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Asteroids High Score Unbroken For 25 Years
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waterhand
11/13/08

In reply to Asteroids High Score Unbroken For 25 Years
As a math prof, I'm not fond of the smack to long division. I mean, everyone needs to know how to find the oblique asymptotes in rational functions. Oh, and what part of that sentence did you not understand?
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Gantz: Your Trusted Friend in Science.
11/13/08

@waterhand: You lost me after "As"
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Ralff
11/13/08

@waterhand: Congratulations, you're better at math than people who didn't spend years studying it exclusively. Would you like a cookie?
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waterhand
11/13/08

@Ralff: No, I'd rather have pi.
@ZinkO: HYPE GET: In the math world, we prefer to call it an absolute maxima horse.
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Bichatse
11/14/08

@waterhand:

And in the grammar world, we prefer to reserve words like 'maxima' for instances where there's more than one of them; since you can't ride more than one horse at a time, you'll have to settle with an absolute maximum horse, sorry. ;-)

And we also don't give a shit about starting sentences with a conjunction! We're just that crazy!
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Gantz: Your Trusted Friend in Science.
11/13/08

In reply to Asteroids High Score Unbroken For 25 Years
Ah Asteroids, one of the few retro games I have absolutely hated. Its just such a bizarre weird feeling mechanic and I never found it compelling in the slightest.

Shoot asteroids to not die, wee.
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Tiger-Fever
11/13/08

In reply to Asteroids High Score Unbroken For 25 Years
This reminds me of the Sunday arcade machine posters, so Kotaku, let's see some more of these nostalgic posts :)
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Strangelove
11/13/08

In reply to Asteroids High Score Unbroken For 25 Years
Possible Donkey Kong kill screen in a few minutes.
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Dresan
11/13/08

In reply to Asteroids High Score Unbroken For 25 Years
Huge yes on the fact that games are now easier. Back in the olden days, we had three lives and MAYBE we got continues. Now, it's just continue until you get it right, even if it's luck that gets you through.

Even in-game clues are evidence that things got easier...go back to the original Metroid... you start the game with one question on your mind:
"wtf do I do now?"
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Sutekh_Slain
11/13/08

@Dresan: if you as a player is left wondering what to do, then the game designer has failed.
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Johnny
11/13/08

@Sutekh: Definate no-no on this.

Adventure games and puzzle games are quite the oposite.
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Sutekh_Slain
11/13/08

@Janxer: for puzzle games, u should wonder how to solve it, not wander around aimlessly trying to find a puzzle to solve.

as for adventure games, could you clarify please? I have never played an adventure game where i had no clue what i was supposed to do, as in not knowing what my next objective was.
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shade-black
11/13/08

@Sutekh: jesus. so you would rather have the game hold your hand the whole way through?

janxer and oni-sakusen are right.

I think one of the best games of all time would be Seiken densetsu 2, or Secret of Mana. Most of the time you have to figure out what to do next, rather than the game telling you what do so much.
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Sutekh_Slain
11/14/08

@shade-black: so me wandering around aimlessly, through no fault of my own, makes a good game. riiiiiiiiggggghhhtttt.

whoever said anything about hand holding? im talking about having unclear objectives.

if i have to kill enemy x to save town y, fine. thats a clear objective. leave the execution to me, the player. however, if i have to guess somehow what the designer wanted me to do, and the action is not very logical, and then the designer sucks ass.

if i was left clues regarding my next objective in a given game, then fine. i don't need a freaking arrow to guide me through the godforsaken level.

name me a good modern adventure game that consistenly leaves you feeling confused, because I haven't played one.
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GTgeek
11/13/08

In reply to Asteroids High Score Unbroken For 25 Years
How often does anyone even try to break this record? Has it been attempted? Has anyone even seen an asteroids arcade machine recently? I see plenty of Galaga/Ms. Pacman machines, but not so much of the Asteroids machines.
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djgil
11/13/08

@GTgeek:

Well, back in 2003 local NW legend Bill Carlton tried to do it at Portland's Ground Kontrol arcade and failed about 25 hours into his attempt. The machine just died. No one knows what caused it, even the owner/operator nor Bill. Many speculated that it was just a transformer or the power supply, but those checked out fine.

