This one wasn’t so easy a decision.
Area 51 (Atari, 1995)
Although this game is fully playable within MAME, playing with a mouse just doesn’t compare in any reasonable way with playing with a lightgun. Twin that with the fact that the game is an absolute dog (which is made even less playable with the mouse due to reloading issues), skipping is the only way.
Playing rules: Difficulty: Factory Default. Start: 3 lives. Bonus: 1 life at 20,000, 50,000, 100,000 and every 100,000 points. Continues: Not allowed
8-Toggle Swich On Arabian Game PCB at Location SW1 near RA12: 1=OFF; 2=OFF/ON [Cocktail/Upright]; 3=ON; 4-8 = OFF
4-Toggle Switch On Arabian Game PCB at Location SW2 near RA14:1-4=ON
Current Record holders
1st: 219,750 - Chuck Futtrell - 1984
...
9th: 19,900 - Steve P.Thornock - 2000
Blimey. I don’t usually pay a great deal of attention to the Dipswitch settings (aside from making sure they are set correctly of course) but just look at those beauties! They look like directions on a treasure map – “8-Toggle Swich On Arabian Game PCB at Location SW1 near RA12“. Get yourself to the nearest 1983 arcade, whip the back off the Arabian cab and try and find those suckers. Just beware as thar be beasties just off Location SW1 that will have your giblets for tea.
Which seems quite an apt theme considering. Arabian eh? The screenshot looks faintly familiar, but I can’t say I can remember this one. Looks like a barrel of laughs though, I mean who doesn’t love scrabbling about on the sails of a ship? I know I do. So what’s the game about? Well, apparently the idea of the game is to clamber about the various levels (which are pages in a book of course) collecting the brass jugs as you go. They’re not just any old jugs though, these jugs have letters on them that spell the word “ARABIAN” and collecting them in that very same order gives you a nice little brucie bonus. Out there to stop you on your merry jug collecting mission are various baddies including a Genie (makes sense), a big bird’s head (ooooookay) and a pink worm thing with teeth (erm…).
That’s just rubbish – even for the early 80′s arcade character design. I mean, “Arabian” – just think of all of the possibilities for imaginative monsters on that theme, surely they could do better than a pink worm called “OSCAR” (absolutely true, that is the name they have given them). I mean, THIS is a proper monster:
Ok, i’m being a little unfair maybe considering the crude graphics technology of the early 80′s – but the Trog from “Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger” was from 1977 after all. They could have made a better effort that’s all i’m saying.
Anyway, it gets worse – a quote from klov.com:
Evil Genies in brass jugs that throw deadly smokeballs, swooping Rocs and purple ghostly creatures (called Oscars) will try to stop the hero along the way. Sometimes Rocs and Oscars will come together to form Super Rocs or Super Oscars who will be more dangerous
Super Rocs or Super Oscars? Oh come on now.
Anyway, i’m over all that and I suggest you look past it as well – let’s focus on your character for a bit. Looking at the screenshot I imagined the game as a typical “avoid everything” affair, but no such thing here. Your little Arabian has a tasty kick on him, which will boot any vicious enemy to death with curly shoed ease. This makes the whole game a different prospect, and twinned with the fact that you can jump, crawl and climb ladders it would suggest that a decent game is on the cards. Hoorah!
Records wise; initially I didn’t see anything too special about the scores until I read on Wikipedia that the record holder Chuck has a score which is labelled as “a maximum possible 219,750 points”, which is likely to mean that the current record is what they call a “perfect game”. In most cases that translates as a guy playing a game perfectly (natch), getting every bonus possible along the way and ultimately finishing the game – either by the game crashing (see pac-man after 200 so levels) or the game simply running out of levels and stopping (i.e not “clocking” and looping over).
In real money what that means is that the top score can go fuck itself. No problem though, life isn’t all about winning – and besides, I’m not convinced that I would be happy being the record holder of a game where i kick Super Oscars to death.
Within seconds of my first go it’s very obvious that this game is from the early 80′s. The graphics are actually pretty smart – certainly colourful and bright, but the sound – Oh the sound. Easily the worst music that I have heard so far in my quest and we’ve had some rubbish already. It’s not so much the choice of “tune”, more the half arsed execution of it that grates the most. Imagine an annoying parlour tune and take away every 2nd and 3rd note. Ok, now slow it down to a crawl. Right nearly there – now smash a pint glass into each ear; that’s EACH ear. There - that’s the music right there. Needless to say, I don’t advise you play with headphones on.
But, hey! Let’s stop moaning eh? If it comes to playing the real thing there will always be the truly comforting arcade ambience to drown it out so it’s a non issue, come on now, just play the game.
Well, the game is rather decent. You have quite a bit of control over your little mister, he can jump, crawl, climb and kick (even when climbing, which makes a bloody change) – such freedom manages to avoid the claustrophobic feel that sometimes this sort of platformer game suffers from.
It’s not all good though, chip another notch into the “rubbish deaths in games” bedpost as this one is full of ‘em. Probably the most annoying is the unforgiving way the chap dies if he falls any sort of distance – I would understand it if I died after falling a few inches but, completely betraying his displays of agility elsewhere, falling off of a rope you just leapt onto and dying is a complete pain in the arse.
Despite this, I manage to leap about the ship and collect the jugs in the correct order without too much trouble from the baddies and am awarded a nice 4,000 bonus for my trouble – which was nice. Straight onto the second level then and this time we find ourselves in some sort of a cave and this is where it goes wrong. The design of the second level pretty much revels in the game’s tendency for silly deaths and before I know it an “oscar” leaps over a rock in a completely odd way and kills me even though I was wafting my big curly shoe in his direction.
I wouldn’t have been *that* offended had it not have been my final life, but even then it was more the fact that to anyone passing by it looked like I was just killed by a flying cock and balls that was the killer. Now I usually try to refrain from playing games that involve what look like small fully formed sets of genitals in polite company, as indeed I urge you all to do, but to be GAME OVER’ed at their mercy is just unacceptable. Scandalous even.
Score: 16,600
Enough of that business, back on the saddle. Again the first level is pretty easy, but I do notice a few subtleties. Firstly, there doesn’t seem to be an obvious time limit, so in theory I could just hang around kicking the crap out of stupid enemies indefinitely. As it turns out, there *is* a time limit of sorts although I don’t quite understand how it works. After quite a while a skull starts to appear on each of the letters that you have collected already and I assume that if that reaches the final letter you die. It’s all fairly irrelevant though as the TRUE time limit is the god-awful music. Really, I challenge you to hang around on a single level listening to that music. Very cunning sound designers, very cunning.
Also, there seems to be some sort of bonus if you kick one enemy onto another. Each booting gives you 100 points, but if their flying body happens to collect another enemy on its journey to the edge of the screen you get a further 500 points. I would imagine that this is higher still if you can involve some more in the chain, but I couldn’t manage to line them up so I’m not sure.
