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What have you actually PLAYED tracker for 2010 (Season 3)

cvga

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cvga Quadrunner

+cvga

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1. Shamus (MS-DOS) 590 minutes [i'm assuming this was pre-NES)

 

 

The context has been games played on hardware so in that regard it would be logged as "PC" and not the operating system of MS-DOS. Just as you would log on Apple, C64, Atari 8-bit etc...

 

 

Good point. I'll refer to it as PC going forward.

 

 

The inclusion of systems that are not of the Golden Age of video gaming, along with handhelds and now what will be "PC" and Apple etc certainly has diluted the fun in the Weekly Top Ten for me. And when you're doing something that isn't fun then it becomes work and I'm already doing that 40+ hrs a week.

 

 

I sort of understand although I find it somewhat ironic that you're the primary reason I moved this thread to the Classic Gaming General forum. There are lots of new interests that I don't particularly share but I thought we were doing pretty well by including as many people as possible.

 

 

Just thought I'd mention that in the event you wonder why I'm not posting any more times to this thread.

 

That's your call. I would agree that if it isn't fun you shouldn't post. In any event, thanks for the prior posts. I thought you greatly added to the overall enjoyment of this thread.

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thegoldenband Quadrunner

+thegoldenband

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Times for Monday - Friday:

 

Tandy CoCo:

Downland - 45 min.

 

NES:

Action 52 - 10 min.

 

Sega Master System:

James "Buster" Douglas Knockout Boxing - 18 min.

Sonic the Hedgehog - 3 min.

Smurfs Travel The World - 133 min.

Teddy Boy - 3 min.

Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap - 9 min.

Wonder Boy In Monster Land - 2 min.

 

Sega Genesis:

Toys: Let The Toy Wars Begin - 2 min.

 

Sega Game Gear:

Sonic the Hedgehog - 3 min.

Tempo Jr. - 5 min.

 

PC Engine:

Atomic Robo-kid Special - 3 min.

Legendary Axe - 3 min.

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Kurt_Woloch River Patroller

Kurt_Woloch

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1. Shamus (MS-DOS) 590 minutes [i'm assuming this was pre-NES)

 

 

The context has been games played on hardware so in that regard it would be logged as "PC" and not the operating system of MS-DOS. Just as you would log on Apple, C64, Atari 8-bit etc...

 

The inclusion of systems that are not of the Golden Age of video gaming, along with handhelds and now what will be "PC" and Apple etc certainly has diluted the fun in the Weekly Top Ten for me. And when you're doing something that isn't fun then it becomes work and I'm already doing that 40+ hrs a week.

 

Just thought I'd mention that in the event you wonder why I'm not posting any more times to this thread.

 

Yes, I think it was pre-NES if you count the NES as having been released in 1987 (which was the case here in Austria). And Shamus is one of the games that was still sold on cartridges for some systems (the VIC-20 and the TI-99/4A), so I count it as being a pre-crash game, although the PC version appeared a bit later, but it still wasn't sold by a third-party developer, but rather by the PC vendor itself (IBM), and it also calls itself "IBM version", not "PC version".

 

Rmaerz, I'm sorry about having annoyed you with this listing. There were a few reasons why I decided to refer to the system of this game being "MS-DOS" rather than "PC"...

 

1. We are certainly drawing a line between classic and modern games here. Actually, such a line exists in the PC world too. With the advent of Windows 95, typical PC games started to run on Windows, while before that normally games were installed on the MS-DOS level, not on Windows 3.1 which already existed. The point in time where this happened (mid-90's) roughly falls together with the demise of the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis and the Super NES, which apparently now are listed as being eligible for the Top 10, so I thought it might be a good idea to differentiate between games that came out for installation on MS-DOS (which would be eligible for the Top 10) and games for installation on Windows (which would not be eligible for the Top 10).

 

2. In game magazines of the 80's such as "Power Play" which I used to read regularly, PC games were regularly referred to as being for "MS-DOS", not for "PC", because at that time several companies had computers on the market which they sold as PC's, although they were incompatible to the MS-DOS PC's. For instance I can remember a PC sold by Texas Instruments which had a speech card as an accessory which also allowed you to record / encode speech for the speech synth on the card. To be in line with those mags, I decided to refer to the PC games of those days as "MS-DOS" too.

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JayWI Stargunner

JayWI

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TurboGrafx 16

 

Battle Royale - 5 minutes

Bonk's Adventure - 25 minutes

 

Just got Battle Royale today and tested it out. It works good but I need to spend some time figuring out the game.

 

Almost made it to the second boss on Bonk's. First level was no problem. I guess I'll need to play the second level a bit more to learn it.

