It's really too bad Namco never released a console port of Tenkomori Shooting

Earlier this year, when my husband I visited one of Seattle's best hang-outs, Full Tilt Ice Cream--which not only serves up some wonderful ice cream (I'm looking at you, salted caramel) but also offers patrons a slew of pinball and arcade machines--I encountered a game I'd never seen or even heard of before.

That game: Tenkomori Shooting, a curious, Namco-made coin-op that first appeared on the scene (in an extremely limited number of North American locations, I'm sure) in 1998.

I didn't sit down and play this shmup-centric mini-game collection on that occasion, but I vowed to do so the next time we visited.

Apparently it wasn't meant to be, as I quickly discovered during our next ice-cream outing that the powers that be at Full Tilt had replaced Tenkomori Shooting's PCB with that of some other, far less interesting game.



That fact didn't depress me as much as you might think, as I was pretty sure the title must have been released for the PlayStation (in Japan, at least) at some point--meaning I could just go home, head to eBay, and order a copy for my collection. Heck, it even looks like it might have been made using Namco's System 11 arcade board, which was based on the Sony's hardware.

So, imagine my surprise when I found out it wasn't released for Sony's first console--or any other console, for that matter.

Thankfully, MAME's always an option, so if I get desperate for some Tenkomori Shooting action, I can go that route.

And I may just do that sooner rather than later given some of the curious-looking mini-games that are included in this arcade release--like the amorous one shown at the 3:00 mark in the video above, or the sushi-focused one at 3:34, or the Dig Dug-inspired one at 4:17.

Have any of you spent time with Tenkomori Shooting--either in an arcade setting or in your own homes (via MAME)? If so, what did you think of the experience?

Samus Aran spotted in downtown Seattle

I saw the following piece of Metroid-inspired window art while traipsing around downtown Seattle with a pack of out-of-town friends two weekends ago and for some dumb reason I forgot until now to share it here.

Anyway, I'm guessing someone concocted it (out of Post-It notes, I think) in honor of PAX Prime, which was held in our fair city over the very same weekend?

By the way, a number of other windows in the very same building sported similar creations--one of which was inspired by Galaga, I believe, and another that was inspired by The Legend of Zelda--but I was too busy and too lazy to snap a photo of them as well. Sorry about that.

To see a few (OK, a lot) more of game-related photos, check out my Flickr photostream.

My, er, Wii U Experience experience

As some of you (i.e. those of you who follow me on Twitter) already know, I attended the "Wii U Experience" event Nintendo of America held in downtown Seattle last night.

In case you've never heard of them before now, these invite-only events have been held in cities across the country over the last month or so and provide attendees with a bit of hands-on time with Nintendo's next console and a number of its games (both first- and third-party).

As far as I can remember, the following games were demoed during the "Wii U Experience" I attended: Batman: Arkham City--Armored Edition, Game & Wario, Just Dance 4, Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge, Nintendo Land, New Super Mario Bros. U, Project P-100, Pikmin 3, Rayman Legends, Sing, Wii Fit U, Wii U Panorama View and ZombiU.

I think Scribblenauts Unlimited, and possibly another game or two, may have been at the event as well, but I'm not sure about that. (The venue where the "Wii U Experience" was held had a number of rooms, and I didn't go into all of them, shockingly enough.)

Anyway, of all of the aforementioned games, I personally got to, well, experience just four of them: Game & Wario, Nintendo Land, New Super Mario Bros. U and the still-tentatively-titled (I hope) Project P-100.

Below are my impressions of each of those titles, as well as a few thoughts on some of the games I simply watched other people play.

* Game & Wario--If there was a Wii U game at this event that disappointed me, or at least confused me, it was this one. For starters, I find the art style used here to be kind of off-putting, especially when compared to the style that's been used in the most recent WarioWare titles.

The oddly childish (in a bad way) art style employed here isn't Game & Wario's main problem, though; no, that would be its rather unappealing gameplay. You see, rather than rapidly throwing a series of hilarious (or at least mildly humorous), single-player-focused mini-games at players like WarioWare does, this Wii U title tosses a bunch of slower-paced (as in, some of them have time limits that last for a number of minutes), multi-player-focused games at them.

My wallet, marriage and I survived my maiden voyage to Seattle's Pink Gorilla store

After a long, hard day of yard work, the hubs and I treated ourselves to dinner on Saturday night. We didn't go anywhere classy, mind you--just the Chipotle that's located in Seattle's aptly-named University District.

Anyway, as we neared said Chipotle, I noticed out of the corner of my eye a pepto-pink awning that said "Pink Gorilla." I'm pretty sure I've talked about it before, but just in case I haven't: Pink Gorilla is a small game shop here in Seattle. Actually, there are now two Pink Gorilla stores in the so-called Emerald City--one in the International District and one in the University District.

I had completely forgotten about the latter location until we passed it on our way to Chipotle. Thankfully, David (aka the hubs) was willing to let me check it out before we stuffed our faces.

So, what did I think of my maiden voyage to Pink Gorilla? I thought it was awesome! I was a bit disappointed at first, as I thought the glass case near the front of the store--which housed a good number of complete-in-box imports--represented all of the Japanese games this particular Pink Gorilla location had to offer, but I discovered that was far from the case when I began surveying the rest of the store.

In a way, Pink Gorilla's University District store reminds me of a small Japanese game shop, with all sorts of Dreamcast, Famicom, Mega Drive, Nintendo 64, PC Engine, PlayStation, Saturn and Super Famicom imports hanging from the walls in clear plastic bags.

Among the games that caught my eye: Complete-in-box copies of Galaxian and Hoshi no Kirby (Kirby's Adventure) for the Famicom and a pristine copy of Twinkle Star Sprites for the Dreamcast. A trio of PC Engine titles I've been meaning to add to my collection--Detana!! TwinBee, The New Zealand Story and Parodius--for some time also captured my attention.

I didn't buy any of the above-mentioned games because, well, I'm a bit broke at the moment. As soon as I have some dough, though, you can bet your butt I'll buy at least a few of them, as the prices at Pink Gorilla were on par with what I've seen on eBay.

You can also bet that I'll do my best to snap some photos next time I'm in one of the Pink Gorilla stores--assuming they allow such things, of course.