High Dynamic Range Lying

Once again quickly grappling with Immigration over paperwork this weekend, I was forced to make a trip to Kobe. With some time to kill until the Immigration office sprung to life after its mandatory lunch break, I decided to make a pit stop at Namco Land in Sannomiya (三ノ宮), right next to the Hankyu (阪急) train station. The arcade was mostly empty, save for those sitting and smoking, pumping quarters into the new horse racing betting game. Off in the corner of the arcade, next to the perpetually full Gundam mech simulators, was a game I had not heard about since it was announced late last year: 2 Spicy.

Developed and produced by Sega, the unfortunately named shooter was somewhat of an unknown quantity when it was first announced. Billed as a light gun game with a versus game mode, the details of the game were relatively unknown, and the game was quickly forgotten.

Despite seeing a release in mid April in arcades around japan, this was the first time I had encountered one of the machines. Approaching the game largely as a rabid light gun shooter fan, I was surprised to find that the game was not only very unique in its own right, but it was actually as much a fighting game as it was a light gun shooter.

2 Spicy can be described fairly easy, despite there really being no game like it. Quite simply, it’s a shoot out simulator. Each stage is 1 on 1, with each character running between pieces of cover in a line parallel to their opponent. At the foot of the player is a spot to put your foot. To the right and left of the foot plate are two pedals. Each pedal moves your character in a direction respective to the pedal. When the character moves, they automatically move to the next piece of cover as fast as they can.

Once behind cover, the character remains hidden until the player lifts the light gun to the screen. At that point, their character pops out from behind cover, and the player can attack their opponent. The amount of damage done to opponents depends on a few factors: which part of the body the player attacks, how many bullets they fire, and what weapon they’re using.

While the game doesn’t offer the chance for players to pick up additional weapons, the game instead takes yet another page from the book of fighting games, and offers players the ability to choose a character when they first start a game. Not only does each character have differing statistics, such as endurance, strength, and speed, but each character also has their own gun. Tatsuya is the middle ground character, with no strength in any stat, and a semi-automatic pistol as a weapon. On the other hand, Charlie’s stats are strongly tipped in favor of speed, and he’s armed with a submachine gun.

Choosing your character highly depends on your play style, and statistical differences are noticeable, even on initial playthroughs. For instance, while Charlie has a submachine gun, each individual bullet does very little damage. This is where additional strategy starts to come in. The game also rewards players for not shooting wildly. If a player aims at an enemy for a few seconds without firing, a zoom icon begins to appear around the enemy. When fully zoomed, a single shot does damage equal to 8 times that of a regular bullet.

Cover itself can also be blown up, simply by firing upon it. As you lose more and more cover, a “!!” appears in a speech bubble above your character’s head. If you don’t move out of cover immediately, you’re likely to get hurt when they cover finally gives away, and explodes. While cover can sometimes be combustible objects like oil drums and gas pumps, non-combustible cover like cement pillars also cause damage when they finally explode. The only exception is in the restaurant level, where shooting tables merely chips cover away, giving the opponent a clearer shot.

Because cover is not permanent, the game comes down to constantly moving from cover to cover to find a good vantage point with which to attack your enemy, and to avoid being hurt when cover explodes. As your character moves to cover, you can still attack your opponent, as long as you have the steady hand to hit targets while on the move.

The game’s visual style, character design, and sound design are very much so steeped in counterculture. Loading screens and all in game art have a graffiti look, mixed with a “low quality newsletter” look. Even the narrator that announces matches, wins and losses is bizarrely counterculture, sporting a very unusual Cheech Marin style mexican accent.

The level design is a love letter to Hong Kong action movies. While the first level is a dismal and uninspired abandoned warehouse, players will be pleasantly surprised when they encounter later levels, like the restaurant, and the rooftop. Each level has its fair share of action movie nods, but the restaurant especially does an incredible job of emulating action movie shoot outs. Tables, bottles, and glasses stand between you and your opponent. Shooting through the bar at your enemy destroys bottles in your way, making for some really great visuals. One of the nicest touches is when a character approaches a table, they automatically kick it over, and crouch behind for cover. It’s touches like this that really make the game far more enjoyable, and make each stage worth playing for a different reason.

2 Spicy is primarily a Versus game, but has a competent single player game, much like any fighting game. The game offers a wealth of characters to choose from, an addictive gameplay mechanic, and a comfortable gun and pedal set up that won’t cause any of those callouses that other arcade games tend to cause.

Here are a few photos of the arcade cab itself. Because of the relative secrecy required in taking a photo of the machine while an employee at the arcade stood right next to me, the shots are not of super high quality.