wongojack
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Posts posted by wongojack
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On 4/30/2023 at 6:29 AM, carlsson said:
My head spins... Actually I have been thinking about adding Steam as its own system in the modern tracker, but not sure if it is separate enough from PC as the hardware. Since it isn't a native Android app, but rather something you play through one of its apps (think emulator), I suppose Steam/modern PC is the closest unless the Steam version itself runs a MS-DOS emulation layer too, so you would be playing it through double emulation.
IMO - Steam should not be listed as a system. Steam plays PC games, and if it starts a DOS game, it simply opens DosBox and runs the "correct" configuration for you. This is exactly like other game stores like Origin, GoG, or Epic. All of those are playing PC games - just adding some convience for the player.
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XOne
Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China 179
Catastronauts 83
Forza Horizon 5 179
Hot Wheels Unleashed 239
Out of Space 362
More on the Xbox One this week. It is kind of unusual that when I list the games I played alphabetically that the letter 'O' represents the furthest I get in the alphabet. Especially on a console called the 'X' Box. Blah blah blah, here's a photo from Out of Space to pique your interest:
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Amiga
Chamber of Sci-Mutant Priestess 85
DOS
Chamber of Sci-Mutant Priestess 80
I went digging into my Steam library again and stumbled across Chamber of the Sci-Mutant Priestess. I played the DOS version for a while and got curious about the Amiga version. There are more colors and sound, but I'm not sure that in 2023 if there is dramatic enough of a difference to have a preference for one version or the other. Quirky game that offers an interesting change from Sierra and LucasArts point and click adventures.
DOS
Amiga
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1 hour ago, Keir said:
Commodore 64 - Zak McKracken
Another really tricky point & click adventure like Maniac Mansion which I played a lot as a kid and was never able to beat. There were several times I was tempted to look at a walkthrough but I only gave in once (I couldn't figure out how to open the middle door in the Mars face). Also, thanks to @wongojack for telling me about the Universal Hint System. I didn't use it to solve any puzzles but it was helpful in that it let me know I was on the right track.
I'm glad you made it to the end. I couldn't do it when I tried a few years ago. I really like UHS when it has a game I want. I wish there were more games that had gotten that treatment over the years.
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On 4/16/2023 at 9:03 PM, newtmonkey said:
Adventures of Lolo (NES)
I sat down last night with the intention of just getting playing the first couple of floors... but I became quite addicted and after an hour or so or playing I completed the entire game in a single sitting!
This was one of those random games I bought back in the day when I was a kid, because the screenshots made it look like a Zelda-esque action RPG. I remember being initially disappointed that it was actually a puzzle game instead, but grew to enjoy it. I never finished it legitimately back then (I used level codes to skip boards I couldn't solve), so it was very satisfying to finally complete this without skipping levels or looking up solutions.
It's really quite an exceptional game. The graphics and music are simple and repetitive, but charming, but of course the real appeal of this game is its puzzles. The game does a great job of slowly introducing new puzzle elements, and by the last three floors or so you really need to take what you've learned and apply it in new, interesting ways. The game always follows its own rules, and never just hands you a puzzle that makes no sense (even if it might seem so at first). I love how each "board" fits into a single screen and how the game starts each board in a paused state, allowing you to take a breather when you reach a new board and analyze it without any pressure. I also like how the game deviously throws lots of red herrings at you, distracting you from the real solution.
I'll definitely be playing Adventures of Lolo 2 in the future. That will be exciting, because I've never even played that one before.
Great writeup. I had a very similar experience with this as a kid and also ended up finally finishing as an adult. I've played Lolo 2 a bit (and liked it), but I've never finished that one.
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DOS
Epic Pinball Collection 44
Just one game in the classic tracker for me this week. A brief time with a DOS game in my GoG library. Interestingly, this is the pinball game my wife remembers playing the most in her life. I think she only had the shareware version with one table, but she still talks about it (sometimes).
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1 hour ago, Keir said:
Week of 4/17/23 - 4/23/23
Atari 2600
Tomarc The Barbarian - 10
Commodore 64
Jumpman - 25
Zak McKracken - 240
PC DOS
F. Godmom - 30
Total time = 305 minutes
My advice to anyone playing Zak McKracken: Make sure you take really good organized notes! The reason I got stuck before was simply because I forgot that I was supposed to go back to someone once I had the yellow crystal. With that done I was finally able to get Zak to Mars but unfortunately I missed something else and he wasn't actually able to do anything there! Feeling frustrated, I looked at a walkthrough and found one thing I missed that Melissa and Leslie could do. However, I'm still not sure what Zak is supposed to do there or how to get into the Martian pyramid so I'm stuck again for now.
Not wanting to cheat my way to the end, I decided to give Zak a break and work on another DOS game that I played in college and never beat: Fairy Godmom. It's a great little Lode Runner inspired puzzle/platform game.
