Yeah, I feel your pain my good man, the 1-life rule is not the friendliest rule most of the time. But, I personally think it really put the spices in the competition for this particular game, cause it is not that hard to beat the game with multiple lives, but not losing one is quite demanding. This helps to evaluate easily who's best at it. The analogy with DD2 is spot on, and I might say that the first time we played DD2, we made it 1-life as well for the same reason.

The only advice I would give about this contest, is to never underestimate any of the enemies. From the easier ones to the more tricky ones, never put your guard down, consider every piece of energy as a life on its own. And I'm saying this while having personal problems staying focused and vigilant myself, but I definitely do better when I put efforts in my gameplay to be 100% conservative.

I'm taking a break from it actually. I'll probably retry in a bit though. I might just play through it as I haven't played anything other than the first few scenes so those have gotten very old. I do know that I've been playing pretty aggressive using almost exclusively standard attacks for the 600 points instead of only 400 for kicks and throws. I try not to use my special moves on the bosses using positioning and timely attacks instead,but it's hard not to use specials when they do so much damage and you are basically invincible while performing them. I almost feel like I'm cheating using the special. They make the boss fights very forgettable and I for one like memorable boss fights.

Even without the special move, boss battles are just awfully long and repetitive. That miner rat is just a pain in the ass to beat, so easy but so time consuming.

So I played through (most of) the game. I made it to Super Shredder but died and had already burned through my continues. The Technodrome level is so freaking long and tedious. So after all that I can definitely say that this is the worst TMNT game I have ever played. In my opinion,this game is tedious,repetitive,drawn out,and boring. When I play TMNT 3,it reminds me of the grinding that you have to do to level up in a lot of RPGs. I will probably not play this game again after this week is over unless it comes up again in a weekly contest. I hate to say this stuff about a TMNT game made by Konami,because I love both entities,but man this game is so far below what I expect from a Konami game,especially a TMNT one.

I'm not really a fan of the one life rule. I agree with the bolded statement to a point, but it also gives an unfair advantage to people that have experience with a particular game going into the contest. I've beaten this game multiple times so I'm not having too much trouble, but someone that hasn't played it much (or at all) is probably going to die repeatedly on the early levels and just give up out of frustration. I'm not sure if this has anything to do with why the participation seems to be fairly low this week or not, but I could see where it may discourage the more casual gamers that don't have the time or patience to spend the entire week trying to get the hang of a game just to have their score beaten by people that were already familiar with it.

well here is my first score, going to keep trying today for better!
23800

General thought for the future: Perhaps instead of a one-life rule, it would work better to give out a bonus for beating the game with lives remaining? As long as a game doesn't offer a whole bunch of places to earn 1ups, this allows beginners to play without being annoyed with having to restart their games so often, while also offering the same level of competition for advanced players.

I agree that the stages in TMNT 3 drag on at certain points, but at least the enemies vary more than in TMNT 2. That's why I like it better, even though I wish the game was a little more balanced near the end. Doug's right: This game needs more pizzas!

That's a really good idea. I think that would make it more fun for everybody involved. The more experienced players could go for low/no death runs while the beginners would still have a chance to put up some really good scores by the end of the week.

I'm glad some people like this game.This week was my first time to ever play it and I'm pretty disappointed. Give me TMNT 2 over this all day...TMNT 1 even. I see both sides of the one life rule. With my no experience on this game,it's very frustrating. Now if this was Ninja Gaiden then I would be all over this. I think as a whole,the one life rule puts a limit on your gaming experience,the severity of which being dependent on a player's current skill level. Unless you are really good at a game,you won't get very far in the game and will be playing the early stages repeatedly which definitely will get old eventually unless you absolutely love the game or are highly skilled with it.

78,200 (score updated!!)

Thanks to fellow member "Stan", he gave me a few pointers on how to improve my score. Big thanks!!

239900


It took some doing to get this score. I think it's pretty solid.

