Marco1019

Congratulations to GregDeg who not only set a new WR for Atari 2600 Venture, but netted $125 to boot! GregDeg set the new record with a score of 40,000. The bounty itself was announced this past Friday night, April 17.

Happy Halloween! I hope you all take advantage of the extra hour later tonight. (Sure, it means it'll get dark after lunch time, but that's a small price to pay.)

There's a lot of gaming going on as well! The Classic Tetris World Championship (CTWC) begins today with a new and unique format. The Kong League wraps up its month-long Head2Head competition. The European Speedrun Association (ESA) is holding their Break The Record marathon while Speedrun.com hosts their 24/7 Speedrun Variety event. In addition, RetroGamingLiveTV is sticking to the holiday theme with their Halloween Horror Marathon!

Lest we forget this site which is wrapping up the latest Squad Challenge for Demon Attack!

It's going to be long and fun weekend for gaming. Enjoy!

The Episode 44 REPLAY of Retro With Marco will air later today at 3pm ET / 7pm GMT on Twitch! I'll be in the chat with some commentary on last night's slow which featured the following:

1. Scoring and speedrun shoutouts, including a first for Super Mario 64 for the N64
2. Updates on the MAME Gaming League (MGL) and the 2600 High Score Club
3. A quick look at Variety Gaming Alliance and their charitable efforts

Stop on by and get caught up on the some of the latest news in retrogaming!

https://twitch.tv/retrowithmarco

See you then!

If you're working from home and need a break around 3pm ET today, then stop on by my Twitch channel for the Episode 42 REPLAY of Retro With Marco! I gave some shoutouts to several new scoring and speedrun world records, and I took a look at Super Mario 64 for the Sega Dreamcast. I'll be in the chat following along.

In addition, I took a quick look at Robbie Lakeman's new Donkey Kong world record....which he just so happened to beat again while I was streaming! (I learned of it after the show; you can click here for the stats on his new WR.)

https://twitch.tv/retrowithmarco

See you then!

For those who enjoy friendly high score challenges like the ones held here at atari.io, EverythingC64 also holds a monthly challenge for fun! A different game is selected from a poll and gamers then take their best shot at the high score for the month.

This month's game is Jumpman by Epyx. The deadline is midnight GMT (I think; the site owner lives overseas) on August 31.

September's game will be announced very soon.

EverythingC64 is also on Discord so you can chat with other gamers and C64 enthusiasts.

Intellivision Master started Astrosmash record run yesterday morning at 8am ET. After 13 hours of gameplay, he not only beat the scoring record, he finished with a Peak Score of just over 5 million!

A recent WR slipped through the news cycle with nary a mention:

Back on May 23, Danielle Robbins scored 24,119,640 on Flicky at Galloping Ghost Arcade. The record run was streamed and recorded on the arcade's Twitch channel. Danielle's score is believed to be the highest score for both Arcade and MAME. (The MAME record is 13 million.)

You can check out the record run here:

After a few non-gaming days & a bit of clean-up, I have completed my feature video on Greg Sakundiak and his perfect Pac-Man arcade run. This video posed some unique challenges for me as I usually edit highlight/shoutout videos for my show. Nonetheless, this was a lot of fun to create. Enjoy!

Here's a show update, of sorts...

Starting this Tuesday night at 9:30pm ET, I will be joining Michael Sroka of Settle It On The Screen! The show will be part recap of the latest episode of Retro With Marco (which will precede the new show) and part discussion about various retrogaming topics. It will be unscripted and a departure from my own show format.

Michael and I have talked about collaborating and we're looking forward to our new venture.

So we hope you will tune in this Tuesday night at 9pm ET for Episode 34 of Retro With Marco...

https://twitch.tv/retrowithmarco

Followed by a new episode of Settle It On The Screen at 9:30pm ET...

https://twitch.tv/settleitonthescreen

See you then!

It's been a very busy stretch for me at work so I'm late with this bit of breaking news:

Greg Sakundiak joins exclusive list of gamers to play a Perfect Pac-Man as he scored 3,333,360 on the game's 40th anniversary!

https://saskatoon.ctvnews.ca/my-hands-are-killing-me-saskatoon-man-just-one-of-a-handful-of-people-to-play-perfect-pac-man-game-1.4949088

Episode 33 of Retro With Marco is live at 9pm ET! I’ll have new WR shoutouts, Robotron 2084 for the Atari 2600, plus a look at MAME Chronicles - a unique MAME collaboration. Stop on by in the chat!

https://twitch.tv/retrowithmarco

Here’s my latest Shoutouts video ahead of Episode 33 of my show. This video features some new WRs including two records set within a few hours of each other, a record which broke a decade-old mark, and another new record which netted a $100 bounty! The video runs about 4:20 which is perfect for your coffee break. Enjoy!

Here's a 4 minute Breaking News segment back on May 5 for my show. It features Nondrowsy breaking his Pole Position II record for the Seaside track.

Back from vacation, back into the groove, and back for Episode 14 of Retro With Marco!

