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

[jfitzenr]

A week of almost no gaming! Poor me.

 

NES - Tecmo Super Bowl - 1 hour

 

Intellivison - Christmas Carol - 3 hours

 

PS2 - ESPN NFL 2k5 - 45 minutes

 

 

Christmas Carol is obscenely good. I'm obscenely bad at it, but still. This game is incredible! That ghost is right up there with the most infuriating, trollingliest evil badguys in video game history.

[+thegoldenband]

Here's the summary for Week 50, running from December 7 - 13. We logged 8763 minutes of eligible playtime, playing 61 games on a total of 17 systems.

Top 10:

1. Christmas Carol vs. the Ghost of Christmas Presents (Intellivision) - 4470

2. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 379

3. Tenchu: Stealth Assassins (PlayStation) - 367

4. Monopoly (Game Boy Color) - 317

5. Tomb Raider II (PlayStation) - 242

6. Super Mario Bros. (NES/Famicom) - 240

6. Super Mario World [pirate] (NES/Famicom) - 240

8. Xevious (Atari 7800) - 175

9. Never-Lander (TI-99/4A) - 170

10. Shanghai Pocket (Game Boy Color) - 163

Pre-NES top 10:

1. Christmas Carol vs. the Ghost of Christmas Presents (Intellivision) - 4470

2. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 379

3. Xevious (Atari 7800) - 175

4. Never-Lander (TI-99/4A) - 170

5. Stay Frosty 2: Stay Frostier (Atari 2600) - 160

6. Star Trek (Compucolor 8001) - 150

7. Tower of Doom (Intellivision) - 147

8. St. Nick (TI-99/4A) - 105

9. PBA Bowling (Intellivision) - 100

10. Princess Rescue (Atari 2600) - 60

10. Reindeer Rescue (Atari 2600) - 60

Top 10 systems:

1. Intellivision (4860)

2. NES/Famicom (861)

3. Atari 2600 (814)

4. PlayStation (609)

5. Game Boy Color (480)

6. TI-99/4A (315)

7. Atari 7800 (175)

8. Compucolor 8001 (150)

9. PC (DOS) (123)

10. Arcade (110)

Ahem. Well. Any doubt which game came out on top in Week 50?

Everything else plays for second place this week, as Christmas Carol puts up gargantuan numbers to vault into the #6 spot on the all-time list, with 6300 minutes logged to date. Obviously it's in the 5000-minute club now, and also easily sets the one-week record for play of a single game. Indeed, another week like this will put it within striking distance of knocking off our longtime #2 game, Galaxian. It's also now the most-played homebrew on the tracker, passing Pac-Man Collection for the Atari 7800.

While no other individual game set a record or joined a club (or even broke 500 minutes!), Week 50's other contributors did offer enough to make it our fourth-biggest week of all time. Cool!

[+DZ-Jay]

Christmas Carol is obscenely good. I'm obscenely bad at it, but still. This game is incredible! That ghost is right up there with the most infuriating, trollingliest evil badguys in video game history.

 

Thanks for the nice words and I'm sure the Ghost Of Christmas Presents takes that as a compliment.

 

By the way, don't forget that we are having our annual high-score championship during Christmas, so why not post a score? There are still plenty of openings in the leaderboard for prizes!

 

Plus, we can help you with tips and tricks to advance through the game -- there's a different whimsical cut-scene after each of the eight stages!

 

In fact, everyone's invited!!! The ROM is free for download!

 

 

Everything else plays for second place this week, as Christmas Carol puts up gargantuan numbers to vault into the #6 spot on the all-time list, with 6300 minutes logged to date. Obviously it's in the 5000-minute club now, and also easily sets the one-week record for play of a single game. Indeed, another week like this will put it within striking distance of knocking off our longtime #2 game, Galaxian. It's also now the most-played homebrew on the tracker, passing Pac-Man Collection for the Atari 7800.

 

 

Very cool indeed! This is truly an honour. By the way, we do this every year for the entire month of December (this is our fourth one), we just didn't know that this thread existed. Otherwise, Christmas Carol would have broken your records a long time ago.

 

In any case, I will continue posting my other play time. I intend to give the VCS and my Vectrex some lovin'.

 

 

-dZ.

