18 replies to this topic

[Jibbajaba]

This season, the NES HSC is going to participate in the AA-wide knockout competition. See the rules here:

http://www.atariage....t-announcement/

If you get knocked out, you can still compete in the NES HSC, but your score will not count towards the knockout tournament. So I'll be posting 2 sets of results for each round.

Title: Gradius
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Nintendo
Released: December, 1986 (US)






Rules:

No Konami code! (Duh)

This round will end on Tuesday, February 7th.

Tips:

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.

Scores so far:

1. Sonic R 811,100 +9
2. atarilovesyou 322,000 +6
3. asponge 190,900 +3
4. bigbee99 150,600 +1
5. cparsley 156,000 +1
6. LarcenTyler 73,600 +1
7. jblenkle 67,000 +1
8. roadrunner 49,000 +1
9. classicgamer_27330 48,700 +1

Current standings:

1. Sonic R 10
2(t). asponge 9
2(t). Austin 9
4. atarilovesyou 6
5(t). bigbee99 2
5(t). cparsely 2
5(t). LarcenTyler 2
5(t). roadrunner 2
9(t). classicgamer_27330 1
9(t). jblenkle 1
9(t). Jibbajaba 1

Players still alive in the knockout:

Sonic R 811,100
asponge 190,900
bigbee99 150,600
cparsely 98,800
LarcenTyler 73,600
Austin 0
Jibbajaba 0
roadrunner

Edited by Jibbajaba, Wed Feb 8, 2012 10:25 AM.

[LarcenTyler]

73,600

[asponge]

158,100

This game is tough. Those stone heads are killing me. One week doesn't leave a whole lot of time for practice...

[Jibbajaba]

Yup. We have to do 1 week rounds in order to have our knockout competition end at around the same time as the others.Once we have a knockout winner, we can play the rest of the season with 2 week rounds.

Chris

[atarilovesyou]

Dang, missed out round one! I'll be in on this one...yep, those stone heads are a pain in the ass!

[Sonic R]

got some time to play this morning

made it into the second loop... lost a few lives on the second stage, and my game ended on the heads stage... I hate how they put you in the middle! I like to play the top on the heads stage...

well I ended with this:

811,100

[Sonic R]

I'll toss in my personal play tips...

my general order of powering up

speed - two times
missile
options two times
laser
shield

get both options AS QUICK AS POSSIBLE!! this will provide necessary extended firepower AND coverage! try to learn to play without shields!

use slowdown to your advantage to better maneuver around bullets!

collect ALL power up icons, even when you're powered up! they are worth 500 points each

there are several extends hidden in the game - first one is on the floating rock near the end of the first stage, another is on the top half of the heads stage (stage 3), there is one I believe in stage 2, but I cannot recall exactly where...

[classicgamer_27330]

48700

[asponge]

Here's a small improvement:

190,900

[cparsley]

Gradius score...


98,800

[bigbee99]

Having trouble with attaching a pic right now. I'll see if I can get it up later

I've never been too good at these side scrolling shooters
150600

B

[classicgamer_27330]

I suck at this game

[roadrunner]

me too

49,000

Attached Thumbnails

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[jblenkle]

Gradius - 45,800

[cparsley]

156,000 even...

[atarilovesyou]

Wow, I have no idea why all the sudden photobucket isn't letting me post my pics, nor can I attach them properly. The screen shots aren't required but they're part of the fun for sure! My high score is 322,000.

One word for this game: TOUGH. Everything is difficult about this game! I made it to, I think, the last level. It was like a maze looking future level, and the sad part is that I actually HAD the right amount of powerups for another shield replenish but the stupid amount of bullets headed my way made it impossible to survive. So, I made it there with one man and then got literally slaughtered for the rest of my six or so lives...no point in starting you halfway, I really think it's a lousy flaw of the game. Basically, whenever you die, you're screwed.

Easily the most frustrating are those circle ships that shoot the circle balls at you...they're kinda invincible, but you get lucky (all I can attribute it to is luck) and you can kill em sometimes...they're an end boss too. They just crash into you, cheap style. Oh well, considering how hard the game is I'm lucky to have made it this far! I've never really bothered to get good, and I refuse to go online for any tips or cheats.

The game is just plain difficult: my advice, get powered up quick and don't die. Ever.



PS: yet again I'm having difficulty making a post, just continuous cycling and waiting. I really do wish somebody will fix this at Atariage...if ya can't post easily, what's the point? The above post is a cut/copy, hence the lack of paragraphs.

[atarilovesyou]

There it is...very strange.

So I decided to try the Konami code just for laughs, and to my surprise at the end of the first level, I'm flying through space and blue silhouettes of the stone faces are flying at me!...and then I got transported to the third level, cool! I would crapped myself back in the day if that happened...heck, I crapped myself right now, lol! There's definitely something awesome about finding out about the easter eggs on your own. I'll wait until I beat the game before I go read the FAQs...that's how I've been playing all my games on NES all the while. I figure, if somebody designed it, then it must be beatable! ...well, except for Battletoads, lol.

Edited by atarilovesyou, Tue Feb 7, 2012 1:29 AM.

[jblenkle]

Gradius - 67,000

[Jibbajaba]

This round is over. All results in the OP have been updated. Both Austin and I are knocked out this round for failing to submit scores. LarcenTyler, you have until this evening to choose a game. If you do not, I will choose one and post the new round.

Chris