Here at Twin Galaxies, we love a good high score and a record time. So each week we look deep in the wealth of Undisputed and Verified scores in the Twin Galaxies Adjudication Archive and dig up some spectacular recent achievements! On this edition of the Scoreboard Spotlight, we saw a new and massive run at the Ice Cold Beer novelty arcade game, some solid bubble dragon play in the Commodore 64 Bubble Bobble, and more!
Cole Machin - Jungle Strike (Sega Genesis/Mega Drive - NTSC): Points
Jungle Strike is one of a few games from the Sega and SNES era where players would take a combat helicopter and wreak havoc on buldings, vehicles, and baddies, while occasionally picking up and/or delivering mission-critical people or objectives with your winch. Cole “Cxm” Machin shows off more than a little ace piloting with his approach to Jungle Strike. In each mission, be it destruction, rescue, or escort, Machin delivers a payload of death upon his enemies while keeping his gunship fueled and stocked with ammo and armor to ensure he stays alive and airborne. Machin’s run goes for a solid hour and a half and by the time he’s done, he’s collected 4,229,510 points to cap off his gun for the gold. It’s enough to top the previous record set by Jessie Lee Porter in 2017 by a healthy 300,000 points and put Machin at the top of the Jungle Strike leaderboards for the time being, though Machin will take on all challenges, having promised to return to the game and do even better should someone top this run. Those who seek the Jungle Strike record had best be ready for some serious competition.
John Eden - Altair (M.A.M.E.): Points
Next on our Spotlight today is a flashy little game similar to Galaga-style arcade shooters. Altair features the familiar format of blowing up enemy ships flying in a pattern as you go from level to level with one notable exception: At certain segments of the game, a massive mothership shows up to wreak havoc, requiring players to shoot their way through its tough exterior in order to break through and blow it up. John “Rev John” Eden takes to this task with some level of accuracy and skill, making his way to these dangerous sections and dodging the massive enemy ship as it tries to swoop in and crash into him in his M.A.M.E. Altair run. It’s not a ridiculously long run, but it is a fast and intense one as Eden makes it up to the third instance of the deadly boss ship before it finally catches him in a corner and takes him out. That said, his swift shooting and evasion found him with a score of 11,930 - enough to get ahead of the record set by Paul Ford in 2016. As the run is short, it might be safe to say there’s room for competition, but for now, Eden holds the M.A.M.E. Altair crown.
Matthew Ackerman - Ice Cold Beer (Novelty): Points
For this Spotlight, we have an outstanding effort at a classic novelty game. Ice Cold Beer is an attraction from Taito that requires players to navigate two sides of a metal bar to deliver a pinball up the wooden board full of holes to a flashing target hole. As the player meets each target, the new target goes further up the board where more care must be taken around the extra and numerous holes that will cause the player to fail. Matthew “arcadeanimal” Ackerman goes over and above in his handling of Ice Cold Beer and its physics. Ackerman has been at the top of the Ice Cold Beer Leaderboards before and went on a new run to take back his record after it was beaten by Rasmus Roien Madsen in February 2018. Over the course of 12 hours, Ackerman continued to find the right holes in the board and build his point count to an incredible 651,760 by stream’s end, outdoing Madsen’s 538,360 by a hefty sum. Even more amazing is that more than a few players seem to be getting ready to push this record even further. With mention of an “Ice Cold Beer Off” in August 2018 and the competition so active, this very well seems to be a record track we can continue to see in action for the near future.
Clay Karczewski - Bubble Bobble (Commodore 64 - Emulator): Single Player - Points
Who can say no to watching a record made with gaming’s favorite adorable little bubble dragons? Bubble Bobble is a charming little gauntlet in which the aforementioned dragons must clear rooms full of enemies to get to the top of the tower, save the princesses, and break the curse that will turn them back into princes. Clay “CWK” Karczewski takes on the Commodore 64 version of this challenge via emulation to navigate room after room, bubbling up, popping his enemies, and collecting bonuses along the way. Karczewski does an admirable job of dodging danger and especially managing time, after which a certain amount gets the enemies going faster and more aggressively. By the time enemies finally catch Karczewski for the last time, he made it all the way to round 49 with 1,738,750 to show for it, which is more than enough to beat the record set by ilias Florakis in 2008 on the Commodore 64 Emulated Bubble Bobble Scoreboard. With no continues to speak of, Karczewski’s bubble dragon prowess will be a tough act to beat.
Paul Streifel - Gyruss [Centuri] (Atari 400/800/XL/XE): Default Settings - Points
For our final Spotlight we jump into some frenetic Atari action with the Centuri-published version of Gyruss on the Atari 800, played by Paul “ThePulseRifle” Streifel. Gyruss is a frenetic and unforgiving shooter with a control scheme not far from Tempest, but quite a bit more chaos in enemy patterns. Even still, Streifel winds through enemy patterns, dodges, asteroids, and kills mounds of ships to the frenetic chiptune pace of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor for his champion Atari 800 Gyruss run. It gets stressful to say the least as he winds and fires his way through opposition on the journey from Outer Space to Earth. At the end of his run, Streifel lands a point value of 308,800 before being taken out in the even more unforgiving Earth stretch of the game. Despite disappointment in not reaching his unrecorded personal best, Streifel’s score still lands him solidly at the top of the Atari 800 Centuri version Gyruss Scoreboard, nearly 100,000 points ahead of the previous record set by Stephen Knox back in 2001. With the claim that this doesn’t even quite mark his best efforts, we find ourselves wondering if Streifel will come back to raise the bar even higher. If so, we’re ready for it after this already impressive feat.
And that covers our Scoreboard Spotlight for this week. As a reminder, these were just a few of exceptional records that were adjudicated and accepted recently. Every record that made it through verification and landed on our leaderboards has a well-deserved place in the Twin Galaxies gaming pantheon. Keep scoring high and finishing fast and you just might end up on our next Scoreboard Spotlight!
In the meantime, check out our previous Scoreboard Spotlight featuring a Game Boy Tetris score max-out and a massive baseball blowout in Bases Loaded 2.
