Shinwa Arino: like the Japanese Dominik Diamond, but funny.
Season 12 of the awesome Shinwa Arino-presented “Game Center CX” programme – without question the most majestic example of games-on-TV in the history of the world, ever (and don’t even think about suggesting “Games Master” as competition!) – kicked off on October 13th, on the Fuji Terebi TWO station. Arino got things up and running with an attempt to complete the Famicom version of a 1984-vintage Namcot coin-op called Dragon Buster (there’s a complete playthrough to be seen here). And, thumbs blistered to bursting point, he succeeded in getting through to the ending credits; so three cheers for the man!
The next episode, #91 in the overall plan, pitched Arino against Vic Tokai’s 1988-period Famicom curio Kakefu-kun no Jump Tengoku: Speed Jigoku, aka, er, Kid Kool. The clues were there in the game’s original title, really: sure, there’s plenty of heavenly jumping in this game, but the speed of the thing is quite hellish. It also happens to be one of those games where you’re forced to finish up within a set period of time – in this case, three hours. Arino, try as he might, just couldn’t manage it.
If you’ve got access to Fuji Terebi TWO, there are three more repeats of episode #91 scheduled between now and November 8th. The next new episode will be broadcast first at 22:00 on November 10th. For complete schedule details, keep an eye on this page.
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Hey don’t speak bad of Double D. Domonic Diamond was kind of good. Also don’t forget that GamesMaster also had Patrick Cyborg Moore and Michael Fish playing that cycle prop baloon game.