Alzadick & Final Soldier Caravan mode high scores

Couple new scores:

Alzadick - 2-Minute Mode - 559,950


Final Soldier - 5-Minute Mode - 2,123,900

Been playing the hell out of Star Soldier 2-Minute Mode as well and I have a 495K score, but cannot seem to break 500K, which is my goal. Got to get a better score there. Alo been trying to finish Final Soldier game mode and I hve got to the last boss three times inthe last two days and couldn't finish it off. As each play through is like 40 minutes, I haven't been able to practice the later levels enough to be consistent.

Personal Note:

Also, for those of you who were at the CAC 2009, I made the announcement that I got a new job and I am starting Monday at SRAM, a bicycle components manufacturer. It's a job I have been up for for a while and when they lifted their hiring freeze, I was he first one in the door. I'm very excited to say the least. Short ride to work, no more three-hour + commutes.

Chicagoland Autumn Carnival 2009 recap

First off, I have to give a big thank you to gunbird18 from bringing his Egret II all the way to Chicago for the event. A second big thanks to Dave for brining his cab and a huge thank you to mrtie for helping bring the cabs up and down the stairs and bringing with his massive amounts of gear, including the 360 to jamma set up that looked like it could launch the shuttle. Hella good guys.

Prodigous amounts of soda were consumed, but they were a distant second to the amount of credits that were played this weekend with an average of 4 hours of sleep each night and non-stop gaming the rest of the time. On more then one occasion, players were trying to get into the bathroom and if it was full, going back to playing another credit to maximise their gaming time. Dedication for sure. On Saturday, the cabs were turned on even before I got my coffee made and the sounds of Ketsui rang through the apartment as the rest of the neighborhood came awake.

Andi, stuminator and croikle tore up a number of games, with croikle taking first place in the Battle Garegga scoring contest with a 7,854,120 run ending at the triple planes on the Base. Andi took top honors at the Final Soldier contest with an amazing 706,100 in what turned out to be the most hotly contested scoring contest of the weekend with a constant line for 6 hours. Caravan games are truely STG crack.

stuminator captured the top score on the super secret Midnight Scoring Contast sponsored by Mark Alpiger and CAGDC, taking home a copy of King of Kong and a never-before-seen interview disc with Steve Wiebe, done by Mark Alpiger. szycag made a great last minute charge, but couldn't topple stuminator. He did win a copy of the interview disc, which he seems really stoked about. stuminator also almost made a 1CC a few times of Dangun Feveron, dying on the last boss each time that I saw. szycag and mrtie even started recording his runs to try and get a successful run on tape. Davey also won the informal Hudson Shot Watch contest with a 119. Just crazy. Had had the rest of the field by at least 10 shots.

I had a lot of fun and got some good gaming in with a no-miss of the first loop of Sky Shark which I have been working on on and off for two weeks. Also got to within two pixels of killing off Tyranosatan in Deathsmiles, almost making a low-rank clear on a game I have about 20 credits into. Great game, have no idea what I am doing for score.

I'm really happy with the way it turned out and I'm always impressed with the way everyone held themselves - very respectful and well-mannered. At some point someone dropped a few chips on the floor and came up to me to let me know and ask where the dust pan and broom was. Very cool.

Thanks to everyone for comming and I hope to see you all at the next one - Chicagoland Winter Carnival 2010.


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Final Soldier - 2-Minute mode high score #2

After watching the Chicagoland Autumn Carnival contestants tear it up and seeing Andi get a 706,100, I sat down to beat it tonight and made what looked like a totally perfect run, finishing oiff the boss with 23 seconds left, setting a new high score at 720,100.

Mushihimesama Futari 1.5 XBox 360 preview

Rarely do I post something like this, but it got me pretty excited to say the least. I owned the pcb for a while - my first full kit in fact - but never really connected with it at the time and I reallly have wanted to go back and see if it clicks.

It's old news to the shmup community that this is comming (late November) to the XBox 360 in Japan, but the gameplay and graphics look so stunning as to make me want to get a JP 360 to play this on - crappy hardware and importation costs be damned.

It doesn't hurt that the Deathsmiles port is stellar on the 360 or that ESPGaluda II is also coming with DFK an almost certain 2010 title and a possibility of Guwange (!!) hitting LiveArcade.

Check out this preview and see what awesomeness Cave is unleashing on us STG-crazed gamers. Follow the link to watch it in HD as well.

Steve Wiebe on Attack of the Show

So this was on a while back, but thanks to the goodness that is Hulu, you can watch it again! It's a pretty good interview for those of you who want a bit more Wiebe after The King of Kong, which I just watched again for like the tenth time.

Also - he's from Washington - got to rep my hometown - Seattle in the hizzy!

Fun Fact: Mark Alpiger, who appears quite a few times in the film is a friend and on last watching of this, he happened to call me during my screening of it, which is when we decided that Classic Arcade Gaming DC would sponsor the Midnight Scoring Competition of the Chicagoland Autumn Carnival '09.

Thunder Dragon 2 high score #1

I never understood why some guys on the shmups board really dug NMK developed STG's. They always seemed sub-par and without much inspiration. Dave_K from shmups is an avid lover of all things NMK and when I saw this game listed on the 2009 STGT high score chart, I decided to give it a whirl, hoping that Dave_K's love for this little known developer was not just for the rarity of the pcb's alone.

On first playthrough, there's not much there. The music is totally forgetable, the graphics lack some sort of good visual connection and the gameplay is just average. Once you get going, its a whole 'nother story.

The game play very, very similarly to Twin Cobra and Sky Shark, but with only one shot type. There are loads of secrets in the game, like hidden sub-bosses when you destroy all of a series of enemies quick, much like Alzadick and some other caravan titles.

I got hooked and have just started to make it over a million regularly. It's not the worlds best shmup by any means, but it is a solid 7.5 out of ten and deserves a look in, especially for fans of Toaplan or early Cave titles. Dave_K's definately onto something here.

Canabalt (Flash game) high score #1

I checked this out after seeing a thread on it in the "Off Topic" section of shmups and I am hopelessly addicted. It's a fun game, a platformer with one button (jump) and no directional necessary. You run and jump over buildings, through plate glass windows, avoiding quickly dropping atom bombs and boxes. It required some good twitch skills and like a lot of flash games, it starts quickly, so you keep wanting to play when you die.

The soundtrack and in game sound effects are excellent and perfectly atmospheric, driving you on your adventure across the rooftops. There's even good background animation of giant alien beings tearing up the city and at around 4-5K, a spaceship appears ominously in the background.

Each play through is a randomly generated level design and the real skil comes from hitting boxes to slow down at the right times and being able to time your jumps in and out of windows. There doesn't seem to be an end to the game, so your distance is all that really matters.

I hit 10K a few days after playing and then 11K, 13K an finally got this 17,296 score, which is pretty good, if I do say so myself.

The game is not without its faults and there are impossible jumps to be had, like running off a building to break through a window that's too low to actually get to and smacking into the side of a building instead, but you forgive those moments.

Do yourself a favor and go check this out: http://adamatomic.com/canabalt/mega/ . It's a seriously fun game and for once, I'm excited about a flash developer.