Thursday, May 18, 2006

Tournament Nite 11

I think balki spiked my sausage and mash casserole. Okay so maybe I just lost fair and square :(

First up was Balkis #1 choice - Defender. An excellent game if somewhat flawed by the fact that neither myself or balki were any good at it. We both remember watching people play it in the arcades (back in the day....) but I think I only played it twice because it was so difficult. Anyways, Balki drew first blood with an impressive score of 18,500 (impressive for us I might add). Buks on the other hand managed a measley 7,550 and so lost the first point. The second game was not good for Balki as he threw away his chances with a poor score of 5,625 - Buks took full advantage and posted a whopping score of 9,475 to take the score to 1-1. The final game saw Balki losing it completely with a score of 7,175 but Buks failed to capitalise and just missed out with 7,025. Balki leads 2-1.

Second game was Tutenkam. buks played this game on some campsite in the Lake District sometime in the mid-eighties. Not quite as good as he remembers but still a good but tough game. First score was a respectable 12,020 which was a lmost double Balkis 6,220. Second game was a disappointing 7,980 but still beat Balkis 3,260. Buks leads 3-2

Third up was Puckman (or Pacman for the non-Japanese). This is a game I am absolutely terrible at. I could have predicted this score (and I think I did). Balki was first on the table with a very impressive 23,090 against Buks' 16,530 (a personal best). Second game saw another good score from Balki - 21,490. for some reason Buks' score isn't documented but safe to say it wasn't very good. Balki leads by 4-3.

Final game was a new one - and not an old arcade game. We've been playing about with some new (and free !) software - Future Pinball. tonights table was Puzzle Bobble (or is it Bubble Bobble ?). Anyway, a nice simple layout without too many complicated sequences (I can never work out what to do with pinball games). anyway, this game went right to the wire. The way the scores stood at this point meant it could go either way. First up was Buks who posted a totally disasterous score of 3,950 - quite possibly the lowest score ever. Balki thrashed this with 10,982. Buks came back on the second game with a more respectable 11,615 to beat Balkis 7,355. So, down to the final game - Buks managed to amass 18,508 but Balki pipped him at the final hurdle and scored 27,048. Balki wins the trophy 6-4.


Balki


Buks



Defender

1

0

1

0

1

0

Tutenkam

0

0


1

1


Puckman

1

1


0

0


Future Pinball

1

0

1

0

1

0

Totals



6



4

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Lights, Camera, Action !































Well, I had to do it. I have purchased the above items from www.groovygamegear.com in the States and I am just waiting for the parcel to arrive (sometime next week hopefully).

Top left is the "brains" behind the mad flashing/strobing lights. Its a LED-WIZ and god knows how it works but the effects are fantastic.

Top right is the replacement trackball and RGB lights. Each of the 3 different coloured lights can be controlled independantly and means you can get over 1000 colours per device. Cool !

Bottom left is the RGB-Drive which is basically the RGB light for the buttons.

Bottom right is the translucent button type thing.

Should be a good project !