Print-N-Pixel: X-Men the Arcade Game

Is the pixelated and physic defying world of video games a perfect playground for the over-the-top characters found in comic books? There is only one way to find out:

What is Print-N-Pixel?

Print-N-Pixel is an in depth Group look at Comic Books In Video Games. Print-N-Pixel is more than just playing comic book related video games, its also a “book club,” a month long comic book club.

I hope that people join me in playing the featured games, but more importantly I hope people join in by discussing, reading, and recommending comics that correspond or inspired the featured games.

Even if you don’t play video games and you read comic, or vise versa, stick around and participate in the discussion of either the game or the comics. And if you missed the introduction to Print-N-Pixel you can find it here.

Part 1: X-Men the Arcade Game

Whether you were a hardcore or casual gamer in the 1990’s you probably have fond memories of mashing buttons and fighting off the Foot Clan in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game. For comic book fans and button mashing beat ‘em up video game fans, you probably have even fonder memories of the X-Men arcade game.

KONAMI’s X-Men arcade game was amazing. It was the first game, other than racing games, that I remember seeing that had two screens side-by-side. Two full size monitors full of mutant mêlée madness in widescreen with up to six-players fighting together at once put the four-player TMNT game to shame. As a kid, I spent many quarters and hours slashing sentinels as Wolverine on the smaller four player, one monitor version found at the local mall’s arcade. The X-Men arcade game was never ported to any consoles, and if it was, the consoles in 1992 couldn’t recreate the widescreen six-player action of the original arcade cabinet. With malls and arcades almost extinct in the US and no home console port of this game, we are not without the ability to play the X-Men arcade game. Using MAME, the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator, we can relive and replay this great game. (Instructions and more information on getting MAME can be found later in this post.)

History of the Game

Based on an animated cartoon, the X-Men arcade game was released in 1992, eight months before the hit animated series debuted on the Fox Kids network. The arcade game’s look and design was not based on the popular 1992 cartoon series, but instead on a failed 1989 television pilot “Pryde of the X-Men.”

“Pryde of the X-Men” told the story of the X-Men thwarting Magneto and his “Brotherhood of Terrorist Mutants” plans of sending a comment on a collision course with Earth.

Watch “Pryde of the X-Men” Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.

While the game is based on the cartoon’s story, the level settings, characters, and the animations are the only distinct similarity between the two. The story in the game, told during the intro, explains Magneto leads his army of sentinels and evil mutants against humanity – whom, by the way, we are told are powerless against him. After being told that humanity is powerless against Magneto, I feel it is our civil duty to deposit a quarters (or press the credit button in MAME) and take him down.

Game Play

To play the game, each player starts by choosing one of the six members of the X-Men featured in the cartoon: Cyclops, Colossus, Dazzler, Nightcrawler, Storm, and Wolverine to control in the quest to take down Magneto and his “Brotherhood of Terrorist Mutants.” The game plays similar to other popular beat ‘em ups like Final Fight, Double Dragon, Streets of Rage, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade Game with the player moving from left to right of the level using a three button setup: attack, jump, and mutant power.

How To Play

Most of us do not have an arcade in our basement, but if you are reading this you probably have a computer. MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) is a great way to play older arcade games. If you are using a Windows based computer I recommend downloading and using MameUI to play X-Men the Arcade Game. Once you have some version of MAME you will need to locate a working ROM. Please don’t ask me where to find the ROM for this or any other game, instead use google and search for either “xmen.zip” which is the 4 player single screen rom and/or “xmen6pu.zip” which is the double screen 6 player game perfect for widescreen monitors.

For those of you who are new to emulation and MAME, here is a quick guide to running MameUI:

Download MameUI – http://www.mameui.info/
Unzip the using either Winrar or 7zip
Place the ROM into the “roms” folder inside the newly created MAME directory
Open MameUI.exe
Go to the File in the menu bar and click “Audit All Games”
Once the audit is done click to open the “Available” games using the menu on the left
Now you should see your available games, double click the name of the game to play it

MAME is setup to be used with a keyboard, but if you have a gamepad or a Xbox 360 controller I recommend configuring (by hitting the “tab” key while in game) and using that using that instead. If you don’t have a gamepad, here are the default keyboard controls for MAME:

1-4 are the Start buttons for players 1-4 and 5-8 are the Coin buttons to give players 1-4 credits.
The arrow keys are used to move and represent the joystick.
“z” is used to Attack
“x” is used to Jump
“c” is your special Mutant Attack

Remember you can change the setting for the controls at any time while playing by pressing the “tab” key. If you are used to playing games on your computer that used “w,a,s,d” and the mouse to move, I recommend that you reconfigure the controls to:

“w” for up
“s” for down
“a” for left
“b” for right
“4″ on the keypad for Attack (button 1 in MAME)
“5″ on the keypad for Jump (button 2 in MAME)
“4″ on the keypad for the special Mutant Attack (button 3 in MAME)

If you have any problems with the emulator check out the Emulation thread in the forums.

This week’s SpaceBooger Achievements

SpaceBooger Achievements are earned by playing the featured game, and also for comic book related tasks such as reading and obtaining recommended comics. SpaceBooger Achievements can be earned for any game or comic at any time, but I encourage all participants to attempt to earn the achievements when they are posted.

This week’s SpaceBooger Achievements are:

“Press Start”

Play the featured game at least once during the time it is featured. (Easy)

“Hard Copy”

Obtain and play an Original Hard Copy of the game. (Hard)

“Comic Book”

Read one or more of the “Recommended Reading” books. (Medium)

“Comic Collector”

Obtain a Hard Copy of one or more of the “Recommended Reading” books. (Hard)

Past Achievements:
“Member” – Become a member of the SpaceBooger.com forums. (Easy)
“Input” – Suggest a game and/or comics for upcoming Print In Pixel features. (Easy)

Remember to leave a comment letting me know what achievements you earned by using the “Comment” link at the bottom right of this post, along with posting them here in the forums .