Retro Game Challenge!
 

Welcome to week 3! :)

The Rules:
So far we have only been using MAME to play the games, but that can change.
To enter, you just play one of the games and post a screenshot with your score.
The deadline to post your high scores will be midnight Sun. night/Mon. morning Eastern US time.
When you post a high score, make sure to pick a new game to play by Monday. The sooner the better.
Please don't use continues or savestates for any scores you submit.
I am going to host the current roms and list of all the past winners and high scores here.

The Games:
Journey - Final High Score: Mordred 75300
http://img52.exs.cx/img52/4470/journey.png<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v379/Mordred2003/jour0000.png" height=313/>

Scramble - Final High Score: Roto 30980
http://img69.exs.cx/img69/2346/scramble.png<img src="http://img7.exs.cx/img7/3401/scra0005.png" height=316/>

Popeye (Revision D) - Final High Score: devilshalo 74120
http://img27.exs.cx/img27/1152/popeye.png<img src="http://img5.exs.cx/img5/9867/popeye.jpg" height=316/>


The Prize:
Whoever gets the high score for one of the games picks the next game that replaces it, so we should always have 3 to choose from. The game should be over 10 years old and hopefully easy enough for everyone to get running. You also get your name engraved with a genuine Sharpie on this eye catching trophy!

Week 3 Winners:
<img src="http://home.comcast.net/~robeggen/trophy.jpg" align="top"/><img src="http://home.comcast.net/~robeggen/engraving3.jpg" height="320"/>

To get things rolling, here is my very beatable entry for Frogger
http://home.comcast.net/~robeggen/frog0001.png
Note my humiliating death on the bottom lane :o

Those are pretty lame versions though. You can get the real thing at playagain.net.

Oooo! OK... I'm in! :)

*procedes to ruin eyes by staring at tiny version of Frogger*

I don't deny the lameness of the java option, and encourage everyone to use MAME instead. I just don't want to get the thread locked in case DVDtalk is afraid of legal issues. I'd be happy to host the 3 selected roms myself (I have nearly all the MAME roms and tons of console roms if someone wants to choose an old console game) and brief instructions for MAME if the mods ok it. I don't think this would get popular enough for it to really be a problem.

Yie Ar Kung Fu
292220

Got Blues down to 2-3 health like 4 times, couldn't finish the job. Stupid ass starts going ape on me w/ his kicks.

Well, you kicked my butt, but I only gave it one try on that little java emulator. I think I got 104000 when I tried it. But I plan on trying again with mame now that I have something to shoot for.

OK, here's my Galaga score, just to get one posted. I can break 100,000 but I never got significantly farther than that
http://home.comcast.net/~robeggen/gala0000.png

count me in

New high score:

http://home.comcast.net/~msuson/yiear_kungfu.jpg

Java Frogger is disqualified. I just tried it and it seems to give you infinite frogs :mad: If anyone needs help getting mame running you can email me.

:up: Nice score bigsoos! That must've taken a while. Argh! I can't beat Club!

I thought I was doing a little too well... :D

OK... here's my second attempt at Galaga in the last decade, using MAME.

http://www.yellowted.com/images/galaga_high_score.gif

Totally pathetic... but now I have something to aim for! (besides the alien bastards trying to destroy my ship)

Edited to add my next attempt... I'll get you yet!

http://www.yellowted.com/images/galaga_high_score_2.gif

You're getting close to the point where it gets really difficult and then at level 10 it gets easy again for a while, so you're closer than you think. You just better hope das monkey doesn't decide to try.

I don't think anyone's gonna beat bigsoos at Yie Ar Kung Fu. I think Blues is the last guy and then it starts over, so he's getting pretty far.

I got really lucky and had like 3 perfects during my run. I'll prolly never beat that score.

I used to be considerably better, but this is a start.

124290 on Galaga. That score should've been at least 6k higher even without going any further, but I forgot the pattern for Challenge Board 11 :(

http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/9280/galaga.jpg

I used to know a guy that had a cheat for Galaga. There's one alien that you're not supposed to shoot until everything else is dead, and then none of the ships will fire at you for the rest of the game. I never did figure out which one it was, and he would never show me. :( (It's on the first or 2nd board, he'd never start a game unless there was no one around to see him do it)

From playagain.net:

The game 'rolls over' at 999,990 points. The player 1 score counter is six digits, but the player 2 counter is seven digits. Therefore, most good players start a 2 players game and play exclusively on the player 2 side so their score won't 'roll over' at 999,990. After the 1,000,000 mark, new ships are no longer awarded.

