Yolympics 2017 Nominations as Rated by Former Domino Man WR Holder

[Zerst]

Streamed a credit or two of most nominations. Ratings follow below.

1980-1984 and 1985-1989
1990-1994 and 1995-2000

***1980-1984***
1. Pig Newton | Best game you've never played. Simple, high strategy, doesn't run too long.
2. The Electric Yo-Yo | Simple game. Neat concept; plays really fast and challenging to score well in.
3. Black Widow | Fun fact-paced game. Hadn't played it before, might amend that.
4. Blaster | Weird but fun. Solid Williams game.
5. Alpine Ski | Decent pick. Parallel Turn is the better skiing game though.
6. Time Tunnel | Toot Toot
7. Chack 'n Pop | Controls are weird but it's actually way more fun than it looks.
8. Sky Skipper | More fun than I thought it would be. Definitely unique.
9. Road Fighter | Simple game; decent enough, though.
10. Pac-Land | Remarkably solid early platformer. Did not expect to enjoy this one.
11. Enigma 2 (enigma2) | Kusoge; the good kind.
12. Jack Rabbit | I made it about halfway into the voice sample and closed the window. (doesn't seem that bad of a game, really)
13. Bomb Jack | Generic single screen platformer. Meh.
14. Hard Hat | More suited for a Crap Tournament. Not an entirely horrible game.
15. Gaplus | Fast Galaga. Falaga.
16. I, Robot | More of a novelty than a complex game.
17. Pengo | I could take it or leave it. Not a bad filler game, just a bit random unless you're as good as PAC.
18. Timber | Takes too long.
19. Berzerk | I find the game boring. Takes a bit too long to get to the fast bullets and then you just lose randomly depending on room spawns.
20. Wizard of Wor | Runs long, apparently lots of cheese and waiting around for safe play.
21. Time Pilot (maximum difficulty) | Don't like the way this controls.
22. Space Raider | Found it kind of dull at a glance. Enemy hitboxes are small enough that it feels mostly random if you hit anything.
23. New Rally-X | I wouldn't hate the game as much if it didn't show up in every single tournament.
24. Ponpoko (Venture Line) (ponpokov) | Not a bad game, but we just played this.
N/A. MotoTour / Zippy Race | Didn't work in the version of MAME I was using.
N/A. Space Ace | Skipped because laserdisc game.

***1985-1989***
1. Omega Fighter | Great shmup.
2. Hang-On | Good pick.
3. VS. Tetris | Pure Tetris. Can't go wrong with this.
4. Dragon Spirit | Fun shmup. Very difficult. Good music.
5. Ghouls 'n Ghosts | Way more memorization than I thought it would be from watching speedruns. Probably fun after some grinding.
6. Halley's Comet | Way more fun than I expected it to be.
7. Rampage | Simple and fun game.
8. Butasan | Fun to play. Scoring is pretty RNG though.
9. Wonder Boy | Memorization heavy, but still decent fun.
10. Twin Cobra | Decent shmup. Plays a bit long.
11. Momoko 120% (momoko) | A bit simple, but it's fun enough.
12. Same! Same! Same! | Standard Toaplan shmup. Spend more time dodging powerups than bullets.
13. Exed Exes | Decent enough.
14. Arm Wrestling | Couldn't get a feel for it since it seems like you need to watch a replay to know what to do.
15. Green Beret (gberet) | A bit generic. Seems like there'd be leeching problems.
16. Superman | Terribly designed beatemup.
17. Don Doko Don | Don't care much for snow bros.
18. Commando | Didn't really click with me
19. U.N. Squadron | Euroshmup, didn't like it.
20. Solomon's Key | Seems like it would run long, and be susceptible to copying replays.
21. Pac-Mania | I don't like Pac-Man. I found this worse than the original because you can't see what's going on.
22. Gladiator (Golden Castle) | Decent concept. Plays like shit.
N/A. Badlands | Skipped, wasn't showing up in mame gamelist

[CaptainJivePants]

Early front-runner for DKF post of the year 2017.

[Zerst]

