hepcat

[bump] I just moved a few more and have now landed four new carts from this post. The lists have been updated. Can anyone else help me out? --Jason

This is a tough one, but I'm gonna have to say that E.T. is a little better than Swordquest: Earthworld. "Better" in the sense that it's "better" to have a car run over your foot 100 times instead of 101. --Jason

x1000 --Jason

That was fast. I've already made a deal for Canyon Bomber and Brain Games. --Jason

I’m finally getting around to doing this. The following are games I have available for trade. They are all Sears games, which are in good to excellent condition with all labels intact unless otherwise noted. Each cart’s ranking on the Atari Age rarity scale is noted to the right. Target Fun (with gatefold box and instructions, very nice shape) (2) Tank Plus (with gatefold box and instructions, top of box is a bit rough, otherwise very nice) (2) Football (with box and instructions, very nice shape) (2) Baseball (with box and instructions, box is a bit rough, cart and inst. are in very nice shape) (2) Breakaway IV (with box and instructions, cart and inst. are very nice, box is pretty rough) (3) 3D Tic-Tac-Toe (text) (3) Blackjack (Picture label–the large label is a bit scuffed and has some writing on it.) (4) Brain Games (text–has a small sticker on it) (3) Capture (text) (3) Demons to Diamonds (picture label) (3) Missile Command (picture label) (5) Missile Command (text) (2) Othello (text) (4) Outer Space (picture label) (4) Pac-man (picture label) (3) Spelling (text) (4) Star Raiders (3) Stellar Track (text–both labels are there, but the large one has some bubbles on it) (4) Tank Plus (text) (2) Yars’ Revenge (picture label–with instructions which are a little rough) (4) And now for my want list. First we have... Sears Basketball (picture label) (3) Sears Gunslinger (picture label) (5) These are the two carts I want most, and I will give up several items off the above list to get them. Here’s the rest. The ones I really want have a star next to them: Atari Asteroids (Silver Label) (3) Donkey Kong (Red Label) (3) Double Dunk (4) Flag Capture (Picture Label) (5) Fun With Numbers (Picture Label) (3) Concentration (Picture Label) (3) Radar Lock (4) Road Runner (6) Secret Quest (4) Sentinel (5) Space Invaders (Red) (2) Raiders Lost Ark (3) Crash Dive (5) Earth Dies Screaming (5) Double Dragon (4) Rampage (5) Space Shuttle (White Label) (5) Final Approach (4) Lost Luggage (4) Front Line (4) *Frankenstein’s Monster (5) He-Man (4) Star Strike (5) *Frogger II (6) James Bond 007 (6) Star Wars: The Arcade Game (5) Sub Scan (4) Spy Hunter (6) China Syndrome (5) Cross Force (5) Entombed (Square Case) (4) Gopher (Fancy Case) (4) M.A.D. (Fancy Case) (4) Name This Game (Fancy Case) (4) I’ve got 452 carts right now. Hopefully this post will get me a few closer to 500. --Jason

Who says it's bad? I always thought it was a pretty good game. --Jason

When I read the title of this thread, I thought it was going to be about Spike playing Donkey Kong on the Xbox during last Wednesday's episode of 'Angel.' --Jason

Keystone Kapers is a fantastic game, definitely one of the best made for this system. Pretty sure I've broken 150K on this one, but it's tough at the hardest level. --Jason

It would have to contain a 1 followed by at least 6 zeros. --Jason

Isn't that Missile Command next to Pac-man? I never see that one these days. --Jason

I got one of these e-mails for the first time this morning. I wonder how many people fall for this stuff? Enough to keep the scammers sending the e-mails, I suppose. --Jason

Damn, I really need to start submitting some of my scores! I'm certain I've scored over 200,000 on Alien. --Jason

No, it's not you. The flame thrower is useless, but Alien is still a much better game than Atari's Pac-man! --Jason

