Golden Era Game of the Week 4/23/05: Mario Bros.

[Weehawk]

Golden Era Game of the Week

See introduction here

The Game: Mario Bros.

romname: mario

Screenshot:
(click to see current MARP scores)

Reward: $100 (usd)

Deadline for submission to MARP: April 29, 2005 2359 hours GMT

Further Bounty: $150 (usd) for exceeding the Twin Galaxies record of 3,481,550 points by Perry Rogers before July 31, 2005. This will have to be done using TG settings: Difficulty=medium, Starting lives=3, 1 extra at 20k.

This week's game is sponsored by MARP member "gastrainga" ("Zhorik" on the forum.) He has provided the prize money, and selected the game, subject to my approval.

I remember watching people play this one a lot, but never played it much myself. Not really my type of game, as a matter of fact it is one of the games I associate with the death of the golden era, mainly because of the Nintendo theme and the similarity to the types of games originally popular on the NES, whose ascension to dominance in the home videogame market coincided with the end of the arcade videogame boom.

Not a bad little game though, in and of itself.

Note well: For this week's challenge and the bounty for the highest score, you must use difficulty=hardest. MAME's default is "easy". I will therefore waive the requirement of beating one's own previous score if there is one.

For the further bounty you will use the TG setting difficulty=medium.

In all cases you will start with 3 lives and get 1 extra at 20k.

Use WolfMAME .95

[Zhorik]

I'm sponsoring the bounties this week, and will not be competing (although I'll submit for fun).

NOTE: For the this weeks GEGOTW challenge, please be sure to use difficulty HARDEST and not difficulty Hard or the default of difficulty Easy!

NOTE: For the further bounty of beating the TG record on TG settings (difficulty medium), I will allow submissions with either WolfMAME95 or WolfMAME78. This is ONLY for the further bounty. For the GEGOTW contest this week, WolfMAME78 will NOT be accepted.

-gastrainga

[LN2]

FYI...that Perry Rodgers score...

it's not clear given this was done way back in the golden era what settings he used.

odds are he used factory settings which were EASY.

it's a big issue with many of the scores actually accomplished back in the 80s....easier settings than what we have to play it at nowadays.

the game is easier on easy than on medium.

I have inquired about this to TG and never gotten an answer...cuz it's unknown what difficulty he used....so the factory of easy is very likely IMHO.

[MJS]

the game is easier on easy than on medium.

[lippsman]

Hmmmm.......The top score on Mario Brothers vanished last night. It was in the high 900,000 range. Rick Carter has the top score on the game now. The former top score was recorded on easy. Easy is easy since it's not medium. Sorry, LN2 it was to EASY to make fun of that. Anyway, why was the score taken off the board. That is the arcade default settings for the game.

Louie

[Weehawk]

Hmmmm.......The top score on Mario Brothers vanished last night. It was in the high 900,000 range. Rick Carter has the top score on the game now. The former top score was recorded on easy. Easy is easy since it's not medium. Sorry, LN2 it was to EASY to make fun of that. Anyway, why was the score taken off the board. That is the arcade default settings for the game.

As I stated in my original post, since George thought it would be more interesting to compete this week on "HARDEST" difficulty. (Not "HARD", BTW) I waived the requirement to best one's own previous score to be eligible for the week's prize.

Since George wanted to play along for fun with the competitors this week, he had to temporarily take off his high score, so he can submit lower scores on the more difficult settings. Others may have to do the same if they have scores on the game already and cannot exceed them on "HARDEST".

[lippsman]

Ahhhh, very good. I always liked this game. It's much more fun with two players though.

Louie

[Zhorik]

Louie, thanks for playing and nice recordings, but you are using the wrong settings. You need to switch from HARD to HARDEST.

-gastrainga

[lippsman]

Thanks,

If you take a look I've deleted the scores. Well, mostly. Can you tell me how to completely delete the name off the board

Thanks

[lippsman]

I found out how to do it.

Games with hardest setting coming up........

Louie

[wuzel]

Games with hardest setting coming up........

Good.

PS. I still drinked.

[Weehawk]

Sunday's bonus points to MJS

http://www.gegotw.net/news.html

[LN2]

Hmmmm.......The top score on Mario Brothers vanished last night. It was in the high 900,000 range. Rick Carter has the top score on the game now. The former top score was recorded on easy. Easy is easy since it's not medium. Sorry, LN2 it was to EASY to make fun of that.

no problem....FYI I am Rick Carter.


Also FYI for you guys, we at TG looked into mario Bros. some. We need to check it out more...but it is believed from some investigation that the game might be easier(for achieving high scores) at hard or hardest difficulty versus medium!

it all comes down to the timing of when the blue-green fireballs come out versus the animals early in each phase.

I have not personally experimented with playing the game at hard or hardest...but a couple others that did claimed they could score just as high and potentially higher at the harder difficulty settings cuz of the timing differences....fitting getting the animals more.

[Zhorik]

Rick,

I was probably at least one of the people who told you that I'm not sure that difficulty Hard is really harder than difficulty Medium. I've played a lot of Medium and just a bit of Hard, but I was able to get comparable scores on Hard. Hardest is definitely significantly harder than any of the other settings.

-gastrainga

[lippsman]

Rick,

Your theory about the game being a bit more easy to play on harder levels has some merit. After the first few levels the B/G fireballs will come out 2 seconds after they disappear. You can use this to your advantage, by hanging on a level, having both of the B/G fireballs come out, then dropping or going up a level to kick a couple of pest. Although, if you lose a man early on the hard or hardest settings, your pretty much history. The game actually seems to have patterns. The animals will come out the same way every game. Sometimes it will be different, but it's just a mirror of what usually happens. The Ice falling on phase 16 is where everything goes a bit crazy. I have not compared the falling ice between the medium and hardest levels.

But on the medium level, the fireballs take a bit longer to come out. You can take care of 2 or 3 pest before you have to worry about the fireballs. Which is a huge advantage. It's really that damn falling ice that will get you.

When it comes down to it though. I don't see the setting of Hard or Hardest achieving higher scores than medium. But since Rick is the one who shot almost 400,00 on Medium. You would be the guy to test out this theory on Hard/est.

Thanks

Louie