MMMC Club Week 2: Rampart

[scooterb23]

Week 2: Electric Boogaloo

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v643/scooterb23/mameclub.jpg

Club Rules

01. You do not need to sign up for the club. If you want to participate, simply download the game of the week and post about it!

02. At the end of the week, I will randomly select a game from a list of nominations.

03. The current MAME Club Pick of the Week can be found every Monday stickied at the top of the Arcade Alley.

Welcome everybody to week 2 of the new and improved(??) Monday Morning MAME Club. I think week 1 went well. The only real downside is that we only got three nominations for this week, so the random number generator didn't get much of a workout.

So, what is this week's game? It's a game probably best known to people for its home versions...the Atari classic Rampart

http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?game_id=9263

http://www.klov.com/images/11/1181242155344.png

Now, we've got two...count them...two sources for the MAME Club ROM files!

Flack is back with hosting at http://www.robohara.com/mameclub/

and 2DSkillz will have the ROMs like last week on his blog at http://www.retrogoggles.com/

Now, you may notice 2 ROM files... you need rampart.zip to play, but Rampart was originally a trackball game in the arcade. And while it works with the keyboard...control is a little imprecise at key times. So there's a joystick version...that's what the other file is for. So try them both, and tell us what you like better.

OK, I think that's it! Have a great week, and... MAME ON!

Oh yeah, one more thing...if you're just coming into the MAME Club, and would like to see the other games we played, I will keep a list at the bottom of each weekly post, and if you search the arcade forum for "MMMC Club" you will find the older threads (as I will rename them that once their week is done to make finding them easier). ANd by all means, if you have more to add to the older games, do so!

Former MMMC Games: Jump Coaster

[jb143]

Good call on having both versions. The trackball one is a bit finicky on a keyboard.

I'll reiterate what I posted on the other thread. I didn't really care too much for this game at first. It was a bit frustrating. But after getting into it and learning the stradigies it's quickly becoming one of my favorite games to play.

I'll try to post a high score in the next couple of nights for people to beat :p

[scooterb23]

One thing I know: I'm way better at this game on my Lynx than I am with the arcade version. I can get to the second battlefield, but that's about it

[Ed Oscuro]

I can't imagine I'd be any good at this game with a joystick. Used the trackball set and set up my mouse. Not too bad; I never had tried capturing another castle before. On the second map the difficulty cranked right up; the other guys were putting walls around a castle too!

[jb143]

On the second map the difficulty cranked right up; the other guys were putting walls around a castle too!

Really? I've gotten quite a few levels in and never noticed that before. What difficulty were you playing on? Or is that maybe just a feature of the trackball version?

I hate those pesky grunts that come up on shore though. Always in the way when it's time to build.

[scooterb23]

Ed - Joystick controls work fairly well, maybe a bit stiff. I have a laptop, so I don't exactly want to set up a mouse, and haven't tried the touchpad to see if it'd work, I suppose it might...

[Ed Oscuro]

Really? I've gotten quite a few levels in and never noticed that before. What difficulty were you playing on? Or is that maybe just a feature of the trackball version?

I hate those pesky grunts that come up on shore though. Always in the way when it's time to build.
That time I selected the area to the southwest immediately after the opening round. I assume that the next stage is equally difficult no matter where you set up your base.

The castle-building segments annoy me somewhat because you have to be really quick at 'em, and the pieces don't like to fit together well. You have to be VERY quick to encircle another castle - heck you have to be very quick just to surround all your cannon again.

[jb143]

I havn't really messed with using a mouse in mame but I'll give it a try sometime and see if it works any better.

Difficulty increases level to level mainly in the number and type of ships that come.(Destroy those red ships at all cost). It starts to get pretty hectic after a while but I think that's why I like it so much. I can't remember how many levels I've gotten to, but I'm pretty sure it was more than 4. I do know that if you loose a level, it's easier the next time around becasue you get to start with 4 cannons instead of 2. You can usually clear off all the ships right away then. Then you'll have more time to enclose another castle. I think if you do, then get to place more cannons as well.

[2Dskillz]

The building time seems unfairly strict, perhaps this is due to the original having a trackball and I am stumbling around with the arrow keys. I have always seen Rampart as a wonderfully unique game, but my playtime was with the NES port. The arcade seems far more brutal.

[jb143]

Played it a bit last night. 25,822 is the best I could do.

http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii12/jeremy_burk/0003.png

Come to think of it. I don't think I've ever gotten past the 4'th stage after all. I don't know if you go to another island, circle back on the current one, or what. The only other versions I've played are the GBA and Lynx and they are a bit easier. It probally is the controls. I still like the Missile Command meets Tetris meets Warcraft gameplay though.

[scooterb23]

I didn't know it kept score! I always got pissed and ended the game as soon as I got conquered!

[Flack]

I refuse to play this game in MAME! ... because I own the real machine!

(Okay, I own a converted machine, but still.)

Rampart is one of me and my friends' favorite games from back in the day. We always liked any game where you could shit on your friend's work and ruin his day. I always felt Rampart was much more fun against another real person (or two).

Unfortunately my cabinet is the joystick version. I always played the trackball one as a kid and greatly prefer it. I don't remember any difference in difficulty though.

The key to taking over other castles is building a wall that connects to your own castle. Anything connected to your castle stays through to the next round. Anything not connected disappears.

The key to ruining your friend's day is shooting slowly and leaving little 1x1 spots in his wall. They are a lot harder to fix than big gaping holes.

[scooterb23]

Definitely seems to be a better multi player game than solo. I've never had the chance to play this against anybody.

[jb143]

Definitely seems to be a better multi player game than solo. I've never had the chance to play this against anybody.

Hmmm...Does MAME have an option for online play? I know some emulators do.

[Cryomancer]

This was pretty fun. The problem I had though is that I somehow ended up setting my controls to be both blue and red players at the same time or something. red seemed like they were having trouble placing cannons and building walls, turns out it was because I was in control of both cursors! I didn't notice until I realized that I had beat several levels very easily...so yeah, oops.

Maybe I'll set up a trackball mouse and try playing it properly later. Fun stuff.

[scooby105]

I played this one for a little bit tonight. I used to play this at some point, but I can't remember when or where. It's a decent game, but it's not one that I'd sit around and play very often. Rebuilding the castle walls frustrates me, especially when you need the 1 piece blocks.

[scooterb23]

OK again, it's nomination time.

Keep playing Rampart over this weekend, but lets get some ideas going for next week.

As we only had 3 nominations for this week, I'm going to "seed the pot" with the games that didn't get picked for this week: namely Jungler and Ninja Emaki.

So, if there's a game you think we should be playing here. Please, go ahead and nominate it. Unlike last week, you don't need to give three reasons, although some kind of reasoning would be nice.

As for Rampart. I've hit the wall (tee hee) I seriously can't score over 3000 points without using an extra credit. My high score using one coin extra is somewhere in the 6600 range. Rampart just is not my bag.

[scooterb23]

K...I know it's a holiday weekend, but surely there are a few people around who would like to play something new this week?