Jeffy Arensmeyer

I've apparently incurred the crappy photo penalty of 0.0001458%. Welcome to the "fat fingers club" Ze_ro. It's the same with my taking. My cart slot is very sensitive, so if you accidentally bump it, bzzzp! ò¿ó

Here's what about an hour an 15 minutes will get you... As usual, it took me about 2½ hours of playing before I had a good game. Is it just me, or does it take you guys a while to warm up to a game when you sit down to play? If there's not a clear couple of hours, I don't even bother sitting down. And also, how much luck do you think is involved in the game? There were several times when something was heading for my city and my bunker, both at the same time. Sometimes you can use skill to get around it, but other times, it's six of one and half a dozen of another. See you all again on Thursday. ò¿ó

Who's going back and trying the large buckets? I've had enough Kaboom for a while. Maybe later. ò¿ó

Well, here's my week's worth of hard work. A fun game, but not one of my favorites. It's been difficult to find enough time to get a good score, which leads me to a question... How long does it take you to hit your stride. It takes me at least 30 minutes of playing before I can even get to level 8. Then it takes about another 30 minutes before I can get the feel of level 8. It's been tough finding an hour or two to play continuously, without interruptions. It's easy to see how once a person hits their rythym, they can stay in level 8 for a while, but it's getting there with all of your marbles that's the tough part. ò¿ó [ img ] kaboom smiley coming next week [ /img ]

The subject above is the sound of me sucking at this game. Much like Megamania, I never really latched onto it years ago, so I'm having a crash course this week. I did play last night, and I'm really hoping to break 2 grand tonight. There definatley seems to be a turning point in the game. Once you can get to the higher levels (and let me qualify this as only an educated guess) so I'll have some hope. And fresh paddles are a must for this game. I've got a pair that's never been used, so they're working nicely. The first set I tried worked more like a hyperspace controller, with the buckets appearing randmoly across the bottom of the screen. ò¿ó

This is probably not the place to attach this. It's probably better suited for the "Not Manly, but Challenging Score Club". I've played video games for over 28 years and competed many times. Not once have I skimmed, gimped or lived outside the rules. Yes, it pisses me to have my score attacked. If you love the game so much, put it under you pillow at night. The rules are simple but explicit, so making a High Score within a week is the challenge, while staying within the rules. I've done that. And I'll probably go back and play the game some more when this is over. I'd appreciate not having a hard-earned score belittled by people that game for enrichment. The games have a score counter for a purpose. ò¿ó

Hmmm... Very interesting. First, I'll say that I'm content with roll-over ties. I've got a wife and daughter and stuff to do around the house, so it's difficult to carve out 4 hours, much less an additional 8 hours to play Gravitar. We're at the point now where it's matter of who can play longer, not better. Now is not the time nor the place. We can all meet in a online back-alley some other time. "Sniping reactors" is not only fair and within the rules, it was approved by Atari during the Master Challenges. It doesn't take long to learn the patterns of the reactors, but I definately think some credit should be given for playing them for 4 hours. I've never played this game, and opened my sealed copy on Monday evening. It's not that difficult. And for those that like to play Gravitar while standing in a bucket of water with a naked extension cord in your mouths instead of just playing Gravitar, I've about 10 non-reactor games. That's no reactor visits at all and my best score so far is just over 40K. It's all about vectors and keeping your ship turned to counteract the effects. So, call it a design flaw ò¿ó

Whew. Here's my tough-learned lessons... ò¿ó

It could surely use some type of congratulatory screen between galaxies. Even just a quick flash of the score would be nice. The way it is, you better be ready to thrust when you finish one galaxy, because the next one is starting immediately. A few more sounds and some music would have also been nice. Of course, living in 8K is tough, but sometimes you have to splurge. ò¿ó

That's true, but a lot of the landscapes seem to be designed around the particular angles that the missiles travel. By changing the missile trajectories, some of the landscapes would have also needed to change. Overall, it doesn't seem to disrupt the game very much. Since you're constantly shooting anyway, it's just a matter of spraying the target until it gets clobbered. ò¿ó

Sure enough. Where the ship aims and where it shoots are different at times. It seems like it's because of the size of the ship. Since it's drawn using even fewer pixels than the ship in Asteroids' date=' displaying the ship in the direction that the missile with travel [i']is almost impossible[/i]. My wife came bopping into the game room while I was playing and asked "Why are you flying a little ding dong around inside a fleshy tunnel? Is this one of those silly sex games?" ò¿ó

Nighty night. Time for beddy-bye. It's 233550, by the way. And here's some tips... .[*]If you need to pause. Everything will be there when you get back. [*]Fuel amountZzzz... ò¿ó

It's not what I wanted, but it will have to do. ò¿ó

So, am I in or out? Is all I have to do is say "I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready" and start submitting scores? Thanx, ò¿ó

<tosses hat into ring> So where and/or when do we know the game for this week? I've missed all of the others, but I'll try to do better from here on out. Thanx, ò¿ó

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Wow! Doesn't this look familiar? Screw Job Whatever... ò¿ó

Nick Gilder - "Hot child in the City" ò¿ó

Let's not be hasty here, now. What kind of dog? We are talkin' about Laser Blast, you know... ò¿ó

"Hear me now, Believe me latuh" I'm not picking on you, Ze_ro, but you bring up some very good points. Thanx for allowing me to use you, Ze_ro as a template. Even though we are about 50%-50% on our views, you blanketed the topics very well. ò¿ó

Damn. Fished in. ò¿ó

You cannot control DVD functions without the $30-$40 remote. What a jip job. Sure, you can put it in and it will run. But why can't the XBox be like the PS2 and allow controller input. Yeah, yeah. A virtual helmet. It could be bright red... Didn't they bury a bunch of those next to the E.T. landfill? ò¿ó

By more precise, Nukey, I mean dividing the usable region into smaller, readable sections. Instead of having only one readable zone, you would create multiple zones thus increasing the pseudo-precision into multiple zones. Hmmm... I think I'm confused now. Probably the reason for continuous rotation, joeybastard, is because the way people perceive orientation. Someone might turn the controller enough to invert their on-screen object such as from facing up to down, or facing left to right. But when they begin to turn the object again, they would get confused about which way to turn. (i.e. A car facing down would turn to the left side of the screen if you turned the controller right, and vice-versa. A buit-in stop would cause them to "bottom out" the controller", so they would turn it another way. Either that, or Atari saved ½¢ per one gazillion controllers by adding the stop. ò¿ó

I'm afraid, Snider-man, that we're all doomed to having those crappy demos as our pack-in games from now on. The only way I see a pack-in game making a comeback is if it's something that highly addictive and on-line playable, thus they would suck you into playing and then get your money for joing a community. They're in it for the money, and greed is a good motivator. ò¿ó note to self: 300th post