MAME Action Replay Page - News

I'm back. Just in case you were worried about me... :o)

I updated the script for the windows port of beta 2. I also added entries for DOS and windows versions of beta 3, in case they're released in the next week.

I'm off on holiday for a week from tomorrow, so I'll not be updating this page or answering any email for a while.

For your comfort and convenience, I've tidied up the message board quite a lot, by filing all the old messages away. So now, you'll see the newest messages first, and not have to wade through piles of old stuff.

One email I did discover was from Alan Bryant, he who had a broken Food Fight recording on MARP for about a year (until I rudely deleted it yesterday). He'll soon be working on making another massive Food Fight recording. Until then, enjoy his Food Fight web page. If you want to, that is.

My PC has crashed. Again. I'm hoping to get it working again, but for the mean time I'll not be very email-responsive. I can read it directly off the server, but that's no fun when it's full of MIME attachments and uuencoded porno spam, as I'm sure you'll agree.

I just discovered that MARP is for old people! Apparently, MARP is a ministry of/for persons 50 years of age and older. I knew we were mostly getting on a bit, but I had no idea!

Here's what's new in beta 2 (hey - I'm a poet and don't know it!):

3wonderj  "Wonder 3 (Japan)"
3wonders  "Three Wonders (US)"
abaseb    "Atari Baseball (set 1)"
abaseb2   "Atari Baseball (set 2)"
aerofgt   "Aero Fighters"
alieninv  "Alien Invaders 2"
bakatono  "Baka Tonosama Maajan Manyuuki"
brkthruj  "Kyohkoh-Toppa"
canyon    "Canyon Bomber"
capbowl2  "Capcom Bowling (set 2)"
captcomj  "Captain Commando (Japan)"
captcomu  "Captain Commando (US)"
centipdb  "Centipede (bootleg)"
circuscc  "Circus Charlie (Centuri)"
cosmicg   "Cosmic Guerilla"
defendg   "Defender (Green label)"
dogosoke  "Dogo Soken"
ffightu   "Final Fight (US)"
galpanic  "Gals Panic"
ghostb3   "The Real Ghostbusters (3 players)"
gravitr2  "Gravitar (version 2)"
headon2   "Head On 2"
ikari     "Ikari Warriors (US)"
ikarijp   "Ikari Warriors (Japan)"
ikarijpb  "Ikari Warriors (Japan bootleg)"
jack      "Jack the Giantkiller (set 1)"
knightsj  "Knights of the Round (Japan)"
kodj      "The King of Dragons (Japan)"
kof98     "The King of Fighters '98"
ldrun2    "Lode Runner II - The Bungeling Strikes Back"
ldrun3    "Lode Runner III - Magin No Fukkatsu"
lotlot    "Lot Lot"
maglordh  "Magician Lord (Home version)"
mainevt2  "The Main Event (version F)"
minasan   "Mina Sanno Okagesama Desu! Dai Sugoroku Taikai"
pignewt   "Pig Newton (Revision C)"
pignewta  "Pig Newton (Revision A)"
popeye2   "Popeye (set 2)"
puzzldpr  "Puzzle de Pon R"
radrad    "Radical Radial"
sf2a      "Street Fighter II (US rev A)"
sf2b      "Street Fighter II (US rev B)"
sf2ce     "Street Fighter II' - Champion Edition (World)"
sf2cej    "Street Fighter II - Champion Edition (Japan)"
sf2e      "Street Fighter II (US rev E)"
sf2t      "Street Fighter II' - Hyper Fighting (US)"
sf2tj     "Street Fighter II Turbo (Japan)"
si_cv     "Space Invaders Colour  (CV Version)"
si_sv     "Space Invaders (SV Version)"
si_tv     "Space Invaders (TV Version)"
skydiver  "Sky Diver"
solfight  "Solar Fight"
spacebrd  "Space Bird (bootleg)"
spacedem  "Space Demon"
spacefbg  "Space Firebird (Gremlin)"
srdarwin  "Super Real Darwin"
ssideki4  "Super Sidekicks 4 - Ultimate 11"
topsecrt  "Top Secret (Japan)"
varthj    "Varth (Japan)"
victroad  "Victory Road"

