Your top 20 MAME games

[Shadow]

This ain't a list . . .but it is about MAME . . .so . . .

Why do all these arseholes around MAME forums clog their harddrives up with CHD images that don't fuckin' work in MAME and then bitch about not getting them verified properly by the various rom managers out there

I'm all for updating the roms - which I do every new issue but there's a vast difference between maintaining just over 20 gigs of roms and trying to house 180 gigs of CHDs - most of which don't even work.

I picked out all the working CHDs this week, updated 'em and wrote them to 5 DVDs for about 22 gigs.

Having 160 gigs of non-working games on your harddrive seems a bit over-obsessive to me

[kristian]

Right on... CHD games are a waste of HD space. Only a few of them actually run in any modern computer... Hyper Athlete, KI and probably SF Rush (if you have the hottest out-of-the-box machine)...!!

Maybe there are a few others... but no one can play Gauntlet Legends, for example.

[ruby651]

Originally Posted by kristian

Am I really the only one who plays Xevious?

I mean, that must be the most revolutionary shooter in the existence... a HUGE legend in Japan. Pure skill game, just like Gravitar.

Always been a big fan of Xevious. They used to have it at a college bar I hung out at. "That fucking Xevious killed my brother!" was a frequent drunken battle cry.

@SteveOz: a hit of acid is what finally helped me to overturn the score on a Galaga machine. Impressive what some hallucinogenics can do to help your gaming, especially when the player is convinced they'll really die if they get shot down!

[Ike Savage]

Originally Posted by ruby651

...especially when the player is convinced they'll really die if they get shot down!

oh my. oO

...

alright men, now here's the plan...

[kristian]

Originally Posted by ruby651

@SteveOz: a hit of acid is what finally helped me to overturn the score on a Galaga machine. Impressive what some hallucinogenics can do to help your gaming, especially when the player is convinced they'll really die if they get shot down!

The only game that I was truly good at was Atari Star Wars... I was able to play as long as I wanted... my record was 40 million (at that point I got bored and hungry) and every now and then I played casually with only one hand on the yoke... I once remember when about 20 Japanese tourists were gathered around the game.... watching me fly it in the amusement park... they were clapping their hands and yelling... shaking their heads in disbelief... that was the highest point of my gaming youth...!!

Actually many of the regular guys in my arcade were able to play it as long as they wanted.... when you figure out levels 7,8,9 and 10 you have figured out the game. It's much harder with the mouse... I can only score about 2 mil that way... level 10 deathstar gets really tough with a mouse because the controls have to be quick and precise...!!

[StevOz]

I mastered 3 games, that I could play forever, Defender, Joust and Q*Bert, which was really handy when you were down to your last 20 cents. There were a few others that I was almost as good at, well good enough to usually get 30 minutes out of.

Space Invaders of course, usually getting to about 30 000 and resetting the aliens 3 times. Galaxians Part 4 as MAME called it, though it was part X here and slightly different, anyways got to just over 200 000 on that once or twice. After wave 10, the difficulty maxed out and at stage 48 I considered it beat as no more flags could be displayed. I was also alright at Moon Cresta usuall getting 100 000 or so and Space Firebird got just over 30 000 on that once which is a higher score then you might think, those birds go really crazy the second time around and the third time around is just murder.

Oh and Nic, the invasion is not going well....

http://www.overclockers.com.au/image...s/25sep9/9.jpg

But wait.....Success!

http://www.overclockers.com.au/image.../22sep9/10.jpg

[elton]

Couldn't put a fav 20 list together if my life depended on it. Puzznic was brilliantly addictive though as I recall.

[ruby651]

Originally Posted by kristian

The only game that I was truly good at was Atari Star Wars... I was able to play as long as I wanted... my record was 40 million (at that point I got bored and hungry) and every now and then I played casually with only one hand on the yoke... I once remember when about 20 Japanese tourists were gathered around the game.... watching me fly it in the amusement park... they were clapping their hands and yelling... shaking their heads in disbelief... that was the highest point of my gaming youth...!!

Actually many of the regular guys in my arcade were able to play it as long as they wanted.... when you figure out levels 7,8,9 and 10 you have figured out the game. It's much harder with the mouse... I can only score about 2 mil that way... level 10 deathstar gets really tough with a mouse because the controls have to be quick and precise...!!

All I can say is "wow". Wait... let me put that in bold: "wow!" I always finished up on about level 3. One of the Gamecube Rogue Squadron games had the original Star Wars and the I-never-saw-it-before Empire Strikes Back game. Made it to level 4 on those. Frakking amazing, kristian!

