Alright, I quit after about 6 hours. I still had two lives and plenty of score to make... I have to go to bed though so I can get up for church tomorrow. i think i beat the game around 10 times or so. If anyone wants to challenge me... bring it. I don't think I could lose in this game.



yup. that's 5,010,010. told myself i would quit at either 5 million or at 2 am. just so happens that they both happened at the same time

lol, glad to see this. bucause now i dont have to waste any time playing this game today.

x2 Congrats Robbie, if anyone else dares challenge your score then more power to them.

And just in case anyone needs some pointers or tips to try and beat the game here's a few things I've noticed (sorry if these are obvious, and I bet Robbie has even more tricks).

1. The first slug thing that you see (and appears between every phase) is VERY IMPORTANT! If you shoot it 10 times (2000 points) it turns into a necklace for a one up. Be careful though, because if you shoot it an 11th time, it reverts back to slug form and kills you when you touch it. However, the true way to kill it is to shoot it 10 times, then shoot it 20 more (6000 points) and it'll turn into a necklace worth 3 LIVES!! I bet if you had a turbo button, it might even turn to more lives at another point total, but I can't confirm this.

2. The top of the church (cross) is an extra life, and any guys you see floating at the surface are also extra lives.

So before you even see the first real enemy in the game, you should have 6 lives and 11,080 points from killing the slug correctly and the 4 sharks. Big difference between starting with 6 lives and starting with 2.

Hope that helps someone!

guess i could add some tips here too. there are a couple of other things to keep in mind:

- lack of fuel is the deadliest thing. what i always did was made sure that I always have people in my boat. those crabs will come by like every 15 seconds, but people wont. also, don't focus so much on your weapon as fuel - upgrades will come. i probably spent only half the time in my run with the spread upgrade.

-even if you have nine people or the gold. only start loading them. when you get more people or when you need the fuel, you can finish it off. this is especially true with the gold. you can load it on the boat, get that person on there, and then wait until you need the fuel, but can still acquire the ninth person if more people come up.

     -the best set up to have is the gold started on the boat, and having nine people in your boat. this  
     leads to an automatic 2 fuels in a row. this is where i always tried to keep myself.

-watch out for double deaths. for instance, if you die right before the mine field, you won't have enough time to refuel by the next level, so you will die again. gotta be especially careful in these areas.

-the mines are worth 1k each. that's a ton of points. always try to blow up as many as you can.

-besides the church, there is usually a hidden life in each level. the first level is the easiest to get lives as jonebone already said - and yes, the slugs are a huge factor into both points and lives.

-the top of the water is usually the safest zone. that would always be my retreat if i was getting overwhelmed (especially by those stupid shrimp guys)


hope these help. i'm sure someone can beat my score. once you get into the swing of things, the game is really simple. it'll take a major time commitment though.

good tips. i wasnt sure if you guys knew about the slug or not, well guess i do it a little differently. i use turbo and keep hitting the slug i can get 50,000 from him on the first level, but never get as much for the next few levels. guess i should take the 3 lives would probablly get me further in the game. oh well.

Wait a second, turbo is allowed on these contests?  I honestly don't know, and I guess it's my fault for assuming it isn't.  The difference in this game is night and day, it becomes ALOT easier with turbo.... watch the youtube videos of a complete nes Sqoon run (parts1-4), and you'll see the difference (because he uses it).  Couple of things I can think of:

1. Unloading passengers is now a joke, you hold B and can unload 9 passengers in a mere second or so, doing it manually takes almost a second per person.  This is a big deal with some enemies that can kill you when you are unloading, like the flies at the top of the water or snails.  You are essentially a sitting duck while unloading, so 9 seconds or 1 second is a HUGE difference.  There is NOTHING more frustrating than being one person away from getting the spread level two powerup only to die while you were unloading him and go back to no power up at all.  That's a huge swing and I've had this happen multiple times.

2. You'll never be hit by the fast enemies, like the fast fish in phase 3. I know a couple of times they killed me simply because I was in the wrong spot and didn't smash A as fast as humanly possible, but if I had a turbo A button I would have never died here at all.

IMO, turbo takes all of the fun out of the game and then it just becomes tedious and repetitive.  To each their own though.

hmmm... i dont know. i didn't use turbo, but my hand was really sore after last night. it's not a written rule, but maybe it should be.

yeah i hear you guys. but turbo is not aginst any rule in any game, and im sure it is ok to use it here as well.

Yeah, it's nothing against you at all nes_king, I just think we should maybe clarify this for future contests.  The whole point of a turbo controller is to give you an advantage over a slower controller, and there's no denying that.  Some games won't make a difference... like Mike Tyson's Punchout for example.  Even with a turbo A or B, you aren't really gaining any advantage since you only get your 3-4 hits before the computer will resume blocking.  But in this game where the speed of your fingers controls your score, then yes it's a big deal.

