Be Excellent To Each Other

Every week we play a fantastic 8 bit game on the CPC, C64 or Speccy. You post your best scores (with a screen cap).

Close of play is 6pm every Wednesday night. The winner for the week picks the following weeks game *but* they must not have played it properly for at least 10 years (preventing people from selecting games they know they are awesome at).

The game must have some kind of high score facility so people can easily make a screen cap. Points based games are a must, so no selecting The Hobbit.

We have a league table. Points are awarded for the top 5 scores at the end of the weeks gaming.



The Excellent 8 Bit League (sponsored by Amsoft):

Week 12 of 12

FINAL LEAGUE STANDINGS


Rank Name Points

1 - Zaphod79 - 74
2 - Chinnyhill10 - 52
3 - Malc - 36
4 - Joans - 20
5 - Dimrill - 18
6 - Mr Dom - 12
7= - Runcle - 14
7= - Devilman - 14
9 - Mr Dave 7
10= - Sheepeh - 6
10= - Jon - 6
12 - RevOwen - 3
13 - SisterCheeba- 2
14= - Craster - 1
14= - Lave - 1
14= - Gaywood - 1
14= - Myoptika - 1





Last weeks game was Beach Head on the Sinclair Spectrum

Final Scores

Joans - 66800
Mr Dom - 65800
Zaphod - 36000
Chinny - 31600
The Rev Owen - 28000
Craster - 26000
Malc - 24000





Point allocation per week

1st place - 10 points
2nd place - 6 points
3rd place - 4 points
4th place - 2 points
5th place - 1 point

Forgot to add this.

Super Pipeline 2 actually lets you say how many lives you want between 3 and (I think) 9. Leave it on the default of 3 lives. Leave the menu screen playing for 30 seconds and you will be provided with instructions.

Whats your CPC emulator of choice these days ?

And whats to stop the same person just keeping on winning ?

Winape for the PC.

Arnold for the Mac although I'm having terrible trouble trying to get it to map the joystick to the keyboard so I am restricted to games which have keyboard support.

There's also CrocoDS for the DS. Haven't tested to see if Pipeline runs though.



Nothing I suppose! But we have some decent gamers on here and we're going for games that use scoring so arcade games will be the order of the day mainly.

First attempt I scored 8835, second attempt I scored 11125.


Level 4 is a bitch!

Oooh I like this. I'll try to play.

Level 4 is such a bitch I'm going to give up on it for the evening. I can see how it can be done, but it's bloody hard to achieve.

[have edited thread title as I've realised Pipeline is a corker of a game so can't really be described as "shit"]

Well since i never had an amstrad i also needed some help in actually loading the game :-)

If anyone else needs some hints then go here : http://www.sean.co.uk/books/amstrad/emulator.shtm

Oh, sorry.

Insert the dsk image. If you don't know what the name of the main file is type "cat"

You'll then get a listing. There should be an obvious filename there normally ending in ".bas"

Pipeline is abit different. It lists one file ending in "."

So type:

Run "pipeline."

For .bas files you don't need the .bas bit at the end if running the file. .bas is rather like an exe file on a PC.



Just for note, if you can't "cat" a disc, just type |CPM and the game will load. It's an RSX command to load a CPM OS floppy but some manufacturers used it as a kind of copy protection on their games in later years.

Thanks - can i ask for an additional format to be added to the acceptable list :

Atari 8-bit (i.e. Atari 800xl) which is what i had when everyone else had a C64 :-)

Are there Mac and DS emulators though? An awful lot of people on here now emulate on their DS's.

In theory I don't see why not (my mate had an XL and I have a 7800) but we need to make sure everyone can easily play.

Theres a mac one, PSP , and a DS but the DS doesnt quite manage full speed (i didnt think the DS c64 emulators were full speed either ?)

I also found Caprice32 which seems a nicer PC emulator for the Amstrad.

Anyway heres a score for this challenge :



14405 screen 5 and a few questions

It took me a few goes to work out you can only hit the lobsters from the back
I cant seem to do anything to the nails ? (cept put one of the helpers in the way) , same for the blowtorch ?
And it was really annoying on screen 4 when my score started to go backwards (was on about 11500 and ended the screen on just over 10000 i take it this is just if you start running out of time ?)

And a final suggestion - as the owner of the thread you should probably keep track of the running scores in the first post :-)

Some baddies can only be shot from certain angles. The crabs are bastards who can only be shot from behind. IIRC nails can't be beaten. The best tip is to use your helpers as shields as when one dies another always becomes available.

