I finished the first art commission that caused me to put the site on pause for a while, but just had to start another one. I probably won’t be able to have another update for another month after this one. I made a little Street Fighter 25th anniversary update between commission jobs to prove that I’m still around. This site isn’t supposed to focus on fighting games, but Street Fighter and Final Fight share the same world and that’s my excuse.

Graphic Generators

Adon (added sprites)
Birdie (added sprites & SF1-based palette)
Eagle (newly added)
Cammy (new SFA-style Delta Red win pose edit)
Charlie (P1 and P1 Shadow palettes from MSH vs SF)
Chun-Li (Three SFA/SFZ tracksuit sprites in four palettes)
Gen (added sprite)
Gouki (added SFA set sprites and lots of palettes)
Guile (SFA3 PSX palettes)
Guy (added SFA sprites)
Ryu (new sprite edit based on old Akiman SF2 art, fixed MvsC P1 palette)
Rolento (added SFA sprites, new edited sprite based on SFA2 ending)
Sagat (added sprites & palettes, including a custom SF1 palette)

Over a dozen backgrounds from different Street Fighter games were added to the “384×224 scenes + text” in the GroupShot Generator.
8×16 font from Super Street Fighter II Turbo added to font-enabled styles in the GroupShot Generator.

Custom Sprites – The Capcom page was updated with the new Rolento edit added to the Final Fight section. Ryu and Cammy edits added to Street Fighter section.


Breakin’ News


I’m not too big on most Kickstarters because I’m usually so low on funds that I’d need to start a Kickstarter to contribute decent dough to other Kickstarters. Here are two that I’ll definitely donate to if my commission money comes in before the deadlines:

Every Move is Special – The plan is to host a special event and all-around celebration of both Street Fighter and fighting games as a whole. See previews of the artwork and more on the project’s Tumblr. This looks like it’s going to be a really cool book and possible event, so I’m really rooting for this one.

Mercenary Kings – The same crew behind the excellent Scott Pilgrim vs. the World beat-em-up are working on a side-scrolling platform shooter that harkens to many 2-D classics while adding the ability to make your own weapons and gear. Check out the website for more details and watch this video to see what kind of game they’re going to hit us with in 2013.

I got a drawing assignment that started last week and I won’t have the time to make content updates in August. There will still be quick little posts on the ScrollBoss Tumblr account along with reposts of cool gaming stuff.

I made a minor fix to Alex Kidd gallery (the Janken-mode Alex sprite was fixed) and I added VGJunk to the links page and the Quick Links page in the side menu. That place has a ton of great, humorous reviews for both well-known and lesser-known games like Ninja Warriors Again, Wild Guns and Vendetta. In a world (R.I.P. Don LaFontaine) of snobby “It’s not as good as Super Metroid so it sucks” elitist reviewers and half-assed derp-throughs with no emphasis on game play, VGJunk has the kind of retro reviews that we need to see more often.


Breakin’ News:


Two Alpha Denshi (also known as ADK) arcade games were added to the Playstation Store: Time Soldiers and Gang Wars. Gang Wars is from the era of Double Dragon madness and is one of the lesser examples of someone aping that play style. This is balanced out by the crazy ADK cutscenes and the fact that one of the heroes is a bootleg Jackie Chan in a period-piece outfit. Time Soldiers is a top-down walking shooter with time-traveling combat, but with the same dial-turn aiming as Ikari Warriors. This game was popular back in the day and is considered the ancestor of ADK’s Ninja Commandos, their later time-travel shooter on the Neo-Geo. Both are $2.99 each.

The demo for “Frogger Hyper Arcade Edition” is up, too. I downloaded it but haven’t had a chance to play it yet. The full game is on my “to get” list, but I’d like to try it first.

The site is twelve years old today, so it’s time to celebrate with a lot of new content.




Graphic Generators

New Characters: Bill Rizer and Lance Bean from Contra, Boomer and Hawk from Vendetta/Crime Fighters 2 added to Konami. Zeed/Neo-Zeed and Golden Axe Villains groups for Sega. Chin Taimei and Machine Gun Willy (separate character with new sprite and palettes) for Technos.

Updated characters: Samus (NES armor sprite) for Nintendo, Tyris Flare (new sprite) for Sega, Blue Mary (palettes) for SNK, Shadow Warriors (new Lopar and Williams sprites, improved Jeff sprite) for Technos.

