For those of you familiar with this game...check this out and you'll know that 2+2 isn't equaling 4 here...

http://marp.retrogames.com/inp/phl_ccastles_814092_mame34.zip

'nuff said, JoustGod

-- JoustGod (pinballwiz1@msn.com), November 07, 1999

Answers

I'm not familiar with Crystal Castles at all, only having played it a handful of times- but has this recording been made on a easy setting? If so then how could it ever be confirmed?? Whoever is judge for Kung Fu Master should take a long hard look at Phil's recording for that particular game as well.

-- JSW (usagi@dingoblue.net.au), November 08, 1999.

OK.. just checked and his Kung Fu Master score has been reduced to zero. I don't think that was an honest mistake on Phils behalf.. certainly not for Ccastles as you have to go into test mode to change the difficulty options, its not merely a case of forgetting to change the dip switches and leaving them on default.

-- JSW (usagi@dingoblue.net.au), November 08, 1999.

All the dip switch settings will be checked for each and every recording for all 10 T2 games. We can only catch the easy ones for now. However, everything will be looked at again, once I have the proper tool set. Can't go to Home Depot for this one!

-- Pat (laffaye@ibm.net), November 08, 1999.

I am sorry, but a score of 814,092 doesn't work on Crystal Castles, with a par score of 280,000ish being scored when reaching L5-1, halfway through the entire game! Someone review and blank that fake score.

-- Chris Parsley (cparsley1@hotmail.com), November 08, 1999.

Chris, please don't fan the fire if you don't know what you're talking about. :) Three warps gets you to 7-1 with 420K. It takes about 13 rounds to finish the game from there, boosting you up another 200K or so, with a bonus at the end for lives remaining and time it took to complete the game. The current TG world record stands at 910,722, with 898K just behind. The other two scores in there also beat out Phil's recording. I suppose they cheated too?

Cheers, Brian McLean

-- Brian McLean (bmclean84@hotmail.com), November 08, 1999.

I'll take care of all posts in one shot. One, even through I don't use it, "'nuff said" is the same as enough said. Some people don't realize the International range of things. Also, don't just place it on Americans, though, as other countries can be identified with slang of their language. For instance, nobody ever explained the Boks, (even though as a sports writer I know them to be a Rugby team that had their hopes dashed.) and also the rather rude remark of the Americas Cup from someone in Europe.

To get on thread, Crystal Castles. What a nice little game. Warping at 140,000 per warp does boost the score, but two things... One, at the difficulty setting it should be, that's not too possible on a computer setup. Two, to be fair, any tourney recording shouldn't use ANY WARPS WHATSOEVER, what guarantees you NO 140,000 easy point plays. Also, we got to love the sloped level 10-1, aka "the end" (Which can still score a you get the last gem bonus on, even though it never advances.)

-- Chris Parsley (cparsley1@hotmail.com), November 08, 1999.

Chris, please. :) ~Please~ look at the game and its scores before you say any more, or I'm gonna die from laughter. ;)

You say the warps are impossible, but Donut had no problem with them, or even just flat out finishing the game ~after~ he did those warps (which is considerably more difficult, mind you!). Phil's recording may be getting the evil eye right now, but until it's shown otherwise he managed to do it too. And even I and several other players got all three warps after some practice. It would be totally ridiculous to impose a restriction like no warping on that game. TG won't, why should we?

Brian McLean

-- Brian McLean (bmclean84@hotmail.com), November 08, 1999.

I am the judge for Kung-Fu Master, and, yes, Phil's recording was made on "easy". But so were the recordings of a handful of other people... . For me, this is merely an observation. I don't draw any conclusions from it.

It is very hard to tell which setting is used from looking at the playback, so I decided to look at the actual bytes inside the .inp file. Since dipswitch settings are stored in the .inp, it is pretty easy to catch that way. For both games I am judgeing (Pooyan being the other one), I always check the dipswitch settings by looking inside the .inp.

I had a quick look inside some ccastles .inps, but there is something there I do not understand. The frames do not seem to have a fixed length. So I'll have to figure that one out first before I can write a tool like Pat mentioned.

Ben Jos.

-- Ben Jos Walbeehm (walbeehm@walbeehm.com), November 08, 1999.

Concerning kungfum : I hadn't play t1 very seriously (just 2 or 3 games) and I hadn't take care some settings had change from default ; so I do apologize close to other players for my inp made on "normal" ; actually I just managed a quite similar score but this time made on "hard"

Concerning ccastles : thanks a lot to Brian to take my defense ! That's quite a week I'm studying this game level by level ( how to avoid trees , on which point you have to wait the hat on level 9 -if you wait too long it turns into a "nasty ball"- etc etc) ; I used warps because other players did it before ; and believe me it is not easy to finish the game even with that ! And I invite others players to have a look at Chris Parsley's inputs on abaseb and abaseb2 : he scores 0 on both game but uploaded them with the score made by the cpu ! I ask him twice to erase them but he kept dumb : he seem to have a lot of time to criticize but not a lot to correct his own mistakes .....

Phil

PS to JG : my english is limited , I don't understand what you says ; si tu veux chambrer un frangais parle au moins de fagon ` ce qu'il comprenne

-- Phil (plamat@club-internet.fr), November 08, 1999.

