What have you actually PLAYED tracker for 2015 (Season 8)

[carlsson]

Of course the alternative would be to join systems that are format compatible and which offer nearly no improvements, but it needs to be done with precaution. I really think Amiga AGA should be counted separately as it was a rather major overhaul of the graphics and also is associated with a faster CPU and usually more memory than earlier Amiga gaming computers had. Given the classification, I'm willing to support joining ECS and AGA into one category (very few games take advantage of ECS enhancements) so we've got late 1980's Amiga 500 in one group and early 1990's Amiga 600/1200 in one group.

 

About Apple II, isn't the IIgs counted separately? Although I'm by far from any expert on Apple II, I think that is the only one that technically would need to be treated on its own, as the other Apple models seem to inbetween add as much improvements than e.g. the Atari 8-bit range or for that matter the BBC Micro/Master or ZX Spectrum 48/128/+2/+3 ranges did.

Edited August 31, 2015 by carlsson

[+thegoldenband]

I really think Amiga AGA should be counted separately as it was a rather major overhaul of the graphics and also is associated with a faster CPU and usually more memory than earlier Amiga gaming computers had. Given the classification, I'm willing to support joining ECS and AGA into one category (very few games take advantage of ECS enhancements) so we've got late 1980's Amiga 500 in one group and early 1990's Amiga 600/1200 in one group.

 

About Apple II, isn't the IIgs counted separately?

 

OK, will do. So that's Banshee, Guardian, Lion King, Mr. Beanbag, Plat-Man, Skidmarks, Super Skidmarks, and Tracker Hero AGA that'll be counted under the new "Amiga AGA/ECS" category. Does that work?

 

BTW I don't believe we've had any IIgs gameplay, or at least I don't have any listed (and a Google search for "IIgs" + "What have you actually played" didn't yield any results). I'd certainly count any IIgs-exclusive games separately, though backwards-compatible games would be treated like playing Atari 2600 games on a 7800, i.e. counted with the original system.

 

Phew! Now to compile some stats...

[carlsson]

Sounds great to me!

[+thegoldenband]

Here's the summary for Week 35, running from August 24 - 30. We logged 13011 minutes of eligible playtime, playing 109 games on a total of 24 systems.

Top 10:

1. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 1083

2. Dragon Warrior III (Game Boy Color) - 1005

3. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PlayStation) - 1003

4. Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (MSX2) - 614

5. Civilization: Test of Time (PC (Windows 95/98)) - 600

5. Panzer General 2 (PC (Windows 95/98)) - 600

7. Metal Gear Solid (PlayStation) - 531

8. Metal Gear (NES/Famicom) - 521

9. Championship Manager 97/98 (PC (DOS)) - 500

10. Metal Gear: Ghost Babel [JPN version of Metal Gear Solid] (Game Boy Color) - 421

Pre-NES top 10:

1. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 1083

2. Munchman (TI-99/4A) - 194

3. Centipede (Arcade) - 181

4. Elite (BBC Micro) - 180

5. Ms. Pac-Man (Arcade) - 140

6. Red Moon (Atari 8-bit) - 90

6. Jet Set Willy (TI-99/4A) - 90

8. Carnival (Atari 2600) - 87

9. Oink! (Atari 2600) - 65

10. M.U.L.E. (Atari 8-bit) - 60

10. Mercenary (Atari 8-bit) - 60

10. Road Hunter (TI-99/4A) - 60

Top 10 systems:

1. PlayStation (1904)

2. Atari 2600 (1837)

3. PC (Windows 95/98) (1600)

4. Game Boy Color (1426)

5. PC (DOS) (1023)

6. NES/Famicom (993)

7. MSX2 (930)

8. Sharp X68000 (648)

9. TI-99/4A (557)

10. SNES (476)

I thought Week 31 this year was big, but Week 35 smashes all records, with 13011 minutes logged! It's obviously #1 on the all-time list of busiest weeks, by a margin of more than 2700 minutes over Week 31 of 2015. It's also our most diverse week ever, with 24 different platforms represented.

In addition, it almost doubles the total of what was, until this summer, the previous long-time record holder (Week 6 of 2010, with 7157 minutes). At this rate, the list of all-time top 10 weeks will be all 2015 before long!

Despite all this new and uncharted territory, Kaboom finally regains its crown -- though not without a fight, as Dragon Warrior III and Castlevania: SOTN are in close pursuit (and only 2 minutes away from each other).

