HSC Season 4 Week 23: Moon Patrol

[Ze_ro]

Important Note: This week's competition is over, and no further scores will be accepted.

 

The moon isn't as safe as people think it is. At least, not for you, because it's your job to MAKE it safe! Drive your moon buggy around the lunar landscape and blast away any UFO's you find. UFO's aren't your only problem though, as there are plenty of craters and rocks in your way, and watch out for those mines! It's just another day in the Moon Patrol.

 

Game Information

• Game Name: Moon Patrol
  
• Released By: Atari, 1983
  
• Left Difficulty: B / Novice
  
• Right Difficulty: B / Novice
  
• Game Mode: Game 3 - Medium Difficulty, 1 Player
  
• Chosen By: LarcenTyler & Malc74
  

Post your scores right here in this thread, and I will add them to the list. Remember to play the game with the recommended game mode and difficulty settings as shown above so that your scores will be consistent with everyone elses. The deadline for posting scores is Thursday, October 5th at 1:30 AM (CST).

 

If you want to suggest a game for future weeks, please send me a private message and let me know! I will add your game to the list. One one game per person will be kept on the list, so you will not be able to suggest a game until your first game is played!

 

Anyone can play! Just post a score and I'll add you to the list! Please read the Rules & Information if you haven't already done so!

 

Current High Scores

1. 54,480 (Malc74) [+11]
   
2. 41,400 (Rom Hunter) [+10]
   
3. 36,380 (rheffera) [+9]
   
4. 28,380 (mojofltr) [+8]
   
5. 26,360 (SpiceWare) [+7]
   
6. 25,400 (Deteacher) [+6]
   
7. 21,330 (vdub_bobby) [+5]
   
8. 19,800 (atari2600land) [+4]
   
9. 9600 (scogey) [+3]
   
10. 9100 (phaxda) [+2]
    
11. 8900 (LarcenTyler) [+1]
    
12. 8060 (Christophero Sly) [+1]
    
13. 5980 (Goochman) [+1]
    

Best Tips

• Malc74 [+2]
  

Bounties and Challenges

• None yet posted
  

TwinGalaxies Top 3

(Game 1)

1. 484,300 (Ron Corcoran)
   
2. 52,540 (Carlos Marrero)
   
3. 46,600 (Robert Macauley)
   

Current Standings

1. Coming Soon

Scoring Points Moon Patrol

• Jump a Single Crater - 100 points
  
• Jump a Double Crater - 200 points
  
• Jump a Land Mine - 50 points
  
• Jump a Rock - 80 points
  
• Shoot a Rock - 100 points
  
• Jump a Tank - 100 points
  
• Shoot a Tank - 200 points
  
• Shoot a Yellow UFO - 100 points
  
• Shoot a Blue UFO - 200 points
  
• Shoot an Enemy Car - 500/800/1000 points (Random)
  
• Complete each section of five markers - 1000 points (course 1), 2000 points (course 2)
  
• Each second under par time after five markers - 100 points
  
• Complete entire first course - 5000 points
  
• Complete entire second course - 10000 points
  

Hints and Tips

As always, you really should read the manual. In case you don't have the manual, AtariAge has a typed copy available online. Here are the hints it provides:

 

- As you travel along the course, you'll see areas where a rock is placed just behind a land mine or crater. When this happens, time your shot very carefully.

 

- Another trick: Try taking one long jump over two closely positioned obstacles.

 

- Watch out for UFOs that look like this: ~ They drop missiles which create huge craters directly in front of your Moon Buggy. The best way to handle these pests is to destroy them before they can drop missiles.

 

- To protect yourself, shoot at UFO missiles while they're in the air.

 

- Start your jumps well in front of a hole to land just on the other side, giving you more time and space to begin a second jump.

 

- Scoring points for destroying the enemy car is random, so just shoot as soon as you can.

Here's my tip for beating the land mines:

 

Time your first jump early, then just hold up on the joystick (or the up arrow if you're using the emu.) You will automatically jump again as soon as you touch the ground. If you time the first jump early enough, you will clear all the mines. BUT, let go of the jump after clearing the two mines next to each other, because there will be a little breather before the next set of mines appear. Repeat this process for the next 2 waves of mines, and voila! Nothing to them!

TIPS

 

Memorise! Moon Patrol is (almost) all about remembering the difficult parts and how to get past them. Repeated play will improve your scores by a lot.

 

Get into the habit of jumping well before a crater, so that you land on safe ground barely to the right of it. This gives you much more time to react should another crater/boulder/whatever scroll onto the screen right away.

 

You can only have a certain number of shots on the screen at once. Instead of hammering away at the fire button, time your shots so you have a steady stream firing above you that UFO's will find very difficult to slip through.

 

For the most part, when there are waves of UFO's above you there are a lot fewer things to avoid on the ground, so you can concentrate a little more on the aliens and a little less on what's in front of you.

 

If a shot from a UFO is heading towards the centre of your rover it's a lot easier to shoot it out of the sky instead of trying to avoid it.

 

Tanks are hit and miss - hammering the fire button should see you through, and you'll need to slow down for many of them, but worry less about the tanks and more about what comes directly after them, as you'll have to alter your speed accordingly. Again, repeated play is the best thing here.

 

There's a section near the very end of the first set of stages that's basically pure luck. You'll come under fire from crater-bombing UFO's at the same time as you approach an area with two craters that are quite close together. Quite often, one of the crater-bombers will drop a bomb directly in between the two craters, obliterating the only safe landing spot between them. To be honest, I've found no way around this other than to hope the bloody thing doesn't drop a bomb there. Fortunately, when I got the above score, the crater bomber dropped its bomb almost directly on the second crater, giving me an easy ride through the section and onto the second set of stages.

