The Rotary Stick/Loop Lever games...

[Gaijin Punch]

Okay, so I modded a Sigma Raijin (kind of Frankenstein style I'm afraid) to hold a Seimitsu LS-30 Loop Lever. As you whores probably know, this is necessary to play SNK's Ikari series, amongst others.

I was able to clear Ikari just now. The end is such a bitch. Brutal game... imagine an arcade game with no continues. Anyways, this is the list I can think of of the top of my head:

Ikari
Dogousouken / Victory Road
Ikari III
Gebara / Guerilla War
Battlefield / Time Soldiers
Heavy Barrel (what's the JPN name -- wasn't this Data East?)

Am I missing any other must haves? Battlefield is apparently very cheap, so I'll be getting that next. If I could just put the Forgotten Worlds spinner on the 2P side, I'd be in hog heaven.

[Greatsaintlouis]

I forget the Japanese name, but Data East's Gondomania ate many of my quarters as a kid. Think vertical shooter meets the speeder bikes from Return of the Jedi meets Conan the Barbarian. Great game.

Where'd you manage to dig up the stick, GP? Any chance we could get pictures of the monstrosity?

[JoshF]

Gebara is spelled Guevara.

Lost Worlds used this too.

[ZebraAirforce]

Congrats! It's always a drag to try and play these games without the correct hardware. I've always been interested in playing Victory Road and Ikari III. Didn't some dude on SHMUPS say he beat Ikari III with a regular joystick?

Has anyone ever played Assault with the twin sticks setup?

[zinger]

Didn't Midnight Resistance support them, or was that some other kind of stick? I'd love to try it one day.

[Imhotep]

Down Town (Seta / Romstar 1989)

[Gaijin Punch]

Thanks for the info, guys. And yeah, I momentarily forgot the game was based on Che Guevara. English pronunciation versus Katakana makes it hard to connect the two.

GSL: Yes, pics coming. I will do a little write up and stick it in the commentary department. Had to do some Dremel work to the unit, which I suck at. Hence, the Frankenstein comment. It does work though.

I got the stick from a YJ seller a while back. Took me a while to figure out where I was going to put it. Was going to buy a base from someone at Shoryuuken when I realized sticking it in a Raijin would be 1000x better: no need to solder up a DIN connector (which I simply cannot do).

Gondomania seems to be Makyou Senshi according to KLOV.

Lost Worlds used this too.

Lost Worlds used a spinner. A pair went for about 30,000 yen on Yahoo no long ago.

Bermuda Triangle is one I've simply never heard of. GFront has it accompanied by a Blast City modded panel with two rotary sticks. Price is 200,000 yen (130,000 for the panel or there abouts, according to them). Pricey, especially for a non-original panel.

[Gaijin Punch]

The gory details

[sven666]

Caliber.50 (good game, if you like Ikari youll like this too)

i have a couple of rotary games if you want btw, send me a PM if youre interested.

[Gaijin Punch]

Who makes it?


Writing this from my new mobile. So wicked.

[Kaede]

Caliber. 50 is a nifty little game, from what I've played of it. Usually for these rotary games in MAME I use my dual shock and set L1 and R1 to 'rotate' the controller. Works OK, but never gonna be as good as the stick.

I was quite shocked to find Midnight Resistance used these sticks on the coin-op, this was probably my most played game on the old Commodore 64 which was obviously limited by the 8 way joystick. I think you had to jump and push the direction every time you wanted to shoot diagonally.

[ZebraAirforce]

Caliber 50 is by Seta, I believe.

[Gaijin Punch]

I'll look into those. I guess MAME uses a bit of a hack (which is very much against MAME) since the rotary stick actually sends a signal of what dial it is turned to. L1 + L2 could work, but yeah, you're stuck w/ a Dual Shock, and of course, it feels weird.

[Koa Zo]

Has anyone ever played Assault with the twin sticks setup?

Well, yeah.
..one of the three cabinets I own.
My collecting has been geared towards unique control schemes such as the rotary-sticks, (almost bought a project Ikari cab a few years back), trackball, steering, etc.
So far I've got the A,B,C's of Atari covered
Assault (yeah, I know, Namco)
Blasteroids
Centipede (cocktail)

Roadblasters and 720 are next up on my list.