I haven't had a chance to play this yet, but I agree with this statement. I hate having to restart again and again after dying and I tend to lose interest rather quickly.

Yeah,you'll lose interest pretty quickly. I'm about to put this game down for good.

Please guys, let's refrain from posting any more negativity about the current set of rules from now on.

Tom's idea is a good idea (and Bimmy used rules with bonus for extra lives numerous times yet), and the 1-life rule is a good idea as well. Bimmy try to diversify the rules and the type of challenge in which we'll compete every week. Sometimes he goes for all lives, sometimes he goes for 1-life. Us, we have to play along the lines he chose. There's no absolute solution about the choice of a certain rule over another, it is what it is and we must accept the challenge the way it is proposed to us.

Cool?

That's cool. I'm sure Bimmy will review each competition to see what games get or don't get a lot of interest as well as what rules are liked and not liked. Plenty have spoken their opinions about this rule setup and I'm sure those opinions will be considered for future contests.

37,600




I'm fighting off a bad ear infection that burst my left eardrum the other day, so this might well be my one and only attempt for this week's contest.  Good luck to everyone!!

You got it right man

And I hope I didn't sound too rude in my last post, I was basically doing the 'mod' job here.  I just wanted to express that notes had already been taken, and that pursuing the negativity (which was being constructive in first place) wasn't necessary for the good of this thread.

You didn't sound rude at all. I shouldn't have been griping about the game so much.

I never really got the impression that anyone was being negative. There may have been some venting of frustration, but overall it seemed like people were offering up constructive ideas along with their comments as opposed to just complaining. Maybe Bimmy would consider starting a private thread and inviting all of the regular contest participants to discuss a way to find a set of rules that would encourage the most participation. I think he wants everyone to have as much fun with the contests as possible so that may be a helpful option.

I've been largely quiet this week because I was on vacation earlier in the week and work has kept me rather busy the last few days because of the holiday (I work retail), so I want to share my thoughts on the rules I choose.

I get that not a lot of people like the 1-life rule. Yes, it can get to be a pain in the ass to reset the NES after each attempt, but sometimes it can be the best rule for specific games. I try to mix things up every week so that we aren't playing the same rules over and over again with different games. It would get to be a tedious grind if we were always playing until the last life or always playing with one life. Also, instituting the 1-life rule helps to add some challenge to the contests, and when creating rules, I try to vary the degree of difficulty for each contest to add some challenge to it. That doesn't mean that every single contest is going to require lots of effort to attain a good score, but sometimes I like to challenge everyone to see what kind of scores can be attained with certain rules. Also, we've come to the point in the contests where we are reusing games from past years, and in order to keep things fresh each time we reuse a game, the rules are altered to create a new gameplay experience the second time around. I do keep close tabs on what rules are popular with a specific game and which ones are problematic so that the next time we play a specific game, I can create a better set of rules.

On a total sidenote: Bring on Ninja Gaiden 2!

113,500. Participation point again for me. If only they had a pizza right before this boss, I would have been ok. But, I went in with only 4 life bars and made a few mistakes...ohh well). I liked the idea of having a throw move but more of a fan of the 2nd TMNT. It seems the bosses get somewhat easier in the later levels (Miner Rat was too easy when I just decided to keep playing). Then again, I've only beaten it once and haven't played it for a long time.

Anyway, I don't see this thread turning negative, just voicing opinions. I think we have all seen negative before...

^As of right now you are in the top 10 unless we see a bunch of last second scores. I know we'll probably see a few. Another reason I like seeing early scores....it shows interest,and that interest in theory will attract even more interest.

36,800



Happy to get a game I'm not strong at this week after all the time I put in last week learning Yoshi. In my opinion the Turtles games really aren't that great playing by yourself, and playing for points is just too dry for me so this is almost certainly my last. Good luck everyone.

35200



This game is hard, like all other Konami beat-em-ups. I tried several tries with everyone but Raphael and couldn't get better than 35200.