A more dramatic example would be a pre-programmable controller such as those on the SNES and Genesis.  I knew a friend that had one, and he actually programmed moves such as Ryu's fireball and Dragon Uppercut into buttons so he'd simply have to press one button to pull of those moves.  Everytime I went to his house he'd kick my ass with his special controller, but when he came over here we'd split about 50/50.

Just food for thought, I don't care either way but if turbos are allowed then I definitely will have to buy one and use it in future contests.

you dont currently have the means to use turbo?
and yes it does give you an davantage, i dont think it should be aginst the rules though.

that is a problem with these contests, jeremy just throws them up and doesnt state any rules because in most cases he doesnt have the game and has never even played it.

i dont know, i think its fair to use turbo on any game..

i might have a turbo controller, but i'm not sure. i know my advantage does, but i hate using that thing. i don't think anything here is being said against you, just some thoughts for possible rules in the future.

Brought.


Soooo sick of this game. Just had to give up, gotta go to a rave, I think I could go on indefinitely otherwise.

Same. I just wanted to make a high enough score to scare everyone else away. guess it didnt work . congrats though on playing for so long

Damn talk about an unexpected finish! Congrats fellas, 250k was enough to make me tired of this game, I can only imagine how rough a 5+ hour run would be.

^^ and you would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for these meddling kids!

WOW congrats NES herb, i think he won lol anyone got any other scores still got a hour!
This weeks game is a SNES game so ya

NES herb won new game posted in 2 minutes

I'll try to think of some tips:
- as jone said, the snail in the beginning of the phase can be shot 10 times for a 1-up necklace, and if you shoot it 20 more times it turns into a 3-up. Then you can touch the cross on the church for another 1-up bringing your dudes to start up to 6.

- usually its too risky to get in 30 shots, and crabs seem to get in the way in the later phases, but go for it the first phase because if you screw it up you can just reset the game quick.

- midway thru phase 1 there is a guy on a raft up top you can rescue for a 1-up

- in phase 2 there *should* be a panda near the end of the city for a 1-up. I find it seems to only appear if its your first game since powering on for some reason. So, if you die and want to start a new game, power off quick so the panda appears.

- I dont know about level 3, but in the rest of the phases the 1-up is pretty obvious. There are various icons including a martini glass, treasure chest, smiley face a knife.

- As far as regular play I have a few tips:

alawys try to have at least 1 guy left in your ship. If you have 9 guys and want to get your power up, dump 5 dudes into the rescue vessel and wait until you free 5 more guys and scoop em up. Then you can drop off the 4 dudes, get your powerup and still have 4 guys left in your ship.

- better safe then sorry, always pack a piece of gold

- robbie mentioned killing mines for points, it seems best to go as far right on the screen as you can and hover just above the mines. The shorter distance between you and the mines (and edge of screen the faster you can shoot because once your shot leaves the screen you can fire again. (a nice little trick in most shooters, getting really close to your enemies to shoot quicker)

The last main thing i can think about is that if you collect the necklace from the snail in the beginning of the phase, and then you manage to destroy all the parts of one of the fortress things the background changes and it sends you to a alternate world where the time doesnt go down. If you can keep destroying every part of a base you'll stay in this land until about the mine field section.

++ My question is, Anyone figure out the secret of the mermaids? The instruction book says something about them not really being bad, and that they hold a secret or something. They hold a necklace just like the snails have, but I dont know whats up with them. You may be able to get a 1-up from them but I have no idea how. I might play on an emulator to experiment with that. I think maybe you have to let the mermaid swim a loop around you first? No idea. Too risky to try during a score run.

Anyhow, good job dr.robbie and nes king.

im not sure if my nes was on the fritz but sometimes the screen goes black but you can still see all of the enemies it has also turned all green in the backround but i could still see all of the enemies, has this happend to anyone else???? or was it my nes?

i honestly couldn't figure anything out about the mermaid either. seems like it was a necklace of death if you ask me. she did drop a lot of points when you killed her though.

i did figure out the alternate world trick as well, but forgot to mention it. the time not being wasted was nice.

i still can't believe you sat there that long to beat my score...

Yeah I noticed the screen going black too, did that a few times. I found the Panda to be more sporadic than just appearing "on the first run", it seemed to appear everytime I had men in my ship.

Also, the mermaid is worth 10k to be exact, and maybe you could get the necklace without touching her body for a 1up? I never bothered to try.

yeah i kinda thought the screen going black was spose to happen because the dolphins then turned gray so you could see then on the black screen. kinda seemed like when i did a certain thing or killed just the right stuff the screen went black..

also i could not find my manual for this game so i figured out everything for myself. wonder where that manual went, ill have to look through my entire manual box to find it.

EDIT: oh i think the panda appeared all the time for me and i wanst powering on and off, just resetting it.

This is what i was refering to as an 'alternate word'. It happens if you get the necklace, then destroy all the parts of the base, the screen goes a solid color, (i recall green, black, red, brown) and time doesnt wear down.

oh, ok. but i dont quite remember it happening like you say. mabye there is other ways to get it to happen. i got the black screen probablly 3 times and the green like 2 times..