Justin

Soldier Blade TurboGrafx-16 Controller: TURBOPAD / TURBOSTICK / KEYBOARD / PLAYER'S CHOICE Difficulty Level: Challenge Mode: 5 MINUTE "Caravan" Game Play on: Real Hardware / Dedicated Console / Emulation OK! ✔ Squad Challenge ends 11:59 pm PST October 31, 2021 Objective Play for the highest possible score using the difficulty settings defined in the challenge. Post a photo or YouTube video of your score in this thread. Scores must be achieved between October 15th through October 31st 2021. Screen captures are not allowed as they are more easily manipulated for falsified scores. Multiple submissions are permitted. The player with the highest score at the end of the competition is the victor! Eligibility Anyone can join in. All players are welcome! Play Rules Games may be played on real hardware, Flashback / Mini console, or emulation, using any controller or keyboard, following all rules and game settings defined in the challenge. Choosing between real hardware or emulation, and choosing which controller to play on is part of formulating your strategy. Enhancements, rewinds and hacked versions of this game are not allowed. "5 Minutes" Caravan Game Difficulty Level SELECT > CHALLENGE > RUN > SELECT > 5 MINUTES > PRESS RUN TO START At the title screen press SELECT one time. The difficulty setting will change to CHALLENGE. Press RUN. A new title screen will appear for the Soldier Blade Challenge Stage. At this screen, press the SELECT button once more to choose the 5 MINUTES Game, then press RUN to start! We are playing Solder Blade on the 5 Minute Game Mode -- explained on page 12 of the Soldier Blade Instruction Manual, which you can find on slide 7 of the PDF File attached below. Many Japanese shoot-'em-up games feature what is called a "Caravan" mode. Many times this is included as a Difficulty Setting in the game, but often is released as a "Special" or a "Caravan Game" on a separate cartridge. Caravan games are often developed as 2 minute and 5 minute speed runs for tournament play. Think along the lines of the special Nintendo World Championships NES cartridges that were slightly modified for short runs of popular games. It's essentially the same idea: offering a limited 5 minute speed run of an incredible game for the sake of friendly tournament competition. Fair Play Your integrity is everything. Players should play fairly, be honest, and have fun! Falsified scores will result in your immediate removal from the site. It goes without saying that we will not allow cheats, hacks, cartridge frying, enhancements, rewinds, deceitful photo manipulation, subterfuge, or any other unfair advantage. Everybody hates a cheater. More To review detailed rules on how to play, please visit the High Score Squad page here: Message Welcome to our 110th Squad Challenge!!! For this challenge we're diving into the world of "Caravan" shoot-'em-ups on the TurboGrafx-16 / PC Engine. Shoot-'em-ups are the system's strongest asset, and Soldier Blade is simply on of the best games on the system and one of the greatest shmups of the generation. We're playing Solder Blade on the "5 MINUTES" Game accessible in "CHALLENGE" Mode from the title screen -- Be sure to read the Squad Challenge Difficulty Settings carefully! You can find more about the "5 MINUTES" mode in the PDF Instruction Manual provided below. Soldier Blade delivers one of the most arcade-like experiences on the TurboGrafx-16 and takes the "Blazing Lazers" aesthetic to the next level. Soldier Blade was released in 1992 just in time for the Turbo Duo to be released in the United States. Soldier Blade and Blazing Lasers are some of my favorite games of all time, I'm hoping you enjoy this fun 5 minute speed run of one of the best TurboGrafx-16 / PC Engine games of all time! If you have any questions regarding the 5 minute difficulty settings or emulation, please feel free to send me a PM and I will help you. ROM and PDF Instruction Manual are provided below. I hope you all have fun, and good luck to everybody participating! NOTE: Here's a look at what's coming up through the end of the year: November: A Sega Genesis game December: 2021 F-ZERO Championship, plus a game for Atari Jaguar! Plus many more great games in 2022! (Schedule subject to change) Soldier Blade.pce Soldier Blade.pdf

Congratulations Marco1019! Congratulations to @Marco1019 on becoming our new "Ultimate" Missile Command Champion! Marco absolutely knocked it out of the park with his Missile Command score of 75,930 points played on the most difficult settings imaginable! I took 2nd Place in our Final Standings with a score of 26,120. @chas10e had a tremendous showing and takes 3rd with a hard-fought score of 16,170 points! "The Don" @RickR was hot on his tail with an even 15,000 points. @Gianna rounds things out with 3,335 points taking 4th place. Congratulations to @Marco1019 on his decisive win, and be sure to check out his Twitch show "Retro With Marco" every other Tuesday night at 9PM EST! Also, a huge THANK YOU to everyone whose been getting the word out about our community and inviting others to join us in High Score Squad! Participation in this Squad Challenge was pretty low for such a "pillar title" of a 2600 game, let's all do what we can to invite others to join us in our Squad Challenges to keep them fun and vigorous! As always I'd like to encourage @Marco1019 to post his high score on the Scoreboard, and let's make sure this Challenge continues on! Congratulations to everybody here for being such a great group to spend time with, I hope you had a great time taking on the ultimate challenge of Missile Command on Atari 2600! COMING UP: Our next High Score Squad Challenge is an intense one for the TurboGrafx-16! Be there!

THANKS @RickR ‼️

Way to go @RickR 🙌

Neo-Geo games are pretty expensive, especially on the AES. I'll definitely continue collecting Neo-Geo cartridges but I'll probably pick up a Neo-Geo EverDrive from Stone Age Gamer: https://stoneagegamer.com/flash/neo-geo-aes-mvs/carts/ I've been very happy with my Turbo EverDrive on my Turbo Duo, pretty sure @btbfilms76 has been very happy with his as well.

