Cafeman

I did own Phoenix but no others from this list. I remember kids in school who loved Spider Fighter. There were a couple great games in 1983 that I owned, not on this first subset- Enduro, Keystone Kapers and Robot Tank. Memory says I moved on to 5200 during later 1983.

I recall commercials and seeing Zayer stores but I dont recall ever going in one, here in west / central PA. I remember going in a few Ames stores however, but not for game related stuff. Around here in the 80s, there were more Sears, JC Penney, Montgomery Wards, Kmart, and Hills stores. And a Gee Bee store that I loved, they had multiple kiosks and systems hooked up and a big toy section, and a lobby with fun coin-ops.

How. Where's he been?

You know, this reminded me that I put in a secret Fat Characters mode in 5200 Adventure II. Enter 1982 at the Title Screen. I'm not sure anyone ever found it. I removed the logic for the XE version.

Hope it doesn't result in a flock of spam posting!

Oddly enough, that was the only out-of-place thing, all but 1 player sprites was 2x or 4x. The game was still playing alright from what I could tell. But it was hard to tell which corridor plus-size Rob was "in" as he physically resided in at least 2 simultaneously.

I hate these kind of things. I would say there is definitely an existing glitch that caused it but it may be very rare to trigger it. The only way you can catch these things is to play in an emulator with a debugger like Altirra and then look at memory after it has happened. I was two or three levels in with a few coins left to grab and I was at the center right side moving and then it happened. I got caught and lost my last life. When the title screen displayed and then the next game levels, the size register was still set incorrectly.

I just happened to be here when you posted and got to play a few rounds. Testing feedback: 1. The new sounds and music adds a lot of character. The higher pitched repeat riff gets a little repetitive. Maybe mix it up and play those notes an octave lower sometimes, or add a 2nd chord to break it up? Or as you said maybe lower the volume but I don't think that is the problem. 2. Speaking of sounds, there is not sound when you grab each stage's bonus thing. I thought I was missing it until I noticed the +500 or whatever points indicator. 3. The money bag and other prizes disappear so quickly, I rarely grab them. Maybe that is part of the overall strategy, to stay close enough to grab them. 4. I played about 5 or 6 rounds, some at the harder settings. The red cop is merciless and fast. The walls or doors you can throw up are great if you can plan it out. I noticed if a cop was too close to me, the game wouldn't let me throw up a wall between us. 5. Glitch! The sprites got 2x or 4x wide and stayed that way across new games, until I did a cold restart on Altirra. FYI.

74,940 I still haven't gotten to the 4th Maze yet for this session. If you can get to the 3rd Maze and eat 2 Pears and 2 Bananas, your score will jump pretty fast. But after that the fruit are randomized. I'm not chasing a cherry or strawberry for only 100/200 points on that stage. This is a well-programmed version. I assume that because GCC made the coin-op Ms Pac-Man, they had some skills and thus their 2600 and 5200 Ms Pac games turned out really well. However, this game is perhaps too fast. I'm playing on an emulator using a Saturn pad via USB connector and I have a tough time cornering fast enough. A lot of it is just instinct, and often my thumb doesn't do what my brain tries to tell it at these fast speeds.

I got my 2600 in May 1982 and there were lots of games to pick from that year. Haunted House, Pac-man and Defender were my first carts. I remember playing them during the days of summer vacation that we werent away camping.

68,620. Yeah it gets fast.

It is like a crippled sloth in old molasses on level 1. But by the 2nd maze layout, stage 3 or 4, it gets lightning fast. You have to stay on your toes to avoid the monsters. My tip is to use the side tunnels to your advantage, chipping away at the dots.

Of those on the 1981 list, my favorite is probably Stampede. Followed by Kaboom! and Missile Command.

45,880.

Something isn't right about those times.

Ugh these games. Twitch streamer SegaNick spent 80+ hours to beat Afterburner, then many hours to beat Space Harrier 3D, and recently he is still tackling plain ole Space Harrier, all on SMS. I didn't watch all that, but I check in a bit each stream. The thing I learned: these Sega coin op ports on SMS are TOO Freaking Hard! Have at it!

RE: #2, Pitfall and Mountain king. So who cares?! Pitfall is a bad port, harder to jump over scorpions. RE: #3,4: you really wouldn't like a 5200.

Wow, rise from yer gwave, you 2005 thread! I love reading the 90s top 100 or whatever lists. I still have a hardcopy of the first Next Generation mag with a top 100, and reread it every now and then. (They picked the new Mario 64 as #1). Game Fan, with Dave or Eric in charge, was always entertaining to me even if I often thought their hype of the month was strange. I was saddened to read ECM passed away a few years back. He was not very old.

Not interested in A8 ?

Visiting team of Blue hopped-up Cafemen: 2 Home Computer red-shirts team: 0 +2. The opponent had trouble hitting my pitches. He did steal a base from 1st to 2nd once, which surprised me.

I'm not posting a score, but I tried altering colors in the game (using Altirra and reviewing the code in its debugger). It has some wacked out color logic, it isn't a simple matter to stuff a new color into a register and have it ''take" ! It appears the code relies on the hard-code preset color values to do stuff! Red team is value of $34, Blue Team is value of $82. It was interesting for an hour or two but I think it has beaten me for now.

Home 0, Visitors 9. My Score: -9. My first clumsy attempt. Although this game is meant to be played with the analog joystick, using a digital pad or keyboard is still possible thankfully. I got a few hits in. You are supposed to match the height of the pitch by pressing right and also up/down depending if the pitch is high or low. This is a great example of an arcade-style Baseball game which has just the right amount of complexity. This HSC is going to allow me to learn this game more thoroughly. the dang computer loaded bases and hit a home run on me.

107,800. When you get to level 3, the bullets are very fast.

Again. I never knew this or figured it out but it makes so much sense. And it is convenient to plop the plugged-in controller into the bay, rather than sit out on the floor, or wrap it all up each time. I never noticed that opening. This must be a Mandela Effect moment, somebodywent back in time and changed it.

Actually on Sega Saturn.