2004-06-08
Time Pilot time! But first, during my regular bit of vanity surfing, I found I'm #1 on google.com for "classic computers blog" and #5 for "classic video games blog". Pretty cool, eh?
I always thought Time Pilot was a really tough, complicated game, totally unlike my thoughts on Frogger a while ago. Well, at least on the Gameboy Advance version, I was really wrong. At first Time Pilot did seem difficult, but soon I figured a couple things out.
First, always head up. This keeps you above most of the planes and their bombs they can briefly shoot upwards (on level one). More importantly, this moves you more quickly towards the bonus parachutists. The first one you pick up is worth 1000, then that increases by 1000 each time until you reach 5000 points each. The really strange thing is that there are apparently unlimited parachutists available in the GBA version of Time Pilot.
So here we get into the "free life factor". First one arrives at 10,000 and then every 50,000 points after that. If you avoid finishing the level and just keep blasting away, picking up the parachutists, you can collect many extra lives. Only up to 8 are displayed, but internally it keeps track of them. I got up to 700,000 points before I accidentally finished the level. I kept the same strategy on the second level and managed to max out the score, at 999,900. So much for being too tough a game!
So I then barged ahead with my stockpile of extra ships, and managed to make it to level 5 before I ran out. This "fly up" strategy doesn't work on levels 3 and 4, as the aircraft shoot heat-seeking missiles that will catch up with you. The best strategy I've found so far is to shoot the ships before they can shoot at you, and to get comfortable making tight turns to evade the missiles.
Typically I'd be interested in getting to the higher levels of Time Pilot to see what new things were there. However, sticking around the first level allows you to build up loads of extra ships, so you are better equipped to go further in the game.
FWIW, the arcade version of Time Pilot is more difficult, at least when I tried it in MAME. The game runs faster, and more importantly, there are a limited number of parachutists to pick up, so you can't run up the score (and the extra lives). However, my practice on the GBA still helped, as I was able to get to level 4 on my first try.
And there is no witty ending to this blog entry.
I always thought Time Pilot was a really tough, complicated game, totally unlike my thoughts on Frogger a while ago. Well, at least on the Gameboy Advance version, I was really wrong. At first Time Pilot did seem difficult, but soon I figured a couple things out.
First, always head up. This keeps you above most of the planes and their bombs they can briefly shoot upwards (on level one). More importantly, this moves you more quickly towards the bonus parachutists. The first one you pick up is worth 1000, then that increases by 1000 each time until you reach 5000 points each. The really strange thing is that there are apparently unlimited parachutists available in the GBA version of Time Pilot.
So here we get into the "free life factor". First one arrives at 10,000 and then every 50,000 points after that. If you avoid finishing the level and just keep blasting away, picking up the parachutists, you can collect many extra lives. Only up to 8 are displayed, but internally it keeps track of them. I got up to 700,000 points before I accidentally finished the level. I kept the same strategy on the second level and managed to max out the score, at 999,900. So much for being too tough a game!
So I then barged ahead with my stockpile of extra ships, and managed to make it to level 5 before I ran out. This "fly up" strategy doesn't work on levels 3 and 4, as the aircraft shoot heat-seeking missiles that will catch up with you. The best strategy I've found so far is to shoot the ships before they can shoot at you, and to get comfortable making tight turns to evade the missiles.
Typically I'd be interested in getting to the higher levels of Time Pilot to see what new things were there. However, sticking around the first level allows you to build up loads of extra ships, so you are better equipped to go further in the game.
FWIW, the arcade version of Time Pilot is more difficult, at least when I tried it in MAME. The game runs faster, and more importantly, there are a limited number of parachutists to pick up, so you can't run up the score (and the extra lives). However, my practice on the GBA still helped, as I was able to get to level 4 on my first try.
And there is no witty ending to this blog entry.
