Posted by
Hemos
on from the more-fun-then-you-can-jump-with-a-rope-over dept.
micantos writes "Check this out! Apparently somebody is claiming they've done the unprecedented, recorded the first "perfect" Pitfall game. Personally I liked Pitfall II a lot more... finding that damn Quickclaw was fun..."
Yup, I remember those. I 'earned' well over a dozen of those, and proudly displayed them on my jacket. I thought I was the HEIGHT of fashion. I couldn't figure out why the babes didn't flock around me.
Now I have a Linux bumper sticker, I wear clothes from thinkgeek and copyleft, and yet the babes STILL don't flock around me.
The best way would be simple examination of the data files. In the Ultima 3-5 days I used to sector edit (floppies) stuff onto the maps, like in 4, horses and ships. You could board them and ride/sail away, leaving another behind. It was kinda convenient.
Anyways, I played so much that I could recognize terrain features in the ascii representation as I scrolled by.
I think it's 256 units in each direction, 16x16 map units of 16x16 squares each.
If you're going to do it by playing, then use the gems, it's much easier than walking around looking at all the detail.
But, whatever you do, make sure to note how to travel from one section to another using teleportation, it's really hard to figure out when glancing into gems.
I'd like to know which Atari joystick Hewston used for his record. Obviously there are MANY crucial situations in this accomplishment where your jump timing needs to be perfect. Button and joystick responsiveness is crucial. What does he or any other Atari gaming professional (I never thought I would use those 3 words together) recommend?
Side note: This story has inspired me to try to find the booklet I kept all my greatest scores in when I was a kid (it's in my parents basement somewhere) and compare them to the current records. I could have sworn that nobody could have ever gotten a higher Pressure Cooker score than me.
The most interesting part of this article is that this guy complains that games on new-generation consoles take too many hours to play. I wonder how many hours of play it took him to reach that perfect score? Or how many hours he spent playing that Decathalon of games? I can't get over what a bizarre statement that is, "I don't like those new games, they take too long to play. Excuse me while I go log hour 235,846 on my Atari."
Re:And in other, far less signficant news....
by
Fervent
·
· Score: 4
I got pissed off at the editors one time for not putting one of my stories up, and submitted a "story" with four of the classic Slashdot components: Linux, UNIX, open source, and Microsoft. And it got posted for about 10 minutes.:)
It was something like "RedHat press release introduces new Sun-like mouse. Software to be open source. Has optical features like Microsoft mice. Check out the story here." with the "here" link pointing to www.geekporn.com.
Just goes to show you that:
a.) Slashdot will post just about anything without checking the link.
b.) As long as you have elements of Rob's "omelete" (see the faq) you're in.
(Note: after this was posted, the editors seemed to take my normal news posts far more seriously. I think they had to realize that even though the name was "Fervent", it doesn't mean I can't input intelligent stories.)
--
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Apparently someone else did this first
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 3
According to this page Paul Graber got a first before the person mentioned on/.'s article.
Here is what he wrote.
From: Paul Graber
Whew!!
I can't believe I did it! I got a perfect 114,000 on pitfall. It can be done. I got all 32 treasures with 40 secs left on the clock! the
game just stops when you get the last treasure. Maybe I am the first to do this. I doubt it. Anyway here is how I did it.
First start out by going right to the 7th screen where the first gold bar is. Then immediately go back to the left and run right into
the snake on the next screen left. Yes this loses a life but you will appear on the left and save you about 5secs instead of waiting
for the rope to come back. Since I had 40 secs left at the end I guess this did not mean much but I wanted every sec. I could get.
Okay keep going left and make sure you can take the rope after the alligators immediately. Go all the way to your original starting
point.
Take the ladder and go left. Upon exit go left until you come to the second left ladder, a ladder which will let you go left. Then
upon exit go right until you come to the diamond. Go left till you come to the second left ladder after the diamond. Upon exit, go
left and you will come to a bunch of treasures including 2 diamonds and 2 gold bars. After the last gold bar take the first left
ladder you come to and go left obviously. Upon exit go left until you get 69,000 points. Then take the next left ladder you come
to and go left. When you exit go right 3 screens to get a money bag and then it's back left for the rest of the game.
The last treasure you will get is the gold bar which is the second gold bar you come to if you start right in the begining of the
game. All this sound confusing? Sorry but it is the best I can do to explain it. Now it is important to try and hit every vine and
vanishing pond exactly with no wait that you can. This will save you about 4-5 secs each time. It took me a couple of days to
finally do it but I did. E-Mail me if you still have questions.
Good Luck!!
