davidbrit2

I'd love a home version of Baby Pac Man. I worked on a Visual Pinball/PinMAME version way back in the day, but my dev machine wasn't fast enough to run it properly. Not sure if VP will run correctly on Win 8. Has anybody fully analyzed the ghost AI in that one yet? It's extremely different from the other games, and much harder, e.g. ghosts will do lots of random 180° turns.

I think Colecovision Turbo works like that. You use the driving controller and attached pedal to steer and accelerate, and the standard CV controller inserted into the holder as the gear stick.

I was assuming the same thing, since the 2600 manual makes such a big fuss out of whoever it is you're supposed to rescue. Doesn't look like the C64 or Colecovision versions have an ending either, based on the videos on Youtube.

Yeah, after you take down about a dozen of them, they're really tough to hit. Getting hit with a star doesn't exit the stage, so I don't think there's a way to reset them.

Huh, strange that it would just go on indefinitely, since the manual makes a big fuss out of rescuing somebody. After killing enough ninjas, they start cloaking so aggressively that it's extremely hard to hit them at all. I'm guessing the best way to maximize one's score involves getting to the second-to-last stage as quickly as possible, farming it for points, then advancing to the monastery when the timer is around 2:00 or 3:00 and defeating as many ninjas as possible. When I went straight to the monastery with about 5:00 on the clock, my score ended up around 180,000, which was about the same as when I kept getting hit by stars on the penultimate stage and only just barely made it to the monastery. Clearly there's an optimal balance to strike here. And no, I'm not referring to balancing life with score-attacking 30-year-old games.

Once you get the hang of the jump kick, and learn to read the enemies (if their arm goes down, you have to punch, and if it goes up, you have to kick), it gets quite a bit easier. Then it's just a matter of hanging back occasionally to dodge the throwing stars, then going in for a couple kills before they throw the next one.

I made it to the final stage (the monastery) with a good 5 minutes to spare, and spent it slaughtering ninjas. But the ninjas just keep coming, and getting harder and harder to hit. Is there any actual end to the game, or do you just fight in the monastery until time runs out? The manual alludes to this being a mission to rescue somebody.

I know this is a bit late, but the Japanese version, titled Outrun 2 SP (same as the arcade version), does work with Logitech wheels. And extremely well.

Berzerk, game 9. Marauder, game 4. Both good choices if you want an intense shooter.

I think the bigger issue is that the gems are only a single scanline thick, meaning you almost have to be moving vertically or diagonally to pick them up efficiently. Still a great game, though. (But I wouldn't mind having an elevator speed-up hack.)

Or a hack that allows selecting starting levels past 8 (which would probably require modifying the title screen kernel to display a two-digit number).

I know the arcade version has a definite end to it, around level 10 somewhere (not that any mere human being could possibly get that far). What about the 2600 version? You can select up to level 8, but it keeps going after that. Is there an eventual ending, does the game start looping some subset of past stages, or does it start reading past the intended level table and generating junk stages? I'm not good enough at the game to have hit a point where I've seen any of those happen.

Now that's a bit of a stretch, but I do agree that it's a very good game.

Just tested this with a stopwatch. I cleared the first three boards, then let the game sit at the pause before the 4th board. At about the 4.5 minute mark, the screen goes black, and the game start tune plays. At that point, it seems like only Select or Reset will bring it back to life, which obviously resets your game. So if you're planning to marathon DK Jr., make sure you take fast bathroom breaks.

I built an adapter to use Atari sticks, so I guess that counts.

I might experiment with that sometime. And I'll probably try it earlier in the game; last time it happened, I think my score was around 200,000-300,000, and I was probably on at least the 15th loop. I think it happened during the pause before starting the first board, so I could probably just play the first loop then see what happens.

I quite like 2600 Crystal Castles. The gameplay is pretty much dead-on, in spite of the level designs having to be greatly simplified. I think the warps and continue features are about the only things missing.

My guess would be a faulty "screen saver" routine or something. I came back to the Atari after about 10 minutes or so, and the screen was black, and nothing would wake the game up. The other possibility is that one of the cats bumped the cart and crashed it, but you usually get some garbage video and sounds when that happens, not black and silent. Oh well, I'll try it again some day, and do my best to prevent any mid-game "distractions".

I think I'm inclined to agree. The arcade version is fun, but the amount of enemies it throws at you gets tiresome, and having to backtrack for multiple keys in a stage is sort of a pain. Overall, it doesn't particularly stand out, unlike the 2600 version, which is fairly sophisticated compared to a lot of its peers. Now if I could just find a copy for Vic-20. Also, a lot of people hate DK Jr. for 2600, but I enjoy having a go at it now and then. I tried to max out the score not long ago, but had to stop for a bathroom break, and apparently the game freezes up if you leave it at the mid-stage pause for too long.

What arcade ports do you really enjoy despite them not ending up anything like the original? I'd vote for Tutankham and Zaxxon. They're barely recognizable (Zaxxon fared slightly better), but damned if I haven't played both of them a ton.

Heh, my play style isn't all that different, evidently. I dug around Youtube and found a play-through video. He "finished" the game around 24,000 points, and at about the 14-minute mark. Don't think I'm too far off from that. It's not a bad port for the 2600, though the 7800 version is obviously vastly better (that's my favorite version of the game).

Interesting. That'll give me a reason to practice a bit, I suppose. Do you recall how long the game is, or roughly what your score was when you finished it?

Does the 2600 version of Ikari Warriors have a definite end like every other version, or does it loop indefinitely? There are only a few different segments that get stitched together, so I can't really tell if I'm progressing anywhere or not.

Right, I don't mean an exact copy of the Jaguar controller, just that general idea. I'm actually okay with the shorter shaft. That combined with the softer actuation makes it possible for me to use the stick something like a d-pad with my thumb. Would still prefer a modern gamepad, though.

Pretty much. I get the point of trying to mimic the original look and feel, but that leaves them with all the baggage of horribly early '80s ergonomy. Personally, I would much prefer something like a Jaguar controller, i.e. a more modern d-pad and buttons along with a keypad.