Contents

General:

About Arcade Classics 2

About this game

In the game window, press:

Play to begin or continue a game;

Options to customize the keyboard, joysticks, or game play;

History for game history and interviews;

Change game to play a different game; or

Exit to exit Arcade Classics 2.

Game play:

How to play

Game controls

Changing the keyboard

Using joysticks

Changing a joystick's sensitivity

Varying the game's difficulty and settings

Other:

Troubleshooting


About Arcade Classics 2
About Midway’s Arcade Classics Volume 2

Digital Eclipse Software, Inc. Team

Digital Eclipse Software, Inc. has developed and published several successful commercial software packages including Williams® Arcade Classics for home computers and Williams Arcade’s Greatest Hits and Arcade’s Greatest Hits: The Atari Collection 1 for home game consoles.

Andrew Ayre - Andrew served as Producer of Midway’s Arcade Classics Volume 2 for Windows® 95 and is President of Digital Eclipse Software.

Jeff Vavasour - Jeff was the Lead Programmer on this project and also supervised the Trivia Game multimedia post-production.

Midnight Design and Jon Zimmerman - Midnight Design was responsible for the CGI artwork used in the opening sequence and game selection.

Jon Bradley Snyder and Julie Palsmeier - Jon produced the interviews with the original game designers for the trivia segment, and wrote the trivia questions.  Julie served as assistant producer on the interview component.

Image Impressions - Image Impressions provided multimedia post-production on the trivia segment, as well as additional animation.

Luke Porter - Luke provided the game show narration for the trivia segment.

Doug Jefferys, Tom Johnson and Sue Urbanski - Doug, Tom and Sue were responsible for sound capturing from the original coin-op machines.

Special thanks to Larry DeMar, Cary Mednick, Ken Fafrak, Sean Kelly, and Jean Baudin for their technical assistance during the development of these games.

An extra special thanks to the interviewees: Larry DeMar, George Gomez,

Eugene Jarvis, Steve Meyer, Scott Morrison and John Newcomer.

The Midway Home Entertainment, Inc. Team

Michael Rubinelli - Executive Producer

David Schwartz - Technical Director

Brian Lowe - Associate Producer

Will Shen - Assistant Producer

Robert Sablan - Testing Manager

Erwin Gasmin - Lead Tester

Peter Chang, Ross Deynata, Ed Duran, Matt Vella, Kevin Wang - Testers

Special thanks to Jim Flaharty.

Developed by Digital Eclipse Software, Inc.

Emulation software © 1997 Digital Eclipse Software, Inc.


The Play Button

Press the play button to enter the actual game.  The first time you do this after choosing a new game, you will start out in the "attract mode."  This is the mode the arcade game is in when it is waiting for a new player.  To start a new 1-player game, press 1.  In all games but Spy Hunter, you can also press 2 to start a new 2-player game.

To pause a game, press the ESC key.  This will return you to the game's main title window.  You can resume your game where you left off by selecting Play a second time.

For more information on the object of the game, see How to Play.

For more information on the controls used to play this game, see Game Controls.


Changing the Keyboard

Using the Options button on the game window, you can change the keys used to control the game.  In Options, select the Keyboard tab.  This page lists all the controls used by the game, and the current keys assigned to each.  To assign a new key to a control, click on the Change button next to it, and then press a new key.

If you press Cancel or ESC when you are asked to select the new key, the change is canceled and the control remains unchanged.  You can also restore the original keys assigned to the controls by clicking on Restore Defaults.

For a list of the keys assigned to the controls when you first install the game, see Game Controls.


The Options Button

The Options button on the game's title window allows you to customize the game in a variety of ways.  You can vary the difficulty and game play options (see Game-Play Settings), change the keys used to control the game (see Changing the Keyboard), select joysticks to be used to control the games (see Using Joysticks), or vary the game's sensitivity to motion of the joystick (see Advanced Joystick Settings).


Arcade Trivia Game Show
The Arcade Trivia Game Show

Click on the History button on the main game window to enter the "Arcade Trivia Game Show" interactive multimedia retrospective.  This trivia segment features interviews with the original game designers, insider tips and information, and rare artwork and photos that are a must-see for game enthusiasts.

Once in the Trivia Game Show, choose the correct answer to the multiple choice question to view the interview, or skip the question by pressing the “Next >” button.  At the conclusion of the trivia segment is the Media Gallery, a collection of game-related photos and artwork.

You can also enter the Trivia Game Show from the Welcome screen by clicking on the “Trivia” button there.

Warning: Entering "The Arcade Trivia Game Show" will end any game that may have been paused.


The Welcome Screen

When you first start Arcade Classics 2, you will enter the Arcade Room where you can select a game to play.  Pressing the Change Game button on a game's main window will end the current game and return you to the Arcade Room.