These games have had both their short and long names changed:

jack -> jack2       "Jack the Giantkiller (set 1)" -> "Jack the Giantkiller (set 2)"
jacka -> jack3      "Jack the Giantkiller (set 2)" -> "Jack the Giantkiller (set 3)"

This game just had its short name changed:

ldrun2p -> ldrun4   "Lode Runner IV - Teikoku Karano Dasshutsu" -> "Lode Runner IV - Teikoku Karano Dasshutsu"

and these games just had their long names changed:

bionicc   "Bionic Commando (set 1)" -> "Bionic Commando (US set 1)"
bionicc2  "Bionic Commando (set 2)" -> "Bionic Commando (US set 2)"
capbowl   "Capcom Bowling" -> "Capcom Bowling (set 1)"
circusc2  "Circus Charlie (level select)" -> "Circus Charlie (no level select)"
defender  "Defender" -> "Defender (Red label)"
gatedoma  "Gate Of Doom (set 2)" -> "Gate Of Doom (revision 4)"
ghostb    "The Real Ghostbusters" -> "The Real Ghostbusters (2 players)"
gravitar  "Gravitar" -> "Gravitar (version 3)"
kod       "King Of Dragons (World)" -> "The King of Dragons (World)"
kodb      "King Of Dragons (bootleg)" -> "The King of Dragons (bootleg)"
mainevt   "The Main Event" -> "The Main Event (version Y)"
mazeh     "Maze Hunter (Japan)" -> "Maze Hunter"
mk2       "MK 2" -> "MK 2 (rev L3.1)"
popeye    "Popeye" -> "Popeye (set 1)"
sf2       "Street Fighter 2 (World)" -> "Street Fighter II (World rev B)"
sf2j      "Street Fighter 2 (Japan)" -> "Street Fighter II (Japan)"
slyspy    "Sly Spy (set 1)" -> "Sly Spy (revision 3)"
slyspy2   "Sly Spy (set 2)" -> "Sly Spy (revision 2)"
spacefb   "Space Firebird" -> "Space Firebird (Nintendo)"
ssideki2  "Super Sidekicks 2" -> "Super Sidekicks 2 - The World Championship"
wc90b     "World Cup 90 (bootleg)" -> "Euro League"

OK - it should be possible to upload scores for m35b2 now. Go for it. I didn't update the changed long names for the games, but everything else is done...

I'm updating the script and database for the new 0.35 beta 2 DOS release, so please don't worry if things don't work right for a second or 3600. Thanks. (Not long now, JoustGod!) :o)

Second, when you're logged into MARP, any recordings you have uploaded yourself will show up with an 'edit' link next to them, allowing you to edit the description and other details associated with the recording.

First, when you receive email from the script telling you about a new recording, the subject will contain the name of the game, the player and the score.

Made a couple of changes to the script, as requested by BeeJay:

OK, I deleted all the old recordings: where the same player submitted two or more recordings for the same game, I've deleted all but the highest score. I still have the old recordings stored locally, but they're no longer taking up space on the server. Someone else on the server seems to be using the the space as quickly as I can free it, so maybe it will be full again soon. Try uploading if you like - I have the site backup up, so do your worst... :o)

retrogames.com is running very low on disk space. I think I'll have to take some of the old recordings off-line. For the time being, please don't upload any recordings...

I received email from lagavulin complaining that Maxwel's recording of City Connection starts with 5 lives, but Maxwel claims in the description of his recording that he used Twin Galaxies settings. Could it really be that the TG settings are to use 5 lives? I can't connect to their site at the moment.

I moved some of the Magical Drop scores between categories. It looks like I guess wrong on Friday about where they belonged. There are other recordings for these games now - are they in the right section?

I just fixed a problem which I introduced to the page last night. I was tidying up the MARP directory on the server and accidentally deleted a critical file. This prevented any uploads or searches happening for the last 11 hours or so. Everything should be back to normal now though, and I'll try not to let it happen again. Honest I will.

