HSC02, Round 7: Gorf / Nuke the #%@$*&!

[nd2003grad]

I forgot to add mine was all played on real hardware.

[ballyalley]

Thanks to everybody who participated in round 8 of the HSC. I plan to post the final score tables tomorrow (Wednesday) and then post the new round 9 thread (hopefully) the next day.

 

We're getting down to cartridges that are two-player only (or that play best with two players). We're not quite there yet though. Round 9's main game will be Grand Prix / Demolition Derby. This game works best with more than one player, but I believe it will work with just one player, but only as a timed game. I'll know more when I post the thread for the game.

 

I usually try to pick a bonus game that is in the same general theme as the main game. Certainly there are a few driving/car games written in "AstroBASIC" (for instance, WaveMakers' Collision Course), but BASIC doesn't excel at fast-paced games like in the driving genre. To keep the bonus game fun-- or at least mildly interesting-- I may pick a game that's just entertaining to try, maybe not even necessarily a game. You know, like a math drill or a Morse code program. Nah, we'll leave programs like that for season 17 of the Astrocade HSC! By then, that's all we'll have left to play!

 

If anyone has any suggestions for the BASIC bonus game, then now is the time to speak your mind.

 

Adam

[ballyalley]

Round 8 of the Astrocade High Score Club ended on Sunday, July 30, 2017 at 10pm MST. Five people played GORF. Three people played the bonus game, Nuke the #%@$*&!.

Final Tables

GORF

1st ranger_lennier 12,140 (Mission 9) 10 points
2nd BallyAlley 10,260 (Mission 8 ) 9 points
3rd roadrunner 9,670 (Mission 8 ) 8 points
4th billnewsome 4,860 (Mission 4) 7 points
5th nd2003grad 4,210 (Mission 3) 6 points

Nuke the #%@$*&!

Three people each earn a point for playing (or attempting to play) the bonus game, Nuke the #%@$*&!, on the Astrocade. nd2003grad attempted to play Nuke the #%@$*&!, but it wasn't compatible with his version of the 8K on-board ROM. He is still awarded a point for trying to get it run.

BallyAlley Played the game
ranger_lennier Played the game
nd2003grad Attempted to play

Played Alternate versions of GORF

Three people played nine different home conversions of GORF. Playing and exploring these alternate versions of GORF made this one of the most fun rounds for me so far.

Until this round began, I wasn't aware of the Amiga, MAX and GBA versions of this game. It's too bad that the Atari Jaguar version isn't freely distributable (with good reason, since Midway cracked down on it). The Jaguar version looks really good-- and I hope to play it somewhere, somehow at some future time.

GORF was played by at least one person for the following nine systems:

• Amiga - nd2003grad
• Atari 2600 - ballyalley, ranger_lennier, nd2003grad
• Atari 5200 - ranger_lennier
• Atari 8-Bit Computer - BallyAlley, nd2003grad
• Colecovision - nd2003grad, ranger_lennier
• Commodore 64 - ballyalley, ranger_lennier, nd2003grad
• Commodore MAX - ballyalley
• Commodore Vic-20 - ballyalley
• Gameboy Advance - ranger_lennier

I have awarded a special bonus point to nd2003grad for trying all of the alternate versions that he played on real hardware; that's quite a feat-- and quite a collection you've got there, man!

Paul was awarded the secret bonus point for find the phrase "YOU PINKO PEACECREEP!" Since he wasn't sure what exactly had to be posted in a screenshot, he posted many different pictures from that game in a scattershot manner-- what a smart idea!

Total points awarded this round:

! @ # $ % ^ &
-------------------------------
1st ranger_lennier 10 + 0 + 1 + 5 + 0 + 1 + 1 + 0 = 18 pts @#$%^
2nd BallyAlley 9 + 1 + 0 + 5 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 1 = 17 pts ! # % &
3rd nd2003grad 6 + 0 + 0 + 5 + 1 + 1 + 0 + 0 = 12 pts #$%
4th roadrunner 8 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 8 pts
5th billnewsome 7 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 7 pts


Bonus Points Key:

! - Gorf - Video Review
@ - Gorf - Highest Rank
# - Gorf - Play Home Versions, for 1 point per version (max five points).
$ - Gorf - "Secret Bonus" awarded for playing all games on real hardware
% - Nuke the #%@$*&!! - Playing the game (or trying to play it)
^ - Nuke the #%@$*&!! - Finding "YOU PINKO PEACECREEP!" Phrase
& - Nuke the #%@$*&!! - Video Review

Please, check your scores.

Season 2, Round 8's winner is ranger_lennier, who won with 18 points; man; that's mighty impressive!

The arcade version of GORF was a really fun game to play on its own, but I also had a great time playing the home ports of this game. They all bring something a little different to this game. Even the Atari 2600 version is quite cool in its own way.

I got interested enough in the arcade version of GORF that I began to disassemble this 32K game. This is the first time I've really ever dug into an arcade game before this round. There is a lot of code in there that I've been going through! It's a time consuming, but rewarding process looking through the code. I only understand a fraction of the game, but even just uncovering the game's commercial mode (hi-res) graphics is fun for me.

The bonus program this round, Nuke the #%@$*&!, is a neat diversion. As a friend of mine said to me, "It's certainly a product of the cold war!"


Next Round's Games

The main game for Round 9 of the Astrocade HSC is the cartridge Grand Prix / Demolition Derby. I have not yet settled on the BASIC bonus game yet.

I'll post the main game and bonus game, plus the full rules and links for Round 9 of the Astrocade HSC in the next few days.

Thanks to everyone who played in Round 8 of the Astrocade High Score Club. It's always interesting to try one of the arcade games that use the Astrocade chipset.

Adam

[nd2003grad]

Thanks for the compliment! The C64 version was quite difficult for me to get going, and I ended up having to do some tech gymnastics and play it from a real 5 1/4 disk!