hepcat

Bonus score: 146,010. See you tomorrow, M.A.M.E. Offender.

Bonus score: 53,490.

313,570. OK, this is a tiny bit harder than I remembered. You can't just zip right through the boards as fast as possible without missing the second fruit, (which could be a banana on levels 7 and up.) Also, you have have to watch out for the monsters' reversals. They nailed me twice in this game. I hope to make it to the kill screen some time this week, which I've never done before mainly because I hate this version of Ms. Pac-man with a passion.

61,160. Wish I had more time this week to play this game, it's pretty good.

72750. This is definitely better than Choplifter, and the designers do deserve credit for trying something different. Still, I doubt I'll play this one again.

10,900. This game is terrible. The helicopter is almost impossible to control, the enemies are cheap, and the hostages seem to have Stockholm syndrome. Several times I landed right next to them and instead of getting in the helicopter, they kept running around like idiots.

35,800. Slight improvement, made it to the bottom of the 4th building.

I wouldn’t for several reasons. 1. Price: Per the thread title, this seems to be the primary concern, but it’s actually a minor reason for me. I’ve imported a lot of Japanese games and bulky controllers over the past three years, and $55.00 isn’t much at all compared to what I’ve already spent. 2. Challenge/Game Quality: I’ve seen You Tube videos of the Idolmaster games and to be blunt, they don’t seem challenging enough. I’ve been playing both of the PSP Pop’n Portable games for a year now, an experience which has been quite humbling. Don’t let the anime appearance of those games fool you, they are savagely difficult, and way harder than anything on Miku or DJ Max (both of which I’ve tried). Idolmaster looks easier than either Miku or DJ Max, so I’d probably get bored with it very quickly. 3. Controls: My wife makes fun of me whenever I try to use her Iphone because I get so frustrated with the horrible touch screen. I need something with buttons, something that offers resistance and clicks when you press it. I’ve yet use any touch screen that didn’t seem completely alien to me. So, if I can barely send a text message with a touch screen, how the heck am I going to play even an easy rhythm game on one of them? I wonder how many people have actually bought those $55.00 Idolmaster games. If enough do, I wouldn’t be surprised to see even higher priced games show up on Itunes.

34,550. Died almost instantly at the start of the 4th board.

21,050. Building three. The first two boards aren't bad at all. The third building is harder, but still reasonable. The fourth building comes with a huge increase in difficulty. The enemy spies shoot much faster and they can lie on the ground to shoot, leading to many opportunities for them to kill you cheaply. I don't think I have ever made it past building four without using some kind of cheat.

120,600 is my entry for this week’s competition. Popeye is another game that I’ve put a lot of hours into. My high score is just over 300,000, but that was a couple years ago before Bemani pretty much took over my video gaming time. Unfortunately, I thought Super Basketball was running for 2 weeks and just noticed this afternoon that Popeye was this week’s game. In my opinion, levels 4-7 are the hardest. If you can make it though those with two or more lives left, you’ve got an excellent chance at 200k or higher. The reason is that Brutus’ movements are difficult to predict during the middle levels. Once you make it to level 8, he gets so aggressive that his moves become very predictable. Tip: it takes careful timing, but you never have to chase Brutus after grabbing the spinach. This becomes critical on level 8 and up when the spinach only lasts a few seconds and Popeye spends half of that time posing. On any of the three boards, if Brutus is on the same level as you, simply wait until he is right on top of you and then grab the spinach. Notice how Popeye kicks his leg back when he punches. That movement is enough to KO Brutus before he can even start running. If Brutus is above you, just wait until he starts to jump on top of you then grab the spinach. Brutus can’t stop this move once he is airborne, but he may run if you get the spinach a moment too early. Once you get to level 8 though, you’ll almost always get him. Finally, if Brutus is a level below you, lure him into doing his jump up move. Once the animation has started for this move, Brutus can NEVER cancel out of it. This one is almost too easy. Obviously, all of these moves are easier on levels 2, 5, 9, etc., since the spinach does not move. Be careful!

This game is different, but it's not very good. The lizard creatures are WAY too cheap. 20,400.

I found this difficult to believe, but yeah, it's true. I cleared the first 2 boards on my first try but the difficulty ramps up considerably on round 3.

52250 is my entry for this week. The higher score in the picture is from years ago. Decent game, but the NES version was always my favorite.

35218. Centipede is an awesome game. I never played it much in the arcade, but I spent many hours on the excellent 2600 port.

112,510. This is a good game, can't believe I never played it before this week.

58,400. Slight improvement over my last score.

56,980. I'm the only one who hasn't gotten the diamond so far.

45,900. This game is the best of the Mr. Do sequels, although I never particularly cared for any of them. It's pretty tough too.

44,900. Didn't have much time to play this week. Never could get a handle on the enemies' movements, they're very unpredictable.

111,400. Best I could do with a week of sporadic practice. This game is fun though and I plan to keep playing it.

Agreed, this game is pretty good. I'll be putting a lot more effort into this one than I did for Kangaroo.

28,200. I might be able to do a little better, but Kangaroo is not a very good game. It did teach me however that despite the fact that a kangaroo can punch out a gorilla, it apparently cannot survive a fall equivalent to one-quarter the height of its body.

I've been thinking about getting one over the past couple years since I can actually afford one now, unfortunately we currently live in a small apartment. I've already told my wife that when we get a house, I'm going to buy a Ms. Pac-man and a Pop'n Music machine, the newest version I can get. She just rolled her eyes...

Not posting a score yet because wow, I'm terrible at this game! It has the same problem as the 2600 version, namely, that it is very difficult to get the Kangaroo to jump as far as you need him to when climbing up the ledges. More controller experimentation will be necessary here.