What have you actually PLAYED tracker for 2013 (Season 6)

[carlsson]

By the way, do you also keep (seasonal) stats of which systems had the most number of players and which players went through the most number of systems? I admit the latter is mostly for bragging rights, but the former can be interesting to see which systems are most universal, even if people only spend 10 minutes at a time about them.

Edited August 13, 2013 by carlsson

[+thegoldenband]

Unfortunately not -- I only keep aggregate totals for each week, and don't track individual player stats. I think cvga started tracking that kind of information in his database (which I don't have), but when I redid all the stats for 2010 (after cvga stopped posting mid-year), I began with a simple Excel file. I've stuck with that through the ensuing years and the reconstruction of 2008-2009.

[carlsson]

Ok, I see. Out of boredom, I went through this season to get an idea how the stats I was thinking about might look like. I may have missed some entry, and every combination of player/system is only counted once, no matter how many weeks the same player reported it.

game-tracker.xls

 

So far, it seems NES/Famicom is the system most people occasionally play, with Atari 2600 on a strong second place. On the other axis, the player so far with most variation is thegoldenband, followed by twoquickcapri, Kurt_Woloch and me, who just joined a few weeks ago and have taken the opportunity to play through most of my collection, several systems I barely have function tested before.

[karokoenig]

This week's entry is a quickie for me...

 

Atari 2600 - Towering Inferno: 160 minutes.

Atari 2600 - Venture: 15 minutes

Atari 2600 - Adventure: 5 minutes

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom!-386 minutes

 

 

High score of the week: 242,968

[Atarian7]

This week's entry is a quickie for me...

 

Atari 2600 - Towering Inferno: 160 minutes.

Atari 2600 - Venture: 15 minutes

Atari 2600 - Adventure: 5 minutes

 

Was I right about not being able to get past the 2nd or 3rd building?

[karokoenig]

Was I right about not being able to get past the 2nd or 3rd building?

 

I think Gorfy almost made it through building 4. It does get extremely hard, and is probably a matter of extreme luck. All depends on the (random) room layout and (random) number of flames you encounter in the higher floors of later buildings.

 

Nice Kaboom Score this week, by the way :-)

Edited August 18, 2013 by karokoenig

[carlsson]

Arcade

Ghosts 'n Goblins: 7 min

 

Atari 8-bit

Strip Poker: 41 min

 

C64

Fire Galaxy: 5 min

Galaga (H. Wening 1982): 6 min

Galaxy: 5 min

Motor Mania: 16 min

Towering Inferno (Pioneer Software): 6 min

Towering Inferno Fire (a.k.a. New York): 2 min

 

MSX

Azzurro 8-bit Jam: 10 min

Ink Exxon Surfing: 16 min

Malaika Prehistoric Quest: 11 min

 

NES

Galaga: 11 min

Gradius: 14 min

Magic Jewelry: 74 min

Starforce: 6 min

Track & Field: 25 min

Urban Champion: 11 min

Zippy Race: 34 min

 

PC DOS (all CGA games)

Bouncing Babies: 2 min

Meta-Pin: 6 min

Pango: 2 min

Paratrooper: 3 min

Snake / Roar Lauritzen: 9 min

Sopwith: 7 min

 

VIC-20

City Bomber: 12 min

Key-Quest: 2 min

Mobile Attack: 2 min

New York Blitz: 10 min

Pipes: 30 min

Poker: 7 min

Shifty: 12 min

 

This week I played through all three of Wening's Galaga-ish C64 games. The first version with character graphics that I played last week still is the most fun. Kingsoft's Galaxy looks nicer but seems more sluggish to play, and the Fire Galaxy is a completely different game, loosely based on Galaga but different enough so Namco wouldn't have anything to say about it. I also noticed you in the 2600 HSC played a game called Towering Inferno, which made me look into GameBase64 for any games with the same title. I found two different ones: one G&W Fire clone in which only skinny people are worth saving while fat people deserve to die (!) and one rather simple fire extinguishing game that has no signs of origin.

 

The NES/Famicom games were played on a clone system. I always was a bit anti towards the NES, but despite a limited selection I found that time flies when playing these games, and now I'm starting to understand why it is such a popular system.

Edited August 18, 2013 by carlsson

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week (August 12th through 18th)...

 

Arcade:

Bosconian - 121 min. in 4 sessions

 

Commodore 64:

Park Patrol - 39 min.

 

Online (non-eligible):

Dots - 5 min.

Luftikus - 15 min.

Spinballs - 54 min.

 

I played some online games on the site of the Austrian grocery chain Hofer where I returned their robot vacuum on Friday because it broke on Tuesday (didn't get power from the main switch anymore). I've now bought another bot, an LG HomBot which works satisfactorily so far. The games I played were Dots (strategy game where you have to fill more boxes than your opponent), Luftikus (similar to another game, basically you have to fill a line from left to right by turning the elements in between) and Spinballs (a spinning variant on Puzzle Bobble which I've also seen by another name on another site).

