I did something like that to power level in Y's 3 one time.

Regardless of what you think of the tactics James used, it wasn't stated in the beginning that he COULDN'T camp for points. Whether you think it's an ethical way to play the contest, you can't simply add rules while the contest is going. I say let his score stand and remember this next time when you're trying to establish your rules for the next game.

It's only "unfair" when the score is basically unbeatable.  We've already acknowledged that skill will beat spamming in this case, and there are a lot of good Contra players on these boards.  Why condemn someone for thinking outside of the box?

Back to NWC, the "best" players probably tried to speed run SMB3 and Pinball to get to Tetris and then rack up points.  The "best" THINKING players looked at the multiplier on SMB3 and realized you need to spam points early to win.  I think that's just as cheesy when a very talented player could have lost simply due to his lack of thinking. 

Jonas - I'm not condemning anyone. I know that his score will almost definitely be beaten, and the tactic is suboptimal for this game, anyway. I'm just pointing out that camping with no time limit is a totally different animal than figuring out how to crank out maximum points under the pressure of a time limit with multiple required milestones.

The "NWC" was SMB/Rad Racer/Tetris, and the best players DID win with Tetris.

The "NCC" was SMB3/Pinball/Dr. Mario, and the big winners spammed in SMB3.

^ Whoops, yeah I meant NCC, the one we recently had the challenge for. I agree camping with no time limit is pretty "cheesy", but that's no reason to void his score. He's within the rules of the contest and is free to play how he wishes...

I think it should be allowed because it wasn't disallowed at the start. Back in the Wrecking Crew competition when the question of spamming 1ups to sit and score came up, I mentioned you should check Twin Galaxies before the start of a competition to see what rules they had posted for guidelines. So... next time, just check Twin Galaxies for rules ideas. If there's any 'cheap' tactics, believe me, they'd know 'em.

I agree with Arse all the way here.
If someone made a fault, it's not James. Guys who organized the contest must establish rules before hand. It is not a hard task at all, you basically just need to play one game and watch carefully the possible rules to apply. In every contra games, you can rack points by camping in a level. If we don't want camping, we must establish the rule before hand, not after someone invested 4 hours to raise a score.
Good luck to everyone, James's score is beatable.

I totally did the same thing at my friends
He bought a CIB for like $5 and after a short time I was like this sucks, and put the controller under a table
so we could do something else while it leveld up. We came back, then just laughed, and never played it again.

#########

On the topic of the james score, count it, whatever, its not going to be a winning score by any means. As long as he didnt just tape he button down or something, ie he actually was controlling the dude shooting shit, its ok.
Personally I think turbo controllers shouldnt be allowed but that wasnt stated at the beginning so it cant be now. But yeah, he said it took him 3 hours, that score can be beaten in like 20-30mins easy as pie by a decent contra player, so its no worry.

I gave this a shot earlier, and I'm preposterously rusty. Tried a couple of runs with the laser, a couple with the spread, but the timing just isn't there any more. I'll try again later maybe.

e: I just scored 852,600. I was dragging my ass through the game dying all sorts of stupid deaths... hovered around 1 life the whole time, just barely scraping out enough extra lives to keep going. It was not very enjoyable but thankfully I managed to drag my sorry ass through a full cycle. Should be easy enough to beat, but I'm frustrated at Contra already because I know I'm better at it than this so someone else have at it for now.

Nice score OSG. Looks like I'll be playing a little more Contra later tonight!

Finally a game I (at least used to be) good at.

Giving this one a crack later tonight.

Lets see what the poll said

Ok james ill accept your score!
Jeremy.

But Osg beat your score anyway but you still; have a chance in the leaderboard!
Jeremy

That dashing, handsome bastard.

haha what lol
Jeremy

Here you guys go!  This one took 1 hour 3 minutes, and my left thumb is killing me!  LOL. 

O WOW!!
NICE ASS SCORE!

im done
this is just so bad ass
i just crapped my pants

you are a contra king

very very nice

^^ wow.. amazing score, and this is one of the reasons i knew i didnt want to play this week!! lol

at least a bunch of us have the week off, now

Aha, damn. Well, if I can get back on my game you're on but well played, sir.

yeah, okay. i don't think i could get that score with 30 lives

Thanks for the nice comments guys. I played through the game 3 times and made it around half way through on the last time. I might give it another go and send the tape into twin galaxies if I'm able to get the max score.

Yeah that's an awesome score indeed, did you do a lot of ad-libing after your deaths or were you lucky and held onto the Spread gun most of the time?