HSC14 Round 9: Games by Yves Lempereur & Alain Marsily

[snakeboy]

Snokie: 11,260

 

Time Runner: 16,512

 

Flak: 38,000

 

Personally, I think Flak is the cream of the crop this round. The invisible turrets are kind of annoying, but I don't mind them as much once I realized that you can destroy them.

[+therealbountybob]

Improved on Time Runner 24,168 (6)

 

Now Flakking

[pusakat]

I just suck at Snokie: 6,580 is all I could reach.

 

 

 

[ballyalley]

I needed an excuse to try out my new Edladdin All-Play 4/8 Supreme 7800 joystick, so I thought I'd check out which games were being played in the current round of the Atari 8-Bit HSC. When I saw that Snookie was one of the games in the current round, I had a good laugh. Snookie is certainly one of my least games games on the Commodore 64. In fact, to this day, my friend and I use this game as an example of a poor game. While trying other games that we don't like, we'll toss out comments such as, "Well this is a bad game, but at least it's not as bad as Snookie!" I didn't know that Snookie was released for the Atari. I tried it out briefly this evening and I "love" it just as much as the C64 version. That terribly repetitive tune that plays when you die... ugh. It's already stuck in my head!

 

It will be fun to try these three games with my new controller. The controller was expensive enough, that if I don't win this round of the HSC, then I'm going to ask for a partial refund.

 

Adam

[carlsson]

Improved scores:

 

Snokie - 8400 pts

 

Flak - 17900 pts

 

Time Runner - 8872 pts

[ballyalley]

I played each of the three games last night:

 

Flak is a pretty good vertical shooter; I wonder how I've overlooked it until now?

 

Snokie is better than I remember it, but I do recall exactly why I was always bothered by it so much: you have to time your jumps perfectly. Manic Miner fans, who must be used to memorizing jump positions, probably would really like this game. Snokie's forced scrolling levels remind me of Super Mario Bros. on the NES. That's certainly the most positive thing I've ever said about this game.

 

I don't care for Time Runner much. Your character is much too large. This makes it pretty difficult to avoid the baddies. Also, the sound effects are rather annoying. I had to play this game with the sound turned all the way down on the TV.

 

Here are my scores:

 

Flak - 9,100 (NTSC, Real Hardware: 130XE)

 

 

Snokie - 8,720 (NTSC, Real Hardware: 130XE)

 

 

Time Runner - 11,420 (NTSC, Real Hardware: 130XE)

 

 

Even though I'm not any good at these three games, it has been nice to pop back in and play for a little while on my trusty 130XE with my new joystick. Playing Flak with the Supreme 7800 joystick made that game feel very-much like a lost arcade gem. It's incredible the change of perspective that you can gain from simply using a different controller.

 

Adam

[+therealbountybob]

I played each of the three games last night:

 

Flak is a pretty good vertical shooter; I wonder how I've overlooked it until now?

 

Snokie is better than I remember it, but I do recall exactly why I was always bothered by it so much: you have to time your jumps perfectly. Manic Miner fans, who must be used to memorizing jump positions, probably would really like this game. Snokie's forced scrolling levels remind me of Super Mario Bros. on the NES. That's certainly the most positive thing I've ever said about this game.

 

I don't care for Time Runner much. Your character is much too large. This makes it pretty difficult to avoid the baddies. Also, the sound effects are rather annoying. I had to play this game with the sound turned all the way down on the TV.

...

Even though I'm not any good at these three games, it has been nice to pop back in and play for a little while on my trusty 130XE with my new joystick. Playing Flak with the Supreme 7800 joystick made that game feel very-much like a lost arcade gem. It's incredible the change of perspective that you can gain from simply using a different controller.

 

Adam

Always nice to hear from HSCers what they think about the games so don't be shy everyone - thought there is that 1% chance the author(s) mighty be watching

 

this round closes in the morning (Sunday 10AM UK time) then we can start rounding up the new games for a whirl

[+therealbountybob]

Congratulations to Deteacher for the win and a clean sweep of all three games to pick up a bonus point Thanks for playing everyone, nothing too taxing this round but all the games were reasonable enough. Flak had some nice touches but needs a longer playfield and some extra features rather than just being too hard on the 2nd run through.

