Hello everyone and welcome to the latest installment of the Weekly Contests!  Hello everyone and welcome to the latest installment of the Weekly Contests!  This week you will be heading to one of the deepest, darkest corners of the galaxy to stop the ravenous, galaxy-eating creature known as Zelos.  This guy has been munching on galaxies for millenia and he makes Galactus's appetite look pathetic.  My name is Bimmy Adama, famed captain of the Battlestar Bimmion, and I'm here to recruit you all to stop Zelos at any cost.  He has already devoured the Phenom Galaxy, home to creatures that resemble the digestive tract of the human body and the Baltic Galaxy, a galaxy full of rocky worlds that are home to the fabled Guts Man and other stone-like species, such as Geodudes and Thwomps.  He also ate the entire Promenadia Galaxy, known for their fiery worlds full of Fire Flowers.  I hope that sick bastard gets a horrible case of heartburn for making the Fire Flower an endangered species!  Zelos even went out of his way to eat the Ithaca Galaxy, home to vampiric beings and other bloodsucking creatures.  Rumor has it there's a really good law school there for the extra annoying bloodthirsty lawyers.  And lastly, and his most recent meal, was the planet Latis, home to numerous deserts, pyramids, sphinxes, and mummies that will make you want to be like The Bangles and Walk Like an Egyptian.  The worst part about the whole thing is that Zelos is now heading for the Nintendaria Galaxy!  That's right, if he consumes that galaxy, there will be no more Hyrule Bake-Offs, no more Team Bimmy vs. Team Abobo sporting match-ups, no more hot dogs, no more video game contests on NA, no more anything...period!  If you die, then it's game over, man, game over!  To help you in your quest, I am providing you all with my best ship, the Vic Viper.  Trust me, you're getting a great ship.  It can make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs!  So, what are you just sitting there waiting for?  Stadium Events to become a common game?  Jump in the cockpit of that Vic Viper, blast a hot, fiery load of justice down Zelos's throat, and then shoot your way right out of his poop chute to save the galaxy!  Here's what you need to know to stop Zelos, the evil alien Life Force:

• 1 player only
• Play until Life 0
• Once you get to Life 0, you must stop playing and take your picture.  You may not play any of the game on Life 0.  Anyone suspected of playing the game on Life 0 will have their score disqualified.
• You will be allowed to loop the game 3 times only.  After you beat the game for the 3rd time, take your picture once the game starts over on the 4th loop.  No playing on the 4th loop or beyond will be allowed.  Anyone suspected of this will have their score disqualified.
• Make sure to snap a picture of your score before heading into a boss battle.  You cannot see your score while fighting a boss.  If you think you may use up all your lives at a boss, preserve your score before going into a boss battle.
• If you fail to destroy Zelos's heart (final boss of the game) on any of the loops, your run will end there and you will have to take your picture.  Failure to destroy his heart results in having to replay stages 4-6, which could be done infinitely.
• Point racking at the Gradius enemies in Stage 5 is forbidden.
• Highest score wins
• Participation: 50,000
• GENRE: Shoot ‘Em Up

The contest ends Sunday, 3/12/17 at 11 PM NA time.  Your user name MUST be written or typed on a piece of paper and be in the picture for your score to be valid.  The entire TV screen, or computer monitor if you are playing on an emulator, MUST be in the picture for the score to be valid.  No partial screenshots will be considered or accepted.  No screenshots by hitting "print screen" on a computer will be allowed.  You must take a picture of your computer monitor.  There may be instances where this will be acceptable, but it will be at the discretion of myself and the contest organizers.  Also, the use of turbo controllers is forbidden, as well as any cheat codes, Game Genies, slow motion functions, or save states if playing on an emulator.  Also, we will only be using NTSC systems for the contests.  The use of PAL systems will NOT be allowed.  Good luck everyone and have fun  

1st	1,128,310	Gloves
2nd	1,108,870	gutsman004
3rd	1,065,220	SwiftFrost
4th	1,003,780	skinnygrinny
5th	964,950	tablew/chairs
6th	910,840	Bea_Iank
7th	898,320	link463
8th	797,340	Brock Landers
so close ...	348,970	Arnpoly
not as close ...	278,910	Richardhead
	262,220	the tall guy
	126,490	zobber
	125,770	Jandrem
	106,720	Philosoraptor
	98,510	Stryphos
	72,110	Commander Santa
	67,050	kamakaze_ekun
	66,380	AppleTractorBeam
	59,180	ninjistar
	59,100	smick
	56,890	dirk12121212
	56,810	SuperJimtendo
	56,530	MBD39
	54,140	JerToxieRules
not last	52,140	Fluffy
LAST	51,320	Seppatoni

me

Interesting.

Score: 1,128,310

lives bonus?

Hey, are you busy next week?  

This will be interesting to watch

Not this time around, simply because 3 loops of the game are allowed.  Maybe if we do 1 loop next time I will throw in some bonus for extra lives.

I stand no chance this week, but heck yeah, this will be very fun to watch.
The battle for the top spot will be fierce!
I am team Gutsman this week.  

Hopefully I will do better in a shooter. Eh...  

Going to be some long runs as 3 loops takes a little over 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Yup, time constraint will be a factor for this week.

Very important question: not killing Zelos's heart will cause you to go back and have to repeat stages 4-6 on the current loop. I've never done so,but I guess you could do this inifinitely. Will this be allowed? 
 

This is one of those weeks where I'll be happy to get participation.

Nope, won't be allowed.  If anyone fails to destroy Zelos's heart, the run will end there.

Cool deal. Just double checked the rules and saw that it wasn't mentioned so I figured I would ask to make sure.
 

It will be interesting to see how many runs everyone can get in.

X2... my first two attempts netted all of 2k. I have my work cut out for me, I'm awful at shooters
 

Aw

This would be a good shooter to cut your teeth on as Life Force is not hard on the first loop. 

I like life force

How much harder are subsequent loops? I just started playing and it's pretty easy so far. (compared to the bullet hells I'm used to)

I play this quite a lot so I'm biased,but I don't think the first loop is hard at all. The second loop isn't too much harder than the first,but the third loop is definitely a step up in difficulty mainly due to the speed of many of the enemies and projectiles. Despite this I don't think loop 3 is brutally hard. There are several tricky spots though.
 

Huh. Didn't expect to beat the entire game on my first attempt lol.