Monday MAME Club [12/13/04] - Alligator Hunt

[Flack]

Welcome to this week's Monday Morning MAME Club Posting. Every Monday, a member of the MAME club will pick a new game for you to play in MAME! All you have to do to participate is install MAME, download the ROM of the week from this message, and then post your thoughts about the game! You can post a full review of the game or simply tell us what you liked/didn't like about the game. Have you played this game before? Have you played it in an actual arcade? Do you like the genre? How did it run on your computer? Did you beat it? If so, how long did it take? What was your high score? How far can you get? Did you have any problems emulating the game? When writing your review, post it right here in the sticky topic and include any thoughts you have about the game. Remember, YOU are the reviewer. Let us know anything and everything you think about the game! Just remember, if you want people to respond during YOUR week, you should play along on OTHER weeks!

The ROM of the week is: Alligator Hunt (available HERE (http://www.robohara.com/mameclub)!)

NOTE: This week's ROM is 8meg in size

http://images.webmagic.com/klov.com/images/10/1051023593.jpg http://images.webmagic.com/klov.com/images/10/1054200953.jpg

Club Members:

digitalpress (Battle Bakraid)
Gamereviewgod (ESP Ra.De.)
Wisesalesman (Waku Waku 7)
scooterb23 (I'm Sorry)
ddockery (Penguin-Kun Wars)
AlanD (Dr. Micro)
IntvGene (Strike Force)
NE146 (Portman)
jonjandran (Bronze Adventure)
Flack (Rollergames, Yie-Ar Kung-Fu, Liquid Kids, Ninja Clowns)
IGotTheDot (N/A)
zektor (Battle Bakraid, Haunted Castle)
buttasuperb (Blazing Star)
chadtower (Berkerk)
Sotenga (Caliber 50)
Stark (Mighty! Pang)
christianscott27 (Darius Gaiden)
ECWSandmanECW (League Bowling)
TripppsK (Lady Bug)
vespertillio (Rampart!)
ghsqb (N/A)
TheSmirk (Bomb Jack)
Flukkake (Elevator Action)
BHvrd (NARC)
ManekiNeko (Battle Circuit)
MarioAllStar2600 (City Bomber)
Ze_ro (Pandora's Palace)
slip81 (Biomechanical Toy)
Qbert (Mysterious Stones)
k8track (Go! Go! Mile Smile)
Hamsnibit (N/A)
Lady Jaye (Chuka Taisen/Cloud Master)
Sofa King Gud (Crossbow)
Schenley (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom)
Kaine23 (Super Burgertime)
Arqueologia_Digital (Burgertime)
Jiscan (Withdrew)
-hellvin- (Splatterhouse)
Acidic_Pain (Armed Police Batrider)
Gamemaster_ca_2003 (Block Out)
Vigilante (Pu-Li-Ru-La)
Hovoc (D&D: Shadow Over Mystara)
Mr.FoodMonster (skipped)
sniperCCJVQ (WWF Superstars)
A Boy (Satan's Hollow)
JibbaJaba (Solomon's Key)
Cauterize (The Simpsons)
youruglyclone (Vendetta)
!!! Ed Oscuro (Alligator Hunt) !!!
Gapporin
Graham Mitchell
RockyRaccoon
XxMe2NiKxX
brykasch
Xtasy
DJ_DEEM
The_EniGma
DaBargainHunta
cr0n0
Promophile

Remember, you don't have to be a member of the club to download the game and write up a review, but by joining you get the honor of picking a game to share with the group during your week. If you would like to join, simply send me a PM and I will add you to the list!

MAME ON!

[Ed Oscuro]

Sorry this one was so big in size folks! Still, this is a neat title that more people should know about. It plays rather like Dynamite Duke, but instead of punching you just shoot and roll back and forth. The first section of the game is very memorable, and I don't think you'll expect it.

As with Dynamite Duke, the game's shortfall is that you cannot move the targeting reticle past your character while moving another way (if my memory's right; you can still move it towards your character though), but the roll button helps that immesurably. Regardless, the control scheme is pretty intuitive.

The cutscenes...well, I don't know what was going on there. They definitely clash with the ingame art style, but it's pretty hillarious to hear the kid juxtaposed with that voice acting..!

The game's from Spain. \m/

[Gamereviewgod]

Oh yeah, me and my buddy were just going through roms and came across this one. Certainly not what you expect from the title, but don't let take away from the game. Co-op is the only way to go. I'll have to play it again for a refresher, but I remember having fun.

