xeex

I have 4 or 5 spare 7800 power supplies. If you PM me your address I'll pop one in the mail to you. A classic gaming gift from one Mainer to another (I'm up near Bangor, though).

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125,902

I kill the spider quite frequently just to stop the irritating noise it makes. As for the scorpion - while I'd love to kill it, I rarely can. A lot of my game time is spent fighting for my life as multiple centipede heads spin around my elf on the bottom of the screen. I'm getting much better at that part of the game, and I don't see how it can be avoided when a dozen shrooms or more have been poisoned. Most of the hints have really helped me out, though. I have a few more that may be completely obvious. I'm not a huge Centipede fan, so they're new to me. 1. The mushroom layout is always the same at the beginning of the game. I zoom over to the left and shoot those low ones right away. 2. The elf can move through mushrooms. I actually found myself moving around them sometimes as if they were obstacles; they're not. 3. If you've successfully created one of those glorious "tunnels" that the centipede falls through, it helps to move as high as you can to shoot the 'pede on a new wave. Your shots have less distance to travel that way, and you can kill the whole thing quite quickly (or most of it). 4. When everything flies down to the bottom of the screen because of poisoned mushrooms, fret not! Just stay on the bottom and avoid the segments as they fall. You'll be able to pick them off soon enough because they're all moving UP while you get to stay on the bottom. Despite all that, I'll consider it a minor miracle if I pass 100,000. Pet peeve: given the limitations of the 2600, I understand that the centipede segments must "disappear" from time to time. I just hate the fact that my shots go *through* the darn things without hitting them. Are they warping in and out of some other dimension?! I'm getting into it, though. The fast pace is addictive.

This game is like having extremely rude houseguests dump their empties on your living room floor while 12 children swarm around your legs demanding immediate attention. Anyway, 81878, thanks to the excellent tips above.

If anyone's interested, these things are back on sale at KB Toys until Father's Day, I think. $9.99. I had to return mine since the joystick just wasn't working properly. Got a new unit and $5 back!

Oy! Tough crowd here. I like it. 41,899 for the moment.

Oh no! I'm absolutely terrible at Centipede. Always have been. Can't complain about the choice, though. I mean... it's Centipede! (Also - with Frogger - one of those few games that my girlfriends will play.) Time to practice on the teddy bear level.

Where did I say it was a *list* of criticisms? Maybe you should "read better." You said the game looked like "a damn two-week hack job." I don't understand where that criticism comes from after looking at a single screenshot.

There aren't any other objects in the screenshot, so I'm not sure where that criticism is coming from. I see the "resolution loss on the cavern walls" you talk about, but that's to be expected. It looks just peachy to me. Comparing the port to the original 2600 Pac-Man is needless cruelty! Can't wait for this thing.

1,384,270

628,160 I think I can roll this one. My advice is to dig straight tunnels from the top to the bottom. Let the white tanks follow you down (the blue ones will, anyway), then scoot up to the top and start blasting away. You always move faster than the enemy, even at the higher levels. So, the farther they have to travel, the more time you have to do some damage. Fun game!

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264,000 I surrender!

Bump up to 221,000.

Aha! That's the strategy I was missing. 178,000 for now.

From everything I've seen and read so far, I'm going to buy a Flashback 2 as soon as I see one. I really can't believe something like this is being released in 2005. Heck, I even like the orange buttons. They match the trim! Here's the real question: will you be able to "fry" the games? Probably not the built-in games because of the menu (maybe you can "fry" the menu!), but how about cartridges played through an attached connector? OK, I'm asking for too much here.