Behold!!! New found SEGA arcade Tate shmup Proto - Now w/ gameplay vid

Atro

Who?,
20 Year Member
Joined
Jan 30, 2002
Posts
9,271
Yaarrr !

This is still too good to believe and has a cool story behind it!

I was looking for local operators on web pages in order to source some cheap arcade PSU's and came across one. We spoke on the phone a few times before I went to his warehouse.

So, I took to the journey alongside with me two other local members of NG.com, 1up and _rm_ as they're two passionate arcade gamers/collectors in the great spirit of "sharing".

Much to our surprise, when we arrived at the local "operator" , it was nothing but a cabinet's graveyard. We thought we could still find a few decent PCB's and/or MVS carts, but it was full of junk, dust, shit and crap all over the place.

So, nevertheless, we brought a supergun and a monitor. We found that most of the boards were dead or in need of a great "surgery" in order to get a decent revival.

That's when member 1up decided to make an offer on a bunch of dead pcb's. It took a while to negotiate with the owner, but in the end we went away with a handful of pcb's.

One of them was a SEGA System 18 which had no info in the board other that pretty much faded writings on the eproms.

As the PCB was clearly dead, member 1up decided to let member _rm_ take the "B-board" (?) with him to test it out in order to check it with one of his System 18 boards.

Much to our surprise, when we thought it could be another crappy vulgar coin-muncher, it was none but a seemingly great shoot'em up that never saw the light of the day.

We are exactly talking about "Hammer Away". It's a Kyukyoku Tiger style game with two fire buttons ( air & ground ).
Only a few pictures from a Japanese magazine were to be found in the internet and almost no other info about this game is known.

Our real question is... How in hell are we supposed to find such a rare piece of a proto in a dumpster in Portugal?
The only possible way we could think of, is that the game itself says "SEGA/Santos".

Santos is a Portuguese common name, but that's as far as I would go in terms of bizarre relativity. I don't know any Portuguese gaming company ( or Brazilian for that matter! ) sporting that name, and moreover, in the 89-91 era.

All that I can do for now is to post this unique video of the attract mode.

Rom dumps are not my responsibility, but shall be available to MAME when the time is right.
We'll try to deliver more information as the game has to be coin tested from the very start 'til the end to ensure there's no game crashes and other related stuff.

Here's the YT video :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3t0JahAKsU&feature=youtu.be

PS: Props to 1up who bought the game and for _rm_ , as he was the first one who saw the game in
action!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR5Y4QwShIM&feature=youtu.be
 
Last edited:

CORY

a.k.a. Mother Teresa
Staff member
Joined
Dec 10, 2001
Posts
5,713
Nice find! Can't wait to see some actual gameplay footage.
 

GohanX

Horrible Goose
20 Year Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2001
Posts
12,761
Whoa, nice find and a hell of a story to boot.
 

KalessinDB

Mr. Big's Thug
Joined
Dec 17, 2013
Posts
202
That's an awesome story. Way to become a part (small maybe, but still a part) of gaming history!
 

system11

Shmups Overlord, ,
Joined
Mar 24, 2008
Posts
87
Dump that ASAP, even if you don't release the ROMs yet. You don't want one to fail while you're testing and playing around with it, because then it will be gone forever.
 

masschamber

NEST Puppet
15 Year Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2005
Posts
164
That's pretty wild, though now we have to wonder is there any other really cool from Sega that ended up in Portugal. Some of those beaten up boards could be other unreleased games.
 

mjmjr25

went home to be a family man
10 Year Member
Joined
Dec 18, 2010
Posts
2,885
Amazing. Looking forward to PCB pics and gameplay vids.

So is 1up the owner of the board then - is it shared among the 3 of you?

My first thought was it must have been a game you were just unfamiliar with and had been given a different name in EUR, or even an exclusive name to Portugal - but i've never seen anything close to that attract. It looks as you say, a bit like kyuukyoku tiger with some raiden elements, but definitely an new / unknown game as far as I can tell.
 

Atro

Who?,
20 Year Member
Joined
Jan 30, 2002
Posts
9,271
Amazing. Looking forward to PCB pics and gameplay vids.

So is 1up the owner of the board then - is it shared among the 3 of you?

My first thought was it must have been a game you were just unfamiliar with and had been given a different name in EUR, or even an exclusive name to Portugal - but i've never seen anything close to that attract. It looks as you say, a bit like kyuukyoku tiger with some raiden elements, but definitely an new / unknown game as far as I can tell.

The owner is 1up, as he was the one who paid for it.

I found the place and invited both 1up and _rm_ to come with me
_rm_ was the one who gave this wonderful news as he was the first to test the game on one of his working System18 boards.

