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

[twoquickcapri]

5200:

Ballblazer - 10 min.

Ms. Pac-Man - 10 min.

 

Sony Playstation:

Crash Team Racing - 95 min.

[+thegoldenband]

Here's the summary for Week 15, running from April 8 - 14. We logged 2991 minutes of eligible play, playing 38 games on a total of 17 systems.

 

Top 10:

 

1. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 528

2. Astrododge (ColecoVision) - 480

3. Wimbledon Championship Tennis (Genesis) - 310

4. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (Genesis) - 223

5. Q*bert (SG-1000) - 196

6. Pirates (NES/Famicom) - 190

7. Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation (Tomb Raider 4) (PlayStation) - 105

8. Crash Team Racing (PlayStation) - 95

9. Dinosaurs for Hire (Tom Mason's) (Genesis) - 88

10. Pac-Attack (Genesis) - 84

 

Pre-NES top 10:

 

1. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 528

2. Astrododge (ColecoVision) - 480

3. Q*bert (SG-1000) - 196

4. Q*Bert's Qubes (Arcade) - 73

5. Q*bert (TI-99) - 64

6. Pole Position (Atari 5200) - 45

7. Centipede (ColecoVision) - 30

8. Q*bert (Arcade) - 21

9. Boulder Dash (Atari 2600) - 20

9. Armor Attack (Atari 7800) - 20

9. Commando (Atari 7800) - 20

 

Top 10 systems:

 

1. Genesis (705)

2. Atari 2600 (555)

3. ColecoVision (510)

4. PlayStation (283)

5. NES/Famicom (216)

6. SG-1000 (196)

7. Arcade (94)

8. Sega Saturn (75)

9. Atari 5200 (65)

10. TI-99 (64)

 

Perennial champion Kaboom returns to the #1 spot on our charts, with ColecoVision homebrew Astrododge close behind at #2. Meanwhile the Sega Genesis holds on to the top console position, thanks to a loose coalition of tennis pros, Culkins, dinosaurs, and compulsive eaters.

[karokoenig]

NES

Pirates: 320 min

 

Atari

Demons to Diamonds: 11 min

Frogger: 8 min

Spiderman: 10 min

 

C64

Battle Ships: 18 min

 

PS1

MDK: 15 min

Pitfall 3D: 25 min

 

Arrrrrr!

 

Yeah, Pirates. That is probably the game leaving the deepest impression on me throughout several systems. Once I start, I can't stop before I have finished a decent career. This time I made it to "Governor" (95 of 100 points). Not too shabby for my first game on the NES version.

 

I grabbed Pitfall 3D on a flea market last weekend, as bonus on top of a Sega Master System in the box. Played around with it for a bit, and... meh... I am not convinced.

 

Sone serious gameplay this week went into another pleasure of mine: Submarine simulators. This time it's Silent Hunter II. I played the hell out of Silent Hunter I and was looking for part II for a while. Great game, as far as I can tell from the introductory missions I played so far. Found it on the very same flea market as the SMS and Pitfall 3D. Unfortunately, it's not eligible for this tracker. Was released on PC in 2001...

 

Next week, I will be travelling all the time. It will probably be hard to get any gaming in.

[TheGameCollector]

NES:

Super Mario Bros. - 60 Minutes

 

I don't know if I'll get any more gaming done this week.

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom!-196 minutes

 

 

High score of the week: 126,960

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week (April 15th through 21st)...

 

Arcade:

Q*Bert's Qubes - 362 min. in 7 sessions

 

RCA Studio II:

Scramble - 7 min.

 

I've played some more sessions of Q*Bert's Qubes, getting to Level 9 at one point (starting at Level 5). In Level 9, you have to complete 4 Tic-Tac-Toes, but the cubes again remain fixed after you've turned them right, unless Wrongway hops on them.

 

Scramble is one of several new homebrew games for the RCA Studio II by Paul Robson. He also has done versions of Space Invaders, Combat, improved Pong, Asteroids, Hockey, Kaboom, Pacman and now Berzerk for the system.

[zylon]

5200-

Pole Position- 1hr 15min

Edited April 22, 2013 by zylon

[twoquickcapri]

Atari Jaguar:

Defender 2000 - 100 min.

 

Sega Dreamcast:

Sega Rally 2 - 45 min.

 

Sega Saturn:

Daytona USA: Championship Circuit Edition - 45 min.

