Hello everyone and welcome to the latest installment of the Weekly Contests!  This week's game is going to be Batman Returns.  Here are the rules:

• Play until Game Over
• No point racking allowed
• On the second floor of the department store, if you fall through the floor back to the first floor, your attempt will end there.
• In the stage where you have to rescue the Ice Princess, You must enter the first, the second, and the third window in order to find her.  You must enter those windows to progress the stage, and can't pass them by or your run end there.
• Highest score wins
• Genre: Beat ‘Em Up

The contest ends Sunday, 10/18/15 at 11 PM NA time.  Your user name MUST be written or typed on a piece of paper and 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, slow motion functions, 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

Bimmy asked me to let everyone know that he has to make some more adjustments to the rules later tonight, so please hold off on posting any scores until they are finalized. Thanks guys!

OFFICIAL SCOREBOARD
Batman Returns (Beat 'Em Up)
Place	Score	Username
1	134,890	bearcat-doug
2	98,510	Skratlat
3	75,390	arnpoly
4	38,060	skinnygrinny
5	36,830	floydfan38
6	35,800	ninjistar
7	35,260	bertsampson
8	33,220	barrelsAndRivets
9	20,800	ne$_pimp
10	19,060	BriGuy82
Participation
11	5,500	zobber
12

I have a question: Will there be a Castlevania or Halloween themed contest this month?
I usually don't have the games to play these competitions.

Maybe this is a stupid question, but what is point racking?  I'm new to these competitions.

Farming for points; in some games, there are spots where things such as constant enemy spawning make it easy to sit and 'rack up points', often with little risk.

Remember that we're on the honor system in these contests, though if you farm for points, depending on your progress, it will likely be obvious.
 

I don't believe I've played this one either. Joining NA has been a great way to motivate me to play "new" NES games! I'm ready to give this one a go.

Yes! I've played just about every NES game, but only a few minutes for a big chunk of them.  Getting me to play games I never played through is why I love these contests.
 

I love the contest toooooOooooo
 

I made some adjustments to the rules to account for two stages where point racking can easily occur. A no point racking rule will still stand in case anyone finds any other spots where point racking can occur.

Well crap. My first good attempt involved accidentally falling through the store. Thanks for clarifying! Won't be posting for another day or so then 

also: despite being initially disappointed that this  batman title is not like the other two, I'm really enjoying it thus far.

Do you guys keep track of which games you've played in an official list? I don't have anything official or written down. I tried 5 new NES games last week, including Ice Hockey (Gauntlet, Gauntlet II, Little Mermaid, Barbie LMAO).

 

Well, I'm the score keeper guy...so yeah.  I keep track of my high scores per game now.
 

You might want to add that if someone beats the game, they need to be ready to take their picture as soon as they beat the Penguin because you are unable to pause it after his life bar runs out.

I'm fairly sure that the helicopters don't blow up the floor on the far right side of the screen, so if you stay there and use your grappling hook to blow them up, you should be able to get by without falling through. It's very easy to fall through the floor by accident if you haven't played the game before, so hopefully that strategy helps everyone out.

134,890

 

Update
36,830

Played about half way through the game tonight just to learn it and get a feel for it.  Holy crap, this game is pretty good.  I had no idea about this one.  The sunsoft batman kicks ass, but this one might be a close second as far as batman goes on the nes.  If I see this one out in the wild I'm definitely going to pick it up. 

I think the ice princess is in the third window.  I went into all three when I was just playing through.  Are we only allowed to enter that window?  Can someone verify this?

I think it's usually the third open window with a blinking arrow when you get to it.

35,800

So far, so good...

98,510
Hopefully I'll have time for another run before the Browns game.  For now, it's time to pregame for the Buckeyes...GO BUCKS!!!!

Score updated

Things are pretty quiet this week. Is this an uncommon game? Maybe everyone's busy? hmmmm

Good question. We only had 11 people play during the 2013 contest. It's a fun game, so hopefully more people give it a try.