Season 13 ~ Final Standings and Awards

[Vocelli]

Congratulations to:

Kermit

 

Winner of the Atari 2600 

High Score Club

* 3 Time CHAMPION ~ 3 Seasons in a Row*

 

Final Standings

Major League Tournament Competitors

1551	Kermit
1505	JasonHRB
1500	AtariSphinx
1474	McCallister
1400	Absalon
1324	JasonAtari
1265	Dr Moocowz
1263	Evandro
1205	Keilbaca
1197	Rickster
1185	Vocelli
1149	Mchetzel

Minor League Tournament Competitors

1128	JGKspsx
1089	MoisesTuseto
1078	LaurenTyler
1024	FakeCortex
993	Atarian7
986	TheActivisionary
985	Keir
932	GBAG
879	Atari_Warlord
877	Krytol
877	SkippyBCoyote
763	JacobZu7Zu7

The Rest of the Players

684	ClassicGamer
652	DomBradley
551	RGC
505	AGB
498	AliceTwoPointOh
438	Chavert
402	Deteacher
350	Danger
343	RaymanC
329	DaveM
247	Tituzzz
235	CrazyClimber
129	JeremiahJT
119	Lord Innit
115	RetroRob
65	AdamChevy
63	p1Fq03
61	RetroBreakout
58	AstroRabby
58	JeremiahK
55	ThomasJentsch
52	IzzzyWizzy
52	RedMiller
50	Capitain Classic
50	Nads
48	Mikey
46	GType
40	Tripled
34	CXK
28	FiveX7
26	IntellivisionMaster
24	Nebulus
13	Jblenkle

 

Season 13 is Over and now it is time to VOTE

You get to pick 2 games per Category

Pick from all games played from Season 13 HSC.

Post in the Thread.

 

 

*Favorite Game from Season 13

(2 games you loved to play from Season 13)

7 - Seaquest

5 - Beamrider

3 - Q*bert

3 - Pengo

2 - Vanguard

2 - Demons To Diamonds

2 - Conquest of Mars

1 - Battlezone

1 - Freeway

1 - Mr. Yo-Yo

1 - Barstorming

1 - Off the Wall

1 - Venture Reloaded

 

 

*Most Surprising Game from Season 13

(2 games you thought were good but you never/rarely ever played it before. A nice surprise)

 

4 - ET 

4 - Flash Gordon

3 - Mr Yo-Yo

2 - Fishing Derby

2 - Entombed

2 - Freeway

1 - Boom!

1 - Battlezone

1 - Seaquest

1 - Crazy Balloon

1 - Gremlins

1 - Star Castle Arcade

1 - Conquest of Mars

1 - Venture Reloaded

1 - Sky Jinks

1 - Name This Game

1 - Midnight Magic

1 - Pengo

 

 

*Worst Game from Season 13

( 2 games you thought were bad and will never play again)

 

8 - MAD 

4 - Raft Rider

2 - Entombed

2 - Crazy balloon

1 - Name That Game

1 - Seaquest

1 - Midnight Magic

1 - ET

1 - Off The Wall

1 - Star Castle Arcade

Edited January 28 by Vocelli

[Atarian7]

Congratulations to Kermit  The top 4 to 5 players were really close this season.  Great playing to all of you.

[Vocelli]

Thanks everyone!

Congtrats to Kermit! Once again, an amazing performance!

 

Good Luck everyone in the Tournaments.

Season 14 should start in May... I'll be in touch.

 

Vocelli's Favorite Games:

BattleZone

Vanguard

 

Vocelli's Most Surprising Games:

ET

Flash Gordon

 

Vocellis Worst Games:

Crazy Balloon

MAD

[+jgkspsx]

Here is a quick list of games for those working on their lists:

 

Vanguard, Q*bert, Off The Wall, Midnight Magic, Mr Do!, Battlezone, Beamrider, Pengo, Venture Reloaded, Crazy Balloon, E.T., Raft Rider, Gremlins, Alien, Room of Doom, Freeway, Barnstorming, Sky Jinx, Fishing Derby, Name This Game, M.A.D., Entombed, Encounter at L5, Demons to Diamonds, Star Castle Arcade, Boom!, Mr. Yo-Yo, Conquest of Mars, Seaquest, Flash Gordon

 

Thanks again for rocking the HSC, @Vocelli! I thought this year was a little less grueling than the previous year and the shorter season fits better with my life events right now.

 

Favorite Game from Season 13

 

This is a challenging one since I really liked almost everything we played this year.
 

