Aracde Pentathalon - Suggestions Needed

[Duster72]

I have 20 of my closest Halo buddies coming over this weekend for a Clan Meet.  I am debuting my new cab and am planning a massive all-day event: an arcade pentathalon.  It's great because everyone loves video games, which should make the competition pretty fierce.  I have people flying in from all over the country.

I am planning on one of the track and field games, ms. pac-man, and a round robin NBA Jam tournament.  I obviously need 2 more games.  Any suggestions?

[Thenasty]

for Ms.Pacman, you should use the one with the TIMER (I thinks its MS.Pac Championship). A double header Space Invader (A duel for Cocktail only).

Marble Madness for Dual Player.
2020 Super Baseball.

Then for other classics
Tempest
Centipede (I think there is one also with timer)
Millipede
Defender/Stargate
Asteriods sepecially for younger player who never use BUTTONS for CONTROLS this will screw them up big time...


And the Namco Collection 1/2 for Dual player such as GALAGA......

And for another DUAL Action........Wizard of Wor.

[Crax]

You could have a great street fighter(whatever version, maybe championship or alpha1?) tournament with that many people

[ahofle]

Shuuz, World Class Bowling, or Shuffleshot would be good too (and Shuuz and Shuffleshot support 4 players at a time).  And Mortal Kombat would be fun.

[Mr Ironpants]

I am partial to elimination bomberman tournaments.  Cyberball 2072 is pretty good for a group too.  And if you have the setup, ain't nobody don't like Karate Champ (at least if your old like me   )

[michelevit]

i am also interested in a pentathalon. I was thinking about something like this for a while.
i have two cabinets and probally would have 10 people participate.

the games i wanted to select from was

zaxxon
robotron
pacman
frogger
moonpatrol

what i was wondering about is how to judge the overal perfromance.

I was thinking it could be scoring and or time played with one credit.
I know the scoring would be tricky because there is so much variation
with the scores between games.

time would be tricky, because some games can be played forever by just
lagging on completing levels. i used to play dig dug for hours just by pumping
but not popping the fygar charectors. it would also be tricky to time games.

does anyone know how to judge such an event?

[jerryjanis]

Track and Field - that's a great one.

If you have a trackball, then definetly Shuuz.  Also, Marble Madness is a good game because it goes pretty quickly, even if you play through the whole game.

I definetly agree that Street Fighter would be good.

Ooooh, I know.  Hat Trick.  That's gotta be the best tournament game ever.  And it's easy to pick up and start playing.

[elvis]

does anyone know how to judge such an event?

Pretty simple.  Each player is given one credit, and their names drawn out of a hat to choose order per game.

Then they play as best they can on that one credit, and their scores recorded.

At the end of the day, normalize all the scores (with some games, 10,000 points is a high score, in others 10,000,000 is a low score), add them together and pick a winner.

If you don't like score normalization, then use per-game rank.  First place is 5 points, 4 for second, and so on.

Up to you if you want to allow a practice run, or "best of 3" attempts, etc.

Fighting games of course are much easier.  Just like any other sporting tournament with standard single/double elimination rules.

[vorghagen]

At the end of the day, normalize all the scores (with some games, 10,000 points is a high score, in others 10,000,000 is a low score), add them together and pick a winner.

How exactly do you normalize the scores?
The only idea I have is to treat the top score for the day as 100% and work out everyone elses as a percentage of that, then add up those scores at days end.
Is that anything like normalizing or am I way off the mark.

[Duster72]

Here's how I'm doing it:

I have from 10:00 am until midnight, so I have 14 hours.  Each game will be on the cabinet for 2 hours and people and come and play as they wish.  If someone is waiting a turn to play then you cannot replay.  You get one turn, then you have to go to the end of the line. 

Scoring will be Formula 1 style per game, so each game is worth a potential of 10 points.  Whoever posts the top score will score 10 points and on down the line.

Then, I think I am going to do the NBA Jam tourney at the end of the day so there will be more time.  It will be a 2v2 tourney with rotating partners.

I bought custom gold medals for each event and a trophy for the overall winner.

[Glaine]

I would also go with the "events" idea, that way people that are say, only good at track & field will still have something to be excited about without thinking they have to play everything else to stand a chance of winning anything. Plus, it's funner to brag that you won 6 events than 1 big event.

One of the best times I had was me and about 5 friends all at my place on my 2 cabs rotating around on fighter games, the cabs are close together but across the room, so after each game you just rotate clockwise - That means you play each fighter twice then play something else. Though we mostly just switched out with who ever whenever we wanted so we could play everyone.

[Dervacumen]

I like all the suggestions, but as a kick it would be kinda cool to throw everyone off with a low key, slow strategy game.  That's the idea right?  Get the best game, regardless of genre?

What about a bowling game?  It's quick and changes the speed when they everyone least expects it. 

Slow them down after a good fighting game, play World Bowling or something similar, and then force them to play Robotron.

Just a thought.

[Xam]

A bit late with the suggestion here but maybe it will help.

As far as games, any of the ones mentioned...along with Ninja Baseball Batman! 3 players at a time and you can smash living baseballs!

On scoring you could make a points system...such as

10,000-40,000 on galaga (or whatever game, scoring should be based on the games scoring) =1

40-80,000=2

80-100k=3

etc, etc.

something to that effect.

Hope it helps,

Xam

[Glaine]

As far as a slow strategy game, get everybody to play GO. It's an ancient board game popular in Japan and China. I just recently learned how to play and I'm hooked. Just keep everyone on the 9x9 board so it doesn't take all day.

Here is a site with a Go game program, I like it. Only problem is the text is largely in portugese, but its kinda hard to find a good Go program, so...
http://www.gofeup.r8.org/

I might should write a review on this one sometime. This and Imperishable Night are 2 highly suggestible games.

[Glaine]

I can no longer suggest www.gofeup.r8.org as a good program to learn Go on as I have recently found out that this game scores Go incorrectly, and so I learned how to play from an incorrect set of rules. I suggest glGo now, as it not only allows you to play against the computer, but also lets you play on the IGS (International Go Server).

I also suggest IGoWin, much easier to learn with and is fun to carry on your flash drive.

Link to a wiki with programs linked somewhere on there:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(game)