MAME ROW #93 - Out Run

[youxia]

What is a Cannonball?

[GtBFilms]

@youxia

https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Cannonball/

https://github.com/djyt/cannonball/wiki/Cannonball-Manual

Basically someone has rewritten Cannoball in portable C++. It uses the original Outrun ROMS for the tracks/music etc. But they have also enhanced the graphics, improved the frame rate, etc.

It basically looks like you might expect Outrun to look if it was released on more modern hardware.

They have also fixed some glitches which are present on the MAME ROM/original machine - you can replace a sound file with one that isn't corrupted (to be honest I've never noticed the sound glitch) - also, and I have noticed this, on the second stage with the sort of stone bridge things going overhead, on the original machine some of the overhead sections are missing, because it couldn't handle the number of sprites required - they've fixed that in Cannonball.

You can also play different tracks (Japanese ones) and change the way track progression works I think.

You can also use your own music instead of the traditional Outrun music tracks (although I don't know why anyone would want to!)

Of course you can also just play the normal Outrun on it, at 60fps.

Everyone I have mentioned it to has the same initial reaction as I had - "Why bother?" but when they see it running (and it's a slight hassle to get the correct ROM versions) they agree it's pretty cool looking.

[GtBFilms]

Back on topic..

I tried out all of this weeks nominated games last night.

City Bomber
It's not bad, reminds me of Spy Hunter a lot. Control is quite jerky, and I assumed that the original cab probably used an analogue steering wheel, but I'm not so sure it did, the only photo I could find of a City Bomber cab (admittedly in some disrepair) has a joystick.

It's an okay game, but the different weapon upgrades don't seem to work much differently from each other. I think it would be better if you could switch between different weapons you had picked up, and use different ones for different enemies. Not bad, but a bit too hectic for me.

Outrun
Well, I was always going to go for this one. An arcade classic. Especially in the sit-down hydraulic cabinet version. Much better with a steering wheel than with a joystick of course, but still great fun, and the music is fantastic.

Karate Blazers
My favourite game of all time is Golden Axe (1989), so I'm a fan of these left to right brawlers. This one appeared in arcades two years after Golden Axe (1991), so I was expecting it to be pretty decent. But it seems like something of a step backwards, I encountered no ridable 'mounts' and no weapons I could pick up. Double Dragon had items you could pick up and use back in 1987!
Yeah, yeah, I know the translation of 'Karate' is quite literally 'Open hand', so it doesn't make any sense to include weapons, but we're talking about a game where you can punch the ground so hard it causes a ring of fire, so it's already playing fast and loose with real-world realism!
It's okay, but by 1991 I wanted to hit people with a length of metal piping or an oil barrel!

Vendetta came out in 1991 for goodness sake!

So no surprise, this week, my vote goes to...

Outrun!

[obsidianspider]

This week's winner is Out Run

[pjft]

@gtbfilms said in MAME ROW #93:

You can also use your own music instead of the traditional Outrun music tracks (although I don't know why anyone would want to!)

I suspect you may be able to/would like to try replacing the original tracks with the modern/instrumental versions of the same, from later games.

I certainly haven't tried it, but now that you bring it up, I might give it a shot :)

[MadRikXIV]

@gtbfilms said in MAME ROW #93 - Out Run:

My other Outrun memory was that the music was considered so amazing, that one of the magazines (Computer & Video Games) gave away a cover tape that had one of the tunes as an audio track for listening to in your rusty Ford Fiesta with all the windows down!

Happy Days!

Fairly sure the audio was also on the reverse of the game tape as well? Or a separate cassette, same with the 720 conversions, positive I had that as well.

[GtBFilms]

@madrikxiv Quite possibly!

Not on my copy though.

My copy of ZX Spectrum Outrun was on a C90 playground pirate tape!

[pjft]

@gtbfilms Probably not a C90 for mine, but certainly similar - maybe 60 or so, as it was a pain to find the exact tape position for subsequent games :) Those TDK tapes were classic!

[GtBFilms]

@pjft I used to note down the tape counter position of each game on my C90s on the inlay card.

Then I got a new tape deck.

And it turns out the tape counter speed was totally arbitrary between tape decks and all my carefully recorded numbers were useless!

Aaargh, I can still feel the pain!

[obsidianspider]

I couldn’t get Cannonball to work, maybe it was my my ROM set, but I only spent half an hour on it. On my Super Famicom Pi I did remap my buttons so B is gas, A is brake, L is down shift and R is up shift. Much easier to play than the default button mapping with a Super Nintendo controller.

[GtBFilms]

@obsidianspider yeah it is a bit picky about specifically which ROM version it will work with. I had to message about with a few different ones before it worked.

[pjft]

Here is my high-score list for now.

As you can see, I can't make it past level 4 :P Still, it's a fun run, always.

7.515k is my top score.

I'm making some changes to Cannonball to better support the digital gamepad as I saw several comments (and I myself experienced it) where if you wanted to use analog controls for driving you really needed to use a keyboard to navigate the menus, which kind of defeats my use case where I want to play it with my PS3 controller without having to have a keyboard around.

I submitted the PR there, so if there aren't any issues and it's approved, that's a change I hope will benefit others.

Also, I've been listening to the OutRun OST on Spotify thanks to this.

[youxia]

I'll sit this one out I guess. Don't have the correct advmame romset, but more importantly I'm not very good at racing games (though like to play them). My score would not even get on your board :D

[pjft]

@youxia I'm fairly sure that the fbalpha ROM runs fine on AdvMame. At least I can change between AdvMame and one of the lr cores with the ROM I have, and if you're saying that the mame one doesn't work then it's likely the other one.

[youxia]

@pjft Thanks, I've tried it just now but only one rom worked (upright Rev B). By worked I mean the sound was garbled anyway, video questionable and controls all over the place - could not define the steering for the life of me. I just don't have enough time/mental stamina to fight with this atm.

On the other hand I played some lr2003 OutRun with my own music playing and it was not so annoying. I even managed to get 500k-ish score. Maybe I could get into it after all. I wonder, is lower fps cheating? Coz it sort of slows down? Or does it actually slow down (don't feel like it) or is just the sfx out of sync?

[Stuart2773]

a very interesting video regarding the emulation of OUTRUN

[AndersHP]

Cool to see OutRun winning this week - but does these racing games even play without a steering wheel?

Tried Pole Position a while ago, and couldn't get anything but the menus to work.

[pjft]

@andershp They do play, but if you have a Dual Shock or XBox controller, you can use the joystick as well for analog.

[Stuart2773]

@gtbfilms said in MAME ROW #93 - Out Run:

I also remember a very similar game to Outrun, where if you revv'd your engine too much at the starting grid girl, your 'girlfriend' got out the car in disgust and you had to race in the car by yourself. I mentioned this at my local Retro Club but no-one else could remember what game that was, or even remembered seeing it.

TURBO OUTRUN

[GtBFilms]

@stuart2773 awesome! Thanks!