What have you actually PLAYED tracker for 2012 (Season 5)

[BillyHW]

Arcade:

 

Snow Bros. - 1 hour.

Bust-A-Move - 45 min.

Super Mario Bros. 3 - 3 hours.

 

Neo Geo:

 

Bust-A-Move - 45 min.

Edited July 20, 2012 by BillyHW

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom!-814 minutes

 

 

High score of the week: 255,929

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week (July 16th through 22nd)...

 

BBC Micro:

Locomotion - 50 min.

 

Online (non-eligible):

Railway Valley - 77 min.

Railway Valley 2 - 243 min. in 3 sessions

Railway Valley Missions - about 10 min.

 

The only classic game I played this week was "Locomotion" on the BBC Micro. In it, you control a train which can run forward and backward, and switch the switches the train is running over so that it reaches different areas of the map. The goal is to pick up a wagon with money (which you have to find among several wagons scattered around the map) and delivering them to the bank while not running out of steam. It's not very exciting though.

 

The Railway Valley series of games also revolves around trains. In the first installment, there are different cities dealing with different goods, and you have to build a railway network and guide the trains over it from one town to another. In the second installment, the coding by goods has been replaced by colors, and in the hardest setting, there are up to 8 towns which have to be interconnected.

 

Railway Valley Missions, however, pales compared to the other two. In this game, you complete missions each consisting of a track network on which you have to set the switches so that all the trains reach their destination. However, the network is fixed, and you can't change it. Also you can't see when each mission will be ending. Consequently, I didn't play this one for too long.

 

All Railway Valley games remind me a bit of the "Global Player" series since they have the same isometric perspective and also a similar background music.

[BillyHW]

Arcade:

 

Gravitar - 10 min.

[+thegoldenband]

My times during a very active week of gaming:

 

Intellivision:

Illusions - 35 min.

King of the Mountain - 25 min.

 

NES:

Elevator Action - 326 min.

 

Game Boy:

Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle - 177 min.

Qbillion - 126 min.

 

SNES:

Adventures of Kid Kleets - 284 min.

Kirby's Dream Course - 53 min.

Sunset Riders - 26 min.

 

3DO:

Star Blade - 35 min.

 

PlayStation:

Frogger - 50 min.

Frogger 2: Swampy's Revenge - 142 min.

 

Game Boy Color:

Shamus - 22 min.

 

I beat Adventures of Kid Kleets, Frogger 2, and Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle this week, and unexpectedly beat Star Blade on my first try as well. Thoughts on all of these here. Strangely, I've actually had a lot going on this week -- I guess being busy helped spur me to more gaming, somehow, though another part of it is that I've been working a temp gig that leaves me with plenty of downtime for gaming.

 

After beating Frogger 2 I tried Frogger, but found it much less appealing. The opening set of levels, styled after the original game, didn't seem too bad at first but were undermined by unforgiving controls and sadistic stage design. Once I beat those, I started the second set of levels...and immediately turned the game off. Maybe I'll warm to the "updated" approach, but at first glance it seemed horribly zoomed-in and confusing, and I just wasn't interested.

 

The less said about my attempts on Elevator Action, the better. That game is just an exercise in futility as soon as you hit Level 3; the guards lay down a virtually impenetrable defense on the bottom 5 floors. I essentially gave up on Thursday, at least for the time being, since my frustration level was becoming intolerable. Fortunately the SNES came to the rescue and reminded me that video games could be fun again, thanks to co-op Sunset Riders (though we got our asses kicked) and competitive Kirby golf.

 

Meanwhile I've now reached the last set of 10 levels in Qbillion, and have already beaten one of those -- only nine left! I also made progress in Shamus, beating the first level, though I'll have to redo it as the game's passwords track the number of extra lives in reserve, and I finished with only one.

 

Finally I played the "new" Intellivision releases. Illusions was utterly confusing and only after many frustrating attempts did I clear the first pair of levels, whereas King of the Mountain is quite good and genuinely fun.

[+thegoldenband]

Via 9-Volt? Well, that will probably work with today's NiMh batteries... but only for about 40 minutes. And what would you use for a screen?

