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2016 WEEK 25 SANTA WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE!!! - ISOLATED WARRIOR
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This week was a doozy!
We started off with a nuke from gutsman004 (that was redacted and forced a rule change) and then was flooded with an early slew of tight knit scores bunched up around the 600k mark.
From there is was a trash talk fest and the week was capped off with some "Kobra Kai" magic.
No doubt the results of this week's game will have major implications towards who will be crowned 2016 NA Shooter Champion.

With Isolated Warrior now officially in the books, our contestants approach the final leg of the season.
Take a peek below at the update this week to gain some insight on the top events of the week and gain some insight on the chase for genre crowns and ( a guestimate) on how the playoffs might be shaping up.


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"KOBRA KAI" POUNCES LATE TO KEEP A GRIP ON SHOOTER CROWN LEAD
skinnygrinny plays possum to overcome some massive scores in the 11th hour

Sandafloor!

What a finish this week for Isolated Warrior! After a week of smack talk and secrets, skinnygrinny won out to keep a slim lead in the race for the shooter crown.
Skinny posted an initial score of 102,000 as a "placeholder" score early in the week to keep his rivals in the dark and pull another classic self styled Kobra Kai move.

"The Boogey Man" of the NA contests erizisto appeared this week to scare the bejesus out of everyone in attendance. Erizisto would eventually top out his score at 2,217,200 just behind the scoring machine bertsampson (better known as the Human Cyborg) who posted up a whopping 2,250,400 total. These scores towered over the rest of the field for the week.
Everyone waited to see what Kobra Kai would eventually offer.

A few players tried to coax skinny out from hiding with some good old fashioned smack talk.

Gutsman004 was the first to try. After posting a truly incredible score over 3 million, guts took back his score and tempted skinny with some meme based taunts and public displays of doubt.
Guts also held the top spot early along with fellow battle hardened mbd39.

"The Prodigy" Brock Landers (who is in the mix for the Season Shooter crown as well) threw insults and curveballs at skinny all week. Among the highlights were an awesomely ridiculous pic of celebrating cobra troops from the G.I. Joe cartoon mocking his
namesake. After posting a high score, Brock also bragged about competing in the NA Survivor contest, the SNES contest AND having friends over. Doing all this and STILL being confident that Kobra Kai could not top his score - in the hopes some shred of info
would leak out. Skinny only offed up a poem using his pen name "Isolated Skinny."

In the end, skinny held his cards close to his chest until the last possible moment to avoid others finding out his secret.
Although point racking had been outlawed, maximizing your score by using ALL of your lives was not.

Skinny was the only one it seems this week to try that strategy, and it paid off.
Well done Kobra Kai.


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THE RACE FOR THE SHOOTER CROWN WILL COME DOWN TO ROADBLASTERS ON 9/11-9/18
As the end of the 2016 Season starts to appear over the horizon, the title of "Best Shooter on NA" is down to two players

Is it just me, or has the smack talk for the Shooter Genre Championship been going on since before the contests even started this year? Sure feels this way at least!

After 25 weeks of play - there is one game remaining on the shooter docket - Roadblasters. The title of "2016 NA Shooter Champion" will be decided in a little over a month by this title.
There are 3 contestants left that concievably have a shot at this coveted title. Take a look at the standings (should this week's submissions hold).

1st - skinnygrinny     42pts
2nd - bertsampson    40pts

Skinny's apparent victory this week puts one more point between himself and last year's shooter champ bertsampson.
Rumor has it that skinny lost out to bert last year for the crown by 1 single point. If skinny is able to top bert's score, he will take the crown from him.

In order for bert to win outright - he would need to beat skinny's score AND get some help from 2 other players to put themselves between him and skinny.
This is definitely a possiblity.

Sandafloor rival Brock Landers would love nothing more than to crush the dreams of his rival in the waning moments of this season.
Bea_Iank jumped into the contests late, but has stormed up the leaderboards with her expertise of NES games. Could she upend skinny?
Don't forget about erizisto, ToxieRules and other sleeping NA greats lurking in the shadows.
Could guillavoie come out of retirement to influence the scores?
How about multiple world record holder rdrunner?

Keep your eyes on the contests that week in September folks for what will surely be an extremely entertaining finish in the shooter genre this year!


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NOSTRADUMBASS'S CRYSTAL BALL CLOUDY FOR WEEK 25
It's the Contests Horoscope!

Week 25 was an off week for the resident sooth sayer of the NA contests.
Brock through out some numbers that were a bit low , and seemed to be attempting to coax Kobra Kai out from hiding.

Here's how he did.

Brocks Picks / (Actual Score)

1. Brock Landers - 1,000,000 (1,895,800)
2. bertsampson - 999,999     (2,250,400)
3. arnpoly - 900,000            (661,900)
4. ToxieRules - 800,000        (295,400)
5. gutsman004 - 700,000      (971,000)
6. mbd39 - 600,000              (1,872,700)
7. Richardhead - 500,000       ( 0 )
8. Bea_Iank - 450,000          (1,983,500)


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2016 PLAYOFF PICTURE STARTING TO COME INTO FOCUS
Number of contestants not officially set. Here is the Update's best guess on where things stand at the moment

The 2016 season of the NA contests is rounding it's last turn. After 25 weeks of competition, only 9 weeks remain.
- Rollergames
- Lunar Pool
- [BYE WEEK]
- Pinball
- Danny Sullivan's Indy Heat
- Road Blasters
- Mighty Bomb Jack
- Mendel Palace

It's hard to believe only 8 games remain.

