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DamonicFury

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Posts posted by DamonicFury

  5. Posted

    On 12/9/2019 at 2:49 PM, keebz said:

    Is that a PAL cart? I believe the only silver label Asteroids NTSC cart is dated 1986. All the others are PAL and not that rare. But this gets to the core of my post. There is at least one label variant of asteroids in a silver label that is NTSC and it is insanely hard to track down. Is it a +8/9? Meh I don't know... But it's way higher than a 3. It was, I'm lead to believe, only released for one year in NA.

     

    I don't think it is.  It came from a North American seller and doesn't roll on my 80's Montgomery Ward TV.

  8. Posted

    I fulfilled a life-long dream and picked up a Pac-Man arcade game (cabaret size) this fall.  Since then, I've been obsessively playing it, learning the patterns.  Most everyone has an initial distaste for the idea of using patterns, but I recommend giving them a try.  It's actually more challenging than you might expect, as they require you to pre-turn the joystick at every intersection.  This is absolutely necessary, as turning a corner in this way is a split-second faster than the usual way.  (Knowing this is enormously helpful in shaking off a persistent monster on any board!)  Missing a corner or two will usually screw up the pattern.  

     

    I don't have any personal interest in scoring a perfect game... while patterns exist for this, they require insane amounts of precision.  Alternately, some players have mastered the art of grouping that can let you eat all the ghosts each time for maximum points, but that takes a great deal of time and patience.  My personal goal is a million points. 

     

    You might think that should be easy once you've learned the necessary patterns, but let me tell you, it isn't.  Why?  Because once you reach the 9th key, the game becomes mercilessly difficult.  The energizers no longer turn the monsters blue (this happens a few times before the 9th key as well.)  Your Pac-Man slows down significantly, while the monsters remain viciously fast.  There are, of course, patterns to get you past these screen from the 9th key to screen 255 (which are all exactly the same) but again, you have to execute them perfectly.  And, at least for me, this is damn hard!  I'm using what is generally considered to be the easiest 9th key pattern called "Stacked" and it still requires absolute precision when executing a series of pretty rapid corners.  I'm at the point now that I can usually pull that off roughly 90 percent of the time, but when I mess it up even a tiny bit, the pattern goes to hell and it usually takes 2 lives to finish the board.  So even giving myself a full set of five Pac-Men, you can see how a 10 percent failure rate would cut short my game well short of the million point goal. 

     

    I do feel like I'm getting a bit better with regular practice but it's slow going!  I have a high score of around 427,000 points now.  I expect it will take weeks more of practice to achieve that goal.  

    • Like 1

  9. Posted

    5200 homebrews don't come up for sale all that often, but having bought many of them when they did, I'd say a price of about $100 for a boxed game is generally about right.  Boulder Dash games do seem to attract a higher value sometimes.  (Amazing what people are willing to pay now for the 2600 version!)

     

    You can check pricecharting.com for Ebay sales over time.  For this title, prices seem to be all over the place, but it doesn't seem like one has sold for a while, which might work in your favor if you're looking to sell.

     

    Please note that some of these listings are for Boulder Dash II, which I believe is a little bit rarer with only about 100 released instead of 400 (100 in each color) for the original Boulder Dash.

     

    https://www.pricecharting.com/game/atari-5200/boulder-dash#completed-auctions-cib

     

    CIB:

    2018-10-28       BOULDER DASH II ATARI 5200 COMPLETE IN BOX               $152.50

    2016-12-22       *** ATARI 5200 BOULDER DASH II *** OOP #65 of 100      $299.52

    2012-03-21       Boulder Dash (Atari 5200) CIB limited edition #59               $36.00

     

    New:

    2013-01-09       *** BOULDER DASH Atari 5200 Game NEW SEALED RARE ONLY 100 MADE!! ***$71.95

    2012-12-25       *** BOULDER DASH Atari 5200 Game NEW SEALED RARE ONLY 100 MADE!! ***$71.95

    2011-12-18       350500372774      $62.99

    2011-10-17       350454059809      $69.99

     

    I think I'd list one in an auction starting around $100 and see what happens, assuming you really want to sell.

     

  10. Posted

    On 11/20/2019 at 1:25 PM, Clint Thompson said:

    Guess I hadn't really considered the interviewing part of Jack Tramiel being a lost potential but since this was started in 2014 and Jack had already passed in 2012, thought the information or interview would have already been given or taken place?

     

    Suppose the only person that can really shed light on that would be Curt and/or Marty.

     

    Actually, they covered this shortly after Tramiel's passing... they had been scheduled to talk to him the following week.  What a heartbreaking close call that must have been.

     

     

    • Sad 1

  13. Posted

    Congratulations to rubeon for smashing the most Sentinels, taking the most treasures, and delving through the most dungeons to come up with an astounding high score that will be extremely hard to beat!

     

    And that does for this season!  Congratulations to our new champ, eegt97!  Please send me your selection of five games that will start off our first poll for the 13th season starting in January 2020.

     

    Thanks to all who participated this season!  Lots of great players this time, with several tough records beaten!  I hope you all will be back when we return next year. 