When you run out of water you start to lose your points instead. When you are out of points you then lose a life. For the purposes of this challange I actually opted to commit suicide at one stage to try and preserve my score (but alas it was my worst).

Scores are in the first post now.

Can't believe you got past level 4. Am sure I did it in the 80's but today it seems impossible! I even have worked out how to do it, but just can't implement it!

I found the best thing for most levels is to find a level area and just stay there shooting both ways - when something comes twards you run away and back round - for level 4 that was a nice little area on the right hand side of the screen.

However after doing that for a while i found i had to repair the broken bit of pipe on the left and it was a pain because every time one of the little workers would start on it something would crawl up and hit them before i could shoot it (because the broken bit of pipe was right on the edge) and then my score started to go down :-)

BTW if you want to try an Atari emulator to check and see suitability this thread here :

http://s11.zetaboards.com/RetroLeague/topic/474586/

Is one I created for the first Atari game we played in the league , so theres plenty of links to various emulators and some instructions for setting them up - I dont think anyone played on a Mac for that week so would be interested to know if it you can follow the instructions and get it running

I'll have a look at that Atari Emu.

Meanwhile I wonder if our supreme overlords would be able to put details of this competition in the newsy thing at the top of the forum?

I like this idea muchly.

Count me in as well.

13175 is my new highest score, still 1000 off the best.

Level 5 is a bitch. That bloody spring thing keeps on spawning as soon as you kill it.

Woo! 17225! Level 5 is still a bitch though. Just haven't worked out what baddies are breaking the pipes and their spawn patterns.

I also discovered that another key that isn't working in Arnold is delete, so I misspelled my name on the high score.

Cock it. And I thought I'd done well too.

wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
You're shit aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

At least I don't need a spoon.

I don't. I can reverse park a trout with my hands tied behind my back.

That's not a bad score actually. How many attempts did it take and what level did you reach?

About 7 or 8, level 4 I think. Had a few goes afterwards, but couldn't even break 10k on them so turned it off in anger/disgust.

You'll come back to it.... I did.

Certain baddies break the pipes on each level and they spawn in certain places. So then it becomes a game of predicting where they will spawn and then killing them before they can do any damage.

IIRC with level 4 it's the spanner and it alternates between the left and right. But only kill it at the last possible moment as the second you kill it, it will respawn.

Do I get a "I've Got Big Tips" YS badge for that?

How about this ?



And i've more questions and suggestions for you :-)

Questions :

I've just had another go and got a score better than my last one but not as good as yours - should i even bother posting it or only post when i have the top score ?

If so whats to stop me not bothering posting all week and then post a great score last minute and win ?

Suggestions :

Maybe worth having a cutoff point before the new week starts otherwise someone is going to be very pushed to get the new thread up and details of the game (and what happens if they dont know what to pick?)

Going along with that - maybe have another thread where people can suggest some games so if someone wins and doesnt know what to pick they could choose one of those ?

If you have an interesting score, keep us updated. Everyone who is playing should keep us updated with their best scores as it gives people something to aim at. You may aim to beat one person, not just the leader.

Cut off, hmmm yes. If we close the game results 5pm on Wednesdays then we can ask the winner to put the next game up by Thursday morning. We're all retro freaks and it didn't take me more than 5 minutes to locate Pipeline. This is the advantage of keeping the challenge to the 3 major systems as most people should already have the emulators and a good idea of the catalogue of games. All 3 systems also have games available from a variety of sources.

Dunno about suggesting games but we can give it a go. However I do want to keep that 10 year rule so that a GX4000 Pang champion (e.g me) can't just suggest Pang on the GX4000 and then coast it. This does rely on peoples honesty. It doesn't matter if you played the game alot 10+ years ago, but if you had a blast on it last week then thats a no no.

I seem to be getting worse rather than better. Two more goes this morning yielded 9505 and 6225 respectively.

Hmm, that happened to me after my first decent score. Like most old school arcade games there is a breakthrough point where you can suddenly cruise levels you previously failed at.

My top tip is should your score start to decrease due to a lack of water, if the barrel is nowhere near full consider committing suicide. Reason is that this is a high score challenge and not a challenge to see how far you can get into the game.

REMINDER PEEPS!

The deadline is 6pm today. Get those scores in to stand a chance of being the win Win WINNER!!!!!!!!

I've looked all over the XBLA and can't find this anywhere. Is it in Community Games?