 

The remaining games are replays... Bosconian, which I primarily replayed because of the low-quality speech output of my new LG HomBot which reminded me of the speech in Bosconian which comes along in plain Engrish ("Alike! Alike!" "Light Oh!" "A missle lanched!").

 

Finally, there was a feature on the radio about a man crossing a tropical river, and he said that first he had to throw stones into the water in order to chase away the snakes. And that's one thing you can do in "Park Patrol", hence the replay of this game. I managed to complete Level 6 of it, after which the game doesn't get harder anymore, so I consider this replay accomplished.

[+thegoldenband]

I played some online games on the site of the Austrian grocery chain Hofer where I returned their robot vacuum on Friday because it broke on Tuesday

 

Every so often I read a sentence which makes me realize how much the world has changed in the last 20-30 years. This is one of those times.

[zylon]

5200-

River Raid- 40min

[+thegoldenband]

My times for the week:

 

Genesis:

Atomic Robo-kid - 46 min.

Batman Forever - 62 min.

Battlemaster - 16 min.

Bonanza Bros. - 115 min.

Centurion of Rome - 8 min.

Dashin' Desperados - 46 min.

David Crane's Amazing Tennis - 382 min.

King's Bounty - 6 min.

RBI Baseball 4 - 41 min.

Star Control - 2 min.

 

PlayStation:

Gauntlet Legends - 57 min.

 

Beat Bonanza Bros. on all difficulty levels this week. I also beat Atomic Robo-kid on Normal for the Sega beat-'em-all project (I've beaten it before), and my fiancée and I beat the four bonus levels unlocked at the end of Gauntlet Legends.

 

I spent the majority of my gaming time on David Crane's Amazing Tennis, in which I've beaten all but the top two players in exhibition matches. Midweek I tried taking on the four-round Tournament mode, and in the first round I beat the second-ranked player Richard in a very close match, 4-6 6-4 7-6(2). I then won my quarterfinal match, but lost a tight semifinal to top-ranked Sten in a third-set tiebreak, 6-4 4-6 7-6(3), despite coming back from 5-2 and 6-5 down in the final set.

 

Otherwise I won another game in RBI Baseball 4, and tried a few games to figure out what I'll work on next. Dashin' Desperados is a frustrating platformer/race game, and Batman Forever is a bizarre beat-'em-up with fighting game elements and a bad habit of instilling total confusion in the player, thanks to the inscrutable control scheme and bewildering stage design. And speaking of inscrutable, Centurion of Rome, King's Bounty, and Battlemaster are all strategy/RPG games I'd like to figure out and beat, but my efforts have yet to make them "scrutable" to me.

[twoquickcapri]

PC-DOS:

Crazy Cars III - 60 min.

 

Spend most of the week building a 386sx 16 PC DOS machine. Wasted a full day trying to get a CD-ROM to work off the ide port on the sound card but gave up on it after number of attempts that ended in failure. The 386 only has a 420 meg hard drive so having a CD-ROM drive with 600+ meg disks is a little silly and didn't really need the drive for the games I want to play anyways.

[WispFollower]

NES

Smash TV - 60 minutes

 

Colecovision

Lock N Chase - 30 minutes

Mario Bros. - 25 minutes

Squares! - 25 minutes

Steamroller - 60 minutes

Fireman - 120 minutes

 

The game I mentioned previously which I was excited about receiving is a boxed copy of Fireman! I am very happy to have had a chance to acquire this rare gem. It may not surpass Steamroller as my favorite Colecovision game, but it still provides me with much enjoyment. Besides being a great piece to have as a collector, it is actually quite a fun game! I kept up my usual habit of playing Colecovision games on skill level three, and it gets tough quickly, which I love. One thing I haven't quite figured out yet is what exactly an item is which seems to appear with no discernible pattern. It appears like a power up might, with a sound being played. Perhaps it adds to your mobile fire extinguishers.. I will have to do more research. Overall, great game, great collector's piece- a win for sure.

 

I would have more minutes to post, but I have been hooked on yet another great ps3 game this week- Payday 2. It's a great online co-op about pulling off epic robberies and heists with fantastic customization and loot systems. Find the right crew to run with, and the heists become incredibly addicting. I wasn't sure how I would feel about it, but I watched a couple game play videos and had to check it out. The difficulty of finding a single disc copy of the game in the entire city I live in intrigued me as well. It's been a while since I have completely forsaken sleep to just keep playing a game with reckless abandonment.

