ZeldaFreak

OH YES, I forgot to mention by the way that RetroUSB is actually providing the cart prize for this year's Xmas contest themselves, which is incredibly generous of them! So big big shoutout to @retroUSB!

LEADERBOARD/Tickets Earned ndsnfr - 19,743,710 - 2 Tickets SuperJimtendo - 10,187,430 - 2 Tickets NESfiend - 7,311,710 - 2 Tickets CT - 7,279,310 - 2 Tickets Link - 6,283,470 - 2 Tickets RH - 4,314,460 - 1 Ticket Gloves - 3,990,220 - 1 Ticket DefaultGen - 3,927,480 - 1 Ticket ZeldaFan042 - 3,506,710- 1 Ticket Multiboot - 3,026,770- 1 Ticket BlackVega - 2,094,010- 1 Ticket spacepup - 1,159,520- 1 Ticket JamesRobot - 1,065,480- 1 Ticket Splain - 73,490- 1 Ticket THE GRINCH'S FINAL SCORE/Tickets Stolen: 6,220,090 - 9 Tickets

@PII @Gloves @Bearcat-Doug @mbd39 @Richardhead @Dr. Morbis @NESfiend @docile tapeworm @BlackVega @SuperJimtendo @G-type @RH @Red @8bitdontquit @wongojack @a3quit4s @Murray @Krunch @TriHart @Abner Stomps @TWarwick07 @Kguillemette @Scrobins @Deadeye @Aguy @spacepup @drxandy @TDIRunner @Mega Tank @Splain @nesmaster14 @RegularGuyGamer @Gaia Gensouki @Jicsan @ZeldaFan042 @darkchylde28 @DefaultGen @Brickman @the_wizard_666 @JVOSS @koifish @acromite53 @KokiriChild @Jeevan @Bonanza125 @Lago @Avgn Gamer @CT @multiboot ------------------------ (If any of you would like to be removed from this ping list for future events, please let me know and I'll take your name off the list! Or, likewise, if you'd like to be added to the list, let me know as well! For these events, I ping people who have participated in previous events, and/or people who I think would be generally interested in future events.) ------------------------ 8-BIT XMAS 2023 CART WINNER ndsnfr ------------------------ 1ST PLACE WINNER ndsnfr - 19,743,710 2ND PLACE WINNER SuperJimtendo - 10,187,430 3RD PLACE WINNER NESfiend - 7,311,710 ------------------------ Heya there everyone, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all once again! For this year's Christmas contest, we're going to be playing 8-bit Xmas 2023 on NES! If you don't already have it, you can download the ROM for free here! For those of you who haven't played it... it's pinball! The D-pad controls the left bumpers, the B & A buttons control the right bumpers, and the start & select buttons control the... according to Google it's apparently called the "plunger," but, y'know, the thing that propels the ball on to the playing field over on the far right. I think it's a fairly safe assumption to make that we're all familiar with pinball, yes? With that said, the rules for this contest are very simple: Boot up the game, try to get the highest score you can, then submit your score! Doesn't get any simpler than that! Or... so I thought, until I was once again contacted by... sigh... @The Grinch. Yup, he's back yet again, rambling about his usual nonsense about ruining Christmas for all of us! Here's the deal this time around: In addition to the standard 1st, 2nd and 3rd place prizes, everyone who participates and submits any score at all will automatically be granted two entries in to a raffle to win a physical copy of 8-bit Xmas 2023, very kindly donated by RetroUSB for the contest! @The Grinch will be submitting his own scores for the event as well. He will update his currently submitted score if and when he improves it, just like all of you. By the end of the contest, should your score be lower than that of @The Grinch's final score, he'll steal one of your entries to the raffle and use it himself to try and get his own green, greedy, grubby little mitts on the cartridge, leaving you with only one entry in to the raffle, cutting your chances of winning the cart in half! This goes for every participant who doesn't manage to surpass his final score, so he could really rack up a lot of entries if you all don't fare so well against him! This will have no bearing on the standard 1st, 2nd & 3rd place prizes, this is simply a bonus prize in addition to those other prizes, same as last year. So, with all that said, here are all the prizes up for grabs: 1st Place: $25 Amazon gift card or cash equivalent 2nd Place: $20 Amazon gift card or cash equivalent 3rd Place: $15 Amazon gift card or cash equivalent Participation: 8-bit Xmas 2023 cartridge raffle entry x1 Participation + Surpass The Grinch's Final Score: 8-bit Xmas 2023 cartridge raffle entry x2 The only further stipulations to the contest are as follows: As you would expect, no save states, cheat codes, slow motion, turbo controllers, etc. are allowed. Anything that would give you any kind of advantage over playing the base game on real hardware is not allowed. If it feels like cheating, consider it not allowed. In-game exploits/glitches which allow you to increase your score in a way that wasn't intended are not allowed. If you're unsure about whether or not something would count as an exploit, feel free to PM me and ask about it. When you submit your score, make sure your VGS username is visible somewhere within view of the photo/screenshot of your score. It could be a slip of paper with your VGS username written down on it, or a text document displaying your VGS username. Use whatever method you like, so long as your username is clearly visible alongside your score. In the event you roll the score over, take a pic of your score once you hit around 90 million, before the score rolls over. Best time to do this would be after losing a ball. Continue as normal until you game over, then take a pic of your final score as well, and submit both pics. If you roll the score over multiple times, take pics every 90 million or so until you game over, then submit all of those pics in addition to your final score pic. I don't actually know if the score does roll over, but for now let's play it safe and assume it does. If it rolls over at a higher number (or if it doesn't roll over at all) let me know and I'll update this rule accordingly! Only scores that have been achieved after this contest has started will be accepted. If you've already submitted a score, and you end up getting a better score, you may of course submit the better score, and it will simply replace your previous score. This event will last from now until 12/26/2023 at 11:59 PM EST, a little over 1 week and 1 day from now. Same as last year, I decided to give you all an extra day over the usual 1 week length, since I imagine many of you are going to be quite busy over this next week, so I figured you all might be able to use the extra time. Once we make it past that deadline, that'll be the cutoff point for new score submissions. I'll tally everyone's final scores up, and deal out prizes accordingly! Good luck, and I hope you all have fun! Remember that there are real prizes on the line here, so try your best!

