Jolt Country

I don't remember ever seeing this game in a real arcade, but I was tangentially aware of it before MAME due to it being ported to many systems. The cabinet design on the arcade version is a little unique, but I am really struggling with how the controls are setup. I have never found a good picture of the control panel. (People have made repros of the control panel art itself, but not the kind of joystick used.) I am convinced that something unique must be going on, because you use the same joystick to aim that you do to move... which kind of stinks. Yet, the attract mode shows your guy sitting in place throwing food at people.

Anyway, it bears investigation.

Getting to level 40 is an enormous pain in the ass through MAME. You have to let the chefs clock each other with food. The controls are sloppy, again, at least on MAME -- you can't start and stop at will. The game has little pits you can fall down and on my monitor they were way too dark. The 7800 version fixed this, at least, by making them more obvious.

The thing in your favor is as follows:

1) You can start a new game where the last one ended. In Tempest you can only start on odd levels and only start where the previous game ended. So if the last level you completed was 12... you can start a new game at 11. In Food Fight you pick up where you left off. It's really less frustrating that way.

2) The layout for each board is different each time you die. You're eventually going to get favorable conditions. This is marvelous for coin drop, as it encourages you to keep throwing quarters into the thing. It's also good when you are not paying money because you know that time is on your side, ultimately.

Throwing food at people is a lot of fun. I'm actively looking for a real arcade cab just to see what the controls are like. Arcade people used to make joysticks that you could rotate as well as push. If I had to guess I would say that Food Fight uses such a scheme. If I say "Food Fight" a few more times, someone searching for the term on Google may find this thread and set me straight. Either that or someone will go off on an impotent arc of rage and we can all come on that person's face and that's fun as well. Is it more fun than a really good game of Food Fight? Well, the possibility exists, which means that my grade for emulated Food Fight is a solid B-.