MAME ROW #82 - Crazy Balloon

[thelostsoul]

What a luck! Today I watched a video from Angry Videogame Nerd and saw they playing Crazy Balloon. Apparently it looks like an Atari 2600 version. But look here how fun it is: That part with this game starts at 3m19s

[GtBFilms]

I got a chance to try these out last night.

Crazy Balloon is very impressive for 1980 - it plays a lot more like an 8-bit home micro game than an arcade game, but it's smooth and responsive. You never feel that you've been cheated, popping the balloon is always your own fault. It has that 'just one more go' factor as well, as you are sure you can do better next time.

Pirates appears to be a straight clone of the Taito 1988 game Cabal. Despite being produced six years later than Cabal, it doesn't really seem to add anything else to the formula, other than it has replaced soldiers with pirates. According to the web, Pirates is actually a clone of an earlier game 'Wild Guns', although that seems to have less destroyable terrain. This sort of game has been done many times before (Blood Bros. from 1990 is another good example). While Pirates is competent, it's instantly forgettable for me.

After waiting ages for Super Astro Fighter to start, while watching the slowest countdown in the world, I'm not sure it was worth the wait. Coming a couple of years after Galaxian, this is an equally fast paced shooter, but there's something very odd happening with the screen - it might be an emulation thing, but I think that blue road is supposed to be some sort of runway, and your ship is taking off, but the illusion is shattered by the fact you can't move up or down, only side to side. The enemy bullets are tricky to see on my cabinet, and although it plays at a decent speed, it's nothing special. I don't know if I can be bothered waiting through that initialization countdown to ever play it again, so unfortunately this one isn't getting my vote this week.

This week my vote goes for the game which is a little bit different, and impressive for it's time - I vote for Crazy Balloon!

[thelostsoul]

@gtbfilms Me too. The mame2003 version have audio issues. Couldn't try it out yet, maybe today. What type of issues is it, can you tell? I read it in the compatibility list from Docs page.

[GtBFilms]

@thelostsoul Didn't notice any sound issues. Although it's not exactly musical, just sort of spot-effects. Perhaps I'm missing sound effects/music without realising.

[obsidianspider]

This week's winner is Crazy Balloon

[GtBFilms]

This game definitely has that "just one more try" element to it.

I discovered a couple of things - going for the trickier coloured routes pays off in a lot more points if you manage it, also when your balloon bursts, it takes the spikes which burst it with it, so they no longer appear for the next balloon, which makes a route you previously failed, slightly easier.

I only got to the third screen, but my best was one where I died on screen 2.

Best so far:

7340

[GtBFilms]

As I say, that one more try element:

13180

[markwkidd]

@thelostsoul said in MAME ROW #82 - Crazy Balloon:

films Me too. The mame2003 version have audio issues. Couldn't try it out yet, maybe today. What type of issues is it, can you tell? I read it in the compatibility list from Docs page.

This is the kind of bug report we would be interested in for mame2003-plus.

I have no idea at all if it's possible to backport a fix, but this would be a good moment to investigate if you can describe the symptoms here: https://github.com/libretro/mame2003-plus-libretro/issues

[obsidianspider]

It was a busy Monday morning for me, so it's a bit late, but MAME ROW #83 is live!

[thelostsoul]

@gtbfilms Man this game is hard. You are doing really good. Tried it out today (I have to admit, I forgot this game, because I was playing something else). I have trouble to control it precisely like on a gamepad, because I use an arcade stick on arcade games. What input do you guys use? I think, i made it to screen 3 without losing a live and lost all lives on first obstacle. Tuncay is me, my real name. Well done on your score.

7960 / Stage 3

[GtBFilms]

@thelostsoul I'm using my homebuilt Heath Robinson Golden Axe controller!

However I noticed from pictures of the original cab that it actually used buttons, not a joystick.

Thanks for the comments on my score - getting through the red zone on the first two screens gains you a lot of points. And actually they are relatively easy once you get the timing.