Custom Sprites
Konami: Bill Rizer and Lance Bean from Contra, Boomer and Hawk from Vendetta/Crime Fighters 2.
Nintendo: Samus (NES Power suit and S.Metroid Varia).
Sega: new scratch-made Tyris Flare and Skeleton (Golden Axe), Masked Ninja (Shinobi), Omote (from Revenge of Shinobi).
Technos: Chin Taimei (NES Vs. Mode stance), Lopar, Williams, Jeff (improved DD1 edit), Machine Gun Willy (improved rifle-holding sprite in DD1 and DD2 colors)
Taito: Lady Master of Kung Fu
DNL: DNL sent a lot of new scratch-made sprites, including a very cool update of his Phanto animation. Be sure to hide your keys before looking at it.

Sprites
New galleries: Karate Blazers, Mystic Warriors, Sunset Riders
Updated: Captain Commando (hero surfing sprites), Double Dragon, Final Fight 3 (Dave and more added), X-Men (Konami arcade) pages

Mini-logos
Data East: Dark Seal
Kaneko: Kaneko and Lady Master
Konami: Mystic Warriors, Sunset Riders
Natsume: Natsume logo (blue gradient), Shadow of the Ninja
Square Enix: Square Enix logo (black and white)
Taito: Silent Dragon
TMNT: Original comic logo 1

Logos
Beraboh Man (arcade), Blue Shadow, Bravoman (TG-16), Kage (Famicom), Ninja Warriors (TG-16) added.

Game Index: The Legend of Zelda (NES), Mystic Warriors (arcade)

Vernacula-X: A few definitions now link to their own pages with expanded definitions and extra goodies like game and character lists that link up to their respective indices on the site. More definitions will get their own pages and more goodies will be added over time.


That’s it for now. I have to go to sleep now, and go to work earlier than usual, so any site fixes will have to wait until the afternoon. I hope that all of you who visit on a regular basis enjoy the new stuff and maybe the new visitors will be overwhelmed by the sad way I’ve spent much of my free time for twelve years backlog of earlier content. I tried to mix it up between obvious, famous games (Contra and Metroid) and things that don’t get much of the spotlight (Vendetta/Crime Fighters 2, Karate Blazers). Have fun and thanks for visiting the site!

Happy Independence Day to all my fellow U.S. visitors!
Be ready for the 12TH Anniversary update on the 19th!

I did a lot of quick work on almost all of the site’s pages before resurrecting it after the recent hack attack. Some coding got smooshed here and there and a bit of it was sloppy, even if you couldn’t see it on the page. The pages are still being improved and updated bit-by-bit and you might even notice that a section your browsing suddenly gets upgraded when you go to the next page. That’s just me shoveling new pages onto the server and freaking you out.

PLEASE let me know if you run into any broken pages, broken images, broken links, horribly slow pages (especially the pages with a crapload of sprites) or anything like that by replying to this post. It’ll help if you let me know which browser you’re using and its version number (usually seen in the “About Browsername” option on the Help tab).

I’ll be back in about a week with that Avengers-based update.

This site was the victim of a hacker attack a few days ago. Anyone who visited this site in the past month should have their system checked. I scrubbed out the sub-domain, re-uploaded everything from the clean site backup I have and did a few more security-related things before opening the site again. A few images are broken for now, but nearly everything seems to be working correctly. The site may go down temporarily a few times before I announce the return. I need to have the site open for take care of a few more things. Please let me know (leave a comment here) if you run into any issues while on the site.

I apologize for any inconveniences and problems this site has caused you and I thank you for coming back.

EDIT (April 19, 2012): Okay, it looks like the site access problems have been straightened out now.

The rest of this post is just edits about the speeds and the time they happen.
(more…)


Breakin’ News


PlayStation Store Update

You may know that Sonic CD hits this week, but there’s a big sale going on. Elevator Action Returns players can pick up a free new character:

PSN Games

Trine 2 ($14.99)
Sonic CD ($4.99)
note: there are demos for both games.

DLC

Elevator Action HD – Additional Character 3 – Original (free)
note: Yes, it’s a 3-D version of the original sprite. I’ll be downloading it after I finish this post.

