Skippy B. Coyote

For what it's worth I think you're both going to kick my butt this round. I'm terrible at maze games.

Neat selection of games this week! The "dental hygiene" theme is totally goofy and fun, and I really like the variety of gameplay styles between the 3 games. Jawbreaker is (to me at least) super hard and frantically placed, Tooth Protectors is easy and relaxing, and Plaque Attack is right in the middle between the two for difficulty and pacing. I actually had Plaque Attack as a kid and played it a ton on my older brother's ColecoVision with Atari expansion module when I was growing up, so playing it again is a nice trip down memory lane. Jawbreaker (B/B Difficulty, Default Settings): 17,640 Plaque Attack (B/B Difficulty, Default Settings): 56,985 Tooth Protectors (B/B Difficulty, Default Settings): 229,800

"All for us... everything in the universe exists for us. All for us... all things in the universe... will be ours. Bow before us... submit to us! We are perfection. We possess all knowledge. We are truth! Only us!"- Aparoid Queen, Star Fox Assault Ineligible Star Fox Assault (GameCube) - 544 minutes Arcade (All played on Midway Arcade Treasures for GameCube except Ms. Pac-Man) Blaster - 7 minutes Defender - 26 minutes Defender II - 3 minutes Marble Madness - 4 minutes Ms. Pac-Man (played on Namco Museum for Game Boy Advance) - 8 minutes Paperboy - 4 minutes Robotron 2084 - 58 minutes Root Beer Tapper - 6 minutes Smash T.V. - 12 minutes Atari 2600 Hunchy II - 123 minutes Kangaroo - 48 minutes New Pac-Man (8k Version) - 42 minutes Atari 7800 Centipede - 12 minutes Ms. Pac-Man - 27 minutes Robotron 2084 - 41 minutes Xevious - 24 minutes Game Boy Kirby's Pinball Land - 30 minutes Mortal Kombat - 132 minutes Mortal Kombat II - 18 minutes Solar Striker - 23 minutes Game Boy Color Ms. Pac-Man: Special Color Edition - 36 minutes Pac-Man: Special Color Edition - 17 minutes Shadowgate Classic - 22 minutes NES Xevious (played on Star Fox Assault for GameCube) - 33 minutes PlayStation Alien Trilogy - 228 minutes Bust-A-Move 2: Arcade Edition - 55 minutes Total Play Time This Week 1,593 minutes (26 hours 33 minutes) [1,039 minutes eligible] Individual System Play Times This Week GameCube: 554 minutes PlayStation: 283 minutes Atari 2600: 213 minutes Game Boy: 203 minutes Arcade: 128 minutes Atari 7800: 104 minutes Game Boy Color: 75 minutes NES: 33 minutes I started off this week's post with a quote from the final boss of Star Fox Assault because it's hands down my favorite video game boss battle of all time, and I played a whole ton of Star Fox Assault this past week. Having completed the story mode on Silver (medium) difficulty last week, this week I decided to go back and replay all the missions individually to see if I could reach the necessary high scores in each mission to unlock the NES version of Xevious hidden in Star Fox Assault as a bonus for those able to get high enough scores to unlock it. They didn't make it easy by any means, but after a week of trying I did finally manage to collect the Silver high score medal on all 10 levels and unlock Xevious. After playing Xevious for a while and remembering why it's one of my all time favorite spaceship shooters I ended up playing even more Star Fox Assault, this time playing through the game in Survival mode; which basically turns the game into an arcade game where you get 3 lives, no extra lives, no continues, and no saves. You can read about how that went here in the High Score Today thread, but the short version of the story is that after 4 and a half hours I did narrowly beat the game just by the skin of my teeth and set a world record high score in the process! For tracker eligible games this week I spent a lot of time