MAME ROW #10 - Forgotten Worlds

meleu

there's a lot of weapon upgrades available that I never got anywhere near.

didn't you go shopping?!

GtBFilms

@meleu I did, but could only afford the economy homing missiles - the story of my life!

:-)

GtBFilms

Did anyone else have problems with the high score list saving in this one? I have the hiscore.dat sitting in /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/mame2003/ as specified in the wiki, and there is file for the game in /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/arcade/mame2003/hi/, but for some reason it doesn't remember the high score table between sessions.

Other games rememeber the high score table fine.

Not a major issue, just odd.

I played this again for a while last night and still can't beat my 1-credit score, but I did give myself a stack of credits to get a bit further and after buying the 'every direction fire' gun at the second shop, the whole game gets a whole lot easier.

I suspect the first stages are harder than originally designed because I'm not using the correct hardware. It takes the guy quite a long time to turn round, and I think a 2-joystick control method like Robotron 2064 would have worked better for emulation.

It's still an enjoyable game though. Nice powerups and just enough mayhem going on at the same time without becoming too chaotic!

pjft

I got back late last night, will still try to play this today or during this week and see how it goes and report back. I've always been curious about this game - only played the ZX Spectrum version back in the day.

Cheers!

meleu

Let's go to the next round:
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/5864/mame-row-11

pjft

Just to close this off: oh my, this was one of those games where I thought it'd be a lot more fun to play than it ended up being :O

I didn't know that the aiming was more than 8 directions - this makes it a lot more complicated, as it's hard to aim. Furthermore, it's quite a hard game, so yes, I can see why there was little engagement.

Great scores @GtBFilms - my best was between a miserable 10k and 15k before I gave up on it.

On to this week then!

VictimRLSH

Been a LONG time since I played this game, but it is one of my all-time favorites, and using the shoulder buttons in place of the dial was tricky, hence the lame score (for me) for 161K.

This game only APPEARS hard because there are two very important points which are not obvious.

You have a smart bomb. Release the fire button momentarily, then quickly double tap. This consumes a relatively small amount of energy, but destroys all projectile weapons and many weaker enemies instantly.
YOU HAVE AN INDESTRUCTIBLE SHIELD!!! Once you buy your first secondary weapon in the first shop, it rotates around your character and can not only fire, but will block all bullets, fireballs (not large flames), arrows, SMALL missiles, etc. It will not block lasers, eyebeams, dragon's breath, large missiles, fists or other physical boss attacks, and 'arcs'.

Whatever controls you use for your rotation, practice just blocking shots with it and don't fire. Save state right after you buy the aux weapon, then keep practicing just blocking fire (isn't it nice to be able to 'train' without wasting quarters...) This might also be a good time to mention that you shouldn't use any kind of autofire on your controller or map the rotation buttons to fire at the same time.

You'll notice there are two ways to block shots. You can release the fire button and rotate the aux weapon to block fire from any direction, or if you are firing and the weapon is held stationary relative to your character's position, you can move your character so the weapon blocks the fire.

This weapon is not only indestructible, it can't be blocked either. You can align it directly in front of you and stick it right through columns, force fields, walls, pipes, etc. and it will fire at whatever is on the other side. EDIT: This is how you kill the 4th boss. It looks like a retarded parakeet with its wings clipped, and if you stick your secondary weapon through the pillars 'protecting' it and shoot it in the neck, it dies like one too.

In the shop ALWAYS buy healing and the life extending hearts. In the 3rd shop you will have a chance to buy a potion of resurrection which is essentially a free credit, or a huge firepower powerup. Either is a good choice, but you will not have the money for both. I usually go for the firepower. Armor is cheap, always buy that if it is available. You can find armor often hidden in the game.

Speaking of hidden things, there are a LOT of things. If it moves or fires, you can eventually kill it with enough fire. Near the end of the game there are force field generators that cough up a coin bigger than your character that is worth 10K zenny. There are other gigantic bonuses hidden throughout the game.

This game is seriously worth another try if you were writing it off as too hard.

VictimRLSH

This will have to do, can't get much better than this without a dial. Just after the 7th boss.

pjft

@VictimRLSH Umm... err... uhh...

...if you did this in a single credit, you do have to understand that your score is 17x higher than @GtBFilms 's one of 40k :D

I think you're in a totally different league to us, but looking forward to having you play the current ROWs as I'm sure I'll learn a lot from your experience and expertise :)

VictimRLSH

Like many games, FW zeroes out the high score if you continue using credits. There ARE extra life items in the game that don't affect score, but are part of the gameplay anyway. If you DO buy the Ressurection Potion in the 3rd shop, you will have a VERY hard time killing the Dust Dragon and will wind up wasting it anyway. I have had truly great games when I've been lucky enough to buy the potion AND kill the dragon without using it up before the 4th shop. The dragon itself is a joke but the warriors it spits out are very heavily armored and you can't kill them without the main gun powerup before they get to you and you have to dodge them and block their shots.

I've tried taking videos using Retroarch's record function, but it slows WAAAAAAAAAAY down and hangs. Is there a better way to record video directly on the Pi?

This game gets really easy after the 3rd boss, which happens to be the God of War from the intro that destroys your homeworld. The bosses on 4,5, and 6 can all be gimmicked to death and the regular rounds on 4,5,6 and 7 have fewer enemies and the terrain is much more forgiving. The game doesn't try to kick your ass again until the boss on 7. THAT is when I wish I'd bought and managed to keep that potion... The regular round on 8 is insane hard, which is where I died in that high score game.

VictimRLSH

Might be able to do better if I can save the 2nd resurrection potion for a bit longer. I also should NOT have upgraded to the Balkan gun, as the old laser can hit the tails of the flaming claw snake things even through the segments, but the Balkan gun shells are stopped.

Once you get through the regular round on lvl 8, the bosses on 8 and 9 are really easy. The regular round on 10 is all space stuff from Hyperdyne SideArms and will end you if you don't have a LOT of health to smart bomb stuff with, or a 2nd player's aux gun to block more fire.