I tried to play Zak a few years ago and gave up. There's too many things that 2020's me just couldn't put up with, and it was exactly the type of stuff you are hitting here. It required too much from the player to get everything just right in previous sequences or with the other characters that multiple saves and re-playing old sections was pretty much required. I could see the brilliance of a Zak-like game somewhere inside, but it just misses on too many small things to really be worth completing.
If you don't know about it, the Universal Hint System is a good way to get some hints without spoiling the game. Although, because of the way that Zak works, you often have to read hints for parts of the game you aren't currently trying to solve, so ymmv: Zak McKracken Hints from UHS. Not your ordinary walkthrough. (uhs-hints.com)
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I completed Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China and was pleasantly surprised. As a spin-off game, I'd say it really delivered. Nice new gameplay mechanics that all worked well and felt rewarding. The typical half-assed story from all AC games was there, but it just doesn't matter much in a leaner version of the franchise. I got this through Games with Gold along with the India and Russia versions and will probably give those a chance in the near future as well. I'd give it a 4 out of 5.
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Xbox One
Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China 470
Forza Horizon 5 235
Hot Wheels Unleashed 144
It Takes Two 90
Out of Space 411
It's all Xbox One for me in the modern tracker this week. I completed AC Chronicles China and was pleasantly surprised. As a spin-off game, I'd say it really delivered. Nice new gameplay mechanics that all worked well and felt rewarding. The typical half-assed story from all AC games was there, but it just doesn't matter much in a leaner version of the franchise. I got this through Games with Gold along with the India and Russia versions and will probably give those a chance in the near future as well.
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5 hours ago, neogeo1982 said:
PS4
Minecraft - 255min
Fell down huge crack all the way into lava while transporting between houses. Lost all diamonds, Netherite, end game gear, ender eyes, wither skulls, enchanted gear. Unable to recover any of it and auto save, saved the darn game. All done with modern for awhile now.
This is the part of the gameloop for Minecraft that always kills it for me. There's always this point where the game does something that makes me want to STOP playing. It usually takes a while for me to get back into too.
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Awesome!
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PC
Critical Mass 27
Jets n Guns Gold 127
Xone
Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China 200
Catastronauts 80
It Takes Two 198
Out of Space 392
Pinball FX3 27
TMNT: Shredders Revenge 51
On the PC side, I sorta gave up on Hand of Fate 2 as I just wasn't having as much fun with it as the original game. I kept playing other games in my Steam library with an install size <120mb, and I found my way to two games that now seem to be considered "classics" by those who played them at a younger age. Both of these games had trouble starting on a modern PC, so they had a bit of a "yesteryear" feel to them (which all of us are familiar with on this board). It was fun to find comments specifically about Jets n Guns like "I loved playing this as a kid." The game is from 2004! This one is not really in a genre where I claim to have a lot of opinions, but it seemed perfectly playable to me in 2023. Jets'n'Guns - Wikipedia
The XBox One saw an uptick for me. I recently had to replace the power brick for my original XBox One and am happy that it is back up and running. I had a moment where I thought I might just get rid of all my physical Xbox One games because (even though I am a big hoarder of physical media) I have grown accustomed to not getting up and putting discs in a console. Alas, I really have too many Xbox One physical games to dump them all on one friendly retailer - I'd loose too much. After saying all of that, none of these titles were physical. The theme was mostly co-op gaming as my wife and I tend to try all games at all similar to Overcooked and Out of Space hit the spot for that style of gaming - we extended from there. It comes with the subtitle "Couch Edition," but I don't really think it needs to be tracked with that added on. Out of Space: Couch Edition Review | TheXboxHub
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DOS
Bio Menace 36
Pinball Fantasies Deluxe 87
Just a couple DOS titles in my GoG library. FYI Pinball Fantasies Deluxe seems to just be a release that combines two other pinball titles: Pinball Fantasies and Pinball Mania. I considered tracking time separately for the two "sub" games, but then . . . didn't.
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8 hours ago, Digital Fluff said:
Thanks to @Bomberman93 and @colecovisionfanforever for making a Phoenix console available to me to test with. And thanks to the technical insight from @Tursi , the cartridge is now working on the Phoenix console.
It turns out that the timing on the Phoenix console is just a little tighter compared to a real ColecoVision console.
If you are the owner of a Phoenix and have one of the cartridges from the first batch, please contact me to work out an exchange.
Also, if anyone has a spare Phoenix console available, send me a PM to make sure all future releases are Phoenix compatible.
This is great news. Will you be taking orders again soon? Phoenix compatability was the only thing stopping me from ordering.
