Someone beat my high score last week! Ugh! Now it’s on and it’s time to step up. The new record holder beat my score by a cool 10,000 so I need to watch my replays and figure out where I can squeeze in some more points. It’s all about timing.

This is gonna be good.

Scoring is only effective and practical if the game itself is linear, meaning you can’t go forward/backward or just hang out forever to rank up points. Games like Robocop, Urban Champ, and Mario all have factors that limit your time or direction, making the score mean something.

Games that let you do whatever you want for as long as you want aren’t really good score games because it’s not about skill but about how long you’re willing to hang out and collect points.

The nice thing about the Twin Galaxies board is that they categorize high scores by game by platform. So if you download Tempest on Xbox Arcade and get a high score you can submit it and you won’t be compared to the person holding the original Tempest arcade score. My Urban Champ record is on the Wii VC and not the original cart b/c I don’t own it. This gives you more options if you want to try and get a score on a classic game but don’t have access to an arcade (and who does these days?)

There were actually several submissions for Robocop. Only the previous #1 was of any challenge, frankly. So it’s not about how many have tried but more the score/time the record is counting.

For some games they have a speed record rather than a score record, and some have both, like Super Mario Bros.

It all depends how much prestige you’re looking for. I’m in it more for the novelty of actually claiming a world record than anything, although having the Robocop title is far cooler to me than having the Urban Champion record. Find what you love and go for it.