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

[BillyHW]

I think you play too much Kaboom.

[BillyHW]

I think you play too much Kaboom.

 

I didn't mean anything by this BTW, I was jk. I forgot to add a smiley.

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week (March 26th through April 1st)...

 

Arcade

Splash - 405 min. in 4 sessions

 

Atari 2600

Seaweed Assault - 132 min. in 3 sessions

 

Colecovision

Frantic - 126 min. in 2 sessions

Steamroller - 69 min.

 

Mattel Aquarius

Burgertime - 82 min.

 

Total gaming time: 814 minutes (116 minutes per day)

 

This week I played a variety of games... first came "Steamroller", where I again managed to exceed the "patch score" of 35,000 points. Then I replayed "Frantic" because it's similar to the Atari 2600 WIP with the same name which I played last week. Actually, Colecovison's own "Frenzy" is more similar to that then Colecovision Frantic. In Colecovision Frantic, you get more different enemies and stationary cannons to fight against, as well as keys you have to collect in order to be able to leave a room.

 

Then I played the Aquarius version of Burgertime again, which is pretty funny in its own way, running at a framerate of maybe 3 fps, with the characters jumping in 8-pixel steps... but you can still tell it's Burgertime. The background music is roughly the same as in the arcade, though it's not able to exactly keep time. I don't know if I got farther than the last time I tried to play this version. I think it's still quite an achievement to get this running on a system without sprites and without redefinable characters.

 

Then I tried Seaweed Assault, which for a Batari Basic game is quite good. I think the strength of Batari Basic is actually dynamic, asymmetric screens which are supported by a standard kernel, and this is an example for that type of display. Still, Batari Basic, in my opinion, creates "bloatware" in that the binaries are pretty big for what they do... the binary for Seaweed Assault is 32K, but from the gameplay, this should have been able to fit into 8K would it have been programmed directly in Assembler... or even 4K without the title screen. I reached over 2000 points, at which point it gets pretty hard to avoid the seaweed, so eventually you get stuck.

 

But the game I played for the longest this week was "Splash". This is a game I liked to play in the early 90's in the arcade, but apparently, there were not many other people liking it, so one day it was removed. I thought it was a bit similar to Seaweed Assault, but in reality, there are not too many similarities, other than you can move around nearly freely and shoot in all directions, including diagonally, in both games, and that both games have no scrolling. Anyway, I first tried on the standard difficulty without continues, but when I didn't make much progress this way, I decided to complete the game using the continue option at the end of the game, at the easy setting. The game has a total of 66 levels, and it took me about 110 minutes to complete them. By the way, "Splash" is not a pre-NES game since it bears a 1992 copyright date. I would consider it a typical 16-bit game, and the Commodore Amiga must have played a big role in creating it since it uses many fonts I recognize from the Amiga. But it still uses different hardware incorporating an FM sound chip and the ability to display much more sprites than the Amiga has. I think it also has 2 display planes... one hi-res plane in the background which displays the girls you have to uncover, and one tile-based one in the foreground which displays the paint you try to remove, the walls and the score display. Well, maybe the score display is actually part of the background, I don't know that exactly. The game also has a Z80 co-processor which the Amiga doesn't have.

 

All in all, this week I did a lot of gaming, mainly to recover from the troubles I went through last week. Next week, actually, I'm on vacation, so we'll see how much gaming I'll be able to sneak in there.

Edited April 1, 2012 by Kurt_Woloch

[StanJr]

I have no idea how that cat plays that much Kaboom! I mean seriously. I have games I love and I sank well over 250 hours into Skyrim, but this dude plays Kaboom! like he's freakin' breathin'!!

 

Bandai Golf: Challenge Pebble Beach (NES) 2 hours.

[+thegoldenband]

All I can say is that I admire Atarian7's fortitude and stamina. He makes Chuck Norris seem like Chuck E. Cheese!

 

I just worry about what will happen when Atarian7 finally makes 999,999 points, though...

 

Presently George glanced at his watch.

 

“Should be there in an hour,” he called back over his shoulder to Chuck. Then he added, in an afterthought: “Wonder if he’s finished his game. He was due to reach a million about now.”

 

Chuck didn’t reply, so George swung round in his saddle. He could just see Chuck’s face, a white oval turned toward the sky.

 

"Look," whispered Chuck, and George lifted his eyes to heaven. (There is always a last time for everything.)

 

Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.

[zylon]

5200:

Space Dungeon 20min

 

not much gaming this week as I've been busy getting my car ready to pass annual inspection.