Mainly though I notice that I HATE The way that jump is mapped to “UP” on the joystick. I mean, the machine only has a single button for kick, surely they could have stretched to a second “jump” button? It may not seem a big deal, but I find it so annoying it isn’t funny – and besides it is so often the cause of the annoying “fall off a rope” deaths.
Level three is the killer.
Now your little chap has reached some sort of castle thing and to get up to the top half of the screen, where all the jug action is at, means leaping between about 4 rows of flying carpets. Problem is, they are moving at different, sporadic speeds and there is no room to stand on one and let the level above pass without knocking you off. Sounds complicated but essentially its a major fucking arseache. The final nail in the coffin is the fact that if a carpet hits you as you try and jump on it, it sorts of folds up slightly and cannot be jumped on until you back away, which of course you have little time to do before you fall the stupidly short distance to your death or instead are pushed off the screen where instant death also awaits. Having to judge all of this leaping about while using “UP” on the joystick to jump is agony, In fact I’d go as far to say that I would rather be killed by a jumping cock and balls.
What I’m trying to say is that I died on this level rather swiftly.
Score: 17,650
And again. Shit it.
Score: 19,650
Annnnnnd that’ll do it. It’s a good game, make no mistake – but there are a few elements that tip the balance in the favour of frustration for me. Maybe with a bit of extra practice it will be better, but until then the music isn’t the only thing that is hard to get through, the 3rd level is just as much a killer. Record wise, I’m right up there threatening the bottom end of the list and I guess I *will* keep playing despite all of the problems as it’s quite a fun challenge.
Almost as much of a challenge as refraining from any “jugs” jokes throughout this whole post, despite saying “jugs” about a dozen times. It was a close run thing, and at “where all the jug action is at” I thought I was going to lose it – but proudly I held firm.
Nope, not biting at that one either.
Or that one
Aqua Jet (Namco, 1996)
Again another crazy machine from Namco, this time on a jet ski. What is it with the letter A and silly machines Namco? I mean come on!
Playing rules: Difficulty: Medium Easy [Difficulty 4]. 8 Demerits Allowed. Bonus: 1 life every 10,000 points.
Perfect Day bonus: YES. Special Rules: You can freely choose your starting stage
Dip-Swich on APB CPU PCB @ 6/7A; 1-9=OFF.
Dip=Switch on APB CPU PCB @ 5/6A: 1=OFF; 2=ON; 3-7=OFF; 8=OFF/Unused
Current Record holders
1st: 1,002,324 - Greg Gibson - 1988
...
4th: 6,535 - Robert T.Mruczek - 2005
Two words, Clacton Pier.
There were essentially two set of arcades that I used to go to as a kid – the one near my home in North London was the main one, but also I used to visit my grandparents a few times a year in Clacton, a smallish seaside town in Essex. This is where I first came across the wonder that was A.P.B, in its sit-down cab glory. Actually, if I remember correctly it wasn’t on the pier – it was in the tatty arcade opposite, next to the crazy golf - wherever it was, it was bloody ace.
The first thing that strikes you about this game is the sense of comedy. Coming a few years after the first few Police Academy films this was the closest thing you could find to a game of the film. ( Don’t let the latter shitty sequels put you off, that was a GOOD thing back then). The speech especially was good fun, and happily Atari used it for humour this time rather than shit-yer-pants scares (see “SKATE OR DIE” if you dare). In between levels were the best, with the police commander either congratulating you or chastising you in several comedic ways, including the traditional health and safety faux-par; burning your face off with verbal fire. Many a time I used to chuckle when I heard from the other side of the arcade -”Mnnunanmamanamanayama Verywelldone”. What? That’s what it sounded like! bah, you had to be there.
Hey! where are you all going? Oh I getcha – enough of my clearly sad and easily pleased nostalgia - what’s the actual game about?
You are a new police officer and your job is to drive about various missions catching minor criminals to fill your various quotas. Every few levels or so you are given a big guy to catch and you have to find the sucker and ram him off the road before taking him back to the station to give him a good throttling. The game itself is viewed top-down and looks pretty simple. You have a steering wheel, an accelerate pedal and two buttons, shoot and siren. It’s at this point I realise that I must have been rubbish at the game as I failed to get to a level where the shoot button actually does anything – which apparently is a pathetically low level 4. Whoops. Actually, in my defence I mainly played the game on the AtariST and i’m not even sure if that sucker *had* a shoot button.
Rules are simple, you have to arrest naughty people and rescue stranded people and to do that you simply run over them with your little arresting square that hovers an inch in front of your car. Trick is, you can only do this if you have the siren on at the time, crashing into people guilty or not without the siren will lead to a demerit, and before you know it you’ll out on your ear. You don’t find yourself on an easy road either, there is plenty going on with cars and obstacles all over the place – add to that the fact that you have to keep an eye on your fuel levels as well and you have the makings of quite a tricky little game.
A peak at the records reveals not only an oldie score, but one that is leagues ahead of any of the others. The top score is a touch over 1 million, second place is waaaaay back at 72 thousand. How on earth does that happen? I mean, obviously the first place chap is bloody good at the game, probably playing it until he gets bored rather than getting killed off, but surely someone can get within a 10th of his score? Maybe it could be me?
Could it bollocks. First off, the game is bloomin’ tricky playing at home rather than the arcades - the steering is pretty sharp without a wheel and the accelerator button is a bit too keen compared to a proper analogue pedal. My first go has me weaving about the practice level like a drunken idiot – hitting cones with accidental venom and virtually bunny-hopping about the place like no tomorrow. Thankfully there were no demerits as I luckily decided to further illustrate how much of a twat I was by having the siren on full blast all the way. Woooo Wooooo Wooooo Woooooo, a ridiculous fanfare and fuss considering all I was doing was driving around the police car park “arresting” a couple of traffic cones. To be honest, once my round was over, if I was the sarge, I would have simply chucked me straight in a cell to have a good think about what I have done.
No such behaviour; I’m given my first mission – capture those pesky litterbugs, the bastards. That’s why I joined the police force, to clean up the streets and make the world a safer place. Well a cleaner place anyway. A little bit cleaner. Ok, ok! I joined purely for the flash 50p shaped police hat, I admit it, happy now? What makes the mission all the easier is that convieniently all of the litterbugs drive exactly the same car which can be considered a schoolboy error in anyone’s book. What makes the mission all the harder is that immediately it becomes obvious that my erratic driving is going to be a problem. It gets even worse when the game tells me that criminals will not commit the crime if my siren is on, so my insurance against smashing into everything is out as well. Cocknuggets.
