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Season 38 - Week 6 - Rendering Ranger (SNES)
Topic Started: 17 May 2015, 11:35 AM (371 Views)
necronom
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Para(lytic)Droid
In a shocking turn of events, Deadpann666 gets his other nomination straight after the other!

This week we have Rendering Ranger. It's by Manfred Trenz, creator of the Turrican series.

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Wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendering_Ranger:_R2

Download Link: HERE

Scores to be in by Sunday 24th May (12:00 midday UK time)

Final Scores:

1) 3131350 - Dumple = 100.00 points
2) 2812300 - Macias = 89.35 points
3) 961750 - Sputryk = 54.25 points
4) 589500 - Mawrth = 42.75 points
5) 540450 - Jakuchu = 36.41 points
6) 362000 - a.j.green = 28.00 points
7) 332050 - deadpan666 = 21.97 points
8) 327550 - Ralph Wiggum = 16.34 points
9) 300600 - necronom = 10.36 points
Edited by necronom, 24 May 2015, 10:59 AM.
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necronom
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Para(lytic)Droid
Sorry this is a bit late, a combination of being ill and photobucket recently breaking my browser and causing me not to notice the new admin post, all contributed to me missing Zaph's message about this week.
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Dumple
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235050

Neat - this game is a real rarity. I'd never heard of it before.

First impressions:
- Shooting diagonally with R and L is important
- Neat - the super-attack recharges over time.
- Ah, that's not just darker-colored ground, it's a bottomless pit.
- First stage is loooooong and feels a bit like Contra 3 if it were more repetitive.
- Second stage is a bit shorter and easier
- The amount of stuff on screen with no slowdown in stage 3 is impressive. I recently played through Super R-Type, which has a ridiculous amount of slowdown (although that slowdown often keeps the difficulty manageable)

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Sputryk
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258,050

Lost a life almost immediately enemies appeared on L3, losing my entire firepower. From then on it became a pointless exercise - a wimpy gun against enemies between randomly moving asteroids. Couldn't even capture a Power-Up. TIP: DON'T DIE! :lol:


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markopoloman
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Bites
Sorry not been around for the past 2 weeks - also for this one I imagine. Very tied up with work, sacking a thief and running a beer festival :D :lol:

Hope to be back next week....
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Misery
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Very definitely not my sort (I dont like Contra, either; never did, never will), so I'll pass on this.

I'll post the usual non-score later if I remember. Dont feel like dealing with the stupid emulator right now.
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Jakuchu

540,450

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Macias

Sputryk
 
Lost a life almost immediately enemies appeared on L3, losing my entire firepower. From then on it became a pointless exercise - a wimpy gun against enemies between randomly moving asteroids. Couldn't even capture a Power-Up. TIP: DON'T DIE!

It works like in Thunderforce games: the power-down only affects the weapon you're currently using. You still have 3 more and they stay at power level they were before losing a life. This also means that when you only have 1 health left, you can change weapon so that you don't lose your best one.

I'm enjoying this one. Made a lot of mistakes in run n gun stages, then almost got past 2 shmup stages on my last life, but the stage 4 boss overwhelmed me in the end.

984,150
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Dumple
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1040400

There are two extra lives on level 2 - the things that look like the ranger's head (kind of).

The level 5 boss is pretty neat!

And apparently two more extra lives on level 5, behind a destructible wall - check this out at 29:50
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUH32GRqqHI


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a.j.green
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Its not easy...
248750

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Good fun, so far, though the muted colour schemes sometimes make it had to see which is the background and which are the objects (especially in level 3). I suspect that this is deliberate.
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Macias

Never been a fan of Turrican series. Maybe I made a mistake dismissing those games back in the day, but the streamlined stages of Rendering Ranger, almost stripped of any platforming elements, just feel much more entertaining for me. And the shoot em up stages also seem more competent than Katakis/Denaris or shmuppy parts of Turrican II. Must be Manfred Trenz' opus magnum?

1,740,900
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Sputryk
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459,950

Could be it from me. Feeling like Death this week. This score is Level 4, so no idea how millions are being scored by 5....

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Macias

Sputryk
 
no idea how millions are being scored by 5....

Looking at the replay Dumple linked to, stage 4 is worth around 700,000 points and is the most profitable stage in game. You can have as much as 1,2 million points after beating that stage. And all excess power ups are worth 5,000 points and there's a lot of them so it quickly adds up if you don't die too often.

Parts of the game seem too much like a R-Type style memorizer for me to progress much further, and it's quite long, so there's a lot to memorize. That battleship stage (6) is really good though, even if there are too many annoying obstacles just like in R-Type battleship stage.

1,881,650
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Sputryk
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961,750

Went for the million. Bah!

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deadpan666
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59,850

Blimey! Two weeks in a row, eh!?

