I don't know, I was able to push it in the 70's with the 4 heads, and I was sloppy. With attack first + small jump that head wasn't longer to beat than the others.

I had a hard time dodging attacks. Your character just seems a lot slower than most of the enemies and some come at you in inopportune times or at weird angles.

I was tempted to give this a go just based on the fact I've never played it before, but the mid contest rule change just killed it for me. I probably would have been going for a participation point to begin with, but I really doubt I could've gotten anywhere on 1 life.

Too bad it killed it for you, but the change or rule was a necessity in order to make the contest a contest.

Sorry if my comment came off as a shot on your rule change, I'm just saying there's probably no way that I could have put up a competitive score at a game I've never even played with a one life rule.

No problem Doug, I am the first that prefer that rules are set in stones right off the bat, but sometimes it unfold differently cause we lack of knowledge on a specific game. Bimmy have the best intentions when setting rules, but it happens a problem arise by itself once the gamers go deeper into the game.

This said, I think you would have been surprised by how good you could have done in this game. This is like an easy version of Ninja Gaiden with no holes. It is short, and you have full of possibilities to recharge hearts and chips throughout the stages.

I had never played it before this week either and I did okay. Nearly made it to the last boss.

You're every bit as good as I was (if not better) so it's tough to say how I would have done.

Nah man,you would have done better. Nice to see you back in the thread.

Maybe it was a matter of getting into your groove in different ways.

I was able to get more points with just the first two heads than all 4, and maxed my Stage 1 score using the first 3 heads for the point-press (and that round I probably left a couple thousand on the table, so while I don't think 80k is possible from the 1st stage, 77-78k can definitely be done)


Also - gutsman --- we're talking post-boss FULL stage 1 score.  (the boss fight + bonuses is worth roughly 10k, so finishing Stage 1 itself with 65k is the pace to get 75k for the total stage)

Oh I know....not that I even came close to obtaining that.

Just wanted to make sure.  Because otherwise those numbers jump from "tough to get/impressive" to "ludicrous"

Took a break and tallied these up, hopefully it is helpful:
(I lumped all of the entries that didn't meet the 1-life requirement at the bottom for participation points)

1) arnpoly:              514,470
2) arch_8ngel:         497,350
3) guillavoie:            481,320
4) BilltownSparty:    407,120
5) ruudos:               260,160
6) gutsman004:       178,160
7) sunsetflip84:         60,240
8) Velinos:                56,560
9) BriGuy82:             55,040
10) Jmanson03:        52,270
-----------------------------------------
1-life runs that didn't make the scoring-cut
:
EgasKrad:          35,200
Dennis Fleaman: 29,060
dataz722:           20,700
pats1717:             6,090

----------------------------------------
played more than 1-life (so scores not weighed against top-10):

Geester:           596,010 
Vectrex280996: 231,820 
quiet451:          136,860 
dropkickorange:  57,470 
treismac:           52,230 
jump_man95:     49,720 
cgfeelit:             42,290 
Thundercat08:    30,720
razeak:              27,960 

Glad i got my participation point

Totally missed the rule change. Sorry about that. :/

No problem, that is mainly our bad.