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View Full Version : Greetings, Starfighter.


Dr. Paragon
04-24-2009, 04:28 AM
You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier,
against Xur and the Ko-dan Armada.

http://www.roguesynapse.com/games/last_starfighter.php
Yes this is the game (a replica actually) that was in the
arcade console that the plot is launched by.

It is surprisingly accurate to the source and quite fun after you
get the hang of it.

I will post the instructions as comment below as they are a bit
difficult to find in the download package.

III. How to play:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The game is a dual joystick game with 2 fire buttons, 3 weapon
toggles and a coin switch. In addition for MAME adaptation, there
is a weapon toggle set to a single button to cycle weapons. There
is also a button for diagnostic mode (all dipswitches).


DEFAULT CONTROLS

Turret movement and right fire ASWD LAlt
Arrows

Reticle and left fire JKLI Space
Mouse and mouse fire if active
Mouse 1 fire, Mouse2 Weapon toggle, 3 DeathBlossom

Laser m
Particle Beam ,
Photon bolt (Missiles) .

MAME Weapon Toggle 1
COIN 5
Diagnostic Mode 0

In the film, the left joystick moves the turret and the right moves
the targeting. This seemed left-handed to me. Currently, the keys are
mapped in a reverse fashion on the key board (aswd controls the reticle
and jkil rotates the turret). Arrows are default turret always. Left
alt and space are fire. "m",",", and "." are laser, particle beam, and
missiles respectively. "1" is MAME weapon cycle. "0" enters diagnostic
mode while in attract mode. "5" is coin up. Pressing all weapons at
once or MAME toggle with left fire activates Death Blossom (if enabled).

The HUD is relatively complex. The right upper sphere is 3d targeting scanner.
The red circle within is roughly your field of view. On levels where the
full HUD is visible (the green full screen HUD), there will be blinking white
dots visible between the inner and outer rings (within the red weapon gauges)
which also direct you to targets (like the arrows in some FPS style games). The
right upper sphere shows the orientation of the gunner turret to the ship. The
skeleton ship within changes color with player damage. The right lower sphere is
enemy damage. It will read "Hull Temp" when an enemy is in your sights. I had it
set originally to show remaining shields on enemies but changed it to be more in
line with the film (now fills and empties with enemy explosion). The left lower
gauge is your hull temperature. This "cools" over time assuming no enemy hits in
the meantime.

The red semicircles on the HUD are weapon gauges. The top two are laser
energy remaining. The left lower is Photon Bolts (missiles) and the right
lower is particle beam. Score and number of enemies encountered per level
are displayed in the lower center region.

An animated explanation of all controls occurs in the attract mode under
"Gunstar Turret Control." If you leave the game on without playing, it will
cycle through to this subroutine (be patient).

The goal of the game is to survive as many levels as possible while destroying
as many enemies as possible. Enemy missiles can be destroyed with laser or
particle beam but will not missile lock.

If you succeed in destroying the Command Ship and your score is worthy, you will
join the Star League list of heroes.

ALSO,
If you take a moment to watch the attract mode, you will see there is a
fully animated section titled "Gunstar Turret Control." This goes through a basic
explanation of the HUD, controls, and weapons use. Feel free to email me and say
"There is no explanation of the controls." That will be great because then I'll know
you didn't take the time to watch the full attract mode and think you are a lazy cretin

Trainz
04-24-2009, 09:33 AM
That was a blast to try!

Strangely, after I won the game, an old dude named Centauri visited me and gave me some horseshit about being a starfighter... I called the cops and they locked him in.

Radu
04-24-2009, 11:05 AM
That movie is surprisingly terrible. I remember it being so good! I watched it with one of my friends about 2 months ago, though, and I discovered that some things really are better in your memory than reality.

It was a decent flick, but nowhere near as mind-numbingly amazing as I remember it being as a kid. I hate it when I ruin shit from my childhood like that.

Name Lips
04-24-2009, 11:06 AM
That movie is surprisingly terrible. I remember it being so good! I watched it with one of my friends about 2 months ago, though, and I discovered that some things really are better in your memory than reality.


A lot of 80s movies are like that.

I still like LadyHawke, though, dammit. And Labyrinth. And even Krull.

Radu
04-24-2009, 11:17 AM
You know what? Labyrinth still holds up! Absolutely it does. I watch it about once a year on average. I find that David Bowie never gets less scary as time passes. I'm always terrified of him when I watch that film, but the reason has changed. Young me = scared of the Goblin King. Now me = scared of the pants (the magic pants...).

Random Encounter
04-24-2009, 11:31 AM
I watched the Last Starfighter again a few years ago when I first got Netflix. I thought it stood the test of time rather well. Granted the at home stuff was full of 80s cheese but the space stuff was still kind of cool.

Ladyhawk is still pretty good.
Labyrinth hasn't lost any appeal to me.
Legend.....has some good points but is not as good as I remember.
Krull I can't watch without laughing my ass off. 80s hair, way worse than cheesy dialogue, dramatic hill climbing music to get the ultimate weapon out of flaming red jello, and of course defeating the villain with the Flamethrower of Loooooove(tm).

TiQuinn
04-24-2009, 12:42 PM
Watched Ladyhawke not long ago and it's a good story, but man, the score was HORRIBLE.

Hatter
04-24-2009, 01:05 PM
I love the score.

But then I also love the original score of the US release of Legend.

Snatch
04-24-2009, 01:22 PM
Watched Ladyhawke not long ago and it's a good story, but man, the score was HORRIBLE.

Yeah - that's the one part of that movie that epicly fails.

Name Lips
04-24-2009, 02:10 PM
I actually really like the LadyHawke score. Maybe it's because I associate it so strongly with the movie itself.

Dr. Paragon
04-25-2009, 12:22 AM
Surprisingly enough I enjoy Ladyhawke more as an adult than I
did as a pre-teen. Despite the dated score there is FINE acting by
all players in that film.

Another from that era I really enjoyed was "Big Trouble In Little China".

I remember when one of the Mage: The Gathering supplements came out
and it had Lo Pan as an NPC. My whole player group said in a unified
voice, "Oh Fuck No!" when showed the name in the book.

I also have some serious geek love for Enemy Mine.

Redallia
04-26-2009, 02:07 PM
Hehe...Krull. Even as a kid, I knew it was a bad movie. :lol:

Real Genius holds up fairly well I think.

Flight of the Navigator? I think that's one that might be dated.

Night of the Comet. I remember being freaked out by this one as a kid, but I wonder it would still hold the same level of terror. Keen on the sci-fi themed zombie flick though.