Those two games also get an instant trip to the 1000-minute club, on their first appearance on the tracker no less. Also joining that esteemed order is Road Hunter for TI-99/4A, with 1029 minutes logged to date.

I've also discovered two overlooked games that should have joined the 1000-minute club: Jr. Pac-Man for Atari 2600, which snuck in during Week 5 of this year; and Lunar: Silver Star Story for PlayStation, which logged over 1000 minutes two weeks ago. (In fact it logged that much in a single week -- not sure how I missed that one!)

So we've got five games to add, and we're now up to 170 members, with Road Hunter as the latest. Meanwhile NetHack becomes only the sixth game to join the even-more-elite 5000-minute club, with 5046 minutes in the bank. It's also #6 all time.

Finally, I just noticed that we've logged over one million minutes since the tracker was started. The total is 1,045,604, so it looks like we crossed over in Week 30. Cool!

[+thegoldenband]

BTW, a few notes:

 

- I've counted the MSX2 as a post-crash platform. Let me know if I should reconsider.

 

- I was excited to see the WonderSwan Color join the tracker for the first time, but it turns out to have been released in 2000, i.e. after our cutoff. But the WonderSwan monochrome is eligible, and that's never been seen!

 

- It looks like Championship Manager 97/98 is DOS, and the other PC games posted by am1933 are Windows. If I'm incorrect, LMK.

[+cvga]

Intellivision:

Brickout - 50 minutes

Stonix - 15 minutes

 

Nintendo 3DS:

Mario Kart 7 - 40 minutes

[carlsson]

I agree, MSX2 is absolutely post-NES featuring a V9938 VDP released in 1985 if I understand correctly. According to the technical data book, it was a joint effort of ASCII Corporation, Microsoft incorporated (!) and Yamaha. It makes me curious which other pieces of integrated chips that Microsoft had any design input on, at least those predating the Xbox era of course.

Edited September 1, 2015 by carlsson

[+thegoldenband]

BTW I just spotted another milestone, or a different way of looking at the same milestone: there are 525,600 minutes in a year, so when we cross 1,051,200 minutes -- probably this week -- we'll have logged two years of gameplay. ¡Mucho tiempo!

[karokoenig]

Those recent gameplay times are breathtaking. I'm actually a little concerned. You guys know that this is not a contest, right? That bright yellow thing outside - that's the sun. And the green stuff is grass, or trees, depending on its height. Real life, you know...

[carlsson]

If you load your portable device with emulators - or play on a real Lynx, GG, GB, GBC and similar eligible handheld systems - you can be both outdoors and play games at the same time, at least for as long as your batteries will last. Generally I think Game Gear players will be the first ones to mod their consoles with solar cells on the back side.

[karokoenig]

Atari 2600

Shootin' Gallery: 9 min

Space Jockey: 8 min

Stay Frosty 2: 12 min

Universal Chaos: 24 min

 

PC (DOS)

Historyline: 315 min

 

Yeah yeah... replaying the german campaign as well. Apart from that, some 2600 HSC work and another few minutes with my dear new homebrew.

[carlsson]

Amiga AGA/ECS:

Super Skidmarks - 8 min.

C64:

Bombjack - 13 min.

Mirrorsoft Tetris - 20 min.

PET:

Car Race II - 32 min.

This last one deserves an image proof of my new highscore, 5487 pts. Anyone who tried to play this game in emulator or on real hardware will understand the accomplishment.

[Opry99er]

VCS:

 

GORF: 106 minutes

Air-Sea Battle/Target Fun: 42 minutes

Ms. Pac Man: 28 minutes

StarMaster: 30 minutes

Video Pinball: 20 minutes

 

TI-99/4A:

 

Miner2049er: 45 minutes

NeverLander: 20 minutes

 

 

Not a ton of play time this week, but quality.

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom!- 866 minutes

 

 

High score of the week: 169,259

 

 

[Shift838]

TI-99/4A:

 

Miner 2049er : 129 minutes

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week (August 31st through September 6th)...

 

Windows 7 (non-eligible):

Minesweeper - 10 min.

 

Hey, it's a start, right? I hadn't played anything since July 10th now, and this week at least I got SOME playing time in even though it's not a classic game (it might be if I had played it on an earlier system...)

