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gaunt2: MAME ROM Information.

History:

Gauntlet II (c) 1986 Atari Games.

Gauntlet II is a direct sequel to the legendary maze-based fantasy themed shoot-em-up, released a year earlier. Atari chose not to tinker with the core game-play mechanic to any great degree, opting instead to enhance the already excellent multi-player action that had created such a stir upon the original game's release.

As with its prequel, up to four players once again take on the role of either 'Thor the Warrior', 'Thyra the Valkyrie', 'Merlin the Wizard', or 'Questor the Elf' and must play cooperatively as they explore and fight their way through the enemy-packed mazes, collecting potions, food and treasure as they searched for the exit that would lead them to the next dungeon.

Changes to the sequel included the ability for players to play whatever character they wanted, even if that character was already in play. Characters were now colour-coded and players would find themselves taking on the role of 'Blue Elf', 'Green Wizard', etc. New in-game speech was added to allow for the new player definitions.

Other changes included the ability to 'bounce' shots off walls - known as 'Reflective Shots' - providing the correct potion was picked up. As well as new potions, Gauntlet II also featured several new monsters. The most notorious of the new additions was the Fire-breathing Dragon that guards the exit to some dungeons. This powerful creature takes multiple hits to kill and defeating it would see the players rewarded with a permanent potion and a bag of treasure.

Another notable addition was the 'It' monster: any player who was tagged by the creature would suddenly find that all of that level's monsters would ONLY chase the tagged player, completely ignoring the presence of all other players. The only way to remove this curse was to tag another player, thus making them 'it'.

New level elements were also added to further increase variety. These included dungeons with entirely invisible walls, magical walls (which changed into monsters or items when hit), stun tiles (which stunned any player that walked on them) and exits that flashed between functioning and non-functioning.

- TECHNICAL -

Game ID : 136043

Main CPU : 68010 (@ 7.15909 Mhz), M6502 (@ 1.789772 Mhz)

Sound Chips : YM2151 (@ 3.579545 Mhz), POKEY (@ 1.789772 Mhz), TMS5220 (@ 650.826 Khz)

Players : 4

Control : 8-way joystick

Buttons : 2

- TRIVIA -

The original "Gauntlet" was released in 1985, with the Gauntlet II conversion kits coming out a year later, in August 1986. A lot of the original "Gauntlet" machines of the time were switched over to Gauntlet II cabinets. They tended to stay as Gauntlet II for some time, due to the relative scarcity of kits that would convert a "Gauntlet" cabinet to that of its sequel. The proper kits were uncommon until the late eighties, by which time four-player games were taking off in a big way.

Competition : Atari held a promotional competition to coincide with "Gauntlet II's" initial launch. If players followed the instructions the game gives before entering a secret room (the machine provides clues on how to enter the secret rooms whenever a hidden wall is shot away on any level), the player is greeted with a screen explaining that they had been awarded extra points and inviting the player to enter his or her name.

A six-digit code would then be given which the player could put onto a competition entry form. The first 500 entries drawn won Gauntlet II T-shirts, plus a chance of winning a $5000 savings bond. Machines can also be set (via dip switches) to suppress this screen, in which case players would get a screen saying '5000 points x coins = xxx' after doing the secret room. The contest ended in 1986.

Approximately 3,000 kits were produced.

Note : the game contains exactly 205 sounds! (including digitized voices, effects and musics), less than the first Gauntlet.

Pony Canyon / Scitron released a limited-edition soundtrack album for this game (That's Atari Music Vol.II : G.S.M. Atari Games 2 - PCCB-00070) on 21/09/1991.

- SCORING -

Key : 100 points.

Treasure : 100 - 500 points.

Each type of monster has a set score value.

Each generator is worth twice as many points as its associated monster.

Death : up to 6,000 points.

- TIPS AND TRICKS -

* Secret Rooms : to get to a secret room, perform a secret trick on a level. Some of the secret tricks are :

1) Teleporting into the exit.

2) Pushing a movable wall into the exit

3) Keeping all the super shots

4) Not using invulnerability (this is almost always a good idea anyway)

5) Not touching a fake exit

6) Teleporting on top of Death and/or acid blobs

7) Not taking ANYTHING (the tick trick comes in handy here)

* The hints it gives to the secret room don't necessarily apply to your current level, just as on "Gauntlet". The secret trick usually doesn't work, but it is always same for any given board. You're allowed one secret trick for every 15 levels or so.

* You can kill the acid blobs! Just drop 2 potions in quick succession. This works regardless of your magic ability. It also puts the dragon back to sleep momentarily (You can also kill them with a teleporter. If there's a teleporter handy, that is).

* The '?' foods are NOT random. Grab a '?' food on health mod 20 = 7 (i.e. 27, 47, 67, etc). You'll get 200 health.

* Couple of strategy notes :

1) Reflective shots make the dragon easier

2) Invulnerability makes him very easy

3) Remember that when generators aren't on the screen, they don't generate monsters.

4) If you are playing two+ player you can kill almost all dragons with one player diverting his attention, or using an indirect attack. For example : you can find shootable walls or just stand in the right spot askew from the dragon. He will try to flame instead of fire-ball. If done correctly, you will be standing a wall away from him. Then your partner can go around and shoot flame head while the dragon is flaming away.

* If a previous game ended beyond Level 6, Level 6 in the next game becomes the level that the previous game ended on. If you got a really good sequence of boards in a game and you want to repeat them, turn the machine off and on again after you've entered your high score.