Taking into account Isolated Warriors final scores, let's take a look at the current Top 18 players from 2016.
(mods please correct this, but the thinking is 6 players placed into 3 divisions for the playoffs?)

If the playoffs started today (and if this format was/is correct) the tiers would look like this...

TIER 1
1.  bertsampson        198pts
2T. skinnygrinny        160pts
2T. Brock Landers      160pts
4.  ToxieRules           102pts
5.  gutsman004           99pts
6.  arnpoly                  95pts

TIER 2
1. Richardhead             91pts
2. mbd39                     81pts
3. TWarwick07             79pts
4. JamesRobot             73pts
5. SuperJimtendo         68pts
6. Krunch                     67pts

TIER 3
1.    Ferris Bueller            66pts
2.    Commander Santa    65pts
3.    barrelsAndRivets      64pts
4T.   laddersandcakes      63pts
4T.   smick                      63pts
6.    Bea_Iank                 61pts

IN THE HUNT
* EgasKrad                    60pts
* Seppatoni                   56pts
* zobber                        53pts
* Mega Tank                   47pts
* Jandrem                      44 pts
* (many others)

Of course this is all speculative. This also does not take into account juggernauts like erizisto and rdrunner coming out of nowhere to score their way into the playoffs - nor does it take into account players qualifying for playoffs deciding not to participate.

The best part of the contests for most of us is trying our best each week to compete amongst a highly skilled group of gamers.
...It's also fun to see how competition might shape up come playoff time too.

Time is short!
8 more chances to up your score and make it to the big dance!
Get those scores in!


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That's it for another update!

- What will the standings look like in 9 weeks?
- Does anyone know if Richardhead crashed his bike again somewhere? (is he ok?)
- When will bimmy_lee finally recieve his long overdue community writer's icon?

Keep tuning into the contests to find out!







 

No doubt. And with my precious icon on the line against Bert I wasn't going to leave ANY points on the board. 

I botched stage 5 in the video lol.
 

You may have found it already, but there's a secret health refill in stage 5 close to the boss fight.
 

Thanks Santa  

+1 for bimmy gettin one of them therr grammer icons   
 

Brock was correct about me getting 6th place, but he was a little off on the score.

I kind of expected BriGuy to show up and post a score because he beat this game for the "beat every NES game in 2016" thread. I'll beat it for that thread next year. I hope it'll still be worth 10 points.

Oh ya, I was trying to get it but missed lol 
 

The stage 5 boss is really weird. Give this game points for originality.

Lol. Stage 5 boss is like a giant old central a/c blowing up haha. 

they should have made the stage 3 boss the end boss. As far as the look. 

Bosses in order of coolness 

3,7,1,5,6,2,4

We're those giant neon bullets in the final boss battle I had to jump over? Lol

I would switch the rankings of 1 and 2. Stage 2 boss is a total pushover, but it's interesting looking.


 

Also, stage 4 boss is nondescript and looks like a regular enemy, but as a boss fight it's pretty intense with the ever present risk of falling to your doom or taking too much damage from its attacks. Stage 2 is a boring boss fight with an interesting looking boss and stage 4 has an exciting boss fight with a plain looking boss.

I agree. But I had to take away points because the main piece doesn't move   

Idk I'm weird I like stage 1 cause it's like a worm or something.  the stage one boss can be a b. If you get touched by one of the body parts when it exploits at the end it fucks your bonus, even if you have a shield!

I can never consistently avoid the stage 1 boss explosion. Sometimes it hits me, sometimes it doesn't.

 

Wait... what? Is that how the playoff system works? D:
I will need to start slacking up at my scores then, so I can get taken out of them.
Playoff dates will be near the end of the Spring, and I have SO MUCH debauchery planned for those months I will hardly have any time for video games, darn it.  

Don't worry, you can decline your tournament invite if you choose.  I'll probably be doing that myself this year...
 

Well if anyone wants to watch a really mediocre run recorded in the middle of the night (for reasons) with bad lighting, a bad angle, and a shitty CRT, this is the video for you!





So I've now played the game 6 times

I can't believe you've played this so few times. I mean, didn't you even have any aborted runs where you had to reset because you screwed up on stage one or something?

Freemake video converter is free and doesn't cripple your videos with the trial version text.
 

Yeah, sorry about the watermark. I had to clear out my phone, backup the backups of the data since it was stuff like every picture I've ever taken of my son. Try and upload the .MOV, which failed after several hours, then convert to .mp4, upload, which then failed to process. Then upload again, to finally get a shitty video online

All while my old laptop kept overheating and turning off.

The spastic bombing is because I know I activated bonus or intermission (?) areas in level 1 and 5 in those areas, but I don't really know how that works

I beat the first and second quests.

The second quest starts you with only three health and no bombs after you die.

You have to beat both quests to get the best ending with the end credits.

Well I was definitely considering it after starting to melt down on level 4.  But the game is so forgiving with letting you switch out to your crap setup before you die that it didn't really end up mattering.
 

This made me luagh real good sandafloor