NoahsMyBro

You guys think you're unobservant??!! I just unthinkingly assumed darth's blurbs were copied verbatim from the manuals!

PS - note for the AA Als - I'm not positive, but it looks a lot to me like the screenshots on the AA page for A5200 Beamrider are REALLY screenshots from the Intellivision Beamrider. As a veteran of countless Atari vs. Intellivision schoolbus debates, I find that heretical!

37,800 Tonight was the real console. And for once I'm having a small amount of trouble with the infamous controllers. (I'm usually a staunch defender of them, but I have to admit they are impeding me tonight.) I find myself frequently running into toxic walls because I'm unable to just nudge my Hero over a small amount. BUT, I'm beginning the contest early this round, so I still have time to knock some of you down a notch or two. LOOK OUT, top 5, here I come!

Cafeman, I feel your pain. My wife's owned the main TV tonight, so rather than using the 5200 I gave H.E.R.O. a shot using an emulator. I tried my Stelladaptor with a CX-40, and a very old Radio Shack gameport-to-USB adaptor with 3 different gamepads. None of the options provided button two on the controller, so I had to use the keyboard for the TNT button. Also, the control was a bit 'jerky'. I'll try this out on the real 5200 later. For now, my high score is 28,560.

Back in the early 80's I badly wanted a 5200, CV, and a Vectrex. Of course, being 13 I was at the mercy of my parents, and only got the 5200. I very vaguely recall being asked which of the three was my preference, but I'm not sure about that. Regardless, the 5200 was my first choice. 25+ years later, I've long-since acquired a Vectrex & a Colceovision, and the 5200 is still my favorite. I *like* the 5200 controllers when they aren't broken. I prefer the color scheme and the 'look' of the 5200 games. I like the styling of the console itself. I like the storage compartment for the controllers, and I even like the concept of the auto-switchbox, as well as having the power cord go to the back of the TV instead of across the floor to the console itself. When I finally got my Colecovision 11 or 12 years ago, I was very excited. I couldn't wait to finally play what I thought then was the best home translation of Donkey Kong (excluding MAME). As soon as I tried it I hated it. In my opinion, the controllers with the Cv were almost as bad the Intellivision in terms of comfort and ergonomics, and the controller responsiveness was slow, something that isn't solved by swapping a different controller into place. I disliked the Cv for the same reasons I disliked the Intellivision - the system felt slower than the Ataris of the day, and I disliked the controllers. None of this has anything to do with the technical specs, the merits of which I'm not qualified to judge. As for me, I preferred the 5200, hands-down.

Hey Bohoki, looks like you & I both lost at the same spot! Personally, I got to that point and hadn't considered how to get back until I was already there, and then lost my last three men trying to find the ladder on the left.

61,850, and I'm done too.

19,200

7550 Just started playing this one. Neat game. EDIT: 8950

What is ASP ?

23,850 (already posted earlier) I think that's going to be my best. There's no way I'm catching you guys in the next 2 hours. I can pretty consistently make it to Moonraker, but I keep dying right at the beginning of Moonraker. I even managed to make it to Moonraker without losing a single life, and then proceeded to lose all of my cars almost immediately once the wave began, scoring fewer than 2000 more points once I made it to that level. I think I'm done for this round. Thanks for the competition everyone.

23,850 Too lazy to upload the pic, but if anyone wants to see it it's on my camera. Why did Stage 2 seem endless? Because I didn't know what I was supposed to do to end it!!!! d'Oh!!! So I finished Stage 2, and died almost immediately on Stage 3. Didn't know what to do, and died, I suspect, in the same manner you were describing above, Cafeman. Two or three green things rocketed up to the top of the screen, and as soon as they hit the top of the screen I died. Live (die) and learn. More to come tomorrow. And, just as an aside, tomorrow is my 10-year anniversary, and I'm going to be trying to find some way to sneak in time on this ridiculous HSC!!! Wonder if there will be an 11-year anniversary.........

I'm approaching that point too. Every time I go through Stage 2, I think that surely I'm approaching the ending soon, and then die. I still haven't completed stage 2, and it seems endless. But I've passed 20,000 a few times now.

Ah, hell....

20,600 ♫ Ain't nothing like the real thing ba-by, ain't nothing like the realllll thinggggg..... ♫ Sorry Cafeman - didn't mean to push ahead by such a small bit, but that's how things played out.

Man, you guys are killing me! Last night I decided to see if I'd improve with a different controller. I'd been playing on my main desktop, a P3-766 that I bought in 2000, using an emulator and a Stelladaptor. I tried: Wico Command Control (bat handle) Flashback 2 Joystick GEMStick Pointmaster Fire Control Original CX-40 None was an improvement, and some were much worse. Before hitting the sack I decided to give things a go using the real thing, so I fired up my 5200 and grabbed a true 5200 controller. You guys should all TRY THIS! The control was SWEET. I haven't improved my score yet, but was consistently making approx. 15,000. The sound was better too, and everything just flowed more smoothly. Watch out Ron, I'm coming up from behind and I'm gonna get ya!

I've seemed to hit a wall. I can't consistently land on the damn sea station because I can't SEE it, and I rarely get to the second wave. Is anyone else trying this with me, and having the same difficulty progressing past the 10-15k score range? I've been playing in Atari800WinPlus, and until last night was using the CX-40-style joystick that was included with my Flashback 2. Interesting tidbit - I discovered during this round that the handle on the imitiation CX-40 unscrews. It seems to unscrew consistently while I'm playing this particular game, and during one attempt, where I was doing great, the handle all of a sudden fell off in my hand, destroying my rhythm! Anyway, last night I swapped the stick for a yellow and black Gemstick that I had never tried out. (Don't recall where/when I got it.) I improved a bit and broke 15,000 twice in a row, but the Gemstick is much harder to move, and my hand grew tired very quickly. I haven't tried a gamepad yet - I'm not even sure I have one. Still, I'm frustrated that I haven't hit 20k.

15,550

14,300 (using Atari800WinPlus 4.0) atari800winplus_about.bmp

12,700, and my hand is beginning to cramp up.

8,500 This game isn't as awful as is often said. It's not the best game ever burned to ROM, but certainly not horrible.

Man - I got to that level just now for the first time, and forgot I could submerge! Got to 6450 though.

Good thing I've got a light workload right now! 1450

I've been a 5200 owner since I got mine brand-new as a gift, in 1983 0r 1984. At this point I probably have a couple of dozen controllers for the system. I've NEVER experienced the joysticks breaking. What fails are the buttons. And they DO fail. The cause, workarounds, repairs, etc... have all been discussed to death on this and other forums. The saving grace of the system and the controllers is that as long as you've got at least one working Start button, you can play Space Dungeon!

Wow, that's a tough game! I managed to score 550. I didn't take a screenshot, because I figured I could surely do much better than that, but so far it just hasn't happened. (cue the Will Shatner tune...) Hopefully I'll improve later in the week.