If you know Twin Galaxies, then you know we love ourselves a good high score. That’s why each week, we dig deep into the Twin Galaxies Adjudication Archives to check out some of the most amazing new Undisputed and Validated records to have recently made their mark on the leaderboards. This week we found ourselves some arcade bullet hell mayhem, an Atari 2600 high-scoring feast, an ace driving session from one of the original Sega driving sims, and more!

Henrik Wiman - Twin Bee Yahhoo! Version JAA (M.A.M.E.): Points

Twin Bee Yahhoo! is one of the many bright and colorful “bullet hell” shooters from Japan’s arcades. These sometimes bubbly and sometimes bizarre games always feature a constant scrolling screen full of baddies and threats to your little character at all times. TBY! is no exception, but Henrik “wirre.the.man” Wiman makes splendid work of this game in his record-setting run. In level after level, and in wave after wave, Wiman expertly maneuvers through everything the game throws at him, all while juggling special bells with shots to gain power-ups and points bonuses. This game is chaotic and ridiculous to say the least, as Japan bullet hell shooters often are, but Wiman survives long enough to put up an amazing score of 1,283,250 points, nearly 200,000 points ahead of the previous Twin Bee Yahhoo! M.A.M.E. record set by Robert Flynn in 2009. Twin Bee Yahhoo! may be cute as all get-out, but it can also be daunting to the undisciplined. Congrats to Wiman on claiming the throne of a game in a very unforgiving genre.

Tristen Geren - Minecraft (Xbox 360): Fastest Time To Build A House In Survival Mode

This record-setting run takes us to the popular Minecraft for a very particular type of challenge: Building a specific style of house in Survival Mode in the fastest time possible. The house must meet minimum specifications. What the details boil down to is that the house must contain everything an adventurer would need to be considered a basically functional Minecraft dwelling. Tristen Geren takes a crack at this challenge and blazes through it with impressive speed and accuracy. Collecting all of the materials he needs to get the job done, Geren places every block carefully and quickly to put his home together in a jiffy. By the time he stops the clock, he ends up at 3:37, setting his fastest time for this challenge. One of the biggest obstacles in doing this effectively is placing materials accurately without having to go back and destroy a misplaced block. Many a record (even some speedrunning records) fail to pull this off, but Geren doesn’t misplace a single block in his venture. Perhaps a speedier hand might come along and challenge Geren in home craft, but for the time being his rapid-fire carpentry stands legit at Twin Galaxies.

Steve Germerhausen - Fast Food (Atari 2600 - NTSC): Game 1, Difficulty B Points

Fast Food is a culinary whirlwind of an Atari 2600 game. You essentially play a mouth, not unlike old-time joke teeth, that must catch flying food as it comes across the screen at an increasingly fast pace, all while avoiding purple pickles that will put an end to your pig-out. Steve “stygian” Germerhausen navigates the frenetic pace of Fast Food in a grand buffet of a run. Moving back and forth and catching most of the food while carefully dodging away from those dastardly pickles sprinkled into the mix, Germerhausen keeps his run going for almost 3 hours! The result is a bloated 103,746 points, finding Germerhausen at the top of the Fast Food leaderboards. Worth noting is that Glen “Gsampson35” Sampson found his own record in the game at 101,071 just 10 days prior before being dethroned by Germerhausen. Could we see some further competition and higher scoring in this track in the coming weeks? Here’s hoping the appetites for this challenge aren’t sated quite yet.

David Wayne Holycross Jr. - Hard Drivin’ (Sega Genesis/Mega Drive - NTSC): Points

Hard Drivin’ is a true precursor to games like Cruis’n USA in a lot of ways. This arcade driver put players in a pseudo-polygonal world, speeding through courses, performing stunts, driving through ridiculous roadways, and qualifying to challenge other drivers. For this particular challenge, players must extend the qualifying run for as long as possible with extended times through checkpoints and laps. David Wayne “Cyriss_Zeal” Holycross Jr. goes over and above on his qualifying run to make the Photon Phantom look like a flash in the pan. In his run, Holycross navigates the track and its obstacles with care while maintaining the speed he needs to get time extension after time extension. He spends only a little time offroad which eventually leads to his qualifier running out, but when he’s done, Holycross has amassed an impressive 359,262 points. It’s enough to put him handily at the head of the Hard Drivin’ leaderboards and on top of the previous record set in 2016 by Marc “Marcade” Cohen. Hard Drivin’ isn’t an easy road to tame, but Holycross keeps the pedal to the metal and raises the bar for all racers looking to chase this record track.

Brendon Weaver - Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (Commodore 64 - NTSC): Points

Last up, we’ve got a new record on a harrowing platformer featuring everyone’s favorite film adventurer of the 1980s - Indiana Jones. In the Commodore 64 version of Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, timing is crucial. That’s what makes Brendon “bweyedoc” Weaver’s run for the Last Crusade record in this game awesome. C64’s The Last Crusade looks like a slow, plodding adventure, but working your way around the various deadly obstacles becomes equally difficult when you have to plan your sluggish character’s every move. Weaver slips by falling stalagtites, jumps giraffes, whips villains, and finds his way to each level’s end in a strong show of that skill and timing required to master this game. By the time his last Indy has met their end, Weaver was able to amass 33,400 points, over 10,000 points ahead of the previous record set by Mike Morrow in 2004 on the Last Crusade leaderboard. Indiana Jones is an legendary adventurer in the movies and Weaver lives up the lofty standards set by the start character, making him look good for every Nazi whipped and every point earned.

And that covers our Scoreboard Spotlight for this week. As always, bear in mind that there are many records and high scores accepted and verified in the Twin Galaxies Archives each week. These scores caught our attention, but every player deserves their earned place in the Twin Galaxies gaming pantheon. Keep scoring high and finishing fast and you just might end up on our next Spotlight. In the meantime, check out our previous Scoreboard Special in which we looked at records for the Atari game Adventure, featured heavily in the recent film Ready Player One.