Edited December 15, 2015 by DZ-Jay

[Opry99er]

Epic week.. Intellivision runs away with it.

[Opry99er]

Does Namco plug and play qualify for this thread as well?

 

 

 

The games.may not be 100% pixel perfect, shot for shot remakes which is why I ask...

[SiLic0ne t0aD]

Times logged so far this week..

 

Christmas Carol - Intellivision ~ 8 hours

Piggy Bank - Intellivision ~ 45 minutes

Edited December 18, 2015 by SiLic0ne t0aD85

[Opry99er]

I guess it is technically Friday... Time to post my first round of times:

 

 

TI-99/4A:

 

NeverLander (40 minutes)

Mad Marvin's Great Escape (50 minutes)

Henhouse (30 minutes)

 

VCS:

 

Stay Frosty 2 (35 minutes)

Oink! (30 minutes)

Seaquest (15 minutes)

Cosmic Ark (20 minutes)

Stampede (15 minutes)

Berzerk (20 minutes)

 

Intellivision:

 

Christmas Carol vs the Ghost of Christmas Presents (240 minutes)

Bowling (20 minutes)

BurgerTime (40 minutes)

IntyLander (15 minutes)

 

 

A good week so far. The boy and I resumed our 'High Score Challenge' on the VCS after a couple month break. We both 'leveled up' in Oink!, Cosmic Ark, and Berzerk, beating our old high scores.

 

I am having difficulty with my TI-99/4A transfer protocol, so I have not been able to do much there... I can play the carts I have and play some games in emulation, but not being able to transfer has made my life miserable.

 

Christmas Carol continues to bite me in the buttocks. I am playing alot, but not improving my scores any, so it seems very futile to me. I have only saved Christmas once and I cannot seem to get back to the boss level. That said, I will continue playing because I want a patch VERY BADLY!!!!

 

More times to come by Sunday.

[oyamafamily]

ATARI 2600:

Stay Frosty 2: Stay Frostier - 530 minutes in several sessions

Highest score obtained for this week: approximately 290,000 points and Level 106 of 128 (Expert Cycle).

I'm trying to accomplish my special mission - complete all the 128 levels of this exciting game.

Between 2 epic Christmas games (Christmas Carol for Intellivision and Stay Frosty 2 for 2600), Stay Frosty 2 is my favorite one.

 

#ChristmasIsAwesome

Edited December 20, 2015 by oyamafamily

[carlsson]

Amiga OCS:

Pinball Dreams: Beatbox - 21 min.

Pinball Dreams: Ignition - 16 min.

Pinball Dreams: Steel Wheel - 26 min.

Super Frog - 7 min.

Arcade:

Mr. Do - 10 min.

C64:

Arkanoid II: Revenge of Doh - 6 min.

M.U.L.E. - 60 min.

Monty on the Run - 3 min.

Tapper - 12 min.

Sega SG-1000:

Exerion - 5 min.

Orguss - 8 min.

Safari Race - 40 min.

[karokoenig]

NES

Mission: Impossible: 10 min

 

Sega Mega Drive

Tiny Toon Adventures: 73 min

 

A little more playtime for me this week. I was able to take a closer look at Mission: Impossible, which seems to be ok for a movie-licensed game, I guess. Also, I found some time to continue my little project of beating Tiny Toon Adventures. Since I pretty much suck at Platformers, this will take a while. Especially when I only have time to play it in small sessions.

 

Advice: Don't watch playthroughs of games you are playing. I did for Tiny Toon, up to the point I had reached in my own game. I just wanted to know how far I already got (close to halfway through). The amount of secrets and shortcuts I missed was depressing .

Edited December 20, 2015 by karokoenig

[Opry99er]

Is this Tiny Toons, Buster's Hidden Treasure? There were two in the series... Hidden Treasure was superior, and one of my favorite Sega games ever.

[Opry99er]

Final posting of the week:

 

 

TI-99/4A:

 

Star Trek S.O.S. (40 minutes)

Barrage (30 minutes)

Never Lander (20 additional minutes)

 

 

 

VCS:

 

Worm War I (35 minutes)

Stay Frosty 2 (additional 25 minutes)

 

 

Namco Plug-n-Play:

 

Pole Position (40 minutes)

Ms. Pac Man (25 minutes)

 

 

Intellivision:

 

BurgerTime (additional 15 minutes)

Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (10 minutes)

World Series Baseball (10 minutes)

Christmas Carol (additional 140 minutes)

 

 

 

Lots of good solid gaming fun this week. Time with my children playing games... All that matters.

