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 scores! On this edition of the Scoreboard Spotlight, we check out an Atari take on Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Rampage on an Xbox 360 collection, Double Dragon, an RPG with score chasing potential, and one crafty ninja.
Glen Sampson - Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (Atari 2600 / VCS - NTSC): Points
Recreating that classic scene in arguably the best Star Wars film of them all, the developers of this Atari game did what they could to make players feel like they were piloting a snow speeder. This particular score chase may not be as fun to watch as some of the other classics, but what is impressive here is the sheer stamina of Glen Sampson and even in the submission, he admits to stopping due to hand fatigue. That aside, he managed to get 60,245 points.
Taking down the AT-AT takes good placement and rapid button mashing to maximize points without having to waste time flying back and forth to each target. While Sampson doesn’t sit at the top of the scoretrack, with enough hand stretching, pacing, and time he could grab that top slot that’s currently being held by Alex Lyons.
Carsten Lauridsen - Double Dragon (Arcade, Single Player): Points
Similar to our last score, this one is another test of willpower and patience. Utilizing a loop on a particular enemy, Carsten Lauridsen was able to boost his score to a whopping 381,960 on the Arcade classic Double Dragon, which doubles the second place score on the track. While the loop may be the big score opportunity, also knowing how to milk the rest of the game properly folds into an impressive run. That said, if Lauridsen hadn’t been bested by the two big dudes that he was trying to stack on top of each other, the score could’ve been even higher. It's a worthy score to be sure, far outdoing anything before it nonetheless and we hope to see even more action on this particular track with Lauridsen's impressive run spicing things up.
Angela Stefanski - Midway Arcade Origins, Rampage (Xbox 360 - NTSC): Points
Rampage is a classic that just got better over time, as sequels added transformations and better graphics. While there is a bit of bug that starts the player at 99,000 points in this particular port of the arcade title Rampage, a run of 226,680 is still a solid go and landed Angela Stefanski at the top of the scoreboard , at least on the 360 port of the game. Although, it’s still a long ways off from the top score of the original arcade version of Rampage. Either way stomping around as a big monster is always a good time and Stefanski has made a heck of an indention on the scoreboard with her efforts at this version of the game.
Brandon Finton - Children of Mana (Nintendo DS): Points
It’s not often that we get to highlight RPGs on the Scoreboard Spotlight, so when we saw that there was a point based mode built into the DS title Children of Mana, we just had to highlight it. Brandon Finton goes floor by floor, taking out as many monsters as possible, while taking as few hits as he can, and making sure to get all of the treasure. While it is a small part of an otherwise large game, the fact that there can be some competition in an RPG is wild. Makes us wonder what other RPGs are floating around with a similar mode.
Daniel Ocampo - Tenchu: Shadow Assassins (Nintendo Wii): Fastest Completion
Being that we cover a lot of speedrun content, when we saw that Daniel Ocampo was tackling various levels in Tenchu: Shadow Assassins, we had to check it out. While it does take quite a few resets, the final time is impressive on this particular mission and Ocampo is able to bring in just the right tools for the job, hilariously taking out the target with a well placed and sudden bomb. It’s cool to watch and Ocampo has also been making strides across many games.
Lastly, we want to start drumming up some excitement on the Scoreboard Spotlight by putting out bounties on particular gaming tracks. Take the next week to reach the top or do really well and you just might find yourself featured next week. To kick off this new approach, let’s all take a whack at Metal Slug, specifically the digital version that was released on the Switch. The Track can be found here and it’s a fairly affordable title. Let’s see what we can do this week!
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 Chris Gleed's Street Fighter 2 Ken mastery and more.