Sega Rally Championship - 45 min.

Street Racer Extra - 15 min.

 

Sony Playstation:

Street Racer - 83 min.

[+thegoldenband]

My times for the week:

 

Intellivision:

Frog Bog - 7 min.

Mountain Madness Super Pro Skiing - 17 min.

Pinball - 20 min.

 

Genesis:

Blades of Vengeance - 19 min.

Bubba 'N' Stix - 28 min.

La Russa Baseball '95 - 15 min.

Mickey's Ultimate Challenge - 115 min.

Operation Europe 1939-1945: Path to Victory - 56 min.

Pac-Attack - 289 min.

RBI Baseball 3 - 30 min.

 

Beat Pac-Attack and Mickey's Ultimate Challenge this week, the latter on all difficulties. I've fallen behind on writing up post-game summaries, but I'll eventually write something up for the beaten games thread.

 

I also started working on Operation Europe and La Russa Baseball '95, only to discover that both games had failed to keep my savegame. Operation Europe had a bad solder joint that I fixed, and the battery was in perfect shape otherwise (maybe an aftermarket replacement?), but La Russa '95 will need a new battery -- the one inside is stone dead. Fortunately I'd only fought one battle and played one inning, respectively.

 

I also played some Intellivision and Genesis with my other half (Blades of Vengeance is tough), poked around a bit in Bubba 'N' Stix, and got destroyed 27-0 by the CPU in RBI Baseball 3.

[+thegoldenband]

Here's the summary for Week 16, running from April 15 - 21. We logged 2036 minutes of eligible play, playing 28 games on a total of 12 systems.

 

Top 10:

 

1. Q*bert's Qubes (Arcade) - 362

2. Pirates (NES/Famicom) - 320

3. Pac-Attack (Genesis) - 289

4. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 196

5. Mickey's Ultimate Challenge (Genesis) - 115

6. Defender 2000 (Atari Jaguar) - 100

7. Street Racer (PlayStation) - 83

8. Pole Position (Atari 5200) - 75

9. Super Mario Bros. (NES/Famicom) - 60

10. Operation Europe: Path to Victory 1939-45 (Genesis) - 56

 

Pre-NES top 10:

 

1. Q*bert's Qubes (Arcade) - 362

2. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 196

3. Pole Position (Atari 5200) - 75

4. Pinball (Intellivision) - 20

5. Battle Ships (C64) - 18

6. Mountain Madness: Super Pro Skiing (Intellivision) - 17

7. Demons to Diamonds (Atari 2600) - 11

8. Spider-Man (Atari 2600) - 10

9. Frogger (Atari 2600) - 8

10. Frog Bog (Intellivision) - 7

10. Scramble (RCA Studio II) - 7

 

Top 10 systems:

 

1. Genesis (552)

2. NES/Famicom (380)

3. Arcade (362)

4. Atari 2600 (225)

5. PlayStation (123)

6. Sega Saturn (105)

7. Atari Jaguar (100)

8. Atari 5200 (75)

9. Dreamcast (45)

10. Intellivision (44)

 

Everyone's favorite foul-mouthed video game character takes the #1 spot on both individual charts, pursued by a band of salty dogs who've probably deleted a few expletives themselves. Meanwhile, the Genesis hangs on to the top console spot for another week.

 

More momentously, the RCA Studio II also makes its first-ever appearance on our tracker, sneaking in with a tie for #10 on the pre-NES charts with homebrew Scramble. Will this be the start of something big for the little console that mostly couldn't?

[Algus]

So I doubt this is rare or even valuable but here's my 5-in-1 Pacman arcade stick. It also has Bosconian, Dig Dug, and a couple other NAMCO titles.

 

I won this from the AZ lottery many years ago when they had a Pacman scratch ticket. I used to have a backpack and a pocket watch too but I am not sure what became of those.

 

[karokoenig]

Been travelling most of the week, so not a lot of playing except some (uneligible) GBA games. I did, however, visit two flea markets during my travels - and found some games. Here are my playtesting times:

 

Game Boy Color

Looney Toons: 5 min

 

NES

Prince of Persia: 7 min

 

PS1

Rayman 2: 15 min

Submarine Commander: 10 min

 

Apart from Rayman 2, I find none of those games especially convincing.

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom!-275 minutes

 

 

High score of the week: 90,990

 

I felt good most of the week but it didn't translate into any big scores.