 

 

Genesis

 

Ghouls 'N Ghosts - 10 minutes

Gemfire - 90 minutes

Road Rash - 35 minutes

 

Gemfire is a turn based strategy game. I've beaten every scenario in the game using all the different families but I always have fun whenever I play it again.

 

I hadn't played Road Rash in quite a while so I figured I'd try again. A couple of the tracks I had to try 3 or 4 times before I eventually finished 1st in all of them. Bought a new bike but didn't bother writing down a code to continue.

 

SNES

 

Super Punch Out - 10 minutes

Donkey Kong Country - 15 minutes

 

Once again I didn't make it past Mr. Sandman in Super Punch Out. I think I have his pattern figured out so I'll have to try again tomorrow.

 

 

NES

 

Paperboy - 15 minutes

Popeye - 20 minutes

Fester's Quest - 15 minutes

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Kurt_Woloch River Patroller

Kurt_Woloch

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Here are my times for this week... I hope I didn't play anything wrong again.

 

The classic games (eligible for the Top 10):

 

Wonder Boy (SG-1000) 65 minutes

 

The non-classic games (not eligible for the Top 10):

 

Hue Shift (Online game) 171 minutes in 3 sessions

Bug Wars 2 (Online game) 146 minutes

Bug Wars (Online game) 115 minutes

Homerun in Berzerk Land (Online game) 15 minutes

Enough plumbers (Online game) 13 minutes

Bubble Shooter (Online game) 9 minutes

 

 

As you can see, I only played one classic game... Sega's SG-1000 version of Wonder Boy. I decided to play this because it differs notably from the arcade version, also in the level structure... the Master System version is much closer there. There are some differences from the SG-1000 to the arcade version... holding down the shoot button only makes you jump higher, but not run faster. Then there's the jerky scrolling (due to the fact that the TMS9918A doesn't support soft scrolling), and also the level structure is different in that each level seems to be a bit longer than in the arcade, but there's a boss at the end of each round, not only at the end of each area as in the arcade. Also, there are some places where there are two paths you can take. At one place, there's even a "stairway to heaven" which actually loops you back to the start of the round. The scoring also has changed, and there are not as many fruits to collect as there are in the arcade version. I even think there's only one of each kind per round.

 

Other than that, I tried some new online games... one of those was Bug Wars 2 which is a variant of Risk played in real time. It has got one twist where it's counting up the numer of enemies you killed, and for each 50 collected enemies you get to "attack" one spawner and basically cut its population in less than half. Also, at certain points in the game you get to upgrade your own men to stronger or faster versions.

 

Bug War (without the 2) is similar to that, but without the "attack" feature.

 

Homerun in Berzerk Land is a game where you throw a "geek" as far as possible using a baseball bat and then try to lengthen his flight as much as possible.

 

Enough Plumbers is a jump'n'run, a take on Super Mario Brothers, but it plays in closed rooms where you have to reach the flag. The unique feature here is that for each gold you collect, an additional plumber appears, and you steer all plumbers at once! For certain actions, you need a certain number of plumbers at one spot.

 

Lastly, Bubble Shooter is basically a Puzzle Bobble clone but without the possibility of actually ending a round since new bubbles keep coming up from the top faster and faster until you lose.

 

The game I played the longest, however, is Hue Shift. This is a sort of jump'n'run, but your character, which actually is a simple square, automatically runs left and right... you can only jump and change your color between red, blue and green. Now here comes the catch... the platforms also come in different colors, and those which have the same color as you are solid while you can go through the other ones. So you constantly have to change color in order to land on the platforms that bring you further up the tower. How far up? Well, the game is endless... there doesn't seem to be an ending, or even an end of one tower.

 

Actually, I think that Hue Shift is a pretty simple game and would work well on 8-bit computers and consoles, even on the Atari 2600 with only minimal degradations. You basically only have one moving object - your player character - but it has three colors which is not so good. But by adjusting the control scheme a bit, this still could be very doable on the Atari 2600. Apart from that object, you have background graphics which alternate between just being black and platforms that are divided into up to 6 segments, each of which is one of at most three different colors... not too difficult to implement, I think. Maybe a 2600 version would have to do without the vertical scrolling which also takes place, but this, I think, wouldn't take away too much from the game.