[kristian]

Originally Posted by Ike Savage

two joysticks, yes. being able to control the treads independently gives a little more control. in terms of input, i usually use keys or maybe a gamepad. "sarge" is also an awesome game if you get into that 'double tread' thing.

i've gotten over 200K a couple times in MAME. usually that involves continually backing away from the enemy tanks (esp. when they become super tanks), keeping them in your forward vision or just outside of it, dodging just enough after they've fired, and pouncing on that short time period that occurs regularly where you can afford to stand line them up and get a shot off.

saucers, i hunt them down and kill them, but i balance that with staying alive. sometimes there's opportunity (like between enemy tank kills) to go after them and sometimes they're basically a trap which will lead to your death.

electric razors, i keep backing up, get his left and right movements centered, and watch his pattern and timing. on his last pass, just before he kills me, i fire just as he's briefly in the middle. people who can time it better can probably fire earlier.

the biggest problem with my 'backing up' strategy is that i'll occasionally bump into an obstacle. i just try to slide off it real quick, but sometimes the delay is fatal. there's probably a way to play it foolproof, but i kind of like having built-in obsolescence. the game can get rather boring after 100K or so, after all...

oh yea, and if you manage to reach the volcano, you win an enormous prize. These new and fresh titles have kept my attention lately.....

I learned Battlezone in 2 days when I put my mind into it... it's actually a relatively easy game... shooting those tanks becomes a bit repetitive.... there's one virtually bulletproof system to execute them... unless an object appears on your back (as you said).... it still looks amazing though (considering it's 32 years old) and has very unique atmosphere... I also use the same method with the supertanks... back off then after they've shot I just run forward and "bump" them with my tank... then reverse and shoot.

The only things that destroy my game are those missiles... sometimes I can shoot 10 in a row without a problem... but they have 3 different flying paths. You can have 2 shots when you back up.... but it's still quite tough. I'm sure I'll figure it out though... there are people who have scored millions in this game.

Not a great score... but a good start after 2 days. If I can figure out a bullet proof way to shoot the missiles, I can score a lot more.

[Ike Savage]

Originally Posted by kristian

I learned Battlezone in 2 days when I put my mind into it... it's actually a relatively easy game... shooting those tanks becomes a bit repetitive.... there's one virtually bulletproof system to execute them... unless an object appears on your back (as you said).... it still looks amazing though (considering it's 32 years old) and has very unique atmosphere... I also use the same method with the supertanks... back off then after they've shot I just run forward and "bump" them with my tank... then reverse and shoot.

The only things that destroy my game are those missiles... sometimes I can shoot 10 in a row without a problem... but they have 3 different flying paths. You can have 2 shots when you back up.... but it's still quite tough. I'm sure I'll figure it out though... there are people who have scored millions in this game.

Not a great score... but a good start after 2 days. If I can figure out a bullet proof way to shoot the missiles, I can score a lot more.

congrats! i'm laughing pretty hard at the advice i wrote three years ago, there- any fool could have figured that stuff out pretty easily. and as you say, the missiles were harder and more unpredictable than i gave them credit for.

what i really miss is that great defunct site, MAME.DK from denmark. they had reams of cool insider info on most of the games.

i mean, i think an attempt was made to standardise and share that info via the MAME .dat file or something, but the quality of the information was never really the same IMO. one thing i thought was cool about BZ is that the US military was so impressed with it that they ordered a special bradley tank training version of it for their tank corps cadets. i mean, that version did get emulated pretty quickly in MAME, but i'm not sure how many people realised what it really was without the history info to spell it out...

[kristian]

No... that info was good.... although you can't really learn anything from ANY written info... you gotta play it yourself... YouTube videos of the gameplay was good help too. And it's not that easy to figure out without seeing it first.

There is also a FAQ by Kevin Butler:
http://faqs.ign.com/articles/592/592021p1.html

MAME Action Replay Page has lots of INP's... some scores over 500K but for some reason I can't get them running at all.... can't find the correct MAME version to play them.
http://replay.marpirc.net/

Yeah Bradley Trainer is pretty cool.... never had time to play with it.... the tank itself doesn't move... only the gun on the roof rotates.

I also miss forums where people could discuss the gameplay.....share tips & videos,etc.... most arcade related discussions are just tech (which is boring). I wouldn't mind buying a few real Atari machines though... but unfortunately they're not available around here.... if I lived in the States I'd probably own plenty.

[kristian]

Hey Nic..... getting better..... next goal is 500K.

[Ike Savage]

wow... nice. that's definitely got me beat. i wonder what the all-time record is?

just for fun i tried it just now in MAME, set 1 ROMs on default settings. among other things, i had forgotten that the super tanks can out-run you even when you're running backwards... so you have to choose the right moment and 'go for it'. i think "stellar 7" for 8-bit computers spoiled me on that. anyway, between getting stuck blind on obstacles and forgetting the pattern of electric razors, i managed 78K. yikes.

there was a really nice BZ spinoff for android called "tanks!," but they seem to have yanked it. i have it on my phone, but was really looking forward to playing it on tablet to revel in the vector-graphic simulation. sucks...

