Rot Season 1 Game 2 - Vote!

[levi]

So, the votes are in and we have a winner - or two winners rather.

With a late surge Parodius on the PC Engine/Turbografx16 managed to get an extra vote than Super Star Soldier, making that the shooter we shall play in round 2. It's actually known as Parodius Da! in Japan and is the sequel to the original on the MSX just to confuse matters.

For the second game, I'm going to say we should play Contra - Hard Corps on the Megadrive/Genesis also known as Probotector to many European sorts. Please note we are not playing the Japanese release which is apparently significantly easier, but you can play either the US Contra - Hard Corps or the European Probotector depending on what you have available. While the story in Probotector is different, apparently they play the same. Someone please correct me if they know better!

As for what scoring models to use, Skeezix suggested going for a simple high score with Parodius - presumably not using continues. We still need to decide whether to go with vicious scoring or fair scoring. Does anyone have any opinions? Scorekeep, I'd appreciate your input as I'm not quite clear yet how these scoring systems will work.

We have no scoring suggestions for Contra - Hard Corps. Shall we just do a simple high score run, or should we try to measure it by achievements somehow?

I'll see if I can fire these games up tonight to get a feel for them. I've not actually played either of them before.

For the sake of openness, here's the complete list of voting results. I selected Contra out of the 2 vote block because we shouldn't play two shooters at the same time, and I disregarded Golden Axe since I feel it's a bit too similar to Willow from round 1. If you disagree, just vote for it again next round!

3 votes:
PCE/TG16 - Parodius - Shooter

2 votes:
MD/Gen - Contra - Hard Corps (aka Probotector) - Run and Gunner
PCE/TG16 - Super Star Soldier - Shooter
PCE/TG16 - Final Soldier - Shooter
PCE/TG16 - R-Type - Shooter
Arcade - Golden Axe - Hack and Slasher

1 vote:
MD/Gen - Gynoug (aka Wings of Wor) - Shooter
MD/Gen - Sonic the Hedgehog - Scrolling Platformerr
MD/Gen - Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master (aka The Super Shinobi II) - Scrolling Platformer
NES - Castlequest - Flick Screen Platformer
NES - Mega Man (aka Rock Man) - Scrolling Platformer
PCE/TG16 - Soldier Blade - Shooter
Arcade - Root Beer Tapper (not the original tappers) - um, Root Beer Server
Amiga - Lotus Esprit Challenge - Racer

 

[MonkeyChops]

We have no scoring suggestions for Contra - Hard Corps. Shall we just do a simple high score run, or should we try to measure it by achievements somehow?

http://www.gp32x.de...post__p__935929

1) Genesis/MegaDrive
2) Contra - Hard Corps
3) vicious highscore

The standard high score without a continue is my vote.

For the sake of openness, here's the complete list of voting results. I selected Contra out of the 2 vote block because we shouldn't play two shooters at the same time, and I disregarded Golden Axe since I feel it's a bit too similar to Willow from round 1. If you disagree, just vote for it again next round!

that's funny, I'd consider contra more akin to a shooter than Golden Axe to Willow. In fact, I put contra under the shooter genre in the nomination list.
But it's your call and I'm cool with those games.

-edit- decided to put run & gun under platformer instead, oy, it's hard to decide between these ambiguous genres sometimes

 

[levi]

Yeah, run and gun and platformer are hard to split, so maybe you shouldn't. I always considered them different genres as I grew up, mainly because run and gun came after platformer (which was always run and jump aka mario or manic miner, or run and dig aka space panic or lode runner) - but really it's just platformer plus guns. Either way, I'm using my gamesmaster casting vote to say I rather fancy a bit of eighties action movie in game form.

Thanks for spotting john4p's suggestion there. I'm happy to go with vicious high score with no continues (from the start) for Contra unless anyone has any better suggestions.

 

[skeezix]

I've been buried for a couple of days so lost track of things .. doh

The frst round goes another week-ish (gave the first round a bit of extra time since I figured we'd need it to get organized, but didn' want to delay anything for fear the whole idea woudl slip off the radar , but I supose we have to get a move on nailing down round 2's rule-set and onto voting for round 3 soon.. woot

Great job running things levi

jeff

 

[levi]

Cheers!

If we're adopting Monkeychops nominations idea, there's no need to delay starting round 2 IMO. Week 1 (wed-tue) is vote, week 2 (if we need all week) is scoring model setting. So we don't need to start round 3's voting until round 2 game playing begins. Looks like a lot of people had had a chance to tackle the games, and there's still one weekend left, so I think we can start round 2 on time personally (i.e. on Wednesday).

Speaking of which, since you're here, is there any chance you could update the scoreboards when you get a chance? Things are starting to hot up in both games it seems.

 

[levi]

To help us decide how to score these games, Monkeychops has helpfully compiled some information about then:

Parodius (aka Parodius Da!) - PC Engine/Turbografx 16

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22-pIIDE8EA[/youtube]

Current scoring model suggestion: High score with no continues. Vicious or fair scoring?

Contra - Hard Corps - MegaDrive/Genesis

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfwnSPK48TU[/youtube]

Current scoring model suggestion: Vicious high score, no continues

 

[levi]

Okay, just had a play on Contra. Blimey, I'm rubbish at that game. Seems it limits you to five continues so we could, if people like the idea, say you can play till you're out of continues. On the other hand, if you're any good at it (unlike me) five continues could last you a long time - and the point of this tournament is to play games that don't eat up too much time. I'm not sure how using continues affects your score, if at all - the game doesn't show you your score until you die.

