Blaster(Arcade) FAQ version 1.0.0
Copyright 2006 by Andrew Schultz
[email protected]
Please do not copy and repost without my written consent. Not many people ask
these days, and I don't really mind, but if you email me by name asking for
this guide then I'll let you post it. It's just that the guide took time,
even though it was fun, and people that don't respect that and just take take
take--well, they don't deserve the measly ad revenue it will generate.
****AD SPACE****
My home page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Exhibit/2762
================================
OUTLINE
1. INTRODUCTION
2. CONTROLS
3. LEVEL STRUCTURE
4. SCORING
5. WALKTHROUGH
6. VERSIONS
7. CREDITS
================================
1. INTRODUCTION
I didn't know Blaster was the sequel to Robotron. I didn't know Robotron
had one, though I was sure it deserved one. Blaster copied many of Robotron's
gimmicks: luridly flashing letters telling you of the death(no near death
this time) of the human race. A bunch of weird monsters to fight. The same
coily sound effects. Rapid fire. The introduction, below:
IT IS THE YEAR 2085.
THE ROBOTRONS HAVE DESTROYED THE HUMAN RACE.
YOU ESCAPE IN A STOLEN SPACE SHUTTLE.
YOUR DESTINATION:
P A R A D I S E
A REMOTE OUTPOST 20 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!
However, it's pretty obviously different once you start to play. It's a 3-d
shooter where enemies come at you. They're a bit blockier than Robotron.
There, the enemies were small enough it didn't matter. Here, the planetoids
you need to shoot/avoid are more detailed and interesting than your enemies.
And while there are different levels featuring different monsters, there's
nowhere near the teamwork you'd find in Robotron. It's just, blow away a
bunch of enemies and go at it again, duck and swerve, and there's no real
coordination of moving and firing like you had with Robotron, which had so
many weird noises and random breaks(which evened out after a while) that
every game really felt different. Despite the 2-d view you had so many
different ways to avoid enemies, there were longer duels, and there was the
pleasure of shooting a whole trail of enemies.
The game's still pretty fun, though. I remember seeing a game with a spiral
map of a galaxy, a bunch of letters swarming the screen, and the ability to
start on any of the first four levels(this and the controls seem too like the
Star Wars video game. Not sure which came first, but Star Wars was more
exciting.) I couldn't find it until I read up on Robotron, and I'm glad I
did. Still, while I enjoy playing Robotron fair-and-square, the best way
through Blaster is just to cheat. Plus there is a bug where you thrust and
fire--much like in Robotron where you shoot into the corner, only sometimes
you need to do that, and it really kills you on the Planetoids waves.
Blaster also had a 30-level prototype, probably dismissed as just too long
and tiresome to really get anywhere. But because it wasn't commercial it's OK
to ship around. To play the 30 level prototype, see the link below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaster_(arcade_game)
And download from the link at the bottom, changing the file name to
"blast30.zip" so MAME recognizes it.
This seems to have the bonuses that are described in the main game at KLOV,
below:
http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=&game_id=7145
The ROM for the actual game seems to give more points.
2. CONTROLS
First of all, around your ship: there is a square with the edges near the
corner fleshed out. This is where you are vulnerable if you are hit. A much
louder explosion occurs than a side hit(which is not lethal at all.) Three of
these and you lose a life.
For mame purposes
BLAST=buttons 1 and 3
THRUST=button 2
The arcade game features a throttle with thrust, fire, and a "rapid" button.
You'll want to hold down on the "fire" button at all times in MAME. Basically
what that does is to allow you to fire four shots at once. The shots are
spaced so that the first is off to the left, the second is left-center, the
third right-center, and the fourth right.
Knowing this can give you a hand up when strategizing. When fighting against
monster groups that swerve left to right it is a bit easier. Also you will be
more lucky catching enemies out when they are below the middle of the screen
than above.
The THRUST button allows your ship to go faster. This is useful and, in later
levels, necessary when you wish to avoid an oncoming missile. Sometimes you
can swing back to fire at enemies. THRUST also lets you catch up to runaway
ships and, at very late levels, to catch up to an energy docking boost that
recharges your ship and gets you lots of points.