Edited December 20, 2015 by Opry99er

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom! - 512 minutes

 

 

High score of the week: 81,601

 

 

[Atarian7]

Hey Opry, it will make it easier for thegoldenband if you post your times just once a week.

[+thegoldenband]

Twice a week is OK as long as the lists are short. Just not 5+ times a week, especially with longer lists of games. Once a week is definitely easiest, but I don't mind a little extra liveliness during the week.

 

The thing that can be a real headscratcher is when someone posts twice and his/her new times are all longer than the old times. It can be unclear whether the poster intends to update earlier times (not good, creates a logistical issue) or is adding a separate session (preferred). Fortunately that doesn't seem to happen anymore but when I re-input the old tracker stats it was a recurring issue.

[Kurt_Woloch]

Sadly, amongst the Christmas preparations, I totally forgot to post my times for the previous week, and I didn't notice what I'd done until Wednesday afternoon, which is a pity because I played for quite a long time due to December 7th and 8th having been off from work. So here you'll find the times for the previous week, and then the times for the current week. Make out of it what you wish...

 

Previous week (December 7th through 13th):

 

Intellivision:

Q*Bert - 497 minutes in 14 sessions

 

This week (December 14th through 20th):

 

Arcade:

Q*Bert - 26 min.

 

Atari 2600:

Q*bert - 78 min.

 

Intellivision:

Q*Bert - 210 min. in 4 sessions

 

Odyssey^2 / G7000:

Q*Bert - 39 min.

 

Online (non-eligible):

Nonogram of the week: 75 min. in 2 sessions

 

TI-99:

Q*Bert - 78 min. in 2 sessions

Ku-Bert - 51 min.

 

As you can see, last week I only played the Intellivision version of Q*Bert, but for a pretty long time, spread over many sessions. This week I finally managed to reach my goal of 100,000 points which is pretty hard to reach in this version because the scoring is generally lower. However, over time I developed a strategy which allowed me to do fairly well in Round 5, which involves completing each board bottom-up, using up the flying discs in this order as well. After "completing" the Intv version, I replayed several other versions to see if my strategy would help me there, and I managed to reach 100,000 points on each of them except for the Odyssey version which has a completely different scoring and a maximum score of 9999 points, but there I managed to complete Round 4 and reach Round 5. By the way, Ku-Bert crashes after completing Round 5.

 

As a matter of coincidence, the session of the Atari 2600, and the cumulative time on the TI-99 (licensed version) both were exactly three times as long as the session of the Arcade original, and twice as long as the session on the Odyssey^2 version.

 

Apart from that, I tried to solve the Nonogram of the week twice, but failed both times.

 

Sorry again for having forgotten to post my stats for the last week in time!

[karokoenig]

Is this Tiny Toons, Buster's Hidden Treasure? There were two in the series... Hidden Treasure was superior, and one of my favorite Sega games ever.

 

Indeed it is "Buster's hidden Treasure". I forgot to mention. Thanks for noticing.

[oyamafamily]

ATARI 2600:

Stay Frosty 2: Stay Frostier - Additional 180 minutes

FINALLY! I completed all 128 levels of this exciting game. It took me approximately 170 minutes to accomplish this mission - rescue 3 Santa's helpers and Santa Claus, including the break period at the half of playthrough. I obtained a score of 367,973 points.

Video and statistical table will come soon!

[zylon]

Genesis-

 

M&M Gates To Another World- 10min

Light Crusader- 20min

Faery Tale Adventure- 5min

Double Dragon 3- 5min

[+thegoldenband]

My times for the week:

 

SNES:

Andre Agassi Tennis - 249 min.

SimAnt - 2 min.

Sega CD:

Shadow of the Beast II - 60 min.

Beat Andre Agassi Tennis on Professional difficulty (the highest), which I believe makes that the 600th game I've beaten. Thoughts on that game, and others from recent weeks, here.

My first attempt ended in the third match (of four) when the game crashed, but my second run was much better anyway -- I figured out how to take the ball early and win points quickly, and didn't lose more than a few games in each of eight sets.