Regarding Parodius, I'm thinking it might be better to use fair scoring. As I understand it, with vicious scoring, one person gets max points (fair enough) then the next two get second (regardless of how close they were), then the next three third and so on. Is that right? So even if first and second come very close and third is miles behind, second will get the same points as third?

 

[Tickles]

Just thinking out loud here, but isn't it a bit unfair to have different scoring systems (fair or hard) on each game?

For example when I I might win Willow and get maximum points, with Monkeychops coming second. Say then we both play Parodius next game under hard rules, and it turns out Monkeychops is the grand master god Chuck Norris of that game and I finish second. Wouldn't that mean that I get less points for finishing second on Parodius than Monkeychops did on Willow?

I'm not really too bothered as it's all a bit of fun, but the thought just occurred so I may as well chip in

 

[levi]

Willow is being scored Viciously, I believe. If we were to run Parodius Fairly that would mean coming second would give you the same or more points as under Vicious, I think.

*I think* that under Vicious scoring, only one person receives top points, two second, three third and so on. With Fair, five scores are set (100, 80, 60, 40, 20 I guess) and people are allocated to that depending on if they scored closely.

But to be honest I wasn't part of the discussion defining these rules, and I don't really understand how they're meant to work. Part of the idea of running a game under Fair scoring next round is to understand how it works in practice.

 

[MonkeyChops]

I agree with tickles, we should decide on one way of dealing out points across the board. The game's difficulty should suffice, we don't need to make it harder do we? I could see it playing out where no one plays the vicious scored game and only goes for the fair scored game out of the 2 choices. That would be a shame since part of the fun of this league is getting into a game you've never played before. At the very least _both_ games per round should be scored the same (either vicious or fair).

 

[skeezix]

Both Willow and Super Aleste are _fair highscore_ based, not vicious. (I have bene on the fence about 'how vicious' to be .. ie: is there onyl 1 #1, 2 #2, 3 #3, and so on progression, or do we allow 1 #1, 3 #2, 5 #3, that sort.)

I do agree that both games should have comparable scoring systems, even if different game types. (ie: We want two genres, so if people just hate one, they can try the other.)

jeff

IIRC Parodius Da (SNES) and Parodius (TG16/PCE) are the same game with same scoring system, so may need to clarify that both are acceptible for submission. Or do we mandate one in particular?

Round 2 starts Sunday IIRC, so are we voting on round 3 soon? I know I konw, I started thr league, but I rely on you guys to run most of it

 

[levi]

Um, I thought we were starting round 2 tomorrow - with that being two weeks after you started round 1, though that depends on Pickle being ready to start the scoring thread (I assume he's busy as I've not seen him in here for a while).I've just seen you put the deadline for this round as the 12th.

We're currently running a schedule, using Monkeychops nomination thread, where we only need to start voting at the same time as the previous round starts - so round 3 vote begins when round 2 play starts.

Parodius is known as Parodius Da! in Japan, since it's the sequel to Parodius on the MSX, and is the same game as the American Parodius (on the TurboGrafx), and a similar but not identical game called either Parodius or Parodius Da on the SNES (depending on region), NES, Sharp X68000, Game Boy or even Arcade. If you play it on the Playstation, PSP, Saturn or your mobile phone you could be playing either game. If you're playing it on MSX or Wii Virtual Console, you're playing the wrong game. So, to avoid confusion, and to ensure scoring is compatible, it's safest if we play Parodius (aka Parodius Da!) on the PC Engine/Turbografx.

 

[levi]

Okay, since I've not had much input on what scoring systems to use (understandable as this is all very new) I'm going to declare the following for round 2:

Parodius (aka Parodius Da!) on the PC Engine/Turbografx. Scoring will be vicious high score based, using no continues, no cheats.

Contra: Hard Corps either US or European version (the latter known as Probotector) on the MegaDrive/Genesis. Scores from the Japanese version will not be valid, so please make sure you're playing US or European for this game. Scoring will be vicious high score based, no continues, no cheats. 60Hz if you can manage it.

The voting thread for round 3 will open at some point tomorrow, probably towards the end of the day.

 

[mal_CanDo]

I just spent ages trying to get HuGo and OOtake to work on Windows 7 64-bit, in order to try Parodius for Game 2 - couldn't get either working ( OOtake asks for unzip32.dll, which then crashes under 64 bit, and HuGo requires GTK which also then crashes when it's installed.

I might purchase Magic Engine ( the demo worked ), but I always try to install and support the open source versions first ( also, if someone doesn't have a lot of funds free at the mo, they will run into the same problems ).


One question I did want to ask for two reasons ( one of which is that I've never had any problem running MAME ).

With the likes of Contra, why run the Megadrive version rather than the MAME version? MAME is more widely available, plus the fact that the Megadrive version ( or any remake - yes, even including RType on the PC Engine ) is always slightly to a LOT worse than the arcade original.

Contra Arcade link...
http://www.rom-world.com/file.php?id=30906

Mal

 

[levi]

At its simplest, I just select games for the vote as people nominated them. I didn't anticipate a problem running Contra on GP devices since you've got the likes of PicoDrive. On Linux you can use Gens, although that doesn't run perfectly on my machine. I'm afraid I don't have any working Windows or Mac OS machines, but I'd assume there's something running on those.

Personally I've never been able to get MAME running on any machine I've got that's powerful enough to run it, but FBA is good enough at running CPS1 & 2 games for that subset of arcade games.

For PC Engine I fire up mednafen. I believe there's a windows port of that.

 

[mal_CanDo]

Downloaded mednafed for Windows, that didn't work either

However, it did remind me of MESS ( the MAME equivalent ), so I downloaded that and it works great! ( once you figure out the weird key layout etc )

Mal