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mwalk: MAME ROM Information.

History:

Michael Jackson's MoonWalker (c) 1990 Sega.

Based on the movie of the same name, Moonwalker is a scrolling, isometric beat' em up in which Michael Jackson (1958-2009), along with his chimp Bubbles, attempts to save children and defeat the evil 'Mr. Big'. During each round, the player must defeat each and every one of Mr. Big's henchmen and the deadly enemy machines that patrol the levels. This is achieved either by shooting them with Michael Jackson's 'magical energy', or by using his Dance Magic - the game's equivalent of a smart bomb. Some enemies take only one shot to defeat whereas others take several shots before they are destroyed. The longer the player holds down on the fire button, the greater the amount of magical energy Michael can inflict. At the start of each round, the player is given 2 dance magic smart bombs. Towards the end of each round, Michael's pet chimpanzee, Bubbles, will be seen moving about. If Michael touches Bubbles, he will turn into a powerful robot (the 'Moonwalker' of the game's title). After Michael has become Moonwalker, he will be able to shoot lasers and fire missiles. Michael must defeat every boss enemy at the end of each round in order to proceed to the next.

Each player's Michael Jackson character looks identical but wears a different colour : white (left player), red (middle player), and black (right player).

- TECHNICAL -

Sega System 18 hardware

Game ID : 317-0157 / 317-0158 / 317-0159

Main CPU : 68000 (@ 10 Mhz), I8751 (@ 8 Mhz)

Sound CPU : Z80 (@ 8 Mhz)

Sound Chips : (2x) YM3438 (@ 8 Mhz), RF5C68 (@ 10 Mhz)

Screen orientation : Horizontal

Video resolution : 320 x 224 pixels

Screen refresh : 60.00 Hz

Palette colors : 8192

Players : 3

Control : 8-way joystick

Buttons : 3

- TRIVIA -

Released in July 1990.

Moonwalker is made up of 5 stages, each featuring a different Michael Jackson track for the instrumental background music. The stage music is as follows...

1. Cavern : 'Bad'

2. Amusement Quarter : 'Smooth Criminal'

3. Night Street : 'Beat It'

4. Graveyard : 'Another Part Of Me'

5. Evil Fortress : a reprise of 'Bad'

If you complete all 5 stages and finish the game, the song that will play for the ending will be 'Billie Jean'.

- UPDATES -

FD1094 317-0157

* Japanese version.

FD1094 317-0158

* US version.

* Additional "Winners Don't Use Drugs" screen.

FD1094 317-0159

* World version.

BOOTLEG

* no I8751 @ 8 Mhz :-)

- STAFF -

Game concept & Design by : Michael Jackson

- PORTS -

A version of Moonwalker was released for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis and Sega Master System. It retained most of the gameplay elements of the arcade game that inspired it, but the isometric viewpoint was dropped in favor of sideways scrolling. The end result had more in common with Namco's "Rolling Thunder" than with the arcade MoonWalker.

Versions of the game with completely different gameplay to both the arcade and console versions were released for the popular 8-bit and 16-bit home computers of the time : Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, MS-DOS, MSX and ZX Spectrum.

- SOURCES -

Game's rom.

Machine's picture.

MAME Info:

0.36b2 [Andrew Prime]

0.36b1 [Andrew Prime]

Artwork available

WIP:

- 0.144u4: Alex Jackson fixed graphics corruption after a few seconds of 'Michael Jackson's Moonwalker' gameplay.

- 0.140u1: Tafoid fixed dipswitches in clone Michael Jackson's Moonwalker (bootleg).

- 0.138: Changed parent description 'Michael Jackson's Moonwalker (set 3, World, FD1094/8751 317-0159)' to 'Michael Jackson's Moonwalker (World, FD1094/8751 317-0159)' and clones 'Michael Jackson's Moonwalker (set 2, US, FD1094/8751 317-0158)' to 'Michael Jackson's Moonwalker (US, FD1094/8751 317-0158)' and 'Michael Jackson's Moonwalker (set 1, Japan, FD1094/8751 317-0157)' to 'Michael Jackson's Moonwalker (Japan, FD1094/8751 317-0157)'.

- 0.129: Aaron Giles fixed Moonwalker crashed when starting game.

- 0.125u5: Atari Ace fixed MAME crush after playing Moonwalker two times.

- 0.122u2: Couriersud fixed Moonwalker, which didn't starts.

- 29th April 2007: Mr. Do - Added the bezel for Moonwalker, thanks to Vintage Arcade Superstore.