I split the two Magical Drop games up into 3 categories each to reflect the fact that these games have 3 games within each of them. I don't personally own any Magical Drop boards, so I don't have a copy of the ROMs to run in MAME and consequentially I've had to guess at the categories that are available. Please tell me if I've got them wrong - Steve 'the Krog' Krogman told me which categories are available in version 3 of the game, and I guessed that version 2 uses the same, but that's likely to be wrong. Also, I had to move the existing 3 recordings into one of the categories, so I guessed. Did I guess right? Anyway - I have to go now - I'll fix things up on Monday if anyone mails me over the weekend...

I've changed the layout of the little 'search engine' thing at the top of this page a bit. I looked in the logs and found that lots of people were typing 'kof98' into the box. Maybe now it will be a little bit clearer. If anyone who reads this knows how to use words and that to communicate, I'd appreciate any tips as to how I could make the page easier to understand.

So much for retiring, huh?

Today, I'm writing: Made a few little changes to the script. Nothing major, but I may well have still broken something - please email me if you find that something's stopped working. The changes were to make the 'recent uploads' page clearer by showing whose recording has been edited by me. I noticed earlier that there were things like "Zwaxy changed score for robotron from 320800 to 372800" showing up, but it doesn't tell you whose recording I changed the score for. Now it does. Thanks to lagavulin for happening to upload a recording which needed the score editing (due to other shortcomings of the script...) just as I'd finished changing the script, so that I could test that it kind of worked. :o)

6 months ago, I wrote: Dicked around with the stats script a little more. The aim eventually is that you will be able to upload to the main pages automatically and I will be able to retire, but it's still not quite there yet.

Split the black and white version of Space Fever into 3 categories, since Fritzy was just gagging to upload into each of the 3, and score 30 juicy points.

Added pacheart-fast to the database - it's a pacman clone, so let's have a separate category for the use of the speedup cheat.

Added new games for MAME 0.35 beta 1. These games were added:

atarifb   "Atari Football (revision 2)"
atarifb1  "Atari Football (revision 1)"
atarifb4  "Atari Football (4 players)"
battlan2  "Battle Lane Vol. 5 (set 2)"
battlan3  "Battle Lane Vol. 5 (set 3)"
battlane  "Battle Lane Vol. 5 (set 1)"
blkdrgnb  "Black Dragon (bootleg)"
btimed2   "Burger Time (Data East set 2)"
carnvckt  "Carnival (Cocktail)"
citycona  "City Connection (set 2)"
ckongo    "Crazy Kong (Orca bootleg)"
dzigzag   "Zig Zag (Dig Dug hardware)"
exctscca  "Exciting Soccer (alternate music)"
gatedoma  "Gate Of Doom (set 2)"
mariner   "Mariner"
pacheart  "Pac Man (Hearts)"
pcktgal   "Pocket Gal"
pcktgalb  "Pocket Gal (bootleg)"
rthunder  "Rolling Thunder"
sectrzon  "Sector Zone"
slyspy2   "Sly Spy (set 2)"
turtship  "Turtle Ship"
wildfang  "Wild Fang"

This game has had both its short and long name changed:

btimea -> btimed    "Burger Time (Data East)" -> "Burger Time (Data East set 1)"

And these games have only had their long names changed:

ark2us    "Arkanoid 2 - Revenge of DOH (Romstar)" -> "Arkanoid - Revenge of DOH (Romstar)"
arkanoi2  "Arkanoid 2 - Revenge of DOH" -> "Arkanoid - Revenge of DOH"
carnival  "Carnival" -> "Carnival (Upright)"
citycon   "City Connection" -> "City Connection (set 1)"
gatedoom  "Gate Of Doom" -> "Gate Of Doom (set 1)"
pleiads   "Pleiads (Tehkan)" -> "Pleiads (Tehkan, bootleg)"
slyspy    "Sly Spy" -> "Sly Spy (set 1)"
travrusa  "Traverse USA" -> "Traverse USA / Zippy Race"
zigzag    "Zig Zag (set 1)" -> "Zig Zag (Galaxian hardware set 1)"
zigzag2   "Zig Zag (set 2)" -> "Zig Zag (Galaxian hardware set 2)"

Randood sent me a recording of a centipede game which shows some very dodgy behaviour. It involves trapping the centipede on the edge of the screen and hunting spiders for points. It's available on the page of weird stuff.

