When we last left off, our brave hero had ended his second run with 1,463,900 points with 3 lives remaining.  On the following night, 7/23/12 I began a third run and ended with 2,208,300 points and only 2 lives remaining.  After a solid first run, costly mistakes and an increase in enemy forces had caused my lives to dwindle down and I was at the edge of having to start  over.  It wasn't long into my 4th attempt, that I lost my remaining lives and finished with a score of 2,259,200..........to make things worse, I died at that damn waterfall stage.

Not to be discouraged, took a break for the rest of the night and came back on Tuesday to do a few practice runs and get a better feel for the game, to memorize unroaming enemy locations, and to get a better strategy for the final boss fight (where I was losing a few lives sometimes).  I learned that I had a lot of success in keeping a spread gun and had learned where to locate one in almost every board.  I also found a better route in the Energy Zone and pretty much mastered the level by slowing down a little more and being a bit more patient around the flamethrowers.


Tonight (7/25), I sat down in my gaming chair and decided that my opening strategy was to attempt a "no death" run on the first run through and try to do my best to stockpile lives, since the game gets harder.  Though I had to reset the first time after losing a life on Stage 2, I lost only one life on my first full run.  I was a little miffed (the perfectionist in me), but decided that this was fine since I had accumulated 746,00 points and started my second run with 11 lives (stockpiling .  The second run also went pretty well.  I lost a few lives on silly mistakes, popping up too early in bases and a knucklehead jump at the Waterfall boss; however, I managed to get through it with 1,497,300 points and 15 lives (stockpiling an additional 4).  I'll take it.

Though I was getting a little fatigued, I decided to give it another go.  My third run started off pretty well; there were some deaths that couldn't be prevented (i.e. crouching under fire, while roaming enemies run up behind you), but I was playing pretty solid and made it through the Snow Field, Energy Zone, and Hangar with no deaths.  I made it to the end of the Alien's Lair without dying, but lost a life in the battle pretty early and lost my spread.  I tried to gain a foothold, but lost 3 lives total in that fight, which was a bit discouraging.  However, at the end of the run, I had accumulated 2,242,300 points and now have 18 lives (banking an additional 3).


I'm always skeptical about pausing, since I never know if I'll reenter the game with the same attention to detail as I had before.  Since it's my only copy of the game, I can't really warm up on another TV and I can only hope to be as sharp was I was tonight.  It might be beneficial to watch some end boss strategies, since I am still losing a few lives there and could possibly stockpile a few more with better play.   

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