Games you adore but are broken by the Freeplay model.

PrairieDillo

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Games you adore but are broken by the Freeplay model.

So there's a few games that I really adore and wish to have but on 2nd thought have reconsidered it just because of the fact that freeplay completely breaks the desire to play this game.

Gauntlet 1-2 are good examples of this case. The freeplay just gives you more life so you completely don't care about playing the "right" way. Death? no problem 200 off.... next?
room of ghosts? no problem let me walk through them. What's another credit... nothing.

Gauntlet was an awesome game BITD where I would always go with friends to play but at CAX I was playing with some morrons that had no idea now to give cross fire and work together to hold the screen etc. They were just annoying and I realized. I never want to own this game. Freeplay just breaks it.

Anyone experience this same issue?
 
I hear this complaint about Gauntlet enough that I'm wondering if some sort of "variable freeplay" kit would be a good idea. Hard limits on credits / health numbers / something similar...
 
This pretty much applies to almost all side-scrolling beat 'em ups and platformers of the late 80s and early 90s: Double Dragon, Final Fight, X-Men, TMNT, Simpsons, etc. As long as you can coin up, you can play continuously. No having to restart the level or anything. Co-op play makes it fun still, but without any real challenge and risk of getting game over, it gets old fast.

Though, you can always set achievements for yourself like getting through a level without getting hurt, getting through the game on X credits. Etc. I know it's not set in the game, but what else can you do? :)
 
I was having almost the exact same thought today.

I was playing Metal Slug X, and not doing too well. I thought to myself, how many quarters would I be pumping in to this thing for continues?

I do still enjoy playing, though. But I agree, the challenge is gone, and there is nothing really to achieve.
 
I force myself to not continue ever on Galaga 88. I prefer Smash TV on the SNES (need to make some lap arcade controllers for it) because there are limited continues.

Would be an interesting project to do rom mods like folks do for free play and high score saves to make these games better with freeplay.
 
Any game with unlimited continues really. It's most annoying when kids (nephews and nieces, etc.) just keep hitting the continue. They just don't "get" it and it's pretty annoying to watch. Or maybe I'm just bitter cause when I was their age I only had 75 cents in my pocket which equaled to like only one continue :/
 
FYI, I don't mind the idea of the continue function. I just wish the orginal programmers created arcades with the notion the machines would all end up in private homes one day where continues, or at least limited amount of continues, would be preferred when free play was on.
 
FYI, I don't mind the idea of the continue function. I just wish the orginal programmers created arcades with the notion the machines would all end up in private homes one day where continues, or at least limited amount of continues, would be preferred when free play was on.

Which begs the question: why have freeplay to begin with? These machines were money makers.

Is there a reason?
 
I was having almost the exact same thought today.

I was playing Metal Slug X, and not doing too well. I thought to myself, how many quarters would I be pumping in to this thing for continues?

I do still enjoy playing, though. But I agree, the challenge is gone, and there is nothing really to achieve.

Use tokens...and make it 4 tokens max so someone would have to run to the token machine :)

Btw Metal Slug X would take like $23,000 in quarters to beat. :)
 
Metal Slugs and action games are still playable cause who really wants to get knocked down or beat up.

Gauntlet is completely broken.
 
Pretty much any game that has life added by coins or offers continue will be broken in free play.

If you want to add to that, pretty much any game that has a game over/end game is also broken by default.

gauntlet by far is the most obvious example. Its the one game that I sold and took back in trade 2x. Both times the guys really wanted it. Both times the guys wanted to trade it for anything else. I was even offered a 3rd one back, but luckily one of the companys employee decided to take it home..

Lunar lander also is a game thats broken with free play.. Even games like tempest, black widow, food fight and dig dug suffer when you can contine as a higher level without earning it.
 
I force myself to not continue ever on Galaga 88.

Just go into test mode and turn continue to OFF. That way you won't ever be tempted again. ;-)

g88test.jpg
 
I had a very similar feeling after playing Ladybug recently. I used to play this on Colecovision for hours on end with my Dad. We would always try to spell "SPECIAL" to get a bring up a bonus screen that changed every dot on the board to the bonus vegetables for a short time. It was alway our goal.

Naturally when playing the real game I was working for SPECIAL for several days, but could never seem to get the letters I needed. When I finally got it, I saw that on the arcade version the bonus screen was not the reward, instead you get a free credit...
 
Metal Slugs and action games are still playable cause who really wants to get knocked down or beat up.

Gauntlet is completely broken.

Shmups from the 90's on taught me self control (and I know you're familiar with what I'm talkin' about, but I wanna rant and blab anyways :p). The entertaining challenge with continue happy games is to try and beat the game with as few credits as possible. Then to try and beat it with 1 credit. Then to try and beat it without losing a life/getting hit. A lot of post 80's games of this nature that people like to claim are unplayable or monotonous tend to be approached with a bad sense of self motivation. If you wanna see the entire game once, yeah...pump it full of credits. If you want to challenge yourself and actually have to play the game with skill, be a big boy and set limits. :)

With that said...I can totally see Gauntlet being ruined no matter how disciplined you are. I think that has to be the toughest game to just sit there and say, "I'm going to do this with X credits". It's blatantly designed to get you to toss cash in there. I don't mean "omg Smash TV is difficult it's designed to get me to credit it up". Your health is practically a play time counter that will end no matter how good you're doing (edit: yeah, you can get food...but I am under the impression there is only so much you can do food wise before the health naturally runs down...especially with 4 players going).
 
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Which begs the question: why have freeplay to begin with? These machines were money makers.

Is there a reason?

The only time I ever saw Freeplay back in the day was when Mortal Kombat II first came out. The bowling alley where we always played MK I set MK II on freeplay for one night so we could try out the characters/moves and get hooked on it.
 
I agree with every game mentioned. I probably would never own one of those games for that single reason. But, I will tell you that my kids love these games on MAME (they're 4 and 6 years old). I was installing my Karate Champ HSS kit on Saturday and my kids were occupied on the MAME machine with Captain America. Next thing I know, my 6 year old yells over, "Daddy, we beat the game! Come look!" Of course, I had to go over and look and ruin my Karate Champ run. :)
 
I could beat Superman on one credit.

Many times though, I would get killed on the last screen and need a 2nd quarter to finish.

On a similar note, there are two games that I enjoyed even though I was never great at.
Ghosts N' Goblins
Legendary Wings
MAME cheats allowing infinite lives showed me that these games are incredibly difficult to beat, or they require too much memorization of levels/safe spots for me to learn in order to do well without continues or cheats.

Two crazy games.
 
Rich LOVES buying these games. I don't really understand it. Sit down for an hour, beat the game and then....

We have Smash TV, Rampage, The Simpsons, and TMNT in Time in the office. Giant, Giant continuous play monsters (except for Rampage. I have no complaints about Rampage). God forbid we get something like a Robotron or Defender.
 
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