Pretty happy with my Ms. Pac-Man turbo score today.

[KAZ]

I scored 375,100, where previously my high score was 208,000.

 

It was on a 20th anniversary edition game, and although it features a continue feature, I certainly did NOT use the continue feature. My friend Matt Tefer saw it also. I cleared at least 30 levels where the power pellet did not work. At a certain point, on turbo Ms. Pac-Man, I can see that you can nearly just play forever if you use the side escapes correctly. A couple tricks I learned from Brian Mitchell actually helps occasionally, I'm much better now after seeing him play at the Midwest Classic.

 

I'm happy about this even more after reading this:

 

Twin Galaxies also conducted a 1-day contest on Ms. Pac-Man Turbo, Kangaroo, Centipede and Donkey Kong. The highest Ms. Pac-Man score (254,750) was achieved by Steve Lucas of Springfield, Illinois (known as crimefighter on the TG forums); highest Kangaroo was 45,200 by Mark Ansay of Madison, Wisconsin; highest Donkey Kong was 43,800 by Joel Snavely of Brookfield; highest Centipede was 702,078 by Ed Ray of Milwaukee.

 

 

So it sounds like the Midwest Classic fast Ms. Pac-Man high score was 254,750. Mine was 375,100, but I didn't join that contest on that day.

 

I don't think they meant default speed Ms. Pac-Man, which means tonight I scored higher than that, which I think is pretty neat.

 

 

Of course it pales in comparison to the high score listed at Twin Galaxies...which was 922,810

This score was done by: Victor Kunisada June 16, 2001

Which since I sat for at least more than 45 minutes, it must have taken this guy like 4 hours on one game! Good grief!

 

 

I just can't help but tell of my achievement. And I swear it is true. Lying about something like this is completely wrong.

[NE146]

Congratulations. However I have a question for you KAZ.. when you reached the stage where the ghosts STOPPED turning blue (and you could no longer eat them for points):

 

1) What types of fruits did you generally get? And;

 

2) How long did you play after that?

 

The reason why I ask is I have a running theory that it's easier to score higher on the Anniversary Edition of MsPac vs. scoring high in a sped up original Ms Pac machine. For some reason on every Anniversary Edition, I see highs in the upper 700-800k! But in every turbo original machine, the highs always average 200k+ with the MAX being around 300k+. Why this discrepancy?

 

So I'm trying to figure it out. Once you get to the point where the power pellets no longer work and you can't eat any ghosts, I think the average score on a GOOD game is about 200,000+ (often times it's less though). Anyway, after that, the only source for points is

 

1) dots

2) fruit

 

As many can attest, with the fruit randomization it's often the case where the only fruits you end up getting on so many stages are the low scoring ones like a cherry or pretzel. So after the whole stage you only end up scoring measly couple thousand points! So it's real easy to go for a LONG time trying to reach that 300,000 point mark with such low scoring on many stages especially since you can't eat any ghosts.

 

Now, if you got a lot of 5000 point Bananas and Pears, then that's a different story alltogether. So, my theory is... the Anniversary machine must give more high scoring fruits in the later stages! I mean.. it must be. How else are such high score so easily achievable by so many on so many machines while the older machines almost never show such scores ever?

 

So Kaz, did you find you got a lot of high scoring fruit like the Bananas and Pears in the upper stages? Was it a long process or was it relatively quick to reach 300k after reaching 200k? I'm really curious.. I don't have a Anniversary machine near me to test this out

[KAZ]

Well it is interesting that you ask. When I first thought about it, I wanted to say that it seemed completely random to me, since I remember getting pretty frustrated after seeing cherries and strawberries coming out.

 

Fact is that I saw them come even right at the very end.

 

But on second thought, there were like 3 stages back to back that gave me pears or bananas almost consecutively. But if I thought I saw a pattern, it could just be me being superstitious.

 

700k being common on anniversary is hard to believe, if the players do not continue.

 

If they do continue, well I can see that easily! People in bars probably just keep pumping the quarters in there. That's the answer to your question, and I believe it is pathetic to continue on a Pac-Man game ever!

 

The default high score seems to be set at 360,000 (I think), it is such an even number, it must be the default. The game probably assumes you will continue.

 

I think the answer is that the fruit generation IS random, and the discrepancy can easily be explained as the difference in the darn continue feature.

 

The original Ms. Pac-Man doesn't have a continue feature.

 

 

Continuing in a classic game is wrong, wrong, wrong. That totally kills why classic gaming is cool in the first place. A high score is a high score, not who can put $10 into the machine.