Pac-Land
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cmonkey said:Well there she is, all ready for a weekend of abuse!
And what an awesome cabinet it is too. I hope the artwork is reproduced at some point for these although I did contact TOG about it when this was up for auction and they did give a big NO....but somebody might at some point.
mathj said:
I don't think it would have been too popular with the J+ guys to run the UKVAC-LAND roms so it was just running with the high score save mod and free play with attract mode mod.
The machine had problems on the Saturday and was turned off for large parts of the day. Then again on Sunday morning the same plague struck it. I replaced the NVRAM chip with the standard SRAM chip and also took the back door off and left it off. I'm not sure which of the two had the desired effect but it worked perfectly for the rest of the day afterwards.
I actually don't even have the UKVAC-LAND roms anymore, I accidentally overwrote them and didn't have a backup
Some pics/video coming up of a true master at the game (not me) getting an amazing high score in front of my very eyes!
Today I was lucky enough to witness a true master playing on my beloved Pac-Land cab! The one-and-only Sprint from this very thread made a special journey all the way from the South up to the Play Expo @ Manchester where I met up with him, had a great chat and was then well and truly handed my a** to me on a plate by his expert skills on my cab!
Was a true pleasure to meet you Sprint, and to watch you excel at the game that I have so much admiration for.
Hope both you and my Pac-Land cab can make it to the South Coast Slam 2014.
Photos/videos posted with the express permission of the man himself.
The man himself warming up with a quick 640k!
Then it was down to serious business.... And the result was this!
The legend himself relaxing after some intense ghost avoidance techniques!
Was a true pleasure to meet you Sprint, and to watch you excel at the game that I have so much admiration for.
Hope both you and my Pac-Land cab can make it to the South Coast Slam 2014.
Photos/videos posted with the express permission of the man himself.
The man himself warming up with a quick 640k!
Then it was down to serious business.... And the result was this!
The legend himself relaxing after some intense ghost avoidance techniques!
Ha ha cmonkey you should definitely be in charge of writing my PR
A really enjoyable day (journey was a bit tiring but back at home now!). Cmonkey really knows his stuff and it was great to have a chat about the tech side of arcade gaming. Although I'm not new to electronics and software, I am only just starting to learn about the internals of these old machines, and cmonkey is huuugely knowledgable and it was great to pick his brains for a bit.
It was also an honour to be able to play an original bally midway pacland cab - the iconic one, which I've never played on before. It took a while to get into the gameplay, both getting used to the proper arcade buttons rather than a computer keyboard - quite a few subtle differences which caught me out, with a spring vs. click response, and it took a few games to iron those out, and the other surprise was it turns out my MAME roms are all garbled and I've been practicing on some oddball hybrid between midway and world game.
Was also a bit disappointed not to complete all 32 rounds, with a silly loss of life just before a free ride to the end of round 31. But I'm hoping there will be another opportunity in the not too distant future, with a bit more practice on the right set of ROMs this time, to try and score a million on that cab!
A really enjoyable day (journey was a bit tiring but back at home now!). Cmonkey really knows his stuff and it was great to have a chat about the tech side of arcade gaming. Although I'm not new to electronics and software, I am only just starting to learn about the internals of these old machines, and cmonkey is huuugely knowledgable and it was great to pick his brains for a bit.
It was also an honour to be able to play an original bally midway pacland cab - the iconic one, which I've never played on before. It took a while to get into the gameplay, both getting used to the proper arcade buttons rather than a computer keyboard - quite a few subtle differences which caught me out, with a spring vs. click response, and it took a few games to iron those out, and the other surprise was it turns out my MAME roms are all garbled and I've been practicing on some oddball hybrid between midway and world game.
Was also a bit disappointed not to complete all 32 rounds, with a silly loss of life just before a free ride to the end of round 31. But I'm hoping there will be another opportunity in the not too distant future, with a bit more practice on the right set of ROMs this time, to try and score a million on that cab!
You should post a video capture up on youtube , you can record it quite easily in mame and convert it to different video formats in freemake video converter *thats how i do mine* , i would like to see all 32 rounds done 
So what version is best to use ? i would probably use the JPN version myself ?
So what version is best to use ? i would probably use the JPN version myself ?
