WEEK 29 & 30 Game: Alien Syndrome Platform(s): SMS, Mark III Challenge Type: High Score Game Details: Full Game When: Mar 2nd - Mar 15th, 2020 Chosen By: Suteneko
Notes on Scoring: Killing aliens is fun, and you get points for sitting in a room and doing so, but you get even more points for finishing the level in a hurry! Here’s a little snippet about the scoring in the manual!
I’ve updated the website with the new game, let’s get alien slaying!
Good luck everyone, please submit your scores via screenshot or video by replying directly to this post!
RULES
Competitions last two weeks, close on Sunday night @ midnight.
Post screenshots in this thread as proof.
The winner from the previous week chooses the next game to play.
You cannot choose twice in a row. 2nd place will choose if someone wins two weeks in a row.
If there’s a tie, the person that submitted the high score first gets to choose.
Games must be high score compatible (think “arcade style scores” like Pac-Man, or Spy Hunter, not Super Mario).
Emulation is okay (MAME is often the best for high scores).
No save state manipulation (pausing to take a break is fine though).
Submit scores as soon as you get them! To keep the competition rolling and fair, do not hold on until the last moment to submit.
Points will be awarded for the entrants, based on the position finished for the week. This is to encourage wider participation, and the points will be posted each week as well as on the website.
POSITION
POINTS AWARDED
1st:
10 points
2nd:
7 points
3rd:
5 points
4th:
3 points
5th:
2 points
Any honest attempt:
1 point
Overall, we should keep it simple. This is just a good time, not a crazy official high score competition! Game plays should ideally be short and fun so people that can’t invest hours into this can still compete. Obviously we are working on a trust based system here, so don’t ruin it for the others!
Managed to get to Stage 3 and I don’t believe I’ve ever been that far before.
It does seem that you have to use a real SMS controller to play this as using a Megadrive controller seems to get your player character stuck moving left constantly otherwise, which is rather weird.
I really wish I had the manual for this game but only have it cart and box.
Yeah it’s one of the few that doesn’t work with a genesis controller unfortunately. I don’t have any good SMS controllers (only a few ones in rough shape), so I may be using emulation for this one mostly.
I always try to keep the laser as it is without a doubt the best weapon in the game but for some reason I ended up with the fire ball for the stage 2 boss and it worked out okay for me.
Was hoping there would be a patch up on somewhere like SMS Power for this game but it would appear not, even though it appears someone on Krikzz forum made a patched Rom for the game there is no download link anymore.
You could just make a extension cable with pin 7 cut to solve the issue or mod a MD pad with a switch to toggle between SMS and MD mode. Might actually do that to my tatty spare 3 Button pad as a project some time but I have several SMS controllers at hand so a none issue for me really.
I found an archive on RetroRGB that has all the incompatible game patches, so you can patch them, put them in your SMS or Genesis everdrive and play away!
This is the IPS patch tool. Run it, select the alien syndrome ips file, then select the alien syndrome SMS rom, then hit go. All patched and ready to go.
Managed to get to stage 4 this afternoon. I really messed up and ended up having to try and kill the stage 3 boss with a fireball invested of a laser, and now I’m thinking it might be the best way to kill him. You can then switch back to laser on stage 4.
Turned the Megadrive on and off and continued and died at the end boss of stage 4 with the laser weapon which is useless against this boss! But got my new high score:
Decided to give it one last attempt before I turned it off and beat the Stage 4 boss easily with the fireball weapon but then lost the last of my lives in stage 5. The spawning enemies here are starting to get rather nasty but my score was slightly lower than the previous run.
I have to say I’m loving the end of stage score cards and the messages they have on them.
Interesting… Maybe the game expects you to switch back and forth as needed… Not too much to ask considering there’s only two weapons that aren’t the pea shooter.
Think I have decided that the fire ball is not the weapon of choice for the level 4 boss now as while it can kill it super fast there is also a huge risk of dying if you don’t get all the hits in before it shoot projectiles so gone back to the slower but more reliable laser for it.
Went in with the fireball weapon and quickly died as not really figured his? (looks like a giant vagina with a devils head on it…) hit box out yet. Might try with a laser next time I get there.
I’ve been favoring the flame weapon more just because the rate of fire is higher, whereas the laser is slower. But each weapon seems to favor either an offensive or defensive playing style, which I like. Theres a good balance of risk/reward in grabbing extra powerups just for the points, as dying and restarting with the pea shooter is almost always an instant game over for me. I only ever played Alien Syndrome casually, but now digging deep into it I see that this game is really all about getting a 1 life clear much like a shmup. Also, it probably helps that I’ve also been playing lots of Xeno Crisis, and it seems like my skill set is transferrable between both games.
