GET HYPE FOR CRAP
That was the mantra going through this entire week. I will say this year's lineup was FAR better than last year's. No Magical Cat Adventure to be seen! Every game was playable in its own way.
Blue Print - I was *very* happy to see this one, because it was one of the first games I ever played on MAME, which would explain my early success @ Day 1 with a decent score until some of you figured out that the machine did NOT let you fire the shots yourself.
Bogey Manor - Personally, I do NOT like to leech in games. This game pretty much demanded it. I just watched the video from the official CT playlist and did what they did. My score lasted a day or two until some of you figured out how to break it, and talk about "power armor" and stuff like that just kinda drew me away from it. I did manage to put up a score 50k better near the end.
Boggy '84 (and the legend continues...) -
I saw the creature... NO, NO! Oh, wrong Boggy, sorry about that. This wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but to get a good score early on it was absolutely necessary to get that 20K on the game show level.
Ponpoko - A game so bad that it had its own theme song. Yeah. This was probably my least favorite because in a game that demands precision, it would certainly help for the controls to be a little better! Once I found out that you could control how you long and short-jump, I finally managed 82k. You couldn't help but hurry to get better bonuses. PG3 broke the game however.
Porky - Fun once I figured out the jump mechanics. Just couldn't clear that large pit after the first cave. My score held up well.
Progress - It's Grobda! No, wait. It's crap. The secret was apparently in the exponential bonus you got with those trucks as long as you didn't lose a life. Grabbed onto that and put up a tolerable score.
Side Trak -
BLUBLUBLBUBLBUBLBUBLU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank goodness I don't have to hear that abysmal sound anymore. Mr. Kaufmann must feel good about his decision to release the Exidy games to the general gaming public now, right? I put up with it enough to get 56k.
Streaking - Believe it or not, I saw this game before we played it. It was in the training montage scene in the forgettable 1983 movie "Joysticks" that was on the USA Network's "Up All Night" many times (it was a late night show on the weekends dedicated to crappy movies). A simple maze game would have sufficed, but a speed increase halfway in and the
killer fatigue did me in, relegating me to the 22k club.
Super Rider - The worst trip to the shopping mall you'll ever have. At least that's how I saw it. The world's weakest motorcycle ever. If this was an AVGN episode, think of the spots where he dies 30 times in a row while on a profanity-laced tirade and that sums up my experience with this crap. I just played it so I could get over 100k and stay competitive.
Talbot - HYPE! No, seriously. I played this about a month ago before we even did it here, so my limited knowledge of this was somewhat helpful. That fateful Wednesday night I just set out to do it, got lucky with the 2000 point grabs, made it to Round 5 and promptly lost 2 lives to that damn fox and then by losing the "rabbit game" because the CPU got the 8 bastards first. Yes, you heard right. I had *3* lives on that stage. 750 points short of the WR. I will come back to this one, and yes I'm crazy
Tugboat - I saw talk about a lot of you felt that it was better to have this as a weekend game instead of being the entire tournament. I couldn't agree more. Then I saw talk about how you had to die in a certain spot to have a better log arrangement for the entire game, and ways of getting past certain areas by moving in all sorts of directions. Nope. That was enough for me. The score I got, I didn't even die on Phase 4, and I figured that was enough an omen for me to just accept that. I would have liked to get above 700
Yosaku To Donbei Bird Invaders (hey let's call it what it is!) - Another one I was glad to see relegated to the weekend. My score was solid for nearly 24 hours, when I saw the one you call "Scoops" and Barra going after it I had a feeling that I wouldn't be getting 2 golds out of this tournament (and honestly, I thought one of you pros would be getting Talbot too!)
So that's it, my 2nd CT done. Looking forward to the IGBY and my "one-man band performance" as last year's award show put it so eloquently. Thanks to the organizers, WC for his back-end work as always, and all those who had to sit through leech fest after leech fest.
CRAP HYPE
VERIZONTAL HYPE
IGBY HYPE
and all of that,
ExedExes