Pathetic is the only word that springs to mind. I hit walls, crash into signs, set myself on fire and thoroughly fail at driving in a straight and true line. I manage to somehow get a few litterbugs, but also smash into a fair few innocent cars along the way (sorry ’bout that). There are donut shops and gas stations all vying for my trade and offering free bonuses along the way, but the way I am driving means that they are not even a possibility. Luckily though, I get all 8 litterbugs and despite not reaching the police station before the time runs out I complete the level.
Onto the congratulations screen, and that wonderful soundbite kicks in – mnahmnahmnahmufflemuffle – very well done. Not convinced myself, but I did enough and i’m only a rookie after all. Next level please, time to redeem myself by grabbing the ever ellusive collar of a boss guy called Freddy driving a big silly hippy wagon. I’ll pay back your faith sarge……by driving straight into a road sign and getting my final demerit. Game over. A disgrace.
Score: 1,555
Ok, I was rubbish – but gang raping me and then chucking me in a dustbin is a bit harsh! Maybe that’s what happens to young coppers that don’t make the cut in real life, but come on Atari – kids could be playing this.
Usually it’s at this point that I have a new tactic or a revelation with which to arm myself with before heading into my 2nd go, but I have nowt. All I can really try is to be a little more cautious. I now realise that you don’t have to return to the police station at the end as long as you complete your quota, so maybe I will just pay attention to avoiding collisions and stuff rather than haring about. I know that sounds a bit obvious, but it is harder than it sounds in practice. (For me anyway)
Straight back onto the cones and this time I make them my bitches. Postively glowing after that round (although I didnt get what looks like an inviting “perfect” bonus due to a few small collisions) I leap straight after the litterbugs. They too felt my wrath as I start to use the siren with a little more skill, blaring the horns to get innocents out of the way and not rushing into arrests – I do only need 8 after all and there are hundreds of the buggers. Still not perfect though, a couple of times as I weave left and right to get the arrest I move way too much and smash into a wall and comically explode, leaving just my blinking charred corpse and a set of wheels on their axels. Everyone loves a bit of comedy, but the reality is a pesky demerit each time and one step closer to copper gang rape, which is *never* funny whichever way you look at it.
Before I know it I’m slamming down the road pursuing the dastardly hippie himself – let’s get this fucker rammed off the road. Oh that was easy – the big puff, just a couple of nudges and he was straight into the trees. Back to the station then apparently, although I still laughably manage to find time for a few demerits on the way as I crash into various things like a big Joey.
Before I know it, a mini game style thing is upon me. The fat sarge is walking down the stairs and I have to get a confession out of Freddy before he reaches the door! How do I do that? By tapping the siren and shoot buttons of course. Shit, it’s that shoot button thing again, which one was it? this one? that one? bugger! Tapapapapapapapatap – demerit. Shit. I can’t even strangle a hippy properly for goodness sakes.
So we let him free (the cad) and focus our attention on the REAL criminals of the city, the proper scum. This is life and death stuff my friend, only myself and Edward Woodward are up to this sort of job, so stand well back and watch the pro’s…..as we clean the streets of taxi drivers that beep their horn a little bit. Wow, serious stuff better pack my bullet proof vest and a pair of earplugs. Being taxi drivers though, they won’t lay down and be anyones bitch - to arrest them you need to siren them buggers TWICE.
Should be easy enough, although I dont have many demerits left before its game over – the game doesn’t seem to scrub any of them off at any stage making the early “cone related” demerits all the more painful.
I last a matter of seconds. You see, as an English chap, when presented with a choice of sides with which to drive down a freeway, I naturally took the left hand side (to keep my sword hand free or somesuch piffle) which of course is the wrong side in this game leading me to repeatedly crash violently into oncoming cars. I take little solace in the fact that the cars I blew up were nasty horn blowing criminals and watch as again my character is gang raped. Only this time I obviously performed a lot better as instead of throwing me in the bin, they throw me in the van for “laters”. Nice.
Score: 2,400
Although the score is a little better, its not 1 million is it? All of a sudden the rubbish looking 6,500 at the bottom of the records seems pretty good. Score wise this isn’t going well. However, what it does suggest is that the top scoring chap must find this game extremely easy. To score a million you would have to play this game for an absolute age and i’m sure it was only boredom or the arcade closing that stopped the score being any larger.
So my new target is 6,000 or so, which still involves a leap in performance that i’m not convinced I have in me – especially as I am playing the workman and his always-to-blame tools. Still – one more game to go, lets see what I can manage.
Again I make several easy mistakes, but at least this time I am prepared with the correct keys and manage to strangle a confession out of Freddy earning the respect of the sarge and a paltry bonus to boot. Unfortunately it is on the next level, the pesky taxis, where I experience my first MAME related bug, or at least I assume that’s what it is. This time I choose the correct side of the road to drive up, but as soon as I do the controls freeze and the sound disappears. A quick leap to windows and back solves the control problem, but I still don’t have sound. Stranger still there are absolutely NO cars or people on my side of the road at all, even after blatting along for 30 seconds or so. I struggle enough to fill my quota as it is, but there is no way I can get my quota without any criminals to catch, so I am forced to move across through a gap in the barrier to the other side. Where I die horribly again, regardless of siren and direction any sort of collison kills me outright. I never even get to see who the second criminal is.
Score: 2,806
So, nowhere near the record list then. It can’t all be attributed to control problems, but it certainly does make a difference as the steering and acceleration really dont translate very well to digital controls. Also I obviously don’t remember the game as much as I thought I did because I seem to remember being quite good at it, which i’m clearly not. Hey ho – one to add to the “forget about the record” pile.
At least the nostalgia within me got to hear some of the sounds of my childhood again, which is always a welcome touch and something that I look forward to with every game I play.
“mnahmnahmnahmufflemuffle – very well done”. Thanks sarge, but I’m not sure you really mean that – maybe next time I meet you in the arcade i’ll do you proud again……
Well, it’s been a good few days since my last update, but don’t panic! I haven’t given up or fallen down a manhole or anything. I’ve just had proper work stuff to do and it’s been pretty solid the past few days (oh!).
I’ll be back to my intended “every-other-day” at least update schedule before we know it.
Who knows, the next game may even be today..
Playing rules: Difficulty: Factory Default. Start: 3 lives. Bonus: 1 life at 20,000 points.
Continues: not allowed.
Current Record holders
1st: 219,320 - Freddie Morrish - 1983
...
5th: 134,220 - Dave Hensgen - 1983
Oh.
For fucks sake
What are the chances of that? I’ve just spent hours being humiliated by Amidar and now the very next game is another poxy maze style game? That’s not very nice Mr Alphabet, not very nice at all – who pissed on your chips?
Game developers in the early 80′s really had the horn for maze games didn’t they? Hey ho, no sense in being sad about it, let’s get it over with. Anteater is another of the games that I have never played, although I do faintly remember seeing it somewhere – maybe on some crappy home computer port perhaps. At least it looks a little bit different, I’ll give it that.
