Mad Motor (1989, Mitchell)

[Macaw]

Dunno how this game has eluded me in the past, but this is some of the most interesting arcade shit I've seen. There is barely any info on the net on any Japanese sites, and the game itself is just completely insane, here is a rundown:

- Inspired by mad max, except you have a motorbike instead of a car

- All the stages are just being chased by an assortment of shit such as bikes, cars, trucks

- Enemies include dudes that drive their bike while they are leaned back and crossing their arms, a gorilla wearing a crown, knights in plate mail driving bikes, a hippy van, etc

- When you take enough damage your guy suddenly transforms into a massive demon dude

- A bunch of hilariously awesome voice clips such as "I'M ALIVE, FULL POWER", "FEEL THE PAIN BAYBEEEH", "I AM THE SMASHER"

- One of the stages has legit Rococop 2 advertisements in the background. I was like wtf until I discovered the game runs on Data East hardware and Data East had a hand in the development.

- The attract mode animation has a dude flipping you off and some hippy punk with a peace sign tattooed onto his forehead

- By now your probably thinking hippies are the main enemies or something but things don't exactly turn out that way

- The last boss is hilariously cool

- The ending is THE MOST FUCKED ENDING I HAVE EVER SEEN IN AN ARCADE GAME. Seriously this thing needs to be seen to be believed I cant even explain it. Major props to anyone who can figure the story out in this


And yeah that's pretty much what Mad Motor is. Unfortunately it seems to have some severe issues in MAME with all the collisions seemingly being totally wrong (at first I thought it was just that the game was retarded, but there are heaps of boss attacks and other things where the collision detection is so wrong that it has to be inaccurate emulation) But the game can still be played in MAME to some degree.

I'll be interested to know if anyone has ever come across a pcb or seen a flyer of this game. Its just too cool and interesting.

[Recap]

It never passed the prototype status, so it's likely that those issues aren't emulation-related.


And hey, Macaw: I'm redesigning my Site and want to add boxes in the review templates for invited opinions, old-mag style. Forum-like lines like those are what I'm looking for and yours usually deserve to be preserved. May I count on you? It'll be only eventually; you know my pace, but I could open a subforum in order to start collecting them. I'm sure Josh'll be there too.

How does it sound?

[Macaw]

A prototype eh. How do you know this? I'm surprised it hasn't been labeled as such in MAME documentation.

And hey, Macaw: I'm redesigning my Site and want to add boxes in the review templates for invited opinions, old-mag style. Forum-like lines like those are what I'm looking for and yours usually deserve to be preserved. May I count on you? It'll be only eventually; you know my pace, but I could open a subforum in order to start collecting them. I'm sure Josh'll be there too.

Yeah I'll come help out if you do so.

[Recap]

Nice thing. I'll create tomorrow a new development subforum on Postback just to give a try. I only need your username there.


As for Mad Motor, it's not even listed on Mitchell's website:

http://www.mitchell.jp/game/game_arcade2.htm


You can't rely on MAME as a documentation source beyond the technicalities, I'm afraid. And sometimes, even the technicalities are wrong there.

[undamned]

I'll be interested to know if anyone has ever come across a pcb or seen a flyer of this game. Its just too cool and interesting.

I'm almost positive I have data on this. I'll do some digging around on ye ol' hard-drive.
-ud

[Macaw]

cool

[Shou]

It was only on location test in Japan and listed as never released in one of the Japan arcade book lists.

[Recap]

Yeah I'll come help out if you do so.

We already have a special subforum and have started discussion, Macaw. Here:

http://postback.geedorah.com/foros/viewforum.php?id=8


I'll start a thread for Xain Soft in the next few days.


Bite, please.

[Shou]

So, I finally got the board for this one. Let me know what exact issues there were with the emulation and I'll verify with the board.

[Macaw]

hahaha this game.

Haven't played it in a while, all I remember is that the characters can often bounce around like crazy on the roads (dunno if its intended or not) and there were some instances of collision detection on the bosses being broken.

[Shou]

hahaha this game.

