Friday Scoreboard (3/25/05) -- Bowling (Atari 2600)

[Gapporin]

Hello, and welcome to another weekly feature here at DP! It's called "Friday Scoreboard", and here's how it goes: Every week I'll choose a different game at random from any console. I'll then post my choice in the Video Gaming forum along with my highest score that I was able to attain. Your mission, should you choose to accept it: Get the highest score for the week. Simple, huh?

A few ground rules must be made, however, in the interest of fairness. They are:
- No continues are allowed. Once it's Game Over, it's Game Over. (No save states, either. :P)
- No cheats or codes, of course.
- Always use the default settings only. This gives everyone a level playing field.
- Although not needed, screenshots can help further validate your claim.
- Have fun!

This week's game is Bowling. Take to the ten pin alley in a classic Atari game, and see how many pins you can knock over!

My highest score so far is 135. Sadly, I seem to bowl in this game as well as I do in real life, heh.

A note about participation: Want to know how many people participated in last week's Scoreboard? Me. I really want to get this thing going, so if anybody has any ideas on how to get people to participate on this, I'd appreciate it.

So, without further adieu, grab your joysticks, and let's go!

[Jibbajaba]

W00t! Finally a game that I not only own, but enjoy! I would partiipate in high score contests more often, but it seems like it is always games that I don't have, which is wierd because I have a lot of games.

High score forthcoming...

Chris

[Vigilante]

It's not that hard to score a 300 on atari 2600 bowling. Roll the ball from the default position, the bottom of the lane. Listen to the sound of the ball rolling, at 4 rolls push up, the ball curves just enough for a strike. That's not cheating is it? :P

[k8track]

Just to make it uniform, which game variation and difficulty setting are you using?

And something else I've always wanted to know about this particular game: is it an overhead view of the alley where the guy is lying down on the lane, or is it a side view where he's causing the ball to levitate toward the pins which are stacked in a wonky fashion?

[Jibbajaba]

Just to make it uniform, which game variation and difficulty setting are you using?

And something else I've always wanted to know about this particular game: is it an overhead view of the alley where the guy is lying down on the lane, or is it a side view where he's causing the ball to levitate toward the pins which are stacked in a wonky fashion?

I am using whatever version and setting of the game loads up when you turn the machine on. and it is the guy laying down on the lane.

I'll open up the scoring.

/ X X X / / X / / X / 217

I did this without using Vigilante's "technique".

Chris

[Gapporin]

Just to make it uniform, which game variation and difficulty setting are you using?

Default settings (1-1, Curve Ball). Although, I suppose we could hold high scores in each variant (3-1, Steerable Ball and 5-1, Straight Ball). Vigilante's trick would not work well with 5-1.

Oh yeah, my difficulty is set to A.

[Gapporin]

Here's the scores from my first round of bowling (brackets denote tenth frame):

Curve Ball: X X X / X / / / - [X /] 197

Steerable Ball: X / / / X X - / / - 173

Straight Ball (obviously the hardest mode): - - - / / / / / - [/ -] 135

[Jibbajaba]

OK here are my updated scores including the other game modes.

Curve Ball (1-1): / X X X / / X / / [X /] 217

Steerable Ball (3-1): / / / / / / X X / [/ X] 202

Straight Ball (5-1): / / / X / / / / / [9] 170

Come on, guys. I know more people have this game. It's dirt common.

Chris

[DigitalSpace]

I'm not at my house right now, but give me a day or two and I'll play this (via Atari Anthology on the PS2) and post my score.

[yuppicide]

This game is way too easy.

I'm not really in the contest, but decided to play. Here's my first score:



First game I played after not having played in about 15 years.

[DigitalSpace]

I finally played this today, and my final score was 150.