Shmup Club December 2018 - Demon Attack VS Spider Fighter

[MetalFRO]

[img width=350 height=510]https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81I0bzxlm1L.jpg[/img]  VS  [img width=350 height=510]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/U-005/bf/U-005-S-04160-A.jpg[/img]

It's a December shmup showdown, between 2 classic single-screen shooting games, for the Atari 2600! 2 of the most prolific 3rd party publishers, Imagic, and Activision, put their best foot forward, and deliver shooting games that build upon the success of previous titles, like Space Invaders, Phoenix, and Galaxian, and add their own spin on the genre. During the 1st and 2nd console generations, many games were released that took the form of the single-screen shoot-em-up, where you move your craft left and right at the bottom of the screen, and take on various enemy waves as they descend or hover above you. Some of these games barely managed to differentiate themselves from the Space Invaders formula, only changing things up slightly. This resulted in a lot of clones that didn't really stand apart from the originals.

Imagic and Activision were 2 publishers that created a number of unique and interesting games. As the basic shooting game template was evolving during the early 1980's, both companies injected their respective games with some new elements, in terms of audiovisual and mechanics, and created a couple interesting titles. Imagic made Demon Attack, which sees the player pitted against waves of flying "demons" that warp into the screen, and drop clusters of bombs down at the player, to try and take them out, slowly drifting down toward the player as they move back and forth. Activision made Spider Fighter, which gives the player a high speed hovercraft to move back and forth, to quickly fire at and destroy spiders and other bugs that move quickly and erratically, making them harder to target, while protecting the fruit at the top of the screen. Both games use the basic gameplay elements pioneered in the aforementioned games, but bring enough of their own elements into the mix to provide a new experience. Join the RF Generation Shmup Club as we dive into these 2 classics, and see which one the club members will crown as the best on the system. May the best game win!

PARTICIPANTS:
MetalFRO
Addicted
L0rdb0rb4
douglie007
louisG

High Scores:
Demon Attack

Spider Fighter

[/list][/list][/list]

[lordb0rb4]

I'm in as well, and i must say that i've NEVER played a Atari gamer, this will be a first!

Almos forgot, my vote goes to Demon Attack and it's quite unique setting 

[MetalFRO]

Welcome aboard! I will add you to the list. I’ll be curious to hear your impressions on these 2 games, given your lack of experience with Atari games!

[douglie007]

I'll try to get some shumping done with golfing

[MetalFRO]

Sounds great, welcome aboard!

[louisG]

Demon Attack! \o/ Are we playing regular mode with difficulty set to A? There's also tracer and advanced-- advanced is really fun IMO. Hmm, come to think of it, I don't think I've ever tried tracer mode.

[louisG]

Demon Attack! \o/ Are we playing regular mode with difficulty set to A? There's also tracer and advanced-- advanced is really fun IMO. Hmm, come to think of it, I don't think I've ever tried tracer mode.

OK, tracer just follows your ship like in almost every other 2600 shooter. And holy crap Advanced Mode is hard! It's really good, but I must've been playing a ton of Demon Attack because I remember thinking it was easy :O Oh, are we voting on these too? I'm new, sorry! I'm learning towards Demon Attack, but I'm looking forward to spending more time with Spider Fighter as I chase other peoples' scores. Maybe I'll find some depth I missed back when I first played it.

[lordb0rb4]

WOW, I'm genuinely blown away...
As i said, Demon Attack is my first atari game EVER that i've seen in person/played.
Is this supossed to be this smooth or is the emulator doing god's work? Just WOW.
I've downloaded the manual and cover art for a more authentic experience and i loved the overall feeling.It's gaming at it's purest form, i'm so glad that i finally took the time to enjoy an Atari game.
So here's my best score for this first day:
[img width=640 height=360]https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4843/31194031527_45d1c2edfe_z.jpg[/img]

[louisG]

Played on Stella defaults. Got to the orbs and died. Gotta try it on the real setup when I get back in.

[MetalFRO]

Good initial scores, you two, and welcome aboard, louisG!

[MetalFRO]

I managed to break the 10K mark late last night. I should mention, I'm playing the default mode, default difficulty. I haven't explored the other game modes yet, which I may do after I peruse the manual a bit. Also, I'm using a Sega Genesis 3-button pad, and playing via my Atari 7800, where the B button works to fire. One thing that I like about this game, that I had forgotten was a feature, was that it has auto-fire. There are times when you want to more directly control your rate of fire, but because enemies split into 2 after level 4, the screen can get pretty busy, and auto-fire helps for crowd control, and focusing on your movement to avoid enemy fire, rather than having to worry about aiming. This is especially helpful because the enemy patterns can be so erratic.

[img width=700 height=525]https://i.imgur.com/KVhXerS.jpg[/img]

[louisG]

I think we have almost the same TV! Here's my score from Sunday

[lordb0rb4]

Nice scores guys!
I've managed to increase mine a bit:
[img width=640 height=360]https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4845/45260990765_ee71026563_z.jpg[/img]

[louisG]

I got a little further last night in Demon Attack, and also started playing some Spider Fighter. By the time you get to the bananas, that game gets, uh, bananas. Really fast.

Here's my latest on Demon Attack. We also need to decide if we're playing on difficulty A (harder) or B (normal). I realized my Stella score was B (I think?) and my physical Atari score was on A. The manual lists A as "Aggressive Action" and B as "Basic Bombardment"

[MetalFRO]

Here's my latest on Demon Attack. We also need to decide if we're playing on difficulty A (harder) or B (normal). I realized my Stella score was B (I think?) and my physical Atari score was on A. The manual lists A as "Aggressive Action" and B as "Basic Bombardment"

I think we could probably play on any difficulty, as long as you denote which game mode and difficulty you're playing on. When I get home from work tonight, I might look through the manual, since I have a boxed copy, and look at what it's doing. Right now, I'm literally just booting up the game and playing on the default game mode, and default difficulty, whatever that works out to be. Speaking of which...

[img width=700 height=525]https://i.imgur.com/qzG4sol.jpg[/img]

I got into the zone last night, and had a really good run! I didn't quite get close to this again, capping out around 22K another time, but whatever the default game mode and difficulty is, if you can get into a rhythm with it, it's possible to score a lot, because every 2 levels, the number of points increases for each enemy destroyed, and after a few levels, you get additional points because enemies split in two, and then you get additional points for destroying each of those 2 enemies, so the scoring goes up considerably after 5 or 6 levels.

Here's a link to a text version of the manual, via AtariAge:
https://atariage.com/manu...e.php?SoftwareLabelID=134

And here's a high quality scanned version, via Games Database:
http://www.gamesdatabase....ttack_-_1982_-_Imagic.pdf

I'm playing this on my Atari 7800, which doesn't have all the levers and switches, but has some ability to provide those functions. As to which mode is default, I think it's probably Game #1 (Demon Attack). I don't know whether or not it's A or B type, A being "Aggressive Action" and B being "Basic Bombardment" but it sure feels aggressive enough to me


To your point about Spider Fighter getting "bananas" (nice one), you're absolutely right. That game gets insanely fast fairly quickly, so it's partially a matter of luck, and also being really aggressive about making sure that you're taking out enemy spiders and bugs as quickly as possible when a wave starts, so you can avoid having to deal with being rained down upon by heavy fire, and also the possibility of losing fruit. It gets very fast and frantic.