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blaster: MAME ROM Information.

History:

Blaster [DuraMold model] (c) 1983 Williams.

The player takes control of a spaceship and must fight against wave after wave of enemy fighters, while trying to rescue the stranded astronauts that represent the last surviving remnants of the human race. Enemies attack the player both with weapons, and by making 'suicide runs' at the player's ship. The game consists of 11 different levels, 9 of which are repeated, bringing the total number of levels to 20.

The levels are : Planetoid Waves, Robot Grid Waves, Saucerland Waves, Vampire Waves, Time Tunnel Waves, Outer Space Waves, Enduro Waves, Cat World Waves, and Mastermind Waves (there are 2 of each of these).

There are also 2 unique waves that occur only once, they are Armageddon and Paradise.

Players can select their starting wave at the start of the game; choosing from Planetoids, Robot Grid, Saucerland, and Vampires. During the game, players must be careful to NOT shoot the human astronauts that drift through the levels. These must be rescued by 'running' into them.

Despite the presence of an energy meter, the player can take exactly three hits before he or she dies. Upon death, the window of the player's virtual cockpit breaks and one of the player's lives is lost. Blaster has a 'Continue' option but this can only be used once.

- TECHNICAL -

The DuraMold model was a large circular arcade cabinet made entirely out of thick plastic. These cabs were very attractive and almost impossible to damage. They were, however, expensive to produce and had a fatal design flaw : they shrank slightly in the first few months after they were made. In some cases the shrinking machine would eject its monitor, and send it flying across the room. Williams quickly developed a fix for this, but no one wanted DuraMolds after hearing about them shooting monitors across arcades. The DuraMold Blaster was all black and had yellow graphics on the control panel and marquee.

DuraMold cabinet dimensions :

72'' (182,9cm) High

29'' (73,7cm) Wide

31'' (78,7cm) Deep.

Main CPU : M6809 (@ 1 Mhz)

Sound CPU : M6808 (@ 894.75 Khz)

Sound Chips : DAC (@ 894.75 Khz)

Monitor : 19'' Color non-interlaced

Screen orientation : Horizontal

Video resolution : 340 x 240 pixels

Screen refresh : 60.00 Hz

Palette colors : 256

Players : 1

Control : 49-Way optical joystick (6 separate speeds in 8 directions plus center off position)

Buttons : 2

- TRIVIA -

Released in November 1983.

Also released as "Blaster [Upright model]" and as a Cockpit model.

Blaster was the official sequel to "Robotron - 2084", its attract mode went : The Robotrons have destroyed the last human family.

Dwayne Richard holds the record for this game with 92,346,500(!) points.

Originally known as 'Master Blaster', but they changed the name to avoid confusion with a pinball simulator called 'Bill Budges Raster Blaster' for the Apple computer. The 3-D effects of this game were all hand rendered which required thousands of hours of design work. Due to the expense of the pseudo-3D generating hardware, Blaster was released in very limited numbers.

When Blaster was first put out at a test location in late 1983, it had 30 waves and allowed you to continue a game by spending another credit. By the time the game went into production in early 1984, the program had been modified to have 20 waves, and no buy-ins allowed.

- UPDATES -

The very rare 30-wave version has more enemies and more diabolical levels.

- SERIES -

1. Robotron: 2084 (1982)

2. Blaster (1983)

- STAFF -

Staff : Eugene Jarvis (DRJ), Larry DeMar (LED), (JRS), (KLR), (DJW), Paul Dussault (PGD), (JER), (ALI), (MLG), (NHD)

- PORTS -

* Consoles :

Sony PlayStation (1997, "Arcade's Greatest Hits - The Midway Collection 2")

Sony PlayStation 2 (2003, "Midway Arcade Treasure")

Nintendo GameCube (2003, "Midway Arcade Treasure")

Microsoft XBOX (2003, "Midway Arcade Treasure")

* Computers :

PC [MS Windows, CD-ROM] (1997, "Arcade's Greatest Hits - The Midway Collection 2")

PC [MS Windows, CD-ROM] (2004, "Midway Arcade Treasure")

- SOURCES -

Game's rom.

