Hello everyone and welcome to the latest installment of the weekly contests.  The first tournament of the year is fast approaching and we only have a few more contests left until the competition begins.  This week;s game is going to be Joust.  Here are the rules:

• 1 player only
• Play on Mode A (press Select at the Title Screen to pick this mode)
• Play until Game Over
• Take your picture on the Title Screen where you pick your difficulty (press Select at the Title Screen and your score will be at the bottom)
• No point racking allowed
• Highest score wins
• GENRE: Arcade

The contest ends Sunday, 6/9/13 at 10 PM NA time.  Your user name MUST 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, 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

How would you go about that in Joust for the NES?

EDIT:

Ah, letting the eggs grow back, right?

If you wait around long enough, a Pterodactyl will appear and fly across the screen until you kill it, it kills you, or you finish the stage.  It is possible to continue to do this to rack up points if you get good at killing Pterodactyls.  Also, if you kill one of the enemies and an egg drops out, you get points for killing the bird.  If you don't capture the egg fast enough, it hatches and you get a stronger enemy.  You could continue to kill birds without capturing eggs to endlessly farm for points.

How on earth do you kill a Pterodactyl??  I thought I did it on the 2600 version somehow ages ago, but I can't remember for certain.

EDIT:

Evidently the arcade trick I saw on Youtube of turning your back works on the NES too.  Strange...

Score updated 6/7: 164,500

At least the next 3 games are ones that I do actually own! Only one week of emulation left!
Also, I love these HAL arcade games, too bad this one is the only one I don't own yet

Gave it a try, and HAL sure did great on this one, just like they did on defender 2 and millipede!
The only problem I have is that the blue guys are quite hard (they come in wave 21 and later).
Also, if you have trouble with the dactyl, then stay on the ground, and you will lure this idiot near the ground. Now charge him! Remember to do this ONLY when he's near the ground.

277,750

^^^LMFAO

I crush this damn game. I think my high in the 2600 version was over 350K last time. I need some points this round because I didn't own Terra Cresta!

update: June, 5 2013 @ 10:00pm
139,500



A little warning of an impending pterodactyl attack would have been such a marvelous addition to this game.  So many times I'm at the edge of the screen and that damn thing just pounces on me from nowhere.

Upon further trial and error sessions of attempted pterodactyl slaying, it seems that on the NES version of Joust it is not "turning your back" at the last second that kills a pterodactyl, but, rather, it is simply letting the pterodacty fly parallel into your lance (i.e. letting it get a mouthful). 

^^^Yep, the best place is at the bottom on the ground, but he has to be flying straight and not meandering. What I don't like is that the pterodactyl will disappear if you die, but if you grab the last egg it will stick around. I hate when one appears just as I grab the last egg and I have to get out of the way quickly. Even worse is when there is one pterodactyl, you grab the last egg and are waiting for him to leave, and then another one shows up!

This is the way to do it but it's very, very tough.  You have to be very precise with the lance in order to successfully kill the Pterodactyl.  This was one of the first NES games I got as a kid and I still struggle with being able to kill the Pterodactyl at times.

16,750

Played a bunch of Joust a few months ago and don't have much desire to revisit it yet. I'll settle for participation this time around.

Updated 6/9/13
106,000

Here are a few things I found out from this week's contest so far:

1) I still am not a fan of roms.
2) If I do play another rom, I should either pay more than $6 on Ebay for a NES style usb controler so maybe the buttons won't be so stiff or buy it more than a few days ahead of time so it can be broken in.
3) I'm much better at the 7800 version of this game.
4) The Pterodactyls can go to hell.
5) If there are games with more cheap deaths than this one, I have yet to play those.
Updated: 6) Screw the rest of the list, this week has been a ton of fun for me!

Anyway, this will probably be my max for the week since I plan on practicing Ice Climber the remainder of the week (Updated: I practiced for a couple of hours on it, and I suck now more than ever in that game, so I came back to this). I actually have that cartridge unlike this week's, so I'm looking forward to that more, though I'm not too good at that either.

I got a usb nes controller on ebay a few years ago for $10 and it works great. I use it for all the games I don't own. I highly recommend a nes usb controller for anyone playing with an emu.

I'm not a fan of emulators either. I had to give in and use one last week because I mistakenly read the list of upcoming games backwards and ordered a copy of Bad Dudes instead of Terra Cresta. I was hoping to be able to use a cart, but because of the holiday last Monday it didn't ship out until last Tuesday and I didn't get it until Monday of this week. I ended up having to buy a SNES style USB controller and it did need to be broken in. The D-Pad was very stiff for the first few days, but it worked fairly well after it loosened up, although I'd still say that a real controller is more responsive. There do seem to be a few cheap deaths in this game. I lost an entire run because when I died, I kept reappearing on the same teleporter that was surrounded by 4-5 enemies who instantly killed me as soon as I stopped flashing because I didn't have anywhere to go. I've gotten pretty decent at avoiding the pterodactyls by staying in the middle as much as possible since that way they can't hit me as soon as they come in from the side of the screen, but they are still a pain to deal with. I've never played the Atari 7800 version. Are there any major differences compared to the NES one?

I used to play the Atari 800 version all the time when I was a kid. From what I remember, the controls in the 800 version are more forgiving, it's easier to speed up when changing directions, and you can cover more area vertically without flapping as much. The shadow lords aren't as crazy, either.

I had a lot of fun with that game, I would fly fast the entire time and just bounce from enemy to enemy. Of course, I wasn't trying for points when I played

This guy is good. Check it out!

BAHAH! That's exactly how I played it as a kid

Wow, it gives you a picture of how crazy it gets when there's only shadow warriors around. I don't know if there's a reason why he stops the video after round 50?

Was watching a little more and it looks like the guy is using turbo. I don't think the B button flaps that fast.

Yeah, I can't see it being the B button either.  It's either turbo or Takahashi Meijin.