It's definitely handy to have.

The force field is definitely useful, but I usually save it for last in my power-up sequence. Almost everything in the first stage can kill you whether you have it or not, so I just go for firepower.

I can almost always get every other upgrade I want before the end of the stage, then get the force field during the first part of stage 2.

Please tell me you are playing this week. I really want to see what you can do.

That's a nice score you have there... Challenge accepted I  hope I'm not rusty from last year
PS: Grass types are strong against rock types anyway, so beware!

I need to get my ass in gear and get my priorities straight so I can participate.

Yes. Yes you do. And where in the world is CLAYB1RD?! I haven't seen him participate since the last tourney.

28,880

For the first time in 25 or so years I beat Life Force (with the Konami Code, of course). This classic has been on my list of old favorites to play through again for awhile, and tonight I did it- solo. Never beat the game alone, nor without the use of rapid fire. It felt kinda strange, and I couldn't help but think of my younger brother who I use to play Life Force with. Contra, Jackal, and Life Force: these were the trinity of Konami 2 player video games on the NES that we use to play together. He doesn't play video games any longer, retro or modern, so it is unlikely we'll ever beat Life Force together again. I imagine that many of you have strong memories of playing those Konami games with friends and/or family, too.

Game Completed 229,730. This one again. I love this game but man, I'm actually glad we aren't looping this one. Did awesome until the final part and I just lost it at the end. I more than likely won't post another score. Good scores so far from everyone!

I'm still deciding rather or not to give this a serious run this week. I played the hell out of this game for last year's Summer tourney final and I still ended up with the lowest score of all I believe, or at least one of the lowest. I still may be taped out for Life Force, we'll see.

True, but dragon/rock = normal effectivness not x2, Strong Jaw gives biting moves a STAB and mine knows Ice Fang.

Also good luck on getting a good score, I'm still trying to not get screwed by the moai/spreadgun turrents.

I think I've finally got the hang of this one after practicing the lava level.
The rest of the levels are pretty easy by comparison.

except for those bubbles but you should be ok if your weapons are powered up.

50,940

I can do much better than this but haven't had a ton of time to play so far this week and wanted to get some sort of score up. Should have some more time later in the week to put another score up.

Yup, I will give it a go!  Probably later this week.

Agreed.

I'll get a score posted later, but beating this one turned out to be a lot easier than I expected, and having to do a marathon would just suck the fun out of it.

Left 20-50k on the table since I lost all of my upgrades on the Moai heads and had to just dodge to survive to finally win with no equipped upgrades.  Not a great place to die!

Nowhere is there a good place to die in this game. I actually wouldn't have minded the looping. It would give me an extra reason to see how much further I can get without dying.

On some of my less successful runs, I have found that I can beat most of the bosses "naked", so you can recharge weapons at the beginning of the next level.

it actually seems to become its own challenge to avoid power ups when you already have the shield and are fully boosted in reserve for when it goes away...


but for score... Yeah, no good place to die that doesn't cost you in one way or another.

There is an unwritten rule that says Tom has to play the contest games while playing DDR on expert and singing vocals on Rockband at the same time, right? lol

Looking forward to seeing Tom's score along with everyone else's scores.

Strange rules. I think it should be the best score someone can get on a single life, loops included. Getting a hi score with a bunch of deaths isn't that impressive, especially since in this game you can recover your options.  It would also make passing the escape sequence actually mean something.

We actually did that when it was played for the finals in the 2013 summer tournament. Bimmy chose different rules to change things up. Feel free to participate!

One-life is naturally an excellent setup, but we did this already, and many times. I personally find it refreshing to try to maximize points in just one loop. Losing lives cause harm since it is much harder to kill everything around without the powerups.

You should give it a try, you'll find yourself changing your pattern in order to maximize points everywhere in the game. This is an interesting take on a shmups.

Also, the ending sequence is really a joke when you know how to pass through it without much effort.

Yeah I didn't realize you all had done that before.  I haven't really played this game that much to understand the scoring and stuff, I just played it last year to claim a loop 1 no death run.

You should play in this week ocntest man, you're a shmups lover and expert, it would be nice to compete with you!

Agreed. Would love to see you play Bayou Billy when it comes around as I watched the no death video you posted. Good stuff.