[+thegoldenband]

My times for the week:

 

Intellivision:

AD&D: Cloudy Mountain - 22 min.

Same Game & Robots - 5 min.

Spina the Bee - 10 min.

 

Genesis:

Bonanza Bros. - 28 min.

Forgotten Worlds - 35 min.

Jewel Master - 215 min.

Ren & Stimpy Show Presents: Stimpy's Invention - 160 min.

 

Game Boy:

Qbillion - 70 min.

Ren & Stimpy: Space Cadet Adventures - 38 min.

 

Finished Jewel Master (which is great) and Stimpy's Invention (which isn't) this week. Thoughts in the usual place. I hadn't really played Stimpy's Invention before this week, but it's one of those games where once you've got it sorted out, you can run through the higher difficulties without much more trouble.

 

I also fired up a couple games with my girlfriend. Bonanza Bros. is quite tricky, but I think we got further this time than ever before, making it to Level 8 IIRC before running out of continues. Then we beat Forgotten Worlds quite easily on Normal difficulty, since there are unlimited continues with instant respawn in 2-player mode, which makes the whole thing a cakewalk. I guess 1-player mode is where the game's true challenge lies.

 

Meanwhile on the Intellivision, I tried out a couple newly published releases, including Spina the Bee and SG&R. Somewhere in there I also beat the highest difficulty on AD&D: Cloudy Mountain. I don't usually go back to a game after beating it, but AD&D remains as fun as ever!

 

Finally, I made a bit of progress in Qbillion, and tried out another Ren & Stimpy game, which I bought at a convention this weekend along with five other GB games. Unfortunately, Space Cadet Adventures is a glacial platformer with a penchant for cheap hits from offscreen enemies. Still, it has a vaguely addictive quality which brought me back for a few attempts.

[+thegoldenband]

Oh, and I also spent time playing the GBA Gauntlet/Rampart cartridge, but since they're ports and not emulated versions, they don't count towards the tracker. The review here is, sadly, quite accurate, though he doesn't mention that in Gauntlet you start with 10000 health. Between that and the delay in Rampart when placing building blocks, most of the games' challenge is obliterated.

[twoquickcapri]

Atari 5200:

Dig Dug - 65 min.

Frogger II: Threedeep! - 20 min

 

Atari 7800:

Water Ski - 160 min.

 

Atari Lynx:

S.T.U.N. Runner - 15 min.

 

Neo Geo MVS:

Breakers Revenge - 20 min.

Puzzle Bobble (Bust-a-Move) - 45 min.

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom!-946 minutes

 

High score of the week and new all time high score for me: 598,656

 

 

. . .

 

That is fantastic!! Congratulations, man. That must've felt great.

 

Thanks all. It did feel good to finally get above 400,000 for only the 2nd time.

[+thegoldenband]

Here's the summary for Week 13, running from March 26 - April 1. We logged 4508 minutes of eligible play, playing 28 games on a total of 12 systems.

 

Top 10:

 

1. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 946

2. Kid Icarus (NES/Famicom) - 720

3. Golf (NES/Famicom) - 480

4. Splash (Arcade) - 405

5. Greg Norman's Golf Power (NES/Famicom) - 240

6. Superman (NES/Famicom) - 240

7. Jewel Master (Genesis) - 215

8. Ren & Stimpy Show Presents: Stimpy's Invention (Genesis) - 160

8. Water Ski (Atari 7800) - 160

10. Seaweed Assault (Atari 2600) - 132

 

Pre-NES top 10:

 

1. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 946

2. Water Ski (Atari 7800) - 160

3. Seaweed Assault (Atari 2600) - 132

4. Frantic (ColecoVision) - 126

5. Burgertime (Mattel Aquarius) - 82

6. SteamRoller (ColecoVision) - 69

7. Defender (Atari 5200) - 65

8. AD&D: Cloudy Mountain (Intellivision) - 22

9. Frogger II: Threedeep! (Atari 5200) - 20

9. Space Dungeon (Atari 5200) - 20

 

Top 10 systems:

 

1. NES/Famicom (1820)

2. Atari 2600 (1078)

3. Genesis (438)

4. Arcade (405)

5. ColecoVision (195)

6. Atari 7800 (160)

7. Game Boy (108)

8. Atari 5200 (105)

9. Mattel Aquarius (82)

10. Neo Geo MVS (65)

 

Yet another week with Kaboom at #1 on the individual charts, but a different console atop the system charts. In this case, a coalition of sandtraps and Pits leads the NES to the top!

[StanJr]

Wow, one week back and I'm all over the top 10! Nice!