An old favorite I was super excited to revisit was Vanguard, and it did not disappoint. What an achievement on the 2600 bitd.

 

Conquest of Mars was my favorite of the homebrew selection, although Mr Yo Yo was way up there too.

 

Runners up: Q*bert, Off The Wall, Midnight Magic, Battlezone, Beamrider, Venture Reloaded, Crazy Balloon, Raft Rider, Alien, Room of Doom, Barnstorming, Sky Jinx, Fishing Derby, Name This Game, Entombed, Demons to Diamonds, Mr. Yo-Yo, Seaquest, Flash Gordon

 

Most Surprising Game from Season 13

 

Flash Gordon may not have been the best game of the season, but it was probably my favorite memory. Madly smashing through enemies with my shield was hilarious and one of my favorite 2600 memories so far. I will definitely be playing it for years to come.

 

Entombed was completely new to me and despite some frustrating stickiness to corners it was an amazingly fun and impressive game. I need to get a physical copy of this one too.

 

Runners up: Midnight Magic (variation A), Venture Reloaded, Crazy Balloon, E.T., Raft Rider, Alien, Room of Doom, Name This Game, Encounter at L5, Mr. Yo-Yo, Conquest of Mars

 

Least Favorite Game from Season 13

 

I didn’t hate anything we played this year. By and large I enjoyed even these.
 

MAD just felt very random and uncontrollable. It was not completely unfun but I was pretty done with it after a few go arounds.

 

BOOM! is an impressive achievement and I am glad a lot of people had fun with it, but I do not turn on the 2600 to play Bomberman. If I am playing Bomberman I want awesome music and beautiful, overwhelmingly colorful graphics. The fact that it didn’t work on my handheld or on my 7800 added irritation to my aesthetic dislike. I am probably just being weird here, so if you worked on it please don’t take it personally!

 

Runners up: Mr Do!, Pengo, Gremlins, Freeway

[Keir]

Congratulations @kermit73 and every else who made it to the major leagues. It was a close race at the top! Also, thanks @Vocelli for hosting this season and everyone who participated, making it a fun and challenging season.

 

I didn’t join until week 7 (Pengo) so my votes reflect that.

 

Favorite Game from Season 13

Pengo

Freeway

Two classics that I still love to play!

 

Most Surprising Game from Season 13

Mr. Yo-Yo

Boom!

I haven’t played a lot of homebrews (especially if they were released in the last 15 years) and I’m almost always impressed but these 2 rose to the top for me. I can easily imagine continuing to play them with the only caveat that Boom! is a bit too easy and I don’t usually have time to play for an hour or more.

 

Worst Game from Season 13

MAD

Name This Game

I actually liked NTG at first but quickly grew irritated with it, and then playing the similar Seaquest later in the season really highlighted how bad it is.  I imagine MAD will be on a lot of worst lists this season.

[Rickster8]

Had alot of fun competing this past season. Just happy the Intellivision guy made the Top 12.👍 I don't expect to go much further. I'm miserable at Vanguard to start, meh at Sky Jinks, okay at Gremlins so it could be a fast exit.... Okay, here's my votes. Thanks @Vocelli...... Congrats @kermit73....

 

Rickster's Favorite Games:

Mr. Yo-Yo - Super fun game really enjoyed it

Demons to Diamonds - Fun, but has it's cheap kills

 

Rickster's Most Surprising Games:

Freeway - Liked this one, kind of like Crossy Road

BattleZone - Surprising, but it seems like it's a little RNG, meaning sometimes you get a better array / pattern of tanks and sometimes you don't

 

Rickster's Worst Games:

Raft Rider - Gave up on this one fast, it was VERY frustrating

Seaquest - I was all thumbs on this one. Couldn't get out of my own way. I know it's a crowd fave, but I hated it. 

 

Edited January 24 by Rickster8
Wording

[fakecortex]

Great season everyone! And congrats to @kermit73 who continues to kill it and offer great tips along the way. Pretty pleased that I'm in the 1K Club! And I placed 16th, which I did last season too!

 

Favorites:

- Q*bert - I recall really digging this port

- Barnstorming - Lots of fun solo, but I also had a blast passing this one back and forth with my wife, trying to out-race each other

 

Special shout-out to Freeway, which has always been a favorite, but I decided to go with others.

 

Most Surprising:

- E.T. - I honestly had never spent much time with this before, or read the manual completely for that matter. I ended up enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would, at least on the settings we played on, lol. It got me in the mood to rewatch the movie (with Reese's Pieces). Then I found the novelization at a used book store (which, unfortunately, I do not recommend). And now I'm reading the sequel (so far, so meh). 

