Burgertime 2nd Stage Grouping

I promised I wouldn't post about Burgertime for a week... well it's been a week! A long one- and I've filled it with stage 2 grouping.... I might have it perfected... It's going to be critical to break 200k and the eventual TwinGalaxies record.

Elevator Action World Record

As I mentioned in my previous Elevator Action post, Taito did an excellent port of this game to the NES. It was so well done, that Taito added screen shots of the arcade game to the back of the box:



Arcade screen shot (notice the pink bar at the top and the credits at the bottom)


NES Elevator Screen Shot, no pink bar!


It was common in the industry for game companies to "fib" on their boxes and show arcade screen shots for what was clearly not going to be an experience that even came close to the arcade counterpart. I remember reading somewhere about Street Fighter II being released for the Sinclair with a disclaimer that the actual game would look nothing like the screen shots presented on the box.

Anyways, I started to pick apart the scoring, then I looked up the manual on http://www.nintendoage.com/ and just my luck the manual lists all of the scoring... duh! You get the most points by jump kicking an enemy, especially if the lights are out.

But I did learn something new, apparently there is a 2nd enemy in the game: a security guard! I still haven't seen this character so I can only assume he appears on much later levels of the game.

The current Twin Galaxies world record for this game is 73,400. A casual game for me recently was about 16,000, with about 8000 points per level. In theory I'd only have to make it to the tenth round to accomplish the Elevator Action World Record, however you get a 1000 point bonus multiplied by the level number at the completion of each level. So it might be possible to get it by completing the 8th stage.

In addition to picking apart the points I also made some determination on how the AI works. It's completely random which is good and sucks at the same time. It's good in that you can have an awesomely fantastic game if luck is in your favor, or it can suck if the randomness is so unpredictable that it reaches a point where the game is impossible to advance. Games with random elements ultimately become endurance contests and generally require patience over skill. Speaking of endurance contests... all of this Elevator Action doesn't mean I've given up on the Popeye record... I still work on that pretty often, but I'm to the point on Popeye where its purely an endurance contest more than anything else.

Rastan World Record Video Parts 2, 3 and 4

Here are the remaining parts of my Rastan World Record Attempt. Part 1 can be viewed here: http://www.salzmafia.com/2009/08/rastan-world-record-video-14.php

Part 2


Part 3


Part 4

The Rastan World Record Video 1/4

I've posted before about acheiving the Rastan World Record for Taito Legends on the PS2. Amazingly the disc didn't work once it reached the ref. I still have a copy but have been so disenchanted over the whole thing I haven't bothered to send it in.

Instead, I'll publish it on YouTube for all to see. Here is part 1 of 4:



Keep in mind that there are other Rastan videos on YouTube with better (and in some cases questionable) performances. This was merely an attempt, and although the game wasn't completed, the acheivement of the highest score was.

Popeye Progress

Having a little time to practice Popeye I learned something new. The counter that represents the rounds changes to letters on the tenth round. This brings up a curious possibility: what happens after round Z? Does it wrap around to 0? Will it start displaying funky symbols? Will the game crash?

I also learned that the sea hag will only throw one skull when the barrel is still hanging. Drop it and she starts throwing three at a time.

Setting A World Record: Popeye for Nintendo

I've decided to attempt and achieve a WR score on an NES game. I've narrowed it down to one of two games. The first being "Original" Mario Bros. (not super!) or Popeye. Although I enjoy both games it seems the real challenge has been finding the games. After scouring eBay I finally have a copy of Popeye on its way. Finding Mario Bros. has not been as successful, and therefore Popeye will be WR of choice.

As with most things that I involve myself in (specifically WR scores) I like to pick apart the approach necessary to achieve the record or the desired end result. In this case, I obviously had to do a little research. For starters the current record for Popeye is 1,485,610 points set by Tom Votava on 12/01/2005. I don't know Tom Votava personally but I'm going to assume that this is probably a pretty substantial score because 1.) Tom Votava has plenty of records already, and 2.) the second place score for Popeye is 212,250.

Now that I know what the goal is, the next thing I like to do is determine how long it would be necessary to play the game to achieve the record. In this case I'll either benchmark the game by timing a few levels and recording the score, or in this example of Popeye, I'll refer to http://www.youtube.com/ for a reference. When bench marking any game that has repetitive levels such as Popeye or Mario Bros the longer the bench mark is the more accurate of an estimated time of completion you can come up with in achieving the record.





I decided to use the above video for the benchmark. The player in it takes a casual approach missing opportunities to point press. When benchmarking always take the casual players time and score. You don't want to compare yourself with a relative expert because you'll burn yourself out. After the first level the player scored 10,430 in about 1 minute 25 seconds. He completed the second level in about 1 minute 7 seconds with a score of 5,600 points more then what he had at the end of the first level, and he completed the 3rd level in 2 minutes 38 seconds earning about 16,700 points. All in all, in about 5 minutes 10 seconds you can easily earn 32,730 points.

To complete the bench mark you take the world record and divide it by the total points for all three levels. In this case it would be 1,485,610 divided by 32,730 which equals about 45. This means at an exaggerated minimum it would take completing all three levels 45 times to get the record. Determining how long it would take involves multiplying 45 by however long it took to complete the three levels (which in this case is about 5:10) which adds up to about 3 hours 52 minutes.

Now that I know how long I'll have to play for the next step is determining my availability to practice. Setting a recording isn't as easy as simply sitting down and playing, especially when you have a full time job and a small boy. Those two things obviously take precedence. So a little creativity will be necessary to pull this off. This is where I'll turn to my Nintendo DS. Without going into the exact details I can play the original Nintendo version of Popeye on my DS. We'll just leave it at that. The DS has similiar controls to an NES controller so for the most part it should be seamless in terms of practice and game play. Now, if necessary I can practice anywhere. Well almost anywhere- although my employer probably wouldn't mind me playing games at work (it is part of what we do here) they might not take too kindly if we were playing on a competitors system.

Rastan World Record Finally Acheived

Well I was finally able to reclaim the record on PS2 Taito Legends: Rastan with a score of 848,000. Back in September 2008 I had recorded what I thought would be the world record for this version of Rastan at www.twingalaxies.com. I knew that submitting a score could take a few weeks to actually be reviewed then to appear on the site. After I mailed the video I didn't bother to watch the score on the site. Then all of a sudden I noticed that after the day I had submitted my original score of 478,900 someone had submitted a score of 763,800.

It took about six months and finally on April 12th 2009 I was finally able to reclaim the record. I actually could have reclaimed it when I acheived 792,400 but I wasn't recording the performance and I had to pause the game which would have disqualified the performance anyways.

So there it is: 848,000. Eventually I'll get my hands on an arcade board set and set the record on it.

New Record

New record for Rastan 792400

Rastan New Personal Best

For not practicing this isn't bad!