If you are playing on MAME, you may wish to adjist your settings. I've had
problems with holding down the CTRL and ALT(default fire and thrust) which
have caused my monitor to rotate its view 90 degrees. There's a way out of
that: right-click in the background area, click "graphic
options:rotation:none." If the mouse is awkward just use arrow keys.
So with MAME you may wish to define button 1 as Z, 2 as X, 3 as C. I'm not
sure about the difference between 1 and 3 but holding 1 gives rapid-fire and
holding 2 lets you swerve out of trouble. While you can continually swerve
out of trouble to get through a level, it doesn't give you many points.
To adjust the controls in Blaster, hit P to pause, then [tab] to pop up the
context menu. Adjust the controls for "this game" and adjust what you need by
hitting return, waiting, and hitting the key you desire. You can also adjust
"Y Dec" to the down arrow and "Y Inc" to the up arrow so that pushing down/up
makes you go down/up(Yeah, I never really got to like Zaxxon.) You can hit
[delete] at any entry to clear what was there.
Another problem with MAME is that you may find your version of blaster.zip
does not have decoder.4 or decoder.6 for the latest version of MAME. If this
is the case you can either revert to mame .88 to play Blaster(or Robotron) or
you can find these files on the web. How, I won't tell.
Another nice thing about MAME is that you can install an infinite-life cheat.
Right click on Blaster, click "properties" and under miscellaneous, click
"enable game cheats." This allows you to play any level you want or to have
infinite lives or energy. I've found a couple of infinite-life trips through
the game improved my steering and marksmanship more than going through the
early levels. A shot at the tougher and the easier ones seem silly.
If you want to practice a certain level, keep selecting the next level, which
is always set to your current one.
If controls or the high score list get screwy you can push 9 to clear the
high score list(or delete nvram\blaster.nv) or delete cfg\blaster.cfg in
order to clear the controls.
3. LEVEL STRUCTURE
3-1. ORIGINAL GAME
1. Robot Grid
This is on an actual planet, where you must fly through magic arches. There
are tie-fighter, plane and on-the-ground robots and barriers as well. You can
fly through magic arches for points.
2. planetoids
Mostly planetoids, but some groups of cyborg ducks shoot at you. You can
shoot the planetoids for points and you can also collect humanoids. An "E"
for energy-docking and recharging comes along randomly too and allows you to
bull your way to the end of the level. If you catch it, be sure to shoot
everything in your path and try to pick up as many E's as you can, too.
You also get to see some red saucers here, discussed more in detail on
world 4.
3. vampires
Vampires come in sets of 4 to 8. They will either move left-to-right and
back and forth or up-and-down. There is a bonus if you shoot them all, and
sometimes leftover vampires can join with the earlier enemies.
4. saucerland
Saucerland features a few sets of saucers, all but one of which are red. If
you shoot the red first or last, you get a big bonus. If you shoot all
saucers, you get a nice bonus. If you shoot the red saucer neither first nor
last, the others split away.
5. robot grid II
This is very similar to robot grid 1. The ground monsters may look slightly
different, though.
6. time tunnel
This is a no-risk, short level where you will try to pick up every single
astronaut for a nice bonus. They appear with pauses between each one, so it
should not be hard to get them all. You don't have to get them into the
center. There are eight of them.
7. planetoids II
The runaway ships are a bit tougher than cyborg ducks and the enemies are a
bit more prevalent. The asteroids are much less stationary, too. They come at
you instead of staying still.
8. cat world
Cats usually appear in a horizontal line, slightly angled, and they fire
rather large missiles at you. Clear each group for a big bonus.
9. saucerland II
More saucers. They come at you quicker, shoot faster, and make bigger
formations.
10. vampires II
Vampires, but faster.
11. master minds
These come at you in groups of four. They fire big missiles but are much
slower than other monsters. They take a while to get the hang of but are very
easy to beat once you get the hang of them.
12. robot grid III
Here the robot monsters are shaped like red skeletons, but not much else is
changed.
13. time tunnel II
You need to thrust a bit more to pick up astronauts and you may not be able
to put them right in the center of the screen before picking the next one up.
But there's no way to lose a guy!
