Be Excellent To Each Other

i have a full MAME set (downloaded from underground gamer). If we get to do the arcade league, i can host the roms.

I'm actually quite shit at this. I should have chosen Way of the Exploding Fist.



18600

Last hour on this chaps!

Just tried to get it running on the Mac and there's the usual keyboard mapping issues. Bah! Back to work I guess.

Scores updated and the League Table now looks like this:

1 - Zaphod - 74 points
2 - Itia - 33 points
3 - Chinny - 32 points
4 - Runcle - 18 points
5 - Devilman - 14 points
6 - Joans - 14 points
7= - Craster - 4 points
7= - Bobbyyaro - 4 points
9= - MYP - 1 point
9= - Doctor Glyndwr - 1 point
9= Anonymous X - 1 point


This weeks game is Encounter on the C64.

Woo , my choice although i obviously played it on the superior Atari :-)

Online java link :

http://c64s.com/game/1178/encounter/

Download link to use with an emulator :

http://gamebase64.hardabasht.com/games/ ... 505_03.zip

Gameplay - its basically Battlezone , written by the person who went on to give us the great Mercenary http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercenary_(computer_game)

Sounds like fun. Will try and make some time for it once I've finished this damned subtitling.

I scored a lowly 1800 before dying in a hail of bullets for the 5th time. I'm sure there should be some kind of technique for the game or something. It ain't like Battlezone.

Bah. I got this confused with Highway Encounter. Still, if it's made from one of the people that made mercenary, can't be bad.

I think I got the same score btu I wasnt paying attention, Ill probably have another go to do a proper score (probably the same as before). I do like how you notice the white dot speeding towards you on the radar and the futile nature and dread that your machine isnt turning fast enough and you are dead meat.

48900 and some hints for you :



Shoot when the 'door' opens - there is no penalty for just spraying the area with bullets however on later levels don't get too close as the enemies can shoot as soon as they appear

If you have a missile incoming (red alert on sensors) back up and spin to get it in front of you and keep shooting

If an enemy is going to shoot it warns you - again don't stay static - some enemies fire batches of bullets out from a central point - ideally get behind a pillar or back far enough away that theres a gap to steer through them

When you kill the total number of enemies on the level a warp door appears - go through it then avoid the balls while flying to get to the next level (even now this still gives a great sense of 'speed' as you fly through the warp tunnel)

Remember bullets bounce of the 'pillars' so you can hide behind them and can ricochet bullets off them to hit the enemies

Bah, still can't better 1800.

Just under 1 day left on this. We also only have two more weeks to run!

At the end of this run the 8 Bit Challenge will take a rest until July. This will open up the chance for someone else to fill the void for a couple of months with something different.

In the meantime I wanted to focus on something that will still involve 8 bit games, but will not be competitive. I was trying to come up with ideas to help the main site (as I've been the worlds shittest sub-ed). My idea is as follows.

Each week I'll post a link to a game. Not just any game, but perhaps something esoteric, outside the mainstream, or just forgotten. Certainly not your R-Types or Froggers but more likely Tau Ceti, Sorcery + or Chiller. You will all be invited to play the game and then post your comments and a rating in a thread.

I'll then cobble that together somehow into content that can be used on the main site complete with pictures and shit. So instead of having one person reviewing and rating a game, we have many.

That is my idea. As I'll be driving it I can't pretend there won't be a certain CPC bias but I hope you will forgive that as my CPC knowledge is far better than my C64 knowledge. But I hope we can all have fun.

Thoughts?

I like it, Chinny.

Final league standings for the week:



League Table

1 - Zaphod - 84 points
2 - Chinny - 38 points
3 - Itia - 33 points
4 - Runcle - 26 points
5 - Devilman - 14 points
6 - Joans - 14 points
7= - Craster - 4 points
7= - Bobbyyaro - 4 points
9= - MYP - 1 point
9= - Doctor Glyndwr - 1 point
9= Anonymous X - 1 point


Details of this weeks game (Kwik Snax on the CPC) to follow.

This weeks game is Kwik Snax on the Amstrad CPC.




Play online here:

http://java.cpc-live.com/include.php?pa ... ntentid=82

Or download to play in a CPC emulator here:

http://tacgr.emuunlim.com/downloads/fil ... recid=1697


This is a good arcade style game which is easy to get in to. So give it a shot!

I'm submitting a score of 39800.

I hadn't lost my last life, but the emulator suddenly siezed up and took the whole graphics system on the Mac with it. Luckily I had my Iphone to hand to snap the corrupted screen!

I was on level 3 of the final island as well. Would have been some sort of record to have completed the game on my first attempt. Bah.

51800

I actually got stuck on one of the final levels by boxing in a banana (f'nar), but this meant I could make some points until one of the blocks disappeared. The game doesn't loop, so once it's finished, it's finished.

Very similar to the speccy version- minus a few bells and whistles, interestingly. It's a really addictive little game, but far too short.

Less memory on a 64k CPC than a 48k Spectrum because of the way the machine handles graphics. For a start a CPC screen is 16k compared to about 6k on the Speccy. But the CPC sprites are more complicated and colourful so also occupy more memory.

That was a good thing about the Speccy - it meant you could get a fair bit out of 48k. Having checked, it's actually the 128k version I remember that has the extra presentation gubbins with the band playing etc.

It's denied on WoS, though (hehe, look what I did).

27903



A nice little pengo clone - a few questions for the experts :

1) Do you go for the flashing fruit for double points or just mop them up , i didnt notice any big bonuses like bombjack for x number of flashing fruit at the end of the level
2) Is it worth picking up the bottle thing which turns every brick into fruit for the points , or do you leave it because its then harder to finish the level and you dont have any bricks to push at the baddies
3) Is there a list of what the items do ? , i know the fork and knife let you kill baddies , and the X thing reverses your controls but what does the 30 do , or the other bottle ?

