Hello everyone and welcome to the latest installment of the Weekly Contests!  Bimmy Earnhardt XXIII here to take you all into the fast lane for your next challenge.  Strap on your helmets, throw on your racing underwear (you know, the ones with the skid marks), and rev up into high gear as you race around the clock to beat out the opposition for the gold trophy in R.C. Pro-Am.  You will have a variety of items to choose from to make life difficult for the other racers, including bombs and missiles (hey, no one said you had to play fair against the other drivers).  Just watch out for rain puddles, oil slicks, and pop-up barriers or you will find yourself eating pavement.  And if you're really lucky, you will find some helpful power-ups, including turbo boosts, car engines, and extra tires to make your racer better than any car that has ever graced the theater screens in a Fast & Furious movie.  I guess I will see you all out on the track...from my rear-view mirror hahaha!  Vroom vroom motherf....sorry, I forgot this is a family-friendly site.  Here's what you need to know about R.C. Pro-Am:
 

• Play until Game Over (Continuing just resets your score, so there is no reason to do it)
• Highest score wins
• GENRE: Sports

 
 The contest ends Sunday, 3/1/15 at 11 PM NA time.  Your user name MUST be written 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

Here is the Final **Official** Scoreboard for R.C. PRO-AM (week 4)

1st:        579,901 - LukeAF24
2nd:       424,996 - Caleb47
3rd:        419,329 - Commander Santa
4th:        343,741 - bearcat-doug
5th:        341,504 - Czar5
6th:        333,449 - bertsampson
7th:        303,440 - Vectrex280996
8th:        276,284 - Red
9th:        263,843 - skinnygrinny
10th:      257,261 - BriGuy82
-----------------------------------------------------------
11th:      250,689 - acromite53
12th:      249,536 - TWarwick07
13th:      167,223 - zobber
14th:      166,758 - ninjistar
15th:      165,184 - moobox
16th:      161,583 - erizisto
17th:      153,359 - BilltownSparty
18th:      150,344 - stinkerhubbin
19th:      115,067 - gutsman004
20th:      110,115 - Balloon_Kid
21st:        94,677 - Krunch
22nd:       93,205 - Thundercat08
23rd:        91,465 - mattbep
24th:        90,407 - floydfan38
25th:        88,498 - neodolphino
26th:        85,305 - UncleTusk
27th:        74,429 - alpenanews0506
28th:        72,965 - tyrantrum85
29th:        37,349 - rcorporon
30th:        31,656 - jump_man95
31st:        28,248 - dockvalentine
32nd:       27,817 - Megamanfan
33rd:        27,646 - quiet451
34th:        23,792 - MrWunderful
35th:        22,047 - EgasKrad
36th:        20,412 - matt
37th:        19,278 - dropkickorange
38th:        11,561 - barrelsAndRivets
39th:          9,720 - Velinos
40th:          1,625 - Fluffy


 

 

150,344

Game's a lot more fun than I remember! Also worth noting that spelling out NINTENDO with the letter tiles is worth pretty significant points, apparently I forgot about that.
Slowly getting the hang of it though. Trying to at least join the 100k club. Got it, don't think I'll be able to do much better today. Having far more sloppy runs than anything, the bonus points/car upgrades by collecting all the letters makes a huge difference though.

Attempt 6: 150,344
Attempt 5: 139,585
Attempt 4: 98,417
Attempt 3: 87,291
Attempt 2: 31,164
Attempt 1: 19,618

Updated Score later in thread

343,741

Man, I had a blast playing this for the summer tournament. Looks like it will be a fun week.
Unfortunately I won't have access to an NES the whole week, but unfortunately for you guys, I'll bring my laptop with me

Looks like images aren't displaying in the thread for some reason. All of em got replaced with "i1"

ah..n/m, they display on the beta site.

Tiny update.

I agree with your sentiments, and also raise you the isometric issue.  Why were a majority of their games isometric?  Friggin terrible perspective for action games...

Anyway, I don't care much for this game, but I do own it.  I'll be lucky if I can break 100k.

^That's another good point. Their games would have been much more enjoyable and popular if they would have not used that,but mainly if they weren't so effing cheap. Also would have liked RCPA to use a post race upgrade system instead of having try to snag them during the race while at the same time trying to at least finish 3rd. Nothing frustrates me more than this feature.

Quick question: Is it preferred if I take a pic at the High Score screen, or paused once I get knocked out of the race? I've noticed everybody else has been doing the HS screen and thought I'd ask.

It doesn't matter which screen you take the picture on, although the High Score screen might be a bit easier.

I can't wait to put a score up. I thought I had a copy but I didn't so I had to grab one on ebay.

Score:  419,329

Finally got one of my good runs to go right. 