Otherwise I just fooled around a bit with SOTB II, which I don't like nearly as much as the (ferociously difficult) Genesis port. Your character is clunkier, his movement is laggier, and the whole thing just feels less elegant.

[Opry99er]

Hey Opry, it will make it easier for thegoldenband if you post your times just once a week.

 

 

Yea, 10-4. I usually post once on Friday and once on Sunday. To be honest, I think it helps remind folks to post their times for the week when they see this thread lit up at the top of the screen on Friday. Plants the seed... "Hey... okay, I need to make sure to post some time in the next couple of days!"

 

 

But if it is an imposition or inconvenient, I will be sure to only post once a week.

[+DZ-Jay]

Twice a week is OK as long as the lists are short. Just not 5+ times a week, especially with longer lists of games. Once a week is definitely easiest, but I don't mind a little extra liveliness during the week.

 

The thing that can be a real headscratcher is when someone posts twice and his/her new times are all longer than the old times. It can be unclear whether the poster intends to update earlier times (not good, creates a logistical issue) or is adding a separate session (preferred). Fortunately that doesn't seem to happen anymore but when I re-input the old tracker stats it was a recurring issue.

 

 

 

 

Yea, 10-4. I usually post once on Friday and once on Sunday. To be honest, I think it helps remind folks to post their times for the week when they see this thread lit up at the top of the screen on Friday. Plants the seed... "Hey... okay, I need to make sure to post some time in the next couple of days!"

 

 

But if it is an imposition or inconvenient, I will be sure to only post once a week.

I know how it goes. The rules of my contest state that I would update the leaderboard twice weekly: on Thursdays and Sundays. However, in practice, with so many scores coming in at multiple times a day, I end updating it at least once a day.

 

It takes a long time to get the entries int he database and collect the screenshots from the forum and trim them, but it is worth it. I think it keeps the people interested and alive to get close to immediate feedback for their entries. It also invites additional chatter on the thread, and friendly rivalry.

 

-dZ.

[Skippy B. Coyote]

 

 

Ineligible

Clubhouse Games (Nintendo DS) - 6 minutes

Doom II (Game Boy Advance) - 234 minutes

Arcade

Centipede (played on Atari Anniversary Advance for Game Boy Advance) - 10 minutes

Missile Command (played on Atari Anniversary Advance for Game Boy Advance) - 2 minutes

Super Breakout (played on Atari Anniversary Advance for Game Boy Advance) - 7 minutes

Game Boy Color

Monopoly - 105 minutes

Total Play Time This Week

364 minutes (6 hours 4 minutes minutes)

Individual System Play Times This Week

Game Boy Advance: 234 minutes

Game Boy Color: 105 minutes

Arcade: 19 minutes

Nintendo DS: 6 minutes

Not a whole lot of eligible playtime for me this week, since I've been on a bit of a Doom II kick and didn't play much else. I was also really busy getting ready for the holidays and making trips to the post office to ship out items from my Atari 2600 collection that I've been selling, so there wasn't a whole lot of time for gaming. The short time spent playing Clubhouse Games for the DS was just to test out the New 3DS XL that I bought my wife for Christmas, to confirm that it was indeed one of the (now very rare) models with an IPS upper screen instead of a TN one.

Not really much to report other than that, though I always continue to wish the tracker accepted systems produced up through 2001 rather than 2000; since the Game Boy Advance is totally a retro system and all the games I play on it are very retro in both style and gameplay, but sadly it missed the cutoff date for the tracker by three months. Ah well, I may not be able to contribute my time for it to the tracker but I can still play the heck out of it and enjoy every minute.

Edited December 21, 2015 by Jin

[+Darrin9999]

Intellivision:

 

Christmas Carol vs the ghost of christmas presents - 497 min last week

[+thegoldenband]

But if it is an imposition or inconvenient, I will be sure to only post once a week.

 

No worries at all, you've been fine! The one thing that would help a bit is alphabetizing the list of games (by console), but it's no big deal.

 

And BTW, meant to answer this, but Plug-N-Play would be filed under arcade, via emulation, unless it's obvious that it's been changed in some way and isn't really emulating but porting instead (to post-1999 hardware). So it's a judgment call, I s'pose.

 

Times coming shortly!