 

To explain what happened, my laptop got damaged when I took it along on a ride on a hired e-bike. In a sharp curve I couldn't hold the balance and fell down. I didn't get hurt, but the laptop's TFT display was damaged. Since a repair would have taken 10 days, I bought a used laptop, but it promptly got stolen only 6 days later! So I bought another... the one I got now has Windows 7 installed and registered, so I tried out the version of Minesweeper installed on it to see if anything has changed (I think I last played the game on Windows 3.1). Since it's a game packed in with Windows, I gave the exact Windows version instead of "PC" since I suppose it looks a bit differently on every windows version, so every subsequent Windows version having Minesweeper should be counted as its own version. That is, if it got counted at all... (well, on early Windows versions it might...)

 

Anyway, I was pretty busy installing all these laptops, and yesterday I had a gig at a friends' street party. But the swimming season ended last Tuesday for this summer, so I just might get some more gaming time in in the next weeks. We'll see...

[Opry99er]

Kurt,

 

 

Come over and play the new Minesweeper cartridge for the TI-99. ITS NIIIIICE....

[oyamafamily]

ATARI 2600:

Elk Attack - 85 minutes

H.E.R.O. - 60 minutes

Private Eye - 10 minutes

Spacemaster X-7 - 40 minutes

Universal Chaos - 125 minutes

 

ATARI 7800:

Pac-Man Collection - 80 minutes

[Iwantgames:)]

Not too much gaming this week but played a couple systems we don't see much in the tracker

 

Game.com -

 

Duke Nukem 3D - 25min

 

 

TRS-80 -

 

Scarf man - 10min

Basic pacman ripoff

 

 

Windows 95/98 -

 

Ms. Pacman Quest for the Golden Maze - 50min

 

 

And since Wonderswan Color is too new,

 

Wonderswan -

 

Final Lap 2000 - 21min

[+thegoldenband]

Just one game for me this week, not that it deserved all the time (but not attention) I put into it:

 

Genesis:

IMG International Tour Tennis - 582 min.

Beat the game; thoughts here, along with my previous couple victories (Faery Tale Adventure & Jimmy Connors). That one huge AI flaw makes the game abominable, but the good news is that I've now beaten all the Genesis tennis games except for one (Davis Cup Tennis).

In addition, IMG was one of the first Genesis games I ever got, along with Paperboy, Jurassic Park, and Doom 32X. All of those came from a roadside pickup my now-wife made in 2008, and I didn't even have a Genesis then! In fact it was among the first games I got after I started getting back into real hardware in 2007. It's always satisfying to beat a game you've had in your backlog for years, even if the game itself is trash.

[zylon]

Genesis-

 

Madden '93- 30min

 

GBC-

 

Dragon Warrior III- 20hrs 45min

 

Last time I owned this game, the cart failed about 1/3 of the way through. This one I bought NOS and will beat it to submission. (as long as the Hellcrabs cooperate)

Edited September 7, 2015 by zylon

[twoquickcapri]

Sony PlayStation:

Final Fantasy VIII - 246 min.

[Skippy B. Coyote]

This was a bit of an unusual week for gaming around here, since the misses and I had a mutual friend from out of state come to visit this week. He grew up with the NES and SNES and had never played Atari 2600 or Sega Genesis before, so we spent a good bit of time introducing him to a couple of our favorite systems.

 

Before I get any further into the details though, here's this weeks play times!

 

 

 

Ineligible

The Pinball Arcade (Android) - 82 minutes

Arcade

Centipede (played on Atari Anniversary Advance for Game Boy Advance) - 41 minutes

The House of the Dead 2 (played on The House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return for Wii) - 64 minutes

Atari 2600

Adventure (played on Atari Flashback 2) - 26 minutes

Centipede (played on Atari Flashback 2) - 13 minutes

Combat (played on Atari Flashback 2) - 16 minutes

Millipede (played on Atari Flashback 2) - 21 minutes

Missile Command (played on Atari Flashback 2) - 14 minutes

Secret Quest (played on Atari Flashback 2) - 7 minutes

Yars' Revenge (played on Atari Flashback 2) - 10 minutes

NES

Kirby's Adventure - 293 minutes

PlayStation

Bust-A-Move 4 - 33 minutes

Doom - 12 minutes

Final Doom - 148 minutes

Sega Genesis

Golden Axe II - 17 minutes

Mortal Kombat - 46 minutes

Mortal Kombat II - 156 minutes

Ms. Pac-Man - 22 minutes

Raiden Trad - 33 minutes

Thunder Force III - 24 minutes

Total Play Time This Week
1,078 minutes (17 hours 58 minutes)