 

Besides, isn't that what the Gameboy was made for?

 

40 minutes sounds right, but IIRC you can wire multiple batteries in parallel (or is it in series?) and double, triple, etc. your gameplay time. Hitch the unused batteries up to a solar panel and you've got "free" Atari! Touché about the screen but maybe an old portable CRT would do the trick.

 

And yeah, I have several Game Boys and play them a lot (especially lately), but there's something about the idea of Atari in the middle of nowhere...

 

Well, you can always visit me. I'm about as remote as you're going to get south of 60.

 

Of course, I opt for my 2600 Hecht portable instead of the 9 volt battery. It's less likely to scare off the moose.

 

Ha! I was thinking more like Québec and the Trans-Taiga Highway, but if I'm ever in your neck of the woods, you might just get a PM. I've always wanted to visit Yellowknife, which is only another 16+ hours away, right? BTW how's the screen latency on your portable?

[zylon]

5200:

Centipede 40min

Pole Position 1.25hrs

 

A8-

Pole Position 2.5hrs

[twoquickcapri]

Atari 5200:.

Pac-Man - 15 min.

 

Atari 7800:

Centipede - 190 min.

Choplifter! - 45 min.

Mario Bros. - 60 min.

Robotron 2084 - 135 min.

 

Atari Jaguar:

Black Out! - 30 min.

Checkered Flag - 30 min.

[+thegoldenband]

Here's the summary for Week 29, running from July 16 - 22. We logged 3569 minutes of eligible play, playing 31 games on a total of 15 systems.

 

Top 10:

 

1. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 814

2. Elevator Action (NES/Famicom) - 325

3. Dr. Mario (Atari 8-bit) - 300

4. Adventures of Kid Kleets (SNES) - 284

5. Centipede (Atari 7800) - 190

6. Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES/Famicom) - 180

7. Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle (Game Boy) - 177

8. Pole Position (Atari 8-bit) - 150

9. Frogger 2: Swampy's Revenge (PlayStation) - 142

10. Robotron: 2084 (Atari 7800) - 135

 

Pre-NES top 10:

 

1. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 814

2. Dr. Mario (Atari 8-bit) - 300

3. Centipede (Atari 7800) - 190

4. Pole Position (Atari 8-bit) - 150

5. Robotron: 2084 (Atari 7800) - 135

6. Pole Position (Atari 5200) - 75

7. Mario Bros. (Atari 7800) - 60

8. Locomotion (BBC Micro) - 50

9. Choplifter (Atari 7800) - 45

10. Centipede (Atari 5200) - 40

 

Top 10 systems:

 

1. Atari 2600 (814)

2. NES/Famicom (505)

3. Atari 8-bit (490)

4. Atari 7800 (430)

5. SNES (363)

6. Game Boy (303)

7. PlayStation (192)

8. Atari 5200 (130)

9. Arcade (70)

10. Atari Jaguar (60)

10. Intellivision (60)

 

In continuing proof of the unjust hegemony that perpetuates the oppression of the horizontal paradigm, our top three games this week are all vertically oriented. Furthermore, all three emphasize motion from the top to the bottom: clearly a shamelessly ideological gameplay dynamic that constitutes the epitome of Y-axis "running dog" propaganda. These oppressors of the horizontal are nothing more than embodiments of verticalist formalism, recapitulating and implicitly endorsing its perniciously hierarchical structures.

 

Take Kaboom: could any example more vividly represent how the X-axis is forced to serve at the table of the Y-axis, responding to its every whim, under threat of bombardment? And need I spell out the implications of this so-called "Dr." Mario, whose capacity for horizontal manipulations is but a superficial veneer, implicitly affirming the supremacy of the vertical?

 

Rise up, my X-axis brothers and sisters, and be free! You have nothing to lose but your scanlines!

[BillyHW]

Sorry, that 3 hours of Super Mario Bros. 3 wasn't Arcade, but NES.

[+davidcalgary29]

Via 9-Volt? Well, that will probably work with today's NiMh batteries... but only for about 40 minutes. And what would you use for a screen?