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DOS
Pinball Dreams Deluxe 50
Intellivision
Nova Blast 14
Not too much going on here on the classic side. Still going with games that require less than 120MB, but this time Pinball Dreams is from my GOG Library (and most of its size is DosBox files).
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Browser Based
Shark Island by bewky 5
PC
3d Pinball: Space Cadet 5
Hand of Fate 2 445
I read the thread last night and decided to check out the game @Kurt_Woloch listed above. Initially, I couldn't decide how to control the guy but figured out the mouse will rotate. I started off using the keyboard, but I think this one would be best with a controller like a twin stick shooter (ish) game. Great job!
Most of my time went into Hand of Fate 2. I played the original game years ago as it was one of the first games in the Games with Gold Xbox program that I remember feeling made that program special. The sequel has taken me years to get into, and it is different enough in gameplay that a bit of the fun is gone here. Nothing too drastic, but there's enough little things that waste your time or take additional repetitions that make me want to stop playing after a few games.
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3 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:
Just noticed GOG Galaxy isn't tracking my times properly again. I thought my Relayer time looked a bit low, but today I noticed it didn't properly track anything that I played today and says I haven't played that game in 4 days even though that's basically all I did yesterday, so it's definitely off, although how far off is unknown. Steam says 158.4 hours as of today including playing today, but GOG says 149 hours and 44 minutes as of 4 days ago.
I have been thinking about taking a break from tracking modern side for a while anyway, so I might do that. Unsure as of yet.
I just turned on GOG Galaxy after a while and the Steam integration is broken for me completely. It did accurately track my time playing an actual GOG game however. Playstation has been broken for years now.
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Yeah, this game could be awesome . . . but it's not. 25,200
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Hmm, do I want to play Nova Blast? Not really. Here, I compared all 3 of our recent games once upon a time in this thread:
Result (Score 1 - 5)
1) Defender (4)
2) ESB (3)
3) Nova Blast (2)
I remember things being broken about this game (can't keep the ship pointed left), but I'll probably throw a score up late on Sunday anyway.
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27 minutes ago, jimblargh said:
Thanks @wongojack!
I did come across that one, but from what I can tell there are a lot of homebrews that it doesn't support due to it not emulating the JLP board on modern homebrews.
These threads get into this a little:
I was aware there were limitations with BackBit, but I don't really know the details. I'm not sure how often those limitations would really limit my playing of homebrews. To me it sounds like things specifically enabled by the LTO won't work, but other homebrews will. That would still give access to A LOT of homebrews (I think).
Anyway, the cart isn't even available to ship right now, so it doesn't really matter at the moment.
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10 minutes ago, jimblargh said:
I agree that I like homebrews but a whole season of them sounds daunting to me. I kinda stink at intellivision emulators. Even if I figured them out I would be spending my non-working hours at the same computer that I often telework from. Part of the reason I like to participate is because it gets me away from my computer. Doing the occasional game on emulator is okay, but doing a whole season changes that calculus a little.
That leaves the idea of a flash cart, the LTO cart being the main one that can play most homebrews (has to do with enhanced modern homebrew carts I think), but LTO carts are no longer being made so far as I can tell. Second hand ones are rare both rare and crazy expensive.
Maybe there's another option that I am overlooking? I won't pretend like I am an expert on this matter!
Last thing I'll say is that a longer than normal heads upon any homebrews would be very helpful- I wouldn't even mind buying a couple carts, but shipping/processing/build time and availability are factors. Maybe a list of all the homebrews we will play before the beginning of the season and maybe even a rough order in which they will be played would help there?
All that said, I will happily try my best to figure something out with whatever you decide to do Rick! The HSC isn't all about me; I share this mostly because I assume that some of these considerations might apply to others as well.
Your dedication to the HSC is awesome and I really appreciate what you do!
The Backbit cartridge can play Intellivision games and will fit into your Inty with the right adapter. It appears to be on backorder, but at least they maker/seller has specific plans to make the cart again, and the Intellivision adapter IS available for order: BackBit Pro Cartridge Adapter – BackBit
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FYI - My problem was fixed by simply replacing the power brick
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DOS
Star Control 55
Star Control II 70
Intellivision
Defender 38
Dipped into some DOS gaming again "grace a" my Steam library. Star Control I/II are the kind of PC game that totally sucked you in bitd. After putting about 2 hours in, I'm not really sure they hold up so well. The ship-to-ship battles were not much fun at all, but I may go back and play SCII a bit more.
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PC
Bezier 50
Deep Dungeons of Doom 35
Depixtion 56
Hand of Fate 2 175
It was a light week overall for me. Just a few more PC games
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What have you ACTUALLY played tracker - Modern Edition (2023)
in Modern Gaming Discussion
Posted
That's true! There are other emulators besides DosBox that load automatically. Rikki and Vikki even loads and runs an Atari 7800 emulator.