Individual System Play Times This Week

Sega Genesis: 298 minutes

NES: 293 minutes

PlayStation: 193 minutes

Atari 2600: 107 minutes

Arcade: 105 minutes

Android: 82 minutes

As you can see we played quite a bit of multiplayer games across several different classic systems, and aside from my play through of Kirby's Adventure and my wife's time in Final Doom, multiplayer games were what made up the bulk of our gaming time this week. We're still without a working Atari 2600 so I wasn't able to introduce our visiting friend to all of the Atari 2600 games I like the most, but luckily we still had a working Atari Flashback 2 around to let him play some of the good ones on. We played a bunch of different games on the 2600 and Genesis, and ultimately our guest's favorites were Yars' Revenge on the 2600 and Raiden Trad on the Genesis; both of which are excellent games if you ask me.

Our friend is still going to be here for another 3 days, so I think it's safe to expect some more multiplayer games on the 2600 and Genesis to be showing up on this household's tracker submission next week. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a major bug craving and the only thing that is going to satisfy it is a few rounds of Centipede!

[BurritoBeans]

3DO:

DOOM - 53 minutes

Escape From Monster Manor - 261 minutes

 

Atari 2600:

Space Attack - 5 minutes

Kaboom! - 13 minutes

Superman - 16 minutes

Video Pinball - 3 minutes

Demolition Herby - 36 minutes

 

PC (DOS):

Alien - 25 minutes

Serpentine - 31 minutes

DOOM - 53 minutes

 

PC (Windows):

Battlezone - 142 minutes

Battlezone II - 35 minutes

X-Com: UFO Defense - 158 minutes

 

Sharp X68000:

Akumajo Dracula - 57 minutes

Cameltry - 16 minutes

 

Sinclair ZX81:

3D Monster Maze - 21 minutes

 

Not too much playtime this week compared to some others, but I got a lot of random games. Some games like Battlezone I found pretty neat, as it's a combo of an FPS and RTS while I was expecting some tank combat game. Also, I finally got a game for the 2600 that cost more than $3 - Demolition Herby - for $5.

Overall, I'm happy with the week for game stuff

[+thegoldenband]

Here's the summary for Week 36, running from August 31 - September 6. We logged 6322 minutes of eligible playtime, playing 65 games on a total of 20 systems.

Top 10:

1. Dragon Warrior III (Game Boy Color) - 1245

2. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 879

3. IMG International Tour Tennis (Genesis) - 582

4. Historyline 1914-1918 (PC (DOS)) - 315

5. Kirby's Adventure (NES/Famicom) - 293

6. Escape from Monster Manor (3DO) - 261

7. Final Fantasy VIII (PlayStation) - 246

8. Miner 2049er (TI-99/4A) - 174

9. X-Com: UFO Defense (PC (Windows 95/98)) - 158

10. Mortal Kombat II (Genesis) - 156

Pre-NES top 10:

1. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 879

2. Miner 2049er (TI-99/4A) - 174

3. Universal Chaos (Atari 2600) - 149

4. Gorf (Atari 2600) - 106

5. Elk Attack (Atari 2600) - 85

6. Pac-Man (Atari 7800) - 80

7. H.E.R.O. (Atari 2600) - 60

8. Brickout (Intellivision) - 50

9. Air-Sea Battle (Atari 2600) - 42

10. Centipede (Arcade) - 41

Top 10 systems:

1. Atari 2600 (1645)

2. Game Boy Color (1245)

3. Genesis (910)

4. PlayStation (439)

5. PC (DOS) (424)

6. PC (Windows 95/98) (385)

7. 3DO (314)

8. NES/Famicom (293)

9. TI-99/4A (194)

10. Arcade (105)

Week 36 is the first week in some time not to break any records, though with 6322 minutes logged, it's only 129 minutes shy of the all-time Top 10. We have a reversal of last week's top pair, as Dragon Warrior III for GBC takes the top spot over that game with the falling bombs (you know the one I mean).

No additions to the 1000-minute club this week (though a few games are close), but Historyline 1914-1918 becomes the seventh game to join the 5000-minute club. With 5068 minutes in the bank, it just edges out NetHack for the #6 all-time spot.

Meanwhile we get the first-ever appearance of the WonderSwan on the tracker -- quelle coincidence! -- and rare visits from the Game.com and TRS-80 Model I.