***1990-1994***
1. Magic Sword | Fun platformer. Very memorization-heavy, but well-designed. Great scoring system.
2. HOOK (hook) | Peter Pan dropping 12-6 elbows on grounded pirates. This game is great. Why are we not playing this?
3. Kingdom Grand Prix | Raizing shmup. Interesting racing/shmup hybrid.
4. Dogyuun | Really unique shmup from Toaplan. Fun.
5. Trog | Fun collect-the-dots maze game. Scoring is a bit RNG, but the game is fast and varied enough to be enjoyable.
6. Captain America and The Avengers | Decently fun. Lots of cheese in the form of safe strats. Game is counterstoppable.
7. Knights of the Round | Slow-paced beatemup. Didn't really get into it, but it seems like a well-designed game.
8. Thunder Hoop | Could be a decent platformer. Too memorization-heavy, though, as there are frequent surprises and you die in one hit.
9. Liquid Kids | Decent platformer. Didn't care for how enemies spawn on top of you if you go too fast.
10. Raiden | Having played the Raiden Fighters series, I don't think I can enjoy Raiden 1 anymore.
11. Avenging Spirit | Goofy platformer. Neat concept.
12. Cosmo Gang the Video (Japan) | I don't know why I thought this was a Space Invaders clone. It's a Galaga clone. It's not bad, but I've never been the biggest fan of Galaga.
13. Super Space Invaders '91 | Decent filler game. Not as good as '95.
14. Acrobat Mission | Average shmup. Kind of annoying to play because every enemy has a lot of health.
15. In The Hunt | Kind of a slower-paced Metal Slug except you're a submarine. Bit tough to tell what's going on at times.
16. Super BurgerTime | More playable than the original Burgertime. Not by much though.
17. Aliens | Generic run & gun. Too slow paced, with lots of memorization.
18. Lethal Thunder | Kind of a boring shmup. Really easy until the last stage where Irem remembers what kind of games they make.
19. Mercs | It's like Shock Troopers, but with bad controls.
20. VS. Dr. Mario | Takes way too long to get a good score. Heavy RNG after a certain point.
21. Violent Storm (ver JAC) (viostormj) | Great beat-em-up to play for a 1cc. Horrible beat-em-up to play for score.
22. NBA Jam | 15 minutes of holding down/right and pressing the shoot button once in a while. Scoring is 100% RNG. Please no.
N/A. SegaSonic the Hedgehog | Really fun game. Bad for mame tournaments because of the precise trackball controls.


***1995-2000***
1. Armed Police Batrider | Sequel to Battle Garegga. Just about as fun.
2. Guwange | Cave shmup. One of their weirder games. Pretty neat, but a pain to score in.
3. Raiden Fighters Jet (rfjets) | This game has crazy scoring tricks that are a pain in the ass to pull off. Still really fun though.
4. Raiden Fighters | Better than Raiden 1. Actually has a scoring system and reasonable patterns.
5. Dangun Feveron | Cave shmup. You pick the cat, and then you fly across the screen all zippy-like while disco music plays.
6. ESP Ra.De. | Cave shmup. I hope you like boss milking, because this game has lots of it.
7. Change Air Blade (Japan) | Designed to be a Vs. shmup. Single player is a boss rush, not as interesting.
8. Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike | Fighting games on keyboard :<
9. Pang 3 (Panic Mode) | Not too much of a fan of Pang. Ok filler game though.
10. Magical Drop III | See Chain Reaction (Magical Drop I)
11. Galaga Arrangement (Namco Classic Collection Vol. 1) | Seems to play exactly like Galaga, except enemies spin around more before going to the top of the screen.
12. Pac-Man Arrangement (Namco Classic Collection Vol. 2) | Ehh, I had more fun playing this than Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man. Still more of the same, though.
13. Metal Slug 2 | Slowdown simulator.
14. Chain Reaction (Solo) | Seems like an OK puzzle game. I don't know the scoring system well enough to judge further.
15. Twin Qix | Easier Qix, with Puzzle Bobble music.
16. Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo | I've always found this game boring.
17. Ghostlop (prototype) (ghostlop) | Not feeling this one. A bit too simple for a puzzle game.
18. Hotdog Storm | Bosses do not time out and can be milked indefinitely. Killing the stage 3 boss randomly boosts your score 100x. Let's not do this.
19. Cotton 2 | Definitely a unique shmup. Grab enemies and throw them into other enemies. It's on ST-V hardware though, which runs badly in emulation.
20. Twin Cobra II | I 1cc'd this on my second credit. I thought we already played Thunder Force AC.
N/A. Hot Pinball | 2lewd4twitch
N/A. Egg Venture | Skipped because lightgun game.
N/A. Area 51 | Skipped because lightgun game.

[homerwannabee]

20. Twin Cobra II | I 1cc'd this on my second credit. I thought we already played Thunder Force AC.

I really have no clue how you can do that on the second credit(This is probably why you are top 4).  This entails the difference between me, and you.  I've spent a huge amount of time trying to 1cc this.  Probably a good six hours, and counting.

By the way, I think the game is probably easier than Thunder Force AC, but again I have no clue how you top 4 guys just completely destroy like that.  Twin Cobra does have a tough stage in stage 3.  Ironically it's probably tougher than the final stage boss.

[D.B. Cooper]

5. Alpine Ski | Decent pick. Parallel Turn is the better skiing game though.

I'm still the only person to submit a score to either MARP or TG on Parallel Turn so surprised to hear the name of the game come up.  I seem to remember it's pretty cool and has you doing more than just skiing.

[timhett]

I rather enjoy Alpine Ski.
Also rather like Tropical Angel, water skiing, but still skiing right?

[TheSunshineFund]

Pac-Land