Happy New Year! Here we are at the beginning of 2023, and while the TG community continues to share and celebrate a range of gaming achievements, it's also a natural time to cast our gaze back over the past year to share a final spotlight on some remarkable performances. For this edition of the Spotlight, we've rounded up the top 10 highlights as measured by their popularity or engagement with the Facebook community. While these highlights were posted over the last 12 months, they feature gaming achievements that were submitted between 2017 to 2022.
Vincent Cote - Vs. Super Mario Bros (MAME) - Points [Tournament Settings]
2022 may be the Year of Super Mario with the viral impact of Vincent Cote's emulation outing on the arcade release Vs. Super Mario Bros. The video jumped into the feeds of 45 million users, and 11 million of them took a look at Vincent's game where he didn't let any opportunities pass to bonk Mario's head into bricks for coins or stomp on some innocent looking turtles on his way to the final showdown with King Koopa. With Princess Toadstool saved, Vincent earned 3,501,950 points to beat the record from 2018 by nearly a million points for a new world record standard.
Terence Wong - Crush Roller (MAME) - Points
Competing in the gaming tournament MGL34 in January 2018, Terence Wong won the tournament round and achieved a new TG world record at the same time. Playing the 1983 arcade release Crush Roller on emulation, Terence kept going and going and going painting the maze and avoiding fish. Three and a half hours later, Terence's game ended his game with a whopping 6,016,180 points, topping the leaderboard with a new first place score and set a new standard for world record gameplay.
Spencer Rhodes - Doodle Jump (iOS) - Points
In October 2018, Spencer Rhodes went on a jumping spree to showcase his skills playing the iOS game Doodle Jump for his first Twin Galaxies submission. Guiding a four legged creature called The Doodler ever higher on a series of platforms without falling, Spencer stayed in the action to rack up 39,051 points before falling back to Earth. His final score qualified as a new TG world record for nearly a month before moving to 4th rank today.
Pete Hahn - Act-Fancer Cybernetick Hyper Weapon (MAME) - Points
Pete Hahn delved into biological horror boss battles with the goal of breaking a 14 year old record on the mouthful of a game Act-Fancer Cybernetick Hyper Weapon. Taking on the role of a cyborg that evolves through successful missions, Pete defeated the final bosses to loop the game once and reached stage 3 for the second time for a remakable 3,862,660 points, increasing the world record mark by1.7 million.
Andrew Rea - Tetris [Nintendo Version] (EMU) - Lines
While waiting for the delivery of an original NES Tetris cartridge that he purchased, Andrew Rea decided to take a break from Game Boy Tetris and get some practice with the NES version by competing in the emulation category. After a few rough first games, Andrew put together a nice run with a final score of 191 lines to beat the previous record of 138.
Robert Johnson - Classic NES Series: Ice Climber (Game Boy Advance) - Points
Robert Johnson wanted a good start to make it onto the TG leaderboard – a toe-hold to climb further up the rankings. Back in January, Robert chose Ice Climber on the Game Boy Advance as his TG entry, and he made a great start. His final score of 27,260 points qualified for second position on the GBA track and a great vantage to view the rest of the leaderboard. Robert has some great moments, but those snow monsters called Topis like getting in the way when you're trying to jump to the next level.
Stella_blue - Donkey Kong (MAME) - Points [Level 1-1]
Stella_blue joined the rank of Donkey Kong players who can claim first place on a special competitive track. The goal: achieve the highest number of points possible on Level 1-1 of the game. Stella_blue was up for the task by jumping and smashing his way to a top score of 13,400 points, joining in a 3-way tie for first place in the emulation category.
Bibface - Super Mario Bros (NES) - Minimalist Speed Run
Bibface entered their name onto the Twin Galaxies leaderboard with an inspired run through Super Mario Bros on the NES. In fact, Bibface joined a great tradition of speedrunning on the game in the “Minimalist Speed Run” category, finishing with a final time of 5:27.0 and a two-way tie at tenth place.
Salim Farhat - The Punisher (MAME) - Points
Salim Farhat missed one shot on the bonus stage, threatening his high score objective on the arcade title The Punisher – achieve the maximum score possible on the game in the emulation category. Playing as the cigar-chomping Nick Fury, Salim couldn't be sure if he would hit his target score until all the bonus points were added up after defeating the ultimate baddie, Kingpin. Once Salim vanquished the criminal overlord, he could finally see for himself – mission accomplished with a max-out score of 9,999,900 points and a new world record.
Kane Mawhinney - Block Block (MAME) - Beginner Course - Points
With Kane Mawhinney's April 2017 submission on the arcade game Block Block, we think he put to rest the age old question - “If you were going to create a Arkanoid clone, what would you call it?” But to be fair, Kane wasn't worrying about names but was focused instead on smashing those colorful blocks through 8 rounds to complete the game with a score of 68,870 points, edging past the 2011 record by 550 points.
That concludes our review of popular gaming highlights as measured through Facebook engagement. But we also know there's more ways to measure and appreciate remarkable performances. What were your favorites from last year? Let us know and we'll aim to include them in Part 2 to round out our review of 2022!
Keep scoring high, finishing fast, and game on!
