(Arcade News) There's a New Sheriff in Town!

I would like to congratulate Chris Mansfield of Seattle, WA for being the first player to MAX out the score on the classic arcade title, Wild Western! Yep, his game could have gone on a little longer and it actually did but no more points were showing on his score. The score doesn’t role over as it firmly stops at 999,900. And according to Chris it doesn’t matter what form of points you get at that time, it will still show 999,900 where as other games such as Donkey Kong or Mario Bros. will show the exact score you had as it rolled over.

Great job Chris! I can’t wait to see what kind of score you put up on Zoo Keeper! Yep, I couldn’t help but notice that cabinet sitting next to Wild Western. You can actually catch just a small bit of it to the right. That is a rare cabinet and a great game as well! :-)

http://i821.photobucket.com/albums/z...ern640x480.jpg

http://i821.photobucket.com/albums/z...ginitials2.jpg

This is great! A big congrats to my good friend and fellow Pacific Northwesterner Chris Mansfield!!

Although you probably don't think so, your progress on this game came rather quickly, as I believe you played your first game of this just 6 or so months ago!?! Pretty damn incredible, and a max out score to boot?? (Pun intended, har har har). At any rate, I enjoyed the updates that you provided Perry and I along the way.

Way to go dude!

PS - Nice shirt! LOL! :mrgreen:

Holy monkey butter!!
WTG Chris... WOW.

so awesome, going on the TGI show for sure, got any footage of the 999,999 happening?

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Originally Posted by timmell

so awesome, going on the TGI show for sure, got any footage of the 999,999 happening?

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Yes, but it's all one 75 minute MPEG-2 video. I'd have to clip it, and I've never found any free video editing software on the Internet that can edit MPEG-2 video. (Maybe there's something out there now that works; I haven't looked in quite a while.) YouTube can make clips but you have to upload the original video first, and it's too big (3GB).

I'd be happy to provide a clip but I'm not going to have time to work on this until next week sometime at the earliest. I'm doing lots of last minute work for the NW Pinball and GameRoom Show, which starts Friday (but game pickups start tomorrow night!).

Congratulations Chris!
Love the shirt. :)

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Originally Posted by SanTe

Quote:

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Originally Posted by timmell

so awesome, going on the TGI show for sure, got any footage of the 999,999 happening?

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Yes, but it's all one 75 minute MPEG-2 video. I'd have to clip it, and I've never found any free video editing software on the Internet that can edit MPEG-2 video. (Maybe there's something out there now that works; I haven't looked in quite a while.) YouTube can make clips but you have to upload the original video first, and it's too big (3GB).

I'd be happy to provide a clip but I'm not going to have time to work on this until next week sometime at the earliest. I'm doing lots of last minute work for the NW Pinball and GameRoom Show, which starts Friday (but game pickups start tomorrow night!).

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Have you tried VirtualDubMod? It's old but might do the job... haven't used it in a few years but I used to do all my video editing with that.

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Originally Posted by timmell

so awesome, going on the TGI show for sure, got any footage of the 999,999 happening?

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I found a good, free, bare bones MPEG-2 editor that allows you to make clips without the time consuming and messy demux/remux process.

Last 15 minutes of my 999,900 game is now on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ1OUzw_DQ8

The action starts near the end of L33 with my score at 729,800. I was still on my 2nd man. The golden era record was 722,000 and Greg Erway's modern day record was 826,900. I lost my 2nd man at 755k and my 3rd man at 809k. Finished L36 on my last man with 811,400 and it was do or die on the bonus round shot. If I hit it, I get 20,000 points and a new world record. If I miss, I get 10,000 points and I have to survive the next level to surpass Greg's score. I nailed the shot to secure an 831k. Then I proceeded with what turned out to be a 260k run on my last man. Much of my best playing, surviving several close calls, happened after I surpassed Greg's score on my way to a million.

wow, congrats Chris!
you look different with that beard.

Okay, for anyone who cares here's my history with Wild Western. I generally listed only dates where a new personal best occurred, but in some cases I did list a non-PB performance if there was something notable about it. I did play on other dates that are not listed, but not that many.

10/01/2010 - Wild Western arrives from Salt Lake City, Utah, with an incorrect, mushy, bat-top joystick that breaks after an hour.
11/06/2010 - Arcade party. Bat-top joystick replaced with an original, short, red ball-top, 8-way Wico leaf stick that was used in early '80s Taitos. Game was set on 6+1@30,000 by previous owner to make it easier and we leave it there. johnbart has high score of the night with a 73k. My best was a 54k. Game was out in the basement hallway since there was no room in my game room for it yet.
11/07/2010 - Play for about an hour and notch an 84k. Don't touch it again until just before Xmas, when I decide to start playing it regularly.
12/21/2010 - I move Wild Western into the game room and just set it in the middle of the floor for convenience. I figure at some point I will want to start recording my games and I'd rather not get used to a different setup first only to have to move the cab later, and with it being the holidays I won't be having any more arcade parties any time soon anyway.

