Hello everyone and welcome to Round 2 of the Summer Tournament!  Round 1 saw some great competition with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 and round 2 should be just as exciting.  The votes are in and the game for round 2 is going to be Ninja Gaiden 2.  Contestants, please read the rules very carefully for your tier.  Failure to play by the correct rules could result in your score being disqualified.  Here are the rules for each tier:

Tier 1

• 1 life only (you only get 1 life and you must take your picture after you die once)
• No farming for extra lives allowed
• You may collect each extra life only once (It won't do you any good since you only get 1 life )
• If you roll the score, you must take a picture right before the roll and right after the roll
• Highest score wins

Tier 2
 

• 3 lives only (you only get three lives total and must stop playing and take your picture after you die for the third time)
• No farming for extra lives allowed
• You may collect each extra life only once
• If you roll the score, you must take a picture right before the roll and right after the roll
• Highest score wins

Tier 3

• 3 lives only (you only get three lives total and must stop playing and take your picture after you die for the third time)
• No farming for extra lives allowed
• You may collect each extra life only once
• If you roll the score, you must take a picture right before the roll and right after the roll
• Highest score wins

Since this game is difficult, Tier 2 and 3 will play by the same rules.  If ANYONE, regardless of your tier, is suspected of endlessly farming extra lives for the purpose of racking up their score, your score will be disqualified, you will automatically be eliminated from the tournament, and you will be banned from further competition.  Remember, the top 5 scores in each tier will advance to the finals.  Instead of voting for the game for the finals, I will be choosing the game   See the below post for details on how the game will be selected.

The contest ends Sunday, 7/21/13 at 10 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

Here's the official tournament thread for all the details on the tournament itself, plus a place for smack talk

http://www.nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=31&am...



THE CONTESTANTS

TIER 1
1,359,000 – rdrunner
1,101,100 – Vectrex280996
966,400 – dev(2)
965,500 – bearcat-doug
836,900 – gutsman004

440,800 – Crabmaster2000
No Score – guillavoie

TIER 2
1,080,400 – WickedWonka
806,800 – CLAYB1RD
752,100 – link463
427,400 – Shane
349,500 – Caleb47

235,700 – treismac
No Score – dra600n

TIER 3
955,200 – Logo1285
561,900 – dropkickorange
426,800 – EgasKrad
290,400 – BenPlusPlus
218,700 – 2Legit28Bit

169,000 – MegaMartyr
No Score – GibbyVA

As I mentioned in the above post, the game for the finals will be selected by me.  Here's where it will get interesting.  Below is a list of 10 games that could be played in the finals.  Each day starting Monday, July 15 through Sunday, July 21, I will remove one game from the list, leaving three games left Sunday afternoon.  At 9:30 PM NA time on Sunday evening, I will reveal which game we will play.  Here are the games:


Donkey Kong Jr. - Arcade
Life Force - Shooter/Shoot 'Em Up
Yoshi's Cookie - Puzzle

Excellent. I can get a much higher score in this one over Ninja Gaiden 1

Let's get ready to rumble!

Everyone make note that point racking/pressing IS allowed since there is a timer in this game.

Does furthest progression takes precedence in this one or are you solely basing it on the score?

This will be very interesting.

Finally broke the mill mark. No game makes my thumb hurt quite as bad as a ninja gaiden game.





Suck it tier two! Revel in the greatness that is the wicked wonka!

Not this time around.  This will solely be based on score.  The only way progression will take precedence is if someone manages to max out the score.  Earliest progression will take precedence.  I will update the rules to reflect this.

How do you want to deal with rolled scores? Video, or pic before and after?

Does the score roll over in this game?  I thought it maxed out.  If it rolls over, then a before and after pic will be required.

Yes, it does roll, like the first Ninja Gaiden

If I'm reading the rules correctly, Tier 1 gets only 1 life, regardless of how many lives they farm, and Tier 2 and 3 get to play all but their final life?

Gotcha, thanks for the clarification, Adam   I will update the rules to reflect the rolling of scores.  Correct, Tier 1 gets 1 life only and Tier 2 and 3 get to use all but their last life.  Farming for extra lives will be prohibited, but you may collect each extra life in the game once.  It doesn't really do Tier 1 any good to collect extra lives since they only get to use 1.

Also, the game list is up on the second post. Take a look at what we may be playing in the finals

At least most of the rules are pretty straight forward and self explanatory. Now I can begin planning my route.

Added a disclaimer in the first post regarding farming for extra lives, but I will repeat it here in case anyone misses it:

If ANYONE, regardless of your tier, is suspected of endlessly farming extra lives for the purpose of racking up their score, your score will be disqualified, you will automatically be eliminated from the tournament, and you will be banned from further competition.  It's easy to do in the Ninja Gaiden games and won't be tolerated for the purpose of this contest.

Too bad this isn't a low score contest. Now, that would be interesting!

^ We'll see what happens. I do like that point racking is allowed.

Well I was hoping for DK or Qix since all the NES NG's rip me a new one. =P

Just so you know, you get an extra life every 100,000 points. I can get over 200,000 points by the end of level 2-1. Not sure if you want to do any changes to this rule, or let it go. Plus there are other 1ups along the way.

I think this would be a horrible game for a low score contest. You'll either have relatively high scores (around 700 - 900k toward the end of the game, or very, very low scores in the first few levels).

Intentionally point racking yourself to 100,000 points and then killing yourself so you can do this over and over again will be prohibited.  Basically, I don't want people to just sit in one spot and endlessly rack up points and extra lives.  Gonna have to think about possibly making this 1-life only all the way around since playing until life "0" with point racking could turn out to be problematic.

Might want to check twin galaxies rules. I think they only allow a max of 5 lives, regardless of how many you get. I know there is a few 1ups along the way, so you could make it 3 lives max or 4 lives max. I don't think there's enough places to point rack endlessly if that helps, so it would take 2 lives to gain 1, unless someone is farming right by a 1up. Maybe make it no collecting 1ups and give us 3 lives total.

Hopefully you can find a way to make it so people can't take advantage.

Looking forward to this week! Even though I voted for NG II, I've never actually played it (although I've spent some time with the original game). It'll be interesting to see how I do. I'll probably have less time to play this week than last week, too.

EDIT: Personally I don't see a big deal with a 1-life requirement all the way around - it seems to me that the final rankings in tiers 2 & 3 would be pretty similar regardless of how many lives were played. But if you don't want to limit the lower two tiers too much, I'd say a 4-life rule would be fair (3 lives to begin with, plus 1 extra life if you manage to earn it).

The only thing about not collecting 1ups is that some people may not know where they are located.  I have my game paused right now, at the middle of 5-1 and I already have 8 lives. That's pretty much collecting every thing I can get to. What if you happen to accidently collect a 1up, ya know?