Machine's picture.

MAME Info:

0.24 [Marc Lafontaine]

SETUP and TEST MODE:

- The first time you run the game, it will say 'factory settings restored'. Press F2 to proceed.

- Press F2 for Test-Mode

- Press F1 + F2 for Bookkeeping/Setup

Bugs:

- blaster, blaster30, blasterkit: [possible] Maybe wrong colors in palette? MacBoxPPC (ID 04467)

WIP:

- 0.143u4: hap added second sound board to Blaster and clone Blaster (location test). Fixed Blaster background color (eg. screen flashes when hit). Fixed screen garbage when frameskipping. Added M6808 (3579545 Hz) CPU2 with sound rom, DAC sound and left/right Speaker. Changed description of clones '(early 30 wave version)' to '(location test)' and '(kit)' to '(conversion kit)'. Renamed (blaster30) to (blastero). Fixed rom names.

- 0.133u1: Renamed (blast30) to (blaster30) and (blastkit) to (blasterkit).

- 0.95u3: Fixed cpu1 roms addresses.

- 0.92: Highwayman added proms ($0, 200 - video inversion for cocktail table).

- 0.80u2: Added clone Blaster (early 30 wave version).

- 6th March 2004: David Haywood added an early 30-wave version of Blaster to the Williams driver.

- 0.58: Added clone Blaster (kit).

- 31st January 2002: Aaron Giles added the kit version of Blaster to the Williams driver.

- 0.57: Removed 3rd coin slot.

- 0.37b10: Changed palettesize to 256 colors.

- 0.36b7: Added color prom.

- 0.35b1: Nicola Salmoria added analog joystick support to Blaster.

- 0.29: Several fixes to the Williams driver [Marc Lafontaine]: Blaster is finished.

- 0.26: Control: Arrows = Move around, CTRL = Blast, ALT = Thrust panel, Z = Thrust joystick, 5 = Auto Up, 6 = Advance and 7 = Hiscore reset.

- 0.25: Valerio Verrando fixed the Williams driver to support joystick in Blaster, Defender, Joust, Robotron, Splat and Stargate.

- 0.24: Added Blaster (Williams 1983). Marc Lafontaine provided drivers for Robotron, Splat, Defender, Joust, Stargate, Bubbles, Blaster and Sinistar. Bubbles doesn't start, and Sinistar do weird things at startup. The other games work very well, though. For this version I provide a set of fonts that can be used to avoid jerkiness in williams games. If you use zipped roms remember to include them in the ZIP files. Game is playable with accurate colors and sound.

STORY:

- Remember Robotron 2084: Now it is the year 2085. The Robotrons have destroyed the human race. You escape in a stolen space shuttle. Your destination: Paradise. A remote outpost 20 million light years away. Does paradise exist? Can civilization be started again? These questions will be answered at the end of your journey. But first, you must BLAST... OR BE BLASTED!

LEVELS: 21

Other Emulators:

* Retrocade

Recommended Games:

Robotron

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Starship 1

Star Fire

Star Fire 2

Star Hawk

Tailgunner

Tunnel Hunt

Warp Speed

Space Encounters

Space Seeker

Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom

Gravitar

Rougien

Star Trek

Tac/Scan

Ambush

Blaster

Cube Quest

I, Robot

Star Wars

The Empire Strikes Back

Star Wars Arcade

Star Wars Trilogy

Star Wars Pod Racer

Tube Panic

High Voltage

Mirax

Splendor Blast

Vs. Star Luster

Shrike Avenger

Thunder Ceptor

Galaxy Force 2

Starblade

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Hyperdrive

Vapor TRX

Romset: 235 kb / 22 files / 103.6 zip

MAME XML Output:

<description>Blaster</description>

<manufacturer>Williams / Vid Kidz</manufacturer>

</input>

</game>

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