Defender/Stargate

[pinballwizard79]

Too damn hard!!!!

[D_Harris]

Too damn hard!!!!

Yeah, but only if you're a girl. 

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

[RandyT]

Groundhog's Day. 

[JODY]

Take a break from it for awhile.  Just need more practice.  Defender is the easier one.  Try Robotron for awhile.

[pinballwizard79]

haha thanks D_Harris 

Yeah Jody I agree Defender is eaiser, Stargate is the same game twice as fast with an extra button = DOGH

RandyT whatutalkinboutwillis

[taylormadelv]

Stargate is MUCH more than Defender "with an extra button"! I can't play Defender for more than 2 minutes before I get bored. Stargate is the greatest game ever created IMO. The sounds are perfect, the explosions are perfect, the gameplay is challenging but not impossible to master with practice. And Inviso is very important in Stargate. The only real difference between running it in mame and the real deal is the cool strobing effects and high contrast on a real WG4600, it does look a lot better on the 4600 but the game plays exactly the same on a VGA.

[LeedsFan]

Having been playing more Defender lately the thing that I get flustered with is the fact that it's your middle finger that does the firing. After a while my hand just seems to not respond to what the mind is telling it. I'm furiously trying to fire like crazy but my middle finger just will not co-operate. I get the feeling that if the thrust and fire buttons were swapped round I'd do so much better (which I can do in Mame easily ofc). But then I get to thinking that if I get used to that setup then I will never be able to play on a "proper" machine if I do get decent at it. 

[HanoiBoi]

haha thanks D_Harris 

Yeah Jody I agree Defender is eaiser, Stargate is the same game twice as fast with an extra button = DOGH

RandyT whatutalkinboutwillis

Pretty sure Randy's referring to the first time you started this thread (5/11). 

[pinballwizard79]

Ha I totally forgot about that, in fact I thought you were mistaken until I checked my own history...

I drink a lot

Check back in say 2-3 weeks for a new one 

[scofthe7seas]

I think you should try integrating racing pedals into your experience.

[HanoiBoi]

Ha I totally forgot about that, in fact I thought you were mistaken until I checked my own history...

I drink a lot

Check back in say 2-3 weeks for a new one 

  It's all good.     I do feel for you though...you must be trying to conquer these games and keep getting beat up.  I always sucked at them.  My brother rocked these games and Robotron.  It was good enough for me to watch a skilled player.

[alfonzotan]

Back in the day, there was a setting on some Stargate machines that would give 50 ships (and smart bombs, and inviso units) for a 2-quarter game.  Not sure if it was a DIP switch thing or a "hot" setting in the admin screens after initial bootup, but Stargates with that setting were highly coveted by cheap gamers.  Buddy of mine held the high score on one (at the Sandestin Hilton in Destin, FL) for years and years thanks to that...

[arzoo]

Back in the day, there was a setting on some Stargate machines that would give 50 ships (and smart bombs, and inviso units) for a 2-quarter game.  Not sure if it was a DIP switch thing or a "hot" setting in the admin screens after initial bootup, but Stargates with that setting were highly coveted by cheap gamers.  Buddy of mine held the high score on one (at the Sandestin Hilton in Destin, FL) for years and years thanks to that...

Never heard of that - SG options are configured via on-screen menus (no dips) and I'm pretty sure there's no setting for 50 ships (at least not on my early production unit). Maybe it was a custom ROM. Still, I don't know why any arcade or route would set the machine like that - would bring in less $.

[HanoiBoi]

I seem to vaguely remember something about having lots of ships.  I don't know about 50...

Could they have been acquired through warping several times?

[TOK]

I thought the 50 cent game gave you 7 ships/smartbombs/extra Inviso by default.
I could be mistaken though. I never use this setting because I don't want it fudging my high score list.

[alfonzotan]

I seem to vaguely remember something about having lots of ships.  I don't know about 50...

Could they have been acquired through warping several times?

Nope, this was straight out of dropping in two quarters and pushing "Player 1."  I think I ran into a grand total of two machines with the "50 for 50" setting back then, both in the Southeast.  For obvious reasons (as arzoo notes above) it wasn't a preferred setting for arcades and/or vendors.  Even in the few machines that had that setting, it wasn't advertised in the attract screens.  You had to drop in your money and find out for yourself.  Most of the time, of course, that just bought you 7 ships.

As far as it being a special ROM, could be for all I know, but it definitely existed back then.  I've never bothered to look for it in the emulation era, but I might have to poke around a bit now...

UPDATE:  From the Stargate manual (link below):

The basic number of ships awarded for a 1 credit game can be set anywhere from 1 to 20.  The recommended number of
ships for a 1 credit game is 3.

The basic number of ships awarded for a 2 credit game can be set anywhere from 0 (no 2 credit games) to 50.  The
recommended number of ships for a 2 credit game is 7.

So there you go.  My guess would be that in the games I encountered, the operator set the 2-credit ships to the max of 50 by accident (either that or a maintainer was really mad at his boss)...

http://www.arcade-museum.com/manuals-videogames/S/StargateInstructionManual.pdf

[DataWest]

Too damn hard!!!!

Yeah, but only if you're a girl. 

 

[pinballwizard79]

Too damn hard!!!!

Yeah, but only if you're a girl. 

 

Whatever bitches    any game that allows you 50 lives for 2 tokens is obviously a PITA

[taylormadelv]

My Stargate has the battery acid problem and it always resets each time it's powered on. If I don't hit the reset test button very quickly while the game powers up, it goes into that "50 ship/50 smartbomb" configuration automatically when I coin up the game. I can't tell the change has been made until you actually coin up.
I think it was done on purpose, so that the operators could play a 50 ship game and put up a crazy HS that everyone would try shooting for, then reset everything back to "normal". BTW I always play standard, factory 3 ship games. My HS is 188,000 but I can't prove it since it resets!