[Atarian7]

I think Gorfy almost made it through building 4. It does get extremely hard, and is probably a matter of extreme luck. All depends on the (random) room layout and (random) number of flames you encounter in the higher floors of later buildings.

 

Nice Kaboom Score this week, by the way :-)

 

Thank you.

[Hyperboy]

Arcade: Zoo Keeper and Robotron

2600: Room of Doom

Genesis: Streets of Rage 3

[+thegoldenband]

Arcade: Zoo Keeper and Robotron

2600: Room of Doom

Genesis: Streets of Rage 3

 

Welcome aboard! Any idea how long you played these for? We usually assume 5 minutes if times are unspecified.

 

BTW I'll post the Week 33 stats later today.

[Hyperboy]

 

 

Welcome aboard! Any idea how long you played these for? We usually assume 5 minutes if times are unspecified.

 

BTW I'll post the Week 33 stats later today.

 

Sorry for no times, they are:

Zoo Keeper and Robotron 2hrs

Room of Doom 30+ minutes

Streets of Rage 3 around an hour

[+thegoldenband]

^Great, I'll count those times with Week 34.

 

Meanwhile, here's the summary for Week 33, running from August 12-18. We logged 2331 minutes of eligible play, playing 56 games on a total of 12 systems.

 

Top 10:

 

1. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 386

2. David Crane's Amazing Tennis (Genesis) - 382

3. Towering Inferno (Atari 2600) - 160

4. Bosconian (Arcade) - 121

5. Fireman (ColecoVision) - 120

6. Bonanza Brothers (Genesis) - 115

7. Magic Jewelry (NES/Famicom) - 74

8. Batman Forever (Genesis) - 62

9. SteamRoller (ColecoVision) - 60

9. Smash TV (NES/Famicom) - 60

9. Crazy Cars III (PC (DOS)) - 60

 

Pre-NES top 10:

 

1. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 386

2. Towering Inferno (Atari 2600) - 160

3. Bosconian (Arcade) - 121

4. Fireman (ColecoVision) - 120

5. SteamRoller (ColecoVision) - 60

6. Strip Poker (Atari 8-bit) - 41

7. River Raid (Atari 5200) - 40

8. Park Patrol (C64) - 39

9. Lock N Chase (ColecoVision) - 30

9. Pipes (VIC-20) - 30

 

Top 10 systems:

 

1. Genesis (724)

2. Atari 2600 (566)

3. ColecoVision (260)

4. NES/Famicom (235)

5. Arcade (128)

6. PC (DOS) (89)

7. C64 (79)

8. VIC-20 (75)

9. PlayStation (57)

10. Atari 8-bit (41)

 

It's as if Kaboom just knows, somehow. In its PCB a secret intelligence lurks, aware of just what it takes to stay on top.

 

Why do I conjure this ghost in the machine? Because, for the second week in a row, Kaboom holds off a contender from the Genesis library by a slim margin -- in this case, just 4 minutes! However, the Genesis does take the top spot on the system charts.

[Atarian7]

testing testing

Seeing if I can post on Firefox after the "upgrade".

 

Test successful.

Edited August 24, 2013 by Atarian7

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom!-316 minutes

 

 

High score of the week: 247,959

 

 

[karokoenig]

Atari 2600:

Adventure - 40 min

Venture - 25 min

 

Commodore 64:

Kaiser: 65 min

 

Game Boy Classic:

Game Boy Camera - 12 min

Solar Striker - 8 min

Space Invaders - 4 min

 

Game Boy Color:

Test Drive 6 - 5 min

 

Been messing around with a few flea market finds. Space Invaders and Test Drive are not worth a second look imo. The Game Boy Camera is kinda fun, I must admit. Anyone an idea how I could get the "photos" onto my Laptop...?

 

Kaiser is a game we played for days and days back in the 80s. Great fun for up to 4 players. When you play it alone, the main challenge is just to become Kaiser before you die. Great strategy classic for the C64. Highly recommended - though I have no idea if there's an english version.

[carlsson]

Atari 8-bit:
M.U.L.E. - 143 min
Strip Poker - 32 min

 

C64:
Motor Mania - 17 min
War of Wizards - 10 min
Wizard of Wor (MAX) - 6 min
Wizard of Wor - 11 min

 

MSX:
Hyper Rally - 18 min

 

After the past week's worth of Wizard of Wor controversy, I decided to play the C64 versions. The MAX one is the first one to be released, for the Commodore MAX Machine a.k.a. VIC-10. Since I played it on a bog standard C64, I suppose it counts to that system just like playing an XEGS labeled game on an Atari 800XL would count to Atari 8-bit computers. While both implementations are official Commodore releases and cover the arcade game, they differ quite a bit both in graphics, speed and gameplay. The MAX version is extremely fast, almost random in its behavior while the one year later C64 version has more elements of strategy and from what I gather much better matches the original arcade game.

