Speed and accuracy are what separates the good players from the great and the great from the legendary. Thousands of records throughout history have been made on the fastest times possible by humankind and machine alike. That translates to video games of course. Twin Galaxies’ Adjudication archives are awash with Undisputed records of the best drivers and fastest reflexes around. This week we happened to find our way to some of the most breakneck pace records set in just this last week. These players redefine the limits of pace, planning, and pinpoint precision as they each find their way to their own victory in their games. From the lowest Pole Position II times to the highest Survival times in Driver, these are the speed demons that caught our eyes in this Scoreboard Spotlight.

Brian Roemer – Pole Position II (Arcade - Factory Settings): Test Track - Points

The Pole Position racing games are one of the cornerstones are arcade racing. Being good at them doesn’t just require knowing how to put peddle to metal. It takes some ironclad twitch reflexes to dodge the other cars, especially on turns, and keep a high speed on the road. Brian “DIRTMODIFIED4” Roemer takes the Test Track of Pole Position II to a top-tier limit in this regard. His Pole Position II run on the Test Track doesn’t always remain on the road, but Roemer is snappy in his constant dodging of other vehicles. He never taps a single other racer on his run to the finish line and some of his laps come in under an impressive 50-second threshold. His winning time and point value of 90,580 puts him on a short list just ahead of John “redelf” McCalister on the Pole Position II Test Track scoreboard. That said, Roemer admits to his own amount of time off track. Though perfectly dodging every other vehicle is no easy feat, who knows if McCalister, another player, or Roemer himself have it in them to put in an even greater run in the near future?

Chris Morgan – Olympic Gold: Barcelona ’92 (Sega Genesis/Mega Drive – PAL): 110M Hurdles - Fastest Time

The spirit of competition is alive and well in Olympic Gold: Barcelona ’92, but more than a few of the games and events therein require some talented fingers if you’re going to lay claim to some records in them. Chris “moldy_poncho” Morgan puts his focus on the 110M Hurdles in this Olympic Gold run. For this particular event, you’ve got to button mash pretty heavily, but that’s not all. It’s called “Hurdles” for a reason after all. Fortunately, Morgan gets the precise moves done that takes him nearly flawlessly over each obstacle and up to the finish line with a stellar 12.96 second time. His time is notable as, despite an initially slow start off the block, Morgan finds himself a near 1 to 2 precious seconds ahead of previous records in the 110M Hurdle, the last of which was set by John Brissie back in early 2017. Can the record be overtaken? Does Morgan’s slightly slow start leave room for opportunity? Either way, you’re going to need some fast and educated button mashing if you want to get ahead of this run.

Jason Vasiloff – Pepper II (M.A.M.E.): Points

You think you know maze-running, geometry, and path planning on the fly? What about across four various mazes making up the same level? Pepper II tasks players with “zipping” up various segments of a maze by walking on lines that encompass those segments until they are closed. Enemies lurk about waiting to catch the player on any given stray line and backtracking can undo your hard work. Even then, Jason “JasonV91” Vasiloff makes it look nearly stress free for quite some time in his incredible run of the classic Pepper II arcade game in M.A.M.E. In maze after maze and in level after level, Vasiloff racks up point bonus after point bonus in masterful planning and movement through the lines and avoidance of pitfalls. By the time Vasiloff was done, he put in an incredible 1,059,790 points to take the 3rd place spot in the Twin Galaxies Pepper II leaderboards. Considering the absolutely frenetic pace of late levels and the planning and effort it takes to play around enemies, this is nothing to shrug at. Vasiloff’s pinpoint skills make a very select cut of players that have made over a million points in this game.

Terence O’Neill – Driver (PlayStation - NTSC): Survival - Miami - Longest Time

If you’ve ever played the original Driver on PS1, then you might know full well that the police in the game are oppressive and psychotic in their single-minded ambition to crash your car to smithereens. It makes any attempt at Survival mode a daunting experience that often lasts only a few seconds for the standard player. Terence “RaGe” O’Neill heads to the sunny Miami area and makes a nearly 2 minute run at it in his wild Survival ride. O’Neill rides the lines in and out of oncoming traffic, through police barricades, and around the tightest of turns to valiantly avoid the fuzz for a full 1:54.47. O’Neill didn’t just overtake the previous record on the Driver Miami Survival leaderboards (set by Shaun Michaud in 2009). He blew it off the road by an exquisite 10 seconds. Racers are going to need skill, control, and a little luck if they want to hold out as long as O’Neill did to make this daunting time.

Roger Edwin Blair 111 – Tapper (Atari 5200 - Default Settings): Points

Hope you’re thirsty, because we’ve got a new Tapper score on hand, this particular run taking place on the Atari 5200 version. Roger “Rogerpoco” Edwin Blair 111 takes up the classic arcade serving game and gives the thirsty customers what they want from an incredibly long run. As glasses fly this way and that and customers keep flooding in, Blair manages to keep pace in this Mountain Dew-centric version of the game, taking his score well over 100,000 points. By the time Blair has broken his last glass and cashed his last soda bar paycheck, he’s amassed an admirable 120,275 points, overcoming the previous Atari 5200 Tapper record set by Michael R Ferguson back in 2009 by nearly 40,000 points! Blair’s Tapper score isn’t the greatest of all time across all versions, but on the arena of the Atari 5200, he is most confidently King Soda Sling of the realm for the time being.

That wraps up a speedy Scoreboard Spotlight for this week, but as always, we remind you that these are just a handful of the accepted and Undisputed scores that made the cut this last week. Every high score and low time has a deserving place here at Twin Galaxies and these were just a few of the many that arrived among the pantheon of gaming. Keep scoring high and finishing low and you just might make it onto our next Scoreboard Spotlight. In the meantime, check out our previous Spotlight in which we highlighted a max-out record in Shootin’ Gallery made on the exact same day by two different players.