The game 'rolls over' after stage 255. After finishing the 255th level, the screen says 'Stage 0' and the machine locks up.

If you have more than 7 extra men, the marker for the screen will only show 7 1/2 (!) men remaining. Additional extra men will still be credited, even though they won't show on the screen.

A Galaga unit appears in the 1983 movie 'WarGames', in the 1984 movie 'The Karate Kid' and in the 1987 movie 'Planes, Trains and Automobiles'.

- TIPS AND TRICKS -

* Easter Egg :
1) Enter service mode.
2) Keep B1 pressed and enter the following sequence : Right(x5), Left(x6), Right(x3), Left(x7). '(c) 1981 NAMCO LTD.' will be added at the bottom of the screen.

* Enemy Stop Shooting : On the first stage, kill everything but the two bees in the bottom left corner. Then just wait, dodging the bees' shots, until the bee no longer drops any shots towards you. After the bees stop firing, let it pass for 2 more trips and then kill them. For the rest of the game, the enemies will not drop shots. It will take approximately 15 minutes for the bees to quit shooting at you, so this trick requires a lot of patience. Note : In a 2-player game, only one person has to do the cheat for both players to benefit. But as soon as 1 of the players game is over the bees begin shooting again.

* (BUG) Take The Control Of The Ship For Free : During the Galaga demo, the Galaga character comes down and tries to tractor-beam up the player's ship. As soon as that tractor-beam starts, the player can take control of the ship in the demo. The player has two choices here and this will effect how the game handles this bug : If the player allows himself to be captured, the demo will continue as normal and he has the option of controlling the player ship or not. The player can choose whether to save the captured ship, try to complete the level, etc. The demo mode will complete after 30 seconds and the high-score screen will appear. If the player takes control of the ship and destroys the Galaga with the tractor beam, some of the characters on the screen will freeze while others are still moving and doing what they are suppose to be doing. This will last 15-20 seconds, then the game will go to the high score screen.

* Challenging stages are easier if the high score numbers are used to refine your aim. These tips assume a 6-digit high score :
1) On the first 2 challenging stages, aim your ships so that your left set of bullets falls between the second and third numbers in the high score list.
2) On subsequent challenging stages, aim one set of your bullets between the first and second numbers in the high score list (if the units come from the left) or between the last and next-to-last numbers (if the units come from the right). This will allow you to hit descending enemies at the highest possible point.

* Here Is A neat (and useless) Galaga Trick : It is possible to end the game with a 200% ratio. The 200% hit-miss ratio trick can only be done with your first shot of the game. When the game starts, don't move, and fire only one shot. If you time it correctly, two enemies will be killed at once. Let your remaining ships be destroyed, and presto : a better-than-perfect result.

I beat my Frogger score, but I'm still dying on the same level. I think one week is long enough (Frogger is pissing me off), so we'll declare winners on Monday and let them pick new games. If someone is disappointed that they missed out on Galaga then they'll just have to get the high score on Jungle Hunt to bring Galaga back :D (though preferably one of the odd variations)

bigsoos, you can probably start thinking about what you want to play next week :p You aren't quite in the league of the scores I saw at marp.retrogames.com, but I don't think any of those people are here.
http://home.comcast.net/~robeggen/yiea0000.png
I almost beat Club

I'll be the first to admit... I am sucking at these games! :eek:

I tried a round of Galaga and couldn't make it anywhere near my
previous "high" score... :lol:

Does the lowest posted scorer get a vote? I'd like to sway at least a little Jungle Hunt or Kung Fu Master action my way!

If Frogger is so unpopular that I somehow end up with the high score, I promise you right now I will pick Jungle Hunt. I think your best hope if you can't win is to beg :D

In other news, I beat Club! :eek: Look out bigsoos! I also got a perfect against Sword.
http://home.comcast.net/~robeggen/yiea0001.png
TonFun kicked my ass :(

http://www.varaces.com/galaga.jpg

Where's my trophy?

D

Not bad, but I'm betting that score doesn't hold up over the weekend. I wouldn't be surprised if both the Galaga and Frogger scores get doubled. Still that's pretty impressive with all the multitasking you have going on there at almost 1:00 AM ;)

You can take a screenshot in mame by pressing F12 and it will put the file in the "snap" folder.

good lord, 9.999.900?!?