14. runaway ships
Here you have to thrust more to pick up the runaway ships and they can fire
at you from a distance, which really sucks.
15. enduro
A combination of waves of every enemy. You get more points each one you
shoot.
16. cat world II
The cats are just faster.
17. master minds II
Here you probably need to use the turbo to take these guys out.
18. robot grid IV
Robots are now vector outlines. Also you seem to have many more sequences
of arches/
19. armageddon
You seem to face many monsters at once here. At the end of the level you
have a chance to dock with an "E" but it is so hard to catch that you will
have to steer away from it to pick it up as otherwise it will block your view
of incoming missiles. The level exit is just past here.
20. paradise
A bunch of pirouetting ladies you can't steer into. You can't shoot them
either. Just watch the entertainment. Well, if there are lots of women to
reproduce with, it lessens the chance and effects of incest later.
21+ everything is faster and you cannot use a continue credit. But if you
have MAME it doesn't matter--although you might be tired of the game by then.
3-2. 30 LEVEL PROTOTYPE
Offered without comment. The same basic idea and increase in challenge, just
much longer in time. I'm not sure about relative difficulties.
1 Planetoids
2 Robot Grid
3 Saucerland
4 Vampires
5 Runaway ships
6 Time tunnel
7 Robot Grid 2
8 saucerland
9 asteroid
10 outer space
11 Time tunnel 2
12 Robot grid
13 Runaway ships 2
14 Saucerland 2
15 Vampires 2
16 Enduro
17 Outer space
18 Planetoids 2?
19 Time tunnel 3
20 Cat world
21 Robot grid
22 Enduro 2
23 Runaway ships 3
24 Master minds
25 Vampires 3
26 Robot grid
27 cat world 2
28 Planetoids 3?
29 Armageddon
30 Paradise
4. SCORING
You gain points for running into enemies but not magic arches. Of course, you
lose shields for that too.
Ground Robots: 100, 200, 300, 400, 500 for each consecutive one you kill
Tie fighters and planes: 200
Cyborg Duck: 70 (3000-6000)
Vampire: 100 (3000-6000)
Master minds: 100 (500,600,700,800 etc.)
Planetoids: 100
Runaway ship: 500 (2000-8000)
Spacemen: 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500, 3000 thereafter
If you miss one, the bonus goes back down to 1000.
On the prototype the points are 1000-1200-1400-1600-1800-2000.
Red saucers/blue saucers: 500
Red saucer up close: 2500/3000
Enduro wave: 100 for 1st/2nd kill of certain monster, then 200, etc.
Docking with energy: 10000
Running into/shooting anything after energy: 100
Default high score list:
MASTER BLASTERS
1 DRJ 222220 6 PGD 188900
2 LED 218570 7 JER 127550
3 JRS 217500 8 ALI 102200
4 KLR 216100 9 MLG 91960
5 DJW 212000 10 NHD 91950
SUPREME BLASTERS
1 BILLY BLAST 511110 <WMS>
2 VID 223450 13 NHD 91950 24 BAC 72560
3 KID 223350 14 KJF 90990 25 JFB 70700
4 DRJ 222220 15 MRS 86880 26 MPT 59600
5 LED 218570 16 SSR 85770 27 SUE 55200
6 JRS 217500 17 UNA 84310 28 MOM 44800
7 KLR 216100 18 W R 83550 29 DAD 44790
8 DJW 212000 19 DON 82800 30 SFD 44780
9 PGD 188900 20 VIV 82800 31 AKD 44770
10 JER 127550 21 GWW 81050 32 RKM 33300
11 ALI 102200 22 CRB 80550 33 CNS 32700
12 MLG 91950 23 MDR 75650 34 TIM 31200
Basically you can get 2nd place off the bat if you just choose the
expert(level 4) setting. But you don't get to survive very long. You also can
apparently choose to continue your game when it says "X light-years to
paradise," at least until you've made it to paradise.
5. WALKTHROUGH
First of all, a note that you can probably chicken out and avoid a bunch of
enemies by just turbo-ing in a bunch of different directions. This isn't very
fun and you'll probably get caught eventually, but a novice that does not
want to cheat too much at first can use this to see, yes, you don't need to
fight every enemy and maybe a few accidental hits will raise your confidence.