Recently, Bill has been chasing the WR on Missile Command. He's tried 4 times starting in 2005(?). It takes an entire 3-day weekend of his time to plan for them, so marathon records (as they are known as) aren't easy to just "go for" these days. The record still stands at 80+ million and takes about 55-58 hours to just reach it. It's all about endurance, mental prep...and hoping the machine holds out. Remember, these machines are nearly 30 years old now.
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Masterpain22
11/13/08

@djgil: I was going to say that the longevity of the record is not as impressive after a while as it is only going to get longer due to the fact that there aren't many people playing this game let alone going for the record. After reading what you say that it takes that many hours to beat it the first place, is hard to talk about the record as anything less of an achievement, as it takes a lot to do it.

Still, considering that there aren't that many machines available to play the game, the ones that exist can break on you, and that the popularity of the game is not even close of what it was when the record was first broken, I think that this record has to be recognized for what it took to beat it (whatever crazy amount of hours it was) not for how long has it remained unbeaten.
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Eltigro
11/13/08

@Masterpain22: Well, see the thing is that, if no one plays the game any more or that there aren't any machines to try to break it on anymore, than we no longer refer to it as the "current record." We instead start referring to it as something different, something like, "the highest score ever."
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Skunky
11/14/08

@GTgeek: Friend of mine has an Asteroids cocktail table, I still suck at the arcade version. The damn tiny ufo's kick my ass.

I have the 2600 version as well, I do much better in that one. I looped the score for hours before I had to let 'er go to get dinner.
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lazlo_chatter
11/13/08

In reply to Asteroids High Score Unbroken For 25 Years
I've said numerous times that games back then were harder than they are now. I don't know why, but it seems like 2D side-scrollers are houses the hardest games out of all the genres. Using the VC or XBLA I've been able to play some of my old favorites and I got my ass handed to me. Why? Because as a kid I could devote so much more time to playing that game because A) I didn't have anything else to do and B) I didn't have anything else to play. If got frustrated I couldn't say "Screw it" and play COD4 or anything else. If I got mad and quit I stopped playing games - which was unacceptable.

It was for that reason the game developers made their games harder, with more secrets, then developers do today because in the gamers and developers minds, that's not what makes a good game by todays standards. What makes a good game today is who can have the most characters on screen and who can make it look the best while doing it. Difficulty has taken a backseat and is looked at as an add-on like Insane mode where there is nothing harder about the game except the enemies hit-to-miss ratio gets bumped up a notch. They're not smarter, they're more accurate and their guns fire faster. That is not a difficult game, merely a lopsided one.

No, I crave for games that are genuinely difficult, like Ninja Gaiden or Shinobi. Ones that take true skill to beat on Normal, and not everyone can beat. I fear those days have passed, sadly.
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Sutekh_Slain
11/13/08

@Lazlo: ninja gaiden's difficulty is just as cheap. i dont know what you're talking about.

instead of muscle memory, id prefer something more intellectually hard, like a srpg.
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GTCvDeimos
11/13/08

In reply to Asteroids High Score Unbroken For 25 Years
I'd love to see how he'd fair in Geometry Wars
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Johnny
11/13/08

@GTCvDeimos: Oh god, that would be FUCKING AWESOME.

Someone give this kid an xbox 360!
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Kiriai
11/13/08

@Janxer: That "kid" is 40 years old now. =p
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GTCvDeimos
11/13/08

@Kiriai: Nope, moleculor is right. per the all knowing wikipedia, the kid died in 85... fell from his campus dorm window. well that's a disappointment.
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Skunky
11/14/08

@GTCvDeimos: See? That's what happens when you live in videogames too long. Dude was so addicted to Asteroids he forgot about gravity.

This innappropriate bit of humour brought to you by the letter "A" and the word "hole."
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BassForever
11/13/08

In reply to Asteroids High Score Unbroken For 25 Years
Very impressive for a 15 year old, not sure how his parents let him stay their for 3 days playing Asteroids though...
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Skunky
11/14/08

@BassForever: They figured it was better than a WoW addiction? Oh wait, 1983, right...
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doubtful
11/13/08

In reply to Asteroids High Score Unbroken For 25 Years
Even more impressive, Scott then went on to save all of humanity from Xur and the Kodan armada. True fact.
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