Added a link to Dith's Track & Field Page on my links page (which is the first time I've even looked at the links page in months, so probably most of the other links there don't work any more).

JoustGod just emailed me asking what had happened to my Qbert's Qubes recording. I didn't realise it had vanished, but it had. It seems it was lost when the retrogames.com server was taken out at the start of November '98. I couldn't find my original 327k recording, but there was a 320k recording lying around on the server not being used (and therefore depriving me of 10 big leaderboard points!) I decided to have a look and see what other recordings were lying around unused, and found that there were a total of 27 of them. All of these are recordings which people have uploaded to MARP, and them beaten them themselves, but in each case the better recording was lost when the retrogames.com server crashed. None of these scores have been beaten by the player who made them since, and the players haven't re-uploaded their better score, so I've reinstated them all. Take a look at the following - maybe you still have the recording which beats the one I've just reinstated on your hard disk somewhere - if so, feel free to upload it again! There's a list of the recordings which were lost HERE.

Here's the list (columns are login-name, game-name and score):

bj androdun 114050 di bagman 35520 ggg jackrabt 141500 ggg waterski 64230 jsw drgninja 220700 jsw lastduel 29700 jsw solarfox 561040 max f1dreamb 9 max topgunr 642900

nm blockout 568765 nm exerion 554800 nm exerionb 999100 nmr androdun 160950 nmr masao 42900 nmr mhavocrv 44200 nmr mslug2 369400 nmr mslug 77220 nmr pnickj 51150

old armwrest 281960 old mhavoc2 968407 old mhavoc 629241 old mhavocrv 574702 rds kchampvs 56700 zw qbertqub 320455 zw qix2 27520 zw quantum1 34280 zw quantum 33060

As you'll notice, none of those recordings were JoustGod's, so I guess as a result of his kindly pointing out that my qbertqub recording was missing, he's probably lost a few points. Oh well... :o)

Angry has written a new section of the MARP User's Guide, listing 'rules and regulations' for recordings. He's in the process of listing a lot activities which are suspect, with the idea being that we should vote on whether they should be allowed or not. Check out his new page HERE.

OK. So I was wrong. There was news after all. The final 0.34 version of MAME was released. Nothing needs updating in the database - all the games are the same as in the last release candidate. There's also a windows version of 0.34 available now, which I've added to the database.

If you've sent me any email over the last week or so, I wouldn't have read it yet. I'll be catching up on my mail next year. Also, the highscore archive still isn't being backed up, so please keep copies of your recordings, just in case. I'll post a message here once it's 'safe' again... :o)

There is no news today. And there was no news yesterday, either. I'm not expecting there to be any news tomorrow, either, but you never can tell. Happy New Year!

I'd like to wish a Merry Christmas to all the visitors to MARP! :o)

While I'm away, the page won't be backed up. Please keep yourself a copy of any recordings that you upload until further notice.

I'm off on holiday for a couple of weeks and I'll be away from the net for that time, so I'll not be replying to emails or updating the page for that period. I've added the final 0.34 DOS version of MAME to the list of versions which you can use, guessing that it will be released before I get back to editing the scripts.

There's a new MAME 0.34 Release Candidate available. I didn't see it on any of the big sites, so here it is. I've updated the database to reflect the few changes that were made.

These games had their long names changed:

magdrop2  "Magical Drop 2" -> "Magical Drop 2 / Toretate Zoukangou 2"
magdrop3  "Magical Drop 3 / Toretate Zoukangou" -> "Magical Drop 3 / Toretate Zoukangou III"
rbff1     "Real Bout Fatal Fury 1" -> "Real Bout Fatal Fury"

I noticed there's been a new MAME release; MAME 0.34 release candidate 1. I've updated the database to contain the few changes that were made.

This game was added:

panicger  "Space Panic (German)"

This game had its long name changed:

astrof    "Astro Fighter (set 1)" -> "Astro Fighter"

And this game had both its short name and long name changed:

hamburge -> cookrace  "Hamburger" -> "Cook Race"

A friend of mine has just set up a web page containing examples of his short stories, poetry, spoof newspaper articles, graphic work he's done and other stuff. Please check out his site and tell him what you think! Click HERE to go there. I'm sure he'd appreciate any feedback you might have for him.