 

NES

 

Bandai Golf: Challenge Pebble Beach 90 mins.

Zelda II: the Adventure of Link 30 mins.

Star Wars 15 mins.

[BillyHW]

Here are my times for this past week (March 26th through April 1st)...

 

Arcade

Splash - 405 min. in 4 sessions

 

Atari 2600

Seaweed Assault - 132 min. in 3 sessions

 

Colecovision

Frantic - 126 min. in 2 sessions

Steamroller - 69 min.

 

Mattel Aquarius

Burgertime - 82 min.

 

Total gaming time: 814 minutes (116 minutes per day)

 

This week I played a variety of games... first came "Steamroller", where I again managed to exceed the "patch score" of 35,000 points. Then I replayed "Frantic" because it's similar to the Atari 2600 WIP with the same name which I played last week. Actually, Colecovison's own "Frenzy" is more similar to that then Colecovision Frantic. In Colecovision Frantic, you get more different enemies and stationary cannons to fight against, as well as keys you have to collect in order to be able to leave a room.

 

Then I played the Aquarius version of Burgertime again, which is pretty funny in its own way, running at a framerate of maybe 3 fps, with the characters jumping in 8-pixel steps... but you can still tell it's Burgertime. The background music is roughly the same as in the arcade, though it's not able to exactly keep time. I don't know if I got farther than the last time I tried to play this version. I think it's still quite an achievement to get this running on a system without sprites and without redefinable characters.

 

Then I tried Seaweed Assault, which for a Batari Basic game is quite good. I think the strength of Batari Basic is actually dynamic, asymmetric screens which are supported by a standard kernel, and this is an example for that type of display. Still, Batari Basic, in my opinion, creates "bloatware" in that the binaries are pretty big for what they do... the binary for Seaweed Assault is 32K, but from the gameplay, this should have been able to fit into 8K would it have been programmed directly in Assembler... or even 4K without the title screen. I reached over 2000 points, at which point it gets pretty hard to avoid the seaweed, so eventually you get stuck.

 

But the game I played for the longest this week was "Splash". This is a game I liked to play in the early 90's in the arcade, but apparently, there were not many other people liking it, so one day it was removed. I thought it was a bit similar to Seaweed Assault, but in reality, there are not too many similarities, other than you can move around nearly freely and shoot in all directions, including diagonally, in both games, and that both games have no scrolling. Anyway, I first tried on the standard difficulty without continues, but when I didn't make much progress this way, I decided to complete the game using the continue option at the end of the game, at the easy setting. The game has a total of 66 levels, and it took me about 110 minutes to complete them. By the way, "Splash" is not a pre-NES game since it bears a 1992 copyright date. I would consider it a typical 16-bit game, and the Commodore Amiga must have played a big role in creating it since it uses many fonts I recognize from the Amiga. But it still uses different hardware incorporating an FM sound chip and the ability to display much more sprites than the Amiga has. I think it also has 2 display planes... one hi-res plane in the background which displays the girls you have to uncover, and one tile-based one in the foreground which displays the paint you try to remove, the walls and the score display. Well, maybe the score display is actually part of the background, I don't know that exactly. The game also has a Z80 co-processor which the Amiga doesn't have.

 

All in all, this week I did a lot of gaming, mainly to recover from the troubles I went through last week. Next week, actually, I'm on vacation, so we'll see how much gaming I'll be able to sneak in there.

 

I will have to try this Frantic game. I haven't heard of it before, but after a search I see that it was a homebrew posted on these forums. I've been playing a lot of Frenzy lately, so I'm excited to see what it's like.

[StanJr]

Bandai Golf: Challenge Pebble Beach (NES) 90 mins.

[+thegoldenband]

My times for Monday - Thursday:

 

Game Boy:

Qbillion - 71 min

 

Genesis:

Fatal Labyrinth - 118 min.

 

SNES:

Lock-On - 54 min.

Sküljagger - 357 min.

Speedy Gonzales in Los Gatos Bandidos - 29 min.

Spider-Man/X-Men: Arcade's Revenge - 405 min.

 

Beat Sküljagger and Spider-Man/X-Men: Arcade's Revenge, both of which have been on my "unfinished business" list for ages. Thoughts here and here, respectively. Very satisfying to take 'em down at last.

 

The other two SNES games I fired up were titles I hadn't really played before, and both were unimpressive. Speedy Gonzales is a dull platformer, and Lock On is an After Burner-style game that's undermined by poor gameplay -- it's hard to track enemy planes, and you're constantly having to shake off their missiles.