 

The second set of stages (which is effectively hard mode) is ridiculously difficult.

 

--Ze_ro

[scogey]

7350....thanks for picking this one. Now how am I going to get anything else done this week. I was hooked on this one in the day, and now I have to consider it in my top 10 all time favorites.

[+atari2600land]

8200. The real trick is to take a picture of the score.

[+SpiceWare]

8200

[Deteacher]

16,400

[uosipa llamxew]

25040

 

This is truly one of the greatest games for the VCS! The tanks are a pain in my butt!

 

-Quick Edit-

 

New score: 28380

 

I'm soooo close to passing the first set of stages, but I stink at this game! There's a lot of cussing around here!

 

Edited September 29, 2006 by mojofltr

[+atari2600land]

A nice even 9,000.

[Lauren Tyler]

I'll boot up my Atari 7800 tomorrow, since it's too late now. Unfortunately, I won't be able to take pictures, so you'll have to believe me when I give my scores. And don't worry, I'll be 100% honest about it.

 

First score though. Does anyone know if there's a way to choose where Stella saves snapshots?

[Goochman]

5980 - that first double rock and hole is a tough one

[+stephena]

I'll boot up my Atari 7800 tomorrow, since it's too late now. Unfortunately, I won't be able to take pictures, so you'll have to believe me when I give my scores. And don't worry, I'll be 100% honest about it.

 

First score though. Does anyone know if there's a way to choose where Stella saves snapshots?

It's accessible from the main GUI, while you're not playing a game. You can change the path, the type of snapshot name (same as ROM name, or md5sum), and whether to overwrite the previous snapshot or generate consecutive ones. It saves in PNG format, and by default is bound to the F12 key.

[+SpiceWare]

11,650

[phaxda]

9,100. I will get at least 10k!

 

I grew up on the 5200 version and stayed home playing it all day once when I was sick.

[+atari2600land]

My new score is 12,350.

[Christophero Sly]

Token score for this week.

 

8060

[Deteacher]

20,880.

 

Here's my tip for beating the land mines:

 

Time your first jump early, then just hold up on the joystick (or the up arrow if you're using the emu.) You will automatically jump again as soon as you touch the ground. If you time the first jump early enough, you will clear all the mines. BUT, let go of the jump after clearing the two mines next to each other, because there will be a little breather before the next set of mines appear. Repeat this process for the next 2 waves of mines, and voila! Nothing to them!

 

Haven't figured out how to deal with the tanks yet. I'd love to see a hint for dealing with them.

[+SpiceWare]

15700

[Deteacher]

25,400

 

I'm done for now. Getting better on the tanks, though.

[Malc74]

One of my favourite ever VCS games. First score 39180.

 

TIPS

Memorise! Moon Patrol is (almost) all about remembering the difficult parts and how to get past them. Repeated play will improve your scores by a lot.

 

Get into the habit of jumping well before a crater, so that you land on safe ground barely to the right of it. This gives you much more time to react should another crater/boulder/whatever scroll onto the screen right away.

 

You can only have a certain number of shots on the screen at once. Instead of hammering away at the fire button, time your shots so you have a steady stream firing above you that UFO's will find very difficult to slip through.

 

For the most part, when there are waves of UFO's above you there are a lot fewer things to avoid on the ground, so you can concentrate a little more on the aliens and a little less on what's in front of you.

 

If a shot from a UFO is heading towards the centre of your rover it's a lot easier to shoot it out of the sky instead of trying to avoid it.

 

Tanks are hit and miss - hammering the fire button should see you through, and you'll need to slow down for many of them, but worry less about the tanks and more about what comes directly after them, as you'll have to alter your speed accordingly. Again, repeated play is the best thing here.

 

There's a section near the very end of the first set of stages that's basically pure luck. You'll come under fire from crater-bombing UFO's at the same time as you approach an area with two craters that are quite close together. Quite often, one of the crater-bombers will drop a bomb directly in between the two craters, obliterating the only safe landing spot between them. To be honest, I've found no way around this other than to hope the bloody thing doesn't drop a bomb there. Fortunately, when I got the above score, the crater bomber dropped its bomb almost directly on the second crater, giving me an easy ride through the section and onto the second set of stages.

 

The second set of stages (which is effectively hard mode) is ridiculously difficult.

Edited October 1, 2006 by Malc74

[+SpiceWare]

20,000

[Malc74]

42980

[Malc74]

I think I've gotten as far as I'm going to get - I keep crashing out at the same point on the second set of stages now, and I can't see any way past it.

 

54480.

[+SpiceWare]

Nice one Malc74

 

24,000

[Rom Hunter]

 

Edited October 2, 2006 by Rom Hunter

[scogey]

9600 got a lil better this week, this is one of those games that is hard to put down....like a good book.

[rheffera]

11,550 but im gonna keep trying. the wierd thing is in my moon partrol cart game 3 is HARD not medium difficultiy, however it was stated above that it is to be medium, so thats what i set it on...

 

EDIT: 2 games later at 10:30 pm AUStralian time..i coudnt resist it..Yes, whoever said it was right, if you play it you eventually become easier at solving the problems, i can now clear the mines with no life loss.

 

19,460!

 

sorry i cant post pics i dont own a digital camera and i cant exactly scan my TV. lol

Edited October 3, 2006 by rheffera