@DegasElite I'd like to check out Neo Mr. Do for the Neo-Geo AES. It looks like a beautiful update to the original! I've never had a chance to play it. I would've loved to see more Neo-Geo versions of earlier arcade classics

What are the best Neo-Geo games? The obvious ones at the top of the list would be their stellar fighting games. Art of Fighting, Fatal Fury, Samurai Showdown, The King of Fighters, etc. But what about everything else? Fighters aside, what would be your top picks for Neo-Geo?

These are all part of settlements stemming from successful Tramiel-era Atari Corp. lawsuits against Sega. One such lawsuit was over Sega's use of the 9-pin controller ports, and a number issues with the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive, Sega's failed relationship for Atari to distribute the Mega Drive in North America as the "Tomahawk" or "Genesis", and similarities in architecture to the Atari ST, etc. Sega reached a settlement with Atari resulting in a much-needed influx in capital in the form of Sega investing in Atari, and an agreement between the two to collaborate and share work with each other. This is why Atari was sending out Lynx Catalogs as late as 1994 showing an Atari Lynx running Sonic The Hedgehog 2:

My latest High Score: 26,120 PS - That's @Gianna in the background admiring my swag

Wow are these settings challenging. I think I cranked these settings up to 11 -- they're pretty brutal! First attempt: 1,830

There's an opportunity here for Intellivision to become a quality, bespoke, 3rd party publisher and release these Intellivision games on other "family friendly" platforms such as Nintendo Switch. Modern interpretations of simple "OG" Intellivision games like Astrosmash and Shark! Shark! would shine on iOS! Intellivision could develop deep, rich games around their existing IP as well as newly acquired licenses, for example creating an incredible version of Earthworm Jim for Nintendo Switch, which already has a massive user base ready to buy and a digital store ready to go. It's been said the new Amico games "need a special Intellivision controller which provides unique gameplay" -- this could be done on Nintendo Switch the same way they’re doing with Genesis and Nintendo 64, with the release of an Intellivision controller for Switch. These are all potential revenue streams beyond the moonshot task of developing, producing, and getting sales distribution for your own original video game system. I wish Intellivision the very best and hope to see them succeed in the long term.

I like John Alvarado's Astrosmash shirt

It would've worked to their benefit to take as much time as they need to develop their product line quietly -- and then go ahead and make a big splash when it's ready to launch. When Atari released the 2600, and when Nintendo released of the NES, there wasn't four years of talk leading up to their release, they just showed up one day. Most of the public hadn't heard anything about them until they were on store shelves. Their products, the games, they all spoke for themselves. People liked them and they caught on. Nintendo didn't have a US spokesperson hyping up the NES nationally leading up to Christmas 1985, and for as much as a showman as he was, Nolan wasn't doing 2600 publicity for four years leading up to its launch. They worked tirelessly to get their systems and launch titles out by their target dates, and then all the publicity began. I think it would've helped Intellivision to take this approach. Work quietly and diligently, make something great, and once its being shipped to store shelves you can hype it up. When people come out and spend a lot of time dropping "wouldn't it be cool if..." hypotheticals, making promises, building anticipation and telling you what they're going to do rather than doing it first and then telling you what they have done -- people tend to take a step back. I think people in general would be far less skeptical of these projects if they simply waited until they were ready to hype them up. And honestly announcing products prematurely only serves to put a project under a constant deep anal exam from the public. The more time that passes, the more opportunity for misunderstandings, haters, and bad PR. I'd like to see projects completed in their entirety first before the public gets a chance to become polarized.

Incredible!!

WOW @Marco1019 incredible scores!!! You're playing Game 16 Difficulty A? This game is BRUTAL on those settings!! 🔥

There it is! You were right on it @Sabertooth 🙌

Does the first line say "Includes Collector Coin" Why is this purposely blurred out? Are there clues here?

Yes, correct.

Can the HDMI output device handle converting an Atari 2600 video output to HDMI as well? 2600 TIA is pretty wild.

I keep making this point. Imagine you're a dad Christmas shopping in Target, you have a Nintendo Switch in mind because it will be fun for the whole family, games the wife can relate to and your elementary school-aged children will love it! But WAIT! What's this? "INTELLIVISION"!! "Wow! I remember Intellivision! I didn't realize they were back!" That momentary nostalgia hooks you and grabs your interest. "Moon Patrol, I remember that!" How cool that "Intellivision has a new system out" and got wide distribution into stores like Target. It's sitting on the store shelf next to the Nintendo Switch. You begin comparing the two. The warm fuzzy feelings of "Intellivision" get you excited. But so do the feelings for The World of Nintendo with Mario, Luigi, Donkey Kong, Metroid, etc. etc. You begin comparing the two. They're the same price. "The new Intellivision looks like fun for the whole family, but the kids were really excited about Nintendo Switch, and the whole family would really enjoy that too. I think they wanted to play Mario, Zelda, and Animal Crossing. Plus Nintendo has all these other games." "Maybe if the Intellivision Amico were priced less like a Nintendo Switch and more like a Sega Genesis Mini Console I could buy both systems." Let's say there's a huge Intellivision Amico fan standing there next to you in Target excited about the Amico, what does he say to convincingly sell you on it? What is the marketing strategy for Amico? Is it the video game equivalent of the Jitterbug phone? Would a better strategy for "Intellivision" to have developed new games based on their existing IP and new licenses to release on Nintendo, PlayStation and Xbox instead of developing their own small console (for example: developing a new "Moon Patrol" downloadable game for Nintendo Switch rather than developing their own console, wouldn't they have a much larger user base?)

Thank you for mentioning Atari I/O @- Ω -

Agreed! This has worked for me both with vintage tech and vintage cars as well 🧠