Hee hee. Billy Mitchell. I have read that he doesn't use patterns, but how can you not use patterns on Pac-Man? Especially once the ghosts stop turning and Pac-Man slows down. And how can you get every ghost every time without doing each level the same way each time?
I have a nice speed up Pac-Man pattern developed that works (with mild modifications on each level to maximize ghosts eaten), from the second level up to the 9th key. I need to make some adjustments to it before I "publish" it, because right now it only eats one bonus fruit per level instead of two.
I also had some pretty decent Pac-Man Plus patterns going for a while, but I never wrote them down, and thus eventually forgot them. You can make patterns for Plus, as long as you don't eat any fruits or power pellets as a part of you pattern. For a while I was better at Pac-Plus than I was a standard Pac-Man.
But, I am not going to kid myself by believing that I could ever hold the record for one of the Pac games.
I am thinking about shooting for the records in some of the brutally hard early Sega games, specifically Up n' Down and Super Zaxxon. Doesn't seem to be a lot of interest in those, and the posted scores seem reachable, if I were to practice ALOT.
I used to get some Top Skater scores that beat the posted records, but that was back when you could still find a Top Skater with a good working board/troller on it. I can't even get close to my old scores on the beat up machines I encounter now.