Hello and welcome to the final round of the first Sega Master System Weekly Contest!  This week's game is Hang-On/Astro Warrior.  Your final score will be the combined total of both games.

Rules:
-Add together your points from both games (Hang-On score + Astro Warrior score + Astro Warrior bonus points)
-Highest total score wins

Hang-On Rules:
-Play on level 1
-Play until Game Over or you complete all 8 courses
-If you clear 8 courses, your run ends there. Pause the game right when the next course begins
-Take a picture of your score

Astro Warrior Rules:
-Play until Game Over or until you loop the game twice
-If you loop the game twice, your run ends there.  Pause the game at the beginning of the third loop when your score and remaining lives are displayed -Take a picture of your score
-If you looped the game twice, give yourself 100,000 bonus points for each remaining life

For general contest rules, click here:

http://nintendoage.com/forum/mess...

Good luck and have fun!

SCOREBOARD:

1st: mbd39 (330,570)
2nd: Richardhead (306,180)
3rd: Yoshi (275,610)
4th: bimmy_lee (228,860)
5th:
6th:
7th:
8th:

330,570 (111,400+219,170)





 

Astro Warrior is kind of fun. It's like a more accessible version of Star Force with actual useful upgrades. It's still tough, at least for me.

Hang On, on the other hand, has not aged well even compared to Rad Racer on the NES. I don't want to play it again.

Wow, I am downright terrible at Hang-On. I'm going to give Astro Warrior a shot in a few minutes.

185,410 + 90,200 = 275,610
51,120 + 72,900 = 124,020




 

Remember that you have to manually change gears by pressing up as your speed increases. It's a little weird at first for an arcade racer. Then make liberal use of braking as you're cornering and dodging other bikes. Just try not to crash. It's also easy to accidentally shift into lower gear by accidentally pressing down when cornering so watch out for that.

 

I got the gear shifting down, its just hard to determine which corners you can blast through at full speed with some braking and which ones you need to shift down in, and which ones to shift down and break in. I've also downshifted unintentionally in the corners and that can waste a lot of time. I'd like to at least finish the first course. I'll give it another go tommorow.

Oh and Astro Warrior definitely has the Gradius effect. You die, you are screwed. Why even bother with extra lives, your base ship is way to slow for all levels after 1.

I wouldn't even bother with shifting down once you're at full speed. You should do fine with just laying on the brakes when you need to.

I didn't find the challenge kicking in until the third course which was as far as I got. I don't intend on playing any more.

I'm also fed up with Astro Warrior. The Gradius effect is bad. Die and you might as well reset.



 

Don't give up on Astro Warrior too quickly. It's only 3 stages long and should take less than 10 minutes to loop once.

Score updated: 275,610

Thank you very much for the tips mbd39! I almost made it to Stage 3 on Hang-On! Meanwhile in Astro Warrior, I almost made it to the boss of Stage 2 and got hit by one of those blue, formation jumping, ships. Ugh.

306,180

 

Wish I had more time with these games.
Kinda enjoyed them both. If anyone wants to give Astro Warrior another go, avoid those fucking laser power ups like the plague. You're better off with the three bullet gun and those little extra ships.

Hmm, I might try that out.

 

228,860 (62,760 + 166,100)

Unless there's a last minute score update, it looks like me and bimmy are co-champions of the Master System. Yay.

Thanks for these contests, Red. They've been fun, and helped tide me over until the return of the NES contests.  

Yup, you two tied with 95 points each.  The leaderboards have been updated with the final point totals.

Glad you had fun.  Hope everyone else had a good time as well.  I enjoyed putting it together and may try running another competition in the future.
 

The Master System needs more love.
A pity I couldn't spare time to play more on this contest other than the first game. I had other stuff going on for me here.
And I definitely need an SMS everdrive.

A bit late, but congrats Bimmy and mbd!

I had a lot of fun and thank you Red for running this contest.