Saloon Shootout (Compute's Gazette)
If you're a sure-shot, dead-eye, trigger-happy gunslinger, you'll be suited to this wild and woolly action game. In "Saloon Shootout" the pace is frantic and it never slows up. The object of the game is to accumulate the highest number of points before time runs out or before you run out of bullets.
The article for this game can be found on page 56 of Issue 37 (July 1986)
Why TAS This Game?
The continuation of TASing games from my all-time favorite magazine, Compute's Gazette. This makes my 22nd TAS from this series.
I was quite surprised when this issue came in the mail. I quickly took it back to my computer and started typing it in immediately. If you also take a look at the cover of the magazine, it actually was advertised in the head banner. So this was a big deal for the publishers, as they were very proud of this game. From my side, I was very excited to have and play it.
Previous Compute's Gazette submissions include (In order of submission):
- Astro-Panic!
- Royal Rescue
- Miami Ice
- Chopper 1
- Spike
- Heat Seeker
- Omicron
- Alien Armada
- Star Dragon
- White Water
- Space Gallery
- Bagdad
- Race Ace
- Quolerus
- Trap
- Maze-Mania
- Balloon Blitz
- Bowling Champ
- Circuits
- Going Up?
- Space Dock
Game Ending
Because this game is on a timer, the only option is to go for the highest score. There is one point, during game play, when the score reaches 500, where an additional 50 seconds are added to the total. Once the time is all done, that's it!
Effort In TASing
You can imagine that this game was easy to TAS, except for one thing...RNG. This is the second time I've run into this type of issue, but there was no good way to control it. After running through the game multiple times, I started noticing that the same inputs were accomplishing the tasks as before..only the inputs would be a frame or two off. Since this was the case, I had to find out other ways.
Controlling RNG was almost like working on the game, "Mole Attack". You can make adjustments, like hitting moles late, or in a different order. Doing so, meant that things would change downstream a bit, but in the end...the tasks ended up being almost the same. Here, this game does the same thing. I would find ways to get ahead, but it would diminish after some time. So, after a few times through this, I called it quits...now you are seeing the final product.
Human Comparison
Seems that this game was a bit more popular than my last Compute's Gazette submission. Here, this video accurately demonstrates the frustrations that a human has to go through. Notice that the run isn't complete...as the player wasn't able to refill their ammo.
ViGadeomes: Claiming for judging.
ViGadeomes: Everything looks good to me !
Accepting.
despoa: Processing...