This is so funny.

I beat my high score again this morning. 497,350! I am so close to 500K I could taste it, especially when I reviewed my video and saw I broke the string TWICE in the last seconds (which cost me around 18,400 points) and I missed probably eight to ten ghosts between the two big eating stages.

I was pretty excited anyway to make such a jump, because it meant I was in the top 5 in the world and the #1 U.S. player, except then I checked the all-time list and saw that pacmantab snuck in a 501K last night or this morning to become the first American over 500K. So, congrats to him... looks like I get to keep trying!

I'm uploading a video of my 497K run so you can see all the mistakes. I'll add a link when it's done processing.

Youtube link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR830on1h-4

congrats stephen el! i have played 1 game in the last 2 months (and that was only to test the new hdmi cable i bought) have been WAY too busy with work and all that. I might finally have time to play next week again, although with Mario Kart online now out there, I might take a shining to cracking those leaderboards...

Thanks! I wondered where you went... haven't seen you on the weekly boards in quite a while!

Congratulations on the breakthrough, StephenEl!

In a sense, CE is like Ms. Pac-Man. The top players in Ms. Pac share the same skill sets and ability to run "perfect" games, but their scores are all different due to the random fruit.

In CE, randomness also plays a role as sometimes ghosts line up nicely to keep a chain going, sometimes not. Sometimes the ghosts stay out of your way during the "survival" portions, sometimes they force you to detour - costing you time.  I had several missed ghosts in my run, but who knows whether that helped me more than it hurt (eating them could have altered their paths to where they might have gotten in my way later).

So, just as the top Ms. Pac players could be considered equally skilled, even if their scores vary, so too could it be argued that the top CE players are of equal skill - just comes down to one great run.  I had actually thought 500K was at least many weeks (if not months away) for me. I was as shocked as anyone - just had a couple of ghosts come my way at the very end.

We had thought VGF would be next to join the 500K Club, but it looks like we'll both beat him to it now. I'm just happy to have made it onto the top ten and be among the likes of StephenEL, cdborrgeo, senobeya, and others like island mario....pretty amazing company...

Thanks again!

I may be ramping back my Pac-man CE playing a bit, so I'm not sure if I'll hit 500K anytime soon unless I have a lucky run. It's been pretty frustrating for me lately to even get a decent start, and I'm now at the point where I don't think it's worth continuing to play to the end unless I'm going to get 450K+. I'm embarrassed if my score on the weekly board isn't over 470K.

The other issue: I wore through the controller I got my 497K on and started having too many problems with it. The wear gets to the point where if I relax and return the left stick to a neutral position, it defaults to a random direction and makes turns I don't want to make. I just bought this one about a month ago! I do have a new one and one more on the way thanks to the recent Amazon lightning deal, but I just can't afford to keep replacing them.

Of course, I'll probably end up playing when I get bored, but no more two and three hours a night.

500k is a pretty special mark for PacMan CE. I would never have thought it possible if not for seeing you guys both hit and surpass that mark- you are quite an inspiration to me to keep playing. I'm slowly climbing up the boards, but at 340K I'm quite a ways back! Speaking of Ms Pacman, I've noticed the top score is currently under 300K... given the arcade record is quite a bit higher (750K?), you'd think the top score would be higher.

Just watched your video.....that's crazy man, thumbs up lol

The finalists from the Xbox 360 Pac-Man World Championships played Classic Pac-Man to qualify.  It was like the top two from the U.S., and the top 1-2 from the other regions.  Hard to believe it's already been a year (almost).  Getting the chance to go to New York and play against the other finalists was a blast.  Sadly, it appears the event was a once-in-a-lifetime thing.

That said I thought of a fun "what-if:"  IF they would have had another tourney this year using Pac-Man CE (all other rules the same), Stephen El and I would have been 1-2 in the U.S. by the deadline.  Senobeya would have made it from Japan, and last year's winner Carlos Borrego from Mexico would have had the chance to defend his title.  Not sure about the rest of the would-be field....but I could only imagine what kinds of head-to-head scores we would see from these players one year later....

Boy, I wish they'd have another tournament again, but I'd imagine if that were the case that there would be a lot more people jockeying for a high score. I have a feeling VideoGameFather and XstonefryX would be making us both nervous.

I'd be pretty anxious about playing live... I go through so many starts to get a good one that I'm sure it'd be embarrassing to be forced to stick with the start I have and play it through.

Hmmm, come to think of it, it would only be logical for Namco to do a Ms. Pac-man CE.

I took it easy last week since I got an early high score, but picked up the controller during the dead spots of last night's Red Sox game. I had a hard time even breaking 425K!

Yeah, same thing happened to me.

