Regular readers will know that for my birthday for the last few years, I've been hosting a gaming event for my local friends known as "The Davison Cup". It's a day-long event in which we play through a series of video games — and I get the opportunity to educate my friends about some games outside their usual, fairly narrow experiences.
This year, I decided to make the games exclusively Evercade VS-based, since there are hundreds of games available on that delightful platform now, many of which are eminently suitable for multiplayer. I also thought it would be a great chance to actually try some of these games in multiplayer for once, since I'm usually playing solo. This turned out to be a good decision, as there are some absolutely excellent multiplayer games on Evercade now.
The day kicked off with a round of Atari games, including Asteroids for the Atari 7800, Adventure, Sprintmaster, Ninja Golf, Warlords, Canyon Bomber and Skydiver. The old Atari games usually go down well at these events and this year was no exception; probably the least favourite was Sprintmaster, which was a surprise, as we've previously all enjoyed Super Sprint. The somewhat rough-around-the-edges gameplay of this 2600 title proved frustrating for some, though; it wasn't hated by any means — indeed, some of the "final" races were very intense and enjoyable! — but it was definitely the least favourite of the Atari games today.
Ninja Golf went down well, despite it taking up a little more time than intended. As is usually the case with newcomers to that game, the absurd premise attracts people in, then the simple but solid gameplay keeps them hooked. It really is an Atari 7800 classic, and a true essential to play if you haven't already.
Meanwhile the three arcade games Warlords, Canyon Bomber and Skydiver were probably the biggest hits from this set, simply because they're set up to be highly competitive multiplayer games — with four-player simultaneous action in the case of Warlords. Canyon Bomber and Skydiver also have the benefit of being extremely simple to pick up and play, so they always go down well.
Between "rounds", I attempted to nullify my host's advantage by providing "Pub Quiz" rounds, featuring nostalgia-themed questions. And by "nostalgia-themed", I mean "very specifically nostalgic for our friendship group" — including questions themed on scanned photos from our time at university, in-jokes that some have remembered for 20+ years and more. Each of these were a big hit and I'm glad I included them.
Second round was all Data East games, including Karate Champ, Side Pocket, Fighters History, Burnin' Rubber and Magical Drop 2. Of these, Side Pocket and Fighters History were probably the two that seemed to elicit the most genuine enjoyment from everyone, but the primitive gameplay of Karate Champ was enjoyable for everyone, the arcade action of Burnin' Rubber is always a good time and you can't go wrong with Magical Drop 2. It was nice to play some games of that which ended up decided on the quota rather than one player's screen getting filled!
Third round was a "Best of Bri'ish" round, featuring Sensible Software, CodeMasters and Bitmap Brothers games — specifically, Sensible Soccer, Super Skidmarks, Psycho Pinball and Speedball 2. All of these went down well — our resident sport-hater (the one who isn't me, I mean) even enjoyed Sensible Soccer, though interestingly he also hated Speedball 2, which is the opposite situation to what I expected. Psycho Pinball proved itself to be a highly enjoyable multiplayer game, though, even though it's just a turn-based score competition.
Fourth round was an "Indie Games are Weird" round, featuring the Joust-like Justice Duel, the axe-throwing Log Jammers, the four-player Super Homebrew War and Micro Mages from the upcoming Morphcat Games Collection 1 cart for Evercade. All of these were enjoyed by everyone, though it felt like none of us really found a good rhythm with Log Jammers. Micro Mages was as riotously fun as I expected it to be in four-player, so when that cart's release I highly recommend getting some buddies over to enjoy that — but the big surprise for me was Super Homebrew War, which proved to be absolutely brilliant in multiplayer. Not only that, but it has a very different dynamic according to whether you're playing in two, three or four-player mode. Very much recommended!
Fifth round was Intellivision games. SNAFU went down well because it's hard to go wrong with Tron light cycles, though Shark! Shark! proved itself to be less of an enjoyable two-player game than I thought it would be; the fact that when one player dies, the other player can keep playing until they die means that there's a lot of downtime for one player or another, and that spoils the experience somewhat. By contrast, Word Rockets proved to be a surprisingly competitive game in two-player mode, and Night Stalker is always a good time — though we played "best score on a single life" rather than a full session, since games of that can run quite long.
Sixth and final round was Gaelco arcade games, featuring World Rally, Alligator Hunt and Glass from the current Gaelco arcade cart, plus Squash and Maniac Square from the upcoming Gaelco 2 cart. Each and every one of these games impressed with their high-quality music and graphics; Alligator Hunt was particularly appreciated by everyone, and so too was the frighteningly fast yet oddly intuitive gameplay of World Rally. Squash also proved to be a really fun two-player game, and Maniac Square, although not involving a lot of direct interaction with one another, also proved to be enjoyable.
All in all, it was a great day, and my planning meant we were actually able to get through the whole thing before anyone felt like they had to leave this time around. I'm pleased with the outcome, and also very pleased that the Evercade VS was absolutely up to the challenge of hosting a day of gaming fun for everyone.
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