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National Hydro Thunder Championships To Crown Top Arcade Players
 

CHICAGO, IL  ‹ Midwayıs Hydro Thunder arcade video game will be the center of attention this summer as two big contests sponsored by Twin Galaxies hand out cash prizes to the fastest players in North America.
 
The National Hydro Thunder Championships, co-sponsored by Friar Tuckıs Gameroom in Calumet City, Illinois and the Twin Galaxies Intergalactic Scoreboard, will give cash prizes to the top 20 contestants, including a $1,000 first-place purse. And, to give everybody a chance to prove their stuff on Hydro Thunder, a second $1,000 contest‹one for players who canıt get to the Chicago finals‹will accept high-scores via mail from any location operating a Hydro Thunder game.

³The huge public acclaim for Hydro Thunder has made these contests unavoidable,² says Walter Day, chief scorekeeper at Twin Galaxies. ³Its been like a traffic jam at Twin Galaxies since Hydro Thunder hit the arcades,² Day adds. ³Everybodyıs submitting Hydro scores, trying to dominate the high-score race. In fact, the last time there was this much rivalry for a high score crown was when Williams Electronics released Defender in 1981. The public pressure to crown a champion back then was so great that Twin Galaxies was forced to stage the 1982 National Defender Video Game Championships, which saw a player in Mission Viejo, California beat out players in 23 other cities on April 9, 1982.²

Scheduled for Saturday, October 2nd at Friar Tuckıs, the National Championships will give the nationıs top players the opportunity to prove their stuff in head-to-head eliminations, following the same competition format popularized by professional boat racing.

And, to add further excitement to the Chicago finals, five regional championships will give local Hydro Thunder players an opportunity to win an all-expenses-paid trip to the National Championships, where the winner will be competing against hundreds of other nationally-ranked players, including the winners of the four other regional Hydro Thunder Championships. Second, third and fourth place finishers at all the regional contests will receive framed certificates and other prizes to be announced. The results of all these events will be published in the next edition of Twin Galaxiesı Official Video Game & Pinball Book of World Records, the official record book for the worldwide video game and pinball industries.

To vie for the title of ³Regional Champion,² players will be competing at these regional contest sites:

July 31st, The Northwest Regional Championships at Wizards of the Coast Game Center, 4518 University Ave. NE, Seattle, WA 98105  (800)923-0017  
€ August 13th, The Southeast Regional Championships at Grand Prix Race-O-Rama, 1501 NW First Street, Dania, Florida 33004 (954)921-2416  
August 21st, The Northeast Regional Championships at the Funspot Family Fun Center, U.S. Rte 3, Weirs Beach, NH 03246 (603)366-4377.
€ September 11th, The Southwest Regional Championships in Los Angeles, California. Arcade to be announced.
€ September 18th, The New York-NJ Regional Championships at Fun ŒN Games, 1860 Willowbrook Mall, Wayne, NJ 07470 (973)785-0830
€ October 2nd, The National Hydro Thunder Championships at Friar Tuckıs Gameroom, 674 River Oaks Drive, Calumet City, IL (708)891-1444.

Knowing that many players cannot travel to either the regional contests or the world championships in Chicago, Twin Galaxies created a second contest‹a free one that every location operating a Hydro Thunder can join. Running from August 1st to September 30th, this contest invites competing players at each location to send in photographs of their highest scores on all 10 Hydro Thunder tracks. Their race times will be added together and the 10 players with the lowest cumulative times will win cash prizes‹with $1,000 going to the first place winner. Players can register their arcades for the free contest by going on the internet to <www.twingalaxies.com> or register via  mail by contacting Twin Galaxies, 600 North Third Street, Fairfield, IA 52556.

The Twin Galaxies Intergalactic Scoreboard has been keeping score for the world of video game and pinball playing since 1982. Its most well known product is the Twin Galaxiesı Official Video Game & Pinball Book of World Records   (ISBN 1887472-25-8), which is a 984-page book containing 12,416 scores from players in 31 different countries compiled since 1981. For information on the contest, please call (515)472-3882 or go to www.twingalaxies.com              



 

 

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