Anyone playing Paperboy?

jow

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Since I was lucky enough to get my remaining 3 games in the house, I finally started to play them again :) Paperboy was a game I was absolutely hooked on last Summer. I actually nerded out and spent time trying to get the WR for Easy Street. I was fairly close (the record at the time was 123,909 and I was at 120,700) and felt good about my chances. Since then though, the record has gone up to 135,989 and while still trying to figure out how the hell he did that (seriously, I'm impressed) Ive fallen way off of where I was at. I think the last few weeks, my best game is 109,000 (not even good enough to get on the scoreboard).

Anyone else playing? Anything I'm missing point wise?

I should note my handlebars need help, and I'm screwed cause the only source I know of is RAM Controls. *sigh*
 
Mine is currently under restoration. So no PB playing for me. In due time it will happen. Can't wait until that happens though as it is one of the greats.

Damn, now I have to start working on it again.
 
I play it from time to time on my Mame cabinet, but I grew up on the NES version which, in terms of nostalgia and familiarity, is more fun to play.
 
I play it from time to time on my Mame cabinet, but I grew up on the NES version which, in terms of nostalgia and familiarity, is more fun to play.

Oh noes! I played the NES version a TON. It was actually the reason I wanted a arcade cab. Once I played the arcade version, there was no turning back. The NES version is unplayable for me now. The look, the sounds, the controls. You just cant compare.

Maybe you can pre-order the parts?

I already sent in $1500 for $3000 in credit ;)
 
Oh noes! I played the NES version a TON. It was actually the reason I wanted a arcade cab. Once I played the arcade version, there was no turning back. The NES version is unplayable for me now. The look, the sounds, the controls. You just cant compare.

Maybe it is just because I am using a joystick to control it. Let me fire it up now and play a couple rounds.
 
I play on Hard and my high is around 175k.

I saw Eric's WR game live at Richie's arcade. Quite impressive.
 
I saw Eric's WR game live at Richie's arcade. Quite impressive.

Is there a video of that anywhere? I would have LOVED to be there to see that (just to see what I am missing). See, thats where being young(er) than most has sucked. I didnt get a chance to play in Arcades and see how others played. I never got to play this version of Paperboy (the UR) until 2007, so I have kind of learned by trial and error. 120K seems like a respectable score, and it was pretty much as good as I could have played with my knowledge of the game. There is something I am obviously missing, I just don't know what it is! With Easy Street, the gap of 16K points is A LOT. :(
 
Are the placement of all of the obstacles (cars in driveways, kids with R.C. cars, etc.) random or are they in the same places every single time?
 
Is there a video of that anywhere? I would have LOVED to be there to see that (just to see what I am missing). See, thats where being young(er) than most has sucked. I didnt get a chance to play in Arcades and see how others played. I never got to play this version of Paperboy (the UR) until 2007, so I have kind of learned by trial and error. 120K seems like a respectable score, and it was pretty much as good as I could have played with my knowledge of the game. There is something I am obviously missing, I just don't know what it is! With Easy Street, the gap of 16K points is A LOT. :(

I don't watch videos of people's games on the internetz but if you wanted to I'm assuming MARP probably has a decent Paperboy score albeit with a joystick or something.
 
@Jow - I recently got a CP to swap into my Championship Sprint, but still need to clean up/rebuild the controller, and track down a a PCB... then I'll be playing a bunch of Paperboy.

For point pressing are you delivering multiple papers when possible (one on the porch, and one in the mailbox), getting perfect deliveries for the 2x bonus at the end of the day, and breaking as much stuff as possible on your non-subscribers houses? I'm guessing so, since your high score is well above mine... but thought I'd ask.

Depending on what parts you need to fix your controller, Mylstar has some of the parts on his site: http://videogameparts.com/category.sc?categoryId=21

@Larrabee - The obstacles are in the same spot, with more showing up as you progress through each day.
 
For point pressing are you delivering multiple papers when possible (one on the porch, and one in the mailbox), getting perfect deliveries for the 2x bonus at the end of the day, and breaking as much stuff as possible on your non-subscribers houses? I'm guessing so, since your high score is well above mine... but thought I'd ask.

I laid out my thinking just from my experiences of playing in a thread once...

Everyday there are 10 houses to which you need to deliver papers. You get 250 points for delivering a paper in the mailbox, and 100 for the porch. As someone mentioned, you can do both, to get 350 points/house.

10 houses x 350 every day = 3500.

Delivering to every house daily gets you a perfect delivery bonus of 500/house.

10 houses x 500/perfect delivery bonus = 5000.

8500 x 7 days = 59,500.

You also get extra lives every 15,000 points, but the game stops giving lives at 5 (not really sure why). If you reach the end of the week (which you will obviously need to do) at the end of Sunday, you get 3,000 bonus points for every life left, and it counts your last life as well.

6 lives (meaning 5 hats + your "last life") x 3,000 = 18,000.

If you can get through the obstacle course on Sunday, you also receive an extra 3,000 bonus.

Perfect week + finishing Sunday = 21,000.

Now then, if you were to complete the week, having perfect deliveries (meaning both mailboxes and porch deliveries) everyday, and finishing the obstacle course on Sunday, your maximum score would be 80,500 (59,500 for the perfect week + 21,000 in extra life/finishing Sunday bonuses).

That leaves 55,489 points left in breakage bonuses to compile over 7 days.

Averaging roughly 8,000 a day in breakage bonus gives you the record. In my opinion, finding the 8,000 points in breakage everyday is the tough part (unless you can kill the obstacle course everyday).

I guess I forgot to add that you get a time bonus at the end of each obstacle course (if you finish), but if you spend time knocking down all the obstacles for the breakage bonus, you don't finish with much time left (maybe 200-300/day?).

So there must be something I'm missing as far as getting breakage points, or just a completely opposite strategy I don't know about.

@Steve - I'm not really into watching internet vids either, but being someone on the wrong coast, I wasn't able to be at Richie's that night, so I missed out :( I don't really need to watch a whole game, there has to be something little and obvious that I am missing though.
 
Just a remark: the main tune in this game is easily in the top 5 game songs of all time IMO.
 
WOW Jow you've really put a lot of thought in to that. :) I'll have to give this game another try, have not played it since BITD, but you never see them around either...
 
I need practice since I'm barely able to finish the week. I have trouble focusing on running over the flowers and still having a way to get back to the sidewalk without hitting something. I agree that it's nearly impossible to go back to the NES version.
 
I played a ton on MAME when we had some snow days. Like the beat when you start out.

I played the upright at T&T a few months back and it's really the only way to go.
 
WOW Jow you've really put a lot of thought in to that. :)

Ha, yeah man, like I said I totally nerded out last Summer and tried getting the record. I think I was inspired by Jeff and all of his 720 Excel Spreadsheets :eek::D
 
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