The Gamer's Quarter

[Persona-sama]

(NOTE: This thread is not about controllers or arcade sticks.)

To begin:
DIG-DUG

Is TAIZO HORI
or

Father of
MR. DRILLER

who is actually SUSUMU HORI.
or


Now let's incite Dessgeega to talk about it more because it's always something that interests me. And has anyone played the DS Dig-Dug game? What is that game like? I imagine it as Dig-Dug with an overworld.
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[friedchicken]

The new DS Dig Dug is a lot of fun. The 2nd screen is something like an overworld, but the idea is to sink a boss into the ocean by cracking the island with giant stakes-- that you drop by undermining them in the lower screen. I beat it very fast, but... that a little bit of the charm of the thing.

I'll leave the fine points of Hori discussion to Dessgeega. I bow to her superior wisdom on the matter.

But I had to chime in because I'm the biggest fan of the series currently living in Bethesda, Maryland.

[dessgeega]

taizo hori: a poem.

the ds game actually manages to combine the playing styles of both the original dig dug (the underground 2d pooka- and fygar-bursting) and dig dug 2 (the overhead-view island crumbling).

dig dug 2 (sometimes subtitled "trouble in paradise") is actually riotously fun, because of the free-form demolition you undertake. each stage is an island riddled with faults that you can drill (with your jackhammer) to create cracks in the ground. enemies can't cross these cracks, just like dirt in the original (though they can go to their "ghost form" to get by). if you seperate part of the island from the larger land mass by drilling cracks, it falls off into the ocean, and any enemies on it (or dig dug/taizo himself) are destroyed.

the ds game is pretty fun. i've played the "normal" stages through a few times now, though i havn't completed the hard stages, as they are ridiculously hard. the game's plot follows taizo's jealousy of his son susumu's success.

here's a lesser-known hori family fact. susumu's mother is actually kissy (later toby), star of baraduke (and baraduke 2), a upl-like shooter set in the depths of an alien planet.

taizo and kissy actually star together as player 1 and player 2 in dig dug arrangement, a fantastic multiplayer dig dug sequel that is included in the namco classics collection volume 2 arcade cabinet. if you havn't played it, mame it up (or find it on the ps2/gamecube namco museum), because there's some very fine digging and dugging to be had.
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[Shapermc]

You know, since you said family, I thought this thread may be about Hori(zontal) shmups.

[dessgeega]

[dhex]

taizo hori is the dig dug guy's name?

possible explanation: with the absence of imperial designs or a post-feudal power structure, japanese culture was forced to create a backstory for every possible object ever created, real and imagined, in order to keep social cohesion on a small island.
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[dark steve]

It's some kind of adorable pun in japanese, I guess.

[dessgeega]

horitaizo means, basically, "i really like to dig!"

horisusumu is a similiar pun.
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[Lackey]

Hori Taizo has a soul patch?
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

[friedchicken]

[highlandcattle]

Hey dessgeegeegabeega,
Do tell me more about this digdug arrangement?? is it really that good I can't sem to find any info about it except for tthe review of that Namco Museum disc
but notting indepth

[dessgeega]

imagine 2-player simultaneous dig dug.

next, towel up any mess you may have made.
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[dhex]

[dessgeega]

oh, it's co-op, big boy.
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[highlandcattle]

[friedchicken]

It's on Namco Museum 50th anniversary on the PSP... and on one of the two Namco Museum collections for MAME -- I think it's volume 2. Not sure if it's on the US Namco Museum 50th for PS2/Xbox, etc.