Road Runner fans. Click to see Road Runner laser game prototype

DirkDDS

New member
Joined
Jan 6, 2007
Messages
222
Reaction score
3
Location
San Jose, California
Road Runner fans. Click to see Road Runner laser game prototype

These are movies from CAX of the Road Runner laser disc arcade game prototype. This prototype laser disc version of the game was made prior to the non-laser disc (System 1) cabinet. According to the creators, the laser disc was too unreliable so they pulled the laser disc idea and created the game without the laser disc/player.

All of the background animation is produced by the laser disc. At the end of every level there is a short animated scene which is taken directly from the classic Warner Brothers Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoons. Additionally, when Wile E Coyote has an interesting death during gameplay, it switches over and shows the classic animated short of his death.

These videos were taken by Shertz:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1BL_nkq64w&feature=channel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkRgxKflBnE&feature=channel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR_UCoNtsUI&feature=channel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc6i8qIeWPo&feature=channel

These videos were taken by Lordvictorino:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2nvf2szrM0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2nvf2szrM0&feature=channel

These videos were taken by bossyman15:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_8COur82MU&feature=related
 

Attachments

  • IMG_2261.jpg
    IMG_2261.jpg
    90.5 KB · Views: 82
  • IMG_2264.jpg
    IMG_2264.jpg
    88.4 KB · Views: 80
  • IMG_2259.jpg
    IMG_2259.jpg
    91.5 KB · Views: 77
Last edited:
Should've been made. Easily would've made the top 5 laser games of all time if it had been.
 
I love watching people who are good at games that I suck at, play. Dude makes RR look insanely easy. Thanks for the vids.
 
Thanks for posting, always wondered about this one. The cut scenes don't add anything, they just slow down the gameplay when you're on a roll. They made the right choice by dumping the LD and making it a standard raster game.
 
Jow- FWIW, I've been told by numerous different original Road Runner enthusiasts that the laser disc version is twice as difficult as the non laser version too... It makes this high score even more amazing.

80scoinop - I have to disagree. The main reason for the creation of the Road Runner game was because of the original Warner Bros characters, so it only seems fitting that Atari would create a game with actual original cartoon clips. Are you Mark Alpiger by any chance? I saw him playing the laser disc version of Road Runner at CAX and he seemed quite pissed about the intermittent animated clips. I think he thought it was killing his concentration. My thought was that he should just go play the non laser disc version which was only about 50 feet away.
 
Last edited:
It's an awesome LD game. I love it. Road Runner and Freedom Fighter are probably the most unique laser disc games. Very cool.
 
Are you Mark Alpiger by any chance? I saw him playing the laser disc version of Road Runner at CAX and he seemed quite pissed about the intermittent animated clips. I think he thought it was killing his concentration. My thought was that he should just go play the non laser disc version which was only about 50 feet away.

No, he's not Mark :) But knowing Mark, I can totally see him saying that though :D I made a post over on his forums, asking his opinion of it (I figured he'd play it, as I've seen him play the regular one alot at Funspot), but he hasn't posted yet.
 
It's an awesome LD game. I love it. Road Runner and Freedom Fighter are probably the most unique laser disc games. Very cool.

I had never played RR laser version before, missed played it last time it was at CAX. It's fun but since I'm not a big fan of Atari's version, the game play didn't do much. The cut scenes however were pretty cool and the option to jog and shuttle the scene is pretty inventive.

I would have to agree with RR being among the most unique laser games out there mainly for how it intergrates the laser disc instead of just being a background or providing the entire image.

Freedom Fighter (played only once) was cool looking but it felt like any other laser animated game...the only exception being the controls were different. Jeff, why do you think FF deserves to be among the unique? Maybe I'm missing something.

Was nice to see it and DAMN....Dave kills any machine he plays. Dudez got skillz.
 
I had never played RR laser version before, missed played it last time it was at CAX. It's fun but since I'm not a big fan of Atari's version, the game play didn't do much. The cut scenes however were pretty cool and the option to jog and shuttle the scene is pretty inventive.

Neat. What is this option you're talking about, though - "Jog and shuttle the scene"? What does that do?
 
I had never played RR laser version before, missed played it last time it was at CAX. It's fun but since I'm not a big fan of Atari's version, the game play didn't do much. The cut scenes however were pretty cool and the option to jog and shuttle the scene is pretty inventive.

I would have to agree with RR being among the most unique laser games out there mainly for how it intergrates the laser disc instead of just being a background or providing the entire image.

Freedom Fighter (played only once) was cool looking but it felt like any other laser animated game...the only exception being the controls were different. Jeff, why do you think FF deserves to be among the unique? Maybe I'm missing something.

Was nice to see it and DAMN....Dave kills any machine he plays. Dudez got skillz.

I think Freedom Fighter is unique because you can actually choose different directions to go by twisting the joystick left and right. Kinda gave you a little more freedom to choose your path throughout the game. The original idea for Space Ace had this "branching" theory when it was animated, but the Cinematronics programmers kinda threw all that out the window when the programmed it and just used every scene back to back. Dave Hallock's Space Ace Enhancement ROMs put the branching back into effect.

Yeah... Dave pwnz at every game he touches. The laser version is probably twice as hard as the System 1 version and Dave got 1.5 million on only his 3rd time playing it.
 
Neat. What is this option you're talking about, though - "Jog and shuttle the scene"? What does that do?

When the game goes into a cut scene, you can move the joystick to the left and right to reverse the cut scene or fast forward thru it. Kinda cool.
 
+1. I thought the same thing. I played this at Videotopia and got wrecked! Did you see that HS posted at 623K?!? Insanity!

Yeah... I always felt that the System 1 version was hard!!!! 623k is really good, but look at Shirts' videos that he posted on youtube. It shows Dave Hallock putting up 1.5 million on RR from last sunday afternoon at CAX. And that was only his 3rd time playing the LD version. He is a master at the System 1 version, though ;)

Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1BL_nkq64w

Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkRgxKflBnE

Part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR_UCoNtsUI

Part 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc6i8qIeWPo
 
Last edited:
Yeah... I always felt that the System 1 version was hard!!!! 623k is really good, but look at Shirts' videos that he posted on youtube. It shows Dave Hallock putting up 1.5 million on RR from last sunday afternoon at CAX. And that was only his 3rd time playing the LD version.

Serious?!? GTFOH!
 
Back
Top Bottom