VIDEO: Mushihimesame Futari Ultra Mode 1CC

Completely ridiculous 1cc run of Ultra, which, if you have ever tried it is brutally hard. Really, I can't ever see myself getting to the thrid stage of this without completely focusing on this and stopping progress on any other game, quitting my social life, locking myself in my room and playing nothing but this game for like a year.

I'm finishing up the 2012 Best of the Rest list and that post will be up shortly, and hopefully an update on the dates of the 2013 Winter Carnival - which will be sometime in the spring this year.

Ninja Gaiden Trilogy Race - ProtonJon & khead161

Ninja Gaiden - much like one of my NES fav's Castlevania - is a tough menorizer and a fantastic old school game. Part II never grabbed me and by the time part III came oiut, I was onto other things. This race is one of those great youtube moments from a couple Let's Players - namely the inimitable ProtonJon and khead161. It's a fun race and they just demolish all three games - while playing on original hareware - which is a rarity and totally appreciated. No dissapearing sprites or glitches and just (for the most part) fluid play and funny commentary. Unfortunately, not complete, but still a good run through the first two games. Perfect for a lunch break at work.

Gigawing high score #1

 

This score is certainly not as troubling as it could be, but it marks the point at which I am starting to really learn and enjoy this game. I have been playing with quite possibly the worst ship for scoring in Sinnosuke, so I'm gonna change that up and start working on score soon. Once you get use to the mechanics of the game, survival is pretty easy - I made most of this progression in one day - but scoring is where all the difficulty comes from. You have to build up your multiplier and for each stage, there is a stage multiplier that is directly related to how many medals you collect - so huge scores are all about milking each stage for the most medals possible - which takes a lot of skill. Typically, I'm not a huge fan of bullet cancelling/bullet reflection games, but this one is pretty damn good.

New PCB: Gigawing - Capcom, CPS2

Pretty stoked on getting this finally. I seemed to miss every one that came up on shmups for sale. This worked out in that I traded a few things and some cash for it after I ofered up my Strahl pcb for trade - so I got to keep Strahl!

The reason there is a youtube video here is because I forgot to bring home my US board to play this on, so its chilling outside my cab for a bit until I snag it from work. I'll have it all put together for the meet, dates of which will be announced soon...

Donkey Kong 3 high score #8, 1-hour plus game

I hung out with some friends this weekend and played a ton of Gradius and after playing for most of the day at my place, we went over to Logan Hardware to get some vintage arcade gaming in. I stepped up to the DK3 machine and after not playing for quite some time, got a new high score on my first attempt on a non-1-hour only game at 1,352,400. I confirmed that the machine is set to tourney settings and I am hopeful that I can break the 2 million mark with a bit more practice.

There were a ton of mistakes early in this run and in order to hit 2 mill I would need to bank a lot of lives. I have a feeling if I play a couple games back to back, I may be able to make some good headway.

Raiden high score #4

Yeah man! Now this is a breakthrough game. Went right from playing Raiden II this morning and getting virtually nowhere to playing this and on my first credit, got about halfway through stage 7 before getting totally wiped out. I beat stage 6 without much fuss - which surprised me as I had never played it before. I dropped two bombs on the boss and blasted my way through to finish the stage.

If you have never seen stage 6, you start off after 5, landing back on the carrier from the beginning of the game and then taking off for space. Its a very cool moment and a nice break in the game. If the first 5 stages are a tribute to Toaplan's Sky Shark/Twin Cobra feeling titles, stages 6 and 7 are their take on a Tatsujin-like space stage - with a very similar midboss to one of the Tatsujin ones - a four-ship cluster that moves in a square pattern.

I'm not really sure how hard its gonna be to push through and get to the end of this one - pretty sure that's gonna take some time. I really should have practiced stage 7 with a few continues to see what's happening there, but there's time enough for that later.

Raiden high score #3

I use to think Seibu just put out some pretty blah stuff - especially compared to later Toaplan and early Cave, but this is yet anopther company that has snuck up on me and I find myself really, really digging their back catalog.

Raiden is pretty much a tribute to Sky Shark with about double the difficulty and double the cheapness of side field point blanking. There are quite a few frustrating moments where you are in the zone, feeling the flow of the game and whap - bullet from behind.

But I still can't get enough of this game. It's the intenseness of the stages and toughness of the game from early on. I find myself being able to glide through stages 1 and 2 most times, but from stage 3 on, it gets intense. As it stands right now, stage 5 is my sticking point. This score at 755,470 feels pretty good as I had near perfect runs of the first three stages, but 4 and 5 need a lot more practice!