744 bananas.

Ouch. Damning.

I really was going to do this, but the time I set aside on Sunday to do so ended up being used on shopping with my other half, and then sulking when I returned because my emulaptop was being use by someone else.

My other half is now working Sundays until christmas though, so next week will be different. Hopefully.

Edit : Because typing in Engrish when you only speak one language makes you look thick.

Sadly this means I might win this. I know I could probably top my score as well but I actually don't want to.

Hey ho.

Well i'm out of the race at the moment - i had another few goes last night but didnt even top my previous score (level 4 is a killer) , and i'm at work now and will not get the chance to play again before the end.

Guess I'd better start thinking of games then on my drive home tonight. Perhaps something snappier that has more pick up and play appeal (although IMO Pipeline is great).

If you do win, I can probably fit in an hour or two before bedtime tonight to trying to make sure you don't win next week. Assuming you have a game in mind for the next challenge.

I'll be driving back after 6 so I should have something up by 9. Assuming someone doesn't jump in with a top score at the last moment. But I'll only think about it on my drive home.

Sadly it appears I win. Ho hum.

I'll go and find something obscure and will report back.

OK, lets go for Zynaps because it's supposed to be a cracking game and I'm pretty sure I never played it:

http://www.cpcgamereviews.com/z/index2.html

No idea if it has a high score table or not. But everyone here is honest so if it doesn't, it won't matter.

It's the CPC version again for speeds sake (as I wanted to get this up quick).



So this weeks game is Zynaps on the CPC.


GO GO GO!

Edit : Zynaps link that was here turned out to be the version with the infinite lives cheat permanently enabled. Use Chinny's link instead.

And:

http://tacgr.emuunlim.com/downloads/fil ... recid=1047



Got it downloading now. I have a version that seems to work fine and it was game over within 30 seconds so hopefully I don't stand much of a chance this week.

A quick go - 14475



Comments :

Hard to see scores on the high score table because of the scrolling
The controls seem very slugish - your spaceship handles like a brick :-)
Hold down fire to activate powerups the bouncing bomb is quite nice (no idea what any of the others are)
You cant go back so if you've passed something tough
The enemies will come in from behind you so dont let any get past
Sometimes there is only a small path to go through and the enemies dropped a bomb in there - tough your dead
The end of level boss on level 1 reminds me of a space 1999 eagle
The 2nd level with the asteroids is tough

Press 1 to re-define your keys - for some reason it doesnt like my joystick for this one (actually its quite happy with movement on there but i cant map fire to one of the buttons at the moment)

"ROLE OF HONOUR"?

I should get so far. I have a minor problem trying to redefine the keys on the Mac. Basically I can't. Grrrr,

Will have to play it under Parallels tomorrow.

Last night I managed to get up to 12,000 and something, so I'm not winning at the minute but should definitely be able to better that score in subsequent plays. But then so will everyone else so I still probably won't win.

Also found that my Emulaptop will not let me log into here long enough to post anything, so will have to transfer screenshots to my desktop to post them. Stupid bloody Vista (probably not the reason, being blamed anyway).

I use photobucket :

http://www.photobucket.com

Free and relativly simple to do (it even puts the [IMG [/IMG type tags n stuff in for you)

18850



Still not sure about the game - level 3 is a b**** , lots of small areas to try and squeeze through and there are enemy ships so when one drops a bomb it just sits and waits for you.

Also i got to the end of level one on my last man and shot away at the baddie with virtually no power ups and it just moved me onto the next level (the boss was still on screen) its almost as if its a timed thing (after shooting it you do seem to wait around a while)

Power ups also seem quite hit and miss at one point i managed to get a targeting one that put a big X on the screen which moved about but i couldn't work out how to fire it :-)

Just managed to squeeze a few minutes on it.

Best to date is a pathetic 8425. Bah

[edit] Just managed 13300.

Right, couldn't play last week due to the CPC being bloody confusing.

Realised the CPC was my friends machine of choice, so I've played quite a few games on this machine after all.

After finding out how to load a game (GRUMBLE)
After spending 3 goes pressing all teh keys to find what does what
I got 3950.

q/a b/n and apple control the game on my machine.

Which meant on my second go I held apple and q at one point and quit out. GAH!

I'll give it a another go when I get a chance.

CPC games are much nicer than I remember. They have nice strong colours and don't seem to flicker so they should really get them up on Wii Ware, I would totally pick up a few classics (once I remember what they are.

Seymour....?