Tournament Nite 9

Tourney 9 took place in Huddersfield on Balki's control panel. Despite having the home advantage Balki didn't manage to retain the trophy and Buks returned to Leeds once again victorious.

First up was Cosmic Cop. About a weeks worth of practice on this one - but having discussed tactics etc it looked like Balki would take this one 2-0. Balki played first and amassed a pretty good score - way more that my personal best. But as is often the case under tourney conditions - I managed to beat my best score and just pipped Balki's first attempt by around 1,000 points. Same happened on the second game which meant I took the lead - 2-0.

Next up was Zaxxon. This was an odd choice in that its one of the "flagship" retro games but I never played it in the arcades because it was way too hard. Having it on MAME means you can practice forever without spending lots of 10p's. I had practiced this game a lot over the past week and had actually become pretty good at it. Whereas I previously couldn't get past the outer space wave, I can now get past the end of level robot on most attempts (pretty good for me anyway !). I was first up and got to about 1/2 through the second level. Pretty average score for me. As Balki started his game, he jokingly said "Watch me crash into the wall". And then did. Much laughter ensued. Balki posted a very low score. Next game I somehow managed to emulate what Balki had done. I barely made it past the outer space level. Not good. Balki had a chance to pull a point back. But to cut a long story short, he didn't. Another 2-0 to me. So 4-0 at the halfway point.

Next up was Frogger. Not a favourite of mine. This is basically because I played it to death on the ZX Spectrum in the 80's. Although in practice I did okay, theres something about the game that just doesn't click with me. Balki was first up and beat his previous high score which meant I was going to have to pull one out of the bag if I wanted to beat it. I didn't but I did score a respectable score. Next game saw Balki beat his score again which meant I was going to have to do the impossible. I was right - it was impossible. I score the lowest Frogger score I have ever had. So Balki brought the score back to 4-2.

Lastly was Monster Farm Jump. This is a Japanese (I think) game from the 90's which I've never seen before. I "discovered" it while browsing the MAWS website. Excellent game with loads of level and difficulty selection. First up was me, and I managed to score possibly my best ever - I got to level 9 before losing all my lives. Balki was next and also got to level 9 but he'd been too quick on the bonus level and didn't amass enough combo's so his score was way less than mine. Which meant the score was 5-2 and technically impossible for Balki to win. We played one more game but I didn't do well (due to laughing and waving the trophy about). Balki beat me on the last game so 5-3 was the final score.

So victory to me !

Next tourney we have decided to choose 2-player games so I suspect that they'll be mostly soccer and fighting games.

	PL1 Balki			PL2 Buks
Cosmic Cop	0	0		1	1
Zaxxon	0	0		1	1
Frogger	1	1		0	0
Monster Farm Jump	1	0		0	1