News archives @ Classic Arcade Gaming (dot com)

Headlines on this page	Date posted
Update on the Twin Galaxies Spy Hunter score 'reinstatement'	05-29-2004
Twin Galaxies reinstates 'pulled' Spy Hunter score	05-18-2004
Funspot information update	05-06-2004
M.A.M.E. new version release: .82	05-06-2004
Twin Galaxies to establish headquarters in Boise, Idaho	05-04-2004
M.A.M.E. new version release: .81	04-01-2004
M.A.M.E. new version release: .80	03-06-2004
M.A.M.E. game news	02-15-2004
World record made on Zoo Keeper	02-08-2004
M.A.M.E. game news	02-06-2004
M.A.M.E. is 7 years old !	02-05-2004

It seems that this situation has become a saga, of sorts. Apparently, Rob Mruczek jumped the gun, and announced to Paul Dean (and, myself, in an e-mail carbon-copy) that his score was reinstated, before actually getting a final 'thumbs-up' from Walter Day. Because of that, my news story of the 18th (and a Funspot post the next day) was apparently a surprise to the listed record holder for the game (Mark Little, who made 832,620 points in June of 2003), who not so happily announced the news himself on the TG forums, here.

As you can see from the various replies, this is an interesting story, and one that may serve to help everyone decide on a fair way of dealing with questioned scores from the 'Golden Era'. A number of great ideas have been thrown out (including some thought-provoking ones from Darren Harris), but one thing that someone pointed out to me makes for a curious situation - according to TG's own challenge rules (see section 8.6, #4), a player whose score is being questioned must (of course) be located for the challenge to be issued. One must presume that if the player isn't located (as in most all of the cases of the infamous 'pulled' scores), then the challenge, and the possible take-down of the score, cannot proceed. Yet, it did.

Now, with the background in place, I'll move on to the reason for my news item today. On his web site, Paul posted an important development that detailed a conference call between him, Mark Little, and Walter Day. The gist of it is that Paul will have time to recover from a back injury that he is currently suffering, and then he will have to beat Mark's score in order to 'prove' his abilities. If he does not, then his score will be moved to a newly developed high score list that will serve to separate modern scores (with their more stringent proof), and classic era scores, where the proof was lesser. Only time will tell the result of this situation, but, you can be sure that it will be reported right here, as soon as things are resolved. Good luck to Paul, and, I hope that everyone is ultimately satisfied with the outcome of this important scoring issue.

I think this is a first - today, after a long-term effort by Paul Dean, Twin Galaxies has reinstated his 1985 Spy Hunter score of 9,512,590, which was accomplished on 06-28-1985 at the Upland Family Fun Center in Upland, California, during the 1985 Video Game Masters Tournament. The score was originally 'pulled' (even after appearing in print in Walter Day's 1998 record book) a few years back, along with a number of others from the VGMT contests of the mid-80's (namely: Star Wars, Joust, and Robotron). I'll have more on the removal of all these scores, in a future article.

Well, due to the effort on Paul's part, and thanks also to time spent by Rob Mruczek, and apparently Walter Day himself, the Spy Hunter score is back where it belongs - as a recognized true world record. An even bigger thanks goes out to none other than a very famous CAGDC HoF'er, Phil Britt, for his verbal confirmation of the veracity of Paul's score, and his play, on that day in 1985. The full story on this accomplishment (both the original game, and the efforts to gain reinstatement) will be appearing on CAGDC very soon, so be sure to check back to get fully informed on Paul's once-in-a-lifetime game ! In the meantime, you can check out a lot of gaming information on Paul's web site, here.

We're now less than one month away from the start of the annual four-day Funspot gaming event, known as the 6th Annual International Classic Game Tournament. So that everyone interested in the contest has a quality pool of organized information, I've put together a Funspot 2004 Tournament page dedicated to helping not only new, and old, contestants, but also those considering coming. I've also just recently updated it with links to contest information that Funspot put up last month (better late than never...), including the official entry form. Plus, I have one final link, which points to a valuable bonus tokens coupon (be sure to take it with you, just in case...).

Also appearing on my information page are accommodation listings, and a great airline deal, for everyone located here in the U.S. Last, but not least, is a listing of gamers that I've talked to who are planning on being there, along with their particular information (all the 'where, when, why, and how'). Please be sure to let me know in advance if you have anything to contribute, in the way of motel recommendations, offers of rides to / from the airport, etc... The main goal of this page is to save contestants some time, trouble, and (most of all !) money, and with everyone's help, we can make this year's tournament the most enjoyable ever !

As many players know, last year I was fortunate to be able to bring Mark Boolman (current TG Star Wars world record, set at last year's event) into the Funspot contest 'family'. Well, this year, a true legend, and one of the original sixteen that appeared in the famous 1983 LIFE magazine issue featuring "Video Game V.I.P.S", has committed to coming, at my invitation. Yes, it's yet another Mark: Mark Robichek, who has held the world record on numerous big-name games, including Pengo, Tutankham, Bagman, Frogger, and Moon Patrol (he still holds the record on the latter two, and after more than 20 years !). Coincidentally, Funspot currently has all five of these titles, so it will be nice to have one of the original arcade 'boom years' players demonstrate some of his skills. I hope to see you there in a few weeks !