You control not the anteater, but his tongue as it wiggles its way through the ground looking for tasty treats. Obviously the name “Anteater” is misleading in this case, because although he does eat the occasional ant, there is nothing he likes better than a good old “dot” – can’t get enough of the little buggers, which is handy because they are all over the bloody place. To be honest the ants and worms are glad to be rid of the things, which makes it somewhat suprising that they are all so pissed off. Pissed off to the extent of calling in the night spider no less to sort your stupid probing tongue out.
Hold on, I’m ahead of myself a little. The game has you controlling the tongue with the aim of collecting all of the dots in order to progress to the next level. As well as the dots you have some ants and worms wandering about which you can eat also by simply running over them with the end of your tongue. After about a minute or so, day turns into night and the aformentioned night spider turns up to ruin the party and the whole game gets a lot trickier as it tries to rush you along a bit. Sounds simple? Well it sort of is, but there are loads of extra (mostly nonsensical) details that make the whole thing a lot harder than it looks.
While you can eat the ants by running over them with the end of your tongue, if any ant manages to touch any other part of your floppy tongue you die. Not sure how the game justifies that one to be honest but it’s true. This makes the game rather tricky indeed because your anteater has plenty of tongue laying about, especially if you head lower down the screen. As the ants tend to appear from the sides of the screen randomly, you really have to be on the lookout for the cheeky ones that appear right at the top level, intent on some serious tongue killing.
In another moment of madness, you can only eat the worms from behind – if you attempt to eat them head on, you die. Why? Do they have a massive set of teeth that need to be avoided? Do they have a rather sharp haircut? As far as the game is concerned – they have deadly heads ok? get over it. Yet, for some reason the worms *don’t* kill you if they touch any other part of the tongue they just wander on by – obviously preferring to kill you with honour the traditional worm way, head vs tip of tongue. Of course. Silly me.
And then the bastard spider. The spider clearly follows the worm honour code and doesn’t kill you by touching any part of the tongue apart from the tip. The spider is a busy man however, and has no time for wandering about. This lad has done his homework. What’s the quickest way to get to the tip of an anteater’s tongue? Come on, surely you were taught this in school all them years ago. Well don’t worry as the spider has the answer. The quickest way to the tip of the tongue is to follow the length of the tongue until you reach the end – and that’s exactly what he does the little bugger. This isn’t good as you can’t kill him at all, so his appearance usually signals that a life is soon to be lost.
Of course the game doesn’t tell you any of this. The title screen has a brief instruction screen to tell you what’s going on, with a vague attempt to convince you that the dots are “ant larvae” (yeah right) and that worms are to be eaten from behind, but that’s it. It took me literally dozen of goes to work this all out before I could be confident enough to have a proper go.
Frankly I don’t know why the anteater bothers. He’s obviously the runt of the anteater family – hunting alone, a wretched outcast. You can’t see them, but off screen all of the other anteaters are laughing and pointing at the anteater who gets beaten up by ants touching his tongue – it’s all so very sad. Even the makers of the arcade machine knew this and tried to persuade you away from playing a game featuring such a rubbish anteater. Just look how guilty and sad he looks on the arcade marquee (the artwork on the top of the machine)
Pathetic.
Look at the way the worm is looking at the anteater, disgust overwhelming him as he steals his lunch money again. If you’ve ever wondered what a worm saying “fuck you buddy” looks like, that right there is textbook.
Everyone loves an underdog (or indeed an underanteater) right? Well I do – and I’m not going to stand there while the insect world takes the piss out of this once proud animal. I will take the task of controlling your tongue sir, and I will help you regain your pride if nothing else. Actually, did I forget to mention that I’m absolute pump at this sort of game? Nevertheless I’ll give it my best shot.
Even though I’m now playing for anteater pride, it’s worth remembering that there are records here – and a quick glance at them at least indicates that the pattern method may not be applicable here. I’ll have to wait and see how the game scores, but they don’t look impossible that’s for sure (although the fact that they are all from the 80′s is rather ominous perhaps).
So, lets get in and get tonguing.
Jesus. Just like a Friday night out in Hull - as soon as I stick the tongue in, I’m dead. Unlike Hull, it was a worm that killed me. No sooner had I started, a worm appeared right next to me and headbutted my tongue. Nasty stuff. Although I must say, in true style I completely panicked and sort of ran into him a bit as well, completely forgetting that, unlike an ant, he can’t hurt me unless it’s the tip.
Man i’m struggling already. What with all of the mentions of tonguing and tips, this is rapidly becoming a bad Carry On film. Come on, we’re all adults here, I’m talking about a video game from 1982 – behave everyone.
Ahem.
It’s very clear that this game is a LOT more than just a maze game. You barely get a second to yourself and you not only have to consider where the tip of the tongue is, but also protect the rest of the tongue at the same time. Absolutely rock hard, but I have to say – not in a bad way. Could it be that this is a maze style game that I don’t hate?
Regardless of my feelings on the game, i’m clearly shit at it and I barely make it to the night time.
Score: 4,900
There is clearly a lot of tactic to this game that i’m not grasping. The main killer so far has been the ants appearing near the top of the screen while I’m flapping about a few rows below. It’s really tricky to withdraw the tongue back in time to avoid being killed. But, what’s this? This game has a button that I didn’t know about. A button that withdraws the tongue at a quicker speed! Just what the doctor ordered, it’s almost as if the game was designed that way. I wish they’d tell you these things – although in fairness if I were stood in front of the arcade machine rather than hunched naked over my PC, a button would be rather more obvious.
Armed with this new skill I do a lot better. The worms are quite tricky to get though and tend to steam straight towards you, meaning quite a lot of running away before doubling back and chasing the beggar before he reaches the end of the screen and disappears – which is made all the more awkward by the fact that your tongue can’t double back on itself (makes sense, go on, try).
Sooner than I would like the sun reaches the left hand side of the screen and it’s night spider time, and what a bastard. He really adds a sense of panic to things as he unavoidably slowly traces down your tongue. As well as keeping out of the way of him, you can no longer withdraw the tongue and save yourself from any ants at the top. So you’re rodgered basically.
Or are you? See, the clever chaps at klov.com come to the rescue again. There are two “Queen” ants at the bottom of the screen that just sit there looking shiny and queeny and stuff – that when collected not only give you 1000 points, but clear the screen completely of beasties. Rather handy that – and at the first sign of the spider I’m off to reap the queeny revenge. And it works! The spider is dead, long live the spider. Well, long live the spider indeed as sadly a new one appears almost immediately. It does get you out of any tight squeezes though I guess.
Score: 9,070
Believe it or not, I am REALLY enjoying this game. Not only does the game have a decent amount of depth to it, but it has an unusual scoring system that seems to encourage risk taking. At the end of each life, you are awarded a bonus – but rather than simply being a true reflection of what you collected before you died, it multiplies the amount of ants you collected with the amount of worms and then multiplies that by 10.
