Top Secret  by: The Mole

07-24-2010            TGTS Missile Command is wrapped, for the first time in history !

    Your mole buddy, after an extended break from this column, is back, and with a vengeance !!  I have some incredible inside info, with some of it provided by webmaster Mark Alpiger, and some 'dug up' by yours truly !

    Gamer Jeff Blair, known for pinball, and Missile Command / Super Missile Attack, has recently scored a world record on Missile Command (TGTS mode).  This is after many months of efforts, and he was already at an incredible level over a year ago.  Specifically, at the Funspot Tournament last year (Funspot 11, in 2009), he scored a world record 382,960 points on Super Missile Attack in front of TG ref Dave Nelson.  He also had an incredible 1.9M score made on Missile Command, but that one was not witnessed, so he settled for a lower score - specifically, his currently listed 1,458,495 mark (over at TG).  That was done the same day as the SMA score, and, again, was witnessed by Dave Nelson.

    One big thing to keep in mind is that Jeff plays using the slow cursor settings on both games (as does Roy).  Of course, the cursor speed setting is somewhat moot, as TG (and CAGDC also, Mark has told The Mole) accepts scores played using either setting.  Still, the slow setting is impressive, as the player seemingly has to do more 'work' in order to play the game - no disrespect to any other player who chooses otherwise, however; as a mole, I know how tough digging underground is, and I choose to dig through soft earth, vs. hard, whenever I can !  ; )

    Now, Jeff recently officially (though still in process as of this date) topped his TG score on MC (get all the details on the forums), and also the existing world record, with a superb mark of 2,371,830.  This beat Tony Temple's excellent 2,363,895 score by just a bit.  Well, here's the interesting part...  Jeff did the above while recording, as he just recently obtained a video camera.  But, in the months prior to Funspot, he topped 2 million a couple of times, and he also managed to pass the 3M barrier once !!  Now, that's amazing, but more amazing still was the fact that he became the first person to ever 'wrap' the game, and get past screen 256 !  His score was about 2.7M going onto 256, and he noticed (because of the slowness of screen 1) afterward that he had a 3.279M score after the wrap.  The game allows you to get about half-a-million on that one particular screen, because of some odd scoring issues.  Well, he then played on, up to an incredible 3,513,185 final score !  This was on February 28, 2010, but there are two things to note; first, he was using the Braze board (which allows a quick switch between MC and SMA, but isn't allowed for MC submissions), and he didn't have a camera to record with... yet.

    Still, his feat was stupendous, and significant.  And, it begs the question of, how does one top that historical performance ?  Well, maybe 'top' is not the word, but Jeff has trounced his SMA official score, with an unrecorded 798K mark, which more than doubles his listed TG score.  One might say that this unofficial game of SMA is an excellent matching 'bookend' for the MC 3.5M score !

    At this point, what more is there to say - Jeff Blair is the current 'King of Missiles', and when his schedule opens up (over the coming winter), he plans on there being quite a bit of accomplishments to come, and this time, he'll be sure to have it all recorded, both for verification, and for posterity !

08-24-2006            East Coast Arcade Championships to feature 'secret' prize

    Well, The Mole has sniffed out a big one for you guys this time - let's just say an intercepted conversation has allowed me to present some significant information for gamers who will be playing in the upcoming East Coast Arcade Championships, to be held September 21 -24 at Challenge Arcade, which is located near Reading, PA.  The event features an interesting, and unique, mix of both classic and modern arcade titles (namely, Mr. Do!, Pengo, Frogger, Donkey Kong 3, and Pole Position II, plus CarnEvil, Police Trainer 2, Bust-A-Move, Strikers 1945 Plus, and The House of the Dead).  And, there will be a significant purse offered to the top finishers, as was the case in the first edition of this webmaster's CAGDC tourney, also held at Challenge Arcade, earlier this year.

    Now, here's the interesting part.  Even tho it wasn't announced in the press release, or anywhere else for that matter, there will be one game (out of the ten contest titles) that will be picked to be a 'secret game', ala Funspot's daily 'Mystery Game', which is featured each year at their tournament (tho for this contest's game, scores will be tallied during all four contest days, up until 4 PM Sunday).  The big difference is that the prize that is going to be offered at Challenge Arcade is for an amount that is significantly higher than the $25 awarded at Funspot.  Thus, needless to say, it will behoove players to try to get the top score on as many games as possible.  Oh, and if you do win, I'd appreciate you giving me a 'cut', since I provided you with the advanced info.  After all, a mole's gotta eat too !