- 0.112u2: Aaron Giles fixed bad bits in a couple of FD1094 keys and added a small optimization to the FD1094 decoding step. Added new FD1094 317-0158 key to clone Michael Jackson's Moonwalker (set 2, US, FD1094/8751 317-0158).

- 0.111u1: Alex Jackson fixed a miscompilation issue with GCC4 that was first noticed in Altered Beast but also affected Moonwalker, Galaxy Force 2 and probably many other games.

- 0.105u4: Fixed rom length of 315-5437.ic4 (protection MCU rom - deleted last byte).

- 0.95u6: Changed 'Number of Players' dipswitches to 'Lives'. Added 3rd coin slot.

- 0.92: Changed description to 'Michael Jackson's Moonwalker (set 3, World, FD1094/8751 317-0159)' and clones '(US, FD1094/8751 317-0158)' to '(set 2, US, FD1094/8751 317-0158)', '(Japan, FD1094/8751 317-0157)' to '(set 1, Japan, FD1094/8751 317-0157)'. Renamed (mwalka) to (mwalku) and (mwalkb) to (mwalkj).

- 0.89u1: Aaron Giles hooked up the 8751 in mwalk, mwalka and mwalkb - Games now playable. Added I8751 (8MHz) CPU3. Fixed sound rom loading. Added dipswitches 'Number of Players', 'Player Vitality' and 'Play Mode'. Changed description to 'Michael Jackson's Moonwalker (World, FD1094/8751 317-0159)' and clones '(Set 2, US, 317-0158)' to '(US, FD1094/8751 317-0158)' and '(Set 3, Japan, 317-0157)' to '(Japan, FD1094/8751 317-0157)'.

- 25th November 2004: R. Belmont - Converted Steve Ellenoff's i8031/8051/8052/8731/8751/8752 core to the latest MAME core and submitted it so Aaron can emulate the protection in Sega's "Moonwalker" properly.

- 0.88u7: Many improvements to the Sega System 18 driver [Aaron Giles]. Moonwalker requires improvements to the MCU emulation. Changed description of clone '(Set 2, 317-0158)' to '(Set 2, US, 317-0158)'.

- 0.88u5: Added 317-0158.key to clone Moonwalker (Set 2, 317-0158).

- 0.88u4: Chris Hardy added 317-0159.key and cpu3 rom 315-5437 to (Set 1) and 317-0157.key to clone (Set 3). Note: Moonwalker needs a CPU core for the MCU (i8051 core?) before it will work. Changed description of clone '(Set 3, 317-0157)' to '(Set 3, Japan, 317-0157)'. Renamed (moonwalk) to (mwalk), (moonwlka) to (mwalka), (moonwlkc) to (mwalkb) and (moonwlkb) to (mwalkbl).

- 9th November 2004: Chris Hardy - Good news on the FD1094 front, got the equipment up and running and managed to read the Moonwalker CPU, it boots (although still doesn't work properly due to the extra protection).

- 0.88u1: Added clone Michael Jackson's Moonwalker (Set 3, 317-0157). Changed parent description to 'Michael Jackson's Moonwalker (Set 1, 317-0159)' and clone '(Set 2)' to '(Set 2, 317-0158)'.

- 18th March 2004: Charles MacDonald fixed Z80 clock (8.192 Mhz -> 8.00 MHz).

- 15th March 2004: Charles MacDonald added I/O chip and partial VDP emulation for shdancer, shdancrj, shdancbl, shdancrb, moonwlkb and astormbl.

- 0.67: Changed parent and clone descriptions to 'Michael Jackson's Moonwalker'.

- 0.36b15: Added clone Michael Jackson's Moonwalker (Set 2). Changed parent description to 'Moon Walker (Set 1)'.

- 0.36b4: Changed the 2x YM-3438 clock speeds to 8MHz.

- 10th August 1999: Andrew Prime fixed Moonwalker sound in 8-bit mode.

- 0.36b2: Andrew Prime added Moon Walker (Sega 1990).

- 0.36b1: Andrew Prime added Moon Walker (bootleg) (bootleg 1990).

LEVELS: 5

Other Emulators:

* Calice

* FB Alpha

* System 16

Movie: Moon Walker - A Movie Like No Other

Genre: Music

Year: USA 1988

Director: Jerry Kramer

Studio: ?

Cast: Michael Jackson, Kallie Parker, Brendon Adams, Sean Lennon, Jeffrey Adkins, Patrick Allen

Romset: 4236 kb / 19 files / 1.74 zip

MAME XML Output:

<description>Michael Jackson's Moonwalker (World, FD1094/8751 317-0159)</description>

</input>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</game>

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