 

Besides, isn't that what the Gameboy was made for?

 

40 minutes sounds right, but IIRC you can wire multiple batteries in parallel (or is it in series?) and double, triple, etc. your gameplay time. Hitch the unused batteries up to a solar panel and you've got "free" Atari! Touché about the screen but maybe an old portable CRT would do the trick.

 

And yeah, I have several Game Boys and play them a lot (especially lately), but there's something about the idea of Atari in the middle of nowhere...

 

Well, you can always visit me. I'm about as remote as you're going to get south of 60.

 

Of course, I opt for my 2600 Hecht portable instead of the 9 volt battery. It's less likely to scare off the moose.

 

Ha! I was thinking more like Québec and the Trans-Taiga Highway, but if I'm ever in your neck of the woods, you might just get a PM. I've always wanted to visit Yellowknife, which is only another 16+ hours away, right? BTW how's the screen latency on your portable?

 

Yellowknife is amazing...in July! Seriously, working there for a year was one of the highlights of my career. Peace River is about a ten hour drive away from YK.

 

The portable is AMAZING. I bought it for a song ($200? $300?) about four or five years ago, and just love it. I'm going to have to try Kaboom! on it one of these days, but basically keep Keystone Kapers parked in it.

[+thegoldenband]

Sorry, that 3 hours of Super Mario Bros. 3 wasn't Arcade, but NES.

 

Ah, I was wondering, but I thought it might be some Playchoice-10 version unknown to me.

 

Yellowknife is amazing...in July! Seriously, working there for a year was one of the highlights of my career. Peace River is about a ten hour drive away from YK.

 

The portable is AMAZING. I bought it for a song ($200? $300?) about four or five years ago, and just love it. I'm going to have to try Kaboom! on it one of these days, but basically keep Keystone Kapers parked in it.

 

You're definitely piquing my interest in Yellowknife! I've thought about it as a place for my honeymoon...maybe I'll ask my fiancée if she could arrange to win the lottery.

 

That portable sounds great. Is there a picture of it online? You mentioned "Hecht" -- is that Ben Heckendorn, or a different modder of whom I haven't heard?

[BillyHW]

Sorry, that 3 hours of Super Mario Bros. 3 wasn't Arcade, but NES.

 

Ah, I was wondering, but I thought it might be some Playchoice-10 version unknown to me.

 

Yellowknife is amazing...in July! Seriously, working there for a year was one of the highlights of my career. Peace River is about a ten hour drive away from YK.

 

The portable is AMAZING. I bought it for a song ($200? $300?) about four or five years ago, and just love it. I'm going to have to try Kaboom! on it one of these days, but basically keep Keystone Kapers parked in it.

 

You're definitely piquing my interest in Yellowknife! I've thought about it as a place for my honeymoon...maybe I'll ask my fiancée if she could arrange to win the lottery.

 

That portable sounds great. Is there a picture of it online? You mentioned "Hecht" -- is that Ben Heckendorn, or a different modder of whom I haven't heard?

 

I actually do distinctly remember seeing Super Mario Bros. 3 in a Play Choice 10. But shouldn't you count that as NES, just as you count Neo Geo games separately from Arcade.

[Atarian7]

Via 9-Volt? Well, that will probably work with today's NiMh batteries... but only for about 40 minutes. And what would you use for a screen?

 

Besides, isn't that what the Gameboy was made for?

 

40 minutes sounds right, but IIRC you can wire multiple batteries in parallel (or is it in series?) and double, triple, etc. your gameplay time. Hitch the unused batteries up to a solar panel and you've got "free" Atari! Touché about the screen but maybe an old portable CRT would do the trick.

 

And yeah, I have several Game Boys and play them a lot (especially lately), but there's something about the idea of Atari in the middle of nowhere...

 

Well, you can always visit me. I'm about as remote as you're going to get south of 60.

 

Of course, I opt for my 2600 Hecht portable instead of the 9 volt battery. It's less likely to scare off the moose.

 

Ha! I was thinking more like Québec and the Trans-Taiga Highway, but if I'm ever in your neck of the woods, you might just get a PM. I've always wanted to visit Yellowknife, which is only another 16+ hours away, right? BTW how's the screen latency on your portable?

