Cynicaster

For me, driving games are a special case. They're an example where I feel like the "realism" afforded by modern technology enhances the experience in a way that goes beyond the superficial. I still have my PS3 hooked up in the basement with my Logitech steering wheel, and GT6 is the only game that has been played on there in years. So I'm with you on that one. But you lost me when you drew a link between Batsugan to COD. I'm pretty sure most fans of either game style would agree that the link between a modern FPS and a classic arcade shoot-em-up is tenuous at best. As for the hypothetical Asteroids RPG, I feel like we may be living in different universes, because that wouldn't be comparable at all for me. In fact, traditional scoring systems being supplanted by "trophies" and "achievements" is one of the primary reasons I stick with the older stuff.

How far do you want to push it, though? To go a bit further, I could say "playing guitar is not much different from painting: in both cases the artist is looking for a creative outlet, trying to get better, to express themselves, to avoid cliches..." I can tell you that I love playing guitar, but I haven't the faintest interest in painting. If you introduce enough layers of abstraction you can draw parallels between almost anything; it doesn't mean that the experiences are at all interchangeable, which was my point.

That is an excellent analogy, actually. Some people are going to appreciate both forms, some people will only care for one or the other. Similarly, in video games, people who play arcade-style score attack type games are looking for certain characteristics and a certain type of experience, while people who play modern AAA titles are looking for a completely different type of experience that is not remotely comparable in any meaningful way. If somebody said "The Catcher in the Rye is waaaay better than The Raven," then that would be nonsensical, right?

Good one - I stumbled upon that game on my MAME cabinet a few years ago and played it for a bit. I have no idea who those characters are, and it's been a while, but I seem to recall the game has some pretty nice graphics and animation.

100% agreed. Appreciating classic games is one of those things where you either "get it" or you don't. In my experience, there are lots of gamers who don't "get it" at all, and are absolutely baffled that anybody would want to spend time playing games that are 20, 30, 40 years old when there is an endless stream of cutting edge modern fare readily available. IMO, the fallacy of this kind of thinking is to assume that "graphics and realism" are automatically the top thing that everybody cares about, which just isn't the case. For some of us, play mechanics and the level of required time investment are more important criteria than graphics and realism. There are other practical realities at play as well. For me, here's the reality of it: retro games are the only games I can even think of fitting into my life with the time I have available. If I wanted to play a big open-world modern game that is expected to take 200 hours to finish, I'd be lucky if I could play 1-2 games per year. I suppose I could just play it for a few hours then move on, but then what's the point? That seems almost like chewing your food then spitting it out without swallowing it. With retro games, if I have a half hour to spare I can easily squeeze in a few quick runs on any number of titles. When the games are done, they're done. There's no lingering sense of leaving something unfinished. I've been playing retro games for over 10 years now and I'm still just scratching the surface. With all of the options available for playing these games - real hardware, flash carts, emulators on various devices - there is a level of variety that is, for all intents and purposes, limitless.

I wouldn't say I "never" hear this game mentioned, but yeah, it's definitely somewhat of a deep cut from arcade history. As for Simpsons and TMNT, I suspect those games are so popular mostly due to being based on well-loved IP, not because their gameplay is so much better than contemporary beat-em-ups. Those games look and sound great but let's be honest - the gameplay on TMNT and Simpsons is pretty shallow compared to some beat-em-ups that don't get nearly as much attention. These days, they bore me to tears in minutes because there's no technique to them... just mash the "attack" button and throw in the odd "jump kick" or "special attack." Games that followed more of a Final Fight template like Violent Storm, and Night Slashers, and Sengoku 3, and Ninja Baseball Batman, and many others have all the rudiments of the Konami titles and so much more... like grab moves and throws and dash attacks and all kinds of other things that bring some variety to the experience.

I don't disagree; I think Mad Planets is a bangin' game, but I just can't enjoy it using the original control panel layout. I tried an actual cabinet at Galloping Ghost a few years ago and I really wanted to enjoy it but I had to walk away from it. The problem is, many years of playing Robotron and Smash TV and Black Widow has burned into my brain that the left hand controls character movement and right hand controls direction of fire, and Mad Planets does it the other way around. I tried for about 10 minutes to play it and it was maddening and hopeless, almost like trying to play guitar left handed or something. Luckily I have a spinner on my MAME cabinet and am able to enjoy the game that way using a control scheme that my brain will accept.