You should also note that a 3-tone bell indicates that your shield is at
"critical." Sounds can tell you what enemies are coming, when, or even when
they fire, and this is a tip as to when to take evasive action.
*****************
* 1. ROBOT GRID *
*****************
"ROBOT GRID/FLY THU/MAGIC ARCHES"--and that's the main way to get points
here. 1000, 2000, etc. for each magic arch you go through. You can lose
points for every arch you hit, or every time an enemy shoots you. There are
three types of enemies:
1. stationary robots
2. planes
3. tie fighters(cheesy, I know)
Stationary robots generally attack from the ground. Every enemy knows where
you are and fires. Planes and tie fighters get off two shots--one will
probably hit where you were pinned in, and the trick is to use turbo to get
out of a jam. Often you may need to turbo forward through a couple of arches
or turbo to the side to go through one. Remember that since one hit is 1/3 a
life and you get an extra life at each 100k, it's probably not worth a 50-50
chance to go through an arch.
One nice trick to use is that if you see an arch and monsters coming, go away
from the arch and in the air. Let them fire at you. Then turbo onto the
ground and towards the arch. They'll miss terribly.
The Robot Grid isn't too tough. Although its randomness may make for rough
patches with several enemies lumped together, or you may need to miss an arch
to avoid getting hit, it's got the relative difficulty of a starting level if
not the intrigue. That's partially due to the randomness, too. Monsters may
be lumped around arches, or there might just not be too many arches to get
you points.
After a few times through this you should be able to advance with few or no
problems.
*****************
* 2. PLANETOIDS *
*****************
"PLANETOIDS/RESCUE SPACEMEN"
You should be able to get through the "planetoids" wave without too much
trouble. Thrust if you need to, to get the astronauts into your sites
quickly. Planetoids also tend to go off the screen past you. You may have to
face flashing red saucers, which are indicated by a low humming noise. Ducks
split up when you hit them. They don't make any noise, but you'll see a few
similarly-shaped blobs in a line, and they are not asteroids.
Finally there is a "E" you can dock with. It appears randomly during the
phase, and only once. Once you have it in your sites you should be abble to
accelerate and touch it pretty quickly. If there are enemies around you'll
have time to shoot them before thrusting after it.
Planetoids should not interfere with your ability to pick up an astronaut or
shoot enemies down. The worst that will happen is that you may swerve into
one. You can try to bag all the enemies here.
***************
* 3. VAMPIRES *
***************
The key to beating up vampires is to be able to center them. They come in two
types: swerving up/down or left/right. The up/downs are easy to take out
right away. Just center them and if you are firing from a distance you will
nail them. They become a bit tougher up close where you may have to swerve
left or right to get the last one(this is a general concern.) The last guy
can often be dealt with this way--put him near a lower corner and fire, and
either your far-left or far-right shot will take him out. It's worth it
point- and safety-wise to go for the last of one group. It's easier than
fighting a whole group, and you get a bonus for killing all of one group. The
bonuses do not appear to be related to how many vampires there are.
As a rule of thumb, assume that vampires are the up/down type. If they appear
at the top and go left/right you may just want to avoid them unless you are
very confident. There are about five or six groups before you move on to the
next phase.
*****************
* 4. SAUCERLAND *
*****************
"SHOOT RED SAUCER
FIRST OR LAST"
Saucers come in several formations in this level:
B B B| R | B | R |B B
B B | B B |BRB| B B | B B
R |B B B| B |B B| R
You probably have time to pick off all the blue ones and then the red one or
vice versa. Remember if the red one is at the top that you may pick off a
blue by mistake, because the game tends to allow for that a bit more easily.
If you are in an actual firefight then you can just pick off the red saucer
and let everything else disperse. The cross formation is the trickiest to
kill unless you know where your bullet is going, because even if you line up
the red saucer in the center you will fall to the side.
A big problem here is trying to line up the red saucer and so it may be
better to pick off the other blue ones while they are in the distance.
Especially since you can't see that the red saucers are in the back until
it's almost too late. After 5-6 of these you can advance.
*******************
* 5. ROBOT GRID 2 *
*******************
Robots may shoot a bit faster here, but I really didn't see any difference
between this and the first robot grid.