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JayWI Stargunner

JayWI

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Atari 2600

 

Infiltrate - 20 minutes

Yars' Revenge - 10 minutes

Fast Food - 10 minutes

Haunted House - 10 minutes

Maze Craze - 5 minutes

 

 

Sega Master System

 

Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap - 20 minutes

Monopoly - 15 minutes

 

 

Genesis

 

Phantasy Star 4 - 260 minutes

 

 

 

Obviously I got back on the Phantasy Star 4 horse. I did get past the second encounter with Dark Force as well as the third. I ended up checking out a dungeon I hadn't done previously which gave all my characters at least 2 more levels. That seemed to have done it to get me over the top. Now I'm on to the Ryklos, the previously unknown fourth planet of the Algo star system. There are two towers I have to get through, Courage and Strength, before I can progress. I got through Courage on the first try but Strength is a bit tougher. The mobs in there hit for a ton although I've gotten some nice upgrades for some weapons. I'm going to try this tower a couple more times but it looks like I may need to grind out a level or two. That's no problem since I didn't search the entire Courage Tower so I'm sure I missed something that could be a good upgrade. I still maintain this is the best game of the series although I think after this I may play some PS II since it's been quite a long time.

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thegoldenband Quadrunner

+thegoldenband

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Times for the weekend:

 

Tandy CoCo:

Downland - 37 min.

 

Game Boy:

Smurfs 2 - 3 min.

 

Sega Genesis:

Smurfs 2 - 4 min.

 

SNES:

AD&D: Eye of the Beholder - 3 min.

International Tennis Tour - 25 min.

Race Drivin' - 5 min.

Smurfs 2 - 3 min.

 

Notes:

 

On Friday I finally completed, via Dreamcast emulation, the SMS version of Smurfs Travel The World (aka Smurfs 2 or Les Schtroumpfs Autour du Monde). Having done that, I was curious to check out the versions for other platforms like the SNES and Genesis which I figured would be the same game with additional bells and whistles, based on what I'd read elsewhere on the net.

 

But actually, the SNES and Genesis versions are totally different games! The basic gist is the same, but the level layouts and enemies are totally different, and they've added a run button a la Mario. The music is also totally different, and there are some weird things going on with teleportation. I've only briefly played the 16-bit games, but so far I don't find them nearly as appealing as the SMS version.

 

The Game Boy release, OTOH, is definitely from the same codebase as the SMS game. However, the GB version has different and, to my ears, decidedly inferior music. It's also in monochrome, of course, and that tends to diminish the visuals somewhat. So the SMS version seems to be the best, but unfortunately, it's extraordinarily rare! Is there any truth to the rumor of a Game Gear version? I haven't been able to find it so far, but if it exists, surely it must be the SMS version repackaged.

 

I also had some nice sessions of Downland, courtesy of an Atariage member. The cart doesn't work with the CoCo 3 (at least not without a risky kludge that can damage your machine), but I've still got my old, yellowed CoCo 2, so I fired it up and it worked like a charm. (BTW there are disk images that are patched to work on CoCo 3, so those of you who only have that machine aren't out of luck.)

 

Anyway, it's something like a cross between Spelunker and Super Pitfall, but plays better than either of those games -- the frustrating CoCo analog stick notwithstanding. It's also tough as heck, but after several tries I finally managed to reach the final room (Chamber 9) before succumbing -- which is about the same benchmark I managed as a kid, actually. I've only managed to beat the game in emulation; I believe the developers intended a proper ending, but ROM size limitation forced them to just have the game loop. Too bad!

 

Finally, I lost two exhibition matches on the highest difficulty setting (Professional) of ITT, playing as #1 vs. #2. The first was a whitewash, 6-0, but I managed a better showing in the second, 6-3. The computer only held serve once, but I never held mine at all -- I still can't get the timing down. But at least my array of junkballs and lobs still seems to do the trick...though I do have to object to the computer's ability to repeatedly hit service return dropshot winners that barely dribble over the net! Not even Roger Federer can do that.

Edited by thegoldenband
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Sonic R Dragonstomper

Sonic R

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played some games that would make this forum happy…

I had finally got around to hooking up the 7800 that was originally belong to my sister…

 

Atari 7800

Astroids - 20 minutes

Xevious - 30 minutes

Joust - 20 minutes

 

NES

Adventures of Tom Sawyer - 1 hour 20 minutes

 

I don't know what it is, but I really enjoy the Tom Sawyer game… I will be playing it more this evening… otherwise, I've spent most of my playing time with Ketsui on the Xbox 360

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StanJr Quadrunner

StanJr

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I don't know what it is, but I really enjoy the Tom Sawyer game… I will be playing it more this evening… otherwise, I've spent most of my playing time with Ketsui on the Xbox 360

 

 

What kind of game is Tom Sawyer. I see it a lot, but never am brave enough to pick it up.

 

 

One more for me:

 

Demon Attack (VCS) 45 mins.

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