Oh shit I didn't know badges were back too, nice! ...I'm just now realizing I should've kept better track of what badges I had with the old system, haha. Ah well, I'll get around to it, I think I remember most of 'em.

Oh yeah there's only like 5 games left with two weeks to spare, we got this.

Splain's working on that one. The only one that isn't being actively worked on by someone as far as I can recall is PGA European Tour, since @RetroMichel said they'll get to it after the 20th.

And I figure Attitude makes sense for me to do next since like I said, basically identical to ECW.

I want that $20 ...But also by this point someone is working on all/will soon be working on all of the remaining games and I don't want to just sit around and do nothing.

ECW done. Next I'm gonna do Attitude since from what I've heard it's basically identical to ECW. The title defenses are endless once you get the final belt, but since you do technically unlock a cheat for beating 5 title defenses like the previous belts, I went ahead and did the first 5 just for good measure since they were all 1v1s which are piss easy in this game. Or, well, either that or Big Sal is one powerful guy, haha. Either way, done. Not a bad game honestly, but it definitely does get VERY repetitive pretty quick.

Yeah, they get my respect for even trying to make it work, but consoles just weren't ready for that type of game yet.

At least the SNES port nailed the soundtrack, which is pretty damn impressive given that the SNES's soundchip wasn't really the best for replicating that type of heavy metal sound

Well yeah but it sucked, the N64 was a console that would've been more than capable of an actually good port. ...Also, you say that about it not being like today with ports, but there really were quite a substantial amount of DOOM ports honestly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Doom_ports It really is a bit strange that stuff like the 3DO got DOOM ports, but the console that had an entire new DOOM game on it never got the original 2.

Honestly they probably should've ported the first 2 games as well, kind of a missed opportunity if you ask me, haha.

Kind of a similar situation to Sonic 3 & Knuckles, do you consider Sonic & Knuckles its own separate entry, or as an addition to Sonic 3?

Personally I think of TNT and Plutonia as add-ons for DOOM II rather than their own separate entry in the franchise, but that might just be me. You could definitely make an argument for Final DOOM being its own unique entry.

I really dunno why they called it DOOM 3, should've just called it DOOM 4 given the existence of 64

I love this thread being raised from the dead once every few months

Honestly rice in general kicks ass.

I wish everyone put that much effort in to their lyric videos, haha.

Normally I'm not a huge fan of lyric videos, but these ABBA ones are really incredibly done.

Soundtrack was SO good. Fragments was definitely my personal favorite of the whole OST.

Beat Sigil 2 a couple days ago and yeah, can confirm it's great! LOVED the soundtrack too, it was really really good. 64 might be my favorite of the original 3 as well honestly, if we're only taking in to account the base games.

Not to worry though, I'll take care of it, along with Attitude and PGA. I want that $20, hahaha. Almost done with ECW. I haven't played it much at all over the last week or so since I was having a lot of fun playing DOOM & DOOM II, but I'm hammering away at it now.