******************
* 6. TIME TUNNEL *
******************
This is not really a bad level at all. You should be able to see where the
astronaut is floating--to which corner. Turbo that way. You should also have
enough time before the next. I think they might have borrowed the concept
from Tac-Scan, though.
Maximum points=1000+1500+2000+2500+3000*4=19000.
*******************
* 7. PLANETOIDS 2 *
*******************
Here you are introduced to runaway ships, which you need to thrust after
consistently if you can't kill them right away. In fact, once they appear,
it's best to thrust immediately and kill them, or you will have more
thrusting to do later. And this gets in the way of ducking other enemies. The
trick is to avoid planetoids in the process. You know when you've killed a
runaway because you will see its point total. Even when a runaway is close it
seems to be very good at staying in a corner and firing unexpected shots at
you. Don't worry about astronauts here unless they're easy to pick up. There
may also be a few irritating cyborg ducks, but at the end of the level
there's a fairly easy(if you got rid of the runaways) Energy E to dock with
for recharging.
Sometimes I've gotten traces of the robot grid here and advanced quickly and
other times it's been normal. I've also had problems with a thrust and fire
causing the game to reset.
****************
* 8. CAT WORLD *
****************
This is another weird level where I've gotten traces of the robot grid
before. Cat groups aren't too hard, and don't panic if you are unable to
blast all of them or you leave one on the far side. Keep yourself mostly
above them on the screen and you should gun them down no problem. They jitter
back and forth a bit but that doesn't affect your shots. You don't need to
swerve to get the final cat, usually. Just keep it in the lower quadrant(draw
an imaginary line from the center to the lower-left and lower-right corners)
and you can probably shoot the ships up close.
1000 for 3, 2000 for 4, 2500 for 5, 5000 for 7
*******************
* 9. SAUCERLAND 2 *
*******************
You have many more formations to deal with now and you will probably need to
turbo to blast everything. Because there are so many enemies, it's only a
lucky shot that will take out a red saucer, so step away from the red saucer
and blast. Many new different formations although the old ones may pop up at
random. The trickiest is probably the cross formation. Pick off the top, then
the bottom, then side to side. The formation with lots of blue saucers all
around is a crapshoot, but starting away from the red saucer lets you shoot a
lot and not worry about being a surgeon. After 5 or 6 formations you can
advance. Very easy to chicken out here but the firefights are kid of fun.
After about 10-15 of these you can advance.
B
B B
B B B
B B
R
B B B
B B
B R B
B B
B B B
B
B
BBRBB
B
B
B | R
B B |B B B
B B B| B B
R | B
******************
* 10. VAMPIRES 2 *
******************
The vampires really swim around now and you can't really sit in one place as
you used to. If they are out of your general range then you need to swerve
quickly in to face them, or they will do the same to you. They can also
launch missiles from a distance. Some of them may spiral in instead of just
moving back and forth, so pay attention to that. You may just want to steer
clear of them at first for a bit.
********************
* 11. MASTER MINDS *
********************
While these guys look tough with big missiles that block your screen, they
are slow developing, and if you shoot down one group the next is much easier.
Basically, if you take care of the missiles, you can take care of the enemies
later. You generally only need to get the missiles in your vague horizontal
range, too, to shoot them down--which means you don't have to center on them.
Master minds come in groups of 4 and 3 such forms, the easiest being the
horizontal one as you can shoot them without moving.
Whatever formation appears, it's best to try to work top to bottom for one,
bottom to top for the next, etc.
|X X| X
XXXX| |X X
|X X| X
********************
* 12. ROBOT GRID 3 *
********************
Not much different from the previous grid, except the weird blocks are
replaced by red skeletons, and enemy planes shoot several bullets at once.
This doesn't make much difference in practice. You can still duck and soar as
needed--to fake like you're going away from a gate and then go back to it.
Again, avoid doing stupid things like running into a gate with a wall behind
it. How much you score is at the mercy of how many gates the computer chooses
to give you.
The second time through you wind up facing more and faster opponents. The big
problems are that you need to use "turbo" more and it is tougher to latch on
to the energy recharger.