07-25-2006            Walter Day to retire from Twin Galaxies by year's end 

    It's no secret that Walter Day has been talking about retiring from his post of Twin Galaxies CEO / Chief Scorekeeper / Chief Editor.  But, the timing has not been known - until now !  More than one source reveals that it will happen by year's end, just as the first volume (the Arcade Volume) in the long-delayed second edition of the Official Video Game & Pinball Book of World Records is scheduled to appear ("before Christmas 2006", according to a quote in a recent TG press release).  The timing of these two events is likely no coincidence, either.

    It does seem appropriate that Walter will also be timing things to approximately coincide with the 25th anniversary of the start of TG, which was November 10, 1981, when the Twin Galaxies arcade opened in Ottumwa, Iowa.  Now, the only mystery is who will take over the mantle that Walter holds today.  I guess we'll find out, in 2007.

Addendum:  Walter's initials are WAD, which is nice, as it's always interesting to your have initials spell out an actual word.  Now, what does the middle initial stand for ?  It's none other than the unusual (and interesting) name Aldro !

08-08-2004            Eric Ginner had inside track to first contest title

    Most gamers have heard of Eric Ginner, the most famous video gamer in the early 80's.  He won the Centipede division in what was apparently the first major national arcade video game contest: the Atari World Championships, held in Chicago in 1981.  Apparently, a lot was at stake, as the total prize money was $50,000.

    Centipede was certainly a famous, and popular, Atari game (and, the first designed by a woman) that came out in 1980, and was second in popularity only to Pac-Man.  A lot of gamers nationwide took up the challenge of this trak-ball game, and one group in particular got rather good at it.  Located in the San Francisco area, three players who were part of this video-game 'clique' were: the afore-mentioned Eric Ginner, who subsequently would make more of a living from arcade game-playing than anyone in history; Franz Lanzinger, who would become a game designer at Atari a few years later; and Sam Mehta.

    At different points, both Eric, and Franz, held the world's record on Centipede.  Needless to say, they were good, as was Sam.  Naturally, when the announcement about the contest came out, they decided to enter, as they were some of the best known players at the time.  However, that was on regular play, which could last for hours.  Somehow, one of the members of the group found out, early on, that in the world championship Centipede was going to be played as a timed game, which would last for only three minutes.  Needless to say, the group pretty much had a lock on winning that part of the contest, given that they had advance knowledge that apparently no other entrants did, and they also had weeks to practice in advance, according to one of the members.  And, practice they did.

    The contest date rolled around, and, rather like a tennis tourney, the play consisted of double-elimination matches.  As good as he was, Franz ended up losing relatively early, and came in around 26th place, he says.  However, both Sam and Eric managed to make it to the final round, and had a playoff.  Eric came out on top, meaning Sam took second place.  Eric's best score, which Franz thinks may have been in that final round, was around 55,000 points.  The current (as of this date) wr holder, Donald Hayes, has around a 51K as his best, on three minute play.

    So, a major contestant has a major advantage.  Needless to say, the rest of the field probably would have rioted if they knew the huge benefit that the Bay area group had coming into things.  But, sometimes, that's the luck of being in the right place at the right time, and Eric Ginner certainly was, for that major championship.

08-07-2004            Track & Field - mid-90's scores obliterated, says witness

    The 2004 California Extreme show was a fantastic gathering of both games, and people.  Mark Alpiger, who attended this year, let me know that he met one gentleman there by the name of Eric, who was a friend of Kelly Kobashigawa.  Many gamers are aware of this famed player, who holds records on both Hypersports, and, most famously, Track & Field.  For many years, there has been talk of players making above his recognized TG record of 95,040 points - both others, and even Kelly himself.  For example, the CAGDC master scoreboard currently lists a high of 96,850 by Chris Holder.

    Well, Eric informed Mark that Kelly had made 'lots' of 98K scores on Track & Field, and that he had a high of 101K !!  Now, that's some score.  Eric did witness Kelly making some of these elite scores, but, he wasn't there for the 101K 'peak'.  One thing to also keep in mind is that there has been reports that different ROM sets that are out there may give advantages on some events.  Still, these scores, if true, would be a significant accomplishment on this highly contested game.

    Needless to say, more research needs to be done, and you can bet that your mole buddy will keep on top of (or, should I say, under !) things, and try to root out the facts.  Stay tuned...

