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No videos or anything are available (we spent our money buying beer and playing games back then).Quote:
Originally Posted by Flywing
So back in '87, most of us were 18-21 or so. There was a group of 4 of us that were highly competitive on 720; I burned out in the low 500k's and left the others to push the envelope. I think I started getting back into practice on Pac-Land at the time with the '87 Guinness Book event coming up later that year.
Hello all,
I?ve recently rediscovered the Twin Galaxies web site after a visitor to my 720 restoration website sent me a link to this forum (Thanks Flywing!). Finding this discussion was awesome. It is so great to read the stories and strategies posted here, and especially to find there are still die hard 720 players out there.
Like so many these days I just watched King of Kong and have been inspired to jump back on the bandwagon of classic gaming. For me, that means getting back into my 720, and possibly beginning to think about my next game restoration.
I was absolutely floored by Ron Pearlman?s 720 world record score of 527K. Its been several years since I?ve played my machine; the best I?d ever done was around 340K, and that was with my game set to much easier settings (longer timers, 3 continues instead of two, etc.)
So, this week I dusted off the 720 where it now sits in my garage and fired it up. I set the game to the Twin Galaxies sanctioned factory default settings, and made some adjustments to the monitor controls in the back, as the picture was rolling and jumping a bit. Now I?m good to go.
For my first game in several years I didn?t even break 50K. I?ve forgotten my patterns and timing, and am just generally out of practice. The next night I was able to finish the game with a score in the 230K range. Lot?s of room for improvement still.
Thanks to the contributors to this thread, and to all the 720?ers out there: SKATE OR DIE!
Jeff Civitate
http://www.720zone.com
I am also a huge fan of this game. After watching the King of Kong I decided to look up the game I was best at on this site. I must have been about 12 or 13 years old and would ride my bike to the local bowling alley that had the machine and play it every single day for a summer. After that amount of time I had become pretty good. I used to race bmx so luckily the blisters weren't too much of an issue (from gripping handle bars all the time). I even wrote a letter to Atari about my enthusiasm for the game and they sent me a free 720 shirt! I remember if I scored less than 275,000 points I would consider it a pathetic game. My high score was 398,XXX.
I used many of the techniques mentioned here and even accidently figured out the ramp trick on my own without seeing anyone do it. I tried various combinations of equipement and found that 3 helmets, 1 board, 1 shoes, and 1 pads worked very well. I also had great success with a full set of gear also (3 of everything). The primary mini-parks I skated at were the red and yellow ones because I had greater success with the hidden points in those parks. With a full set of gear you can do a number of 1000 point jumps in the yellow park. One thing I didn't do was was ignore the medal award for more jumping points. I did as many jumps as I could, but was more focused on the gold medals. Got all perfect golds a number of times. Had I ignored that my scores would have improved. Always used 2 continues also.
Eventually, the bowling alley got rid of the machine and I didn't play the game for a long long time. Then, years later, I saw it in a liquor store and played it then for about a week before I had to move. Didn't take too long for the game to return to me at all, but never got close to my high score either. Never played it since. Perhaps its time to start looking for a machine...
Ron's score is amazing and would have loved to see that in person...
Anyways, that's my experience with it.
Awesome thread! I just wanted to add my 2 cents. 527k is totally achievable, especially with 2 continuous. I played the game for years around the suburbs of Chicago. My initials were MBS if anyone cares. At one point I stopped playing for about a year or so because I lost the drive when no one could beat my high score which was around 400k at the time. I always checked out the high scores when I was in the area of an arcade that I knew had a 720 game. The arcade operators around the area did a good job of not resetting the scores. One day I noticed that someone slaughtered my high score. They scored in the 450k range. I just couldn?t let that happen. I started playing very regularly again to regain my high score. After a few months, I ran into the ?mystery? guy (initials UKN, short for unknown) that beat my score. He was a decent guy and had no problem letting me watch him play. After a while I ended up with the high score again. I would notice he would play and put the initials NKU (UKN backwards) when he didn?t beat my score.
Well, the best score I ever had was 501k using 2 continuous. I scored gold on all Ramp & Jump competitions and Silver or Bronze on Downhill & Slalom. Strangely, this was by far my best score for some reason. My second highest score was around 475k. Usually my scores were within a few thousand of each other
I currently own a 720 game and play it on occasion. I have it torn apart at the moment to do a cap kit on it. I started to do it and found it harder to do than I anticipated. I really need to get it back together. Earlier this year I rebuilt the spinner to perform perfect. My cabinet is in fair condition, I?d really like to restore it sometime. Currently, I can easily score over 400k using 2 continuous. When I get it back together, I will take a video of my game play.