Tonight's episode will include:

• A few speedrun and high score shoutouts
• News and notes, including NASA (not that one)
• A look at 1NVADER for the C64

Tune in tonight at 10pm ET / 7pm PT following tonight's weekly chat:

https://twitch.tv/retrowithmarco

See you then!

Now that I can access this site again, here's my update:

I have continued to stream my show on Twitch despite Internet issues (likely because most people have been working from home). In fact, Episode 31 will stream next Tuesday, April 21 at 9pm ET. To that end, I have also taken to creating Shoutout videos between episodes in order to highlight new scoring and speedrun records that I may have missed.

Here's my latest video which runs four minutes and features new records for MAME, Colecovision, N64, NES, Atari 2600, and Commodore 64:

I have started uploading show segments to my Vimeo account so that they can be viewed smoothly and without skipped frames. I'll share those links here now that I'm back here. There's a bunch of new records being set along with news from across retrogaming and it's fun to discover and share my findings.

There was a rise in bounties across various games (Super Mario 64, Zoo Keeper, Doom, among others) and I decided to create one for Ms. Pac-Man for the Commodore 64. I chose this version because I found it to be unusually difficult, more so than other versions I played previously. It was a two-tiered bounty: $75 for a score above 75,000 and $100 for beating my then-WR of 102,660. (I would beat my score with a run of 104,560 but I didn't adjust the bounty parameters. My aim was to encourage gamers & not dangle a proverbial carrot.) The $75 bounty was claimed by S.BAZ in late February with a score of 82,760, and the $100 bounty was claimed by Francoisadt with a new WR score of 106,120. Congratulations to both gamers!

Both gamers confirmed that the C64 was the toughest version they had played, and Francoisadt provided some good analysis in a TG post.

I hope everyone and their loved ones are safe during these trying times.

Super Mario Land for the SNES!

More info here, courtesy of RetroRGB:

https://www.retrorgb.com/new-super-mario-land-for-super-nintendo-released.html

I hope those who are in California are safe from the fires that continue to rage throughout the state. The winds appear stronger this year, making it more challenging for firefighters to contain the fires.

The show went well despite a few hiccups which I expected. (It was my 1st streamed show in 3 months, almost to the day.) Nonetheless, I was excited & happy to be back.

Now to get back to retro gaming itself.

Wait, it's Wednesday! Chat night, yes? See you there!

Episode 18 of Retro With Marco is just a few mins away! I hope you stop by & say hi in the chat!

https://twitch.tv/retrowithmarco

MGL Update: I'm hanging in there given that Game #3 is Bubbles - A game I never played in arcades. I find the game very frustrating.

Anyway, here's a fun :07 game play clip of Mr. Do! This is titled "I CALLED BANK"

So after a lot of nudging, I've taken the plunge and starting competing in the latest installment of the MGL (MAME Gaming League). It's a fun tournament that is free and open to all gamers worldwide. You can enter at any time.

This is from Paul Hornitzky (OOO), who runs the MGL:

"There will be 9 games played over 8 weeks, competing world wide on the most challenging and toughest video games of all time. 2 games will be released at the start, then 1 game each week, with the final 2 games released at the same time for the finale. Games are only open for 17 days each, so gamers must play their best in that time and post their scores before the game is closed. At the end of each MGL, points will be accumulated for each gamer toward the World Championship of eSports Scoreboard."

The first two games for this quarter are Space Invaders and Mr. Do!

Fellow gamer IllSeaBass finished 3rd in the 39th installment and had been urging me to participate. I finally caved in & figured it was worth a shot. I don't expect to win - I'm sure there will be some games that I've either never played or were never good at playing - so my goal is to not embarrass myself lol.

At least I'll always have this One Shining Moment (TM)...

It's only a :44 clip but I hope you check it out.

I spent most of the weekend sleeping & rest. I understand we're in July now hahaha. I spent most of this evening editing and preparing for tomorrow night's show. Episode 16 of Retro With Marco will air tomorrow night at 9pm ET / 6pm PT! I'll have some shoutouts including:

1. Which speedrunner had 2 WRs beaten within a 3-day span
2. Which gamers broke WRs set back in 2010
3. Which speedrunner broke 2 WR ties by a grand total of 2.1 seconds

All that, plus a quick look at Polymega as well as the return of the MGL and Yolympics.

https://twitch.tv/retrowithmarco

See you then!

A new night & a new time as we close in on Episode 15 of Retro With Marco! Some of the shoutouts will feature:

• Who beat a world record that stood for nearly 18 years
• Which gamer went from 1st to 20th in 3 weeks
• Who broke a world record by a full 6 minutes

I will also take a look at Darkula: A new platformer with an old school look.

Plus, Mr. Do!...for the ZX Spectrum!

This Tuesday night, June 18 at 9pm ET / 6pm PT:

https://twitch.tv/retrowithmarco

See you then!

It's official: Retro With Marco is moving to a new day & earlier time! The show will air on Tuesdays at 9pm ET / 6pm PT starting June 18!

https://twitch.tv/retrowithmarco

See you then!