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skullxbo: MAME ROM Information.

History:

Skull & Crossbones (c) 1989 Atari Games.

Skull & Crossbones is a swashbuckling adventure in which players portray two pirates competing for food, drink, booty, and revenge. Players use a joystick and button to control the unique sword-fighting action.

The game begins with an encounter with the evil Wizard, who robs our heroes of all of their booty. The pirates swear revenge and set off on a quest to destroy the Wizard and recover their treasure.

The adventure takes them around the world. The pirates battle the fierce captains and crews of opponent ships. They encounter the soldier guards and the merciless Executioner in the Spanish castle. In the ninja camp they fight the Ninja Master and his followers. On the beach the heroes encounter the dreaded Medusa and a horde of wicked skeletons that rise from the dead.

Finally, the pirates reach the Wizard's Island, where they must again do battle against the shadow figures of the Executioner, the Ninja Master, and the Medusa before they can fight face-to-face with the evil Wizard. If they make it to the throne room and overcome the Wizard, players are rewarded with a room full of treasure.

Players use a joystick and sword button in a combination of defensive and offensive maneuvers to battle the various enemies. Players can learn the lunge and back-slash, two. skilled sword-fighting moves that are the most effective.

In order to increase the long-term appeal of the game, players can select various difficulty levels of easy, medium, and hard to vary their paths through the game. By selecting the longer hard path, players are rewarded with more food, drink, and booty along the way.

- TECHNICAL -

Game ID : 136072

Main CPU : 68000 (@ 7.15909 Mhz), M6502 (@ 1.7895 Mhz)

Sound Chips : YM2151 (@ 3.579 Mhz), OKI6295 (@ 9.037 Khz)

Screen orientation : Horizontal

Video resolution : 672 x 240 pixels

Screen refresh : 60.00 Hz

Palette colors : 2048

Players : 2

Control : 8-way joystick

Buttons : 2

- TRIVIA -

Released in November 1989.

Atari Games made most of these as dedicated cabinets. They also made a conversion kit to retrofit existing games. This kit was most evil, because it was one of the few kits that had a marquee and control panel overlay big enough to fit a "Dragon's Lair" machine (the marquee was even three-fold, just like the Dragon's Lair one). Most of these games were converted within months. Very few original games remain today, and Atari quickly dropped the game from their lineup.

- UPDATES -

REVISION 1 :

* Build date : OS : 29SEP1989 16 :53 :40 / PG : 11OCT1989 11 :22 :07

REVISION 2 :

* Build date : OS : 29SEP1989 16 :53 :40 / PG : 16OCT1989 10 :24 :08

REVISION 3 :

* Build date : OS : 29SEP1989 16 :53 :40 / PG : 24OCT1989 15 :43 :18

REVISION 4 :

* Build date : OS : 29SEP1989 16 :53 :40 / PG : 03NOV1989 11 :44 :33

REVISION 5 :

* Build date : OS : 29SEP1989 16 :53 :40 / PG : 09NOV1989 17 :36 :00

- TIPS AND TRICKS -

* Stand over the white crossed bones that mark the spot of buried treasure and press the sword button to dig it up. Walk over the treasure to collect it.

* In order to get the highest score, first start the digging, then battle the opponents on each screen. Collect all the treasure before moving on to the next scene.

* The most difficult opponents in each wave (ship captains, Executioner, Ninja Master and Medusa) each protect a special treasure. By destroying these enemies, the players are given the special item that will protect them in the final round on the Wizard's Island. In a two-player game, the two players must duel over these special treasures.

- STAFF -

Staff : Cris Drobny

- PORTS -

* Consoles :

Nintendo NES (1990)

* Computers :

Commodore C64 (1991)

Amstrad CPC (1991)

Atari ST (1991)

Sinclair ZX Spectrum (1991)

- SOURCES -

Game's rom.

Machine's picture.

MAME Info:

0.35b13 [Aaron Giles]

WIP:

- 0.146: hap fixed atarivc_eof tag and shortened playfield_upper(15 chars) tag to playfield_up.

- 0.143u4: Changed VSync to 59.922748 Hz.

- 0.139u1: Aaron Giles changed atarigen_state to be a base class from which all the related Atari drivers derive their state from.

- 0.135u4: Some more Atari driver shuffling [Aaron Giles]: Added atarigen_init() function which allocates all timers and registers for save states. Updated all drivers to call it. Converted some drivers to use device timers.

- 0.135u3: Aaron Giles converted atari drivers over to using driver_data for the most part. Some shared systems still exist with globals, but this tackles the atarigen module and the variables local to each driver.

- 0.133u1: Renamed (skullxb4) to (skullxbo4), (skullxb3) to (skullxbo3), (skullxb2) to (skullxbo2) and (skullxb1) to (skullxbo1).

- 0.124: Aaron Giles fixed assertions in Skull & Crossbones.

- 0.122u4: Changed M6502 CPU2 clock speed to 1789772 Hz, YM2151 to 3579545 Hz and OKI6295 to 1193181 Hz.

- 0.114u2: Aaron Giles and Couriersud added more accurate video timing to most of the Atari 68000-era games. The parameters are from published specs, not derived. The board uses an SOS-2 chip to generate video signals. Changed VSync to 59.922743 Hz.

- 0.114: Couriersud added general save state support to the atarijsa and atarigen modules.

- 0.76u1: Aaron Giles added clones Skull & Crossbones (rev 1), (rev 2) and (rev 4). Changed parent description to 'Skull & Crossbones (rev 5)' and clone '(set 2)' to '(rev 3)'.

- 0.64: Aaron Giles fixed priorities and shadows in Skull & Crossbones.

- 20th January 2003: Aaron Giles fixed the priorities in Skull & Crossbones.

- 0.37b15: Changed M6502 CPU2 clock speed to 1789500, YM2151 to 3579000 and OKI6295 to 9037 Hz.

- 0.36RC1: Changed the 68000 CPU1 clock speed to 7159090 Hz, M6502 to 1789772 Hz, YM2151 to 3579545 Hz and OKI6295 to 9039 Hz.

- 0.36b1: Replaced MC68010 CPU1 with 68000.

- 0.35b13: Aaron Giles added Skull & Crossbones (set 1) (Atari 1989) and clone (set 2).

- 20th May 1999: Aaron Giles did another big Atari games update with a Skull & Crossbones driver.

LEVELS: 7

Recommended Games (Pirates):

Fantasy

Pirate Pete

Pirate Treasure

Pirate Ship Higemaru

Captain Silver

Buccaneers

Skull & Crossbones

Czernyj Korabl

Hook

Pirates

Romset: 2912 kb / 47 files / 1.16 zip

MAME XML Output:

<description>Skull & Crossbones (rev 5)</description>

<manufacturer>Atari Games</manufacturer>

</input>

</dipswitch>

</game>

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