Mike Stephenson
Hi folks. Its great to see that people are still finding this thread. Its truly become a great repository for strategy and stories, and an important part of 720 history.
Since my last post 5 months ago, I?ve been very busy on the 720 front. I?ve been playing nearly every day, often times for 2+ hours a night, and have had a score accepted to the Twin Galaxies 720 High Score List.
The post above and many others in the thread recount high scores of 720 players throughout the years, often times describing scores in the mid, to high 400Ks, with a few just reaching the 500K mark. I myself have scored into the mid 400Ks recently, and have calculated that if I eliminated a few more mistakes I could be just under 500K. After playing so often in the past few months, and discussing gameplay with a few other very active 720 players, I think I?ve come up with an explanation for the gap between the high score, and current/past players? top games: Street Timer. No where in all of the challenge discussion earlier in this thread, or gameplay stories offered later, is the street timer setting even mentioned, yet it has huge implications for scoring.
I?ve laid out my entire theory on the 720 world record score here: 720 - The World Record: My Take
It?s a pretty brutal wall of text, but for those interested in the 720 record, or the more general comparison if vintage era scores versus current documented scores, I hope its of some interest.
To current and past players: Please continue to offer your strategies, stories, and 720 history; I love the accounts of rivalries in this thread. And if by chance any readers own a 720 currently and have not done so, please Register Your 720 (if you don?t mind being included). Thanks - Jeff
My beginning strategy was to take off towards the shoes and pick up points from the blue park, skate on the sidewalk up to the helmet, then go back down to the the ramp. Kinda risky because I always ran out of time and had the bee problem. Cant remember the points I got for it. Thats how I always started...
I've actually been asked about my intro many times, specifically how to break 10K before the first ramp. Here is my starting run and first ramp park. Its a good example of 14K before the first park, as well as another 14K during the ramp including the starting lip trick:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nkwN09DvpM
Quote:
Originally Posted by DrunkJeff
[Jaw drops in absolute amazement and shock]
Dayum!
Mr. Kelly R. Flewin
Great intro Jeff. That beats my best score at the point of finishing the first RAMP park by 800 points and you picked up a helmet which I don't until later in the first round. Can you regularly get that high of score or was that a really good game? I don't know about you, but I usually die quite a bit in the first few parks trying to sqeake out a really good score to build on later in the game. I figure, it's not worth playing a whole game if my first few parks are marginal in score.
What's you're highest score to date? I assume it's better than the score you submitted a few months ago for 2nd place. I have my machine back together and taped a score of around 436,000 which I plan on submitting in the next few days. I actually scored 446,000 on another game, but screwed up the video by accidentally taking the camera off the game and I couldn't get the dip switches in focus since they're so small. I should have tried videotaping the dip switches beforehand. My hand was really starting to hurt like it did back in the day.
Mike Stephenson
Thanks very much for the comments. That game is definitely way above average for me. My normal start will usually be between 12 and 13K for before the ramp, and around 25K coming out. If I don?t perform to that level I?ll usually restart the game. As mentioned, I?m pretty aggressive early on and end up restarting many games before getting one I want to play all the way through. I realized it had become a problem as I don?t get as much late-game practice, so I?ve been trying to discipline myself to play through regardless of early mistakes made.
My current personal best is 453,450. I regularly update my high score at the top of my 720 page. I?ve been in a bit of a funk lately and haven?t made much progress. On games I finish I usually end up in the 420-440K range, so I need to step back and make some changes to my Skate City patterns.
I?d love to see some more respectable scores posted to the TG 720 list, so please keep on it! A word about the dip switches, it would be extremely tough to focus on the actual switches on the PCB. Instead, I waited until I?d recorded a game I wanted to submit, then swapped to test mode and showed the settings on the on-screen menu. Only after that did I move around the cabinet and show the PCB as best I could. I believe you?re mainly proving that the settings are correct, and that there are no external feeds going to or from the cabinet, so as you said, ensure you never take the camera off the cabinet, and show everything.
SKATE OR DIE Folks!!!