Can't get anything from playagain. What am I doing wrong? Reply to [email protected] if you think it will pose a problem. Thanks

Step by step instructions for www.playagain.net
Click "M.A.M.E." link on the left column
Click "Rechercher un jeu / Find a game" link
type the name of a game, like "galaga"
You will get a list of results, click the one you want
At the bottom of all that mumbo jumbo you will see links to zip files. You will want to download the "set:" and the "Set parent requis:"

When you click on the zip file it takes you to a new page that says the download will start in 10 seconds. Save the files in the roms folder of your mame installation.

You might notice another zip file for samples. You don't need those to play the game, those are just sounds they couldn't emulate, so they recorded them. If you download the samples you put that zip file in the samples folder.

I get to the point where I'm waiting ten seconds, but keep getting this message:

"Internet Explorer was unable to link to the Web page you requested. The page might be temporarily unavailable"

Is it just my bad luck?

:confused: I don't know. Honestly, I didn't even know about playagain.net until jmj713 mentioned it. I notice it links to an ftp site when you eventually download the rom, so maybe when you tried there were too many people on. I tried it with Internet Explorer and Mozilla and both worked for me.

I just threw up a quickie web page, you can download the roms for the selected games each week so nobody should have to worry about finding them. I doubt 3 old game roms a week will create too much traffic for my Comcast account.
http://home.comcast.net/~robeggen/dvdtalk.html

I'll pretty it up later if this thing keeps going.

Thanks. Just tried w/ Mozilla and working now! Maybe an IE problem on my side.

Great idea! I've had a hell of a time finding a working Jungle Hunt ROM...

(I can also help out with web space if you need it)

You probably couldn't get Jungle Hunt working because you also need Jungle King, which is the original Japanese version of the game. They had to change the name and the look of the main character so they wouldn't get sued by Tarzan's lawyers. :eek:

Here's a short explaination of cloned roms

Tarzan had lawyers!?

I'll grab Jungle King too then...

*desperately tries to break 10,000 points in Frogger to save humiliating defeat*

I didn't quite catch up to the high score, but my screenshot looks cooler!
http://home.comcast.net/~robeggen/gala0001.png
just put these files in the artwork folder http://www.mame.net/downart.html

I tried to download the Galaga rom from you, but it didn't work. Kept getting a bad zip file error, missing 1 block. Could you repost it please?

Fixed :o

Works, thanks!

Beat my previous score, but not quite good enough to take over first again :( Will keep trying.

Here's my Galaga score. I'm not very good at playing it on MAME, but this game went reasonably well. My highest arcade score was 360k or so. It's the only time I've topped 200k actually. It was on one of those awesome fast shot standups (where you don't have to wait for your missed shots to leave the screen before firing again). I played for roughly an hour and don't think I lost my first ship until I was around 170k.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...3/gala0000.png

And to show the Accuracy:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...003/galaga.png

I doubt I'll ever beat that score this week, if ever. I just tried again and thought I was going to be Derrich's score, but I died 3 times on level 17. 360k on the fast shooting one doesn't count :p

I'm just amazed my Frogger score has held up so far. I guess George Costanza and I are the only ones who liked Frogger.

The Game: Wonder Boy in Monster Land

The Score: Unbeatable

http://pixyjunket.digitalcrap.net/pics/wbml.png

(actually, I had 3.5 million on my actual arcade machine, but I can't find the pic I took of that)

Was just letting you know where I was coming from. I'm not 100% sure it was a fast shooting machine, but that's the only explanation I can come up with as it doubled my previous best (although when I play the fast shooting ROM now I can't ever top 200k either). That 165k score is probably all I'll attempt. I can score 180 pretty regularly, and 190 if the stars are aligned but much more than that is pushing it... and it takes too damn long to try lol.

Great PixyJunket, now try Frogger, Galaga or Yie Ar Kung-Fu. :D I'm trying to keep this organized. You can post your high scores from random games if you want, but I'm not going to host roms for them all or put them at the top of the thread. I don't want this to end up like http://marp.retrogames.com. That's too much work. The high score there is 8,077,400. You've got work to do!

I'll keep Wonder Boy in mind though, in case a winner doesn't pick a new game soon enough. Of course you won't be allowed to submit your score because it's too high :p

das monkey claimed that 300,000 would be a disappointment to him, but he's too busy watching TeeVee.