Angry has written a page of information about recording and playing back INP files. You can find it HERE or by clicking the 'Help' link at the top of the page.

Added a bunch of windows versions of MAME to the list of versions you can choose from when you upload. I've recently been trying to confirm some recordings using MAME for windows, and it seems that there's about a 50-50 chance that recordings won't play back, so I guess that's to do with whether you used DOS or Windows MAME to make the recording.

Finished the 'sort' options on the search page. Please let me know if you have any problems with it.

I've also added a primitive sort to the script. Check the end of the 'search' form - you can click to sort in date order if you like, so you can see the most recent uploads at the top of the list. I just set the 'max lines returned' to 10,000 and let it run - it turns out that Krool, Keyboards and Hawkwind share the honour of having the lostest standing first place scores, all contributed on 13th Feb 1998, for 1943 Kai, Asterioids and Star Wars respectively. I'll be getting the 'sort by long name' to work soon-ish, and also allowing the order to the sort to be reversed.

I've added a couple of features to the leaderboard: If you're not in the top 10, and you're logged on, then your position on the leaderboard will still be displayed, so you can tell how much you have to do to get to the top 10. The leaderboard now shows how long each player has held their current position. Currently, JoustGod has been in the #1 slot for 13 days (that's ever since the server last got trashed...) And I've been in position 11 for the same period. :o(

Mr. Angry sent me an email suggesting a couple of improvements to the leaderboard. I'm having a go at adding the ideas he gave me, so if the leaderboard fails to work for you any time today, give it 5 minutes and try again, and it'll probably be OK.

On 25th November BeeJay submitted his 183rd recording. Not only that, but it was also the 3206th (that's 1250 in base 14, don'tcha know?) recording ever received by the MARP page. Quite a coincidence, don't you think? And well worth mentioning on this news page. Is that enough of a mention, BeeJay?

Kelvin Price just submitted his first recording (for Stinger). As a result, there are now 100 people on the leaderboard for the first time. Thanks for all the support, dear customers. :o)

Added new games for MAME 0.34 beta 8. These games were added:

atetckt2  "Tetris (Cocktail set 2)"
cheekyms  "Cheeky Mouse"
empire    "The Empire Strikes Back"
galivan   "Galivan"
ghostb    "The Real Ghostbusters"
gradius   "Gradius"
grescue   "Galaxy Rescue (bootleg?)"
growl     "Growl"
gunsmoka  "Gunsmoke (US set 2)"
gwarrior  "Galactic Warriors"
heiankyo  "Heiankyo Alien"
helifira  "Heli Fire (revision A)"
invrvnga  "Invader's Revenge (Dutchford)"
jailbrek  "Jail Break"
kidniki   "Kid Niki, Radical Ninja"
kram      "Kram (set 1)"
kram2     "Kram (set 2)"
liquidk   "Liquid Kids"
lwings2   "Legendary Wings (US set 2)"
mazeh     "Maze Hunter (Japan)"
medlanes  "Meadows Lanes"
mrdofix   "Mr. Do! (bugfixed)"
mswordu   "Magic Sword (US)"
oscar     "Psycho-Nics Oscar"
oscarj    "Psycho-Nics Oscar (Japan)"
pacland   "Pac-Land (set 1)"
polarisa  "Polaris (set 2)"
portman   "Port Man"
pow       "P.O.W. (US)"
powj      "P.O.W. (Japan)"
rf2       "RF2"
sauro     "Sauro"
sinista2  "Sinistar (revision 2)"
sinvemag  "Super Invaders"
smashtv5  "Smash TV (rev 5.00)"
snowbro2  "Snow Bros (set 2)"
speedbal  "Speed Ball"
spelunk2  "Spelunker II"
sskick3   "Super Sidekicks 3 - The Next Glory"
totcarnp  "Total Carnage (prototype, rev 1.0 01/25/92)"
trog3     "Trog (rev LA3 02/14/91)"
twinbee   "TwinBee"
yankeedo  "Yankee DO! (Two Bit Score)"

