Various Video Game Achievements

I just got back from a very enjoyable vacation to New Hampshire. I have not had a chance to post on here because I have had a pretty busy schedule lately. I realized the other day that I never did post many of the video game achievements I have done this year. I have primarily been working on some more non-serious gaming projects, which is unusual for me. However, I'm always trying for and setting world records because that's really where I get a lot of enjoyment out of gaming.

My Lake Winnipesaukee View

So this post is going to be a recap of my gaming for this year (video links at the end). I'm also doing this just to keep a record of my personal bests. From now on, I think I will always include my recent gaming personal bests at the end of my posts.


January: 

Donkey Kong (Arcade version)

I started the year out strong setting a personal best on the original arcade Donkey Kong with a score of 946,900. This was achieved via MAME (emulator) during a Donkey Kong tournament hosted by donkeykongforum.com. Among the best players in the world, I got 10th place (it's surprising I didn't place higher, considering I reached the kill screen). The DK arcade community keeps growing, and among the community, my scores are actually pretty average at this point. At the same time, I rarely practice, but continue to beat my personal high scores for this game. I still hope that one day I will top the world record on this title.


February:

Excitebike (NES)

Earlier this year, I decided to reclaim the world records for Excitebike. I have held the records for Track 1 for at least 5 years, and Track 5 for about a year. The records for Tracks 2, 3, and 4 were held by a player named 'FlyHec' up until late February. His times bested mine only by a few milliseconds on each, and I finally managed to reclaim all the individual track world records for Excitebike. These times are extremely challenging to achieve, and I suggest viewing the videos posted at the end of this post.


March:

Track & Field (NES)

Track & Field games are basically just a test of how fast one can mash buttons. There's slide, vibrate, claw, multi-handed, multi-finger, electric toothbrush, and even methods involving spoons and pens for fast button mashing. Everyone has their own technique, and obviously for competition, no external devices can be used to obtain a record.  Sorry spoon players! 

'FlyHec' is ridiculously good at button mashing. He holds nearly every button mashing record out there, including the prestigious Track & Field arcade world record. Using his technique for the NES version, I was able to come close to, and tie some of the world records. I also managed to tie the archery high score listed on Twin Galaxies.

Track & Field II (NES)

More Track & Field... well, kind of. After striving for the button mashing records in the original, I decided to avoid them in the sequel. Why? Well, my arm and fingers were hurting a bit, and I don't plan on tackling any more button mashing records...period. So I managed to tie the record for Fencing, and best the world record for Taekwondo. They both require some luck, and I still don't fully understand the Taekwondo one. 

Super Street Fighter II

I wish I could say something amazing about the time I set here, but I can't. For the time attack mode, I managed to get 8.567 seconds. It doesn't even beat the staff record! For the time attack, one can choose any character and any opponent to fight against. The staff record used Ken vs Dhalsim, and I copied. The staff record is 6.874 seconds, and I imagine it can be beaten, but I won't be the one to do it.


April:

Baseball (NES)

This one was funny, but really stupid to do. Biggest Blowout: 29 - 0. The whole time, you just score runs by stealing bases. If you get a hit, you practically get a free run home. Not too exciting, but I think it is a world record score.


May:

NWC 2015 Best Buy Line (New York)

That's me in front.

May was certainly an interesting month. Upon the announcement of the 2015 Nintendo World Championships, I decided to practice for the chance to compete in the main event. I was 15th in line and was in the first round of competitors to play. The game Nintendo chose to use was Ultimate NES Remix for the 3DS, the championship mode.

The championship mode consists of 3 games with a time limit of 6 minutes and 21 seconds to score the highest score possible. This is the exact setup of the original 1990 Nintendo World Championships in which players played Super Mario Bros, Rad Racer, and Tetris to rack up a score. In this competition, the games were Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Bros 3, and Dr. Mario.

Dr. Mario is a pretty unforgiving title, and quite a bit of luck is needed to score big. For this competition, the best way to score was obvious. Dr. Mario has a x100 (times 100) bonus. Meaning that whatever your score in Dr. Mario was, they would multiply it by 100 to get the final tally for the game. So the goal was to reach Dr. Mario as fast as possible, and create massive combo chains.

I felt I had a real shot of winning. In practice, I managed to score 4,904,500 which at the time put me in the top 10 for North America. Checking the leaderboard now, I'm ranked 22nd, which is still respectable. Luck wasn't on my side that day. I managed to score a little over 1 million, and left the moment I knew someone beat my score (only the top winner would be invited to the main competition). I was happy with my performance. I played very well, but just didn't get the right pieces when I needed them. It was a fun event, and I'm glad I participated.


June/July:

After getting my butt kicked in the Nintendo World Championship, I decided to explore the other modes for Ultimate NES Remix. One was Speed Mario Bros, which is the full game of Super Mario Bros, at I think 1.5x speed. I managed to beat the game in 3:47.8 in this sped-up version.

The other mode has me hooked. Even still, I'm working on the challenges in this game. Ultimate NES Remix consists of 15 different NES titles with online time attack leaderboards. This game was made for me! I love NES games, I love speedrunning, and I love leaderboards. Not only that, but the game also saves your replays automatically (and even shows a player's inputs on the controller).

In total, there are 258 challenges among the 15 games (and 3 bonus categories). At this point, I have roughly half of the world records: http://www.cyberscore.me.uk/game/1505
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It is now August, and I am still working on these challenges. I would like to have the records for every single challenge in the game, but given the competition, I doubt that will ever happen. There are a lot of tied world records, but even those require quite a bit of dedication to achieve. I'm 133/258 right now, and counting. These are mostly Mario challenges, so I have quite a bit of work ahead of me if I continue toward mastering all 258 challenges. :)

As for Super Mario Bros and my quest to regain the record: progress is slow, but steady. I have a lot of things I need to focus on in my life right now, but I still think I can put in some time to get that elusive 4:57 time.  Once I do reach it, it may be the end of my Super Mario Bros adventure.

Donkey Kong (MAME):
High Score - 946,900

Excitebike (NES):
Track 2 - 46.04
Track 3 - 48.68
Track 4 - 44.51

Track & Field (NES):
100M Dash - 8.39
110M Hurdles - 11.23
Long Jump - 11.87M
Javelin - 118.09M
Archery - 5750

Track & Field II (NES):
Fencing - 0:29
Taekwondo - 0:20

Super Street Fighter II (SNES):
Time Challenge - 8.567

Baseball (NES):
Biggest Blowout: 29 - 0

Ultimate NES Remix (3DS):
Championship Mode - 4,904,500 (no replay)
Speed Mario Bros. - 3:47.8 (no replay)
Playlist of Challenges