millerbrad

This game is just downright mean. The bullets fly at you so frickin fast. 87,860 - BAM

Welp... 52,430 - BRAD

Apparently the attract screen can get high scores, too. I got on the board, and now every time the attract mode goes through a demo, it keeps asking me to reenter my name for the high score board. Also, MY EARS!!!

This game...

Not really a GameEx question, but you can create mame.ini by running mame -cc from the command line. I believe you need to include keepaspect 0 in the mame.ini to do what you want (though I haven't tested it, personally) Keep in mind that if you have vertical.ini, horizont.ini or other .ini files that apply to the game you're playing ([romname], raster, vector, etc), they'll override settings in your mame.ini. So, for example, if you're playing a horizontally-oriented game, any differing settings in horizont.ini will cancel out what's in mame.ini. Honestly, I'd recommend putting the keepaspect 0 setting in horizont.ini, and leaving mame.ini at 1. Stretching vertical games to widescreen is probably TOO much stretching.

Build a cab! Emulation is a heck of a lot more fun on an arcade cabinet than sitting at a desk. And, like you said, competition helps. I'd have never played an ugly-looking game like Anteater without the High Score Competition. Once I got into it, it's pretty fun. And a lot of games that seem too hard to hit the top ten really just require a little practice. I don't expect to get a very good score without a couple hours of playtime.

BAM - 112,100 Creepin' up on Cynicaster... Those monkeys sure do like to juke around and fake you out on the second level. I also made a RocketLauncher bezel for this game with what little art is available online. I copied the instruction card from the original manual, only to find that the scoring doesn't match the actual gameplay. I guess "hard" difficulty makes each jump only worth 10pts, and the timer only starts at 8,000pts. The OCD part of me says I'll need to update that...

Mag Stik Plus from Ultimarc is exactly this. There's also the OMNI2 from GroovyGameGear (which I have on my cab), where there's a switch under the joystick to change it. If you want to get real fancy, Ultimarc has the ServoStik, which automatically changes to 4/8 way based on the game you're playing.

BRAD - 41,200 The controls are actually pretty extensive in this game. I just have a heck of a time trying to move directly up/down with the square restrictor on my cabinet's sticks. Maybe I should try playing with a 360 controller...

The newest official MAME build has re-enabled high scores, and did so using fancy plugins & LUA scripting. I almost feel like someone with programming skills could use these scripts to either create a high score server to automatically keep our scores in, or to import the score tables from this competition into our own games in MAME.

Definitely KICKER. Mr. Kicker is just a wannabe. He's the Mr. Pibb to Kicker's Dr. Pepper. GUTS!!

CYN outta nowhere!

How could I forget Kicker? I loved that game as a kid.

75,980... I thought for sure I was on my way to first place. Made it all the way to the first bonus checkpoint of the second stage without losing a life. Then got buttslammed by the mobs of enemies over and over and over without being able to reach J. Jerks.

Seems like every time I come in here to boost my position, the person I was going to beat already has me beat again. BAM - 71,850 I think I need to try and make it to the third level this weekend.

What a weird game. Yet weirdly addictive. BAM - 11,520 I'll be back to show those stupid ants who's boss.

I see this occasionally. Curious if the specific build of MAME you're using has any effect on the list that's built in GameEx? i.e. if you let MAMEUI build its own gameinfo.txt or equivalent, does GameEx just grab info from that for its list? I'm using MAMEUIFX64, for what it's worth...

To be fair, I can see what he's taking about. It's a game from another generation... And from another part of the world. There's actually a fair number of characters like that in Japanese media. Although, nowadays, when they export something like this to the West. they usually recolor the blackface to purple in hopes that us sensitive Americans don't get too worked up. Relevant Wikipedia article...

Ah... So here's why they have the 10 pterodactyl rule. Not sure if this is even possible on this specific ROM, but here it is...

It's almost like Konami was trying to rip off Defender with this game. Heh. BAM - 46,450

I've always been terrible at this game. Lucky for me that the leaderboard still isn't full, so terrible still gets me points! BAM - 13,500

BAM - 96,730 I think I beat this game on the NES back in the day. It was a totally different game on that system, though.

Wolf's right. Those flying dudes kick my butt fast. BAM - 103,700

Absolutely! Just have a look at the rules.... We're looking for some more competitors.

BAM - 93,680 I already know that you can beat this, GC, so you just keep focusing on girls & boobs & stuff. At least until I win that badge. Late edit: Gameplay for this score: https://gaming.youtube.com/watch?v=Hxyx8j8Bwbo