[Shockman]

23,000,000 a long time ago.

Not me. The official record. I'm sure that score has been topped a few times.

[kristian]

No... the world record is amazing 23 million... amazing because you don't get any extra tanks after 100K.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlez..._video_game%29

High score

On August 30, 1985, David Palmer, of Auburn, California^[16] scored a

world record

World_record

23,000,000 points while playing at The Game Room arcade in Citrus Heights, California. This game took 23 hours, at the end of which he quit with four tanks still left. On June 28, 1985, Palmer achieved a score of 10,000,000 in the 1985 Video Game Masters Tournament, the score from which was subsequently published in the 1986 and 1987

Guinness Book of World Records

Guinness_Book_of_World_Records

(he quit at that score, after ten hours of play and without losing a single tank, because of time limitations in the tournament and his desire to compete on other games).
Palmer also holds

world records

World_record

in a number of other first-person simulator-type games, namely Red Baron, Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back,

Star Rider

Star_Rider

, Firefox, SubRoc-3D and TX-1.^[17]

[Shockman]

Time limits? What kind of sick joke would a official tournament with time limits be. I think the writer of this is confused.

[kristian]

Those world records are totally insane.... Gravitar world record is 8 million (Dan Coogan). He played it with the real arcade machine and it took 23 hours to achieve. My record is now 850K... it took 2 hours (game almost 2x clocked). Took me 30 years to finally clock the game....



Star Wars world record is 300.000.000+... that's insane... even 30 Mil takes hours to play.

[Shockman]

I think I could beat the three hundred million on Star wars. Given 300,000,000 tries.

[kristian]

When you learn the levels 8, 9 and 10 perfectly.... well after that you can actually play Star Wars as long as you want.... it's only a question about stamina.

It's not a difficult game... but it absolutely requires the original yoke controller.

[Ike Savage]

wow... just read in the WP article that there was going to be a sequel to BZ produced at one time. that would have been sweet. i mean, despite how much i respect spectre, arctic fox, stellar 7 and the others, i don't think there's ever been a proper sequel to battlezone mode. which is pretty crazy, considering how much has been possible since 1990 or so.

actually, stellar 7 was a damn fine game on the early platforms. but more advanced versions and "nova 9" in particular tended to lay an egg with most folks.

Originally Posted by kristian

It's not a difficult game... but it absolutely requires the original yoke controller.

really? if it's smooth side-to-side steering you need, then wouldn't a mouse or trackball do an adequate job? or maybe a modern flight controller thingy?

[Shockman]

It's like everything else. Getting use to something. A mouse is just as accurate, but a yoke locks the Y axis, and a mouse is hard to get no X when moving up and down. Some of the thrustmaster flight sticks work very well, and I would imagine the real X-wings use a stick and not a yoke. I had a CH yoke that worked good as well. Still does but has an obsolete plug and I have no adapter. A yoke though separates the 2 axis and with a mouse, ball or stick, you have to constantly sync the 2 axis manually.

The arcade yoke is most likely the best, but not an absolute requirement.

[kristian]

No way... no other controller can substitute the yoke... there are places where you need to move with extreme precision and speed and mouse simply isn't good enough. For example when you shoot the towers you sometimes have to make an extremely fast move to the left and return back to the center immediately... it "works" with the mouse but there simply isn't enough precision.... and believe me I have played with the analog settings a LOT....!!

I have played almost 3 mil with a mouse... but I have a setting that gives 3 extra shields after each level.



Give me the yoke and I can play forever with the default dips.

Empire Strikes Back (the sequel) is fully playable with a mouse though.

And I agree...it'd be great to have a BZ sequel... but whenever they make those sequels they screw up the original physics..... just consider how awful sequels there are... Dig Dug 2 or Return of the Jedi.... crap..... I'd like to see exactly similar gameplay and modernized vector "wireframe" graphics..... just some new enemies and perhaps some explosions. Graphics don't mean squat.... it's the gameplay that matters.

PS: Initials "MLH" in both Star Wars and Gravitar... they belong to Mike Hally (who designed both games).... also ESB and Gauntlet Legends.... he's a legend himself....!! RDA = Rich Adam... ORR = Owen Rubin (worked on Gravitar and designed the volcano animation for BattleZone).

[Itchigo]

Defender was my game (among others). I think my highest was 12 million. I was going to go after the record because I had a way to do it that no one ever found out about- pause. There is a way to pause the commercial game by dropping all 10 guys at once in the lowest part of the planet, at a complete stop. This overloads it, and stops the game in it's tracks. The only way to get out of this is thrust, then you're out. You can stay paused indefinitely.

