Pretty nice score you got there, Gloves.
I guess I am playing this again now that I am back from my pure, chaste and innocent date.

 

The new guy smashed the high score from retroachievements.

http://retroachievements.org/lead...

I've thought that Star Force is in the top 10 most difficult NES games, and now I'm not so sure. I'm really impressed by what I've seen this week. I don't think it would take me much more time to beat the game given where I'm at.

You are a bit more humble than I am, but you are more skilled than average at NES games.  

I've compared the difficulty to Bayou Billy. Those who are good at the genre might get something out of it, annoyingly high learning curve for everybody else.
 

That would be a good idea for a thread. Is there such a thing as genre specific skills? I've never finished higher the second in a puzzle or shooter contest, but I've got championships in the other four. I even beat Tom for my 2013 sports genre title. I always thought of myself being good at individual games as opposed to being good at a genre, but that would make for an interesting discussion.

Sure I think most people have genre strengths and weaknesses. For example, Gloves is much better at shooters than beat em ups and I'm the other way around. Of course there are people like Tom Votava who are great at everything.
 

Maybe he'll chime in, but I think Tom's potential weakness was sports games, which is my best genre. When I won the 2013 sports the title, the lineup was Ice Hockey, Mike Tyson's Punch Out!! and Rad Racer which is probably as good of a lineup that I could've asked for. Tom doesn't have a sports genre icon and I have two, so there may be something to this theory.

Super Off Road: The Baja is out of the way, I have no date tomorrow and can cramp my hands.
Time to give this another run and be cute when it comes to scoring points rather than just playing safe.

For reference for anyone curious, my personal method for shmups in general, and it indeed helped me massively here, is research.

I have written down the order of enemies from the start to the end of their loop. I have rated waves for their speed, and overall difficulty. Knowing when things are coming takes the guess work out of it, and helps massively. Since the enemies ALWAYS come in the same order, I always knows what's coming up and can be prepared ahead of time, no guessing at all.

Also, the ridiculous high score is because of the constraints of this contest. The most points you can possibly get is from the terrain. The 80k bonus rows, and the Cleopatra in particular are huge. I got 3 Cleos, each worth 1 million, that's half my score right there.

So rather than focusing on killing stuff, I focus on dragging out as many enemy waves as possible, so I can loop the terrain as far as I can. Less enemy waves means easier enemies overall. Regardless, you will have to fully get past every single enemy wave to beat the game, and it's incredibly difficult to do on one life.

The best advice I can give is simply "watch your ship". If you're concerned about what the enemies are doing, you'll get hit by a stray bullet. Watch your ship and find a path through the bullets.

And in this game you can know exactly what will hit you next, their movement and their shooting patterns.
In this case, the wave bonus will be my downfall as I just can't press the buttons fast enough for long enough to get it on my Genesis like pads.
But I will try to get as close as I can to the old new guy score as I can.

Score update, page 10...
6,000,100 points. =_=
Wave bonuses were my doom indeed.  

well shit. lol back to the farm league for skinny  

I am waiting for that 6,660,000 Skinny snipe at the last minute today.  

 

It's okay.  Us "normals" can never compete with the Raymonds of the world



 

**27,100

66 300.

71,600

This game should be called "Arthritis" because that's really what it provides.

73,400

Score update. Have you ever tried to update your score via mobile? Not recommended!

i dont have a pc so i have to. lol   its not fun.
 

well after i foind cleo i kept shitting the bed. played all day and never did make it back there. figures.

amazing scores. the trash talker has been humbled this week.

Yup, first time today. Had to update my Nintendo Age password to Jamesisgay! 

 

That was a lot of fun playing star force this week with y'all. There were some great scores posted near the end. Very impressive the game could be beaten on one life. Unfortunately my score couldn't stack up at all to yall's. (I didn't have time to play at all this weekend) I'm happy I now know a lot about this game and it's secrets like Cleo. Maybe I'll compete again this year. I've had a great time sharing scores and discovering tips along the way. Great job gloves, skinny, and bea!