playing a couple games that I stumbled on during a trip to a local game store: Mortal Kombat for the Game Boy and the arcade game compilation Midway Arcade Treasures for the GameCube. Mortal Kombat is without a doubt a pretty terrible game due to no small amount of slowdown and just plain bad controls, but it's one that I owned and played constantly as a kid so I've got a real soft spot for it anyway; plus it's the only version of Mortal Kombat that I know of that let's you play as Goro if you beat the game then enter a certain button sequence after the credits roll. Mortal Kombat also gave me a good excuse to break out the immensely cool (to me at least) Game Boy Game Genie that I so rarely find uses for, since there happens to be a Game Genie code for the game that lets you play as the game's final boss Shang Tsung. While I was at it I also played a small assortment of other Game Boy and backwards compatible Game Boy Color games this week too, since early in the week I finally spruced up my old backlit gray brick with brand new silicone button and D-pad contacts as well as a fancy glass screen lens for greater visual clarity. Both upgrades worked wonderfully and I have a feeling that I'll be playing the original Game Boy a lot more this year than I did last year. The other game I got this week, Midway Arcade Treasures, was one that I picked up mainly for Robotron 2084 and Smash T.V. (both of which play great with the GameCube controller's twin sticks) but I also had a lot of fun exploring some of the other games in the collection as well. On the Atari 2600 front the only thing I really played much of this week was Hunchy II for the High Score Club, and though I did give it my best effort I ended up finding it pretty frustrating and I don't think it's a game that I'll want to go back and play again now that this round of the High Score Club is over. As far as the Atari 7800 games I listed times for this week go, all I really care to say on the matter is that I once again got an Atari 7800 system, it once again had something seriously wrong with it, and after having now gone through 4 different systems I can safely say that the Atari 7800 has joined the ColecoVision and NES on the list of systems that I enjoy playing via emulation but won't own any more original hardware of for reliability reasons. Moving on to the misses' gaming time this week, she didn't play quite as much this week as in previous weeks this year but she still managed to get in a bit of time on the PlayStation and Atari 2600 here and there when I wasn't hogging up the TV playing Star Fox Assault. She finished off the play through of Alien Trilogy for the PlayStation that she started last week, spent an hour or so playing the copy of Bust-A-Move 2 that she scored for $3 from the aforementioned local game store at the same time I got Mortal Kombat and Midway Arcade Treasures, then celebrated national Pac-Man day by playing a few games of New Pac-Man on the VCS. Speaking of the VCS, she also played bit of Kangaroo last night, but I think that was pretty much everything for her this week. Looking ahead to next week I've got no idea what the spousal unit has on her gaming agenda, and I'm not sure I really know what I'll be playing either. Now that I've finished Star Fox Assault I should probably go back and wrap up my game of Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights for the GameCube that I started a couple weeks ago, but I'm also itching to spend some more time basking in the nostalgia that only the green and black screen of the original Game Boy can deliver. So, who knows what next week has in store! I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Until then, best wishes and happy gaming to you and yours.