[kristian]

I love Defender and Stargate.... I have a respectable high score on Stargate.... over 100K... but I never really mastered Defender. Hey good idea....perhaps that's my next "high score project"?

They always said it was a difficult game.... and it is...kinda.... it's not frustratingly difficult like Sinistar which is a pain in the arse... the controls of Sinistar are simply stupid (imho).

PS: Check out this guy.... he has a LOT of great arcade machines.... his voice is a bit annoying at first but you get used to it.... and he simply can't play ANYTHING. Cool guy though.
www.youtube.com/user/blkdog7/videos?sort=dd&view=0&page=1

Tron & Discs of Tron are great looking cabs.... they're ok games too.

Here's Star Wars arcade machine... unfortunately MAME can never duplicate the real vector screen which looks simply incredible.
Atari Star Wars 1983 Arcade Game Review - Amplifone with ESB kit - PART I - YouTube

[Ike Savage]

Originally Posted by kristian

...whenever they make those sequels they screw up the original physics..... just consider how awful sequels there are... Dig Dug 2 or Return of the Jedi.... crap.....

oh, i liked them both, even though hardly anybody ever saw DD2 in the arcades. and RoftJ was almost more of a clip-film than an actual game, but i still loved it, my being an obedient little padowan of star wars at the time.

indeed, i'd say the original star wars is still probably the finest movie of all time, as much as i'd like to be hoity-toity and choose citizen kane, gunga dihn (sp?), greed, philadephia, and others as better movies.

which is not to say that george lucas hasn't proven himself a total cinematic jackass since then, but that's not the issue here IMO. his ideas were like shafts of pure sun energy in the 70's.

I'd like to see exactly similar gameplay and modernized vector "wireframe" graphics..... just some new enemies and perhaps some explosions. Graphics don't mean squat.... it's the gameplay that matters.

that would be f--------king awesome!!!

and see- that's my basic quandary- i still don't get why these things are so hard to replicate. like, if you've ever tried to play the online multiplayer game "BZflag," did it ever once recreate in your mind the coolness of the original? well it sure didn't for me, anyway!

but i mean, why did we get some reasonable updates to "tron," but stuff like this falls totally flat... like that god-awful film about mario bros, for example.....

[kristian]

Not actually a BZ sequel.... but they were about to release this:
Classic Game Room HD - VECTOR TANKS for iPod review - YouTube
But then came this:
http://www.gamepolitics.com/2012/01/...aims-developer

Personally.... it's tough to say which one of the Star Wars trilogy is the best movie.... they're all great... but I think I like ESB the most... the ending is simply amazing.

Lucas should be jailed for releasing the new trilogy... Episode II is probably the worst movie ever made. But they're all complete and utter garbage.... cast... dialogue... everything. Hayden Christensen was a joke... he had charisma of a damp rag (cue Nigel Farage)...!!

[Itchigo]

I think my best on Stargate was a couple of million. It was always said that Stargate was for Defender junkies who thought it was too easy.lol

[Ike Savage]

Originally Posted by kristian

Not actually a BZ sequel.... but they were about to release this:
Classic Game Room HD - VECTOR TANKS for iPod review - YouTube

hmm... can't decide if the reviewer guy is a freakish weirdo or just a weirdo freakazoid. in any case, that was probably the best straight BZ take-off i've ever seen. and i guess atari's legal action in january explains why "tanks!" was removed from the android market... dang.

BTW! do you still own your original vectrex, kristian?

[StevOz]

I'll bet you can't master Defender Kristian, it's not a rope leant game, every game is different, it takes skill and real reflexes.

Also it has some serious rom based difficulty settings, think you know it, just try it on the next setting.

That said it's just not possible without the original control panel layout.

[kristian]

Originally Posted by Ike Savage

BTW! do you still own your original vectrex, kristian?

No... I really wish I did.... I was dumb enough to give it away long time ago. It was the best console ever... but still... I always thought what a wasted opportunity it was... kinda.

Cinematronics games were good... but just imagine if they had Atari licence...!!

Vectrex had four very good games... Scramble, Mine Storm, Bedlam, Cosmic Chasm and Star Trek/Star Ship. The rest was mediocre at best.

I think Atari could STILL make a lot of money if they released a Vectrex-like console with a real color vector screen... with built-in menu for all released vector games... and original control systems (yoke, BZ two-stick, trackball, 5-button Asteroids layout, etc.)

I would be the first one to buy it.... no matter what the price tag was.

I'm not sure if anyone even makes new vector monitors anymore... it's only a matter of time when people need replacements for their original arcade machines. They're now 30 years old.