In the Arcade Room, you are one of seven games.  You can either click on “Play” to go to the selected game, or click the arrows to select one of the others available.

Alternatively, you can use one of the shortcut buttons on the top of the “Welcome” window to go directly to a game or the Arcade Trivia Game Show.


The Exit Button

The Exit button will completely exit Arcade Classics 2.  To restart Arcade Classics 2 you will either have to reinsert the CD-ROM, or open your "My Computer" folder and double-click on the CD-ROM icon.

To exit your current game in order to choose a new game to play, click on Change Game instead.


How to Play

Blaster is a race through space and opposition.  Fleeing the Robotrons, your goal is to reach the planet Paradise where humankind will be able to start a new life.

Your journey takes you through 20,000,000 light-years of hostile space.  Each 1,000,000 light-years is the dominion of a different enemy.  You start in the Robot Grid, wherein you must destroy flying robots and androids while avoiding their fire.  Fly through the middle of arches for bonus points.  The more of each enemy you destroy or arches you fly through in succession (without missing any), the greater their point value.

From there it’s off to the Planetoids – a densely populated asteroid and planetoid field.  Fellow spacemen drift helplessly between these rocks.  Destroy or avoid planetoids, cyborg ducks, an enemy saucers while picking up spacemen for points.  When you hear the beeps indicating the Energy Dock is in range, head toward the giant electrified “E”.  It will replenish your ships’ reserves and get you out of the planetoids faster.

After that is the metallic menace, the Space Vampires.  It’s kill or be killed against these agile adversaries.

Next, you enter Saucerland.  Here squadrons of saucers fly in formation to destroy you.  Shoot the squadron leader (flashing red) first to destroy the entire squadron at once, and receive bonus points, or shoot it last for bonus points alone.  If you shoot the squadron leader at any other time, the squad will break up and come at you individually.

When starting a game, you can elect to start in any of these four sections of the journey.  The further in you elect to start, the greater the bonus.

Future waves include Catworld, with menacing space-faring cats; the Time Tunnel, where you must rescue helpless spacemen who’ve been trapped there; and the Masterminds, a stream of ominous super-brains that assault you one after the other, in groups of four.

As you near Paradise, your adversaries start to throw everything they have at you, in the Enduro and Armageddon phases.

You fly your Blaster ship from a first-person perspective.  Any enemy fire, ship or obstacle that impacts inside the cross-hairs on your screen will damage your ship, reducing your shield power.  Your shields can only withstand two hits; the third will destroy you.  Shields are recharged by docking with the “E” Energy Dock which appears in Planetoid regions.

You can vary the speed at which you travel through a region by whether or not you engage your thrusters.  With the thrusters on, you’ll get through a stage faster, but it will require greater reflexes to avoid collision.  See Game Controls for more details on how to control Blaster.

One final note on Blaster:  It is best played with a joystick.  You actually get a finer degree of movement and speed that way rather than being restricted to the standard eight directions of the keyboard (up, down, left, and right plus diagonals).  See Using Joysticks for more details.

To find out more about how to play Blaster, watch the attract mode when you select Play, before starting a 1- or 2-player game.


Game Controls

The original arcade game of Blaster had a special joystick with a finer degree of control, more like a PC's flight stick.  By using the proper joystick with this version of Blaster, you'll be able to have that same control.  The ideal joystick should be an analog joystick (for example, a flight stick) with at least two buttons.  Gamepads and other digital joysticks will not have the same degree of fine control (as you may have already found in other flight simulator games), and provide little superiority to the keyboard as a means of controlling the game.

On a joystick, you will find that the primary trigger fires your blasters, while the second trigger engages your thrusters while it is held down.  A joystick with more buttons can be used, but they won't do anything.

If you elect to use the keyboard, then, by default the following keys are used to control your ship:

Keypad 1 - Move diagonally down and left

Keypad 2 - Move down

Keypad 3 - Move diagonally down and right

Keypad 4 - Move left

Keypad 6 - Move right

Keypad 7 - Move diagonally up and left

Keypad 8 - Move up

Keypad 9 - Move diagonally up and right

Space - Fire blaster

Enter - Engage thrusters (while held)

You can change the keys used to control Sinistar using the Options button on the game's title window (see Changing the Keyboard).


Game-Play Settings
Varying the Game's Difficulty and Settings

These original arcade games had a number of settings which could be adjusted to vary the difficulty of play (to make it harder for people to play too long on one quarter!).  On the main game window, choose the Options button and then select the Game tab.  Here you can adjust your game in the same way to make it easier or harder.

For Blaster, the initial settings are 3 ships and a bonus ship every 100,000 points.

