Retro Game of the Day! Super Space Fortress Macross

Retro Game of the Day! Super Space Fortress Macross

Super Space Fortress Macross by Banpresto, 1992 arcade. Man. I am scared to type about this topic. In certain circles, talking about Macross is akin to discussing religion.. don't wanna piss people off!

Growing up in the 1980s, of course I was a fan of the Transformers. It shouldn't really come as much of a surprise at this point! Certainly, I was one of the lucky spoiled kids who had a "Jetfire" toys, complete with the spring-loaded landing gear which would smash into your finger when you deployed it (ouch!). And soon enough, when Jetfire was feature on the television cartoon, they renamed him to Skyfire and he looked nothing like his toy counterpart, either in Jet Mode of Robot Mode - why was this?

Because of Macross, fools! I don't even wanna bother getting to the bottom of whatever Toy Licensing politics must have gone on - someone in a suit must have had a pretty good hissyfit. Anyway, to me this game has always been "that Jetfire game."

And what a game it is! This was one of the cabinets in the short list of dilapidated machines in our Student University at UMass Amherst - actually, compared to several of the other uprights, Macross was in some fairly good condition. Unlike the rest of the roster (Galaga, Spy Hunter, an Addams Family Pinball) this seemed to be a fairly uncommon machine (I'd never seen one before, or since - and I have kinda been around!) so it was always a treat to play.

Pretty standard fare actually, you pilot your Variable Valkyrie Fighter, which could transform between it's 3 modes (depending on which arms you acquire, I guess). The action is fairly relentless and you are constantly picking up different weapons to lay waste to the intruders. It's not too thought-provoking, but certainly was great for letting off steam in-between classes!


Also of note, the game had some very beautifully rendered cinematic shots bordering the action. This isn't something that is very noteworthy today, but back when this game was new it was still fairly jaw-dropping to see something that looked like a fairly well-represented Japanese Anime running piped through a game engine somehow. Sometimes it was just fun to play through these games in order to just watch the nice graphics!

And yes - who could forget the "credit up"screen. This has to be the best goddamned "get ready" screen I have ever seen in ALL of videogaming. I can tell you I spent an extra 15 minutes today trying to find this screenshot, in fact you might say it was my excuse for writing this review. And I don't even like seafood!

Headcase Games' new game is being prepped for release! We are looking for some Beta Testers to give us some feedback on our newest game, which I like to refer to lovingly as "Digital Crack." (But we decided to go with "180" instead for our reasons). If you'd like to apply to be one of the select few, contact me and I'll see about hooking you up with a build.