Warrior's EMU Rumor Page-MAME .30 reviewed

MAME .30 has arrived!

We've waited patiently for over two months for MAME .30 to be released. For weeks, we've been hearing "it's coming next week" just about every week. At times the discussion on the MAME message board reached the point where radical conspiracy was starting to sound like a likely reason for the delay. Of course, this meant that when MAME .30 was actually released, it caught everyone off guard (I found out by nonchalantly surfing over to Dave's board, where suddenly there were several "MAME .30 IS OUT!!! NO KIDDING!!!" type posts from different sources. And although I was not there to see it, I have heard that none other than Mirko himself stopped into channel #mamegames to announce it's release. And not a moment too soon at that.

For starters, we now have a record ***91*** new ROM sets (or something like that ;-) that have been added to MAME .30, even though a few bootleg ROM sets were taken out (such as Starforce and the Sega vector games... If you're really that desperate to play bootleg ROMs, go use MAME .29.) The vast majority of these games are fully emulated, including sound, the first time around, even though there are still a few drivers in the mix that aren't quite yet ready for prime time, so to speak.

From the very beginning, I have noticed that for just about every game out there, something seems to have changed. Quite a few games have preliminary sound emulation, although in some cases such as Donkey Kong, some people think that no sound is better than the sound we got. I'm sure that in a version or two, all this will be worked out. In addition, a lot of the sound code was rewritten from the ground up, so quite a few of the previously emulated games (the Atari and Namco games in particular) sound a lot better than they did previously. In addition to sound enhancements, I have found that quite a few games actually run faster in MAME .30 than before, most likely due to the added dirty rect support for many games (for those less in-the-know about all this jargon, dirty rect is where only parts of the screen that need to be updated get updated, meaning less pixels to push per redraw.) It depends largely on the game in question, as well as the system it's being played on, however. As they say in TV commercials, your mileage may vary.

As it seems as though the entire EMU scene is now standing still (except for some frontend authors scrambling to get their frontends up to speed with the latest version of MAME,) I have had plenty of time to look over MAME .30 in the past couple of days since it's release, and I have come up with a list of what I feel are the best changes and additions to MAME .30, which follows below. Keep in mind this is only my opinion, and that this is being written during a period of forced insomnia, and if you don't like it, feel free to flame away here (I don't get all that much e-mail anyway.)

Food Fight Best new game: Food Fight
Before MAME .30 came out, I had never played the arcade version of this one. I remember this being my favorite game on the Atari 7800, back when that was the latest thing. This game features fast-paced action, plenty of mayhem, and copious amounts of food flying through the air. The only major problem with this one is that mouse control is somewhat difficult, and an analog stick is by far the best way to play this game.
Biggest Surprise: Zookeeper
I don't think that anyone was expecting to see this one show up in MAME .30. Back when the preliminary driver showed up in MAME.29, several programmers set out to get this one working, but at least one (IceX) decided that MAME wasn't capable of the intense multi-CPU processing used by this one and set out to make a standalone emu (no word yet on whether or not he will continue with this.) This is something that completely evaded the rumor mill before release, mostly because nobody thought MAME could do it. with both Zookeeper and Berzerk done, we need a new "really tough to emulate" game to speculate about... any ideas?
Best Improvements to an Existing Driver: Bosconian
For several versions this has been in MAME, but with an annoying copy protection routine that has caused the game to crash every time during the third level. This has finally been taken care of, and this game now works the way it's supposed to.... now if only we could find the DIP switch to get rid of that bloody British accent in the voices...<g>
Worst New Game: Rolling Crash
This one is more proof that even back when all these classic games were being made, there were still some things out there that would make even the most diehard of classic gamers cringe at the sight of it. This one is an obvious rip-off of Head-On, and makes the former seem really good in comparison. If you thought that Berzerk had some cheesy color interpolation, just wait until you see this one! Guaranteed to make playing Warp Warp until all semblance of sanity is hopelessly lost sound like a good idea.
Best new clone/bootleg: Super Piero
Isn't it funny how oftentimes the best games to show up in MAME are also the rarest in real life? Do! Run Run is one that fits into this category. Super Piero is the Japanese version of Do! Run Run, with much better graphics. According to the KLOV, there is also a version of Mr. Do! out there somewhere that was made a year later by a company called Electron a year after the original was released with better graphics. Has anyone out there ever seen this?

Other notable games in MAME .30:

Mat Mania

Quantum

Shao-Lin's Road

Vulgus-Correct Colors!

Gauntlet

...and quite a few others, but it's 2 in the morning right now, and I really don't feel like messing with HTML anymore tonight.

(Update 1-14) A few more things to add here to this review. I have received several e-mails from people (MAME devlopers included) who would like me to add some of my thoughts on some of the low points of the new MAME. So far, from reading the message boards and from channel #mamegames, I have found two main areas that need improvements. I have also heard quite a few small issues For purposes of looking back at how the rumor mill for MAME .30 shaped up, I have left the MAME .30 rumor page up. Click here to look at it. &8v)

Return to the EMU Rumor page

	Best new game: Food Fight Before MAME .30 came out, I had never played the arcade version of this one. I remember this being my favorite game on the Atari 7800, back when that was the latest thing. This game features fast-paced action, plenty of mayhem, and copious amounts of food flying through the air. The only major problem with this one is that mouse control is somewhat difficult, and an analog stick is by far the best way to play this game.
Biggest Surprise: Zookeeper I don't think that anyone was expecting to see this one show up in MAME .30. Back when the preliminary driver showed up in MAME.29, several programmers set out to get this one working, but at least one (IceX) decided that MAME wasn't capable of the intense multi-CPU processing used by this one and set out to make a standalone emu (no word yet on whether or not he will continue with this.) This is something that completely evaded the rumor mill before release, mostly because nobody thought MAME could do it. with both Zookeeper and Berzerk done, we need a new "really tough to emulate" game to speculate about... any ideas?
Best Improvements to an Existing Driver: Bosconian For several versions this has been in MAME, but with an annoying copy protection routine that has caused the game to crash every time during the third level. This has finally been taken care of, and this game now works the way it's supposed to.... now if only we could find the DIP switch to get rid of that bloody British accent in the voices...<g>
Worst New Game: Rolling Crash This one is more proof that even back when all these classic games were being made, there were still some things out there that would make even the most diehard of classic gamers cringe at the sight of it. This one is an obvious rip-off of Head-On, and makes the former seem really good in comparison. If you thought that Berzerk had some cheesy color interpolation, just wait until you see this one! Guaranteed to make playing Warp Warp until all semblance of sanity is hopelessly lost sound like a good idea.
Best new clone/bootleg: Super Piero Isn't it funny how oftentimes the best games to show up in MAME are also the rarest in real life? Do! Run Run is one that fits into this category. Super Piero is the Japanese version of Do! Run Run, with much better graphics. According to the KLOV, there is also a version of Mr. Do! out there somewhere that was made a year later by a company called Electron a year after the original was released with better graphics. Has anyone out there ever seen this?