Haven't played it in a while, all I remember is that the characters can often bounce around like crazy on the roads (dunno if its intended or not) and there were some instances of collision detection on the bosses being broken.

I noticed that your character can bounce around quite a bit. I'll play it some more this weekend and see how it is. Already getting requests to put up for play in Akiba!

[Gaijin Punch]

Wow -- that looks impressive! Did you score it from an individual or a shop?

[Shou]

Wow -- that looks impressive! Did you score it from an individual or a shop?

Individual, I've seen pop up twice now, the latter obviously now in my hands

I asked our friend, A, to see if he has ever heard of a flyer and he hadn't but he is eager to try it out.

Some trivia about the game, the lead devs left Data East and formed Mitchell (the CEO and VP).

[zinger]

That explains why Funky Jet feels like it was developed by Data East.

[Shou]

That explains why Funky Jet feels like it was developed by Data East.

...and why they used Data East PCBs for some time.

[Gaijin Punch]

I asked our friend, A, to see if he has ever heard of a flyer and he hadn't but he is eager to try it out.

You should have him look through his stack of 20,000. Fucking crazy!!

Some trivia about the game, the lead devs left Data East and formed Mitchell (the CEO and VP).

I've always found the games industry back in the 80's so weird. I mean... switching companies is still taboo to an extent in Japan. I can only imagine what the bubble was like, but these guys were quitting huge companies and making their own game companies all the time.

[Shou]

I asked our friend, A, to see if he has ever heard of a flyer and he hadn't but he is eager to try it out.

You should have him look through his stack of 20,000. Fucking crazy!!

Some trivia about the game, the lead devs left Data East and formed Mitchell (the CEO and VP).

I've always found the games industry back in the 80's so weird. I mean... switching companies is still taboo to an extent in Japan. I can only imagine what the bubble was like, but these guys were quitting huge companies and making their own game companies all the time.

I believe he posted a notice to other flyer collectors and got nothing back. I've never ever seen anything on the game and curious as to how the dump was done for MAME.

For Mitchell, the CEO inherited the company from his father and changed their focus to games. Unfortunately, they basically went bust at the end of last year.

[Pretas]

I feel sorry for Mitchell. PopCap made a hell of a lot of money on their PuzzLoop ripoff Zuma that they never saw any of.

Tried out this Mad Motor game. Awesome graphics, characters and sounds, but I can see why this one didn't make it past the loketests. The mechanics are too limited; they just don't allow for diverse or fair enough situations. The practically random nature of when your demon form is triggered doesn't help; you should have had to collect power-up icons or something.

Taito's Recalhorn is another arcade title where I can fully understand why there were only prototype boards made...it plays too much like a typical console platformer, complete with a pause menu and a low difficulty level. Unfortunately, none of the consoles at the time could handle its amazing graphics.

[Gaijin Punch]

For Mitchell, the CEO inherited the company from his father and changed their focus to games. Unfortunately, they basically went bust at the end of last year.

Can't say I'm surprised. You need young, fresh ideas to stay relevant in technology...especially now... and Japan simply doesn't nurture creativity.

[Shou]

For Mitchell, the CEO inherited the company from his father and changed their focus to games. Unfortunately, they basically went bust at the end of last year.

Can't say I'm surprised. You need young, fresh ideas to stay relevant in technology...especially now... and Japan simply doesn't nurture creativity.

In their case, I think it's more because of their chosen hardware partner being Nintendo and focusing on digital download titles. That's not going to sustain a company when the e-distribution platform is the weakest among all of the consoles.

[Macaw]

Weren't they trying to take legal action against Popcap at some point? I suppose they were never successful in that.

[Shou]

Weren't they trying to take legal action against Popcap at some point? I suppose they were never successful in that.

Sounded like that never progressed in a meaningful fashion. Mitchell may be concentrating on that now since their page says they stopped development.

[Pretas]

Can't find the link, but there was an interview where someone from Mitchell said that they would have no chance in court against PopCap. They have too much money; their lawyers would be too good and American courts are biased towards American companies (look at Apple's performance in the patent lawsuit field). I'm not sure if EA owned PopCap at the time, but that would make things even worse.