MAME ROW #86 - Super Real Darwin

[obsidianspider]

This is the MAME Random Of the Week #86

The three random numbers for this week are: 1783 437 973

Click here to vote! Which game do you choose for MAME ROW #86?

The result of the poll is posted on Wednesday, so we have Monday and Tuesday for experimentation.

1783
Game Name: Super Real Darwin (World)
Company: Data East Corporation
Year: 1987
ROM file name: srdarwin.zip

437
Game Name: Acrobatic Dog-Fight
Company: Technos
Year: 1984
ROM file name: dogfgt.zip

973
Game Name: Vs. Mach Rider (Endurance Course Version)
Company: Nintendo
Year: 1985
ROM file name: machridr.zip

What is the MAME ROW?

MAME ROW stands for MAME Random Of the Week. We randomly select an arcade game from the 0.78 MAME Reference Set to play on the week. The idea is to play games we've never played before, interact with other forum members, post hi-scores, share game strategies, fun facts, and (the most important) HAVE FUN!

Notes:

1. We usually post hi-scores screenshots after playing with only one credit. If you used more than one credit, please mention it on your post.

2. There's no need to use RetroPie to join the MAME ROW! You can play it on any platform you want.

3. Feel free to post your hi-score (or any content about the game) anytime you want on the previous rounds topics (link below).

Every Monday we create a topic at the "General Discussion and Gaming > MAME Random Of the Week" forum section with the 3 random games to be voted. And on Wednesday we check the result.

These "rules" are constantly being improved!

Previous Rounds

[GtBFilms]

It's Tuesday morning, so time for my MAMEROW roundup!

Well I had a couple of beers while trying these last night, so be aware that my observations were made through a minor alcoholic haze.

SRD Super Real Darwin
It took me a while to find this one after I had copied it across to my mini cabinet, because it had been named 'SRD Super Real Darwin' for some reason, so isn't listed with the large number of other 'Super....' games I have. It seems to be some sort of biological-themed vertical shooter, with your ship mutating as it goes along. The music reminded me a lot of the horizontal shooter "Biohazard Battle" on the Sega Megadrive/Genesis.

BioHazard Battle, Sega Megadrive

Super Real Darwin is okay. It didn't strike me as anything special, and the morphing ship (and different bullets) aren't exciting enough to lift it above the hundreds of other identical vertical shooter games. It reminded me of the arcade machine that used to sit largely ignored in the corner of the arcade, you might stick a coin in if all the popular machines were in use, but the game is uninspiring and you would be unlikely to return to it.

Acrobatic Dog Fight
This is Time Pilot, only bigger, two years late, and not quite as good!

Time Pilot, Arcade (1982)

Having said that, I really liked it! The control mechanism is a bit odd, if you don't get enough height, then changing direction can quickly send you plummeting into the dirt. Luckily there appears to be no reason not to fly as high as possible, thus eliminating the obstacle posed by the hard ground. I like the animation of the players plane taking off - is that his feet running along the ground?! and this was a fun game to play. It suffers a little from bullets out of nowhere suddenly killing you, but the idea of being able to use a parachute button to abandon your plane at the last minute goes a little way to compensating for these unavoidable bullet issues. It could probably do with an onscreen radar of where the other planes are (it might have one which I just didn't notice) as I ended up flying around a bit aimlessly looking for targets. A decent fun game, that's a good contender this week I think.

Vs. Mach Rider
Sort of an early version of 'Road Rash' this motorbike racer combines the racing game genre with a shoot-em-up. In later years this combination worked well, I spent many hours racing and firing missiles at opponents in the early PC CD-ROM game MegaRace 2.

MegaRace 2, PC CD-ROM

So I wanted to like this one, but sadly in 1985 it looks like the hardware just wasn't up to the challenge. The racing is jerky and difficult to control, and the shooting mechanic largely pointless, as you just keep hammering the fire button, as there is no time to aim a shot. It's sadly not as much fun to play as it should be.

Interestingly though, the whole 'racing a motorboke while shooting/fighting opponents' has never gone away, with Road Redemption (which I haven't yet tried, but looks great) being the latest incarnation.

Road Redemption, PC, PS4, Xbox One

I enjoyed trying all of these ones out, they all brought back some nostalgic memories, but this week, for sheer hectic fun, my vote goes to ....

Acrobatic Dog Fight!

[obsidianspider]

This week's winner is Super Real Darwin

[GtBFilms]

@obsidianspider Bloody hell, after typing all that, I only forgot to actually vote!

Never mind, Acrobatic Dog Fight wouldn't have won anyway!

[thelostsoul]

If I was interested in, I would have voted for Dog Fight. What would happen if its a tie?

[GtBFilms]

@thelostsoul we generally give it a bit longer to see if someone else votes or failing that, use a random number generator to pick the winner I think.

[obsidianspider]

@gtbfilms said in MAME ROW #86 - Super Real Darwin:

@thelostsoul we generally give it a bit longer to see if someone else votes or failing that, use a random number generator to pick the winner I think.

Correct. With only two votes in I didn't see a reason to keep things open longer.

[GtBFilms]

Okay, not a super score, but I'll kick it off with 19320.

Still not entirely sure how the weapons power ups work on this game (white powerups seem to increase weapon power , black ones decrease it? But sometimes my laser goes back to a puny one for no apparent reason! The flamenthrower weapon seems to be the best)

What I think is the end of level 1 boss (green caterpillar thing that fires three green lasers out its tail) always kills me.

[obsidianspider]

MAME ROW #87 is live