For all the details, look at the official M.A.M.E. What's new page. Here are the new working games worth noting since version .81: Driving Force, yet another race game, has nice graphics, ala Pole Position; Ghostlop (a prototype game from Data East) is another Magical Drop clone, but has fabulous graphics (see the four pics immediately below), plus some interesting looking power-ups; Super Rider, a rather old game I hadn't seen in 20 years, has pretty weak graphics (shown below), but is quite fun to play, as I recall; two shoot 'em ups with awesome looking graphics are Brave Blade and Raystorm, and this is evidenced by the screenshots below; Pirate Treasure, in spite of its 1982 production, looks like an interesting game, where you raid islands, while watching out for volcanoes, and the dreaded 'black ship' that chases you; Twin Eagle II appears to be a well-designed chopper shoot-out; and, finally, there's Strider 2.

Here's some big news from Walter Day and Twin Galaxies - they plan on moving to Boise, Idaho, and establishing the main headquarters there, along with a stadium-type facility, with thousands of games, and a museum, on-site. For the details, click here to see the TG news release, along with a front-page newspaper story reprint.

For all the details, check the official M.A.M.E. What's new page. The new working games of note since version .80 are as follows: an early 30 wave version of Blaster has been introduced; Scooter Shooter looks like an interesting (if not unique) variation on the shoot 'em up theme (see pics below); Hyper Athlete, by Konami, appears to be a 3-D version of Hyper Sports; and finally, Gallop Racer is a rather nice-looking, but otherwise uninteresting, horse-racing game (of course, it has the modern-day 'requirement' of 3-D rendered graphics...).

For all the details, see the official M.A.M.E. What's new page. New working games include Radikal Bikers, and Surf Planet, both courtesy of the ever-productive 'Atari guy', Aaron Giles. Of lesser note is Wiggie Waggie (where do they think these titles up ??), and Zintrick. This last game was thought to be a prototype, but actually appears to be a from an unofficial bootleg made from the CD version, and is supported for reference, in case a 'real' prototype shows up in the future.

Ms. Pac-Man / Galaga - 20 Year Reunion (Namco, (c) 2000) combines "two games (that) are unquestionably the two longest running hits in the history of video games", according to the Namco web site ! Notice the web page notation on each game's title screen (the web sure is everywhere now !). If you want to check out Namco's other arcade offerings (including some non-video titles), see http://www.namcoarcade.com/nai_games.asp. Oh, thanks to Nicola Salmoria, the M.A.M.E. head honcho, who sent in the driver for this classic combo.

One last note - if you want to play Pac-Man on this title, then, at the select screen, use the joystick to input: up, up, up, down, down, down, left, right, left, right, left; then start (needless to say, this code only works on this model of the game, and not on individual Ms. Pac-Man or Galaga machines !). Hmmm - I wonder if they fixed the split-screen on this version...

Shawn Cram set a new world's record today on one of his favorite titles, Zoo Keeper, with 35,732,870 points. His previous best of 21,849,650 (made 05-30-2003) was the Twin Galaxies official record, and his brother had the true world's record of 28,749,000 (set in the Spring of 2003). Now Shawn can lay claim to the topmost score ever.

All of the above scores were made at the current 'hotbed' of cag wr scores, Funspot. 'The Brothers Cram', as I call them, play there most every weekend, and this one was no exception. Shawn captured the game on tape, and will submit it to TG for verification.

Shawn reports that he's been working on honing his game skills, and has made progress lately with getting a larger number of high-scoring jumps than in the past. Needless to say, these multi-million point jumps serve to push up a gamer's score quite quickly. Still, the highest point value Shawn made on any one jump was 4 million, which he accomplished twice. He also scored two 2 million jumps, and one jump that was worth 1 million. Note that his brother Jason still possesses the only 15 million point jumps in history (which he accomplished twice, one of which was on his former wr game).

Shawn related that he made it through approximately 33 boards, where a board consists of a screen that is able to be 'bricked'. He estimates that on his 21.8M game, he made it through 26 boards. Now, that increase is definitely progress ! Congratulations to Shawn, and here's hoping that he and brother Jason not only continue to leapfrog the wr, but also finally accomplish one of the 'holy grails' of gaming - the first 30 million point jump on the game in history !

Driver's Edge (Incredible Technologies, (c) 1994) looks like a decent rendered racing game, in the spirit of Pole Position. Aaron Giles, M.A.M.E.'s 'Atari guy', has gotten it fully playable due to his work on the itech32 driver.

Sonic Arcade (Sega, (c) 1992) looks like a suped-up version of Sonic the Hedgehog for the arcade (remember the other big title that appeared on home systems first, and then the arcade ? Try Lode Runner...). Roger Sanders has emulated the protection necessary for this game in the Sega System 32 driver.

Congratulations to Nicola Salmoria, the genius behind M.A.M.E. (multiple arcade machine emulator), and the whole team - this great arcade game emulator was 'born' on the evening of February 5th, 1997 (23:32 +0100), with the first official release, which was designated MAME 0.1. The current version supports 4752 ROM sets, with 2679 unique games represented.

At the moment, there are about 100 people on the team, but there are also a large number of contributors outside the team, too. Nicola Salmoria still serves as the coordinator of the project.