Name That Tune (arcade) 30.400 All Clear
14Name That Tune (arcade)
played by Judgment Storm
Score: 30.400
All Clear with Golden Medley completed
Bally Sente's Name That Tune is a music quiz game, based on a game show where the name explains it all. NTT has inspired others such as Name That Video, Don't Forget the Lyrics, and the current hit Beat Shazam. I saw Jim Lange's version of NTT on the Family Channel (now Freeform) in the mid 90s & enjoyed it. The arcade game has all rounds from that one, except for Melody Roulette.
"Let's see what comes up today."
The 1st stage is Tommy Oliver's Tune Topics. A category is selected at random, then several songs from it will be played. Get 3 right out of 5 to win the round for a bonus. It's best that you answer quickly, because the song value and the bonus will count down over time. In 2P mode, you are locked out if your opponent answers first- but if they're wrong, you get a shot at it.
"I can name that tune in 6 notes."
"I can name it in 5."
"I think you better name that tune!"
Stage 2 is Bid-a-Note. How many (or few) notes can you name that tune in? Bidding 9 notes is worth 100 points. Every note you bid down will raise the value by 100, up to a max of 900 for only 1 note. In a 2P game, whoever made the last bid will name that tune. When the bidding is over, the keyboardist will tap out that number of notes. If you know the tune before he's done playing, you can interrupt him and answer early- saving a few seconds. As before, play fast for a good round bonus... and correctly name 3. In 2P mode, a wrong guess awards a point to the other player. I wish the clues were a little more detailed than just the category, like the ones Jim Lange gave on the show. I've seen some players on the game show get a song right with only 1 note... but on the video game, good luck.
If you finished the first 2 rounds with a score of 18K or higher, congratulations! You'll go on to round 3, Golden Medley. Your goal there is to get 5 songs in 15 seconds (changed a bit from the show, where it was 7 in 30). Be careful... if you give an incorrect title, the game will end instantly. You can pass if you don't know a song. Should you have time left you'll come back to it later. In a 2P game, just scoring higher than the other player isn't enough... you still need to hit 18K also. That requires sweeping both rounds.
This is a fairly fun game... just prepare to be stumped every now and then. It looks to be the first ever USA released video game officially licensed from a game show, and Bally Sente did a decent job capturing the concept for an arcade. The music quality is pretty good for an 8-bit system with 2.25 Megabits ROM. One thing I really miss here is the game show's cool theme song by Tommy Oliver and his orchestra... having it play on the high score list would be great.
A new version of the TV show was considered for 2018 by CBS with Elizabeth Banks as the host, but sadly they didn't pick it up. I hope another network does. Now I wonder if the creators of Power Rangers were fans of NTT... with Mighty Morphin's Green Ranger just happening to be named Tommy Oliver. A tribute, or just coincidence?