Ok, maths boy – what does that mean in old money? Well essentially you need to take the risk and collect worms as well as the easier ants otherwise your bonus is useless, i.e multiplied by 0. Therefore, even if you collect a million ants (good luck with that) but fail to get any worms your bonus will be 1,000,000 x 0 x 10 = 0. It’s not the cleverest thing in the world, but it’s a very nice touch.
And I really am enjoying it – in fact I will be as bold as to say that it is one of my favorite games so far. You really have to be on your toes while trying desperately to clear trickier placed dots and I’m convinced there is a lot more to it tactics wise that I am yet to discover. Well there definitely is, as although I get to the 2nd level this time (more of the same but with a few “angry” ants that seem to be exactly the same as normal ants) the score is still woefully short of the record standard.
Score: 15,870
So the record is miles away, who cares? I reckon that there will be a few fundamental techniques that allow you to get up to the bigger scores. Even with the queen ant smart bomb things I pretty much die straight away when the spider gets involved for example and i’m sure there is a much better way of handling that. Whatever it is, i’m going to keep playing as the game really is good fun.
Don’t worry pathetic anteater, we will fight another day and you never know, you may get the respect back from the other anteaters as well as knocking that look of disgust clean off of the stupid worm’s face. That’s right worm, we’re coming for YOU.
Playing rules: Difficulty: Factory Default. Start: 3 lives. Bonus: 1 life at 30,000 and 70,000 points.
Dip-Switch Location 8-P: 1-4=OFF.
Dip-Switch Location 6-P: 1-2=OFF; 3=ON/OFF;
[Cocktail/Upright] 4-5=ON.
Current Record holders
Konami ROM set (Easier):
1st: 19,225,030 - Todd Lamb - 1983
...
2nd: 18,201,100 - Joe Barrett - 1982
Stern ROM set (Harder):
1st: 3,208,870 - Scott Karasek - 1982
...
3rd: 408,750 - Maurizio Miccoli - 1984
Ahah, back in familiar territory – I remember this game.
Specifically, I remember disliking the game immensely; mind you that can be simply attributed to the fact that I was complete gash at it. I’ve always been rubbish at this sort of game, i.e “maze pattern” games, the most famous of which being Pac-Man of course. It’s a well known fact that the best Pac-Man players in the world get their records from knowing a series of “patterns”. Essentially this means that there are sequences of moves that if you follow will win you the game each and every time. In the example of pacman, take a look at this page for an idea of what I mean: Pac-Man patterns
Now, I obviously don’t see that as a problem records wise, but I certainly can’t be arsed to remember all of these things – and even despite that, it is somewhat outside of the spirit of playing a game. Ok, you definitely need to not only remember the patterns but also perfectly execute them for all of the 200 plus levels, which takes a lot of skill – but it just doesn’t feel the same for me. Not my bag baby.
So what does that leave us, the casual or uneducated player? Well it doesn’t ruin the game or anything, but it does make the world of records a while different ball game – A ball game that most of us don’t care for much.
Hang on you mentalist, this is AMIDAR we are supposed to be reading about not Pac-Man, what about Amidar? Well take a look at the records – in the millions. See how the bonuses are given for 30,000 and 70,000 points? That suggests that millions of points is pretty bloody special – so much so as to suggest that there may be some sort of pattern usage going on.
On investigation, although officially Amidar doesn’t have such clearly defined patterns it does have this:
The Amidars all have a set movement pattern, which is detailed by the 'Amidar movement' on the title screen. They only move in 4 ways :
a) up/right,
b) up/left,
c) down/right
d) down/left.
They will follow their current pattern of movement (a, b, c or d) until they reach the edge of the maze when they move round the edge of the last box they contact and continue with their new pattern. e.g. Up/right to the top right of the maze, round the last box and then down/left to the bottom left corner. Mastering their pattern of movement is the key to success!
All makes sense (if you read it several times rather slowly), but i’ll be buggered if I can actually use that information in any useful way while playing the game.
I think I know why i’m no good at this sort of game. As the alcoholics say, “giss another can of Special Brew”, I mean “Admitting that you have a problem is your first step to recovery” – I think I simply don’t like being chased around a maze in a video game. Regardless of tactic or pattern as soon as an enemy gets close to me I tend to run away like a paedotrician who has accidentally walked in on an angry tabloid reader’s convention. As you may well be able to guess - this tactic tends not to be the best when aiming for big scores or indeed sustained play for your 10p, so as as result I tended to avoid this style of game.
No avoiding it now, let’s at least have a look at what it’s all about. Before we start, I think it’s fair to say that the designers of this baby didn’t design this game mentally “un-aided” – you’ll see what I mean quite quickly. You control a Gorilla on a web style grid and your mission is to collect all of the dots that happen to be sitting around, thus completing the squares as you go – Qwix style. To make matters harder you are being chased by a load of chaps with what look like spears or something. If you manage to get past that level you are now for some reason controlling a paintbrush being chased by pigs - as you do.
It’s a little known fact that the the pigs natural enemy is the paintbrush – it obviously doesn’t come up much in nature, but here in this game their insticts have the rare opportunity to run wild. Have you ever seen Tony Hart in the same room as a pig? No? exactly. Tear the man to shreds they would in search of a brush or two. They love bananas though, LOVE them. You see, in between levels you have a little bonus stage where you have to choose the correct path for the pig to be able to get the banana at the bottom.
How do the designers come up with these things? I mean, you control a gorilla for the first level, so bananas make sense, but no the pig gets the banana – and then the change to the paintbrush? Chased by pigs? The same pigs that wanted a banana a minute ago? mental.
All of that aside there are a few other bits of the game that need a mention. If you manage to complete all 4 corner squares on any level, then you temporarily become the hunter and you can eat the baddies for a few seconds. Harder in practice than it sounds but handy nevertheless. Also, you have a jump button at your disposal, which when pressed makes everyone apart from you on the screen jump allowing you to move under them. You only have 3 of these per level mind so use sparingly. Hang on, what was that? Why on earth does the jump button make everyone else jump? I mean, surely it would be easier and perform the same avoidance related purpose if YOU jumped? How do you make everyone else jump on demand anyway?
Crazy. Ok then, enough with the avoiding – time for my first go. Wait – there are two different versions of this game, one harder than the other. Great. I come across one of my most hated category of game and I have to play it twice over. Ok, what I’ll do is this. I’ll have 3 goes on each version, but alternate between the two versions as I go to cover the off chance that I get better at the game as I go (fat chance).
So first go and I’m already a mess. As soon as the game begins I stand agape as half a dozen spear guys begin their decent down the screen towards me. I feel like a school kid in an exam, remember their movements! Even the intro screen showed you how the “Amidar moves” – they always take turns when they are available I think. Was that what it was? Quick, they’re coming closer! Where is safe to move? ARGHHHHH!
