45 replies to this topic

[Jibbajaba]

Welcome to week 2 of the 5th season of the Atari Age NES High Score League!

This season is only going to be 10 weeks long, and will feature one game released each year between 1985 and 1994.

This week's game and the 1986 entry is going to be Gradius. It has come to my attention that Super Mario Bos. actually came out in 1986, but I am just going to treat it as a 1985 game for the sake of the league's current theme.

Title: Gradius
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Released: December, 1986 (US)
Twin Galaxies High Score: 10,102,000 by Tom Votava. Second place is 219,300, which is only 2% of the first place score!



Tips:

Starcry has sniffed out a bunch of great tips for us this week.

1. Pass through the gap in the mountain on stage 1 for a bonus of 5000 points.
2. Get 2 speed ups then generally stop. Moving too fast is bad. You may do OK with 3 depending on the person.
3. Get shields ASAP. Once you have a full upgrade and 2 speed ups collect enough power ups to get the last box where the shields normally are full. When you lose your shield hit the button right away to turn them back on and repeat. This has saved me countless times.
4. Your options destroy things. Placing them above or below you in the fights where tons of things are flying at you can both be a life saver and big points!
5. The last tip is best learned simply by reading the StrategyWiki page. http://strategywiki....Gradius/Secrets As Starcry pointed out, remember that the codes on that page are cheats. Warps and hidden extra lives are fine.

Chris

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Rankings
Last modified on 01/26/10 at 05:15PM PST

mihcael      650,900    100%
Starcry      520,400     80%
darthkur     371,700     57%
Jibbajaba    192,000     29%
roadrunner    53,900      8%
LarcenTyler   50,600      8%

Edited by Jibbajaba, Tue Jan 26, 2010 7:13 PM.

[starcry]

woot. Love this game, im not to shabby at it either. (though im a long way from the top scores.) I would like to see how well people do here. Well its another one I dont own atm but its on the wii store

[starcry]

Fast tip. On the first level, there is a passage between a Volcano, go between it for some points. A decent sum. Its not easy though.

[Jibbajaba]

You mean you just get points for going though that gap?

Chris

Edit: I went to three stores today looking for this game but didn't get lucky. I prefer not to use emulators, so I am buying a copy online. Hopefully I get it this week. I'm not too bad at this game either, but not a top scorer.

Edited by Jibbajaba, Mon Jan 18, 2010 10:33 PM.

[starcry]

84300 is my first score. I need some pratice, game is TOUGH! I cant even imagine 10 million points!

[starcry]

Yup you get 5k points if you fly through the gap. There is another one in a later stage but i forget. Make sure you have a good weapon by the Volcanos, major score there.

*edit* ok here is a intresting tip. In the first level There is a diamond shaped rock not to long after the gap that you can score the 5k points off, if you BACK your ship into the right side it will sometimes give you a 1up. I cant figure out what exactly triggers it. I may just be hitting it in the wrong spot sometimes.

*edit* I looked this up on the internet and here is an awesome set of screen shoots showing where you can get the bonus points AND the one ups as well as the warp tricks. If you are not uber enough to beat the game but have a good amount of power ups, you can warp to a later stage for massive amounts of enemys. please remember the codes on the page are cheats!

http://strategywiki....Gradius/Secrets

Edited by starcry, Tue Jan 19, 2010 7:10 AM.

[starcry]

111300 second score. Getting much better. Big couple of tips.

1. Get 2 speed ups then generally stop. Moving to fast is bad you may do ok with 3 depending on the person.
2. Get shields asap. Once you have gotten a full upgrade and 2 speed ups collect enough power ups to get the last box where the shields normally are full. When you lose your shield hit the button right away to turn them back on and repeat. This has saved me countless times.
3. your options destory things. Placing them above or below you in the fights where tons of things are flying at you can both be a life saver and big points!

