| paleface [sys=PC; cat=Shooter_4way; reg=NA] |
| | | Compilation of two LucasArts parodic/camp horror four-way-shooters: LucasArts developed Zombies, which was published by Konami (on SNES and Genesis--the compilation has the SNES version), and licensed the engine to "a small Malaysian studio called Motion Pixel," according to Wikipedia, for the "Ghoul Patrol" sequel.
The compilation is by DotEmu which is usually a bad sign, and from the sounds of the reviews, they did their usual horrible emulation job--no button mapping and all sorts of nonsense.
Fortunately, thanks to the directions in this forum post, I was able to extract the ROMs and run them in a much better emulator, ie Mesen: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/rom_based_gog_games_compatible_with_third_party_emulators_thread/post161
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First you need to go to https://github.com/sigboe/extractwings, download the files and extract them all in a folder and copy the "ZAMN_GP.exe" file in that same folder.
Then you need to create a new batch file for Windows. Just open "Notepad" or similar, copy the following lines and save it as "ExtractZAMN&GP-1_1-GoG.bat" in the same folder as the other files:
@ECHO OFF
SET "mypath=%~dp0"
SET "mydir=%mypath:~0,-1%"
cd "%mydir%"
echo Extracting "Zombies Ate My Neighbors (USA).sfc".
".\dd.exe" "if=%mydir%\ZAMN_GP.exe" "of=%mydir%\Zombies Ate My Neighbors (USA).sfc" bs=1 skip=28346700 count=1048576
echo "Zombies Ate My Neighbors (USA).sfc". Extract Complete. The MD5 should be: 23C2AF7897D9384C4791189B68C142EB
echo.
echo Extracting "Ghoul Patrol (USA).sfc".
".\dd.exe" "if=%mydir%\ZAMN_GP.exe" "of=%mydir%\Ghoul Patrol (USA).sfc" bs=1 skip=26867136 count=1048576
echo "Ghoul Patrol (USA).sfc" Extract Complete. The MD5 should be: 657FA94CFF4464CBC58C476EA642299A
echo.
pause
Finally run the new batch file you created and voila!
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Zombies has immediately charming sprite work and music; the style sort of reminds me of the sci-fi campy Atari arcade game Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters.
Ghoul Patrol has more action-game controls beyond the four-way shooting of Zombies--you now have Jump and Slide. But conversely, character movement is REALLY sludgy, with a huge feeling of inertia from very slow start-up speed. Horrible feel! And the graphics and sound don't seem as immediately charming, you have to click through loads of junk just to get into the game, and there's a ton of stuff whizzing around and pop-up word bubbles constantly. But I don't think I'm going to play this anyway because I'm crushing my fingers into the d-pad just trying to persuade the character to move. Bizarre.
People have made ROM editors for Zombies--or "ZAMN" as it seems to be abbreviated--and loads of rom hacks with new stages, etc https://www.romhacking.net/games/812/ . It comes with LOTS of stages to start with, and is apparently quite hard; the RGDS podcast says something about the game's testers could only get to stage 25 or something. : P |
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| | | Download added: 00_zamn_sel.png (15926 bytes)
"ZAMN character select"
That would be out of 55 stages. : PP |
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| | | | Haven't seemed to be able to convince myself to sit down and play this. It's got guns, albeit cartoonified ones. Playthroughs on YT show the monsters can largely be avoided as you just go around touching neighbors to collect them and go to the next stage. Eh, I dunno. |
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