You can vary the number of ships you start with to anything from 1 to 20 ships.  You can also adjust the points needed for a bonus ship to either 50,000, 100,000, 150,000 or 200,000 points, or disallow bonus ships completely.

In addition, you can vary the game's difficulty using the "Difficulty" slider control.

If, at any time, you want to restore the game to its original "mint condition," simply press the Restore Defaults button under the Game tab.

Finally, the game options also allow you to clear all your high scores, restoring the high score table to the factory-set scores.  To do this, click on the Reset High Scores button.

Warning: If you attempt to change any of these settings or reset high scores while you are in the middle of a game that has been paused, that game will end and your score in that game will be lost.  If you attempt this, however, you will be warned and given a chance to change your mind.


Troubleshooting

The action in Arcade Classics 2 stutters:  Windows® 95 may do a momentary "garbage collection" (that is, a clean-up of memory and disk) after a new program has settled in for a short time.  If this occurs on your machine and is unsatisfactory, try letting the attract mode run through once or so before playing a game.  If it occurs frequently, it may be a sign of insufficient memory, or another active application may be requiring intensive use of the CPU or hard disk.

I get no picture or a corrupt game screen:  Ensure that your video board is at least a local bus video board.  Microsoft's DirectX requires local bus video (or better) in order to work properly.  If you are using Windows NT 4.0, you may need the latest Service Pack upgrade (see ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/bussys/winnt/winnt-public/fixes for details).

The sound seems choppy or poor:  Ensure that you have an up-to-date Windows® 95-compatible audio driver for your sound card, and preferably a sound card which is recommended for use with Microsoft's DirectX.  Consult with the manufacturer for details.

I can't move the ship using the keyboard: Ensure that the NUM LOCK key is on, and that your key controls are set correctly.  (See Game Controls and Changing the Keyboard for more more information.)

I am having trouble using my joystick with the game: See Joystick Troubleshooting.


About this Game

The Blaster Team

Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar - Game designers

John Sheldrake, Ken Roberts and Eugene Jarvis - Video art

. 	Schmelzer - Graphic art

Eugene Jarvis and Tim Murphy - Sound

Blaster © 1983 Midway Games, Inc.

All rights reserved.  Used under license.


Robotron: 2084 was a popular game from 1982, predating Blaster.  It was created by Vid Kidz – Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar – the same duo that authored Blaster, Defender, and Defender II.  Robotron, Defender, and Defender II are available on the prequel to this package, Williams Arcade Classics.


Using Joysticks

In order to use a joystick with this game, it must first have been set up under Windows® 95's Control Panel.  To do this, choose Start, then select Settings..., then Control Panel, and finally select the Joystick icon.  See the help within for more details.

Once this is done, you must tell the game which joystick you wish to use with it.  This is done by selecting the Options button on the title window, and then selecting the Joystick page.  Select the joystick from the combo box there.

If you are having trouble with your joystick, see Joystick Troubleshooting for help.


Advanced Joystick Settings

The Advanced button on the Options' Joystick tab gives you access to the joystick sensitivity slider and the calibration tester.  Because Blaster uses a finer grading of positions, it is not possible to adjust the sensitivity in this game.

The calibration tester is the graph on the right of the dialog box.  It is divided up into forty-nine squares, representing center (the gray square) and the various possible displacements of the joystick.  By moving your joystick around, you can see how far the joystick has to move in order for the game to register it as being "centered", "up", "right", etc.

If you are having trouble getting your joystick to respond properly, you can use the calibration tester to troubleshoot the problem.  See Joystick Troubleshooting.


Joystick Troubleshooting

If you are having trouble getting your joystick to respond correctly, first ensure that you have the correct joystick selected under the Joystick tab of the Options button.

If the joystick is not listed there, then it may not have been calibrated. Joysticks must be calibrated in Windows® 95 using the Control Panel.  To access this, select Start, Settings..., then Control Panel and then double-click on the Joystick icon.  Follow the instructions there to calibrate your joystick.  If you do not have a Joystick icon under your Control Panel, you may not have installed the needed multimedia drivers.  Check your Windows Setup under Add/Remove Programs.

If your joystick has been calibrated under Windows® 95, and selected in the game's Options' Joystick tab (a joystick must be selected in each of the six games individually), click on the Advanced button under that tab to access the Advanced Joystick Settings.

The graph in this window shows you where the game "sees" the joystick, using a small "+".  The graph is divided up according to the different possible positions of the joystick, with "centered" indicated by the gray square.  You can try recalibrating your joystick or adjusting the trim controls (on joysticks that have them) and seeing how this graph responds.

If no "+" is shown on the graph, then the Windows® joystick driver is reporting that the joystick is not responding properly, and so its plug may be loose or not connected, or else the joystick driver has not been correctly selected in Windows® Control Panel.