I spent about 1hr w/ SoP this morn before I had a breakthrough game. I just couldn't break 50,000 for a while. Those darn saucers on level 2 kept painting me into a corner--I couldn't deal with them.
Then I realized that this is an 8-way stick game, not a 2-way stick game!!!
And I'd made this same mistake in my first go-round last week.
Once I figured that out, the game got easier, but I still couldn't break 60k or so.
Then, I got the big breakthrough game. After beating the 2nd level boss, the difficulty seems to drop off noticeably, & the points start coming on faster, so getting those 50k bonus guys starts happening faster too.
So, here's my return salvo: 232,640.
-Jason