Just noticed you have three straight 2nd place finishes Toxie.  Welcome to my struggle  

I was hoping to take first at least once this year, but I have never played any of the games left on the schedule, so the odds ain't great

Yeah exactly, just get through it man it will be all the more satisfying.

 

I was hoping it was going to be Battletoads but Arnopoly just fuckin wrecked that game hahahahahahah
 

The biggest Battletoads mistake I ever made was trying to beat the game using warps. It's much more satisfying and legit playing through every stage.

And Volkmire's is now one of my favorite stages (my other favorite is Arctic Cavern) when I used to hate it. I'm probably alone on thinking that it's fast paced fun once you've memorized all the gates sections.




 

I still to this day have never used a single warp.....I don't even know where they are. I would much rather just have the practice.
 

I could never beat Terra Tubes when I was warping. I'm making much better progress without them. Maybe playing all the stages better prepares you for later levels.

Can't say I've ever used a warp either.

Right, and once you master the previous levels you can therefore get the 1-ups in the stages without dying (as much) and therefore have more lives for the level you are stuck at.
 

Sorry guys!  I had to defend my title from last year.     This is the only game I had any shot of winning this year, short of dropping everything else in a week to try and master something else.  I'm back to (mostly) single attempts and participation scores on everything else the rest of the way.  I had to give up a lot of sleep to make time to work on Battletoads and I can't make a habit of doing that anymore.  Also, Ikari Warriors is still looming for my blog as well, so I'm back to full blast on that game.

EDIT:  Decided to check the schedule and there are a few games that I'll probably try more than once because I particularly like them.  But nothing I could reasonably have a shot at winning, or maybe even Top 8.

Ask and you shall receive!  Sorry it was a bit late this week.  I've worked quite a bit over the last few days and didn't have a lot of time to write.  Hope you all enjoy  


Oh man, you guys were AWESOME this past week helping the Battletoads stop the Dark Queen!  Zitz shot video with his cell phone after the final fight with her and you should have seen the Dark Queen and her minions scurry away with their tails between their legs.  The best part was when Rash and Pimple both gave her the finger!  Although, near the end of the video, she said something about how the Battletoads hadn’t seen the last of her and she would get her revenge one day.  The last thing you hear in the video is their friend, Professor T. Bird, asking the Dark Queen if she wanted to join him for a drink next Friday night at this new place called Biggoron’s Beer Barn.  You can’t quite make out what the Dark Queen says, but you can hear A LOT of f-bombs!
 
So, quite a bit happened to Jimmy and me while you guys were away helping the Battletoads fight their way through Ragnarok.  Here’s what you missed in the exciting lives of the Double Dragons:
 
 

• Jimmy and I arrived on set early Monday morning to start filming for Double Dragon: Neon, and let me tell you, it…was…AWESOME!!  There was so much action and cool rock music and…NEON!  There’s so much neon in this movie that it will blow your mind!  Neon costumes, neon lights, neon-filled night scenes…it’s intense!  So, on Tuesday morning when we got to the set, we got pulled aside by our agent.  Apparently the director said there would have to be extensive re-shoots because, according to him, Jimmy and I aren’t “good actors” and we look like “a couple dorks jumping around in our pajamas.”  I was like, hello, they’re called karate outfits, not pajamas!  I already went through this with the Dark Queen the other day.  Anyway, we got replaced by the Bad Dudes, Blade and Striker.  Like, what the heck!  They don’t even look like us!  So we both got checks for $2000, which I immediately spent on a Stadium Events NES cartridge on ebay.  That holy grail is finally mine!
• I ended up having to call Mario Bros. Plumbing to get my toilet fixed.  Man, I don’t know what Bo Abobo ate, but he sure did a number on my pipes.  And he was right about a “Super C” surprise!  That damn thing could have been used as the “C” in the Contra logo!  Anyway, the total bill came to like $2000, which I didn’t have because I spent it on a Stadium Events cart.  Mario told us if we didn’t have the money that we could also pay him in shrooms.  So I called up my good buddy Max Force down at NARC Headquarters and asked him if they had any shrooms.  I was in luck because they had just busted Mr. Big for like the 200th time and had a ton of them in evidence lock-up.  There was one catch, though: I had to get him a bit role in Double Dragon: Neon.  I was like “Uh…yeah, sure…uh…no problem!” (Shhhh, don’t tell him I got fired from the movie!)  So Mario and Luigi got their shrooms and I saved a ton of money.
• I got my cable bill the other day and my eyeballs popped out of my head (yep, just like the Battletoads) when I saw how much I owed.  Those idiot minions of the Dark Queen watched hours of wrestling on Pay-Per View!  It also took me forever to turn all my books back around and put my DVDs back in alphabetical order.  And those idiots stained Marian’s new coffee table by not using coasters.  She is going to be super pissed about that!
• I also got my Stadium Events cart in the mail on Thursday!  I was so excited and I could hardly contain myself!  I torn the package open and stared happily at the crown jewel of my video game collection.  So, I pulled out the Power Pad, hooked up the NES, and popped the game on in…only to discover someone board-swapped it with Barbie for the NES!  DAMMIT!!!!!