- SERIES -

1. Gauntlet (1985)

2. Gauntlet (1985, PlayChoice-10)

3. Gauntlet II (1986)

4. Gauntlet - The Deeper Dungeons (1987, Level pack for 8-bit computers)

5. Gauntlet - The Third Encounter (1990, Atari Lynx)

6. Gauntlet III - The Final Quest (1991, Atari ST)

7. Gauntlet IV (1993, Sega Mega Drive)

8. Gauntlet Legends (1998)

9. Gauntlet Dark Legacy (1999)

10. Gauntlet Seven Sorrows (2006, Sony PlayStation 2 & Microsoft XBOX)

- STAFF -

Designer / Programmer : Ed Logg

Game programmer : Bob Flanagan

Video graphics : Sam Comstock, Susan G. McBride, Alan Murphy, Will Noble

Engineer : Pat McCarthy

Technician : Cris Drobny

Sound designers : Hal Canon, Brad Fuller, Earl Vickers

Cabinet designers : Ken Hata

- PORTS -

* Consoles :

Nintendo Famicom (1990)

Nintendo Game Boy (1990)

Microsoft XBOX (2004, "Midway Arcade Treasures 2")

Nintendo GameCube (2004, "Midway Arcade Treasures 2")

Sony PlayStation 2 (2004, "Midway Arcade Treasures 2")

Sony PlayStation 3 (2007, "PlayStation Network")

* Computers :

Tandy Color Computer (1986, "Gantelet II")

Amstrad CPC (1986)

Atari ST (1986)

Commodore C64 (1987)

PC [MS-DOS, 5.25''] (1987)

Sinclair ZX Spectrum (1988)

Commodore Amiga (1989)

PC [MS Windows, CD-ROM] (2006, "Midway Arcade Treasures Deluxe Edition")

- SOURCES -

Game's rom.

Machine's picture.

MAME Info:

0.31 [Aaron Giles]

0.30 [Aaron Giles]

Bugs:

- In Gauntlet II the speaker doesn't say things like 'SAVE KEYS TO OPEN DOORS...'. MASH (ID 01125)

- I wanted to say that I have not been able to make the "famous" thief/mugger bugs work in the emulated version. See here and here for a full description and additional info. Antos (ID 01211)

WIP:

- 0.137u4: Lord Nightmare fixed swapped stereo in Gauntlet and Gauntlet II. Thor (warrior)'s/red player's coin slot is toward the left, and specific sounds for that player (coin insert gong, death ditty, etc) should come from the left speaker, not the right. Verified with schematics. TODO: Merge Gauntlet audio into atarijsa.c since the Gauntlet audio hardware is clearly the direct ancestor of the Atari JSA-i audio board, and currently is missing most of the chip specific volume controls, etc which are already implemented in atarijsa.c.

- 0.134u1: Lord Nightmare added TMS5220C variant: Implemented reset for TMS5220C if /RS and /WS are pulled down together. Inserted LNs email and corrections as comment into source. Created a TODO section. Couriersud updated Gauntlet to use "new" TMS5220 interface. Replaced TMS5220 speech with TMS5220C.

- 0.133u1: Renamed (gaunts) to (gauntlets), (gauntj) to (gauntletj), (gauntg) to (gauntletg), (gauntj12) to (gauntletj12), (gauntr9) to (gauntletr9), (gauntgr8) to (gauntletgr8), (gauntr7) to (gauntletr7), (gauntgr6) to (gauntletgr6), (gauntr5) to (gauntletr5), (gauntr4) to (gauntletr4), (gauntgr3) to (gauntletgr3), (gauntr2) to (gauntletr2), (gauntr1) to (gauntletr1), (gaunt2p) to (gauntlet2p), (gaunt2pj) to (gauntlet2pj), (gaunt2pg) to (gauntlet2pg), (gaun2pr3) to (gauntlet2pr3), (gaun2pj2) to (gauntlet2pj2), (gaun2pg1) to (gauntlet2pg1), (gaun22p1) to (gaunt22p1) and (gaun22pg) to (gaunt22pg).

- 0.105u4: Added proms ($0, 200, 400 - timing, flip control and position/size). Full address map verified from schematics.

- 0.76: Aaron Giles added clones Gauntlet II (German), (2 Players, rev 1), (2 Players, rev 2) and (2 Players, German). Fixed gfx1 rom ($0) length to 8kb. Fixed rom names.

- 17th October 2003: Aaron Giles added a few new Gauntlet, Gauntlet 2 and Vindicators Part II ROM sets, and cleaned up the drivers.

- 0.37b3: Fixed gfx2 rom loading.

- 0.36RC1: Changed 68010 CPU1 clock speed to 7159090 Hz, M6502 CPU2 to 1789772 Hz, YM-2151 to 3579545, Pokey to 1789772 Hz, TMS5220 to 650826 Hz and palettesize to 1024 colors.

- 0.35RC2: Ernesto Corvi and Nicola Salmoria fixed the slapstic emulation in Gauntlet.

- 0.35b13: Changed description to 'Gauntlet II'.

- 0.35b11: Replaced 68000 CPU with 68010.

- 0.33b3: The Gauntlet drivers are now color-reduced (faster & better) [Aaron Giles].

- 0.31: Aaron Giles added original Gauntlet 2. Note that only the original version are now supported, the slapstic hacked one no longer are.

- 0.30: Aaron Giles added Gauntlet 2 (Atari Games 1986). Aaron added a cpu_reset() call so that a single processor can be reset during execution; Gauntlet needs this to work properly. Only the hacked version which doesn't require a slapstic is supported. Known issues: Colors are accurate, however the palette is reduced from a 16-bit IRGB (4-4-4-4) to 8-bit RGB (3-3-2) color space.

LEVELS: 999 (endless)

Other Emulators:

* FB Alpha

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Romset: 602 kb / 26 files / 300.3 zip

MAME XML Output:

<description>Gauntlet II</description>

<manufacturer>Atari Games</manufacturer>

</input>

</dipswitch>

</game>

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