"when do we draw the line?" indeed. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate
the effort that's being done to police all the questionable recordings
on MARP. But let's take another look at the "leeching" that Game Guru
and I did...
<p>
I'm not sure of the exact amount, but going back and forth killing
those birds on Stage 2, you can only gain about 50-55k on one life.
Bonuses are awarded every 60k. So you can't do this forever, in the
long run you'll end up losing all your lives if you keep doing this.
The primary goal of this is not to build points, but to build gold.
The end of the game awards bonuses for time left, lives left, and more
importantly, gold. If you build up a ridiculous amount of gold you can
get a ridiculous bonus. If you do not reach the end of the game, then
you wasted your time.
<p>
It's also important to note that wardnerj and pyros give you a full
minute less for each life, so you can not leech as much. I don't think
maxing out the score is possible on these romsets.
<p>
So if we're forced to go straight through the game without leeching,
you can't get much of a score. And then we have to find ways to
"accidentally" die in other areas to try to build up a little more
gold there. A score from excessive leeching might not be a good
indicator of skill, but if one can finish the game to receive that
huge score, then what more do they have to prove? The game has an end,
and the player is eventually reaching it. It'd be nice if there was
some bonus for finishing on one life, but alas there is not. So if you
can find ways to earn more than 80k per life (which is what the game
awards for lives remaining at the end), then I say go for it. And how
much leeching is "too much"?
<p>
Finally, although I'm sure that others on MARP could finish this game
if they put a little time into learning it, there's noone on here
besides me and Game Guru who have finished it... hell, there aren't
even any recordings for the romsets from anyone else! And I never got
around to Pyros yet, there's an easy 2nd place waiting to be lapped up
as well as 3rd place on all three romsets!
<p>
So I say keep the leeching and give us back our 9,999,990 scores
dammit.
<p>
-BBH
--
lordbbh@aol.com