Together Retro: Maniac Mansion / Crush Series

[Ivo]

I'm playing Alien Crush, but I only tried it once today and I didn't even break 4 million.

Ivo.

[alienjesus]

I hope people start playing the Crush games before me. I want to decide whether to play Alien or Devil Crush, and it'll probably depend on how many people are playing them!

I played more Maniac Mansion and made a ton of progress. There are a few puzzles I still need to solve:
Small spoilers:

How to make use of the arcade machines after I got the power back on.
How to get into the hatch above the man eating plant.
Where to find a Vacuum Tube for the radio.

I also have something I can use to make friends with Weird Ed, but I don't want to give it to him until I can figure out if there's something I can do with his Piggy Bank.

[ExedExes]

so no one else is playing a Crush game yet?

I was a bit slow coming out of the gate, but EE = not only shmups but EE is also all about pinball so let's get to it. It also gives me a good excuse to use the new TV I got last week and my laptop's HDMI port to make the games stand out.

Alien Crush
The first game in the Crush series sets the standard and features of the future Crush games. Well animated and full of graphic detail, many little features and bonus stages keep you going. My only issue is the non-scrolling playfield, and best of luck keeping the ball in the top most section. What a surprise when those slingshot kickers on the bottom screen came ALIVE!

Anyways, this score is pretty damn good for the game. Had to get used to the flippers and the fast ball movement.

1,450,100 - Fast Mode - TG16

Devil's Crush
Devil's Crush fortunately has a scrolling playfield, so that automatically makes it tons better. Plenty more bonus stages too, and if you can keep at the very top of the screen, you can rack up points from all the objects and the bonus stages indefinitely, making a DSH 27 million very plausible.

Not as good as he, but still ok.

6,557,800 - Fast Mode - TG16

Jaki Crush (or JACKRUSH)
Easily my favorite of the 3. The music alone could be the soundtrack to my life on constant loop and I'd never get tired of it. Plus it was the only Crush title to have (rather poorly implemented) multiball. Many more bonus stages await, and just like Devil's Crush, if you keep it at the top of the screen, you'll score.

I could have done better here if the stupid right-side head didn't spit my LAST ball directly into the outlane. FAIL!

8,420,600 - Fast Mode - SFC

I'll keep at it with those games. I can polish MM off in one night with the right team.

[Key-Glyph]

I'm very tempted to join with Maniac Mansion. I've played it at several points in my life, including a handful of years ago, but just never pushed through to the end. Hmmm.

I'd be playing the version bundled in with Day of the Tentacle.

[CFFJR]

Well, I started Maniac Mansion Deluxe (thanks to dsh for the link).

I took Razor and Jeff as my partners. Unfortunately Jeff landed in the dungeon right away. I've been able to escape capture with the other two so far though, and I guess I'm making progress.

Though I did manage to blow up the house and kill everyone in a nuclear meltdown. Oops.

Good thing I saved.

[Ivo]

Played Alien Crush a bit more and improved a little bit on my first score. This time I breached 4 million, but ended up a tiny bit short of 5 million. The trick is trying to stay on the top screen.

It is a fun game although I think the design of the table is not nearly as good as more traditional pinball games - there is a lack of ramps and loops and modes that could perhaps encourage you to "risk" using the "main flippers" - but for that the bottom would also possibly need to be designed to be a little more fair to the player (my 2nd ball in the last playthrough was way too short, went through one of those hard / impossible angles shortly after starting it, would usually have qualified for the "ball saver" in other tables). As it is I never want to be on the bottom screen and my priority is getting the ball back onto the top, meaning I mostly miss out on the fun of the bottom table.

From memory I think Devil Crush is a little bit improved on these aspects, but it still suffers a bit from this type of issue issue.

Ivo.

[Ivo]

I got a nice score on Alien Crush (was hoping to break 10 million though)

Fast
9838100

I still always want to be at the top table at least I figured out they do have an incentive to play at the bottom (not nearly enough for me to want to risk losing a ball though).

EDIT new score:
Fast
30095000

I understand the table well now. Still miss more loops and lanes. Except the outlanes of course, I don't miss those. In fact I lost 3 balls to the left outlane (one of which when I had the ball saver in the centre, very demoralizing)...

Ivo.

[alienjesus]

Maniac Mansion beat!

Some of those last few puzzles were mean, and I did have to look up the solution to one, but most of this game was just nicely challenging. The graphics still hold up pretty nicely imo, but it could've use more sound. A symptom of PC's of the time, I imagine.

I finished the game as Dave, Bernard and Razor, using Bernard's abilities to save the day. I'll probably get stuck into the sequel this month too, and post how that's going aswell.

I'm pretty happy with the game tbh. Besides some annoying unwinnable situations, it holds up incredibly well.

P.S. Is anyone else actually playing this? Not seen many posts about it.

[noiseredux]

Ok, I beat Maniac Mansion deluxe. Warming up on the NES version made it a breeze to run through this time in one sitting. Now I can look into the Crush games.

[retrosportsgamer]

I lost out on an Alien Crush auction but looks like you can get it complete for less than $10 (or pretty close). Devil Crush is pricier. I may go the PSN route for AC ($5.99 though - yuck) but DC is only on the JP PSN unfortunately.