 

Yellowknife is amazing...in July! Seriously, working there for a year was one of the highlights of my career. Peace River is about a ten hour drive away from YK.

 

The portable is AMAZING. I bought it for a song ($200? $300?) about four or five years ago, and just love it. I'm going to have to try Kaboom! on it one of these days, but basically keep Keystone Kapers parked in it.

 

I like Keystone Kapers but I already scored a million on it.

[+davidcalgary29]

Sorry, that 3 hours of Super Mario Bros. 3 wasn't Arcade, but NES.

 

Ah, I was wondering, but I thought it might be some Playchoice-10 version unknown to me.

 

Yellowknife is amazing...in July! Seriously, working there for a year was one of the highlights of my career. Peace River is about a ten hour drive away from YK.

 

The portable is AMAZING. I bought it for a song ($200? $300?) about four or five years ago, and just love it. I'm going to have to try Kaboom! on it one of these days, but basically keep Keystone Kapers parked in it.

 

You're definitely piquing my interest in Yellowknife! I've thought about it as a place for my honeymoon...maybe I'll ask my fiancée if she could arrange to win the lottery.

 

That portable sounds great. Is there a picture of it online? You mentioned "Hecht" -- is that Ben Heckendorn, or a different modder of whom I haven't heard?

 

No, you're right -- I got his name wrong (which is a stupid thing to do, as it's right on the bottom of the portable).

 

I have his VCSp v. 5.1. You can see it featured in his blog and -- as I've said -- it's an amazing little machine. For some reason, though, Boulderdash plays in black and white only on the system. Hm.

 

Times this week:

 

Dr. Mario, A8 (260 minutes)

Boulderdash, 2600 (20 minutes)

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom!-762 minutes

 

 

High score of the week: 268,716

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week (July 23rd through 29th)...

 

sorry, no times. I didn't play anything. But I spent some time debugging my Videobrain homebrew "Hunt the Wumpus" as well as helping Sean Riddle finding out the correct timing for Videobrain emulation.

 

And to keep in the topic of portable Atari gaming, I just tried to put together a portable rig similar to what you all described. It looks like this:

 

 

On the right, you can see the Atari 2600, in this case running Oystron. The Atari 2600 runs on the green / black 9V battery sitting just beneath the Oystron cartridge. To the left of the 9V battery, there's the battery powering the CRT TV sitting to the left of it. Actually, the TV would be able to run on 10 "D" batteries, but I don't have that many of them currently, so I chose to use the 12V battery instead.

 

Main ingredients are, from oldest to newest:

- Atari 2600 from 1984 (without its power supply)

- Contec 6" CRT TV from 1987

- Oystron cartridge from 1998

- Consent 12V / 4 Ah rechargeable lead-acid battery from 2002 (came installed in a small electric scooter) (TV runtime about 4 hours)

- Varta 9V (actually 8.4V) / 200 mAh NiMh battery from 2010 (Atari 2600 runtime about 40-45 minutes)

 

At first, the 9V browned out on me before I could take the shot, so I had to first recharge it since it's the only one of its kind here (there are 2 NiCd's, but they are unable to deliver nearly enough power for the Atari to work properly). Because my regular chargers take too long for me to wait, I hooked it up to the Atari 2600 power supply which fills it at a whooping rate of about 380 mA. However, you must take care of not overcharging the poor 9V battery... I think even at that high charging rate (close to 2C!) it's fine as long as it doesn't get hot. And I ended charging as soon as it got warm.

 

Yes, I know I could have powered both things from the grid as well, but I wanted to prove it works this way. :-)

[+thegoldenband]

That is brilliant! Do you plan on taking it out into the field? I've used lead-acid batteries before to power a mobile sound system for a parade, but I didn't set that one up -- I need to learn how to do that stuff. BTW is the 2600 modded at all? IIRC, you can get more battery life out of the VCS if you remove one or more components from the power supply path.

