Back with a Bang!

Well then, it’s been nine months since my last update. There are numerous reasons for this which I won’t go into, but as of this past weekend I am officially restarting the 100k Challenge!

In the last nine months I have not done a lot of arcade gaming, but I’m now focussing back on the MAME cabs for the next couple of months because we are heading off to the USA for the annual Funspot tournament at the end of May, so I need the practice!

My initial preparation for the tournament has been to play games that are available at Funspot (and therefore might be in the competition) but are also on my 100k Challenge game list. This practice had reaped almost instant rewards, as I’ve now passed my target score on Konami’s Contra, with 126,500 points!

Interestingly, this score was achieved on what seemed to be one of my worst-ever games. I lost two lives before I even reached the enemy base on the first level, but then proceeded to get through the base and past the first boss without losing another life, which was a first. I then got to the second base before meeting my demise, but by then the 100k was well secured. There’s no video for this one (it was just a practice session) but it was hardly a vintage performance anyway and most players should easily be able to pass 100k after a few attempts.

Since my last update, the only other game I’ve made any improvement on is Donkey Kong, pushing my score up by a little over 2,000 points to 97,300 – that 100k is getting painstakingly close now!

So as a reminder, the current state of play is shown below. Hopefully there will be some more updates soon!

Metro-Crossed Off The List!

Yes, a few days ago I passed the 100k landmark on another game, Namco’s Metro-Cross. This one came about due to the game being the focus of the latest JAMMA+ Forum High Score Challenge. I was already getting around 80k or more per go (with a personal best of 93k) but having picked up some tips I soon achieved the target score.

The screenshot shows three scores over 100k, but the first one I got was 108,050. I didn’t record a video for this but since I’ve already managed to get over 100k on several occasions and will continue to play this as part of the JAMMA+ challenge, I will get a video done to show off the scoring techniques.

That’s 13 games done now – what will be next?

June 2012 Summary

As I mentioned, progress has been so slow recently that I’m now doing monthly rather than weekly updates...

So minimal progress overall this month, but reaching 100k on two games, Flying Shark and Pooyan, means that the games I have improved have been significant improvements at least!

July’s target is to reach 100k on another couple of games - I have Contra in mind along with the usual ‘holy grail’ of Donkey Kong – and I’d also like to get a few games from orange to yellow status.

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.

Saving Lots of Bacon...

Yes indeed, there has been some serious pig rescuing done a couple of nights ago, as I smashed through the 100k barrier on Konami’s Pooyan. My final score was 115,950...

The video for this one will be uploaded in the next few days, but that’s two games done in less than a week. Hopefully I’m on a roll!

Flying Shark Tamed!

Can you tame a shark? Who knows? Anyway, after a long period of relative inactivity (at least as far as actually increasing scores goes) I have finally achieved another 100k score. Taito’s Flying Shark is the game in question and the score is 100,780.

To be honest I didn’t expect to reach this score so easily, as previous time dedicated to this game has seen only minimal increases and usually a bit of practice is required before I can tackle the first level. However this score came on just my second attempt so there’s no video, but it wasn’t a particularly noteworthy performance anyway.

Still, it’s another game off the list with 29 still to go. Most of my recent focus has been on Donkey Kong, on which I’ve logged several 90k or higher scores over the last week, although none higher than my current best. It’s surely just a matter of time though!

Given the general lack of progress at the moment I’ve basically given up on the weekly updates and will now just post to the blog whenever I improve a score, and then summarise my progress at the end of each month.

HISCORE 2012 Review

Well it’s been a month since my last update due to my holiday and then running the HISCORE Classic Arcade Tournament in Manchester. During that time very little has been done on the 100k Challenge so I thought I’d kick things off again with a look back at HISCORE. Check out my video diaries of the tournament...

Click here for Day 2

It was a great event both in terms of the way it ran – everyone had a good time and lots of great scores were logged – and also from a personal point of view. There were several high points for me, including taking fifth spot in the final rankings, and achieving a couple of notable scores. My score of 50,130 on Ms. Pac-Man was the best of the weekend, a personal best ‘live score’ and the only one to beat the 50k mark.

Also early on day one I got my best-ever score on Donkey Kong, almost reaching 100k with a score of 97,700. The cab in use for the event has the Japanese DK boardset which has a different level layout, so even if I had topped 100k it wouldn’t have counted towards my challenge, but I was still very pleased given it was my first (and only) attempt of the weekend!

If you’re interested in seeing how everyone got on at the tournament then do check out the results page at the official HISCORE site.

One last thing - going back to Ms. Pac-Man, the night before HISCORE I decided to have a bit of a practice on my home machine and managed to increase my score to 55,790 – obviously that practice paid off given my achievement on the day!

So that’s it for now. I’m now back trying to increase my 100k Challenge game scores when I get the chance, and hopefully will have some updates soon...