There is enough of a difference between some versions so it is difficult to compare scores across them.
Which to choose is largely a matter of personal preference. The Japanese version plays much slower, with both pacman and the ghosts moving more slowly. This allows more time for reactions and decisions to take place and makes the gameplay a little easier. I seem to end up with more time at the end of the round on the Japanese version as well. The power pills don't seem to go as far though - I'm not sure if they have different timing or whether it just takes longer to catch the ghosts with the slower pacman. It does mean that you need to spend more time grouping the ghosts to get an L-Pac in the Japanese version.
Both the "world" and "midway" editions play much quicker, and have a different sprite for pac-man. There are some difference between these in terms of level layout ("world" is closer to the Japanese levels), but these are somewhat more comparable in terms of scores. I prefer these versions partly because the version I played as a kid was one of these (not sure which one - possibly the world ed). The gameplay is faster and more entertaining, plus the game ends up being a bit shorter (a million point game is over half an hour long if starting from trip 1). You need faster reactions and decision making, but it is easier to get ghosts more spread out.
I do find it difficult to switch between the Japanese and midway/world editions, mainly because the timing is a bit different. So it is probably easier to choose and stick with one. The Japanese version is more popular amongst Japanese players (unsurprisingly) and the world/midway ones more popular in America/Europe I find.
Twin galaxies don't appear to specify a version, which is a bit of an oversight I think, as the versions are not comparable, although most of the records are old ones from the US, so I suspect they used the midway version. The 4 million score by Mark Mendes is a little "out there", not sure if that will be beaten any time soon (or ever?).
MARP records are around 2 million for the Japanese version and just over 1 million for the midway/world edition. I would guess at the latter of those being easier to beat, but as I said above, difficult to compare.
Which to choose is largely a matter of personal preference. The Japanese version plays much slower, with both pacman and the ghosts moving more slowly. This allows more time for reactions and decisions to take place and makes the gameplay a little easier. I seem to end up with more time at the end of the round on the Japanese version as well. The power pills don't seem to go as far though - I'm not sure if they have different timing or whether it just takes longer to catch the ghosts with the slower pacman. It does mean that you need to spend more time grouping the ghosts to get an L-Pac in the Japanese version.
Both the "world" and "midway" editions play much quicker, and have a different sprite for pac-man. There are some difference between these in terms of level layout ("world" is closer to the Japanese levels), but these are somewhat more comparable in terms of scores. I prefer these versions partly because the version I played as a kid was one of these (not sure which one - possibly the world ed). The gameplay is faster and more entertaining, plus the game ends up being a bit shorter (a million point game is over half an hour long if starting from trip 1). You need faster reactions and decision making, but it is easier to get ghosts more spread out.
I do find it difficult to switch between the Japanese and midway/world editions, mainly because the timing is a bit different. So it is probably easier to choose and stick with one. The Japanese version is more popular amongst Japanese players (unsurprisingly) and the world/midway ones more popular in America/Europe I find.
Twin galaxies don't appear to specify a version, which is a bit of an oversight I think, as the versions are not comparable, although most of the records are old ones from the US, so I suspect they used the midway version. The 4 million score by Mark Mendes is a little "out there", not sure if that will be beaten any time soon (or ever?).
MARP records are around 2 million for the Japanese version and just over 1 million for the midway/world edition. I would guess at the latter of those being easier to beat, but as I said above, difficult to compare.
I've now reversed (and just about understood!) the code which handles all the speeds for Pac-Man, the ghosts and the blue time (power pill time) for all versions of the game. I'll get my findings together and post all the details in the tech section at some point this week.
I had a really good run.
muddymusic2013-10-14 20:47:31
muddymusic2013-10-14 20:47:31
It sucks that they killed the power whilst we were half way through the game dude.
And I wanted to see your l33t skills on The Getaway too. Damn spoilsports I tell you!
Oh well, I'm sure there'll be another opportunity for us to compete at the highest level at some point in the future..
And I wanted to see your l33t skills on The Getaway too. Damn spoilsports I tell you!
Oh well, I'm sure there'll be another opportunity for us to compete at the highest level at some point in the future..
arcademugs
Newbie
Wow, just fired up Pacland on Mame and realised how truly awful I am at it! Time to get practicing I think!