Bandits - Aug 16/04

vic user · Post by **vic user** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 3:40 am

next up on the list of frequent posts, and next week's
game of the week chooser... mika!

Bandits
Sirius software
1983

8k in block 5

First off, vertical shooters are not my fav. type of game,
but when I came across this game, and looked at it, from what
to look for in a vertical shooter, I am massively impressed.

Even though these type of games may not be your type of game, please
take a look and play this game, (especially on a real vic!)
It has so much of what I am looking for in a vertical shooter:

Consistent, smooth, and accurate controls.
Variation.
Lots of action and eye candy.
Difficult enemies.
Strategy needed.
Some kind of cheat or 'get out of jail' card, like a smart bomb
or something, in this case a force field (press up on joystick)

Bandits, is for me, the best vertical shooter I have ever played,
on any platform, ever.

In my opinion, there are only three things wrong with this game,
that do not make it THE perfect vertical shooter.

1) No music. Would love to hear some intermission music.

2) Can't type in your initials for a high score.
Would like it if the cart. had a pretend set of high scores
and you could rate your score. Sure, your score gets erased
after you turn off the vic, but while it's on, it would be
nice to have your initals be displayed in a top 10 list,
before you and your buddies start another game.

3) No true time of invincibility, between the time you take
control of your new ship, after the last one got killed.
Demon Attack is bad for this too. Be careful with this game
after you lose a ship, because when your next one appears,
you will be vulnerable right away!

other than that, there is so much going for this game.

my high score is: 22,160

vic user · Post by **vic user** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 9:04 am

would anyone be able to supply a link for a zipped version of this game, just in case people who want to try it, and do not have it.

thanks!

chris

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 9:23 am

The dump from Zimmers seems to be partially broken, and I'm not referring to it being a NTSC only game (run it in both video modes and compare the raster - interestingly enough, some site listed its origin to Europe?).

Does anyone know of a more accurate dump for the poor souls among us who don't own the original?

Edit: It may be an emulator timing issue, as the game behaves in PAL mode like it does in NTSC when it crashes out. Unfortunately my real VIC is PAL for obvious reasons, so I couldn't check if the dump is working on a real computer.

vic user · Post by **vic user** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 9:31 am

i have a perfectly good image of the game.

i will e-mail you a zipped version right now

chris

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 9:47 am

Hm, ok. That image bugs out the emulator exactly like the other one did. The old PCVIC emulator once claimed to run this game properly, so maybe I should try that (and inform the emu developers). I'm not so sure it is easy to PAL fix this one.

vic user · Post by **vic user** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 9:55 am

well i hope you get it to work.

i just tried it in vice on ntsc mode, and no worries.
doesn't look as nice in emulation as it does on a real vic though

chris

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 10:00 am

Keep playing for a while, and it should screw up something like that screen shot (or it is my computer that is broken?). Unfortunately, PCVIC doesn't run in Windows 2000, so I'd have to wait until I get home before trying that.

vic user · Post by **vic user** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 10:45 am

i played a game, and i did not have it happen, but i did have it happen when i switched back and forth from video modes

chris

Boray · Post by **Boray** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 11:13 am

I guess all PAL users can take a rest this week,
if you don't want to develop epilepsy...

/Anders

vic user · Post by **vic user** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 11:15 am

or i could pick another game.
i have tons i wanted to talk about

chris

vic user · Post by **vic user** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 4:49 pm

i am sorry for picking this game, PAL people.

next time around for me, i will make sure i pick a game that can play on any mode.

it's too bad, because Bandits is a wicked, wicked game!

my new high score is 23,120, and i don't know how much higher i can get. the game just gets nuts.

chris

vic user · Post by **vic user** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 7:06 pm

score now 23,170

no more for tonight

Post by **Jeff-20** » Mon Aug 16, 2004 8:41 pm

This is just an odd game. Fuggin theives!

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Tue Aug 17, 2004 12:35 am

I've heard back from VICE development team, and they confirm there is an interrupt bug in the emulation, reported a few weeks ago (based on this very same game?!). It is quite hard to track down and fix, so we should not expect it to be fixed in the upcoming update.

Oh well, I can see from NTSC emulation for as long as it runs properly that it looks nice. It reminds me of some other game, not sure which.

Xanadu · Post by **Xanadu** » Tue Aug 17, 2004 4:51 am

Oh well, I can see from NTSC emulation for as long as it runs properly that it looks nice. It reminds me of some other game, not sure which.

Similar layout to Galactic Abductors by Anirog ?