MAME ROW #109 - Vigilante

[obsidianspider]

This is the MAME Random Of the Week #109

The three random numbers for this week are: 1997 669 2067

Click here to vote! Which game do you choose for MAME ROW #109?

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

1997
Game Name: Tropical Angel
Company: Irem
Year: 1983
ROM file name: troangel.zip

669
Game Name: Golden Tee Golf (Joystick, v3.1)
Company: Strata/Incredible Technologies
Year: 1990
ROM file name: gtg.zip

2067
Game Name: Vigilante (World)
Company: Irem
Year: 1988
ROM file name: vigilant.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

[backstander]

I don't know if I'll get any free time to play but Vigilante was one of my favorite games back on my handheld TurboExpress (TurboGrafx 16)!

[Thorr69]

Tropical Angel seems like a more interesting take on Night Driver (a2600 classic).

[GtBFilms]

I thought this one was going to be relatively easy, as Vigilante is a well-known game that I'd already installed (but not actually played) on my cab.

But I took a look at the others just in case...

Tropical Angel
I liked this. In my experience IREM rarely made a bad game, and although this is a pretty basic one, its' not bad for 1983 and looks pretty good. A bit of a memory game this (I guess all racing games are, whether on land or water) and I thought the ability to show off by going backwards was pretty good.

Golden Tee Golf
I've heard of the Golden Tee games, and they seem to have quite a good reputatation, but my goodness this one is SLOOOOOW. I guess perhaps at the time the graphics were amazing, but to modern eyes, it's difficult to determine what's what and waiting for each view to be slowly drawn on screen really kills the flow of the game. I'm pretty sure by 1993 there were golf games on the PC that had majestic fly pasts of each hole, albeit in a small window, so unless they were pre-rendered, either golf games came on in leaps and bounds in the early 90's or this one was always slow. (or it might be the emulation?)

Vigilante
Well of course I'd heard of this one, and kind of assumed it was something similar to Vendetta/Double Dragon etc. But when I discovered you can't actually move off the same plane, I realised this was more like it's spiritual predecessor, Kung-Fu Master. Bearing in mind this one appeared four years after that game, and about the same time as Double Dragon, I was quite disappointed with this. It sees to be stuck in an out-dated game mechanic while other horizontal scrolling fighters had moved on.

So I have surprised myself this week, as my vote goes to.....

Tropical Angel

[thelostsoul]

@GtBFilms I am quite surprised with your conclusion.
I thought everyone would vote for Vigilante, nice to see that you guys are open for all kind of games. Tee Golf is not worth talking in this context, so I had a look at Vigilante and Tropical Angel. Unfortunately I don't add any arcade games anymore on my machine (some connection issues). The racing game is interesting, as it isn't just another usual copy of other famous titles. But it looks as it wouldn't be very precise. I admit, I didn't test it. Vigilante on the other hand is popular title, easy to play for highscores and its already working on my setup. ;-) So, I shot for Vigilante (maybe finally I can enter the ring again).

It is always interesting to read the reason why someone vote for a specific game. Let's make MAME ROW great again. :p (I couldn't resist.)

[obsidianspider]

This week's winner is Vigilante

[backstander]

I played Vigilante a little bit the other night and with 1 coin I got a high score of 13590:

Just for fun I went ahead and beat the game (probably spending about $3 or so) and got a high score of 63140 (5th place) and no where near the 114500:

[GtBFilms]

Well I only managed to get onto the High Score table once, with a score of 17570.

The only 'tactic' I was able to develop was on no account fail to pick up the nunchucks, or you don't stand a chance. Especially against the guys with knives and the boss at the end of level 1, who seems to takes ages to kill. While you can couch down with the nunchuck attack for added defence against most enemies, with the boss those hits no longer register, you have to stand up and hammer the fire button to prevent him being able to retaliate.

Best score so far 17570

[obsidianspider]

MAME ROW #110 is live

[IanDaemon]

"Golden Tee Golf II" (as pictured above) is incredibly slow and tough to play. The later versions are awesome though, don't count them out!