616,300 - Night 1: Arcade games are deep

RSS Bot · February 3, 2010

Okay, so as is usual when I'm chasing high scores (usually for a High Score Club), I spend a lot of time playing around with the early stuff to get a feel for the game, and to try to figure out how to get the most points out of the easy, early levels. So, I basically spent the entire night on the girder screen.

Just on this one screen, here are the things I have to figure out:

1) How to control the barrels, if that is possible (I know in the arcade you can, but am not sure here).

2) How many points is "good" on the first board?

3) If there is a specific time to use the hammers (how many barrels should be on the level with me).

4) If it makes sense to stand around jumping barrels as time ticks down.

So far, I'm pretty sure the answer to question 4 is no. Early on (I assume this will change), the enemies come too slow, so I was wasting more bonus points than I was earning. I think the answer to question 3 is probably that there should be three barrels in easy reach before you grab the hammer (me and my brother always called it the "Paddy Whacker" for some reason), but I have to see if that is true.

All this to consider on just the first screen, at the slowest speed, on the first night. And modern reviewers give this one poor marks for being simple and repetitive.

As I spent the night on screen one (and a few minutes on screen two), my high score for the night was only 17,700. Just so we're clear, this is probably how it will work for the next couple weeks. If this sort of in depth study of a game bores you, you might want to check back around the middle of the month.

I checked my records for my best score ever just to see what it was exactly. I got 100,500 points. It was on December 7, 2008 (yes, I am a geek, even by geek standards).

So, best score ever: 100,500

Best score this year: 17,700

Best score tonight: 17,700

I have a lot of work to do.

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?app=blog&blogid=350&showentry=6798