts.
Game Index – Streets of Rage 3 was added. Minor adjustments were made to the Sega company page. One minor goal I have for early 2011 is to have Game Index pages for certain series that I really like (Final Fight, SoR, Golden Axe) and those that don’t get much attention on English-speaking sites (Rushing Beat, Crime Fighters) before I start the Series Index (a new version of the old Saga section) later in the year. I’ll try to get at add at least one game to the index in every mini-update.
Breakin’ News
Item 1: Bionic Commando: Re-Armed is on sale for only $4.99 on Playstation Network. I gladly paid that much at K-Mart for my replacement copy of the NES cart over ten years ago so I’d say that getting an incredibly solid remake on a current-gen system is a steal. It’s more than a remake… it’s an adventure. If you’re even thinking about getting it, just get it now.
It was also announced that Hudson’s Turbografx-16 games will finally start hitting North American Playstation store. Check out the Destructoid story right here. New Adventure Island, Bonk’s Adventure and Bomberman ’94 will be in the first batch. It’s good to see some more old-school games hitting the network.
Item 2: Just in case you haven’t heard the good news…
… Mike Haggar is back.
Item 3: I just found out about the following man thanks to the creative double-threat known as Dynamowolf. I’m only learning about him now because I’m a shut-in even on the internet. Most of you will know his work already:
Yes, that’s a remix in the glorious style of a mid-90’s CPS-2 arcade game and it’s the work of Wizzy. He’s back on YouTube with new material that’s specifically designed to give eargasms to anyone who misses that raw sound you miss from X-Men:CotA and Marvel Super Heroes before Capcom’s BGM’s started getting all lounge-jazzy on us. Nothing against that but it doesn’t mix with fighting for most of us. He has a ton of work posted already so go through the catalog to hear some great remixes of various Capcom tracks including a few surprises. Be sure to subscribe and drop a note to let him know that you like what he’s layin’ down.
That’s enough for today. Have a good weekend!
Here’s the final update for the tenth anniversary year:
Games Index – Black Tiger and Magic Sword (Arcade) were added. Final Fight (Arcade) and Golden Axe (Arcade) were modified.
Sprites – Black Tiger sprites and cinema scenes added.
Custom Sprites – Storm Shadow added to the G.I.JOE page.
Game Logos – Black Dragon, Black Tiger, Magic Sword added.
Mini Logos – The G.I. JOE, Cobra, He-Man and Thundercat mini-logos from last week’s GFX Generator updates from Christmas are now in this gallery.
MugenBoss – There’s no new content but I added List Index pages for Magic Sword and Kirby.
That’s it for 2010’s updates and I hope you liked some of the new stuff and changes that the 10th anniversary brought. I’d like to thank everyone who gave me feedback about it because you helped make things better here. I hope this place brings back memories about games you forgot about, introduced some new games to those who are just getting into the scene or let you know that you weren’t the only fan of that one game your friends scream on you for liking. It’s even more important now that many of these games can be downloaded and played again for just for the first time ever on a console like Konami’s X-Men. The updates in 2011 will be a bit farther apart but I still plan to bring the love of these games to the table and maybe finish one of those long-term projects I’ve been working on in bits and pieces. No promises on that. See you next year!
Surprise, ninjas! I’m playing Santa Claus by leaving a little toy-related update:
It’s Christmas time so I’ve added a Toy and Cartoon character section to the Graphic Generators. It starts off with He-Man from Masters of the Universe, Lion-O from the Thundercats and various G.I.JOEs and Cobras. The Cobras and Joes have been collected into team-based character choices except for Snake-Eyes and Scarlett who get solo slots since they already had minilogos. I disliked the old Storm Shadow sprite so much that I threw a new one together and it appears in the Generators. Snake-Eyes and Storm Shadow have optional palettes. There will be an update next week and you’ll see the new things from the generator added to the galleries. There is also a theme based on the early G.I. JOE: A Real American Hero figure card in the Group Maker. I know how crazy it is to have single character themes in the Group Maker but they’re just hanging out there until I have enough themes and fix a few things to create the Avatar maker.
Also: There’s a new sprite pack from the Sailor Moon game by Banpresto. These were ripped by Makron (thank you for giving me permission to host them) and it includes some recognizable characters that didn’t make it into the game. It’s not easy to compile things like that so please give Makron credit if you use them in a fan game.
Also, check out Illmosis to see a quick full-color Christmas pic I drew. It’s not game-related this year but you may like it. I’ll be back next week with another small update to wrap up the 10th Anniversary year.