Why did you have to post that video NE146? Now I want the game even more! Lousy copyrights. --Jason

I'm not having any luck with this. The most I got over the weekend was 150K. I've regressed because I know the "camera" is on me. In the meantime Bob, you could check out my 270,000 game on Pac-man Plus, posted here. http://www.atariage.com/forums/viewtopic.p...er=asc&start=25 --Jason

Wow Bob, very impressive performance! I've only done better than that once in 22 years, at least in terms of score. I have a few other comments: Great job on level 14. I think you got every monster except one, and I spotted a couple of unbelievable escapes. You obviously understand the "tie goes to player" rule and utilize it very effectively. Most players don't even know about this. I group the monsters a little differently on levels 3-5. You'll see what I mean when I have a recording worthy of posting, which I did not succeed in creating last night. --Jason

Great Bob, thanks! I do have Dos Mame 56. So I'm going to download this file and see if I can get it to play. I haven't had time to record a full game myself, it will probably have to wait until the weekend. --Jason

500 carts. I'm at 441 right now. I'm also looking to complete my Sears collection (2 more to go) and then try and get all of them boxed (33 to go). Finally, I want to complete my boxed Activision collection. Four more to go there. --Jason

Yeah, I've had very little success with the ones I've downloaded. --Jason

OK, I just checked, and the mspacman rom hasn't changed since mame37. So I guess it will be OK as long as I can get dos mame to work. Big if, given my limited computer skills. But I look forward to seeing you play, Bob. I'll record my games too for the next week or so and see if I can get a really good one going! --Jason

Right now I'm using Mame 32 version 77. My computer is using Windows XP. I guess that's OK as long as my computer can run Dos Mame .56, and the Ms. Pac-man rom hasn't changed between versions 56 and 77. Let me look into that tonight and get back to you. Thanks! --Jason

Are you talking about fast or slow? I use 'grouping' ( I didn't know it had a name ) constantly. The first two boards I never miss every monster, and many times I can get to the Apple that way (It's a bit more difficult when the energizer only lasts 3 seconds) Granted, my games usually last much longer this way... BTW This is with the game at regular speed. If you are using the fast machine, you don't have to worry about grouping as much because you can pretty much catch up to them quickly. Well, I am much better at answering specific questions than rolling ideas off the top of my head, so is there anything specific? I can attempt to make a replay file in the next day or two if you want ... Let me know I got the 232,000 score at an arcade in August of 1997. The game was set at regular speed. I actually only made it to level 23 that day, but the fruits were being quite generous. The first three or four boards are not a problem. The apple board is harder, but these days I'm still usually able to score between 65,000 and 70,000 by the end of that board. So I guess my specific question is how to get three or 4 monsters everytime on boards 9, 12, 13, 15, 16 and 18, when the monsters only change for a second. If you could make up a Mame32 video, PMP, that would be great! Anybody who can score over 200K on this game is worth watching! --Jason

Well, I think some very helpful answers have been posted in this thread. I was not surprised at all to hear that money had something to do with it. But Cassidy raises an good point. Ms. Pac-man is a very tough game once you get past the first few boards, and it doesn't have the bells, whistles and gratuitous violence of so many modern games that can be learned alot more quickly. Maybe someone else here can help me improve my score. Right now my highest is 232,000 and I made it to level 25 once. I've heard about this "grouping" technique that supposedly lets you get all 4 monsters with each energizer, but I can't get it to work. I've tried watching MARP files, but I can never get them to work either. Any ideas? --Jason

I got the 300K on the Anniversary version. But you've given me an idea. If more bananas appear in the Anniversary edition, perhaps this is a way to pad my high score, if I can ever find one at regular speed? --Jason

I don't know if the original ever had the speed up, but if you enter the code to play Pac-man on the 20th anniversary version, and Ms. Pac-man is fast, Pac-man will also be fast. Kind of defeats the purpose of hiding the original, don't you think? --Jason