I genuinely lose my first life after barely moving an inch. Too much knowledge left me paralysed, unable to risk moving until I could work out where each of the enemies would go. Ok, calm down man – it’s the first level, just try and forget about them and concentrate on collecting the dots and filling in the squares. Ah! they’re coming again, phew dodged them, lets go for these corners – he’s coming! JUMP JUMP! Oh, he turned away, wasted a jump there, arse. I’m still an absolute mess. Game over couldn’t come quick enough.
Shit, and that was the EASY version? fuck my old boots. Time for the harder version. To be honest, I couldn’t tell the difference – I was equally garbage at both versions.
Score: 2,800 (Konami – easy)
Score: 4,640 (Stern – hard)
Wow. Just wow. Not even 5 thousand points. If there was an award for getting the furthest away from a record score this game would take the biscuit. The lowest score on the HARD version is over 400 thousand. Talk about a morale sapper.
However, I won’t take this laying down. Time for some hard research before the next round of goes.
Apparently you have two types on enemy. The majority of the chaps have that rule where they move from the top to the bottom and back again taking every turn they come across, I know that and to be honest I wish I didn’t as it just makes me freeze every time I try and think about it. Interestingly the other type is a chap that sticks to the outside lane for a certain amount of laps and then chases after you directly. Great just what I need. Luckily (in a odd sort of way) I don’t ever survive long enough for him to tire of his laps and panic me even more.
Bugger, didn’t learn much of any use there. I *should* take some heart in the fact that the enemies always move at the same speed as you (unlike Pac-Man for example) but frankly I don’t.
Hey ho - back to the game, and it’s a very familiar story. Whenever I try and second guess their movements I either hesitate too much or run straight into them. As for the jumps, I either waste them entirely by misjudging when I need them or try too hard to save them and don’t use them when I need to. Somehow I manage to get to the bonus level however which at least gives me a rest!
Hillariously its quite easy to trace the route that the pig needs to go, but on both goes I manage to miss-time the button press to select the line and the pig misses his beloved banana. All of sudden it makes sense now that the next level has the pigs as your enemy – as soon as you see how pissed off the pig looks when he realises that you sent him down the wrong track you’ll understand too. Poor lad.
The second level is even worse than the first as I soon discover that you can only capture squares that are next to the completed ones, due to the paint running out if you stray any further. That’s not to say you can’t move freely about the board, but if you go more than a square away your paint trail runs out and you’re running dry as it were. The extra level of pressure almost makes me fall of my chair and frankly I wouldn’t have played any worse had I done just that.
Score: 7,800 (Konami – easy)
Score: 9,610 (Stern – hard)
Amusingly I score slightly higher on the harder version, but both scores are so pathetic it doesn’t matter.
I’m feeling quite embarassed by this stage, as anyone would do when faced with displays of such ineptitude – but I don’t give up. One more go on each, but this time fuck the knowledge of their movements, fuck the rules about corners, fuck the lot of it in the ear. This time i’m going in raw, no lube. I certainly can’t do any worse so why not just play the bloody thing and see how I get on.
You guessed it, all the difference. I’m up past the bonus stage, this time getting the timing right for the banana pig (he looks happy bless ‘im) I even get past the paintbrush madness and onto the next bonus, where i get the banana again! This is nosebleed territory for sure. I die soon after but i’m happy with that.
A whole different story for the hard version. I do a lot better, but nowhere near as successfully as the last go. I think I’ve noticed the difference as well. In the easy version the enemies tend to move up and down taking all the turns as they go, where in the harder one, some go up and down and some go from left to right. This makes the whole thing a lot trickier as you have no bloody idea which turn they are taking as it isn’t immediately evident which axis they are following.
Convincing wasn’t it? I think that’s why I didn’t do so well on the harder one, but chances are I just panicked again and ballsed it up.
Score: 46,400 (Konami – easy)
Score: 16,290 (Stern – hard)
Finally it’s over. I was thoroughly beaten up by that game as you can see. The record books will forever be safe from my name on this one, I sit here celebrating a score of 46 thousand when the record is 70 MILLION. Well done record holders, well done indeed.
I don’t know how many more maze games there are in the book, but let me tell you – I have never been happier that “P” for “Pac-Man” is so far from “A”.
Playing rules: Difficulty: Easy. Start: 3 lives. Bonus: 1 life at 80,000 points.
Current Record holders:
1st: 591,150 - Alberto Zin - 1984
...
thats all.
I have never heard of this one and looking at the record (singular) nor has any other bugger. Looks pretty smart though, especially for 1983. I have absolutely no idea what this game is about and despite the screenshot suggesting that it involves driving a spaceship along a road, i’m supposing that it’s about flying and shooting and being ambushed and all that.
Gloriously, starting the game up gives me no further clue so, as is sometimes the way, I decided to take a look at the ever comprehensive klov.com to see what I can learn about the game – this is what I got:
Description
A spaceship must attempt to take off by repeatedly pressing left and right. Then it must attempt to fight off enemy spaceships.
Right. Glad I cleared that one up then. I love the way the description is written to avoid any sort of player interaction – “A spaceship”. I like to get involved in my games thanks very much, so from now on that spaceship is MY spaceship, an extention of my very own flesh and blood. Be the ball, live the dream as it were.
Which makes it all the sadder that I keep crashing the fucker without being able to take off over and over again. I’ve started my first go and indeed the game starts off as the screenshot suggests. A spaceshi.. sorry I mean YOUR spaceship sits there waiting for action on the road. Pressing one of the buttons gets the little bugger moving along the road slowly but surely and then all of a sudden the ship starts weaving about all over the place for no reason at all.
Now, I like a few beers now and then but I know for a fact that I haven’t had a drink today – yet i’m driving like Mel Gibson for no good reason. You would have thought that travelling in a straight line would be easy what with all of this modern spaceship technology – but no such luck, straight is no longer an option it’s weave city all the way.
All is not lost though, as helpfully the little control panel at the left of the screen is there to save me. As the ship veers to the right the screen flashes “LEFT” – so I press left. Now it veers to the left and the screen flashes “RIGHT” – and so on and so forth. After about a minute of weaving about like a tit i’m convinced I need to be taking off at some point. Too late, runway finished. CRASH.
I do this at least 3 times. The game makes no attempt to tell me what to do and it’s getting silly. Ok, time for some good old fashioned initiative. This time, as well as weaving left and right i’ll also hold BACK on the joystick, that should do something surely. WINNER! After about 20 seconds of accelerating the ship leaves the road, WOO! I’m in the air for less than a second when it slams back down on the road. Runway finished. CRASH.