Easier settings (6+1@30,000)
12/21/2010 - 137,200 - First game played since my 84k on 11/7/2010.
12/22/2010 - 233,800
12/23/2010 - 239,200
12/25/2010 - 257,700
12/26/2010 - 404,600
12/28/2010 - 439,600
12/29/2010 - 504,800
12/30/2010 - 559,300
01/07/2011 - 691,100 - Achieved on only my 9th day of playing.
01/10/2011 - 653,xxx
01/10/2011 - 574,xxx - 240k on my 5th man, and I didn't miss a single bonus round shot the entire game (26 bonus rounds).

I'd been sharing my progress since the beginning with Eric Akeson and Perry Rodgers, sending them screenshots of new PB scores and doing short write-ups of my games and whatever I was learning along the way. At this point they both start pushing me to put it on TG settings (3+1@50,000) and start recording. I agree to switch to TG settings but feel it will take quite a while to get back into the 600k range with only 4 men instead of 7, so I don't bother with a camcorder setup yet.

TG settings (3+1@50,000)
01/13/2011 - 323,800
01/18/2011 - 467,000 - Maybe this won't take so long after all... Set up camcorder.
01/20/2011 - 602,400 (on video) - 240k on last man
01/22/2011 - 666,200 (on video) - 225k on 1st man, best start ever.
01/23/2011 - 497,500 (on video)
01/26/2011 - 600,100 (on video)
01/26/2011 - 362,400 (on video) - Epic meltdown. 311k on 1st man, best start ever.
01/26/2011 - 587,400 (on video) - Bonus round meltdown. Missed 7 bonus shots (4 in a row!), for 67,000 points lost.
01/27/2011 - 546,300 (on video)
02/07/2011 - 471,300 (on video)

By now I am playing too much and hitting a wall, and frustration sets in, and with that comes impatience. Not good on this game. After several days of bad playing (with tons of restarts) in late January and early February, I walk away and don't touch the game for a month, other than to put it into my Taito row along the west wall. Play a couple of games in late March and a couple in early April, just for fun. Didn't record or even take down the scores but they were in the 200-350k range.

Early to mid-May I start thinking about the upcoming NW Pinball and GameRoom Show and how cool it would be to have a new record to announce for this game in time for the show and Funspot's tournament (since both events are the same weekend this year). I'm not really interested in trying to break the record at the show; I'd really enjoyed learning this game from scratch all on my own and playing quietly at home with no CAG drama distractions. Only Eric and Perry and my friend Elizabeth ('Ebo') had been aware of my efforts on this game since December. I decide I'm ready to get back on the horse and have fun playing this game again. Tuesday, May 10, I sit down in the early evening to play a game just for fun...

05/10/2011 - 728,700 (not recording) - Break golden era record of 722,000 on 1st and only game today. 421k on 1st man, best start ever.
05/12/2011 - 623,500 - 350k on 3rd man

Over the next two weeks I play sporadically and get a few scores in the 500s and 600s. I'm recording but nothing of note really happens.

05/23/2011 - 768,300 (on video) - 479k on my 3rd man, my best run ever.
05/25/2011 - 999,900 (on video) - Submitted to TG. 478k on 2nd man, 260k on last man, missed only 1 out of 45 bonus round shots.

Coolest thing I've seen happen in this game, and it happened only once

A bandit bee-lined for the train and when his horse got close enough he jumped off. When a bandit is in mid-air you cannot shoot him; he will always land on the train. But I discovered a notable exception: apparently that rule doesn't apply to bank shots. As he was in flight I banked a shot off the train and nailed his ass in mid-air. His body hit the side of the train and bit the dust on the ground, and all I could think of was the line from the black bad guy in Die Hard who exclaimed, "OH MY GOD THE QUARTERBACK, IS, TOAST!" :lol:

Most bizarre glitch, that I have seen happen only once

Note: In Wild Western if you lose your last man while killing the last bandit of the level the game is not over immediately. You still get the end-of-level bonus round first. After the bonus round the lives counter goes to zero and "Game Over" appears.

Scenario: bandit is on the train and is the last bad guy of the level. I ride up the left side to prepare to jump on but am being mindful of the bandit shooting at me. I had to wait a split second longer before jumping, to avoid getting shot, and because of this I plowed right into a cactus at the exact instant I jumped off my horse. I distinctly heard the death sound play, but my corpse flew through the air in slow motion and landed on the train, still standing. I was so startled to see this happen that I didn't react right away. For some reason the bandit didn't fire right away either. Maybe he was as surprised as I was that my re-animated corpse was standing there in front of him. I took aim and shot the bandit off the train to end the level. Several seconds had elapsed between hearing the death sound and my killing the last bandit.

After my zombie sheriff dispatched the last bad guy of the level I got a bonus round. I nailed the bonus round shot, and then I saw "Game Over."

Wish I had that one on video.