Capcom have announced they are reviving four classic arcade titles for iOS and Android devices: 1942 Mobile, Ghosts‘N Goblins Mobile, Ghouls’N Ghosts Mobile and Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando Mobile.
For those who were too young to remember, arcades were these wonderful places people used to congregate to play video games before home consoles were a reality and later to play games too advanced or expensive for the home market. Pretty much what is starting to happen with virtual reality at the moment.
1942 is a vertical ‘shoot ‘em up’ game released in the arcades back in 1984. Against the backdrop of a World War II Pacific warzone, you control a fighter plane with the simple premise of destroying enemy targets whilst avoiding being hit yourself.
One of my favourite titles from when I played the Commodore 64 (am I showing my age here?), Ghosts’N Goblins was released in the arcades in 1985. Playing as the knight Arthur (yes the same Arthur from the Marvel vs Capcom series) and battling a horde of undead and demons (hence the title duh), Ghosts’N Goblins was one of the titles that really established the side scrolling action genre leading to all the platformers we know and love today.
Its sequel, Ghouls’N Ghosts was released in the arcades in 1988 and was promptly ported to Sega Mega Drive (as well as Amstrad, Atari and Commodore systems) the following year with an enhanced Sega Master System version in 1990 that included power-ups including helmets, chest armour and boots.
And finally, last and perhaps least, Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando (more commonly known as Commando) was a 1985 arcade title that didn’t receive the warmest of receptions. Playing as ‘Super Joe’ this visually appealing but overall repetitive and kind of pointless game involves dispatching enemies with a machine gun and grenades while running through a scrolling battle landscape. And yes, I do not think it was a coincidence that the Arnold Schwarzenegger film Commando was also released in 1985.
The new ports of these titles will give gamers access to options such as auto-fire (I remember that I used to have the -best- joystick because of the auto fire option) and as expected there will be a global leader board to take that arcade high score race to the next level.
While no release date has been set, we should expect these games to hit app stores within “the next few months”.
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Jimmy Twin
Jimmy was named after Jiminy Cricket and is thankful his mother had bad spelling.
