Hello everyone and welcome to the latest installment of the Weekly Contests!  So this week, I need everyone's help.  And I need it big time.  This morning I was working on my car in the garage, and before you ask what kind of car it is, I drive a 6000 Sux.  You know, the one that drives really fast and gets really bad gas mileage.  Anyway, my girlfriend Marian is there (you know, the hot girl with the dragon tattoo) and decides to go get us some lunch from this new place called Panic Restaurant.  No sooner does she walk out of the garage, I hear her scream.  I roll out from under the car and rush outside to see some ugly dude in a vest throwing her over his shoulder.  Before I can act, this huge bald guy throws me against the wall and I blackout.  What's that you say?  What did he look like?  I didn't get a good look at him, but I know he wasn't Karnov or Bald Bull or Soda Popinski or deathrock83.  So,  I wake up with a pounding headache and notice a note pinned to my shirt.  I unfold the note and this is what I see scrawled across the paper:


"Bimmy,

I have your girl, Marian.  Man is she ever hot!  This is revenge for putting that rubber snake in my bed.  You know I hate snakes.  If you want Marian back, come find me in my fort.  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Your cool brother,
Jimmy

P.S. We also let the air out of your car tires, stole all your ice cube trays, and pulled all the bookmarks out of your books!  Now you'll never know where you left off in How to Win at Nintendo Games!  HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!  Oh, and Abobo plugged up your toilet.  He said he wanted to leave you a "Super C surprise" hahahahaha!!!!  You might want to call a plumber."


Can you believe this!?  I put a rubber snake in Jimmy's bed as a harmless April Fool's Day prank and he kidnaps my girlfriend???  What kind of crap is this???  And he called me Bimmy!!  Like, hello, my name is Billy, not Bimmy.  Bimmy isn't even a real name!!  Get it right, moron!!  Also, are any of you out there a plumber?  He wasn't kidding about what this Abobo guy did.  He totally wrecked my bathroom.  I didn't think it was possible for a human being to produce so much...Anyway, this is where I need your help, and not with the bathroom.  I need all of you to help me get to Jimmy's hideout so I can rescue Marian.  Help this Double Dragon get his revenge...hmmmm...Double Dragon...revenge...this gives me an idea for a sequel...Anyway, this is what you need to know to get me to my brother:

 

• Play as far into your last life as possible
• Do not allow yourself to get a Game Over.  If you get a Game Over, your score will not count
• Get the highest score possible
• If you beat the game, take your picture on the end screen where Billy Lee rescues Marian (you can pause the game here)
• Any sort of point glitches in the game that can allow you to rack up points are forbidden.  These include, but are not limited to, the weapon point glitch in Level 2 and exiting and re-entering areas (these include the Pink Cave and Blue Cave).  It is also forbbiden to exit and re-enter areas to restore your health.  Anyone suspected of using any of these tactics or glitches will have their score disqualified.
• Point racking will be okay for this contest since there is a timer in the game
• Highest score wins
• GENRE: Beat 'Em Up

The contest ends Sunday, 5/18/14 at 11 PM NA time.  Your user name MUST be in the picture for your score to be valid.  The entire TV screen, or computer monitor if you are playing on an emulator, MUST be in the picture for the score to be valid.  No partial screenshots will be considered or accepted.  No screenshots by hitting "print screen" on a computer will be allowed.  You must take a picture of your computer monitor.  There may be instances where this will be acceptable, but it will be at the discretion of myself and the contest organizers.  Also, the use of turbo controllers is forbidden, as well as any cheat codes, Game Genies, or save states if playing on an emulator.  Also, we will only be using NTSC systems for the contests.  The use of PAL systems will NOT be allowed.  Good luck everyone and have fun

not again...this game gave me such aggita last time.

I'm not questioning integrity here, but isn't it going to be rather difficult to figure out weather or not people are point racking at the Stage 3 caves? Also, I never bothered to stay and find out myself, but do the Abobo's at the beginning of Stage 4 re spawn infinitely, or are there a set amount? What about the generic punks in the platforming section of Stage 4?

There is a timer in the game, so people will only be able to point rack for so long before they run out of time. Typically in games with timers, we allow point racking since it can only be done for so long. However, if there is a general consensus that a spot in the game could be abused for points, then we will make it forbidden. Point racking isn't as popular in the contests as it used to be, so many people just play through the game naturally now.

The only two spots in Double Dragon where you could get Abobos to respawn is in the Forest level, but you would have to loop through the level all over again to get them to respawn. It is possible they could respawn if you leave the Pink Cave, but such a point racking strategy has been made forbidden. You could also get the Abobo to respawn in Level 4 if you looped the level, but that would require moving past the walls again and most people probably won't want to go through that part twice.

When you leave the ruins in Stage 4 and go to the outside of Jimmy's base, there are an infinite number of Williams that spawn. However, given the timer, you could only point rack against them for so long. Theoretically, you could point rack in any level by repeatedly attacking an enemy and not kill them. With this contest, I'm interested to see what kind of scores people can put up without resorting to game glitches or exiting and re-entering levels.

Thanks for the clarification bimmy lee. I found out the hard way that the Williams in Stage 4 aren't really worth milking for much since they're at their toughest at that point.

Also, are people here familiar with the headbutt scoring glitch? My main concern about the point milking was because you can get a much higher score by doing nothing but headbutts on enemies. However, I noticed that if you headbutt when your score in the hundredths digit is a 9, it defaults to 0 and you actually lose points. For example, say you have 25,950 points and you perform a headbutt, an attack worth 700 points a piece, you would expect your score to go up to 26,650. However, you will actually be set back to 25,050. This doesn't happen with any other number that isn't a 9 in the hundredth digit. So you'd have to perform a punch/kick/jumpkick before performing another headbutt to keep from actually losing points.

