Hello everyone and welcome to the latest installment of the Weekly Contests!  This week’s game is going to be Gradius.  Here are the rules:
 

• Play until Life "0" (There is no number where your lives are displayed when you reach your last life, so this will count as Life "0")
• Once you reach Life "0," you MUST stop playing and take a picture of your score.  If it is determined you played more of the game on your last life, your score will not count.
• Looping of the game will be allowed.
• If you roll the score, make sure to take a picture of your score right before the roll and right after.  Please do this for each roll of the score.
• Highest score wins.
• GENRE: Shooter/Shoot 'Em Up

 
The contest ends Sunday, 4/5/15 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

UNOFFICIAL SCOREBOARD FOR GRADIUS (week 9)

1st:  2,599,800--Bertsampson
2nd: 2,133,500--Erizisto
3rd: 1,129,900--Acromite53
4th: 1,045,900-- Gutsman004
5th:  856,300-- Caleb47
6th:  818,400--  Briguy82
7th:  455,000--Fluffy
8th:  441,600- BilltownSparty
9th:  438,200-- Fatalfuryspecial
10th:  417,100-- NESMASTER14

 

PARTICIPATION

11th:410,200-- Thundercat08
12th: 393,300--skinnygrinny
13th: 314,900-- UncleTusk
14th: 284,400-- dockvalentine
15th: 282,100--Twarwick07      
16th: 235,900-- Fatalfuryspecial    
17th: 198,700--Geester
18th: 192,600--MrWunderful
19th: 183,100-- link463
20th: 156,700-- Dqualls187        
21st: 151,400--bearcat-doug
22nd: 151,300-- Megamanfan
23rd: 151,200-- Tyrantrum85
24th: 125,000--Treismac
25th: 120,500-- neodolphino
26th: 102,500-- Shane
27th: 94,000-- Zobber
28th: 93,300--Nijistar
29th: 92,700-- BarrelsandRivets
30th: 67,000-- Czar5
31st: 61,800-- Gunpei
32nd: 59,900--rcorporon
33rd: 38,800-- Red
34th:29,100-- Floydfan38
35th: 22,200-- EgasKrad
36th: 12,800-- mattbep
37th: 100-- Arnpoly

Emulators are allowed? Is this fair?

Why would it not be fair?

As long as the person using it doesn't cheat when playing,it's fine.

Is using The Code allowed?

Yeah I thought that was implied.

Using the Konami code is forbidden.

Honor system then?

From one unforgiving game to another. I do like this game even though if you die after the initial beginning of the stage it's pretty tough to recover.

I'm gonna need to practice a bit. My first couple tries, and I couldn't break the 50000 preset high score :<

This game is very unforgiving. The game actually adjusts its' difficulty depending on how good/bad you are doing,but if you are not powered up at all,you are still going to have a rough time of it.

192600 (update) My hand needs a break LOL.  I will practice this week, I think I have a solid shot at the top 10.




98100

Luckily I played this a lot when I was a kid. I never knew you could use the Konami code on it (stupid kids) so I had to play it legit and that forced me to get ok at it.

Although Ive gotten to the point where if I loose 1 life before I get all my upgrades I just reset.

Yes, like always.

If I die anywhere but the pre-stage sections I just reset it. Especially in the later levels. You can pretty much forget it. Didn't know about the warps until last night when the game sped up after I completed level 3 and I had to dodge a bunch of vectorized moai heads. After doing some research,I apparently I had destroyed 10 moai heads in the level.

This could have been a 1 life contest as your game is essentially over once you die in a stage and have to repeat it with nothing.

I haven't been able to break 50k either. Haven't even got past the volcanoes in Level 1. Gonna keep trying, but shmups have always evaded my mastery.

192600 Updated 1st post

438,200

I am a little embarrassed that I saved myself a front page post and couldn't loop the game. Maybe next time. Congrats to everyone who cracked the million and/or set a new personal best score!

Imma go hard this time

Thanks for the info.  This happened to me earlier, and I had no idea what triggered it.

So is it better to warp, or play through the level for all the points?

125,000

Last time I played with these rules I prefered to warp, cause it makes it faster to loop the game, and you get a bonus for warping (50,000 IIRC) that greatly compensate for skiping a level.

Big update.

151,400