Well I'm having a hard time breaking 400k... I'm getting pretty close (387k), but my challenge has been making it to the end without losing a life. On a couple lives, I'm usually able to reach the second big set of power pellets, but never with more then 10-15 seconds left. Watching your video Stephen I see that you made it to the second big power pellet set with quite a bit of extra time! I also realize you don't sacrifice a life to get setup ideally for the first big set of power pellets...which I had been doing. Trying to slide right into that situation without sacrificing to reset the ghosts has been a challenge for me as I always end up missing quite a few. I guess it just comes down to practice, practice, practice.

I need to start playing a few games a day to get back to my high score.  I want to get to 400k.

---

 Bill wrote:

Pills here!

I was just starting to push 250k on CE mode 1 when I checked last, but I haven't played in months. I'd probably be lucky to break 150, let alone 500k. Congrats, guys.

It's definately an undertaking - but it can suck you in for sure.  Fun and frustrating at the same time!

Had my family out of town last week so I went back to original Pac-Man for awhile.  Did manage a new high score there.

In any case, I think that answered my last lingering question (since I had to quit at 3.6 million due to the tourney deadline last year).  With that new high score, and having met my goal of 500K here, I think its time to say "Game Over" for me.  Not that I will never play Pac-Man CE  again, but from now on it will be just to play.  Who knows, maybe I'll get lucky enough for you to still see me on the weekly leader boards from time to time.

Best of luck to my fellow gamers with their future/ongoing achievements, etc....

Sorry to see you quitting. I may be joining you soon... I just can't seem to break that 500K mark and I'm just not willing to put in the time to brute force my way past it. Today was the first time in over a week that I played a game and it took me a while to even get to 450K.

The thing now, especially at our level of play, is there appears to be a direct trade-off.  You can get more points along the way at the expense of time, or save time at the expense of points.  So, to push your score any higher, you'd need to play enough games to, as you put it, "brute force" your way to a high score.

Yeah, I'm lucky I made the annoucement last week...StoneFry just got 503K...so at least I went out on top - of the U.S. rankings anyway ;-)  LOL

Seriously, tho....I decided to make the annoucement more due to this summer being the 25th Anniversary of my first start toward chasing high scores in Pac-Man.  Twenty Five years is enough I think.  With the NYC event having been a one-time thing, having already gotten perfect scores on the other platforms, and breaking into the top ten in CE, it just felt like there were no other milestones I needed to reach.

Twin Galaxies is planning to post my full annoucement on their site.  Should be able to see it there soon.

Whichever direction you elect to go from here...good luck to you!

Stonefry is awesome. That 502K of his just boggled my mind. Two deaths!

I saw Twin Galaxies is going to start tracking Pac-man CE scores, so I may submit my 497K just to see my name in tiny lights.

 Stephen El wrote:

Stonefry is awesome. That 502K of his just boggled my mind. Two deaths!

I saw Twin Galaxies is going to start tracking Pac-man CE scores, so I may submit my 497K just to see my name in tiny lights.

Ironically twin galaxies has yet to post any of the submissions (if there are any).  I would think they would welcome a game like this considering it's time based and each competitor could submit a dvd with 50 minutes of verifiable scores.

BTW im a 330k player right now after dropping the game around xmas.  I picked it back up about a week ago and play about an hour a day trying new strategies.  I have beat all my previous highs already but im still not satisfied as i loose way to many lives.

I think stonefry and stephen el should submit a video (among others).  I guess you have to record it live, tho (can't film the replay and call it good).

Stonefry's current 516K is very close to the top and Stephen el won the allgames challenge last year...so they both deserve some props.

I think I'm done. I took a couple weeks off and tried playing a few times and it's just not happening anymore.

The TG setup isn't something I'm into. I have to borrow a camera to get the captures for YouTube and I'm just not into borrowing it for weeks at a stretch then sitting around recording my play in hopes of getting that one good score. Too much work... I know who the good players are, and I know I'm among the top (but sinking slowly :) ) so I don't really need TG's rubber stamp on it.

I did see that that s shoxo guy got a 512K this week, too! He's quite good and has been consistently in the top spot for the past month or two.

I'd be tempted into submitting if I hadn't retired.  But like you said it'd be frustrating to be recording in vain with the luck and circumstance that goes into it.  Too bad they wouldn't accept the replay video...I could have sent in one of my older 500K runs.

There was a new player with 500K a couple of days ago (mtmt 337), but you're still in the top ten overall.  Most of the 500K weekly highs have come from players who already had broken 500K.  There might be a few more before its over, but I'd be surprised if you were ever knocked out of the top ten....

Just come across your post today. Interesting thought, so I had a quick scan through the high scores and James is currently 2nd in the UK, not sure about his placing in Europe!

James took to Pac-Man CE so quickly in NYC....I was in awe.

I felt relieved just to make it past the first round!