MAME ROW #146 - No Man's Land

[obsidianspider]

This is the MAME Random Of the Week #146

The three random numbers for this week are: 326 308 1582 1207 1594

Click here to vote! Which game do you choose for MAME ROW #146?

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

326
Game Name: Cotton Boomerang
Company: Success
Year: 1998
ROM file name: cottonbm.zip

308
Game Name: Columns (US)
Company: Sega
Year: 1990
ROM file name: columns.zip

1582
Game Name: Samurai Shodown IV - Amakusa's Revenge / Samurai Spirits - Amakusa Kourin
Company: SNK
Year: 1996
ROM file name: samsho4.zip
BIOS: neogeo

1207
Game Name: No Man's Land
Company: Universal
Year: 1980
ROM file name: nomnlnd.zip

1594
Game Name: Sonic Blast Man (Japan)
Company: Taito Corporation
Year: 1990
ROM file name: sbm.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!

We're still working things out with the new MAME ROW structure. We will play the winner all next week.

Previous Rounds

[IanDaemon]

I voted for the horizontal shooter even though I'm not good at them. Vertical shooters are fun. Horizontal shooters just have my number. I gotta get better at them.

[obsidianspider]

This week's winner is No Man's Land

[GtBFilms]

I've not had a lot of time for the MAMEROW over the last 8 months, sorry about that. I like the new format though, much better chance of not getting stuck with a stinker!

Managed to sneak an hour or so last night though, and gave some of these a try.

Cotton Boomerang runs very poorly on my pi, using Mame2003, really choppy menu system, then the game seemed to play on a quarter of the screen. Too slow to be playable, which was a shame, as I liked the look of it. It reminded me of Mystic Riders way back in MAMEROW#16.

Columns - ugh, I just can't get into these gem matching games.

Samurii Shodown IV - this looks interesting, I had a quick go and it seemed quite good. No match on StreetFighter 2 of course, but I'll have to spend some more time on this one to learn some of the moved.

Sonic Blast Man - I never got past the menu screens, it looks like I'm going to have to fiddle with button mappings. Looks interesting though.

No Man's Land - considering this one is from 1980, I don't think it looks at all bad. No sound on my version, but the game plays fine. Only issue with this is the enemy tank AI seems to be as dumb as a box of rocks. On game 3 I 'discovered' the tactic of hiding beside a tree, and taking out the enemy tanks as they move into range. This tactic is made even more effective by the fact that the player can fire diagonally but the enemy tanks can't. So basically you can shoot them before they have a change to line up and shoot you. If the enemy tanks co-ordinated their attack, they could get round this, but in the 10 or so levels I played, they never seemed to be that organised.

I know that the dormant tanks at the top are worth double points, which I guess is supposed to tempt you into trying to get up the screen to them, but trying to navigate to them seemed too risky. Instead I took the slow and steady 'hide behind a tree approach' and got a score of 20,600.

It took quite a while though. I guess a 10p credit went a long way back in 1980!

P.S. I found an English version of the promotional flyer:

[GtBFilms]

I worked out a new tactic!

Go to the bottom left as soon as the level starts, hang about for a while to draw the enemy tanks to the left of the screen. Don't shoot any. The enemy shots have a limited range so you can sit there safe until they start to come downwards.

Once they get in range , go right and make your way up to the dormant tanks at the top. You can usually take out a decent number of these before the live tanks catch up. Diagonal shots are particularly useful here.

Once the live tanks arrive at the top, get down to the trees again, shooting any live tanks in your way. Now play chicken round the trees taking advantage of the fact you have diagonal fire and the enemy does not.

My new high score : 42550

[IanDaemon]

Nice. I want to get this on my cocktail cabinet.

[cyperghost]

@GtBFilms Well my score is just around 10k ;)
Fr far away from yours ... keep trying!
This games remebers me to "Battle City" on the GB/NES ;)

[cyperghost]

@GtBFilms The trick is to shot the tanks in upper row right before they get activated. My score is now round about 15k ;)

[obsidianspider]

MAME ROW #147 is live!