Interesting things in attract modes for ANY game, system/arcade/PC/etc.

[retrorussell]

Hey folks.

I am sometimes amused by the way the computer-controlled protagonist in a video game behaves during the attract mode. Sometimes the computer is very good, sometimes they are very bad. And sometimes they just do crazy, unexpected s**t!!!

 

Also, sometimes you can actually control a character during the attract mode (I noticed this before in the arcade games FROGGER and BAGMAN).

 

It's also cool to discuss what the computer-controlled character does in a game that, in emulation, you put cheats on during the attract mode. Like how Mario reacts when he goes right through a barrel or falls off a ledge when it should have killed him in Donkey Kong.

 

What attract mode moments caught your attention?

[+Black_Tiger]

In Dracula X for PC Engine, the money you collect in the stages can be spent in the game menus to unlock demo plays that show boss fights completed with no health lost at the end.

 

The demo with Maria in it has her stopping and slowly showing you how to pull off her secret move. It still takes some figuring out and familiarity with SFII, but that's how I finally narrowed down exactly how to perform it.

[Jess Ragan]

If you let Solstice for the NES remain at the title screen you get a really long medieval themed soundtrack... we're talking at least ten minutes here. Not sure if that counts as an attract mode, though.

 

Robotron: 2084 has a really thorough tutorial that plays in the attract mode, describing both the storyline and the tactics for each android you'll have to fight. I have to appreciate that. Joust does something similar, but it's not quite as detailed. Those are the kinds of things that tend to get trimmed out of home ports.

[Flojomojo]

Stargate has a semi-interactive attract mode, I think ... you can hit buttons to call up different screens. Man that was a slick game, it still looks really good to me.

 

I remember little kids being confused between the attract mode and actually playing. You could stick a toddler in front of a Pac-Man machine and she'd think she was playing.

[retrorussell]

If you held down A, B and C during the demo on Sonic The Hedgehog (the first one), Sonic would start going suicidal!

 

It kinda sucked how many of the larger-sprited racing games of the 70s had no real indication of gameplay in the demo. Your car would just drive straight up, no turns at all (the track had them), and it would not move even with other cars around them. Just drive straight up, without giving you an idea of what the gameplay is really like. The rank of "Sorry" at the bottom (in many Kee Games/Atari racers) seemed to indicate the computer being apologetic about not doing anything more during the demo.

[mbd30]

The Ghosts n Goblins attract mode demonstrates how not to play.

 

[retrorussell]

Stargate has a semi-interactive attract mode, I think ... you can hit buttons to call up different screens. Man that was a slick game, it still looks really good to me.

 

I remember little kids being confused between the attract mode and actually playing. You could stick a toddler in front of a Pac-Man machine and she'd think she was playing.

I think JOUST would take you back to the high score list or maybe the title screen if you press both joysticks inward during the attract mode.

[retrorussell]

QUANTUM let you move the trakball and capture one particle during the attract mode.

[+atari2600land]

In Nintendo's Tetris's attract mode, if you press Start right when the blocks are flashing when a Tetris it made, you start with 4 lines.