Everything's being taken cared off. I just cannot tell when it will be released on MAME.
We still have to respect the owner. He's gonna release the rom set to MAME at a certain point, but only time will tell when.
Don't massacre him with PM's, it shall be announced when the dump will be ready to be downloaded.
 

_rm_

Bead Banger
10 Year Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2012
Posts
1,499
Ok here are some inputs:

First of all - THE ROMS ARE DUMPED and i made 3 separete copy,lol. So it's safe to say they won't be lost again. I will made another video today with a better quality (slightly better,lol) so you can see some gameplay in action.

The game is 100% complete, it has 6 levels (if i didn't count them wrong, was to nervous during all the gameplay) and when you finish all levels you go straight to second loop.

The game looks cool and is very simple in terms of mechanics. 3 actions buttons, one to shoot ground enemies, one to shoot flying enemies and another one to bomb. You also have different kind of power ups that will make your shoot more powerful and the typical speed up's. The bomb has an animation to it, it's like a scan to all enemies and then "locks up" and they all get bombed.

I'm just happy because everybody that knows me know that i'm a Shmups crazy, and having the opportunity to make this work, just blows my mind away :D
 
Last edited:

_rm_

Bead Banger
10 Year Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2012
Posts
1,499
Atro forgot to mention something:

This being a proto or unreleased game of some kind, although it runs on a System 18 it has no encryption. So i just had to use a system 18 board with a regular M68000 to make it run :glee:
 
Last edited:

_rm_

Bead Banger
10 Year Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2012
Posts
1,499
My first thought was it must have been a game you were just unfamiliar with and had been given a different name in EUR, or even an exclusive name to Portugal

Certainly not the case, if you google it, you will find at least 3 pictures from a magazine and it has the same name, the game was shown (not sure if in a playable version) at AM Show '91.
 

_rm_

Bead Banger
10 Year Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2012
Posts
1,499
I just shot another video this time with some gameplay, i pick up all the weapons (T1;T2 etc) to show the differences, my favorite so far is T1 with the homing missiles.

I will send the video to Atro so we can upload it in his channel.

One more trivia about the game:

It is in Tate but is inverted, so i had to use a supergun and a CRT instead of one of my cabs. I searched all the menu options but i can't find where i can invert the picture. Is there a "standard" dipswitch setting to invert picture in a System 18?
 

1up

Galford's Armourer
Joined
Jan 26, 2006
Posts
473
Atro and _rm_ have said it all. This is something that does not happen everyday and we're glad we found this here.
The only thing that makes sense about the fact that this board was found here in Portugal, like atro has said in the first post, is the name "SANTOS", common portuguese name.
We're probably gonna contact the person in charge of that arcade graveyard(don't know if he is the original owner) to see if he remembers something about the origin of that board.

Here's a couple of pics. Warning, not a pretty sight...



 

Atro

Who?,
20 Year Member
Joined
Jan 30, 2002
Posts
9,271
That rusty piece of history belongs in a museum xD

Who would had thought such a nice proto was hidden in there!
 

Kid Panda

The Chinese Kid
Joined
Jun 13, 2010
Posts
12,515
Holy fuckballs. I'm so glad that gamers got this one and not some asshole protomaster/hoarder! Can't wait to play it, awesome find guys!
 

_rm_

Bead Banger
10 Year Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2012
Posts
1,499
Holy fuckballs. I'm so glad that gamers got this one and not some asshole protomaster/hoarder! Can't wait to play it, awesome find guys!

Exactly my thoughts. You will mate, but it's no Pulstar :lolz:

@Atro - I've sent you the video with gameplay, upload it ASAP, even i can't wait :buttrock:
 
Last edited:

Atro

Who?,
20 Year Member
Joined
Jan 30, 2002
Posts
9,271
I'm currently editing the video so that people won't have to break their neck while watching it.
Would it be that hard to turn the camera? :D

It's gonna take a lil while now.

The gameplay video looks simply amazing for its time.
 

_rm_

Bead Banger
10 Year Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2012
Posts
1,499
I'm currently editing the video so that people won't have to break their neck while watching it.
Would it be that hard to turn the camera? :D

It's gonna take a lil while now.

The gameplay video looks simply amazing for its time.

I did turned the camera, that is why it's like that :angry:

Also the reason why i've sent you the video, you take care of edit, i will have lunch because i woke up at 7AM thinking about the damn game, my work is done! :lolz:
 

_rm_

Bead Banger
10 Year Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2012
Posts
1,499
Here are other "Santos" shmups:



There are some similarities in some of the ground enemies...
 
Last edited:

_rm_

Bead Banger
10 Year Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2012
Posts
1,499
Props to whoever can guess what game box is showing in the bottom of the screen :D
 
Top