I live two streets down from Funspot. Stop by and you can shoot mine.

Mike - were you and your brother at the tourney last year talking Bruins hockey with me? Or do I have you mistaken for someone else?

Also, getting back to the list of games the "pros" may have a tough time with, I think Juno First is a good game selection. Checking TG you will see:

78,888,980 Tom Gibson May 27 1984
31,341,480 Alberto Zanetti Sep 10 1984
8,934,720 Hesham Yaghi Dec 02 1983
3,891,880 Dwayne Richard Aug 12 2001
1,248,080 John Rhodes Jul 30 2000
851,070 Patrick Wyrick Aug 12 2001
764,920 Kurt Greensburg Jan 16 1984
661,590 Brian Rupe Aug 12 2001
634,950 Ara Shirinian Jul 30 2000
294,200 Trevor Conn Jul 30 2000

The only guy on this list who may be at the tourney is Dwayne. I don't see the names Votava, Mike SP, Hayes, Nelson etc, etc on this list. I firmly stand by picking this for the tourney.

Same goes for Gauntlet. Somehow Dwayne has an insane score, but no other pros are on the list. And Gauntlet 2 is wide open with only 2 scores listed.

Also, I spoke with one of the best gamers a while back and he admitted how he and most of the top guys are great at joystick games, but not totally proficient at racing (steering wheel) games. Last year Gary chose Pole Position - Motorace USA has a joystick and doesn't count.

I would highly recommend having 3 steering wheel games in the field this year. Maybe Outrun, Pole Position 2 (Seaside Track) and dare I say Super Sprint - hintity hint hint.

Steve W Wrote: Rob Ross Wrote: Also, getting back to the list of games the "pros" may have a tough time with, I think Juno First is a good game selection. Checking TG you will see: I would be hesitant to simply go by the TG db when determining if a player is skilled on a certain title. Juno First is extremely marathonable on default settings within a relatively short period of play experience.

Steve, you are exactly right. The TG database is a completely unreliable barometer for this purpose. One of the reasons that ACAM staff such as Gary & I watch the tournament gameplay so intently is so we can build up a good working knowledge of the skills that all of the players have. Raw numbers in a database that is known to be full of problems tell us absolutely nothing.

We have a committee of 5 people that pick the games, but the ultimate selections are up to Gary once we submit our pool of games that we feel would be appropriate. We have an extensive selection process that ensures that no one person can dominate the competition. We usually take about two months to do the full evaluations. I think we have the best collective knowledge of the gamers & their skills. If you look at how close the competition has been over the past 5 years, I think that shows that we have done a good job keeping things balanced.

Okay, I'm gonna lose the Juno First argument. But if that game is so easy why is Dwayne the only one on the TG leaderboard? You'd think all the players would go after that record.

I still believe the tourney can be made more even through game selection. Maybe you do a trade with another close by arcade to get a game(s) which can wreak havoc. Wasn't that (sorta) done last year with The Wiz, Looping, etc.

Last year the winning scores were around 1015.00. That's good. The lower the score the better the competition cuz one guy didn't run away with it.

Rob Ross Wrote: Okay, I'm gonna lose the Juno First argument. But if that game is so easy why is Dwayne the only one on the TG leaderboard? You'd think all the players would go after that record.

Not everyone submits to TG exclusively or will go through the process of submitting non first place scores. As an aside, I broke 1m the 5th time I played it, another player you mentioned earlier beat me, he did it in 2 games.

If I'm working on a WR score, I'll video it and submit to TG, however, for the leaderboard type of data you are seeking, Aurcade is a better source since they will have all the most current tournament data across events like the ACAM tourney, the Battle of the Arcades, etc.

Robert Wrote: It's not as easy as it once was to get a non-tournament score submitted, and even then it's not a given as to if/when tourney scores make it into the TG database.

+1

The bottom line is that TG is for people who want to break records. Assuming you can get anyone to verify your score, the only players that will submit are people going for a record. Besides, if you look in Aurcade's game locator database, there is only one arcade with a Juno First -- ACAM. It isn't like those games are plentiful enough to just run out and play it somewhere.

mpstulir Wrote: Rob Ross Wrote: I still believe the tourney can be made more even through game selection. Maybe you do a trade with another close by arcade to get a game(s) which can wreak havoc. Wasn't that (sorta) done last year with The Wiz, Looping, etc. This sentence does not make sense to me. If you are implying that ACAM borrowed the games above, we did not. Those are ACAM games. With ACAM & Funspot being the largest arcade in the world, the chances that someone else would have a game that we don't are pretty slim.

I thought ACAM traded to get The Wiz, Looping, The Blob last year. Man my info is bad. Just ignore me. I'm not one of the pros in the loop on these matters. I defer to the experts.

Hey Rob Ross. If you are asking me if we talked Bruins last year is wasn't me. I may swing in this year to hand out deodorant and toothbrushes or break the one man Air Hockey record. I could really use a new unusable Funspot pen.

Rob Ross Wrote: To surprise the players ACAM could get Pinball Wizard in Pelham to loan some games for the weekend.....like: Blasteroids Do Run Run Fatal Fury Front Line Hot Rod Jail Break Karnov The Main Event NARC Night Stocker Road Fighter Silk Worm Super Bagman Super Contra This would guard against people showing up early to practice. Wait, nobody does that right?

We already have a number of those games....either in storage awaiting restoration or they haven't been entered into our Aurcade listing.

You are asking something that is not realistic. While the owner of Pinball Wizard sits on ACAM's BoD, none of us have the time to just be shuffling games around from place to place. IT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. If you want to play those games, attend a tournament at Pinball Wizard.

Are you trying to say that we don't do enough to make sure new games are in the competition? That is what I am taking from your comments. If you are implying that, then you really have no idea what you are talking about. The three 2011 games you mentioned earlier (Looping, Glob & The Wiz) were new games, along with Gaplus, Amidar & Mr. Do's Wild Ride. That is six right there, and I know there are more if I had the time to go back and recheck the list from last year. In 2010, 4 of the 5 Universal games in the Manufacturer Challenge were new games, as were Bank Panic, Rescue, Up Scope, Sinistar and Super Missile Attack. That is 9 titles in the tournament I just named off of the top of my head that were new. Is that not enough? Are you suggesting there will be nothing new this year?

On top of that, we always save a few new titles for non-tournament purposes and roll those out for people to play at various times. We have done that with Lock & Chase, Us Vs. Them, Firefox, Cobra Command, and entirely too many others to list here.