Resogun: First Impressions from a Defender Addict

Since I'm a Defender nut, a couple of people have asked me what I think of Resogun, which is a game that is very similar to Defender, yet has enough differences to make it pretty damn cool for this generation of consoles. 

At the risk of losing the awesome link from Game Developer, I've moved all my Defender blog posts to another blog... http://defendering.blogspot.com/

The full article article has moved to: 

http://defendering.blogspot.com/2013/12/resogun-first-impressions-from-defender.html

The Attempt, Final Thoughts And Results (Defender World Record Saga - Part Five Of Five)

What was I thinking?

This year, Josh Jones and I decided to make a marathon record on Defender a reality. 

On Friday night (November 15th, 2013), Josh and I were up pretty late getting the machine wired up with cameras and the laptop set up with the online streaming. We didn't get it perfect, but it was getting late, so Josh said he'd get it set up. I went to sleep. 

The full article has moved to http://defendering.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-attempt-final-thoughts-and-results.html

Spiritual And Physical Preparation (Defender World Record Saga - Part Four Of Five)

Repetitive stress injuries suck.

THE ATTEMPT

When I started this experience on Saturday morning (11/16/13), playing the game was the last thing I'd have trouble with. That part was going to be a cakewalk. 

I was extremely good at Defender and had never had a place in the game where I was having difficulty getting myself extricated from. I had "clocked" the score (it resets to 0 at a million points), the Smart Bombs (reset to 0 after getting 256 Smart Bombs), and the waves (reset at 256 back to 0, so the game "starts over") plenty of times so it didn't seem like it would be too difficult. 

My play was good enough to get over a million points on a ship in the 1980s, and nowadays I could do pretty well, so I figured I could handle this. I'd even played a 4.5 hour mini marathon to get my head around what I was up against. No problem. 

The full article has moved to http://defendering.blogspot.com/2013/12/spiritual-and-physical-preparation.html

Non-gaming-related Preparation (Defender World Record Saga - Part Three Of Five)

"If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing." - Some crazy person that I emulate for some reason

Behind the scenes

PREPARATION FOR PREPARATION

After a lot of guidance from other marathoners, I did a Defender mini-marathon a couple of weeks earlier to get ready. Read about it here. It taught me a LOT about what support I was going to need that had nothing to do with playing the game.

DO IT BIG OR GO HOME

This event was a big bucket list item for me and there was no way I was going to do it halfway. My wife was just as excited about this as I was, and my family and friends were totally behind it as well. 

Planning for and executing this Defender marathon required a lot of things to happen all at the same time: getting a referee (Josh Jones) to agree to take the journey with me, lining up time off of work, getting family support, and mechanical and technical support that ensured 80+ hours of uptime on the game machine itself. 

The full article has moved to http://defendering.blogspot.com/2013/11/non-gaming-related-preparation-defender.html

What *is* Defender? (Defender World Record Saga - Part Two Of Five)

Let's take a look at what we're talking about here. 

OVERVIEW

Defender is an arcade game made by Williams Electronics in 1980. It is, essentially, a test to see how long you can stop aliens from overtaking Earth. You "defend" 10 humans from being mutated into aliens themselves. If you lose all of your humans, you enter "space," which is incredibly difficult to exit to get back to Earth. If you lose all your ships, you die, and Earth is defeated. Game Over.  

The crazy controls

Defender is played by pressing 5 separate buttons with unique actions and an up / down lever on an arcade control panel. One token is worth 3 ships and 3 Smart Bombs, and every 10,000 points awards one ship/Smart Bomb combo.

The full article has moved to http://defendering.blogspot.com/2013/11/what-is-defender-defender-world-record.html

What's The Big Deal About Defender? (Defender World Record Saga - Part One Of Five)

When I first saw the Defender machine pop into existence in my local 7-11, I watched the flashing attract mode screens until they settled on the High Score page... The DEFENDER HALL OF FAME. It had "Todays Best" (no apostrophe - but who cares) and "All time Greatest." That spoke to me. Loudly.

You see, my hometown area of Brazosport, TX is most known for being a chemical plant. I lived in the "blue collar" support city and, well, the place was filled with people whose families were hard working and honestly didn't always have time to spend with their kids. 

The full article has moved to http://defendering.blogspot.com/2013/11/what-big-deal-about-defender-defender.html

Defender World Record Marathon Update, 11 / 11 / 2013

RAM board - RAM to be
replaced. And the dreaded
ribbon cable at top.

Ahh. The joys of classic arcade gaming. Apparently old Williams' machines are finicky. Very much so. In fact, so much so that people that work on them have a lot of "must dos" when they give recommendations. It's been a real eye opening experience since this machine decided that it wants some more attention. No pressure. 


Well, before I go into this update, I owe some thanks to the people that are helping. I want to thank my family for their support during this event. They've put up with my late nights and the concern and being told they can't touch the machine and that they were going to have to make me food and put up with a bunch of people in the house and everything else. They're troopers. Thank you all!

The full article has moved to http://defendering.blogspot.com/2013/11/defender-world-record-marathon-update.html

First Defender Mini-marathon in a LONG time!

On November 16th, I am going to take a run at the Defender Marathon World Record. Defender is an arcade game that came out in 1980 and has been called one of the most difficult arcade games ever. 

It is hard. Mostly because there's not a pattern or series of button presses you have to memorize. It's you against the machine, so you don't have to compete against a human that is completely unpredictable. It took me forever to get my score up to where I could roll it at a million. (My Defender Facebook group calls it "clocking" it).

The full article has moved to http://defendering.blogspot.com/2013/11/first-defender-mini-marathon-in-long.html

Taking a run at the Defender World Record Marathon

It has been years since I threatened to go for a world record on the arcade game Defender. It has been a dream since I had found out that people kept track of these things back in the late 80s.

THE HARDEST ARCADE GAME?
According to Wikipedia, "Defender is often described as one of the most difficult games in the industry. " Do some research and see what you think. Here's a place to read about it, historically. The History of Defender: The Joys of Difficult Games

The full article has moved to http://defendering.blogspot.com/2013/10/taking-run-at-defender-world-record.html