MAME ROW #165 - Captain America and The Avengers

[IanDaemon]

Captain America and The Avengers is a guilty pleasure. I'm a sucker for beat 'em ups.

[IanDaemon]

This is a "small sprite" beat 'em up, but I like how the high score screen shows you which superhero was used and how many credits were used!

[AdamBeGood]

SFAlpha for me, although I do like Cap America also. Hard to look past those two games here.

[thelostsoul]

While I am a Street Fighter by nature, I don't know how well this kind of games work playing for highscores. It's not an easy decision and would even don't mind playing Golf.

[IanDaemon]

I actually play a lot of video game golf, although it's Golden Tee. I have a full sized cabinet in the basement. I retrofitted it with a Raspberry Pi and there are four or five GT games that run on the 3B+.

[obsidianspider]

This week's winner is Captain America and The Avengers

[thelostsoul]

@IanDaemon That sounds cool. I assume you play the Golf games with a Trackball. I really need to get one too one day, too many arcade games require one or are better and closer experience to the original.

@obsidianspider Well okay, let's get things rolling. Captain America looks quite fun so far. Love these posters. Here is the How To Play section from the owners manual:

• How To Play Captain America and The Avengers-Owners Manual High quality version

[IanDaemon]

I like seeing all the details about Captain America & The Avengers. Thanks for that @thelostsoul ! There is a two-player option in the ROM although there isn't any mention of the 2p/4p dip switch setting in the flyer. (maybe in the top left corner of the pink image) I never saw this four player version in real life.

[pjft]

Unsure if these are still played like before, but thanks for setting this up - it's been a while since I last played any of the MAME ROW games for lack of time but I'm glad I gave this one a shot.

I like beat'em ups, though I'm more partial to the Capcom ones, with Final Fight and Knights of the Round probably being the ones I've played the most from this era. As such, I was never attracted by the small graphics in this game.

It is I fun game, I played it for a bit today and my top score was 68.400 I didn't make the high score tables, and I expect to do better as I play more, but thought I'd kick this off.

I can't upload the pictures on my phone, as the pictures are larger than the forum upload limit but up happily upload tomorrow, unless I get a better score in the meantime.

EDIT: now with picture.

[IanDaemon]

Single player, on one quarter, normal difficulty, I get about 15,900. :(

[pjft]

@IanDaemon It isn't as easy as I thought it'd be - especially coming from games where grabbing opponents is automatic.

Definitely leverage the long-range weapon (A+B) as much as possible, and grab objects and throw them. In the beginning I get rid of the enemies with the shield, then grab the coke dispenser and drop it on the enemy with a shield, grab the other object, walk to the right and throw it to the enemy that has an extendable arm when it shows.

Then it's a bit more messy, but I think I can get the hang of it. This place where I died, though, is the one I have a hard time moving past. I usually finish level 1 with 30-50 HP, but then it's hard.

[thelostsoul]

After trying countless times over and over again, I finally beat the first boss once. One major problem I have with this game is, that even when I got one enemy, he would still be able to attack me. I also quickly found out that running away and shooting seems to be very effective. And try to take and throw every stone or other stuff lying around, as they give you little points too. Let's see how far we can get.
@pjft your score is far away to me right now, an early nightmare. Not bad. And BTW yes, we play the same rules still, no use of Continue.

Score: 42200

[pjft]

@thelostsoul Well, I die shortly after that scene - after this you get to a flying shooter section which is quite nice but I die :)

We'll keep trying!

[Protocultor]

I'm late to the party, but...
If you want the safe and slow route, pick Iron Man or Vision and jump, then attack with no direction, with the joystick in neutral. Your character shoots downwards at a 45º angle, useful for attacks from above, at a safe height. You can move anywhere with the jump, before and after the attack, but the attack itself must be done without direction. Cap and Hawkeye execute a divekick, which may be unsafe depending on where you fall. It's in the instructions posted by @thelostsoul as "Jump and attack", but most people just pull off "Diving attacks" since it's not common in these kind of games to return direction to neutral. IIRC it can be done more than once in a jump, but my memories are kind of fuzzy (maybe I need to refresh them...)
When confronting mobs with no distance attacks, ramming onto them is generally safe (double tap joystick left or right + attack).
In the shooting stages, when playing 2 players (or more), it's practical that both stay together and one shoots while the other defends (leave attack pressed).

This is one of the 3 games that I remember having 1cc'd back in the day. Good times.

[thelostsoul]

@Protocultor Thanks for the advices. I am not used to play this kind of games, so its extra hard to me. Am I doing it wrong attacking single enemies with normal punches, then while I am attacking him, he attacks me. I always assumed it would be an "uninterruptible combo". Either my execution is slow or it works differently here and after each hit I have to go back for safety. The diving attacks are good against multiple enemies, but jump-lasers are safer against single enemies. Need to train with this neutral direction method, as my muscle memories always tend to use directions while jumping.

1CC (1 continue clear, for those who don't know what this means) on this game is quite remarkable. Don't know how long it takes and how crazy it gets, but that's a true achievement from what I can tell so far. A bit off topic, which are the other two games?

[Protocultor]

@thelostsoul said in MAME ROW #165 - Captain America and The Avengers:

@Protocultor Thanks for the advices. I am not used to play this kind of games, so its extra hard to me. Am I doing it wrong attacking single enemies with normal punches, then while I am attacking him, he attacks me. I always assumed it would be an "uninterruptible combo". Either my execution is slow or it works differently here and after each hit I have to go back for safety. The diving attacks are good against multiple enemies, but jump-lasers are safer against single enemies. Need to train with this neutral direction method, as my muscle memories always tend to use directions while jumping.

Yeah, the Capcom route here doesn't work, keep you distance and always go for special moves ("Fire weapon" and "Jump and attack" mainly, but also "Ram"). Trying to grab someone is the only situation where you should be standing next to an standing enemy. Also, IIRC, this game does not have a time limit, or any kind of punishment for taking too long, so take all the time you need to work on the enemies' health (this is extremely rare for an arcade game).

@thelostsoul said in MAME ROW #165 - Captain America and The Avengers:

1CC (1 continue clear, for those who don't know what this means) on this game is quite remarkable. Don't know how long it takes and how crazy it gets, but that's a true achievement from what I can tell so far. A bit off topic, which are the other two games?

Not in this game, it's super easy when you "get it", when you get accustomed to how it plays; just forget Capcom paradigms and you'll at least get very far. Besides, it's not a long game at all.

The other 2 games are Aliens and World Heroes. The first is also easy when you "get it", and the second I wasn't even trying, just spam "punch" with Dragon and you're done :)

[obsidianspider]

MAME ROW #166 is now live

[IanDaemon]

This is the only "beat 'em up" I put on my cocktail cabinet. I use a split-screen shader for simultaneous two-player. It's different from what I'm used to (being a non-Capcom-beat-em-up), but I like it. Thanks MAME RoW for re-introducing me!