Luckily i’m playing with virtual credits here, because if I had paid 10p for that last game of crashes I would have been rather cheesed off indeed. New technique then, forget everything else, just accelerate like there is no tomorrow and see what happens. It’s just struck me while writing this that this may seem an obvious thing to try but genuinely the fact that you get little or no feedback from the controls (I wasnt even sure the button was accelerating at first as it was so slow) and weaving about has taken all of my attention until now. Of course it works. After a little while the LEFT/RIGHT panel changes to say “TAKE OFF” and when I now pull back on the joystick the ship duly does just that. Thank jehovah for that, what an absolutely pointless exercise that was – forget being bloody ambushed, they may as well have called the game “Take off challenge”.
Anyway, stop moaning now – you’re in the air time to get your head together! Actually this game doesn’t look that bad – think Afterburner but years earlier and you’re nearly there. The speed up button still works, but I can see no reason why to use it at this stage as you move at a fair lick as it is.
First port of call is what looks like an asteroid field with small redish rocks flying towards you, nothing too stressful and even when these small green wiggly things come on the screen every now and then for you to shoot, it’s easy enough to just avoid them if need be. Next part of the level are a load of UFO style ships buzzing about and these are a bit trickier as they shoot at you and simply don’t enjoy sitting still for any length of time. Next part and it’s some sort of pursuit level as you are chasing a ship through a bigger asteroid field, so the speed button comes back into play again. That goes on for a while and then it’s time to land again – happily although this is similar to the take off you don’t really have much to do. After a small break that’s it, off again – take off, small asteroids etc…
Hang on. What a boring paragraph, I mean really REALLY boring – i’m glad it’s late at night as I really need a sleep now. Well, I thought you might notice that as it happens. Thing is, the game is rubbish. I mean, I had high hopes of finding a little unknown gem here and things looked good – until I actually played it the second time.
Let me explain this way. First go – through the first level shooting some green wiggly things, not bad at all. The UFO guys were a nice change and had a bit of fun shooting them, what with the different colours being different strengths and all that. This game isn’t that bad actually! Chasing the ship through the big rocks; ok a bit of a pain in the arse as you simply dont know how far you need to be from the ship to be able to hit him. It actually seems pretty random as to whether you hit him or not as a matter of fact, that’s not really cricket. Oh, he’s buggered off anyway and the level ends, no matter. Landing? Shit not this again – oh, that wasn’t too bad! Next round and take off isn’t a problem anymore as I have it sussed. Oooh, the asteroids are a lot faster this time round and that kills me off. GAME OVER.
Score: 144,300
That’s not bad at all, looking forward to having another stab at that.
What the fuck?
Damn, this game is so bloody random. THAT ROCK NEVER HIT ME YOU SLAG! or that one! GAH!
Score: 38,050
Right, must have been a little too keen that go. Oh. so ANNOYING, just die ufo will you! I’M SHOOTING RIGHT AT YOU! DIE DIE DIE! Jesus this is SO frustrating. Why is my targetting area so much smaller than the playing area? The bloody ufos spend almost all of their time out of my reach, not that I can really tell where they need to be for me to shoot them. DIE! dammit!
Score: 58,000
This game doesn’t make any sense! That rock never hit me! Ok, finally through the ufos. Chasing the ship now, why won’t he die? – I’m shooting right bloody at him! Oh great, now I’ve sped up he’s come too far and smashed into me. F’ing marvelous. Rubbish
Score: 104,250
*deep breath*
I always wondered what made a player smash the screen whenever I saw it at my local arcade as a kid. It was suprisingly quite often that I saw a cracked screen, sometimes on the most innocuous machines ever as well, I mean who gets that annoyed with pengo for goodness sakes? Anyway, now I know.
This game seriously has been the most frustrating game so far. It makes no sense whatsoever, sometimes things die when they shoot them, sometimes not. You simply can’t tell where to shoot most of the time and you can barely see the enemy bullets or indeed where the rocks are flying in relation to your ship. I lost count the amount of times that a small asteroid killed me when it was nowhere near me, or at least I thought it wasn’t. No wonder there aren’t many of these arcade machines about these days as i’m sure people have stuck their fists through the screen way before now.
The record is probably well within reach as well - 144 thousand was my best score which is just under a third of the record and the difficulty doesn’t seem to ramp up that much at all through the levels. It’s just a case of whether you can stand playing the game and this is where I drop out.
Mr Zin can keep his poxy record, he’s a more patient man than I for sure.
Just when we thought it was safe to play some games, a psuedo sequel to the Alpine Racer games looms into view – Alpine Surfer. This time though (wait for it) you don’t stand on big silly skis you stand on a big silly snowboard.
Whatever. Next!
Playing rules: Factory default. Starting timer: 2 minutes. Bonus: successful jump 800 to 2,00 points. 1st Extended time: 10,000 and every 10,000 points.
Dip-Switch Bank A: 1=ON; 2=OFF; 3=Not used; 4=ON; 5=OFF; 6-8=OFF.
Dip-Switch Bank B: 1-8=ON.
Dip-Switch Bank C: 1-2=ON; 3=OFF; 4=ON; 5-8=OFF.
Current Record holders:
1st: 500,774 - Eric Olofson - 1982
....
33rd: 5,281 - Nick Ortakales - 2005
Now we’re talking. 1981 – back to the days of the simpler things in life. Alpine Ski eh? “Just like being” there I imagine – marvellous. Skiing then; I’ve never actually been skiing and i’m also quite wet behind the ears when it comes to skiing games as well. “Horace goes skiing” on the Spectrum is pretty much the only one i’ve actually played so I would imagine this game isn’t going to have to do much to be the best skiing game ever. (Ok, i’m going to stop saying “skiing” now as it’s a stupid looking word – double “i” – what were they thinking?)
Looking at the records, my my this is a popular game! There are 33 scores listed in the book and it takes up a whole bally page. That makes a nice change as there have been too many games so far that have just the single record or at best a handful. Also nice to see, the top score has been intact since 1982 despite all the attempts to beat it. In fact, the top 9 records are from the 80′s and the first modern score doesnt come in until 10th with a 100,000 or so. Time for us modern boys to take this game back I say!
Take a peek at that screen shot, I think we’re all clear what to expect here. The idea of the game is to ski down the hill, the screen scrolling upwards as you go, avoiding obstacles such as trees, rocks, other tits on skis and snowmobiles. Along your jolly jaunt there are also points to be gained by squeezing through gaps that almost have a school dare feel about them - “Go on, I bet you 300 points you can’t squeeze between that tree and the rock” they say.
There aren’t any lives in this game, it’s all timer based, so if you do twat into an obstacle (and you will) your time is depleated by 10 seconds, and with an initial 2 minutes to play with that doesn’t leave you with much if you happen to be a clumsy bastard like me. And thats it, couldn’t be simpler.
(Worth noting if you are going to try the MAME version, the settings required are quite different from the defaults for this game, so make sure you dig into that TAB menu and make the changes before playing.)
