MAME ROW #162 - Spy Hunter

VictimRLSH

@IanDaemon said in MAME ROW #162 - Spy Hunter:

Spy Hunter was big in the arcades due to its great controls at the time. I never saw the "sit down" cabinet in real life.

If Spy Hunter 2 shows up people may run for the hills. That's supposedly one of the worst arcade games ever made. I never saw the sequel in arcades.

Spy Hunter 2 was indeed quite horrible. That was another cabinet I wish I could have kitted, but there was absolutely NOTHING in the way of kits that would fit the custom cabinet.

IanDaemon

@VictimRLSH

Spy Hunter II
Photo: https://www.arcade-museum.com/images/118/118124217275.jpg
Info: https://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=9743

VictimRLSH

@IanDaemon Yeah, that's the cabinet, and you can see why there were no kits that would work with it. It DID function on one monitor with a divider, so it would have been possible to remove the divider and replace the wheel panel with a stick panel. IIRC the sound system was crap too. The original Spy Hunter had an awesome soundtrack pumped through a decent sound system.

obsidianspider

MAME ROW #163 is live!

IanDaemon

I got 10,950, but most of my time was trying to get a decent control scheme. (I don't have a spinner/wheel/analog controller.)

That score didn't even get me on the high score list.

VictimRLSH

@IanDaemon There was an infinite play trick to SH2 that involved keeping your car on the lower right side and at a slower speed so you automatically wheel blade everything trying to come up behind you.

pjft

I loved Spy Hunter on the Spectrum, but the MAME version's controls are awfully finicky unfortunately. @IanDaemon - what was your control scheme?

I'll still go back to the ZX Spectrum version these days, but I'd take other recommendations :)

IanDaemon

@pjft An eight-way joystick with buttons remapped in RA.

pjft

@IanDaemon got it. From my recollection I think the acceleration and wheel were too sensitive for it to be reliable to control for me, but I'll give it a shot. Mame 2003? FBA?

IanDaemon

@pjft lr-fbneo

barbudreadmon

Might be worth mentioning it, spy hunter's emulation in FBNeo is "enhanced" : the original cabinet had off-screen notifications, in FBNeo they were turned into on-screen icons, it might improve playability.

IanDaemon

@barbudreadmon I did not know/remember that. It's been a looooong time since I played an actual cab. XD

VictimRLSH

Oddly enough one of the best ports of Spy Hunter was for PalmOS. You controlled the speed and position of the car with stylus taps and used the bottom buttons for the weapons. Was a very nice version.