Game: Bells and Whistles
Manufacturer: Konami
Year: 1991
Genre: Shoot-em-up
Players: 2 players simultaneously
My Version is: The board only (UK release)
Screen Position: Vertical

Gameplay Featuring Konami's famous duo, Pop and Twinbee, Bells and Whistles is a vertically scrolling shoot-em-up where you find yourself coming face to face with flying plants, boats and all manner of weird and wonderful creatures that only Konami seem to have the imagination or insanity to create. As with most shoot-em-ups, the object of Bells and Whistles is to navigate to the end of each stage where a large guardian awaits. Destroy this and you're on to the next level. At the start of each level a number of clouds appear. If you shoot these a yellow bell will be ejected. Collect a yellow bell and your score will be increased, but if you fire at a bell a number of times the colour will change. Collecting one of these coloured bells will power up your character with the usual double-way, shields etc. Just watch out for the black bells as these slow you right down, making your vunerable to those speeding enemies and their bullets.

About The Board The first thing that struck me about this board was the absence of dip-switches. I was expecting a smilar layout to my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles which features two banks of switches, but that wasn't to be. Instead, Konami have decided that all the operator required was one switch which is marked test. Power-up the board and press the test switch and you're taken into a lovely menu, similar in style to the ones you used to find on SNES and Megadrive (Genesis for you US gamers!) games where you could test various features of the game. Here you get the option to change difficulty levels, number of lives, test the ROMs and switch from monoaural or Stereo sound. To make use of the stereo sound option, you'll need an adapter which plugs into the board. Once you have decided how the game is going to play, simply click on the save option and you're ready to go! Another thing which I'd never seen on a board before was a left and right speaker volume balance. As I don't have the stereo sound adapter I wasn't able to test these out properly as I had the game set to monoaural. With the game set to this, the left volume control did nothing, whilst the right acted as volume plus or minus. With a stereo adapter and stereo setting balance you should be able to alter the balance. Of all the boards I have stated are from the UK, I am most sure that this certainly is, because on one of the corners there is a Deith Leisure PLC sticker. Hardware Details CPU: 68000 @ 16Mhz Sound: Z80 @ 3.579545MHz Sound: YM2151 @ 3.579545Mhz Display: 2048 Colours (Dynamic) Display: 60Hz Vertical

Home Versions
For those of you wishing to play this in the comfort of your own home but don't wish to purchase the board/supergun/cab etc, you could do worse than track down the SNES version which is called Pop and Twinbee. As far as I can tell, the SNES version is exact, and so, recreating the arcade experience is easy. Plus, the home version has one advantage - it runs with a horizontal display unlike its arcade counterpart!