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week (April 22nd through 28th)...

 

Arcade:

Q*Bert's Qubes - 72 min.

 

RCA Studio II:

Asteroids - 4 min.

Berzerk - 118 min. in 2 sessions

Invaders - 4 min.

Pacman - 4 min.

 

This week, I had a final session of Q*Bert's Qubes in which I reached Level 8 again, but didn't advance to Level 9. Then I decided to call it quits since I've played this game for a long time now over the past weeks.

 

I played some more Studio II games, all coded by Paul Robson. Berzerk is what I played the longest. I discovered that contrary to the arcade original which displays random maps, the Studio II version has a consistent map where you always spawn in the same room, and have the same rooms on each exit, and everywhere there's an exit, there's a corresponding exit in the other room back into the room where you came from. I then tried to map out the game, but this is near impossible since after a peek in the code, I found out that the map is huge... you play in a space of 256x256 rooms, but not all of them are reachable... there's a strip which is 7-8 rooms high and extends indefinitely to the upper right and to the lower left. If you try to keep to the upper left or the lower right, you'll face dead ends. The room structure is generated from the room number by a random number generator similar to how it's done in Pitfall! on the Atari 2600, only in 2 dimensions. Rooms that are next to each other vertically tend to have a similar layout. All in all it seems that 1920 different rooms can be reached by the player, although the maze structure, if you map it out, is rather monotonous. Still I like this map structure very much for its cleverness. It surpasses Mattel's AD&D and Safecracker games which have rather repetitive mazes.

 

Asteroids is a simplified version of the arcade game. The asteroids and you can only move and shoot in one of 8 directions, and there are no saucers.

Invaders is a somewhat buggy version of Space Invaders. One problem is that the invaders tend to lose pixels when their shots zap through them, and they continue moving with their pixels lost. If you're unlucky, you're stuck at the end of the round without having shot all enemies because one enemy has lost all its pixels before you were able to shoot it.

Pacman is a somewhat simplified version of the arcade game. The maze is smaller (due to the low resolution), and there's only one fruit, the cherry. Also the ghost AI doesn't seem to be quite as polished as the original one.

But my hat still is off to Paul Robson for creating so many homebrews for this system in a rather short time.

Edited April 28, 2013 by Kurt_Woloch

[zylon]

5200-

Qix- 1hr 35min

[twoquickcapri]

Arcade:

California Speed - 45 min.

Crazy Taxi - 15 min.

 

Atari Jaguar:

Super Burnout - 30 min.

[+thegoldenband]

My times for the week:

 

Genesis:

Bubba 'N' Stix - 113 min.

Chester Cheetah: Too Cool to Fool - 85 min.

Chester Cheetah: Wild Wild Quest - 5 min.

Cyber-Cop - 10 min.

Fatal Labyrinth - 297 min.

Frogger - 8 min.

Growl - 85 min.

Mickey's Ultimate Challenge - 15 min.

Operation Europe 1939-1945: Path to Victory - 50 min.

Radical Rex - 6 min.

RBI Baseball 3 - 32 min.

Traysia - 18 min.

 

It hasn't been the greatest week -- in fact, the whole month of April has been kind of a drag in several ways -- so playing Genesis has provided a pleasant haven from real-world troubles. I beat Fatal Labyrinth, Chester Cheetah: Too Cool to Fool, and Growl, all for the Sega-16 beat 'em all project. The latter two games I'd never actually played before, but they fell rather quickly, and I was even able to 1LC Growl on both Normal and Hard on my first try. Fatal Labyrinth is an old foe that I finally saw through to the end. Patient play, and the willingness not to give up after several frustrating deaths, ultimately did the trick.

 

Otherwise I made small steps forward in Bubba 'N' Stix and Operation Europe, was predictably underwhelmed by Cyber-Cop and Traysia, and managed to finally win a game in RBI Baseball 3, albeit on Easy.

[+thegoldenband]

Here's the summary for Week 17, running from April 22 - 28. We logged 1423 minutes of eligible play, playing 26 games on a total of 9 systems.

 

Top 10:

 

1. Fatal Labyrinth (Genesis) - 297

2. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 275

3. Berzerk (RCA Studio II) - 118

4. Bubba 'n' Stix (Genesis) - 113

5. Qix (Atari 5200) - 95

6. Chester Cheetah: Too Cool to Fool (Genesis) - 85

6. Growl (Genesis) - 85

8. Q*Bert's Qubes (Arcade) - 72

9. Operation Europe: Path to Victory 1939-45 (Genesis) - 50

10. California Speed (Arcade) - 45

 

Pre-NES top 10:

 

Not enough entries for a top 10. (Kaboom would be #1 with 275 minutes.)

