MAME ROW #16 - Mystic Riders

[meleu]

This is the 16th MAME Random Of the Week

The three random numbers for this week are: 1160, 334 and 1591

1160
Game Name: Mystic Riders (World)
Company: Irem
Year: 1992
ROM file name: mysticri.zip

334
Game Name: Crackshot (version 2.0)
Company: Exidy
Year: 1985
ROM file name: cracksht.zip

1591
Game Name: Super Bagman
Company: Valadon Automation
Year: 1984
ROM file name: sbagman.zip

Please vote: http://www.strawpoll.me/12067475

We will check the most voted game on Wednesday. So we have Monday and Tuesday for experimentations.

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 ROMset 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!

There's no need to use RetroPie to join the MAME ROW! You can play it on any platform you want.

Every Monday we create a topic at the "General Discussion and Gaming" forum section with the 3 random games to be voted. And on Wednesday we check the results.

The current week's game thread is just where there are more people interacting/talking about the game(s). Feel free to post your hi-score (or any content about the game) anytime you want on the previous "rounds" topics (links below).

These "rules" are constantly being improved!

Explaining the randomness of the process

I took the 0.78 compatibility list and applied the following filters (in this order):

1. Parent: (empty)
2. Rpi 3 Status: (empty), OK, Untested
3. Rpi 2 Status: OK, Untested
4. Rpi 1 Status: Untested
5. Manufacturer: clear the "bootleg" checkbox

Saved a new spreadsheet with only the results of those filters here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13Q7QEqV5lUo662nvAC3zS_AvQvsjspEcGHVhaHcyzbI/edit?usp=sharing

And then went to www.random.org and generated a random number between 2 and 2185 (ignoring 1 because of the column headers).

Links to the previous "rounds"

• Phoenix (not randomly chosen)
• New Rally-X (not randomly chosen)

1. Bosconian
2. Blue's Journey / Raguy
3. Lizard Wizard
4. 4-D Warriors
5. Raiga - Strato Fighter
6. Pang!
7. Air Duel
8. Pac & Pal
9. Puyo Puyo 2
10. Forgotten Worlds
11. Moon Cresta
12. Frenzy
13. Wanted
14. Cop 01
15. Aliens

[lilbud]

I guess I'll do videos this week.

Mystic Riders:

Crackshot can't be played due to the nature of the machine you need the gun controller

Super Bagman:

[GtBFilms]

Excellent!

I've seen Mystic Riders before and it looks like a cute game.

Shall we redraw game number 2, seeing as probably very few people will be able to play it?

I'm not overly fussed though, as the two playable options both look good!

[obsidianspider]

I think we can just choose between the two playable options, but I'll defer to the group if there is a lot of support for re-choosing that option.

[obsidianspider]

Mystic Riders crashes for me as soon as the first stage starts when using lr-mame2003. I switched to lr-mame2010 and with that emulator the game runs fine.

[meleu]

@GtBFilms said in MAME ROW #16:

Shall we redraw game number 2, seeing as probably very few people will be able to play it?

We discussed about it on MAME ROW #4. And decided that when this kind of things happen we'll leave the list as it was sorted by the random numbers.

When it's clear that the game is a quiz or a mahjong I usually discard the game and mention it on the post.

I think it fits the K.I.S.S. principle.

[meleu]

@obsidianspider said in MAME ROW #16:

Mystic Riders crashes for me as soon as the first stage starts when using lr-mame2003.

It didn't happen here. I'm using mame2003 and reached the stage 2 with no crash.

Nice game, by the way.

[UDb23]

Bagman: used to play it with a friend after school, waiting for the bus to get back home.
High School ;-)

[UDb23]

(Slightly) off topic: recently found really nice Bezels made by Comboman for quite rare (in terms of original cabinets) Universal games.
Asked him and it is ok if I use them to create Retropie "adaptations"....
expect some new overlays coming ;-)

[GtBFilms]

I gave both Super Bagman and Mystic Riders a try last night.

Super Bagman is an odd one, it wasn't bad but strikes me as the sort of game I used to play on my home micro (8 bit ZX Spectrum), it isn't what I have come to expect from an arcade game at all. It requires a lot more planning and thought that a traditional arcade coin-gobbler, and doesn't really seem to have a 'flow' to it.

That said, I didn't dislike it.

Mystic Riders, while not perhaps an IREM classic, does look excellent. Perhaps just a little too busy at times, it doesn't have the pure visual clarity of earlier titles like R-Type, and suffers a little from the 'unexpected death from a bullet I didn't notice' syndrome. Button-mashing both buttons at once seems to work well when things get chaotic, which does detract a little from the feeling of skill in playing.

For pure arcade-style play, and the fact it does look really nice, my vote this week goes to Mystic Riders!

[meleu]

Grab your brooms and let's shoot some cute enemies!

[obsidianspider]

A few tips I've figured out:

You can charge up your shot by holding down A (using the default controller bindings), and if you press Down then Up quickly you'll do a backflip.

The "I got killed by a thing I didn't see because of everything going on" factor is strong with this game.

[meleu]

@obsidianspider I think you and @GtBFilms got one of those Usopp's diseases. :-)

(He is an One Piece's character.)

[obsidianspider]

@meleu I definitely had to Google "Usopp" ;)

[meleu]

@obsidianspider One of the most frequently used excuses when he's scared is that he gets a disease named, for example, "I-can't-go-on-this-island-or-I'll-die-disease".

One Piece is really fun manga. I started reading it when I got the I-have-a-kid-and-I-can-use-this-as-an-excuse-to-read-mangas disease.

[lilbud]

@meleu I tried reading manga, I just can't. It hurts my brain after a while.

[meleu]

@lilbud does it happen because you have to read/turn pages from right to left? You'll get used to it after a while...

[lilbud]

@meleu Yeah, I can't do that. I have tried several times.

[backstander]

When I was in grade school I picked up this odd habit of browsing through magazines in reverse. Like I would open at the back of the magazine and flip through the pages moving towards the front and I would stop at the articles I wanted to read, then when done with that article, I would keep moving towards the front. I had forgotten about this until @meleu mentioned "read/turn pages from right to left". I mostly did this when I was waiting at the doctor's office or wherever.

[GtBFilms]

@meleu I had never heard of usopp before, but you're right, I definitely have that disease!

In the words of Tony Hancock, "Hypochondria is about the only disease I'm pretty sure I DON'T have"

Here's my-best-score-so-far score!

151700

For some reason the screenshot won't upload though. (edit: was Firefox weirdness, it worked using Chrome instead)

I've replaced the screen on my cabinet with a 12 inch rather than an 8 inch which makes things a bit easier to see!