Damn..that means I'll have to come up with two new noms next time! :lol:

I'm having issues with the 360 pad I'm using...the cable's getting knackered, and for some reason it's pulling the character to the right, meaning the platforming bits are exceptionally annoying as he keeps falling off the edges! :rolleyes:

I'll hopefully find my PS2 pad and get a better score in before finish on Sunday!

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necronom
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300,600

The controls are really difficult. Turrican was much easier with one button.

It's a good game, though.

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necronom
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ARGGGHHH!!!!

I've just spent about 2 hours messing about trying to get anything to work. The first emulator snes9x (or something), is just broken when trying to assign a controller or keys. It doesn't work with mame defaults either. I had my one go with that using a weird controller setup and got the score posted.

Then I decided to try the PS1 controller, which I knew would be almost impossible to play with, but it wouldn't work with the emulator properly, so I upgraded it, and it was not even running (DLL errors).

I gave up on that and deleted it all, then got ZSNES, which has the worst interface in the known world. I manage to get the PS1 controller working, but as suspected, it was unplayable (analogue is never going to work with 99% of retro games) and I kept falling down holes. I need a proper joystick, so I tried to set up my arcade controls up with ZSNES (like I had at the beginning with SNES9x), but it wouldn't work. I'm pressing the key assigned to start and it's just sat there ignoring me.

So, that's it. I give in. The controls have defeated me, though the game itself looks good. It's a shame it won't let me play it, and I can't be bothered putting the other emulator on again and setting that up again (which took ages), and then struggling all the way through it with stupid button controls.

>:(

Rant over.
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Sputryk
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Use keys, Nec. ;)
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deadpan666
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necronom
22 May 2015, 05:11 PM


I gave up on that and deleted it all, then got ZSNES, which has the worst interface in the known world. I manage to get the PS1 controller working, but as suspected, it was unplayable (analogue is never going to work with 99% of retro games) and I kept falling down holes. I need a proper joystick, so I tried to set up my arcade controls up with ZSNES (like I had at the beginning with SNES9x), but it wouldn't work. I'm pressing the key assigned to start and it's just sat there ignoring me.


Instead of using analogue, just go for D-pad controls...works quite well as a SNES-pad substitute!
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a.j.green
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Its not easy...
362000

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Dumple
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Macias
21 May 2015, 10:32 PM
Parts of the game seem too much like a R-Type style memorizer for me to progress much further, and it's quite long, so there's a lot to memorize. That battleship stage (6) is really good though, even if there are too many annoying obstacles just like in R-Type battleship stage.
I agree - this is definitely a memorizer. There are all sorts of nasty surprises - ships suddenly flying in from the edge of the screen, or bosses switching forms after you've been tempted to use up all your special attacks. It's the kind of game there's no hope of clearing on your first try.

This is one of those games where learning the game without using savestates could be painful. I could just imagine the heartache of repeatedly dying on level 8 in the high-speed obstacle course, only to have to play for ~45 minutes to get back there.

But it's much easier than it seems at first - it hands out ~10 extra lives(!) in all (and lots of health pickups), and a lot of the bosses have exploitable safe spots. For instance, at the second stage 5 boss, you can hide in an alcove at the far right and fire diagonally up+left and (slowly) kill it safely.
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Dumple
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3131350

Cleared! :rock:

Started with 5 rangers and finished with 8 rangers...that's a 60% profit.

It's a shame this is so obscure; it's awesome! It really hits its stride in the mid-to-late game; I think the first level 5 boss is where it takes off. Level 7 (the cityscape) is beautiful, and the boss rush in level 8 is super fun. It's way better than I expected after the first three levels, which are quite repetitive in places.
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deadpan666
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Found my PS2 pad! :D

332,050




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Mawrth
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Truant
311300
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Macias

Dumple
 
This is one of those games where learning the game without using savestates could be painful. I could just imagine the heartache of repeatedly dying on level 8 in the high-speed obstacle course, only to have to play for ~45 minutes to get back there.

Absolutely. I'm gonna savestate-practice stages 8 & 9 tomorrow morning and have one final go at it. Really don't like the idea of high speed course though. Aero Blasters / Air Buster stage 2 is how it should be done to keep things fair.

2,295,250
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necronom
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Sputryk
22 May 2015, 05:23 PM
Use keys, Nec. ;)

:lol:

Yeah, right!

deadpan666
 
Instead of using analogue, just go for D-pad controls...

:lol:

That's no better than keys!
Edited by necronom, 23 May 2015, 10:02 PM.
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Ralph Wiggum
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327,550
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Mawrth
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Truant
589500
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Macias

No time for any significant practice, so each boss was a surprise for me. It turned out that the skull was one surprise too many.

2,812,300

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