Be Excellent To Each Other

Last few hours to get those scores in!

May the best man (or lady) win.

I'm determined to take part in the next one, honest!

23300

17000

23100

Malc

23600

Malc

24600

Malc

Damn you!

Looks like you are picking next weeks game (unless someone posts a better score in the next 40 minutes). Please pick something good!

I'll need to check up on the rules.

Malc

fuck sake I finally got to the second level and my score was worse than my top one.

CPC Speccy or C64

You can't have played the game on the format you choose for at least 10 years.

Game must have an easily recordable high score facility.

If you find a game that runs on Java in a browser, that's aces, but not essential.

Simple games seem to attract more players. See Eric and the Floaters and Splat which had loads.

That's it.

If you are stuck for titles I'd possibly suggest Mined Out on the Speccy if it has a high score facility.

Likewise. The further I got the worse the scored. I seemed to do better once I acquired the knife.

Same here. I achieved my score by waiting for the 2:45 on each life to run out and just blatting zombage on the first levels.

League Table Update:

The Excellent 8 Bit League (sponsored by Amsoft):

Week 8 of 12

Rank Name Points

1 - Zaphod79 - 56
2 - Chinnyhill10 - 42
3 - Dimrill - 18
4= - Runcle - 14
4= - Devilman - 14
6 - Malc 10
7 - Mr Dave 7
8= - Sheepeh - 6
8= - Jon - 6
10 - Mr Dom - 4
11 - SisterCheeba- 2
12= - Craster - 1
12= - Lave - 1
12= - Gaywood - 1
12= - Myoptika - 1
12= - RevOwen - 1

Where has Jon gone? He hasn't been around for ages, it seems.

I thought that was a 'no no'

It occurs to me that we probably need some kind of prize. Something I need to think about!

No no? I was going for highscore for super best fun time, rather than story for super bost fun time.

Probably although you are against a time limit (although I'd not noticed as I'd never survived that long). Next time around (when we reset the league) I have a few ideas to jiggle things up. We have nowt in the rules about how to play at the moment.

I would like to choose Harrier Attack, Ideally on the CPC as that's the version I had as child, but afaik the only java version is the spectrum one. So I'll let Chinny decide which one to go with.

If we go with the cpc version, then winape is a pretty good pc emulater (http://www.winape.net) and you can get the disk image for the game from http://www.freeroms.com/download.php3?g ... trad%20CPC

The controls are:

Numerical Keyboard

Take off & up = .
Down = ENTER
Fire Rocket = 0

Main Keyboard

Bomb Drop = SPACE BAR
Ejector Seat = ESC
Slower = Z
Faster = X

Malc

As far as I'm aware, the CPC version was a quickly converted port from the Speccy version so Amstrad could have it ready for launch. Since we can play the Speccy version online, lets go for that.

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseek.cgi?regexp=Harrier+Attack

Click the 48k icons for the Java versions

Should hopefully do well at this as this was the first computer game I ever clapped eyes on!

What skill level should we play at? 1?

[post edited as we've changed plans]

What are the keys for that, I can take off and fly, and jettison, but can't fire missiles or bombs?

Don't mind which level really.

Malc

In the Java emulator select Curser joystick and use 9 and 0 for rockets and bombs. Seems to work.

STOP PRESS!

Just playing the Speccy version and it's cut down from the CPC version that actually makes it less suitable for our needs. Let me just check the CPC version!

Aw man, the CPC version is considerably better than that.



Malc

HURRAY!

Malc

Ok.

This weeks download instructions

CPC version is far better.

Download from here:

http://tacgr.emuunlim.com/downloads/filedetail.php?recid=415

Full instructions here:

http://www.cpczone.net/game/435

And we're going to play level 2.

Emulator here if needed:

http://www.winape.net

To load the game insert the disc image into the CPC then type:

run "harrier

(CPC's aren't fussed about the closing quote mark, Chinnytrufax!).

20340 (bastard cruiser got my just before I landed)

Malc

Just as a matter of interest, when people do their screen caps of the high score table, try and get the whole lot in as it will be interesting to compare "hit" stats for willy waving purposes.

29680

(crashed into 3rd plane on 2nd go round)

Malc

37080

Got taken out by some flack in one of the high sections just before the city. Gah, should have been moving faster through there I suppose.

It's the first game I ever saw, and probably the first one I played. Having not played it for years and years I found it easy to get straight back into the rhythm of shooting the planes down, but had totally forgotten that Harrier Attack is deeper than just shooting planes down. The real points are scored by bombing the city but for more points you need to go slower and lower which increases the risk of being shot down.

Not to mention the bastard planes hiding behind clouds and having the manage your fuel. For such a simplistic looking game, some thought went into it.

And yeah, the CPC version blows the Speccy version away. What was I thinking!

91700

Crashed into a plane near the end of the city on the 3rd run through

Malc

Too busy bombing the hell out of the city to notice a plane homing in on you? Yep, I know that feeling well!

127380!

There is no sky on that level! I crashed into the first plane I saw

Malc

Holy moses!

I loved this game as a kid.

I would battle my brother for ages playing this, taking it in turns and so on. It was my first pirate game! (my cousin gave me a c90 stuffed with cpc games with a postit note with all the counter readings where each game started)

Malc

I sold my CPC for £100 with all my games when I got my A1200. (release month) I have maybe played Harrier Attack 4 times since then, about 2 or 3 years ago. I don't think I managed to successfully land on the carrier once back then...

Malc

Well i've seen the game before but this is the first time i've played it

18900

Bah, I'm having a job bettering my score. Seem to keep being randomly shot down by flack at the end of the city just before I get back to the carrier.

fly around the flack?

Malc

A better score from me :



23370

I did spend a few goes seeing if i could destroy that first enemy boat - 3 hits seems to the best i can do on it but flying into whats left kills me (I've noticed that using the missiles to take out tanks they need 2 shots where as the gun thingies just need one)

Some Top Tips from me...

1) FLy as fast as you can until you get to the city, then slow down whilst you drop your load
2) Do not bomb the tanks/AA Guns, use missiles only
3) Fly as low as you can at all times, when the enemy plane comes to you, wait till he is in range, then fire your missile, climb to avoid his missile, and hopefully yours will kill him. If it doesn't then climb above him and drop a bomb on his head (This and the boat at the begining are the only reasons to use the bombs before the city)

That's how I do it anyway.

Malc

77100.

Ran out of fuel about half a screen from the carrier. Tried to eject but knocked a glass of wine over in the process.

I'll add to this:

1 - Do what Malc says but remember there is a payoff between speed and how much ammo you are carrying in terms of fuel use.
2 - The easy points are at the city so ignore the tanks 'n stuff you see before you get there.
3 - I prefer to fly high and do the opposite, but obviously this means you can't bomb them from above.
4 - On the later levels don't get distracted by carpet bombing the city at a slow speed as you may be low on fuel!

cba to load emulator for this, so this is Runc's chance to FUCK my third place out of my hands.

Don't understand!

"Cannot be ars*d"

Tsk, lazy Dimrill. Takes about a minute to sort out and doesn't even install nasties to your hard disk. Just extract the zip file and you are away.

http://www.winape.net/

shush, he'll probably get a better score than me, dont expect any scores off me til tuesday or wednesday though, I had a quick go of the speccy one before, im useless.