- Fishing Derby - I had only played this a little bit before, but where it really shined for me was in 2 player mode. Playing the Activision quicky games with my wife was a lot of fun and this one surprised me with how competitive it got.

 

Worst:

I don't think I was too fond of...

- Midnight Magic

- M.A.D.

 

Thanks for running another great season @Vocelli!

Edited January 24 by fakecortex

[+jgkspsx]

2 hours ago, Rickster8 said:

Raft Rider - Gave up on this one fast, it was VERY frustrating

I probably should have named this one of my top two surprise games. I never understood how to do anything in this before, and thanks to the HSC I learned to play it and now it’s a relaxing breeze. It’s all about changing your mental model of what he does with the pole.

[agb]

Great season Vocelli.  Thank you for running the club.

Congrats to Kermit and all the top finishers.  The competition gets better every year.

 

Favorites:

Beamrider

Demons to Diamonds

 

Best surprises

Fishing Derby (first time I ever played.

Seaquest

 

 

 

[Moisés Tuseto]

Favorites: SeaQuest, beamrider

 

Surprise: Mr. Yo-yo, Crazy balloon

 

Worst: ET,raft rider 

[AtariSphinx]

Congrats @kermit73 for another great season!  Your consistency is what makes you hard to beat.  Bad round or two and it is playing catch up for the season.

 

Thanks @Vocelli for running this tournament!  Always great to explore games never tried before and tough competition definitely raises ones scores/results vs playing alone.

 

@Jasonhrb @McCallister we were quite tight the entire season point standings.   It was fun but intense!   Great results!

 

Here are my thoughts on the games:

 

*Favorite Game from Season 13

Pengo (no surprise there as was my pick)

Off the Wall (continue to be impressed by red label games over the last few seasons)

 

*Most Surprising Game from Season 13

Gremlins (good use of the IP though where is the blender!)

Star Castle Arcade (don't known why keep coming back for more punishment! Tough but really takes skill and love the fast game time)

 

*Worst Game from Season 13

MAD (poor mans copy of Atlantis)

 

Only one worst game which shoes the quality overall for the season. 

 

*Honorable mentions:

 

Conquest of Mars which is a favorite 8bit Atari game for me.  Impressive for 2600, fun, and well implemented but nostalgia for the original 8bit version makes me want to play that version.

 

Beamrider for not feeling like a memory game that many Activision games are and a great fun shooter!   Great pick @Jasonhrb

 

 

Edited January 24 by AtariSphinx
Updated wording

[DrMooCowz]

Congrats again, @kermit73! And thank you again @Vocelli for all the work you do in running the season! It's an under appreciated job!

 

Alright, let's try to figure out how to pick only two for each category.

 

Favorite

 

These are chalky answers, because they're Activision, but I can't deny it.

- Seaquest

- Beamrider

 

Most Surprising

 

- Conquest of Mars - a lot more to this than I was expecting and enjoyed it!

- Venture Reloaded - given I did not like Venture some other time we played, this was a nice surprise at how much more polished this was and actually liked playing it!

 

Worst

 

For the most part, I don't think there were any complete duds to me this season. Still need to pick two, though!

- Raft Rider

- M.A.D. - rather just play Atlantis!

[Absalon]

Favorites: Pengo, Qbert

 

Surprise: E.T. ,  Sky Jinks

 

Worst: Entombed (good idea, poor execution)

[G-type]

Favorite: Sea Quest, Beamrider (one of my favorites on the system... regardless of the contest)

Surprise: Flash Gordon... I think I've tried to play this before and never gave it enough of a chance to figure out what to do. Now that I know, this will definitely be one that I revisit.

Edited January 24 by G-type

[fakecortex]

22 hours ago, Vocelli said:

1 - Barstorming

A mix of Tapper and Barnstorming. Homebrew challenge y’all 😆

[Jasonhrb]

Another fun competition. Thanks to @Vocelli for organising the whole thing, and thanks to all my fellow competitors for making it such an enjoyable environment for some friendly competition. As for the categories:

 

Favourites

 

1) Beamrider - No surprise here given it was my pick for the season, but I think this is truly one of the best games on the system. Had it been released a year or two earlier, I think it would be much better remembered than it is

 

2) Seaquest - I could have picked a few as my second choice in this category, but this was the one I wanted to keep coming back to (despite not being very good at it). I'l defeinitely be putting some time into this in the close season

 

BIggest surprise

 

1) ET  - I'd messed around with this a few times, but never seriously put time into trying to properly understand it before.  And while it's certainly flawed, it's nearly a very good game. A bit more time sorting out the issues with it would have made it one of the better games on the system, and 16k with a bigger game world could have really been something special. Even as it is, it's far better than it's reputation would have you believe, which makes it the top surprise of the season for me.