 

Otherwise I made a bit of progress in Qbillion, and got about halfway through Genesis roguelike Fatal Labyrinth before running into trouble and losing interest.

[StanJr]

Bandai Golf: Challenge Pebble Beach (NES) 45 mins.

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom!-130 minutes

 

 

High score of the week: LOL

 

I have some jitter free paddles but they are very loose compared to the paddles I had been using.

I've got some new paddles coming from Best Electronics this week.

Maybe I needed the break.

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week:

 

Aquarius:

Burgertime - 300 min. in 7 sessions

 

Arcade:

Burgertime - 102 min.

 

Atari 2600:

Popeye - 5 min.

Star Castle - 3 min.

 

Intellivision:

Burgertime - 36 min.

 

Online (non-eligible):

Draw something online - 55 min.

 

TI-99:

Astro Fighter - 11 min.

Burgertime - 13 min.

Burgertime Beta - 11 min.

Treasure Island - 18 min.

 

Uzebox (probably non-eligible):

Donkey Kong - 6 min.

Frogger - 3 min.

 

VG-5000:

Tortues (Turtles) - 88 min.

 

Total gaming time: 675 min. (96 min. per day)

 

This week, I played a variety of games on a variety of systems.

The most playtime went to "Burgertime" on the Mattel Aquarius. I finally managed to beat it... it contains 7 screens, and after beating the 7th screen, it goes back to the first screen again, which is no harder than the first time around... even the speed that picks up in further screens goes down again! I also played some other versions for comparison. Here are the differences I spotted:

 

The Aquarius version suffers from the system having no sprites... all characters are 1 character wide and 2 characters high and move in character steps. In fact, the whole game moves only 3-4 times per second (depending on the level you're in). Extra men and peppers top out at 9 each... it's impossible to store more than that, which isn't true for other versions such as the Intellivision. The scoring differs from the arcade in that you only get a score for a bun you let fall directly, not any buns that fall down one level as a chain reaction. The bun scores 50 points without an enemy on it, 500 with one, 1000 with two, 2000 with three enemies and so on.

 

The arcade version, of course, is the original one. In the Aquarius version it's possible to be on a letting an enemy behind you climb the letter, then let it fall with the bun. This is possible because each bun is 5 characters wide. This isn't possible in any other version. On the other hand, the enemies in the Aquarius version move almost as fast as you.

 

The arcade version, of course, is much more fluid, but it's harder than the Aquarius one in that both the player and the enemies are larger... they are 16 pixels wide compared with 8 pixels on the Aquarius. But it's easier to throw pepper, which on the Aquarius often results in being caught anyway.

 

The Intellivision's mazes are similar to the ones on the Aquarius, but not exactly the same... they all seem to be a bit simplified in comparison. And the buns are only 3 characters wide as are the player and enemies (the Intellivision characters being double the size of the Aquarius characters), so in fact the playfield seems much smaller than on the Aquarius. On the upside, the motion is much more fluid. This version mimics the feature of the arcade where after a time on the same screen without a life lost, the enemies start to speed up, probably in order to prevent the player from endlessly leading them around in circles. The TI-99 and Aquarius versions, however, definitely don't have that feature.

 

Finally, the TI-99 version also has 6 mazes, but different ones to all other versions. The first screen looks promising, the second one is comparable to the second one of the Intellivision and Aquarius versions... basically a dumbed down version of the 4th Arcade screen. The other ones, however, seem greatly simplified compared to the arcade version. Even the last screen which has many dead-ends in the arcade isn't that difficult on the TI-99. The scoring is also different in that letting enemies fall down only scores the same as crushing them, not more, which makes for rather small scores, but balances out the fact that this version is rather easy. In fact, on later screens, the enemies move at half the player's speed horizontally while they match the player's speed on ladders. There's serious slowdown if more than 4 sprites get onto the same scanline, causing some of them to flicker.

 

Among the versions, the logic at which the enemies navigate through the maze differs slightly. An exception to this is the TI-99 beta version which differs from the released version a bit in that there is no title picture, an additional item to collect (the coffee cup), and the movement of the enemies is rather random, not homing in on the player at all.

 

I played two games of "Popeye" and "Star Castle" (obviously, the version that's available, not the one that's not) on the Atari 2600. On "Popeye", I only reached the 2nd screen.

 

I played two more TI-99 games, Treasure Island and Astro Fighter, both by Data East. While Astro Fighter is a bit challenging, Treasure Island is rather frustrating because it's very easy to die by having something that suddenly, unexpectedly appears collide with the player.