[starcry]

249100, Thats beating the game through and playing some on the next level, and dodging ALOT in the later levels not really getting points. I think perhaps that guy who is 2nd place is just there because no one is submitting. I looked around and there are tons of people running 800k+ so its a long shoot from being uber guys.

oh and if we arent allowed to keep playing *it does NOT game over just keeps going* then the score was 197300.

Edited by starcry, Tue Jan 19, 2010 3:52 PM.

[Jibbajaba]

You can keep playing the game until you get a "Game Over".

Chris

[LarcenTyler]

50,600

[starcry]

Good start Larcen. Ive been playing like made and cant even get 200k again. Though its getting easier each time.

[Jibbajaba]

125,500

Chris

[Jibbajaba]

135,700

Died in about the same spot. Seems very hard to get through that area if you lose all of your power-ups. I'm definitely getting better at this game, though. I have a real copy on it's way in the mail, so soon I will be able to stop using the emulator.

Chris

[starcry]

Jibbajaba, on Thu Jan 21, 2010 9:59 AM, said:

135,700

Died in about the same spot. Seems very hard to get through that area if you lose all of your power-ups. I'm definitely getting better at this game, though. I have a real copy on it's way in the mail, so soon I will be able to stop using the emulator.

Chris

Losing your power ups in that stage is basically the end of it. You can also get mad points there though. Make sure you have double, missles, and shield. Thats the most importants. That allows you to take out one of the heads out of each of the sets of two slowing down the fire. Its the hardest stage I think. I reset if by the end of the "power up section" at the start of stage 2 I dont have have 2 speedups,2 options,shield,double (or laser), and missles and at least half way to sitting on shield. Finally the way to get past the heads if you do happen to get the bad luck to be without power ups is to use 3 men. Grab the 2 power ups (dying to get 1) at least twice over, This will let you get an option that you can use below your ship to protect you. If you have enough men, get shield instead and pratice dodging. It takes some pratice but it works. Once I mastered that my score almost doubled.

And come on guys lets see some scores and get us pushing each other to do better! Just like mario! Atari2600land where are you!

[Jibbajaba]

Thanks for the tips, I'll be playing more Gradius today. Got home from a shitty trip to the dentist to find a copy of the game in my mailbox! Adios for this week, NEStopia!

Chris

[atari2600land]

Just got this game today. When's the deadline for this contest?

[Jibbajaba]

I will post the game for week 3 on Monday, but you can submit a score for Gradius until midnight Tuesday night/Wednesday morning.

[starcry]

right on atari. Did you get the link i sent for the controller? That thing makes playing from a pc feel much more real. I generally hook my laptop to my tv and use the controller I linked to you if I must play emulator. Owning a wii helps alot, turning the controller on the side feels very much like a nes controller and the classic feels already like a snes controller.

my newest score: 273400. thats once through and made it to the heads again but not past them bah. Those things are insane the second time around. I think I may be better off learning to score more in the last 2 stages of the first cycle than trying to just beat them to get back to the faster versions off stages 1 and 2.

[Jibbajaba]

153,700

I made it passed the heads, and then got killed immediately afterward, which sent me back the the heads. So aggravating. But I am definitely getting better at the game.

Chris

[Jibbajaba]

192,000

Getting better with each attempt!

Chris

[starcry]

Keep at it! once you start getting the patterns down it gets easier. Ive only gotten past the heads once in the second cycle but died to the boss. Right now I keep praticing the last few stages. Im going to make another couple score runs over the weekend to see if it improved any.

[atari2600land]

I'm afraid I suck at this game. I've never played it before.

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[Jibbajaba]

atari2600land, on Fri Jan 22, 2010 5:50 PM, said:

I'm afraid I suck at this game. I've never played it before.

I used to really suck at it, too. You just have to play it a few times to get a feel for it. I'm glad I picked it as the game for this week. I've never given the game much of a chance until now, but it is a REALLY good game once you get into it.

Chris

[starcry]

Yup this one just takes pratice. Once you get praticed you can do pretty well. Though I must say I keep scoring between my first score and my second.

[roadrunner]

53,900