These 200k+ scores are unfathomable to me. I really want to like this game,I really,really,do....but this games makes me want to punch the programmers in the face.

I've noticed that if I spam too many bombs/missiles, that damn yellow car takes a permanent lead. What it seems like anyway. Doesn't really matter though, I finish in 3rd place 90% of the time. Still frustrating though.

I'd heard if you hit it with a missile,it would go into cheat mode. There have been several times where I didn't touch that car and it takes off anyway. It just seems to be random.

That might be it. I'm pretty indiscriminate with bombs/missiles, but I've given up on ever getting first place beyond the first 2 or 3 tracks.

guts, you are a better gamer than me - but I probably know a few secrets about this game you haven't discovered yet.
Everybody else always shares (I think it's why Nintendoage as a whole has really good NES players)
...so I'll share some tips too!

1. Until you get to Level 24, try your darnedest NOT to use either the bombs and/or rockets.
R.C. PRO-AM has kind of a "karma system."
This means if you shoot a car with one of these weapons, soon after they'll go psycho and fly around the map at warp speed. They can't fight back, so I guess the developers thought this was a way to make it a bit more balanced?
Every once in a blue moon that bastard peach colored car will go off anyway, but for the most part if you just race, the cars will behave themselves... Until Level 24.
Save every ounce of ammo you can for than 9 lap board. You'll need it to keep those warp-speed cars behind you.
**Edit: Also, feel free to smash them to hell when you are invincible. That does not effect them. - Just DON'T SHOOT!

2. There are only 24 "unique" tracks in the game. I put "unique" in quotations because most of the tracks are just slight variations with hazards changed around. The truly unique tracks are #8, #16, & #24. Other than that, the track will be one of the 5(?) variants. The game loops back to Track #1 again after you beat #24. 

3. Whacking the side of the course will not damage you, but it will slow you down considerably. Try to find the racing line the developers had in mind for each track and do your best to avoid whacking the grassy areas. It makes a HUGE difference in some races.

4. (Especially at higher levels) grab as many of those white roll cages as you can. Early - and - Often. The last thing you want is an invincible car racing you neck and neck on the last lap, only to crash you and instead of first, you're out.

5. Some notes on points... "NINTENDO" letters net you 40,000 points when you finish a race top 3 with all the letters. Roll cages are 200 points, 1 ammo is 100 points, finishing in 1st place nets you 2000 points. Even driving over the red arrows nets you a small amount of points. Of course upgrades, ammo caches, and even just making progress on the track all get you points too.

6. Lastly, if you see the race has only 2 Laps, put your "survival hat" on. 1 mistake in a short race like this and you're toast. Level 18 gets my vote for toughest of the 2-Lap races.

Thanks for the tips Santa. I wouldn't say I'm a better gamer,although I am extremely good at some games. So far none we have played are on that list. I'll try not to hit the edges,I'm really bad about that. I'll also try not to blast the cars,although what's the point of having them if you can't use them without incurring the wrath of the cheater car? Knowing how Rare did things in their other games,I bet the AI cars originally could pick up and use weapons against you.

You'll need as many weapons as you can carry on Level 24.
That beast is 9 Laps and it's SUPER long (well... Compared to the other tracks).

Although that Level has no hazards, you need to constantly fend off all the psycho cars.
Every Level after that (to my knowledge) has all the cars going bananas too. You'll need all that ammo just to survive by that point.

I'm telling you, this game becomes very fun once you learn the racing line for each track. For the repeat tracks, that racing line is usually very similar too.
You'll crush my current score by the end of the week if you have the time to learn the tracks.

I just finished a run where I did improve,but only by about 3k. My score would have been much higher had I taken first in more than 4 races. I was on track 14 because I had "NINTEN" . Didn't even take a picture. I hate the speed arrows in the game as they seemingly work against your benefit more often than not. If you wreck and a track has a lot of them,you better make sure you hit every one of them trying to catch up or you are pretty much done. (Sans those early tracks.)
The optimal track path helps a lot as you are able to maintain top speed. I really noticed it on tracks 8 and 9 after I changed cars. You fly down the track if you don't nail the edges.

EDIT: I've played a bunch of games tonight and I've yet to crack 100k. The only way I'm besting your score Santa is if I were to use a Game Genie (highly illegal for the contests of course) but even with that I probably wouldn't overtake you.

I don't care for the warp speed arrows either 😄

I tried lifting in the turns but I don't think the physics are that detailed in this game lol. Just smash the b button and drift the best you can through the turns. I like it when you come out of a turn sideways and nearly all of the straightaway lol tires squealing the whole way.

Now here's a title I actually own and can compete with this week!

Yeah, played a bit last night. I didn't like this game as a kid (I thought that Micro Machines was a much better racer) and still don't like it. It straight out cheats and handles like crap.

This will be another "participation week" for me.