 

On the Uzebox, I tried the port of "Donkey Kong" which is pretty well made, as well as "Frogger" which gets very hard after a few screens.

 

Then I played the VG-5000 version of Turtles called "Tortues". All games of this computer are in French because it only appeared in France. The VG-5000 is a bit similar to the Aquarius in that it doesn't have any sprites, but only an advanced Teletext chip. On this computer, however, the characters are redefinable, which they aren't on the Aquarius. The setting of "Turtles" has changed to an underwater setting where your turtle gets chased by fish. Each round starts with 5 fish already present, but they move much slower than you. The question marks have turned into sinking ships, and if you recover another fish from a sinking ship, the total stays at 5 because one of the other enemies disappear to make up for the added fish. Your number of bombs is reset to 3 each time a screen starts or you lose a life. However, the biggest difference is the mazes... each maze only comes up once instead of twice, and already beginning on the 2nd screen, there are a lot of dead ends which make it easy for the player to get trapped since the fish tend to turn around without an intersection being there. This makes this version rather hard and frustrating. I didn't manage to complete the 5th level here. The Odyssey^2 version also has dead ends on some screens, but they don't start appearing until the 5th floor, and then they are still easier to manage because the enemies only change directions on intersections and aren't as many at the start of a level. The arcade version doesn't have any dead ends at all!

 

Finally, I played an online game called "Draw something". This is a multiplayer game where each of the players gets to draw something, and the other players have to guess the correct word which is being drawn (the drawing player can choose the word among 3 choices, and if he chooses none of the three, another random word gets chosen). There are points awarded for correctly guessing the word, and for drawing it so that the other players are able to guess it correctly.

[BillyHW]

What the heck is an Uzebox?

[zylon]

SMS:

Sonic Chaos 40min

ESWAT 10min

5200:

Pole Position 35min

2600:

Keystone Kapers 20min

[BillyHW]

NES:

 

Mega Man 2 - 4 hours.

Mega Man - 45 min.

Batman - 20 min.

 

Arcade:

 

Frenzy! - 60 min.

Berzerk - 20 min.

Ms. Pac-Man - 60 min.

Jr. Pac-Man - 25 min.

Ghosts'n Goblins - 30 min.

 

ColecoVision:

 

Frenzy! - 30 min.

Frantic (homebrew found here on Atari Age!) - 60 min.

Pac-Man (prototype) - 90 min.

 

Lots of gaming this week, I'm probably forgetting some, but that's what I can remember for now. Mega Man 2's music is epic.

Edited April 9, 2012 by BillyHW

[StanJr]

Bandai Golf: Challenge Pebble Beach (NES) 75 mins.

NES Open (NES) 60 mins.

[Kurt_Woloch]

What the heck is an Uzebox?

 

Look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uzebox

[+thegoldenband]

Here's the summary for Week 14, running from April 2 - 8. We logged 2941 minutes of eligible play, playing 36 games on a total of 12 systems.

 

Top 10:

 

1. Spiderman/X-Men: Arcade's Revenge (SNES) - 405

2. Sküljagger (SNES) - 357

3. Burgertime (Mattel Aquarius) - 300

4. Bandai Golf: Challenge Pebble Beach (NES/Famicom) - 300

5. Mega Man 2 (NES/Famicom) - 240

6. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 130

7. Fatal Labyrinth (Genesis) - 118

8. Burgertime (Arcade) - 102

9. Pac-Man (proto) (ColecoVision) - 90

10. Tortues (VG-5000) - 88

 

Pre-NES top 10:

 

1. Burgertime (Mattel Aquarius) - 300

2. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 130

3. Burgertime (Arcade) - 102

4. Pac-Man (proto) (ColecoVision) - 90

5. Tortues (VG-5000) - 88

6. Frantic (ColecoVision) - 60

6. Frenzy (Arcade) - 60

6. Ms. Pac-Man (Arcade) - 60

9. Burgertime (Atari 2600) - 36

10. Pole Position (Atari 5200) - 35

 

Top 10 systems:

 

1. SNES (845)

2. NES/Famicom (710)

3. Mattel Aquarius (300)

4. Arcade (297)

5. Atari 2600 (194)

6. ColecoVision (180)

7. Genesis (118)

8. VG-5000 (88)

9. Game Boy (71)

10. TI-99 (53)

 

The SNES and Mattel Aquarius at the top of the charts? Kaboom out of the top 5? Has the world gone mad?

 

I'm guessing that transporter mishap was more than it seemed...and I'm buying Spock a Gillette gift card for Vulcan Hanukkah.

[StanJr]

NES Open (NES) 75 mins.