[Flack]

I played this a little bit last night. Right off the bat I found that I have the wrong ROM posted online -- the one I have by itself is protected, and if you play it by itself you'll never see any enemies (no wonder I thought it was *really* easy!). If you don't already have the ROM, make sure to grab both the 8 meg file and the smaller, unprotected one, and then run that one. It'll work fine then.

I kind of liked the game and I thought the controls were easy to get used to, but this game was NOT designed for a gamepad. I could see it being a LOT easier if I had a normal joystick. Maybe sometime this week I'll try it out on my MAME cab instead and see if it's any easier.

[Ed Oscuro]

d'OH, I should've remembered that as well. Oops!

[Graham Mitchell]

One of the archives (the larger one) is "corrupted" according to my stupid computer. This is probably a problem on my end, but I'm mentioning it just in case anybody else has a similar problem.

Too bad, too. This game looks cool. I like that style of shooter.

[Ed Oscuro]

Corrupted, as in it won't download?

[Graham Mitchell]

No, it downloaded, but my stupid LHA program won't decompress it. Says it's "not a valid archive or is corrupted". This happens a lot to me with ROMS, so it may not necessarily be a problem with the file itself. I mean, after all, Rob was able to get it to work.

[slip81]

Cool game, but definately not meant to be played with a keyboard. I'm guessing it would work best with a track ball. High score with 5 credits, 564,200. Also did anyone else experience the sound glitch that cause the characters to speak in doubles?

Fun game, reminds me of the Terminator arcade games.

[Ed Oscuro]

No, it downloaded, but my stupid LHA program won't decompress it. Says it's "not a valid archive or is corrupted". This happens a lot to me with ROMS, so it may not necessarily be a problem with the file itself. I mean, after all, Rob was able to get it to work.
Which LHA program do you use?

As for myself, I don't manually decompress ROMs. I just load 'em into my ROM folder and thank my lucky electrons that there's such a thing as file compression in the world :)

[Graham Mitchell]

I'm using WinRAR, not LHA (duh, my mistake). Will mame load roms without decompressing them? I thought the program looked for file names, but maybe I'm wrong.

[Ed Oscuro]

Try it, won't hurt :)

I'm using MAME32 (off off classicgaming.com/mame32qa/) and it does that just fine.

As for a file manager program, I strongly recommend dumping WinRAR. I use 7-Zip; the only advantage I see in WinRAR over 7Z is the ability to drag and drop in windows. 7-Zip integrates pretty much the same way and for some reason WinRAR (an unregistered copy, though) would suck up tons of processor cycles (not sure why).

A year and three days after the last official release was out, a beta version showed up - on December 14 :) Not quite dead software yet. I haven't tried this beta yet - currently doing so.

Hmm, wondering if anybody else tried this ROM yet LOL

[Graham Mitchell]

Thanks for your advice, Ed! I'm sorry I wasn't able to get it to work; I'll play with it over the weekend, but I'm really trying!

I hope this doesn't mean you don't play the ROM when it's my pick! LOL

[Flack]

Will mame load roms without decompressing them? I thought the program looked for file names, but maybe I'm wrong.

MAME used to look for folder names, but now it works either way -- folder names, or zip file names. You should be able to just throw the zipped files in your ROM folder and they should work just fine.

[Sotenga]

I can best describe this game as the result of Cabal meets Burning Force. Since I'm really fond of both of those games, I must say that this is a fun title. And for a game from 1994, I must say, noice graphics! The only gripe I have is that a continue is necessary every two freaking times you get hit. Ouch. The life bar could have been balanced a slight tad better, but this is one fun blaster. For those who liked Alligator Hunt, I also recommend Cabal, Blood Bros, and Pirates (an arcade game, not to be confused with Sid Meier's Pirates!)

[Cirrus]

Not bad at all. I tried this one out on my cabinet, and it played much better with the joystick. (I had tried it first on the keyboard... ouch.)

I sort of wish that I could move the crosshairs seperately from the character, as it is difficult (impossible) to move right while adjusting your aim to the left. Oh well, that would involve more fingers than I have. (and I have 10.)

[scooterb23]

Sorry to be late to the game, but after wiping out my hard drive, I've been slowly rebuilding my library.

I wasn't feeling this game at all. I just felt it was kind of lackluster. And the fact that I died every 3 minutes didn't help either.