 

final tables

Main Scoreboard

1st Deteacher 21 13pts*
2nd therealbountybob 18 11pts
3rd snakeboy 15 10pts
4th ballyalley 10 9pts
5th carlsson 9 8pts
6th RedThunder 8 7pts
7th devwebcl 4 6pts
8th pusakat 2 5pts
*1pt bonus for winning all 3 games

Snokie
1st Deteacher 42,420 7
2nd therealbountybob 11,800 6
3rd snakeboy 11,260 5
4th ballyalley 8,720 4
5th carlsson 8,400 3
6th devwebcl 8,200 2
7th RedThunder 6,680 2
8th pusakat 6,580 2

Time Runner
1st Deteacher 47,041 7
2nd therealbountybob 24,168 6
3rd snakeboy 16,512 5
4th ballyalley 11,420 4
5th carlsson 8,872 3
6th RedThunder 7,721 2

Flak
1st Deteacher 61,500 7
2nd therealbountybob 47,700 6
3rd snakeboy 38,000 5
4th RedThunder 19,100 4
5th carlsson 17,900 3
6th ballyalley 9,100 2

p.s. let's see a photo of that new joystick ballyalley

[ballyalley]

let's see a photo of that new joystick ballyalley

 

I've taken a six photos of my Edladdin All-Play 4/8 Supreme 7800 joystick. If you would like to purchase one of these for yourself (which I highly recommend), then you can pick them up from:

 

http://edladdin.com/

 

One of the cool things about this joystick is that it opens up very easily so that you can switch it from an eight-way joystick (good for most games) to a four-way joystick (good for games like Pac-Man and this round's game, Time Runner).

 

For the purposes of these pictures, I placed the joystick on a small TV tray, which is not how I actually use the joystick. When I use this controller, I place it on my lap. Note, that on the Atari computers and Atari 2600 (and probably all other systems that use a standard 9-pin Atari-like connection), both buttons function as the same button. However, on the Atari 7800, the buttons function separately. Don't ask me how; it's magic!

 

In this first and second pictures you can see my 19" TV flatscreen CRT TV that I picked up at a thrift store for $10 last year. You can also see my Odyssey 2 poster for Invaders from Hyperspace! that I made this year. I'm not a huge fan of the Odyssey 2 system, but I really love the cover art for many of the console's games. You can also see my microphone that use for my Bally Alley Astrocast podcast

 

 

 

The third and fourth pictures show the joystick up-close. I also placed my hand on the joystick so that you can get a better idea of the size of the controller. It's large, but it's not bulky.

 

 

 

The fifth and six pictures show the joystick open so that it can be accessed to change it from a four-way joystick to an eight-way joystick. The top of the joystick is on hinges, so it swings open quickly. The next picture shows the joystick in the eight-way configuration. The picture after that shows it in its four-way configuration. It takes no more than a few seconds (and no tools) to change from one configuration to another.

 

 

 

I really like this joystick. I also have been using it with MAME and other emulators using my 2600-dapter II Atari-joystick to USB Adapter. What's interesting is how big of a difference using a true 4-way joystick makes when playing arcade games that used 4-way controllers. For instance, this Edladdin controller makes the arcade game of Lady Bug very playable: there is no more getting hung-up on the walls when turning corners using an eight-way joystick.

 

If you do order one of these joysticks, then you might wait might be awhile to get it (each one is custom built to your specifications: you choose the button and joystick colors), but it's well worth it!

 

(As an aside, I also use this joystick on my Bally Arcade/Astrocade console, which doesn't use standard Atari joysticks. I made an Atari-to-Astrocade adapter and this 7800 joystick works great with that system now.)

 

Adam

[McKong]

Sorry, completely missed this round, didn't have any time to play this week. I'll try to play them during the catch up