*********************
* 13. TIME TUNNEL 2 *
*********************
This is no tougher than the first once you realize you just need to tap the
controls while running turbo all the way through. You should go through about
ten guys before the next level.
********************
* 14. PLANETOIDS 3 *
********************
Now, planetoids swerve. First there are three sets of runaway ships. Then you
have some red saucers. It's really important to thrust here because the
runaway ships fire from a while away. Keep them in sight and in the
horizontal middle of your screen. You'll have a few red-and-blue saucers and
then some cyborg ducks. Eventually an energy docker will appear, and when it
does, thrust away. You may have to take an evasive action but even if the E
goes off your screen you can retreat back to find it.
**************
* 15. ENDURO *
**************
There are a bunch of cosmetically different enemies here, but don't let that
fool you. They all shoot the same missiles and none of them come after you
aggressively. But there are a lot of them. They come in this order:
Vampires
Saucers
Cyborg ducks
Masterminds
Cats
Red saucers
It's a level where if you don't do anything stupid, you should be able to
cruise. But it's long enough that you probably will. I find that if you just
tend up, you can avoid getting hit and you will pick off a lot of bad guys
that get close to you before going just below the crosshairs.
*******************
* 16. CAT WORLD 2 *
*******************
This isn't much harder than cat world. Maybe the enemies are a bit faster.
You will again want to use the trick of letting the last guy get really near
you, near the corners of your crosshairs, after you have cleared out the
other side--he's helpless to run at or shoot at you, but one of your four
shots is perfectly primed to pick him off.
**********************
* 17. MASTER MINDS 2 *
**********************
Here it's a bit tougher than the first time and often one bullet can hide
behind another. You may even need to judge when your bullets can attack your
enemies. It's possible to kill a lot of enemies just by moving up and down
and waiting for the right time to fire, but you will probably need to do a
bit more to pass through cleanly with a good bonus. A Z-move could work well,
or sometimes you might just need to turbo all the way up to get rid of your
enemies.
********************
* 18. ROBOT GRID 4 *
********************
Robots can really fire sidearm here so you have to watch staying on the
ground too long. One you passed out of the corner of your eye before can now
throw something that whips across the screen and takes you out.
******************
* 19. ARMAGEDDON *
******************
This is probably the most fun of all the levels, even more than the Enduro's
fake variety, because you don't know what you're going to get next, and yet
at the same time the game really doesn't throw TOO much at you. You'll face a
bunch of non-asteroid stuff and then the asteroids will come. Soon after some
runaway ships(3 sets of 2) will come from nowhere, and then the magic E!
But you can't just go thrusting for it. Obviously you'll want to thrust for
the enemy ships. But the problem is that the E doesn't appear quickly. So
when it does, swerve to get it into a corner of the screen and then try to
pick off the enemy ships. You should have plenty of time. Once it's over half
the size of your crosshairs, you can move it into your crosshairs, where you
need a bit of luck that enemies won't ambush you. The most likely ones are
the runaways, but if you got them it shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Missing the magic E means you have to fight a few more enemies before
escaping Armageddon.
****************
* 20. PARADISE *
****************
Oh my! Twirling shapely skimpily dressed women floating everywhere! You can
steer into them, but you can't shoot them or pick them up. Well, you're
probably going to get to score although you don't get any points in this
game. After women of several different body colors float by a hexagonal group
of them blows kisses your way and the screen blinks luridly one last time.
But all good things come to an end and you get to start over at the
beginning.
End of FAQ proper
================================
6. VERSIONS
1.0.0: sent to GameFAQs 4/13/2006, first draft complete
7. CREDITS
Thanks to wikipedia and klov for alerting me to this game and having the
prototypes.
Thanks to CJayC for having GameFAQs around.
Thanks to all the people I've gotten to know at GameFAQs. There are too many
to list off the top of my head. bloomer, Retro, falsehead, Snow Dragon,
Masters, ZoopSoul, AdamL, Brian Sulpher, War Doc(thanks for the Robotron
boost) and *who knows* who else. There are so many who have come to GameFAQs
and left. Especially for the people on the FAQ board who kept my NES
completion project thread going--soon to be in "part 4." I must chip back in
one day.