 

I also played some obscure game called War of Wizards, which made me laugh out loud at its rudimentary controls. I found myself furiously pushing every button on my Starplex controller in order to play the game, which was fun for a little over 10 minutes.

 

Regarding Kaiser as played by Karokoenig, wasn't that one of Wolfgang Priklopil's favorite games? I've seen it be referenced to as the German equivalent to M.U.L.E. or something similar. I played it for a while last year, but despite I did find an English translated version, it didn't challenge me. I found it more like a glorified version of Lemonade Stand than an advanced, computerized board game, but perhaps it works differently if several human players take turns?

Edited August 25, 2013 by carlsson

[Kurt_Woloch]

After the past week's worth of Wizard of Wor controversy, I decided to play the C64 versions. The MAX one is the first one to be released, for the Commodore MAX Machine a.k.a. VIC-10. Since I played it on a bog standard C64, I suppose it counts to that system just like playing an XEGS labeled game on an Atari 800XL would count to Atari 8-bit computers. While both implementations are official Commodore releases and cover the arcade game, they differ quite a bit both in graphics, speed and gameplay. The MAX version is extremely fast, almost random in its behavior while the one year later C64 version has more elements of strategy and from what I gather much better matches the original arcade game.

That's interesting... I didn't know anything about the MAX machine until now. But I found some data... C-64 level graphics with only 4K RAM... well, it wasn't released anyway.

Regarding Kaiser as played by Karokoenig, wasn't that one of Wolfgang Priklopil's favorite games? I've seen it be referenced to as the German equivalent to M.U.L.E. or something similar. I played it for a while last year, but despite I did find an English translated version, it didn't challenge me. I found it more like a glorified version of Lemonade Stand than an advanced, computerized board game, but perhaps it works differently if several human players take turns?

I remember I played it alone some time ago, and the surest way to win it was to speculate with land, e.g. buy it low and sell it high. That way you could quickly expand your empire... but I didn't know about the story with Mr. Priklopil. But it's true that it's told that way in Natascha Kampusch's book "3096 days". I know the story pretty well because Deutsch Wagram, where Priklopil lived, is only about 8 miles away from here, and the train line where he ended his life is the same line I use for my commute to work on most days.

 

Well, now on to my times for this past week (August 19th through 25th)...

 

Atari 2600:

Go Fish! - 158 min. in 3 sessions

Gremlins - 11 min.

Gyruss - 5 min.

Kung Fu Master - 9 min.

Towering Inferno - 113 min. in 2 sessions

Toyshop Trouble - 11 min.

 

Commodore 64:

Serpentine - 60 min.

 

Online (non-eligible):

Pioneer Trail - 8 min.

Simply Hospital - 162 min. in 2 sessions

 

After having read the descriptions of Towering Inferno on the 2600 here, I was curious how firefighting would look on the 2600, so I played the game myself, but I didn't manage to finish the 2nd building.

 

Then I played Go Fish to see if my skills have improved there which they haven't. But I found the "Unlimited lives hack", so the last 23 minutes of that game were actually playing this hack. With this hack, I got to the maximum score of 9999 which doesn't roll. Even as the biggest fish, life isn't easy... you can eat all other fish, but there are tons of eels, sharks and octopusses which are still out to kill you and move at a very fast speed.

 

Then, on the Atari 2600 side, there were rather short replays of Gremlins, Toyshop Trouble, Gyruss and Kung Fu Master.

 

Then I played an online game called "Simply Hospital" which I actually started about two years ago, followed by "Pioneer trail".

 

Finally, I replayed the C-64 game "Serpentine" which I haven't played for a long time. Actually, it's a bit similar to "Go Fish" in that while in Go Fish, big fish eat small fish, in Serpentine long snakes eat short snakes. However, when a board is cleared, the automated return of the player snake to the base reminded my of my new vacuum bot, the difference being that while Serpentine only does it with a character on screen, the vacuum finds its charging base in reality and does something useful while "out on the board"... it eats dust, not snakes. Anyway I found myself saying "Looking for charging station" (which is the speech output of the vacuum bot when the battery gets low and it start to look for home) when my serpentine on screen started to head for home.

Edited August 25, 2013 by Kurt_Woloch

[carlsson]

C-64 level graphics with only 4K RAM... well, it wasn't released anyway.

Well, not in Europe or the USA, but the MAX Machine and its games most certainly were released in Japan. However it never seem to have made much of an impact even on the Japanese market. I seem to recall that its recommended retail price was much lower than the C64 at the time of launch, which would say something about how little VIC-II and SID chips cost to produce compared to the price of DRAM, possibly also keyboard mechanism and other additional costs. Or maybe it was just Commodore requiring higher margins on computers than "video games".