PHIL, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, LOOK BEFORE YOU ACCUSE. I HAVE NO SUCH SCORE AS YOU CLAIM. I HAVE NO POINTS ON ANY ATARI BASEBALL GAME. THANK YOU VERY LITTLE.

-- Chris Parsley (cparsley1@hotmail.com), November 08, 1999.

Hey Chris... What's that you're doing to your Atari Baseball recordings, then? Hm...

Brian

-- Brian McLean (bmclean84@hotmail.com), November 09, 1999.

Picture Pos Name Player Date Score (unconfirmed) Inp 4th has 1 clone: abaseb2 Atari Baseball (set 1) (abaseb) Chris Parsley (@) 27 May 99 22:33:38 1 : 6pts win35b12 Default 0- 1 Final Score 3rd clone of abaseb Atari Baseball (set 2) (abaseb2) Chris Parsley (@) 03 Jul 99 18:42:16 0 : 0pts win35rc2 0-2 end of 1 inning there were 2 hits

-- Dr Chip (Dr_Chip_ii@hotmail.com), November 09, 1999.

That isn't as clear on a white background but I think it's still readable enough to see what Phil was talking about!

Dr C

-- Dr Chip (Dr_Chip_ii@hotmail.com), November 09, 1999.

I couldn't see the text on that at all, but by simply selecting all text in that table, it gets... well... selected, thus changing colour and becoming readable.

Ben Jos.

-- Ben Jos Walbeehm (walbeehm@walbeehm.com), November 09, 1999.

As you see, thanks for pointing it out, is ZERO POINTS! WHY, you were trying to prove me wrong, and you made the point for me, why thank you.

-- Chris Parsley (cparsley1@hotmail.com), November 09, 1999.

"Dear" Mr Parsley, we have to precise that you just edited your scores to ZERO after Phil's remark, claiming you have no atari baseball scores ! One lie more, as everybody can see... So , before accusing clean scores of being fake, just start to be clean yourself ! And please don't invoke the love of god when you lie ...

-- lagavulin (darre@club-internet.fr), November 09, 1999.

Again, dear sir. Having no score is what I said. Where a problem here may come from a language difference. No Atari Baseball Score means no score (points) on board, not whether or not there is a recording. Please don't flame when you don't have all the facts.

-- Chris Parsley (cparsley1@hotmail.com), November 09, 1999.

And here are the facts : I don't know how to join a file to the board's mail but for those who are interested I can send them a "top3.htm" file I've uploaded 2 or 3 days ago . It shows that Parsley's scores are (and were for a long time ago) 8 on abaseb and 2 on abaseb2 . They 've suddenly been change to 0 after my precedent message

-- Phil (plamat@club-internet.fr), November 09, 1999.

Chris,

English is my first language but I also took your posting to mean that you did not "have any scores for Atari Baseball" to mean no recordings because even a score of 0 is a score.

The hard to read html inserted above from the MARP page still shows you having a score of 1 and therefore 6 points on set 1 of Atari Baseball so your statement of having no scores (sorry no leaderboard points) still is incorrect.

Lastly I was not trying to have a go at you, it just seems you're trying to blame this on English not being their primary language and that they mis-understood what you meant when in reality that's a poor excuse for not admitting you made a mistake.

Dr C

-- Dr Chip (Dr_Chip_ii@hotmail.com), November 10, 1999.

Having come to the defence of Phil from Chris's explanations re Atari Baseball I will come back to the original reason for this thread.

I have now downloaded Phil's recording of Crystal Castles and must say I am surprised that anyone could perform the moves he did - particularly getting the gem monsters eating the gems with such relative ease and completing level 10-1 in the manner he did.

All these things considered would seem to suggest that 2+2 <> 4.

Dr C.

-- Dr Chip (Dr_Chip_ii@hotmail.com), November 10, 1999.

Nothing to say about the use of Warps....that's an inside game feature, and could be used or not...it's up to anyone (dozen of games give this chance, not only at the beginning -level select-, but during the game too -BubbleBobble and Pang3, just to name 2-). What makes me wonder instead is the movement....
I'm not doubting Phil's skill at ccastles, but.....is it humanly possible to move that fast, avoiding enemies or killing them while eating, picking up perfectly every single gem....and so on...!?! uuhmmmmm....
Such speed is almost ureachable, even setting the X and Y sensitivity % over 100, and anyway, with such sensitivity, is almost impossible to be that precise !
I know I'm to raise a major flame against me....but I couldn't help wondering that, and so I tried to do what I never did before.
I played a game after slowering down my PC to 50 Mhz, and the difference is so evident.... it even makes a poor ccastles player like me a great one !!! To conferm my assumption, just download this file.
The cc1 and cc2 inps have been recorded at full speed with 110 and 180 % sensitvity respectively: player speed is identical (and my ability is close to 0 :-)))
The fake.inp has been recorded at 50Mhz ... do you notice any difference...?!? Cicca

-- Cicca (cicca@writeme.com), November 11, 1999.

The above given link is incorrect....just an unneeded capital letter :-( . This is correct. Sorry.

Cicca

-- Cicca (cicca@writeme.com), November 11, 1999.