PFG 9000

You need to take it on a case-by-case basis. There are some really awful commercial games, and there are some stellar homebrew games. But you can't make a sweeping generalization about which is better. All you can really say is "I think game X is better than game Y."

I might be misunderstanding you, but are you thinking the Desert is the last level of the game? There's two more after that. Really??? I read somewhere about 6 levels. My poor dog has to wait... for eternity? If I recall correctly, it goes Junkyard, City, Forest, Mountain, Desert, Ice, Castle. So seven areas. I've never beaten it straight through. There's a few warps hidden throughout the game, so you can get to the Ice level in just a few minutes.

I might be misunderstanding you, but are you thinking the Desert is the last level of the game? There's two more after that.

Awesome! I didn't compete in the Checkered Flag tourney because I don't have that game and haven't even played it. I would've given it a shot but I was short on time last month. But I grew up with Scrapyard Dog. It was the second of some fifty Lynx games I got, and I think I have a good shot at it. I'll have to make time for it this month!

I've been trying to pass the 30k mark, but I've gotten too frustrated with this. One small slip for 90 sec and your score goes out the window. Damon, you are truly a pro at this game! My best: 29,686

Wow, I'm not sure how I missed this topic the first time around. Peter, I really enjoyed reading your Epyx stories. If you have any more to share, please do! Also, thanks for giving us Slime World! I poured hundreds of hours into that game when I was younger, and I still play it every now and then. It's among my ten favorite games of all time.

Troy Aikman and Syndicate were the first games I got for my Jag back in the day, besides the pack-in Cybermorph. I played Troy Aikman a lot back then, and completed several seasons. There are a few plays you can exploit to beat the other guys and score nearly every time. I used to win games 70-some points to nothing.

Wow, that has to be nearly a perfect game. I thought I knew why people said Halfpipe was so difficult when I figured out how to move up and down the pipe and do some basic tricks. That was tough enough, so I figured that was what people had trouble with. I had no idea how to maximize my score til now. And it looks like it'll take a ton of practice to perfect things. Here's my best for now, 25,055:

2,086. Apparently, the re-spawning enemies get harder to kill each time they respawn. So farming enemies for points isn't much of a way toward a high score. This game might interest me more if I had more time to spend on it, but sadly that's just not the case. Seems like there's quite a bit of depth to it, and I've barely scratched the surface. Maybe someday, when I'm retired...?

I had an incredibly busy couple of weeks, and the funky score thing with Gordo 106 really put me off. Plus I don't have the cart and I don't care much for emulation. But I'll try to get some Power Factor time in.

So for Gordo 106, is there any way to see your score once you get the Game Over screen? I'm playing via Handy, and once I get that screen it won't let me do anything more. I suppose I could hit Option 1 to check my score when I'm on my last life, but that's awfully inconvenient, and not truly representative of my final high score.

Nice work, Battlezone. You truly are a champ at these games! I wish I had gotten into this competition sooner. It's really gotten me back into my Lynx, which is something I've wanted to do for 16 years or so. I can't wait to see which games make it into this competition. There's more than enough which I haven't given their fair shake.

129,300 I found this game pretty frustrating. I realize it's called Turbo Sub, but it moves along a little too fast. I didn't get anywhere until I learned to dodge stuff constantly and worry about hitting the enemies in between dodges. And I thought the illusion of a 3D world was fairly unconvincing during the underwater stages where you navigate the blue pillars and the light beam thingies. It seemed like the objects weren't moving correctly in relation to one another. Also, I only saw the first three bosses, but it seemed like they were all identical except for their appearance. They all move and attack in the exact same way. Not a bad game at all, but a bit more tweaking could have made it great.

Yes, the default level. Keep playing and it'll get more manageable. I recommend control scheme A, but Battlezone is kicking my butt with scheme C. So just avoid scheme B!

You suck! I wasn't going to post this til tomorrow, but there's not much point in waiting now. 590,200

My girlfriend doesn't have much tolerance for any games that aren't Mario. She'll be a good sport and watch for a bit, and once in awhile she'll try something new, but she isn't the best gamer and she gets frustrated from dying constantly. At least your girl will play games with you!

Well done! What are you using for a control scheme? Do you have any tips?

Thank you! I'm really hooked on the game now. It gets pretty hectic. But the controls give me fits sometimes. I'm playing with control type "A" which seems to be the most effective for me, but the game was obviously designed for dual joysticks, and this conversion really suffers from not having them. So it's frustrating when you're surrounded by enemies and every pixel counts, but you can't aim at them quickly without moving in their direction a little. And that usually results in a quick death when it's crowded.

Thanks! It is certainly a tough game, don't feel bad if you haven't beaten it yet. How far have you gotten? Once you learn where to go, which items to use in which order, and which traps/enemies are coming up, it gets more doable. It's just a matter of playing through it and figuring out how to progress little by little.

444,150

Either of those would be fine with me.

Wow, very nice work! I will play this more in the future, but I don't think I can beat that score by May 1st.

You've beaten Switchblade II? You should post your score in the HSC thread, it's this month's game and we're all having a rough time with it. Also, have you beaten all the different boards in Shanghai? I can only beat two of them (the spider and one other that I can't remember), the rest were pretty tough. Great game though.

Forgive me if this thread has been posted before. I couldn't find anything in the last few pages or via the search function. Which Lynx games have you played through to the end? The high score club got me thinking about this, since a lot of people are good at games that I'm pretty lousy at, and I can apparently play some games that other people don't care for. Maybe this could lead into a strategy/hints/tips discussion. List the games you're conquered! Basketbrawl Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure Dracula the Undead Gates of Zendocon Kung Food Lemmings Scrapyard Dog Shadow of the Beast S.T.U.N. Runner Warbirds* I've nearly beaten Rygar and Slime World. I used save states for Rygar on Handy, and I made it to the final boss, but after he kills you the first time, he's just about impossible to beat, since most of the timer is eaten up just by running across the level to get to him...IIRC. I've beaten the first five areas of Slime World numerous times, but I've only beaten the sixth with the invincibility code. It gets to be pretty cheap with all the big chopper teeth hidden in the ground. Oh, and I've played through the AvP demo just about as far as it goes, but that's only a few levels so I don't think it quite counts. *Warbirds doesn't ever really end, but the kill counter stops counting at 99.

54,480 I really appreciate how this HSC thread is getting me to put more time into old Lynx games that I never really got into. Switchblade II is a pretty cool game when you sit down with it for awhile. I probably still don't fully appreciate the game, since I don't use much of the stuff offered in the shops, and I use the switchblade to kill most enemies, but I can tell there's more depth there. I really encourage everyone to take their time with this game, it's very well made and has some cool level design further along. Some tips: take the underground base levels step by step until you memorize where those ground spikes are. As far as I can tell, there's no indicator of where they're going to pop up, but if you go slowly enough, they'll pop up in front of you before you're right on top of them. If you're playing for score, explore every open door in the second level. There are some nice powerups (and even a 5,000 point bonus) behind some of them. Buy missiles for the second boss. They're kind of heat seaking, so you can focus on dodging his bullets and let the missiles seek him out. The game gets a little easier once you reach the third level. (And prettier too...instead of the industrial background of the first level and the cliff climbing in the second level, you've got a nice forest background in level 3, and a waterfall in level 4.) There's a pretty easy to find 1-up on one of the outdoor stages in the third level (the second stage, I think). There's a bunch of floating platforms leading up and to the left, directly over the start of the stage, and the upper-left-most platform has the 1-up. EDIT: Does anybody know if you can kill those three-way turrets in the second level? They're kinda a pain and it would be easier if I didn't have to dodge their bullets.