Mmm. Classic Gaming Nostalgia...
by
Greyfox
·
· Score: 4
Might be time to fire up Xmame again... I wonder how long the current originality dry spell is going to last. These days they seem to roll the cookie cutter games from the same 3 class libraries. I can just imagine what it must be like in the depths of Capcom or Sega... "What are we programming today Bob?" "Hmm. How about a racing game? Check out the racing class library and lets see if we can crank it out before lunch."
--
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
you can get the ROM here and an emulator here. Of course, I thought missile command was the best 2600 game. Btw to get the emulator to work you need to hit F10, select "configure controllers" then "keyboard" and press "up" on your keyboard, select "joystick" and then "up" and repeat for each key you want to use on your keyboard. Why there is no default keyboard config, I don't know.
-- How we know is more important than what we know.
Re:And in other, far less signficant news....
by
FFFish
·
· Score: 3
Let's not forget the time, a few weeks back, when some sleazoid marketer managed to post a "hey, is this deal too good to be true" request regarding a cheapass DVD player.
Some guy was offering to stop by the actual offices of the sleazy company. I'm wondering what happened -- was it an apartment, or a real office? Did you get a picture?
Pitfall? Pansy game. I've been working on the Perfect Asteroids game. Yes sir, 14 years, 4 months, 6 days, 7 hours and counting. I haven't actually found the ending yet, but I'm sure that I'm very close and....What?! Where did that alien ship come from? NOOOOOOO!
Ah, Pitfall 2... My memory is a little fuzzy, but I vaguely remember.
The rat is the first treasure you see and the last one you get. You have to go find the other treasures and you will eventually find the passageway to get him from behind. You will have gone in a complete circle. Placing him at the beginning was such an evil tease.
Of course, there is option 2: cheating. Use an older 2600 (with the toggle-ish switches), place the cartridge in, and power cycle by slowly pushing the power switch on and off until the screen looks messed up. When you've acheived that state, you won't be able to see much on the screen, except the important stuff. Move Harry to the right and he will fall through the floor behind the rat. grab him and move to the next screen. Everything should now be fine, no screen garbage or other errors.
What's really funny is how I found it, moving the power switch back and forth in frustration.
I wonder if Activision still presents those patches (or were they iron ons?) to people who achieve high scores in their games. Had to take a picture of your television screen and send it to them, and they'd induct you into a club for video game over-achievers and mail you a handsome patch as a reward [allowing 4-6 weeks for delivery]. I'm sure I still have mine somewhere. Maybe I'll dig up my pitfall patch--if anyone deserves it, it's this guy.
Anyone remember these? Anyone?
Re:And in other, far less signficant news....
by
Kierthos
·
· Score: 3
Actually, this brings up an interesting point... has/. ever been fooled? Has anyone ever managed to get a spoofed "News for Nerds" story posted here? One that has no basis in fact, but sounds plausible and has it's own links to fraudulent but well-built web pages?
Slashdot Mirror
Here is a Pitfall map for the Intellivision version. As you can see it's quite finite. Here's a far more cryptic ASCII drawing of the Pitfall map for the Atari 2600 version.
Now I have a Linux bumper sticker, I wear clothes from thinkgeek and copyleft, and yet the babes STILL don't flock around me.
What could it be?
The best way would be simple examination of the data files. In the Ultima 3-5 days I used to sector edit (floppies) stuff onto the maps, like in 4, horses and ships. You could board them and ride/sail away, leaving another behind. It was kinda convenient.
Anyways, I played so much that I could recognize terrain features in the ascii representation as I scrolled by.
I think it's 256 units in each direction, 16x16 map units of 16x16 squares each.
If you're going to do it by playing, then use the gems, it's much easier than walking around looking at all the detail.
But, whatever you do, make sure to note how to travel from one section to another using teleportation, it's really hard to figure out when glancing into gems.
I'd like to know which Atari joystick Hewston used for his record. Obviously there are MANY crucial situations in this accomplishment where your jump timing needs to be perfect. Button and joystick responsiveness is crucial. What does he or any other Atari gaming professional (I never thought I would use those 3 words together) recommend?
Side note: This story has inspired me to try to find the booklet I kept all my greatest scores in when I was a kid (it's in my parents basement somewhere) and compare them to the current records. I could have sworn that nobody could have ever gotten a higher Pressure Cooker score than me.
From hell's heart I fstab at /dev/hdc
Wait, wait, wait... There was an end to Pitfall!?
You didn't think Samba de Amigo, Crazy Taxi, Space Channel 5, or Pokemon had the least bit of originality?
The most interesting part of this article is that this guy complains that games on new-generation consoles take too many hours to play. I wonder how many hours of play it took him to reach that perfect score? Or how many hours he spent playing that Decathalon of games? I can't get over what a bizarre statement that is, "I don't like those new games, they take too long to play. Excuse me while I go log hour 235,846 on my Atari."
