September 21st 2009, when the guys were over at my place we played some arcade games. Gaplus on the Namco Arcade Remix collection for the Wii was our first outing. That game is hard to begin with but then add a DLP television and the classic controller and it get’s even harder. None of us were able to break the low score of 50K. We tried a couple of other games on the collection as well: Pac and Pals and Super Pac-Man. You really need a joystick to play those games properly as well.
As the music blared from the jukebox and we sat around imbibing, I decided to have a hand at my Tron arcade machine once more. I don’t normally play unless friends are around. I enjoy playing more when I’ve got company to play with. My friend Rob joined me in what was to be another attempt to break 50K–a feat that I had only done one other time in public–a feat that our casual gaming crew considers to be… exceptional.
I dropped the token into the machine and it clanked against the pile of coins already resting in the coin-box.
At first glance, you might not think Tron a difficult game. After all, it’s a game based on a Disney franchise–a franchise that has taken some thirty years to climb from cult-status to scraping the bottom of the popularity barrel that overflows with other franchises like Star Trek & Star Wars. Regardless of franchise popularity, the game is quite difficult and requires precise timing and pattern memorization. For many years I’ve played this game socially and enjoyed average scores between 35K and 50+K. My last recorded high score was 50,132. I accomplished that the evening of June 26th, 2008 right after I modded the machine with a new battery kit to save high scores. Last spring I scored even higher: 54K+ in front of a live audience at the Spring Retro Video Gaming Party sponsored by GridCycle and its members. However, it was just a couple of weeks ago–on the night I mentioned above–that I was thrilled to score a whopping 55,647!
Bam! I was on the SNOBOL stage! The tanks were now Recognizers! They were big and red and scary and I was on top of the world! And then I died. After the local cheers and general euphoria died down–and the song “You’re the best!” stopped playing in my head [yet again]… I documented my score and sat down to enjoy the rest of the evening–ego intact.
I had remembered visiting the Twin Galaxies site 3-4 years ago and thinking that the scores were a bit higher than mine. I decided to check them out again:
Alas, my score was more than deflated. How do these guys do it? How!? Well, for one thing they probably practice a helluva lot more than I do. Here’s an article about David Cruz’ winning run and what it takes to “master Tron”: “Yep, this guy’s a player.”
I don’t think I’ll be flying to New Hampshire to set any records. As I said, I only casually enjoy Tron when I have my buddies over. It’s a good solid game and I’m happy to be as good at the game as I am. It won’t stop me from trying to beat my own score… but I don’t ever expect to spend 13 hours playing a video game to take the world record. I tip my hat to those that can stick it out and have the wherewithal and patience to master the game. For now, I’m content to hold the high score amongst my friends.
~Madaracs