UPDATES
(PS3)
Bionic Commando: Rearmed (Sale) (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 (Sale) (now $4.99, original price $14.99)
Final Fight/Double Impact (Sale) (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
(note: Final Fight/DI and BCR2 have that DRM that requires an internet connection even in one player mode)
Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo (Sale) (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (Sale) (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
Wolf Of The Battlefield: Commando 3 (Sale) (now $2.99, original price $4.99)
Earthworm Jim HD (Sale) (now $2.99, original price $9.99)
Bomberman Ultra (Sale) (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
Trine (Sale) (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
Sonic The Hedgehog 4 Episode I (Sale) (now $6.99, original price $9.99)

(PSP)
Activision Hits Remixed (Sale) (now $7.49, original price $14.99)
Capcom Classics Collection Reloaded (Sale) (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
Capcom Classics Collection Remixed Umd Legacy (Sale) (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
Darkstalkers: Chaos Towers Umd Legacy (Sale) (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
Mega Man Maverick Hunter X Umd Legacy (Sale) (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
Power Stone Collection Legacy (Sale) (now $4.99, original price $9.99)
Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max Legacy (Sale) (now $4.99, original price $5.99)
Ultimate Ghosts N Goblins Umd Legacy (Sale) (now $4.99, original price $9.99)

PSP minis (also available from PS3 Storefront)

P.O.W. – Prisoners Of War ($2.99)
note: This is one of the better post-Double Dragon/pre-Final Fight beat-em-ups, IMHO.

(Updated Dec. 18th, 2011)

Do you enjoy fan art, game graphics, screenshots, game mods, sprite edits, tribute videos, game walkthroughs and anything of that nature? If so, time may be running out for you to do so. There are two bills currently being discussed in the US House Judiciary Committee that claim to be about fighting internet piracy, but many experts say that companies would gain the power to block US citizens from visiting sites they claim to be offenders of copyright law.

Who are these companies? You can find a list of them on the page called, “Who Wants To Break The Internet?” Viacom, one of the companies in the list, tried to sue YouTube for allowing videos from Viacom’s channels (like MTV) to be placed on the site, even though Viacom possibly uploaded some of those videos themselves. Yeah, Viacom lost. Universal, also on the list, had a celebrity endorsement-laced MegaUpload support video yanked off YouTube for featuring an unauthorized artist… who isn’t even in the video. A news show talked about that video, so Universal had the news show’s video yanked, too. Hell, these music companies have ordered the removal of videos posted by their own artists (and not just in the U.S.). For those who haven’t been irritated enough, here’s a story about how media companies somehow have the power to kill off public domain videos.

How would the U.S. government handle things? ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement, part of the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security) shut down five websites on the claim that they were counterfeits and bootleggers. As reported by TechDirt and the New York Times, one site was Dajaz.com, a site that provided downloads to songs purposefully leaked by the record companies for promotional purposes.

The abuse I’ve mentioned is what they can do without SOPA or Protect IP, so imagine what they’ll get away with if this bill passes. They already have the Chappellian “Shoot first, sprinkle crack on the corpse later” method down to a science when it comes to using the DMCA and site-specific kill switches. The fact that I’ll have to shut down this site if the bill passes isn’t the main reason I’m bothered by this. Many of us have turned to the internet because we don’t like what most media companies are pushing in our direction. Creative people and independent reporters are using it to avoid dealing with the same shady companies that have been spending money to push these bills and own the news channels which won’t tell you the same stories I’ve linked to here. Piracy may be hurting them, but their biggest problem is how the internet is giving us options. No, it’s not a c-o-n-spiracy as much as it’s the kind of typical corporate dick-move you’ll see happen when groups think a form of technology, like VCR’s, will threaten their money flow. They’re paying a lot of money to screw up the internet in the hopes that you’ll run into their open, greedy arms after they close off every other option you have now.

More about the topic:
Mozilla: Protect the Internet
BoingBoing: stories about SOPA
GameRanx – How SOPA Affects Gamers: SOPA Will Pass Unless You Help
Kotaku – The Stop Online Piracy Act and You: A Primer
Next Web Insider: 29 Tech Companies who back SOPA through a front group

Just in case you haven’t heard elsewhere, the man behind these graphics…

… and this incredible MUGEN stage for the classic Tower of Omens from ThunderCats

… finally has his own pixel art website with a very appropriate title.

2D Will Never Die

You’ll find some beautiful pixel art, tutorials, tips, links and some excellent articles about 2-D gaming. Those who are as inspired by Kiwi’s work as I am (hint: A LOT) should bookmark the new site and follow the site’s account on Tumblr to see pixel art from Kiwi along with many cool pixel art reposts. Those of us who know Kiwi have been hoping that he’d make a site like this for a long, long time and we knew he wouldn’t disappoint. He did a great job and I can’t wait to see what else he has planned for this site after an amazing start like this.

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.

beforeinbetweenafter