Following a tight race at the end of the season, MAME Offender has squeaked past Razzie.P to secure the title. MAME Offender entered the final round of the season trailing Razzie.P by a bit more than 3% in the overall standings, and managed to turn things around in round 10 largely through decisive leads in the Time Pilot and Frogger scoreboards. Congratulations MAME Offender! Thank you to everybody who participated this season! - CYN Here are the final standings: 1 MAME Offender 71.67% 2 Razzie.P 69.86% 3 Cynicaster 61.69% 4 AtariWarlord 34.18% 5 Floyd Turbo 29.05% 6 youxia 24.86% 7 roadrunner 21.32% 8 hero2millions 16.64% 9 jblenkle 11.65% 10 bigbee99 4.95% 11 S.BAZ 4.24% 12 NamcoPlayer 2.01% OTHER AWARDS The Power-up of Punctuality for submitting scores in all 24 games played this season goes to: AtariWarlord Cynicaster Roadrunner Floyd Turbo Razzie.P The Pixelated Skunk Trophy for most decisive single-game win goes to: Razzie.P for his bombshell performance of 888,800 on Tumble Pop, besting 2nd place contender Floyd Turbo's entry of 232,700 for an insurmountable 100% to 26.2% gap The Chalice of Versatility for most single-game 1st place finishes goes to: Razzie.P for achieving top honors on 9 of the 24 games played this season The Pong Paddle of Perseverance for most redemption round submissions goes to: AtariWarlord with 6 redemption round submissions The Even Keel Award for most consistent placement by a player participating in at least 20 of the 24 games goes to: Jblenkle with a low, low standard deviation in percentage score of just 13.3% Final Round Results: Grobda Razzie.P 27,210 100.0% MAME Offender 26,530 97.5% Cynicaster 20,280 74.5% Floyd Turbo 19,160 70.4% AtariWarlord 14,560 53.5% NamcoPlayer 13,120 48.2% hero2millions 11,600 42.6% youxia 11,340 41.7% roadrunner 7,400 27.2% jblenkle 4,500 16.5% S.BAZ 0.0% bigbee99 0.0% Frogger MAME Offender 64,660 100.0% Cynicaster 31,660 49.0% Razzie.P 15,140 23.4% AtariWarlord 11,260 17.4% Floyd Turbo 10,690 16.5% jblenkle 8,900 13.8% roadrunner 7,600 11.8% hero2millions 4,630 7.2% youxia 0.0% S.BAZ 0.0% bigbee99 0.0% NamcoPlayer 0.0% Ali Baba and 40 Thieves Razzie.P 62,100 100.0% MAME Offender 48,300 77.8% AtariWarlord 32,000 51.5% Cynicaster 31,500 50.7% Floyd Turbo 12,500 20.1% roadrunner 8,200 13.2% jblenkle 4,900 7.9% hero2millions 0.0% youxia 0.0% S.BAZ 0.0% bigbee99 0.0% NamcoPlayer 0.0% Time Pilot MAME Offender 395,800 100.0% Cynicaster 207,000 52.3% AtariWarlord 170,800 43.2% Razzie.P 155,900 39.4% Floyd Turbo 126,000 31.8% youxia 123,500 31.2% jblenkle 104,300 26.4% roadrunner 59,600 15.1% hero2millions 0.0% S.BAZ 0.0% bigbee99 0.0% NamcoPlayer 0.0%

Time Pilot 207,100 Hilarious that year 2001 is UFOs. Or maybe that really happened and I just forgot... after all it was 20 years ago.

Ali B - 31,500

Grobda 20,280

Frogger - 31,660

Frogger - 16,470 not even going to post a pic because I can (and will) do better than this.

Looks like quite a tight race for the top spot! Can MAME Offender rally and overtake Razzie.P right at the buzzer? I was going to make this round 3 weeks long but that would have it ending right after Christmas so let's just make it an even 4 weeks to give everyone a chance to play over the holidays if they wish. Game on CYN

This round's game 1 of 4: Grobda ROM Name: Grobda (New Ver.) ROM File: grobda Picked by: roadrunner DIP settings (changes from default shown in RED) : Lives: 3 Difficulty: A Bonus Life: 10k 50k 50k This round's game 2 of 4: Frogger ROM Name: Frogger ROM File: frogger Picked by: MAME Offender DIP settings (changes from default shown in RED) : Lives: 3 This round's game 3 of 4: Time Pilot ROM Name: Time Pilot ROM File: timeplt Picked by: AtariWarlord DIP settings (changes from default shown in RED) : Lives: 3 Difficulty: 1 Bonus Life: 10k 50k This round's game 4 of 4: Ali Baba and 40 Thieves ROM Name: Ali Baba and 40 Thieves ROM File: alibaba Picked by: Razzie.P DIP settings (changes from default shown in RED) : Lives: 3 Bonus: 10k Difficulty: Normal Rules: Please change your DIPs to the settings listed. If you're unsure how to do this, please ask Screenshots required No continues No save states No cheats Any working version of MAME can be used, but the ROMs provided for this competition will be verified to work on MAME v0.139. The "user interface" version of MAME v0.139 can be downloaded at: http://www.progettosnaps.net/mameui/ Competition ends: Sunday January 3, 11:59pm PST Standings updated to reflect 2nd Redemption Round scores: 1 Razzie.P 70.69% 2 MAME Offender 67.23% 3 Cynicaster 62.70% 4 AtariWarlord 32.74% 5 Floyd Turbo 27.92% 6 youxia 26.19% 7 roadrunner 22.23% 8 hero2millions 17.48% 9 jblenkle 10.76% 10 bigbee99 5.95% 11 S.BAZ 5.09% alibaba.zip frogger.zip grobda.zip timeplt.zip