Straight into my 1st go, I mean how hard can it be? Bloody hard that’s what. You control what has to be the widest skiier in the world. It’s not that the little bright pink headed chap is wide in himself, but he has what look like two red surfboards strapped to his feet and if that wasn’t bad enough he decides to ski with his poles (is that what they’re called? the little sticks in his hands) stretched out at all times as well. Certainly not the posture of someone who is keen to avoid hitting things and i’m more than a little concerned that he isn’t giving me 100% - his aerodynamics could do with some work for a start.
Ah, but don’t worry. You call those trees? Either the skier is genuinely massive or he has managed to find a mountain covered exlusively with Bonsai trees. Whatever the reason, we should be able to breeze through the trees as if they weren’t there. Of course you can’t – this is arcade world in the 80′s and as we’ve seen already on our journey even insignificant and minor things are good enough to kill you – and these tree’s are no exception. Avoid everything then, no matter how small and silly it seems – I getcha.
So off I punt; although I don’t. The timer starts but the fella isn’t moving, come on man! Oh ok, press the button to start it is. There is only one button and pressing it gives you a little speed boost – the more you press it the faster you go. It’s very clear from the outset that you don’t want to overuse this baby as it’s actually rather tricky to see the obstacles at any sort of speed, let alone avoid them.
Which brings me to the controls. If squeezing the massive skier through gaps wasn’t hard enough, the controls are a little “sketchy” at best. The lad veers all over the place and any sort of accuracy is hard to come by. Which is more that can be said for the collision detection – which is ultra fussy. As I say, I’ve never been skiing in real life, but I would imagine that your seasoned professional doesn’t fall over that often if the very extreme edge of one of his hand sticks brushes against a tree. In this game you do – in fact i’m more than convinced that there were many an occasion where I was knocked down and I didn’t actually touch anything at all. The bastards.
All this aside, it’s actually quite a good little game. About halfway through my first go I was getting used to the controls a little bit and even though I was very light on the boost button I made it to the end of the first level. I had of course been avoiding the trickier looking gaps - especially the legendary looking 1500 points one sitting behind a frozen lake. One day son, one day.
I didn’t have a great deal of time left though and my award for finishing the level was a paltry 10 seconds, so I only managed 17 seconds of the 2nd level before it was game over.
Score: 9,220
That’s not so bad! Good enough for 30th in the records – although the 3 scores that it beats must have been rubbish. Looking at the list, there is a massive chunk of scores from the same event in 2005, so they have obviously just bunged the whole lot from that tournament in as it is. No matter, 30th in the world on my first go can’t be sniffed at.
Second go and I’m being a bit braver. I notice in the rules that I should be getting a time bonus for reaching 10,000 points (so close last go!) so I need to start going for the more difficult gaps. Oddly enough, it’s only now that I try and get through more gaps that I notice how annoying the rare appearance from another skier is. When I was avoiding everything he never really got in my way but now the fucker is right in my path, pretty much every second he is on the screen. Not only that, but he’s skiing like a twat – all over the place and varying his speed erractically, almost as if the only reason he’s skiing on the hill today is to annoy everyone else. Its *exactly* like when you are walking down a busy high street, Oxford street in London is a good example, trying to get to the next pub and the granny in front of you keeps getting in your way, even STOPPING completely at random intervals – almost purposely trying to get you to anally violate her right there in the street (honestly officer, that’s how it happened). So annoying! Thing is, he gets nothing out of it (I’m back to the skier now, I’m sure the old dear gets plenty out of it) as he too collapses in a heap that actually looks a lot more painful than yours.
Clever little game, I getcha – risk and reward and all that. Actually, in all seriousness – the game has loads of moments like this, where a seemingly random collection of obstacles turns out to have been very purposefully arranged. You’ll notice this a hell of a lot with the more valuable gaps and the skiers as you go on – the 1000 and 1500 point gaps are often very cleverly placed in tricky yet tempting places.
Clever isn’t a word that I would associate with this go however, as I stubbornly smash into the same tree over and over again trying to get through a 1500 point gap. The small ice lake in front of the gap ruins your steering and speeds you up, meaning that the inital lining up has to be exact, despite a little tree being in your way. I didn’t make it and it didn’t take long for the 10 second penalties to rack up. ballbags, didn’t even get past the first level that time.
Score: 7,800
In true arcade style I exclaim to no-one in particular that the last go “didn’t count” as it was a “practice go”. Ahhh, the old classic excuses.
Balance it is then, ignore the 1500 gate and grab a few more 1000 ones. And it works a treat, I reach the second level with loads of time to spare. Up the little stairlift thing again via the short, very pink manned cutscene (wonder who that other guy is on the lift) and it’s 2nd level time. I get a lot further this time so I manage to see that the level has changed a little bit. No longer are they simply gaps that you are aiming for, you now have a proper slalom course to navigate with flags and everything.
I soon work out that hitting the flags is bad, as you lose 100 points for each one – but aside from that it’s the same old thing. I cross the 10,000 mark pretty quickly and glance over at the time to see what lovely bonus awaits me. Hang on, what a Jip! The time hasn’t increased at all, still says 32 seconds remaining. Bloody cheating bastards the lot of ‘em. This level of childish cursing contines for a further 32 seconds until without any sort of announcement and fanfare the time reaches 0 and then rather than showing GAME OVER it simply resets to 2 minutes, i.e the bonus. You crazy 80′s arcade machines and your “not making any sense”, bless you all.
Bolstered by the massively generous 2 minute bonus I manage to get to the end of the 2nd level as well, which was nice. And then it all goes wrong. The 3rd level is some sort of Ski jump bonus stage and I have no idea what I am supposed to do. Of course, the game has absolutely no intention of giving me any hint whatsoever, so I press the button, fly off the end of the jump, land and then pathetically fall over for no real reason. “NO BONUS”. Thanks a bunch. cock.
4th Level, back to the 1st but with mental obstacles, including a now very frequent skier that has had a rocket put up his arse and it appears he blames you for it as he blatantly aims for you at every opportunity. Rather tricky now.
Score: 18,632
Oooh, just short of 29th place who is 200 points higher. Seeing as the game before didn’t count (what!?) time for another go. Oh, now I’m really in the groove an almost perfect run on the first level (still avoiding the 1500 mind) and I breeze through the 2nd level as well. 3rd level then – NO BONUS. damn your very eyes machine! All the way to the 5th level for me this time and a great score
Score: 32,558
Although that’s only enough for 28th place I’m happy with that. I reckon with a bit more practice I could get somewhere near the top 10 with this one, but the 500,000 top score looks well out of reach. I wonder why the top 9 scores from the 80′s havent been bettered? Interesting stuff.
And that’s where the post usually ends, but not this time – i’m still playing the bugger, enjoying it more and more as I go. It may be one of the simplest games out there, but it’s one of my favorites so far I reckon. AND I finally get that fucking 1500 gate. A little hint for you, go to LEFT of the little tree in the way and then squeeze right – go on, it’s worth it.