Double points can be hassle so only grab when you can.

The bottle thing will rack up points, but it makes life harder. Getting the bonus levels correct wins more points.

I think 30 slows down the baddies. The square stops you going off the edges. One of the bottles slows you down I think. There's nothing fatal so have a play.

I tend to play it safe- I only collect the knife and fork, and just go for all items.

Having said that, I think the easy high score option is to hang around once you've got to the last item and squish a few baddies.

Remember though that the bonus levels rack up 1000 points a time if you complete them + the fruit points.

Oh yeah. And that.

I was impressed just how many of those I was able to do from memory not having played it for over 15 years.

Only had the one go as the emulator doesn't run great on this laptop. A feeble 6603 so didn't bother with a screenshot.

Gah, I'd racked up about 33,000 and was 2/3 of the way through the second island when Arnold threw the same wobbly as last time and crashed the Mac. Must be something in the game code that crashes the emulator which then crashes the system. Could have been looking at 70,000 to 80,000 if I had completed the game I reckon. Gah.

Annoying as I was playing it straight (i.e not hanging around and harvesting) but was using straightforward techniques to rack up the points.

Won't get another chance now. If anyone else wants to have a try, the trick appears to be to get the poison bottle that turns all the blocks into fruit. The game becomes much much harder but you can rack up points quickly. Also, as I said earlier, the 1000 points for completing the bonus stages are crucial.

If you get a crap powerup, try to work out a place you can sit it out while it takes effect. To get the good ones you sometimes have to take the crap ones as well.

Last hour peeps.

feck!

Bugger. Ran out of time there, but it wasn't that good, anyway. 52200

Final scores and league standings:

Itia - 52200
Chinny - 39800
Zaphod - 27903
Devilman - 6603



League Table

1 - Zaphod - 88 points
2 - Chinny - 44 points
3 - Itia - 43 points
4 - Runcle - 26 points
5 - Devilman - 16 points
6 - Joans - 14 points
7= - Craster - 4 points
7= - Bobbyyaro - 4 points
9= - MYP - 1 point
9= - Doctor Glyndwr - 1 point
9= Anonymous X - 1 point

Anyone got an R-Type link as it's "denied" on the trying to be worthy and honerable World of Spectrum.

Bottom of this page for the rom :

http://spectrummagic.emuunlim.com/Spect ... 0Games.htm

Java version to play online here :

http://www.classiconlinegames.nl/index.php/R-Type.html

Man I havent half neglected this thread that I've lost my third place for good, although I look destined for fourth despite being shit at the games and also poor attendance I promise Ill give a score for r-type but fuck me thats what the speccy version looked like?

Yep. Comes well up the top 10 of (Linda Barkers Bestest Speccy Games Of All Time -Ed) from YS and with good reason. It's a corker and if you only own one version then you want the...er... PC Engine version. But in terms of the home computer formats, the Speccy version rocks.

Anyone not thinking of playing this week should look at this:



Come on, put down those crappy X-Boxes and Wii's. They ain't got any decent games, come and play a real all time classic.

ha theres something about that video showing the year (year I was born) that makes it somewhat other-worldly. The whole 8-bit era is totally bewildering to me, which is why I've enjoyed trying to compete with zaphod everyone here to think Im mint at all games. Although I've only been good at the original bomberman truly.

Anyway Ill stop making you feel old, can we have master system games next season with alex the kidd to see who can get most coins? or most coins in the first level of sonic in the quickest time?

72000



Technically amazing but its bloody hard - i cant do the first boss , shoot him loads of times and he just keeps on edging twards me

Just by coincidence I was also playing but scored a lowly 37000 and cursed the hardness of the Speccy version even though it does look lovely.

You need to take each of the white eyes out then the green head that pops out... easiest way to do that is to launch the module into it.

Word of warning - I completed the first level of the Java version, at which point the game attempted to load the next level and promptly reset itself!

I can get the eyes easily enough its the green head that keeps getting me , however i found a way around - literally , if you go to the bottom of the screen you can go round the back of the alien and just let your ORB kill it while you wait , however .....



The same thing just happened to me with the download one , *this* link is from my spectrum tosec and seems to be the full tape with multiload so should work out better :

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=OED6RAZL

Can't find a version that loads the second level. Bugger!

Here's my score at the end of level 1:

Did you try the megaupload link in my post above , that one is a tape version and 'loads' the first level from the tape okay - i didnt get another chance to replay this week but its also about 3 times the size of the earlier one (which was just 'side a')

46200

Yeah, it wouldn't load the second level. I tried a couple of other I've got, too and they didn't work at all.

edit: doh! missed that one. Too late now, anyways.

Final League Table:


League Table

1 - Zaphod - 98 points
2 - Chinny - 50 points
3 - Itia - 47 points
4 - Runcle - 26 points
5 - Devilman - 16 points
6 - Joans - 14 points
7= - Craster - 4 points
7= - Bobbyyaro - 4 points
9= - MYP - 1 point
9= - Doctor Glyndwr - 1 point
9= Anonymous X - 1 point


ZAPHOD FOR THE WIN!

And cunningly I snatched second place with only 20 minutes to go. So, er, hoorah for me.

Play will resume in approx 3 months.

Good work all, particularly Zaphod.

Congrats Zaphod and cheers for organising it Chinny - I'll try and get a bit more involved next time (I forgot to even post a score for R-Type!).

Yup. Cheers for organising this, Chinny. Lots of fun.