 
 
So let’s flash-forward to just the other day, Friday.  Marian and Princess Angelica are at their boring old Girl’s Night Karaoke at Club Snatcher in Neo Kobe City and the Battletoads and Professor T. Bird are hanging out with me and Jimmy at my place and we are playing video games and drinking heavily.  Professor T. Bird is a bit depressed because he could have been on a date tonight with the Dark Queen, while Rash is fuming over his credit card bill.  Apparently that tramp stamp tattoo the Dark Queen charged on his card was SUPER expensive!  So I just handed him a cup of Maker’s Mark and said “Here you go, Rash.  Drink some Maker’s Mark.  It will make you feel better.”  He muttered something like “No it won’t,” but took it anyway and gulped it down quickly.  So I’m drunk as shit and I’m about ready to do a keg stand with Zitz when the doorbell rings.  Everything goes dead quiet and we all stare at the door, afraid to even answer it after what happened last week.  With all the courage I can muster up, I mutter “C-c-come i-in.”  The door flies open and guess who walks right in…THE NINJA TURTLES!!!  Oh man, did we ever party hard that night!  Michaelangelo brought some of the coolest pizzas ever!  Anchovy and pineapple, ice cream and chocolate sauce with cherries on top, cottage cheese and strawberry, chicken and waffles, and Spam and hot dogs (Jerms would have been all over this, but he is still not feeling good, so Pimple saved him a few slices).  Raphael drank too much and got into a fight with Leonardo over which Ninja Turtle they were going to be in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 on the NES.  They both wanted to be Donatello (who doesn’t), so they settled it with a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors (Leonardo won by the way).  The next thing I know, Jimmy’s cell phone starts ringing.  He answers it and this big smile spreads across his face.  Apparently it was his new girlfriend that he has been seeing for a week now.  Every time I asked him who it was, he wouldn’t tell me.  Anyway, he said something like “Hey, baby, how’s it going?  You just got back home, eh?  What are you wearing?  Oh, that sexy black leather outfit, huh?  And you got a dragon tramp stamp tattoo?  That sounds hot.”  At that moment, Professor T. Bird sits to attention and turns and looks at Jimmy, an angry scowl spreading across his face.  “Yeah, baby, I can come over later.  You think you will be able to dry clean that black dress you bought in Hyrule” Jimmy says over the phone.  At that moment, Professor T. Bird jumps on Jimmy and starts pounding him with his fists.  “Hey, that’s my woman you ASS” the professor shrieks as Jimmy tries to fight him back, feathers flying in all directions.  We all start laughing hysterically as Donatello and Rash attempt to pry Professor T. Bird off my brother.  Then all of a sudden, it hit me harder than a Falcon Punch by Captain Falcon: Jimmy’s new girlfriend was the Dark Queen!  It made me so sick to my stomach that I ran into the bathroom and started puking my guts out.  Well, it could have been all the liquor and beer I drank that night.  I had A LOT to drink!  I remember little after that, except for Marian kicking me in the leg and saying something like “figures you passed out on the bathroom floor again” and Jimmy picking me up and carrying me to bed.  Well, that should do it for now.  I hope nothing bad comes out of Jimmy’s relationship with the Dark Queen.  And if it does, I’m sure the Battletoads will be right there with us to save the world as the ultimate team!  Hey, I kind of like the sound of that.  Battletoads and Double Dragon: The Ultimate Team!  I’m going to go run that by the Toads right now!  See you all next time!

Hahahahahah goddamn BimBim that is some clash of video game universes you got going on in that one.

I think these are the most video game universe crossovers/references I've included in a contest story since the Yoshi's Cookie intro and outro. Those had an insane number of video game references.

Speaking of references, if anyone gets where the "Here you go, Rash. Drink some Maker's Mark. It will make you feel better." quote is from, you win the internet  

"I don't want any Maker's Mark!"
 

Haha, you win the internet...and a hot dog.

Keep your filthy world, I'm just here for the hot dogs.

Hmm, the strangest thing has happened to me in Battlemaniacs. I've had Karnath's and the Rat Race paused for a decent amount of time, and then shortly after unpausing it it considered both levels beaten and took me to the cutscene. Both were near the end of the level so I didn't miss much... just very strange

Well Battlemaniacs down. Easily the weakest in the main series.

Besides the OST, I've never cared much for the game. The only other one that comes close (but still misses the mark) is BT&DD. Back to the Terra Tubes, dudes...

I almost no-deathed the Terra Tubes on my last run, but I died two or three times on the final section. Trust me it gets easier with practice.
 

Agreed, the levels kind of suck.....OST is pretty good though I dig the stage 1 song for sure.

Plus I am not a fan of the big sprites....
 

Yeah they are a real PITA on Karnath's where you constantly jump into spikes that are just off-screen.

I just got the Rat Race glitch and I had a bunch of lives and all three continues left.

But I know precisely what causes it. When the rat is on the same electrical beam as you at the end, he'll go through the wall and never drop down. I guess when it's a really close race, just let him win.

How the heck did the programmers not catch this one and fix it? Or did they intentionally leave it in to make the game even harder?
 

I made it to Gen. Slaughter on my last continue with three lives left and lost to him. That's almost as bad as getting the glitch, lol.

I don't think they did any Q&A on it. The amount of bugs in the game is staggering.
It is even worse on the Genesis port.  
 

That indicates a bit of a rush job. It's still a great game and I love it. It has bugs that make the game easier and bugs that make the game harder. I guess it evens out.