 

2) Name this game - I'd herard a lot of horror stories about this one, but I actually quite liked it. It's nothing special, but it was quite entertaining with some decent gameplay. Relative to my expectations, that was enough top make it a pleasant surprise. It's cause was probably helped by the fact that it was put alongside two imho truly awful games (see below), which made having something halfway playable a relief

 

Worst game

 

1) MAD - I think it has that title as that is what it will drive anyone who tries to play it. Undoubtedly the worst game not just of this season, but of the three seasons I have played HSC. The fact that games like this were a thing in the U.S but not the U.K sum up why the U.S had a full on videogame crash and the UK didnt. . . .did I mention I didn't like this one

 

2) Entombed - While imho nothing comes close to MAD in the bad game stakes, this is still one I didn't enjoy at all, and MAD aside, I found it much worse than anything else we played. Some people seemed to like it though, so perhaps this one is a bit of  a Marmite title  

 

Anyway, that's enough from me. Thanks again to Vocelli and my fellow players . .. . .now onto the tourney

 

Edited January 24 by Jasonhrb

[kermit73]

Thank you to @Vocelli and to all for a great season.  This was my 3rd HSC and by far the most competitive.  I seem to recall multiple weeks mid-late season where less than 10 points separated the top four players.

 

Favorites:

Seaquest - This is one of my favorite Activision titles since it is an original game that plays very much like an arcade game.  The difficulty ramp up is reasonable and even the most difficult levels feel like something that can be completed with an appropriate level of skill.

Q*Bert - This is one of my favorite arcade games, and although the Atari 2600 port has a few quirks, it is a reasonably good representation of the original.  I seem to have forgotten how challenging the higher levels get on this game, but that's probably because as a kid, I never thought to put the Difficulty on A to enable the red balls.  This is one of the few games where I think the 2600 version is more difficult than its arcade counterpart on the highest levels.

 

Biggest Surprise:

Midnight Magic - Having played a decent amount of both physical pinball machines and pinball simulations, this game does a terrible job of simulating the real game considering the flippers cannot be controlled independently and there is no way to nudge/tilt.  However, if I ignore the fact that it's supposed to be a pinball game, I found it to be quite fun and addictive.

Freeway - I'd never really taken this game seriously and always thought of it as nothing more than a poor-man's Frogger.  I was surprised how addictive this game was, considering that up and down on the joystick are the only movement options.

 

Worst Games:

Off the Wall - This game might have potential, if only it had been designed to use paddles instead of a joystick.  As is, I'd rather just play Breakout.

Crazy Balloon - I disliked this game for the same reason I didn't like Gravitar from the previous season.  The controls were just a little too "fussy", especially when navigating around tight spaces.

 

[Jason_Atari]

Another great enjoyable season, thanks for organizing and running it Vocelli, without you this wouldn't happen.
 

Congrats Kermit on your hat trick, although it was pretty close this year compared to others.
 

Favorites: Seaquest: Classic Activision game that holds up all these years later.

               Venture Reloaded: Awesome update on the original, addictive.

 

Surprises: Pengo: Never really gave the original 2600 version a chance, great port.
               Entombed: Very unique gameplay from an original 2600 release.

 

Worst: MAD: Frustrating gameplay

          Raft Rider: Even though i did ok at it, it's a very tedious game.

[+danger]

Congrats to Kermit, the winner! Really enjoyed this season (at least the last bit of what I still caught of it), this HSC is what made me finally join the forum and to stop only lurking. Thank you Vocelli for hosting these.

Here are my picks from the ones I took part in.

Favorites:
Conquest of Mars - amazing homebrew port, a blast to play, adjusting to and overcoming its difficulty being extremely rewarding

Seaquest - classic Activision game, addicting gameplay, nice difficulty curve, plain great

Surprises:
Mr Yo-Yo - very unique concept for a game, easy to understand and hard to master, really fun and challenging game and I highly recommend giving the Co-Op mode a try
Flash Gordon - never really touched this game before, but it is surprisingly fun to play and addicting with a nice difficulty curve

Worst: Star Castle Arcade - as exciting as it can feel sometimes to get further and improve in this game, I find its difficulty can be often detrimental, as it can easily become frustrating