These games have had their short names (and also long names in some cases) changed:

oldsin -> sinista1    "Sinistar (prototype version)"
pacland -> paclandm   "Pac-Land (Midway)"
paclandn -> pacland3  "Pac-Land (Namco set 1)" -> "Pac-Land (set 3)"
paclanda -> pacland2  "Pac-Land (Namco set 2)" -> "Pac-Land (set 2)"

And these games have only had their long names changed:

area88    "UN Squadron / Area 88 (Japan)" -> "Area 88"
arkanoid  "Arkanoid (Taito)" -> "Arkanoid (World)"
arkatayt  "Arkanoid (Tayto bootleg)" -> "Arkanoid (Tayto bootleg, Japanese)"
arkbl2    "Arkanoid (bootleg)" -> "Arkanoid (Japanese bootleg Set 2)"
arknoidu  "Arkanoid (Romstar)" -> "Arkanoid (USA)"
atetcktl  "Tetris (Cocktail version)" -> "Tetris (Cocktail set 1)"
bstars    "Baseball Stars" -> "Baseball Stars Professional"
commandj  "Commando (Japan)" -> "Senjo no Ookami"
cyberlip  "Cyber Lip" -> "Cyber-Lip"
dwj       "Dynasty Wars / Tenchi o Kurau (Japan)" -> "Tenchi o Kurau (Japan)"
ghouls    "Ghouls'n Ghosts (US?)" -> "Ghouls'n Ghosts"
ghoulsj   "Ghouls'n Ghosts (Japan)" -> "Dai Makai-Mura"
gngjap    "Makai-mura (Japan)" -> "Makai-Mura"
gridiron  "Gridiron" -> "Gridiron Fight"
gunsmrom  "Gunsmoke (US)" -> "Gunsmoke (US set 1)"
helifire  "Heli Fire" -> "Heli Fire (revision B)"
hiimpact  "High Impact Football" -> "High Impact Football (rev LA3 12/27/90)"
invdelux  "Space Invaders Deluxe (Midway)" -> "Space Invaders Part II (Midway)"
karatedo  "Karate Champ (VS Version - Japanese)" -> "Taisen Karate Dou (VS version)"
lwings    "Legendary Wings (US)" -> "Legendary Wings (US set 1)"
mercs     "Mercs / Senjo no Ohkami II (World)" -> "Mercs (World)"
mercsj    "Mercs / Senjo no Ohkami II (Japan)" -> "Senjo no Ookami II (Japan)"
mercsu    "Mercs / Senjo no Ohkami II (US)" -> "Senjo no Ookami II (US)"
mk        "Mortal Kombat" -> "Mortal Kombat (rev 3.0 08/31/92)"
narc      "Narc" -> "Narc (rev 7.00)"
polaris   "Polaris" -> "Polaris (set 1)"
scionc    "Scion" -> "Scion (Cinematronics)"
shimpact  "Super High Impact" -> "Super High Impact (rev LA1 09/30/91)"
sinistar  "Sinistar" -> "Sinistar (revision 3)"
smashtv   "Smash TV" -> "Smash TV (rev 8.00)"
snowbros  "Snow Bros" -> "Snow Bros (set 1)"
strkforc  "Strike Force" -> "Strike Force (rev 1 02/25/91)"
term2     "Terminator 2" -> "Terminator 2 (rev LA3 03/27/92)"
totcarn   "Total Carnage" -> "Total Carnage (rev LA1 03/10/92)"
trog      "Trog" -> "Trog (rev LA4 03/11/91)"
trogp     "Trog (original prototype)" -> "Trog (prototype, rev 4.00 07/27/90)"
unsquad   "UN Squadron / Area 88 (US)" -> "UN Squadron"

Steve K. asked me if I had a list of the recordings which were lost a few weeks ago when retrogames.com was taken down. Well - I do indeed. It's available HERE. It's a list of 313 recordings which were deleted, sorted by the login name of the person who sent in the recording. You'll be pleased to hear that I'm now taking backups regularly.

Minor tweakage to the leaderboard table. It now shows the 'new entries' as well as the top 10 by default, so that new uploaders can see their name on the table, and take up the challenge to climb further. This is turn-off-able with a checkbox at the end of the table.