Has anybody noticed something new after playing a game for 34 years???

dal320driver

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Has anybody noticed something new after playing a game for 34 years???

I worked in a Pizza Inn (yes Inn, not Hut, long ago) in high school and the owner had a Defender put on site. A friend and I pumped countless number of quarters in it on every break until the day we left for college. Flash forward 34 years, this moring I decided to burn some Blue ROMs. I threw them in my Green ROM board. Since the Blue and Green have mostly common chips, I only had to burn Blue ROM 1&3 to replace the Green and pull out Green 4...but I digress.

I was trying to pay close attention to any differences and HOLY CRAP I discovered one. If you let your ship sit still, the HUMANOIDS WALK !!!!!!!!!!! To verify this, I threw a Red ROM board in and...and....wait for it.....the humanoids walked. I always just start it up, hit the start button,jam on the thrust and start firing. I can't believe that in all of 34 years I never sat still long enough to see the humanoids walk.

Anyone else have any earth shattering revelations after playing a game for so long?

Oh BTW, I did actually find a difference I had not seen discussed before....on the Blue and Green ROMs there is no sound when credits are added like with the Red ROMs.

LJ
 
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You can mess around more when you can ring up free credits, that's how I got some of the Mortal Kombat moves figured out early (there's nothing like knowing how to do fatality endings before the public does).

I only recently found out you can hide in spots on Pac Man Jr. and the ghosts just circle around in a loop. Break time! Sure, it's probably been documented circa 1983 but I never knew it until a few months ago when I chanced upon it.
 
You can mess around more when you can ring up free credits, that's how I got some of the Mortal Kombat moves figured out early (there's nothing like knowing how to do fatality endings before the public does).



I only recently found out you can hide in spots on Pac Man Jr. and the ghosts just circle around in a loop. Break time! Sure, it's probably been documented circa 1983 but I never knew it until a few months ago when I chanced upon it.



Ok so where can I find out where to hide in jr pac man?
 
In Asteroids Deluxe, I noticed that if you completely destroy only a single large asteroid before any UFOs come out, the Hexagon ship will immediately appear.

Maybe that's common knowledge, but it took me 30 years of playing to hit on it.
 
You can only have 255 beer glasses (empty or full) at a time active on the screen in Tapper before you can no longer fill any new glasses...it took a broken boardset to discover this.
 
Stargate is the same way. At the beginning of the one level where you wait a few seconds for all the Pods to come on screen so you can "Smart Bomb" them..... I noticed that.

It didn't take exactly 34 years, more like 10 or so..... but I was playing Lunar Lander, and because I was bored........ tried to land on the side of the big mountain.

As long as your speeds are below "crash" levels, and both pads hit at the same time, you can literally land anywhere on that map. It's tricky as Hell to pull off, but quite a skill based accomplishment.
 
Some of this may have been common knowledge for decades but it wasn't common to me until the last eight years or so since I started collecting and playing regularly again.

Kicker: Stay on one board long enough without finishing and a bird will fly by with a sign that says, "Hurry up!" Fail to finish the board in the next 30 seconds and the game kills your man. Also, the piece of pie that seemingly randomly flies by that you can kick for 1000 points? Yeah, you can consistently trigger that.

Donkey Kong: In recent years high level players tried to devise ways to determine when the lower conveyor belt on the cement factory board would switch directions so as to avoid unfortunate deaths. They tried counting timer clicks and hammer swings, etc. At some point someone noticed that the lower conveyor belt switches directions only when Kong reaches the left side of the screen, which you can easily keep an eye on with your peripheral vision. Pretty sure that was never common knowledge until a few years ago. Also, on the top girder on the elevator board you can jump over the springs. Takes perfect positioning and timing, but way cool when you pull it off.

Wild Western: You can control the flow of the rocks and cacti if you know what you are doing.

Zoo Keeper: Animals seemed to escape the cage running randomly in either direction. In recent years players figured out that the animals always run away from you regardless of which direction you are facing, taking the longest path to get to you around the board. Not at all obvious but it makes total sense in hindsight, as the game would regularly screw you by killing you with escaping animals if the programmer hadn't implemented this behavior.

Bagman: If being pursued up a latter by one or more guards and the wheelbarrow is near the top of the ladder, grab the wheelbarrow and position it over the ladder before the guards get there. The guards will brain themselves on it and fall stunned to the bottom of the ladder.

Moon Patrol: You can influence the direction of UFO fire with your buggy's movement. You don't even have to actually speed up or slow down. You can just quickly flick the joystick left or right as needed to confuse the UFOs. Use this to control where their bombs are dropped so you don't get boxed in by their fire and the obstacles on the ground.

Pole Position: Start out in high and rev your engine just before the green light, then quickly shift to low when you take off. You'll get a faster jump start and accelerate to top speed quicker. I believe this advice also applies to OutRun. Also, the effects of wind drag are a thing. It's not enough to pass a car safely. Pass it too closely and the wind drag will slow your car. Watch your speedometer as you pass cars and you'll see yourself sometimes losing speed. Pass cars with as much room as possible to avoid slowing.

Robotron: On the tank waves, after the first seven seconds or so when the tanks are fully forming, move to the center of the screen and stay there as much as possible. The closer you get to the sides of the screen the faster the tanks' shots are. Also, stay close to Enforcers. The further away you get from an Enforcer the faster its shots are. If you stay closer to Enforcers their shots are slower and they are much less lethal.

Mario Bros.: You can run under green fireballs if needed to save yourself when in a tight spot. Not for the fainthearted, as it takes the right positioning and perfect timing. I did this once a couple of years ago while streaming on Twitch and Perry Rodgers, a friend of mine who was the world record holder from 1985 to 2009, lost his shit, as he didn't know that was even possible.
 
In Bosconian: Sometimes I had noticed if you complete a round without losing a ship there is a bonus multiplier that appears onscreen based on the level. But other times this does not appear even when you don't lose a ship. At first I thought maybe this was due to different ROM versions but then realized in DIP settings the difficulty must be set to "auto". Only in this mode will you have a chance for the bonus. I think it makes the game much more fun and gives you something additional to aim for for each round. Twin Galaxy settings (last time I checked) are not for the "auto" difficulty but I wish they would be.

Punch-Out / Super Punch-Out: Sometimes you can knock an opponent down even if they have 3/4 of their energy or more with one well timed regular counter hit. I'm not talking just about Bald Bull's charge or Piston Hurricane's charge where you time that. Other times when they or other characters are standing there, you can just get an off-timed counter hit between movements of their animations and they will go down. I've done this a couple times with Vodka Drunkenski, Bald Bull, and Great Tiger etc.
 
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