wongojack

Arcade Asteroids Deluxe 5 Just one classic game this week

Bumping - this is legit. I've traded keys here for years. It's fun! I've even been known to trade keys away at crazy 2, 3, and 5 to 1 ratios!

2nd week in a row - no classic time for me <sad face>

PC Depixtion 75 Pixplode 48 Rebel Galaxy 196 Tainted Grail: Conquest 18 PS4 The Last Of Us pii 354 X360 Feeding Frenzy 125 XOne Overcooked 2 111 Spelunky 2 36 I finally started playing TLOU II. The first game took some time for me to really enjoy it, so I'm not going to judge this one too early, but here's my "micro review" of the first 5-6 hours Good I didn't like Joel, so glad his role is . . . minimized The linear path is obfuscated well; good job making me feel like I can explore and roam (when I can't) Upgrading abilities and equipment is fun and gives me new ideas on how to play Fast Zombies are scary Bad Story - I don't really like the good guys; they picked an ending as canon for the first game, and it was the worst one. Story - I'd like to be able to make more choices and control what happens on screen Challenge is off - The only time I die is from a specific enemy when they one-hit kill me The flow is pretty slow. I like story-driven games, but this needs more zombies to kill Menus and inventory - gotta check a doc I picked up 2 hours ago for a code and it is buried 3 menus deep

I got my order this week. I've opened it and they look great, but I haven't tested them yet.

It seems like we are kinda covering all the bases here. I don't like them, and I do. I'll say that I LIKE when the boss battle adds a sense of accomplishment and fits well with the story or flow of the game. Someone mentioned Metroid, and I think the Boss battles are completely appropriate in there. But if the gameplay changes completely or the boss is too repetitive then it often does just turn into a trial and error session which is not fun. For the Souls games - I feel like those were created by people who wish games were 100% boss battles, and I don't really get it. Much of the complaints the OP mentions are in there. Some people even claim you should play the souls games with a wiki open so you can save time by not having to do as much trial and error. That's fun for a while, sometimes. A modern game where I really like the boss structure is the Mass Effect series. They do a nice job of using the existing game mechanics but throwing a new enemy or new difficulty into the mix to give you a challenge and push you to do something new, without just changing the gameplay on you entirely.

The thread title made me think this might be graded games related. So, the price of collecting is so high that terrible games are now $4000.

Not to be cynical, but I'm sorta waiting for the message that it was a mistake. Or for them to be silently taken away with no explanation. That is unless enough time has passed and the threat of Amico related updates is now gone . . .

No classic time for me this week.

Browser-based: Gerald "Jerry" Lawson's 82nd Birthday (Google Doodle) 21 PC Malzbie's Pinball Collection 72 Rebel Galaxy 442 Rollers of the Realm 25 XOne Spider Heck 7 I also played the Google Doodle a bit, and I spent a bunch more time in Rebel Galaxy.

Wut?

Happy Holidays! Post updated with more keys to trade.

Replying to the can't find anything on GamePass to play . . . I tend to play the GamePass games that are smaller in scope. I go back to those a lot and play them on my PC with GP too. Slay the Spire, Dicey Dungeons, Monster Train. Stuff like that, but I have occasionally played a bigger budget game through GamePass. I did that with Star Wars Fallen Order, and both Rise of/Shadow of Tomb Raider for example. Right now they have "Return the Monkey Island" that I am dying to play. I can't find enough time to play all the stuff I want on GamePass. Regards to this generation not having killer apps - I agree. The first game I found that I even remotely wanted to play and couldn't was Gotham Knights, but it is getting bad reviews, so I can hold off on that one. If the pandemic hadn't happened then Forbidden West, and GoW Ragnarok probably would have been next gen exclusives. Those would be some pretty killer PS5 apps, but alas, you can play them on PS4.

Do you use "HDMI out" on it or "Composite out?"

PC Eternal Pinball RPG 56 Pinball Arcade, 65 Pinball FX2 50 Pinball FX3 74 Rebel Galaxy 380 Zaccaria Pinball 58 XOne Wheel of Fortune 44 More time with Rebel Galaxy this week. It's a good game, but I can't tell how much time I want to spend with it. We'll find out together next week - LOL

Intellivision Beamrider 377 (p.b. 148,562) Just one game again this week. I managed to beat my personal best in Beamrider and locked up 3rd place in this season's Intellivision HSC. I'm proud to have added so much Inty time to the tracker this year.

These are the two issues that I am tracking most closely with the Phoenix. They are separate issues. To my knowledge, they require different adapters (but I would like to be wrong about that). I believe that the adapter posted most recently above in this thread (image copied below) addresses the "Pixel Clock" issue. I THINK it gives your TV a composite image and does it with minimal lag. @TPR is this how you use it? Can you confirm if it works around BOTH the power backfeed issue AND the pixel clock issue? What would be really nice is to find a single device that addresses backfeed, pixel clock, AND outputs to a working HDMI signal with minimal lag. Does anyone reading this thread know if there is an adapter that does all of those things?

I really thought someone would come along and top my score on Beamrider. I'm a little shocked that I got the highest individual score. Thanks to @cmadruga for pushing me higher! As for 3rd place, I give all credit to these voodoo dolls I built of each of you. I guess I got some details wrong, or I would have finished 1st -

Didn't they change the difficulty on some games for the US market? I seem to remember hearing that about Bayou Billy

Sure - Improvements to Beamrider . . . BUT what I meant was I missed opportunities during my session that would have pushed my score even higher.

Oh man - what could have been with this game. There were definitely missed opportunities, but I got my personal best - 148,562

I was waiting for that. Here's what I've got (for now) - 127,968 I can probably do a little better as I have played a better early game than I did on this one, but I definitely can't get to 200k

That really sucks and amounts to a -2 in your overall lives. If that happens to me on levels 1-10, I just reset the game. I do get some satisfaction on getting the extra and then dying. At least that nets out to a +-0. I've managed to see some new things during this time with the game. For instance, it seems that once you get to 17 extra lives that the graphics no longer represent the additional men. Instead, there is a little + at the end of your chain of lives. I can't tell if it is tracking the lives above for you or if a death results in the + being removed. I can tell that it doesn't add an additional bonus value. The + seems to count as simple one bonus. One thing about killing the mother ship in the bonus level. It seems that the beams give you a guide on when to shoot. If you shoot just as it is passing the previous beam, you should hit it right on the front end. Similarly if you shoot just BEFORE the ship completely passes the previous beam then you should hit it on the back end.