     

    Final standings: (for Space Dungeon)

    rubeon - 945,735 - RECORD BREAKER! +11 +1 = +12

    phuzaxeman - 43,955  +10

    eegt97 - 43,645  +9

    Kobra Kai - 32,245  +8

    bemis - 13,940  +7

    jblenkle - 5,000  +6

    Mangia-Boy - 3,635  +5

  14. Posted

    12 hours ago, Kobra Kai said:

    32,245

    SpaceDungeon1.JPG.a80b6fbf3ecc29317f3f8bd7a4f0afae.JPG

     

    So, the top 5 players or so can neither gain or lose ground in the standings. Even with high score and record breakers the point spread is too wide to move position. Don't know how much time I'm willing to put into this one. It would take 800,000 to bust the record, that's probably 1.5 hours minimum.

    Yeah, it's curious how much space there is in the point spread between all the regular players.  Looking back, I guess that isn't that unusual... I only recall one year where there was serious competition for first place.  I suspect most people aren't really playing to win the season, it's really just more about enjoying these great games!  

  15. Posted

    While looking to see if I could find any emulation tips in past rounds (no such luck), I did find these tips I wrote up back in 2012.  Posting them again in case anyone finds them helpful.

     

    Quote

     

    Visiting every room in the level is worth a 10,000 point bonus when you leave the level. (If you can snag a full or near-full set of treasures plus the bonus, it should result in 2-3 much-needed extra lives!)

    Try not to charge right into rooms... you may run into an enemy who's sitting right by the door. (The non-self-centering 5200 sticks don't help with this.)

    After visiting all the rooms in level 2 and above, track down the Thief and shoot him to make him give up the treasures he's taken.

    Make sure to concentrate fire on enemies who are a direct threat (the ones that are firing at you and/or moving quickly.)

    In rooms with laser guns in the corners, take at least one of them out immediately, and then destroy two other ones from a safe angle. The single remaining gun is no threat, but you may want to take it out anyway so that the guns don't respawn if you return to the room. (Thanks to patbb for noting the respawn issue.)

    Pass through a room immediately if it contains no treasures.... the real points in this game come from treasure collecting, not fighting.

    Leave a room if you're being surrounded. You can come right back and the enemies will be in different positions.

    When you stop shooting, it speeds your ship up... helpful for making a quck getaway, dodging shots, or slipping in between two guardians (asterisks.)

    The red critters with horns that appear from level 3 on don't fire until you kill them. As such, fire on them from a safe distance so that you can get out of the way of their shots.

     

     

    • Like 2

  18. Posted

    Welcome to the final round of this 5200 HSC season!  Space Dungeon was tied in the vote with Popeye, but Space Dungeon won the coin toss.  Play using the default settings.  Emulation is fine, as are custom controls. Pics preferred, but not required except for HSC wins and records.

     

    The current record was set by SIO2 with 794,125 points.  Bust it if you can for a bonus point.

     

    The ROM and manual can be found here: 

     

    https://www.atariage.com/software_page.php?SoftwareLabelID=661

     

    Round ends Sunday, November 10th , 2019 @9pm EST

     

    Standings:

    rubeon - 945,735 - RECORD BREAKER!

    phuzaxeman - 43,955

    eegt97 - 43,645

    Kobra Kai - 32,245

    bemis - 13,940

    jblenkle - 5,000

    Mangia-Boy - 3,635

  19. Posted

    Welcome and congratulations to newcomer rubeon for shooting the most spaceships, razing the most radar dishes, and zapping the most Zaxxon robots!  Space Dungeon is coming up next for our final round of 2019. 
     

    Final standings:

    rubeon - 43,400  +11

    Kobra Kai - 32,800  +10

    Cafeman - 29,900  +9

    eegt97 - 23,800  +8

    Mangia-Boy - 22,550  +7

    bemis - 13,850  +6

    roadrunner - 11,050  +5

    jblenkle - 10,550  +4

    • Like 1

  24. Posted

    21 hours ago, Mangia-Boy said:

    I agree, that such a list doesn't exist.

    But how many cartridges were sold of the blockbusters like PacMan, Space Invaders, Pitfall, Donkey Kong ....?

     

    If you're looking for an upper limit, that is, the number of the most copies of a single game made, that's likely Pac-Man at 12 million made.  Of those, "only" about 7 million sold.

     

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man_(Atari_2600)

     

    Here's a chart showing some of the other best sellers...

     

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Atari_2600_video_games

    • Thanks 1

  25. Posted

    44 minutes ago, Kobra Kai said:

    This is not a good version. Now I'm curious to see how good Zaxxon 32k is.

    I haven't played the 5200 32k cart, but I have played the Atari computer disk version that it is based on.  It looks and plays pretty much the same as the standard 5200 cart, but it does add some missing features from the arcade: the vertical firing missiles, full range of motion during the space battles, and an improved Zaxxon robot boss fight.  It's definitely an improvement, and it makes the game harder, and thus more like the arcade.  But if it's just the general look and feel of this version that you object to, it probably won't change your mind much.

    • Thanks 1
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