 

Top 10 systems:

 

Not enough entries for a top 10. (The Genesis would be #1 with 724 minutes.)

 

In a quiet week the Genesis takes the #1 spot, with Rogue-like Fatal Labyrinth edging out perennial favorite Kaboom.

 

Meanwhile, the RCA Studio II makes an unprecedented appearance at #3 on the individual charts with homebrew title Berzerk. Strange days indeed!

[karokoenig]

A lot of variety, and a lot of playtime this week. Both are the result of (a) several successful flea market hunting trips, and (b) the extraction of a wisdom tooth that gave me some free time on the sofa.

 

Atari

Air-Sea Battle: 5 min

Return of the Jedi: 8 min

 

Finally got Return of the Jedi. Pure nostalgia, because I had that one as a kid. And boy, have my reflexes detoriated. How the hell was I able to dodge all the superfast crap when I was a kid?

 

 

NES

Pirates: 360 min

Super Mario Bros 3: 10 min

 

Arrrrrr! again. Had an open bill with Pirates!. Last career ended with only 95/100 pirating points, which made me a measly governor. The score is now settled, and Karo Kaptain has ended a career as a King's Advisor, with a perfect score of 100.

 

 

C64

Beam Rider: 8 min

Park Patrol: 7 min

 

Those weren't played on an emulator, but off a C64 games compilation CD I picked up for 50 cents. I might as well have thrown those 50 cents into a gutter. The emulation of the classic games on that CD is awful. Sound is way off, and not even the graphics look quite like the originals. So, my recommendation to people who think about getting such compilation CDs: forget it. Get VICE64 as an emulator and download the game ROMs. Add an USB Competition Pro joystick, and you're all set.

 

 

Mega Drive

Forgotten Worlds: 4 min

Road Rash 3: 10 min

Smurfs: 8 min

Sonic 1: 10 min

Super Hang On: 5 min

Terminator 2: 5 min

Tiny Toon Adventures: 12 min

Urban Strike: 17 min

 

Finally, the SCART cable has arrived in the mail, and I can tell my rotten Mega Drive RF connection to go fornicate itself. The playtimes are test times for the carts I already had. More to come next week, when another larger haul of MD games get tested.

 

 

Game Boy Classic

Max: 15 min

 

That one was a lucky find. I had no idea what it was when I picked it up. Turned out to be a quite late release for the system, and it's a really neat platformer with supertight controls, smooth and challenging gameplay and great music. My hidden gem of the week!

 

 

Game Boy Color

Pitfall! Beyond the Jungle: 5 min

 

It stinks. 'Nuff said.

 

 

PS1

Spyro 2: 15 min

Worms: 15 min

 

Picked those two up for a single Euro altogether. Spyro is really sweet. It does work, but the CD is in such bad condition that I am actually worried about my console, from the sound it makes while running. Worms... Worms... I had heard it's a great game, but damn, this game is great :-). Kinda like Lemmings - which I love - on steroids.

Edited May 5, 2013 by karokoenig

[AtariBrian]

Atari 2600

EMR 2 - 25 minutes

CGE Adventures - 30 minutes

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom!-208 minutes

 

 

High score of the week: ???

 

LOL I don't know what's wrong with me but I haven't been doing well.

[WispFollower]

Colecovision -

 

Squares! 40 minutes

Golgo 13 - 30 minutes

River Raid - 60 minutes

 

Nes (emulated)

1942 - 45 minutes

 

INTV (emulated)

Shark! Shark! 25 minutes

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week (April 28th through May 5th)...

 

Arcade:

Q*Bert's Qubes - 231 min. in 7 sessions

 

This is the only game I played this week. I got to Level 7 multiple times and to Level 8 at least once, but it takes roughly 30 minutes to get there. And the game gets pretty fast by then!

[zylon]

5200-

Qix- 2hrs 5min

[karokoenig]

I totally forgot to mention a little tidbit of trivia I found out about Pirates. The NES version was censored. In the eras where tobacco was among the goods you can capture and trade, it was replaced by "crops". Sheesh, Nintendo... you guys were really hardcore back in the days.