toymailman

Hello everyone, I have a few items listed on eBay for this week. A few rare-ish items and a few lots. http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZtoymailman Thank you very much for looking!

Awesome!!

I have a question. Does the Stella emulator work over the internet? It would be cool to enjoy some of the two-player games again. Having an emulator that can "connect" up Atari fans around the world would be too cool! If not are there any plans to have this made. IMO it would be the best feature possible.

IMO Laser Blast gets my vote for this very reason. I never did get into thier later titles either (Rampage, Double Dragon, etc.) My favorite Activision games are: Pressure Cooker, Seaquest, River Raid, Decathlon, and Kaboom. The rest of the Activision line up runs the range of okay to great!

Yeah, I was suggesting over 250k AND with maximum 9 lives still in reserve. I think if someone can do this then they can go to 1,000,000. IMO

The game does not continue to give you lives. It really does max at 9. If you die it goes to eight even if you should've had 40 in the bank. Here are all my tips to get the high scores. 1) Stay low to the ground and only bother shooting the obsticles down there. This will allow you to more easily pick up the commuters. Don't try flying all over the screen dodging and shooting. The obsticles are only worth 1 point each anyway. 2) Only go up for fuel and if none are showing up then do what the manual says and shoot three (or more) times at the top of the screen to "encourage" a fuel to appear. 3) I never flew at top speed (or even close to top speed) except tip #5 below. There seems to be an adequate amount of time to pick up the commuters flying a little faster than minimum. This is my best tip. By doing this you can easily dodge and/or shoot any of the obsticles at the bottom (where I always stayed). This will virtually ensure you advance to the next screen without losing a life. It continually gave me points and lives with what seemed to be relatively little effort. 4) Hold the fire button down unless going for fuel. Everything else you can hit to get the big 1 point score or mainly to get it out of the way. 5) I found waves 4 and 8 the easiest. I called it the yellow (and pink) pods rounds. This is because there is a spot slightly above the bottom where you can fly a top speed and hold down the fire button and just advance to where the next commuter is with no skill at all. This is because these obsticles "adjust" to your exact flying level. Perfectly aligned for you to blast them with your eyes closed. You only need to come up for fuel and then its back down for some high speed blasting.

Thanks for the vote of confidence 'teach! However, I had to turn it off. I have some things to take care of with my time off today. Now that I know I can do it (with relative ease), I'd rather have a video recording of it anyway. I stopped at 508,851 still with maximum lives left. I hope we can decide on something so others don't have to play for hours and hours. I believe that anyone who can get to this high of a score and still have all their lives left can get to the 1,000,000 easy (just takes time; a lot of time). To show that I am not without mercy to my fellow HSC players, I propose that anyone who can get to over 250k (half of what I did) and have all their lives left will be in a tie for first place. This way others won't have to play for so long. I'll try to roll it at a later date when I have the time to sit and play it long enough. My older estimate may have been a little under too. I think it is more like 6 hours to get to 1,000,000 and when you add in breaks, whew. Now that I think about it, how would someone record this anyway?

Thanks Captain! This is actually my first time playing too. Well, I've played it several times this week now, but had never tried it before this week's HSC. It was hard at first, but once you get the hang of it then it is not too bad. Similar to Atlantis, or Keystone Kapers. Once you get used to the highest level you can just keep going. I'm almost at 400k now. 392,447 The game's difficulty does seem to get slightly harder as the game progresses. However, it is almost imperceptable. The astrobus's relative speed to the obsticles gradually goes up. However, I can not empasize gradually enough. Does this mean we have to play until 1,000,000? Yikes!

Well I think I got the hang of this game. I'm actually still playing, but hope someone will chime in on my suggestion below. TIP: To "pause" the game just don't land the Astrobus and you can take a break (maybe not really a tip, but useful nonetheless). I'm over 250k and still have max lives. 258,154 I can no longer discern any increase in difficulty. I think the score finally ends/rolls at 1,000,000, but my vote would be that anyone who can get over 200k and show max lives has "beat" this game. My estimate is that it would be about a 5 hour session to get to 1,000,000. What do others think?

Looks like I'll start this week off. 70,327 The manual didn't explain the scoring for this game so I wrote it all down as I was playing. - 1 point for shooting an obsticle - 100 points for landing the Astrobus - 200 points for picking up a commuter - 200 bonus points for each commuter after leaving a round. This increases by 40 points per round through round 8 then cycles back to 200. The bonus also doubles for a round if all 8 commuters were picked up.

Nice job Dauber!! I was able to top my best, but not yours. 54,511

Remember that Crazyclimber did recently get married. To tell you the truth I would probably do something similar if I ever got hitched. Heck, I didn't start collecting until after I was married. We'll see what happens when kids start showing up, but the plan is to pack up the boxed games (never sell) and keep the essentials out loose.

Homebrew games that I have really enjoyed are: Lady Bug Toyshop Trouble Fall Down Starfire Go Fish Conquest of Mars Hunchy 2

Good thinkin'!! This would get my vote. I would add the following regarding the scoring. Simply wait to award any Toyshop Trouble points until "both" weeks have finished. Then a finaly tally/ranking can be done and points awarded.

I have another score to post. The game gets a little easier after Christmas, but then the amount of toys to paint slowly creeps up on you until it is really hard to advance to the next day. 51,986

Another submission. Thought I was getting close to SpiceWare until I checked the forums again. Almost to Christmas. 26,996 We'll see what Ze_ro wants to do, but I do remember something about trying to avoid games that are like an R10 and/or the .bin isn't available.

Crap!! I didn't know the .bin wasn't available to the public yet. I wouldn't mind postponing this one until its more widely available. My 2 cents. And Holy Christmas!! 27k SpiceWare, that is a great score.

All right!! This game is fun. I hope the .bin is made available for people. I know I saw it somewhere, but got a cart on eBay sometime this year. I'll start the scoring off with... 9,599

I am using Stella, on an old (Pentium III 1.0 GHz) system running Windows ME. That probably explains it. Thanks!!

Nice job! I knew someone was going to do it. I haven't been able to improve my score yet, but will keep trying.

No way, it was at NWCGE2k6?!? I don't remember this competition, and that one was only 10 miles from my place. Arghhh! Oh well, let me know if you ever release it. I gave it another try. 1,679 I am not a fan of emulation, mainly because my computer seems to "wig out" from time to time. Sometimes games being played speed up randomly, and throws me off. That is how I ended up losing my lives in these attempts. Nothing beats real carts and hardware for me.

Cool! However, I'm in the Northwest. Florida is a bit far to go. I'll give it another whirl sometime.

I played it without reading your next post, but discovered the no extra lives feature anyway. Whew, very unforgiving without getting any more reserve ships. For my first try... 1,504

I would consider the loss of screen display to be a bug. If the cartridge did a forced "game over", that would not have been a bug. Another approach might have been to have the game "stick" at level 84, with no extra lives--just aliens warping in continuously. Chuck Norris Superkicks is like that. Something would have had to have been done to prevent the sound going wonky, but that shouldn't have been too hard. I agree on that one. The black screen with an unending annoying sound I'd consider a bug too. I only meant the fact that it ended was intentional.

Thanks! I'll give it a go. Is it the same increase in difficulty from Atlantis I -> II. Regular Atlantis is one of those I can play until my hand/thumb hurt (millions of points), but my best in Atlantis II is 559. Also, how much for one of the carts??