Cut-Off!

Cut-Off! (Compute's Gazette)

Here is a fast-paced two-player game that follows after the classics. Usually they are simple in concept, yet universal in appeal, and general enough to be translated for almost any computer. Some examples are Pong, The granddaddy of all videogames. Breakout, Lunar Lander, and the venerable Space Invaders. For legal reasons they may be disguised by different names, but there probably isn't a home computer or videogame machine anywhere for which some version of these all-time favorites isn't available.

Here, another classic game is Blockade. Again, it goes by different names (sometimes Surround), but the basic concept remains the same...where two players square off against each other by steering a moving line around the screen, trying to head off the other player by forcing a crash.

The article for this game can be found on page 46 of Compute's Gazette Issue 9 (March 1984

Why TAS This Game?

The continuation of TASing games from my all-time favorite magazine, Compute's Gazette. This makes my 65th TAS from this series.

I remember this game very well. At first, I had no idea how to type this one in, since it was one of the early machine language games for entry. After I found out how, I quickly got to it and played this game over and over with friends. During that play, I was amazed at how well it ran. Unlike the B.A.S.I.C written games, this style of coding was incredible and took away all the sluggishness that BASIC couldn't perform. It's fast and clean operating.

Game Difficulty and Ending

The only selection of difficulty is the speed at which the game runs. In this case, I chose "9"...the fastest. At this speed, one block of movement occurs on each frame. So this is clearly an speed that a human cannot hold up to for long, without self-destructing.

As for the ending, there are 10 lives for each player. When one player runs out, that's it. Game over!

Effort In TASing (Not BOTed)

This was simple enough to TAS. The only challenge I had was trying to draw some interesting images. I tried some complex ones, but I could hever time the ending of each round to get the maximum score of 436. So, I ended up making patterns that were mostly mirror images...if split down the middle or horizontally. Some of them are a bit off center and weird, but I got my 436 on all 10 lives.

Human Comparison

I don't understand why some people modify these old games, but this one is still the same...only different colors and for the Vic-20. I can't find a C64 video.