It was something like "RedHat press release introduces new Sun-like mouse. Software to be open source. Has optical features like Microsoft mice. Check out the story here." with the "here" link pointing to www.geekporn.com.
Just goes to show you that:
a.) Slashdot will post just about anything without checking the link.
b.) As long as you have elements of Rob's "omelete" (see the faq) you're in.
(Note: after this was posted, the editors seemed to take my normal news posts far more seriously. I think they had to realize that even though the name was "Fervent", it doesn't mean I can't input intelligent stories.)
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
According to this page Paul Graber got a first before the person mentioned on /.'s article.
Here is what he wrote.
From: Paul Graber
Whew!!
I can't believe I did it! I got a perfect 114,000 on pitfall. It can be done. I got all 32 treasures with 40 secs left on the clock! the game just stops when you get the last treasure. Maybe I am the first to do this. I doubt it. Anyway here is how I did it.
First start out by going right to the 7th screen where the first gold bar is. Then immediately go back to the left and run right into the snake on the next screen left. Yes this loses a life but you will appear on the left and save you about 5secs instead of waiting for the rope to come back. Since I had 40 secs left at the end I guess this did not mean much but I wanted every sec. I could get. Okay keep going left and make sure you can take the rope after the alligators immediately. Go all the way to your original starting point.
Take the ladder and go left. Upon exit go left until you come to the second left ladder, a ladder which will let you go left. Then upon exit go right until you come to the diamond. Go left till you come to the second left ladder after the diamond. Upon exit, go left and you will come to a bunch of treasures including 2 diamonds and 2 gold bars. After the last gold bar take the first left ladder you come to and go left obviously. Upon exit go left until you get 69,000 points. Then take the next left ladder you come to and go left. When you exit go right 3 screens to get a money bag and then it's back left for the rest of the game.
The last treasure you will get is the gold bar which is the second gold bar you come to if you start right in the begining of the game. All this sound confusing? Sorry but it is the best I can do to explain it. Now it is important to try and hit every vine and vanishing pond exactly with no wait that you can. This will save you about 4-5 secs each time. It took me a couple of days to finally do it but I did. E-Mail me if you still have questions.
Good Luck!!
Might be time to fire up Xmame again... I wonder how long the current originality dry spell is going to last. These days they seem to roll the cookie cutter games from the same 3 class libraries. I can just imagine what it must be like in the depths of Capcom or Sega... "What are we programming today Bob?" "Hmm. How about a racing game? Check out the racing class library and lets see if we can crank it out before lunch."
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
you can get the ROM here and an emulator here. Of course, I thought missile command was the best 2600 game. Btw to get the emulator to work you need to hit F10, select "configure controllers" then "keyboard" and press "up" on your keyboard, select "joystick" and then "up" and repeat for each key you want to use on your keyboard. Why there is no default keyboard config, I don't know.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Let's not forget the time, a few weeks back, when some sleazoid marketer managed to post a "hey, is this deal too good to be true" request regarding a cheapass DVD player.
Some guy was offering to stop by the actual offices of the sleazy company. I'm wondering what happened -- was it an apartment, or a real office? Did you get a picture?
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Pitfall? Pansy game. I've been working on the Perfect Asteroids game. Yes sir, 14 years, 4 months, 6 days, 7 hours and counting. I haven't actually found the ending yet, but I'm sure that I'm very close and....What?! Where did that alien ship come from? NOOOOOOO!
Ah, Pitfall 2... My memory is a little fuzzy, but I vaguely remember.
The rat is the first treasure you see and the last one you get. You have to go find the other treasures and you will eventually find the passageway to get him from behind. You will have gone in a complete circle. Placing him at the beginning was such an evil tease.
Of course, there is option 2: cheating. Use an older 2600 (with the toggle-ish switches), place the cartridge in, and power cycle by slowly pushing the power switch on and off until the screen looks messed up. When you've acheived that state, you won't be able to see much on the screen, except the important stuff. Move Harry to the right and he will fall through the floor behind the rat. grab him and move to the next screen. Everything should now be fine, no screen garbage or other errors.
What's really funny is how I found it, moving the power switch back and forth in frustration.
I wonder if Activision still presents those patches (or were they iron ons?) to people who achieve high scores in their games. Had to take a picture of your television screen and send it to them, and they'd induct you into a club for video game over-achievers and mail you a handsome patch as a reward [allowing 4-6 weeks for delivery]. I'm sure I still have mine somewhere. Maybe I'll dig up my pitfall patch--if anyone deserves it, it's this guy.
Anyone remember these? Anyone?
Actually, this brings up an interesting point... has /. ever been fooled? Has anyone ever managed to get a spoofed "News for Nerds" story posted here? One that has no basis in fact, but sounds plausible and has it's own links to fraudulent but well-built web pages?
Just curious...
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.