[zylon]

5200:

Pole Position 45min

Centipede 40min

 

A8-

Pole Position 1.5hrs

[+thegoldenband]

My times for the week:

 

Atari 2600:

Airlock - 5 min.

 

NES:

Dragon Power - 344 min.

 

Genesis:

Asterix and the Great Rescue - 364 min.

Galaxy Force II - 169 min.

Soldiers of Fortune - 18 min.

Warrior of Rome - 17 min.

Zoom - 155 min.

 

Game Boy:

Qbillion - 375 min.

 

Went on a tear this week, beating Zoom, Asterix, and Galaxy Force II for Genesis, and Dragon Power for NES. Comments on all four starting here. Dragon Power was especially satisfying since that game bedeviled me as a kid.

 

I had hoped to add Qbillion to that tally, especially since I had the luxury of working a temp job this week with plenty of downtime to take a crack at it, and I'd finished up to level #111 of 120 last week. Of the remaining nine, the first seven went quickly, but puzzle #119 is an absolute beast -- it's one of the hardest and most brain-bending puzzles I've ever encountered in one of these games, and most of my 6.25 hours this week were spent on it. At first I didn't see how it could possibly be solvable; now I can catch the vaguest outlines of a solution, but it still seems impossible to pull off. Very demoralizing! The game allows me to skip ahead to #120, but that one appears to be no less difficult.

 

I also tried out a couple Genesis games: on my own, Warrior of Rome, a military sim which seemed playable but had somewhat confusing mission objectives; and with my other half, Soldiers of Fortune aka Chaos Engine, which seemed like great fun.

 

Finally (though not chronologically speaking), I played 5 minutes of Airlock while testing out an Atari I bought at a yard sale, which turned out to have a damaged power switch but still works. I ran through Game #1 twice, beating it pretty easily after a couple false starts.

[zylon]

^ Warrior of Rome II was better. ^

[+thegoldenband]

^ Warrior of Rome II was better. ^

 

Ha, I fired up WOR1 partly because I bought WOR2 yesterday from a seller on SegaAge who had it for a great price. I thought that if I was going to be getting the second game, I ought to get around to playing my copy of the first, since I've had it for a year or two now and hadn't touched it! The game seemed intuitive enough in its mechanics, but I was thrown off by what seemed to me contradictory objectives, i.e. getting my men to the boats while still protecting their bases.

[twoquickcapri]

Atari 5200:.

Pac-Man Arcade- 40 min.

 

Atari Jaguar:

Checkered Flag - 100 min.

 

Atari ST:

BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception - 15 min.

[BillyHW]

NES:

 

Super Mario Bros. 3 - 6 hours. Finished it without using any flutes and trying to complete every level. Used save states though.

 

SNES:

 

Super Mario World - 2 hours.

 

Neo Geo:

 

Bust-A-Move (Puzzle Bobble) - 1 hour.

 

Arcade:

 

Snow Bros - 40 min.

[+thegoldenband]

A bit late, but here's the summary for Week 30, running from July 23 - 29. We logged 3399 minutes of eligible play, playing 21 games on a total of 11 systems.

 

Top 10:

 

1. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 762

2. Qbillion (Game Boy) - 375

3. Asterix and the Great Rescue (Genesis) - 364

4. Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES/Famicom) - 360

5. Dragon Power (NES/Famicom) - 344

6. Dr. Mario (Atari 8-bit) - 260

7. Galaxy Force II (Genesis) - 169

8. Zoom! (Genesis) - 155

9. Super Mario World (SNES) - 120

10. Checkered Flag (Atari Jaguar) - 100

 

Pre-NES top 10:

 

Not enough entries to make a top 10.

 

Top 10 systems:

 

1. Atari 2600 (787)

2. Genesis (723)

3. NES/Famicom (704)

4. Game Boy (375)

5. Atari 8-bit (350)

6. Atari 5200 (125)

7. SNES (120)

8. Atari Jaguar (100)

9. Neo Geo AES/MVS (60)

10. Arcade (40)

 

The Top 10 system tally is close, but the game tally isn't -- and an easy gold medal goes to Kaboomistan, the only country with an all-percussion national anthem!