Pooyan Gameplay Video

Here’s my recording of my 100k achievement on Pooyan from this past weekend.

As you’ll see, the key to getting decent scores on this game is accurate use of the hunk of meat that appears at the top right every so often, usually when a large group of enemies are travelling up or down the screen.

Each eliminated wolf gives a Pac-Man style score multiplier, i.e. 200 for the first, 400 for the second and so on. Also bear in mind that after wiping the wolves out with the meat, the balloons stay on-screen and can be shot for an extra 200 points each.

Road Fighter Gameplay Video

I finally got around to pulling this off the camera, so let’s go all the way back to week 14 and check out my 100k achievement on Konami’s Road Fighter. The final moments of my attempt were a bit of a disaster but I managed it in the end...

As you’ll see, the key is not to rush through each stage and focus on getting through the traffic without bumping into it, collecting all the bonus ‘fuel cars’ that give increasing scores providing you don’t crash.

Return of the Invaders Gameplay Tips Video

Finally for today, here's some tips on how to improve your score on Return of the Invaders, which I also reached 100k on in week 9.

One thing I didn't mention in the video is that to activate the challenging stages you must leave at least two of the relevant enemies until last, and the more you leave alive, the bigger and more valuable the mothership that is spawned.

Mario Bros Gameplay Tips Video

This is a short video demonstrating some of the techniques I used to reach 100k on Mario Bros back in week 9...

Mr Do! Gameplay Tips Video

Back in week 5 I surpassed 100k on Mr Do! This was rather unexpected so wasn't recorded, but this video shows some strategies that helped me reach my scoring target...

The Path to Points in Pitfall II

While I’m still nowhere near the 100k mark for Sega’s conversion of Activision’s classic Pitfall II, I have learned a few ways of maximising points on the first stage of the game. So here are my tips for avoiding danger and getting as many points as possible before entering the titular Lost Caverns…

1.      You get points for simply running, so try to run around as much as possible to boost your score. Bear in mind this approach has to be tempered against the time limit, which is only increased when you pick up treasure.

2.      On any screen where things are falling from the sky (excluding the volcano screens) if you hand around for long enough a bonus money bag will fall from the sky. The location this falls from seems to be pretty static. Money bags give you 1000 points each but more importantly add 30 seconds to your time limit.

3.      On the screens where there are logs rolling towards you and there’s a hole in the middle of the screen with a scorpion underneath, I’ve found that if you start running across the screen immediately you can jump over the first log and fall through the hole and you’ll never actually hit the scorpion. It will be close, but you should then run left and pick up the treasure from the preceding screen.

4.      It seems to pay off time-wise to take action straight away. For example on the screen with the swinging ropes you can run and jump on to the first rope as soon as you appear on the screen. Similarly on the screen with the crocodiles you can just start running and jump over them immediately. This is important as you need to keep moving as quickly as possible to avoid running out of time.

5.      When you get to the final screen of the stage, immediately run and jump over the first fireball and fall through the hole in the middle of the screen. Chances are you will probably die due to hitting the bat on the lower half of the screen, but this is actually an advantage as you will restart the screen on the lower part with a full 3 minutes of time. You can then run to the left to pick up a money bag and then go back and finish the stage by collecting the key. You get a bonus for all remaining time so will get way more points this way than if you complete the stage with just a few seconds remaining. Of course you may regret losing that life later on, but by that point you should have got an extra life for reaching 20,000 points so you could just see it as a worthy sacrifice!

One Down, 39 To Go!

Well, I was intending to record all my achievements and upload them to YouTube, but this one just kind of happened! The first game to be checked off the list is Konami’s Shao-lin’s Road with a score of 126,400. I’d played a few games and got scores around 60-70k as you can see from the photo below, but suddenly everything seemed to click and I racked up nearly 90,000 points before losing a life. From there reaching my target score was inevitable.

Clearly this isn’t the most challenging of games to get 100k on since it only took a few attempts, but if you’re looking for gameplay tips then the best advice I can give is that eliminating enemies with a flying kick gives 500 points rather than the 200 you get for a standing kick. You can also rack up more points for killing multiple enemies with one hit. On the later stages I found it easier if you head to the top level of the screen - these areas are usually smaller and less enemies spawn there, plus you only have to worry about them jumping up to that level rather than landing on you from above.

Amidar Analysis

Over the last couple of days I’ve been working on boosting my score on Amidar. If you’re not familiar with the game then there’s an amusing write-up of it at Classic Gaming that is well worth a read.

One of the best ways to improve your score on this game is via the bonus stages. After each level there is the opportunity to earn 5,000 points by guiding a pig down the correct path from the top of the screen to get to the bananas at the bottom. Yes, I know how silly that sounds! Anyway, correctly guessing the path in real time is nigh-on impossible as you only get a short amount of time before the pig starts it’s way down the maze automatically.

After having a few plays of the game and taking photos of each bonus maze I discovered that each layout remains static from game to game. By backtracking from the bottom of the maze to the top it is possible to work out the correct path for each bonus round, so I did this for the first three bonus rounds and now have a small ‘cheat sheet’ handy whilst playing the game!

The other way to significantly boost your score is to fill in all four corners of each maze, which allows you to temporarily catch the enemies much like collecting a power pill in Pac-Man. Just like Pac-Man each enemy caught increases a multiplier, with 200 points for the first, 400 for the second and so on. With at least five enemies on each screen, that’s a lot of points to be had. Unlike Pac-Man however, the enemies don’t run away from you when you turn the tables on them. Instead they carry on the same path as normal. Since both the player and enemies move at the same speed, chasing after them is futile, so the best approach is to fill the fourth corner in just as the majority of your foes are approaching you. They will carry on heading towards you and effectively become lambs to the slaughter!

Putting these tactics into practice has already seen a massive improvement in my score as you can see below, and I expect to reach 100,000 points within my next few attempts...