Today I took on the pretty daunting task of doing a complete play through of all 10 levels of Star Fox Assault for the GameCube in Survival mode on Silver difficulty. What made it such a challenge is that Survival mode throws out the modern gaming conventions of saving between levels and extra lives and turns the game into a pure old school arcade game: 3 Lives, No Extra Lives, No Saves, No Continues. If you lose all three lives at any point then it's game over, and considering that this is a 4 to 5 hour long game and no slouch on the difficulty level I knew it wasn't going to be easy. It took me around 4 and a half hours and I did have some extremely close calls along the way, like completing the mission objective to finish level 8 of 10 on my last life while my ship was exploding but lucking out and having the game register the level as complete a split second before it would have registered me as having lost my last life, but ultimately I was able to make it through the game and finish off the final boss on my last life. It was one heck of a ride! Star Fox Assault: Survival Mode, Silver Difficulty (GameCube): 11,474

I usually really dislike Funko's chibified black eyed character designs but these are great! I definitely need one of the Centipede ones to perch on my retro gaming TV.

Awesome job! Ever since I learned to solder last year I've been really wanting to add a cartridge port to a Flashback 2, I just haven't haven't gotten up the nerve to cut into the case yet.

Those double jumps, boy I tell you what. I had to break out the Sega Genesis controller for this one. It's like Kangaroo, except that it makes you want to kill people. Hunchy II (B/B Difficulty, Default Settings): 1,135

I'm having the exact same problem with the composite modded system that I just got. I removed the plastic cartridge guide entirely and the cartridge connector on the motherboard still puts such a death grip on my carts that it actually broke my Pole Position II cart trying to pull it out, and if I keep using the system I think it's just a matter of time until the casing cracks from the absurd amount of force required to insert or remove 7800 carts.

They're standard American 1 1/8" size, the same size as Happ just a little smoother and higher quality. They will fit in 30mm holes just fine though. There will be a little wiggle room when you insert the button but it's a non-issue once you tighten the lock ring down.

If you're a fan of Japanese buttons then I think you'll like the IL if you put a 20g microswitch in it. It should have about the same tension as a Seimitsu PS-14-KN/GN button but with a more traditional American arcade feel due to the concave shape.

I'd say none of the above, only because none of them are concave like the button on a CX-40. If you want a button that's really authentic looking and high performance I'd recommend buying two Industrias Lorenzo concave buttons, one black and one red. Take the plunger out of the red one, stick it in the barrel of the black one (which is very simple to do), add a nice 20g soft touch microswitch, and you're good to go.

Thank you very much Oyama! Those tutorials really helped me a lot and I'm starting to feel pretty satisfied with my score now. Hunchy II (B/B Difficulty, Default Settings): 1,030

Problem sorted thanks to Bradd it looks like.

Yep, just the plastic guide! The cartridge connector on mine seems fine as far as I can tell.

So, my latest Atari 7800 ProSystem is having another issue and I think I'm going to need a replacement part to fix it. What happened is that I ended up getting one of the late model 7800s without the expansion port that has the notoriously "death grip" tight cartridge port guide. I was being pretty tolerant of the extra muscle that I had to put into it to make the cartridges go in until the thing literally broke the shell on my Pole Position II cart when I went to play it for this round of the Atari 7800 High Score Club. After that I decided it was time to do something about the cartridge port guide, so I opened it up, removed the two screws holding the guide in place, then took it off and chopped off the sides like so (as recommended in several threads): Cartridges go in easier now, but now they won't come out! I don't know what's getting caught up where now that the sides of the cartridge port guide have been cut away, but trying to remove a cartridge from the system now takes such incredible effort that I'm sure it's just a matter of time before the system's housing cracks from the pressure being put on it. So, it's pretty clear that I need to get a new cartridge port guide and would greatly appreciate it if anyone might have a spare smoothly functioning Atari 7800 cartridge port guide they'd be willing to sell. Edit: Post edited to remove excessive complaining about all the troubles I've had with Atari 7800 systems.

The first game that comes to mind for me is Alien Resurrection for the original PlayStation. It was one of the last games released for the PlayStation so the graphics are really outstanding, the sound and atmosphere are creepy as all get out, and it's probably the most genuinely frightening pre-HD era video game I've ever seen. The problem (and the reason that most critics panned it) is that the game is so ridiculously hard even on Easy difficulty that it seems like the developers never even play tested it. Imagine playing Doom on Nightmare difficulty with 50% less health, 1/4 of the normal amount of ammo, and only being able to save your game every other level and you'll have a pretty good idea of what Alien Resurrection has to offer. It's a game that could have been great if the developers had only toned down the difficulty a few notches, but as stands it's nearly unplayable from Level 4 onward.

The family computer is back from getting repaired so I was able to download the ROM to the SD card for my Harmony cart and compete now, but wow... this game is cold as ice. I don't think I'm gonna do so well this week. Hunchy II (B/B Difficulty, Default Settings): 875

Aww, thanks Oyama! Great score too! Today I revisited a game that was one of my favorites as a child. I know it's a terrible game with awfully sluggish controls and half a dozen other things wrong with it, but I played this game so much as a kid that I still have a real fondness for it. Mortal Kombat (Game Boy): 4,211,500

The family computer came back from the Apple store all fixed up today (free of charge under warranty, thankfully) so here's a better quality picture of last week's games to replace the low quality one I posted while the computer was in the shop.

Very satisfied! My Genesis 2's reset button works just like new now thanks to you!