Yeah,I think Tom actually brought that up the last time we played Double Dragon.

Since this is a glitch at our disadvantage, I'd say that we should simply play with it and try our best to not triggers it and lose points. Thoughts?

Agreed.

Killing everybody will headbutts is a tough road, anyway, since you have a much higher chance of mutual damage.

Aw, you remembered!

Yup, head butts are definitely the way to go for this game.  It's a difficult skill to use repeatedly, since you pretty much get hit every time you use it.  However, most of the time you don't get knocked down, so it's possible to hold out with an empty life meter for a while.  Just watch that hundreds digit!

I seem to have better luck doling out a kick or two and then a headbutt, in terms of avoiding taking a punch (or jump kick) while headbutting.

I've never really tried playing this for a high score before. Maybe I should give it a shot...

Dear lord, you guys. You really know this game!

Found a great and consistent headbutt method for killing Chintais and Abobos...

Doesn't work so well on Ropers and Williams, though.

Are Chintais the kung-fu mid-boss guys (boss of Stage 2)?  I'm having a hard time getting head butts off on them.  My best strategy so far is two kicks to the gut followed by a head butt.  Two kicks seem to stun enemies long enough to register a quick head butt w/o taking a hit as well.  Of course, this greatly diminishes scoring opportunities.

Yes that is them.

Chintais and Abobos seem to be unique in terms of your ability to stand inside their reach with impunity.

183,450

This thread lacks of scores, so here's an early attempt!

Don't you have a marker @home? I can hardly read it. They are for sell for about $0, 99.

Strong score!

I was only in the 140k range by that point in my attempts.  Guess I need to get more creative with my headbutts.
(also probably need to get good enough to point-press the super-Williams in the previous stage... but those guys have moves)

EDIT:
Interesting discovery on scoring: if time isn't a factor, the 2-kick-and-retreat method actually yields a higher score-per-kill.  

Obviously, time IS a factor, but there are situations where you can run the timer down kicking exclusively and get a higher score overall.

Well my best so far is 75K but that's with no headbutting. I have some work to do!

I have a cool story though from my first attempts. I was having issues with the Mission 4 bricks ... I had a couple of runs die right then and there. My wife was sitting with me watching me play and when I got back to Mission 4 she asked if she could try it. Well I figured I had nothing to lose so I handed her the controller. Mind you, she doesn't play video games at all, and here she takes the controller and walks through almost unscathed. (She got hit once right at the end of the section.) I was stunned ... what pattern did she see that I didn't? Of course, she had looked up the solution to that section on her phone when I wasn't looking, haha!

Yeah, headbutts are crucial.

Basically, Chintais, Abobos, and Ropers all need to die from headbutts to maximize score.

If you can get a weapon in your hand (so that you don't hair-grab) AND you have enough spare time, then kicking Lindas and Williams will yield a higher score, overall, per-kill.

But if you are un-armed, stick to headbutts, since you are more likely to accidentally do a hairgrab and then the kill is virtually worthless.


EDIT: with that new strategy of kicking rather than headbutts (when possible), I'd upped my score from 138k by the final screen to 150k by the Abobos on the first stage of Mission 4... so extrapolating forward that means by the final screen you are getting into the 180's (at least) like Guillavoie.

Also, as a benchmark, with this method you are max-leveled by the first or second wave of Lindas toward the end of Mission 2.   Not that you need all of the extra moves, but the flying roundhouse or elbow can save you in a pinch.

Good info! I definitely didn't realize that headbutting was so lucrative point-wise. I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I never even tried it during my early attempts because I just assumed you didn't get much point wise from them. Now I'm sure I can put together a much better score.

You get almost no experience for it, but it is the most valuable single hit you can do.

(but that is where figuring out optimal points-per-kill comes into play, since many enemies die after a single headbutt)

Yeah I was leveling up really fast without headbutting, so this adds an extra dimension to it for sure.

You know, I'm a little surprised in that point farming in general tends to make games harder, at least for more games than I would have realized.  I had thought that getting more points led to more rewards but by and large that has not been the case.  In just about every game played this year point farming has led to difficult situations.  Kabuki is the only game I can think of where point farming mostly made it easier, except for when you had to race against the clock to finish stages.

In most situations in this game I'd agree, but I think headbutting individual Abobos is actually the safest way to kill them from what I can tell (other than maybe using the same strategy to dole out elbows)

There's an easy workaround to the low exp. yeielded by head butts. Whenever I get to the last Linda in the first section, I just milk her with kicks until the timer gets low. Excellent for maxing out your score. I do the same thing to the last of two Ropers in the section before Abobo until I get the 4th heart and get the grab move. Thanks for the weapon in hand tip arch 8ngel, I never even thought of that.

Anyway, here's my best attempt so far:

Score:  339,210



I was able to get a higher score by dying (not on purpose) to the double Abobos on Mission 3, and again on Mission 4 against the Chintais after the brick wall section.  At least I died in point rich areas.

I'm not going to have much time to re attempt this today, maybe one more shot tonight.  I just came to the realization that I should just kick/knee the Williams in the blue cave instead of wasting time head butting them and losing my life on them.  It looks more lucrative to just head butt the Hulk Abobos and then loop the cave again and do the same thing again.