07-03-2004            Perfect Pac-Man first done five years ago... or, was it ??

    Most everyone, whether they're in the gaming community or not, has heard of Billy Mitchell's famous feat that was done five years ago today: the first perfect Pac-Man game that was ever done.  Or, so it goes.  The CAGDC webmaster, Mark Alpiger, has expressed doubt that that was indeed the case, saying "While I'll admit that it's not easy to develop patterns that allow a player to get all possible points, specifically when the 'blue-time' is short, it's incomprehensible that, given the popularity of the game, that no one had, at the very least, a perfect score, up to the split-screen.  I'll admit, maybe they didn't have perfect lives (tho, again, with decent patterns, it's not overly difficult to do), and / or maybe they were too dumb to figure out about the nine hidden dots on the screen.  Still, anyone with access to the machine could rack advance, and try out everything on the split-screen, and easily figure out the hidden dots, which are a big key to the perfect game..."

    Well, maybe not anyone, Mark, but, indeed, the Mole-man tends to agree (among others, such as permafrostrick ('Rick') from the TG forums).  And, this was borne out last September, in a post that Billy's good friend Chris Ayra made.  In it, he admits that both he and Billy did a perfect game of Pac-Man, over 15 years previous to 1999, in late 1983.  Indeed, Mark also told me that Chris had told him this when they talked via phone in the mid-80's, but, Mark wasn't into Pac-Man, and didn't understand the significance of it.  Indeed, he even forgot that Chris told him, until he reviewed his notes last year.  Incidentally, a perfect score is 3,333,360 points (for the non-factory TG settings, featuring the maximum number of men in the game, which is five to start, with no bonus).

    So, why the mystery ?  None of Billy's interviews relate that the feat had been done before.  Could it be that Billy wanted to project an air of difficulty to it, in that it took almost 20 years after the game was released until the first game was accomplished ?  I don't want to speculate too much, and, I must note that Billy didn't lie in his statements - he merely said that he was first to do it, which is true, according to Chris, and the media naturally took that he was referring to the only game they knew about - the one done five years ago.

    Another fact of that game, that I have rarely seen brought up, is the way Billy did it.  Most people assume that he used patterns, but, that isn't the case.  He used grouping methods, which make it much more difficult.  Now, while that certainly is laudable, one must wonder, if (as has been reported) Rick Fothergill was also working to achieve the first (public) perfect game, why would Billy take the more difficult, and therefore longer to accomplish, route of not using patterns (at least, on the screens that didn't have a short 'blue-time') ?  This seemingly makes no sense, but, apparently was the case.  Based on the above-mentioned post by Chris, perhaps Billy never took time to develop patterns, and always used the grouping method in his quests for the perfect game.  If so, Chris is definitely an innovator, as he not only developed patterns, but made sure that they were fast on top of it.

    In spite of the difficulty of his method of play, Billy did beat Rick to the punch, and Chris later followed his lead (among others).  Chris also has the fastest perfect game on record, at 3:42:04 H:M:S, versus the approximately six hours Billy took in 1999.  It's been rumored that Billy and Chris had an agreement where Chris could only do a perfect game (in public or taped) after Billy had accomplished his, and Chris alluded to as much in his post, tho he doesn't out-and-out say it.

    So, what else is on the plate ?  Besides the rumored 1 million score on Donkey Kong that was supposedly done last year, Billy is said to be up to getting by the split-screen on Pac-Man, tho by using a twist on the game-play, say my sources from this year's Milwaukee, and San Jose, gaming shows.  Let's just hope he doesn't wait 15 years before unveiling it this time !

Who is...  The Mole ???

    Well, just to start out with, The Mole (that's me !) is not Mark Alpiger, this site's webmaster.  Mark does polish up my submissions, and rewrites them a bit, but, all of the material is mine !  Or, should I say, the material is from a myriad of sources, which are composed of players, game designers, arcade workers, friends, enemies, magazines, newspapers, and even the Internet (my personal favorite !).

    I doubt that anyone will ever figure out just who I am, but, I will say this in advance - I am also not:  Walter Day, Rob Mruczek, Billy Mitchell, Roy Shildt, Darren Harris, Donald Hayes, Gary Vincent, Steve Krogman, Mary Fujihara,  or even Shigeru Miyamoto (look that one up !).  Of course, it doesn't really matter who I am - it just matters that I get all the scoops, and then let you in on them.  That's the way it should be, after all...

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