NARC (Arcade)

NARC
Developer: Williams Electronics Publisher: Williams Electronics Platform: Arcade (Williams Z Unit) Released in US: December 1988 This game has hidden developer credits. This game has debugging material. This game has revisional differences. This game has a development article This game has a notes page

NARC is the first arcade game to use a 32-bit processor. As for the game's content, well...here's what the arcade manual has to say:

"THE CITY'S OVERRUN! Slashers! Gangsters! Pimps! The punks are
everywhere! The scum of the earth! And only the player can restore law and
order! Trigger finger spraying hot metal before him... ROCKET BOMB at the
ready... The player is a macho urban guerrilla, defending our city from the
ultimate urban scourge! This is his neighborhood too. He's committed. He says
NO to inner city decadence. He carries a badge and a moral code. And he backs
them both with screaming lead."

The final boss is a giant head on a plate.

Sub-Pages

Development Info

Notes

Hidden Screens

A series of hidden screens can be accessed through the following steps:

1. Hold 1P Up and 2P Right for the duration.
2. Press 1P Crouch + 1P Fire + 2P Jump + 2P Rocket Bomb.
3. Press 1P Fire + 1P Rocket Bomb + 2P Crouch + 2P Rocket Bomb.

To simplify this sequence to 1P Up + 2P Right + 1P Fire, put the following code in narc.xml:

  <cheat desc="Easy Credits Code">
    <script state="run">
      <action>user1.mw@B3FBC=0801</action>
      <action>user1.mw@B3FDE=0821</action>
    </script>
  </cheat>

Press any button to advance through the following screens.

The first screen is a simple set of game credits with a cycling rainbow border.

The second screen displays six audits that don't appear on the main game audits screen.

Errors	No Errors

If the game has encountered any errors since booting up, register information will be displayed on the third page. Otherwise, the screen on the right is displayed.

Pressing any key will send the player back to the title.

Revisional Differences

Several versions of the game are known to exist, according to internal documentation. Full info is available on the Notes page.

Version	Date	Changes/Notes
1.0	11/03/88	Prototype for the 1988 AMOA show.
1.1	11/14/88	Fixed a bug that made one of the driving stages unbeatable.
1.2	11/19/88	First location test release. Added player explosion effects, audits, and coin handling.
1.3	11/21/88	Fixed a softlock when a player buys in during a cutscene. Adds more audits and better error logging.
1.8	12/18/88	Initial prototype run of 250 units.
1.91	12/88 or 01/89	Listed in development files as having been deployed as a location test in four US cities on 01/21/89.
2.00	01/16/89	First release to full production.
3.00	02/05/89	Improved in-game error recovery, audio fixes, and minor gameplay improvements.
3.10	02/09/89	Second production release. Decreased the game's default difficulty setting and other changes to make it a bit easier.
3.20	02/13/89	Added an ill-advised workaround for defective 512Kbit ROMs.
3.30	02/14/89	Removed the ill-advised workaround for defective 512Kb ROMs.
3.31	02/14/89	Built as two 1Mbit ROMs instead of four 512Kb ROMs.
4.00	02/17/89	512Kb ROMs. Identical to 3.30.
5.00	02/17/89	1Mb ROMs. Identical to 3.31.
6.00	02/20/89	512Kb ROMs. Fixes an invisibility bug when a player buys-in during a game.
7.00	02/20/89	1Mb ROMs. Identical to 6.00.