The thing with Assault is those sticks are typically beat to hell on the 6 or 7 cabs I've ever laid hands on. I did the best overhaul on my own as possible, but a plastic moulding project is in order sometime soon to refurbish the 4-way gates.

btw, surprisingly, the Sony Analog Joystick (SCPH-1110) works very well with Namco Museum Vol.4.
Even though Assault requires 4-way control, the tall joysticks swing right into possition and I never have issues with accidentally hitting diagonals.
It also doesn't hurt that Assault runs slower on Vol.4 than on an actual cab.

[JoshF]

Search and Rescue. Best rotary stick game ever.

[Gaijin Punch]

It's most likely in the stack I'm going to get from Sven just in time for the next Summer Olympics.

[Shou]

FYI, those Seta games won't work with the LS-30. They use optical rotary sticks.

[sven666]

It's most likely in the stack I'm going to get from Sven just in time for the next Summer Olympics.

i thought you were going for the special olympics?

seriously gotta get my ass in gear on this, wtf is wrong with me

[Gaijin Punch]

Not loop lever games, but has anyone seen the Lost World set on YJ? The last one went for 150,000 yen (PCB + original 2player panel + modified Blast [or was it Astro?] 1 player panel). Cool shit. There's one up again w/ just the modified panel.

I should get a spinner some time and put it in my Frankenstein Raijin.

[Shou]

Not loop lever games, but has anyone seen the Lost World set on YJ? The last one went for 150,000 yen (PCB + original 2player panel + modified Blast [or was it Astro?] 1 player panel). Cool shit. There's one up again w/ just the modified panel.

I should get a spinner some time and put it in my Frankenstein Raijin.

Saw it but thought about it for a moment only because I remember buying the dedicated US cabinet for $75 before....

The guy said he would only give you 1 of the panels, you had to choose.

[Gaijin Punch]

Saw it but thought about it for a moment only because I remember buying the dedicated US cabinet for $75 before....

The guy said he would only give you 1 of the panels, you had to choose.

Guess that explains the second one. I decided I wasn't up to mod my Raijin (read: my wife is in town and is paranoid about shards of metal around our son) so didn't get into the details.

Any clue what the plain board runs when it pops up? GFront has the US version for 40,000... so I assume it's dirt cheap in the US. Not seen the JPN one before.

[undamned]

Any clue what the plain board runs when it pops up? GFront has the US version for 40,000... so I assume it's dirt cheap in the US. Not seen the JPN one before.

I have a Forgotten Worlds PCB that I got for $75ish. I think getting one for under $100 should be pretty easy, State-side.
-ud

[Macaw]

Been digging this stuff a lot recently, here's a list of all rotary stick stuff, hopefully mostly complete:

- Ikari Warriors
- Dougo Souken / Victory Road
- Ikari III
- Battle Field / Time Soldiers
- World Wars / Bermuda Triangle
- Bermuda Triangle
- Guevara / Guerrilla War
- SAR Search And Rescue
- Makyou Senshi / Gondomania
- Heavy Barrel
- Midnight Resistance
- Caliber .50
- Lost Worlds / Forgotten Worlds
- Touchdown Fever
- Touchdown Fever 2
- Downtown
- T.A.N.K / T.N.K III
- Exterminator


SAR Search and Rescue is without a doubt the best game in my opinion. The game has atmosphere out the ass, and I am a total sucker for thematic settings involving crazy guts and biological shit taking everything over. The flow of the game is superb, just slowly trudging through the ship getting deeper and deeper is too cool, and there isn't any breaks after bosses or anything, your in control the whole time which makes the journey feel quite relentless and all the more awesome. Also satisfying weapons that make destroying the endless shit fun!

Its also without a doubt the most violent arcade game ever, and enemy death animations aside the backgrounds of the game are a real visual feast, with hundreds of greatly detailed dead body's all over the place eviscerated and mutilated in countless ways. Even after playing the game heaps of times I still just sit there staring at the background details all the time.


Anyway, someone tell me the best rotary stick to get, its fucked I'm still using my ghetto joystick setup. I'll probably only want one for mame, so I wonder if there is any place that sells usb SNK rotary sticks, I couldn't be bothered modding one of my raps unless necessary.

[Gaijin Punch]

There's a place in the US that at least has them. Forgot which shop it is but it's one of the major arcade part providers in the states. I think they're $70, which is cheaper than you'll see them (usually) pop up on Yahoo Japan.

Just be warned they have really long shafts.

I have the US version of SAR. Really need to bust it out one day. Just haven't had the time.

[Macaw]

Just be warned they have really long shafts

Don't worry I'm already rather experienced from my own.



Also the Battle Field flyer is slick:




I've been trying to find an image of the Japanese flyer for SAR, its gotta be cool.