What have you actually PLAYED tracker for 2016 (Season 9)

[+thegoldenband]

tl;dr: Play games (from 20th-century systems) and post your times!

Once more we've reached a new year, and with that it's time to move from the old thread to the new. We're now in the ninth season of our gameplay tracker, and still going strong, but new members are always welcome: the more the merrier, quite literally!

So what is this?

The basic idea is to post what games you played during each week, and for how long. You don't have to time it down to the minute (though some of us do), and estimates are acceptable. Then, at the end of the week, the statskeeper (that's me) totals everything up and we find out which games and platforms are seeing the most action.

Each week, we have top 10 lists for consoles/computers and for individual games. We also have a separate top 10 list for games released on platforms that predate the US release of the NES (i.e. roughly the tail end of 1985). That way, arcade-style vintage gaming doesn't get totally lost in the shuffle of RPGs, collectathons, and other games that take 10+ hours to complete.

However, in 2015 the #1 game was Kaboom, the quintessential old-school VCS game, for the sixth year in a row. So the old consoles and computers are more than holding their own.

Guidelines:

1. Be sure to list the system, the name of the game, and the length of time you play. Please note if the game has any alternate titles by which it's better known (i.e. Air Sea Battle vs. Target Fun). If you list multiple games, please group them by system. If you play on a backwards-compatible system, e.g. Atari 2600 games on the 7800 or SMS games on the Genesis, the game should be listed under the older platform's name.

2. Each week runs Monday through Sunday (at midnight), except the first and last week of the year. The deadline for posting stats is now 3:00 PM (EST) on Monday to allow for different time zones.

3. Playing on actual vintage hardware is preferred, although emulators are certainly allowed. In some cases (homebrews in development, rare arcade games) there's no alternative to using an emulator.

4. Our cutoff year is 2000. That is, eligible consoles and computers have to have been released (in the US) before 2000. This includes Dreamcast and N64, but excludes the most recent systems like PlayStation 2, XBox, GameCube, Game Boy Advance, et al. You're welcome to mention gameplay on those systems, but as of now they won't be added to the tracker.

The same goes for computers: we count Windows 95 and 98 games, but not XP; Mac OS 9, but not OS X; and so on.

5. Arcade games up to A.D. 2000 are permitted. So are emulated compilations of arcade games for modern systems, as long as they're not rewritten or otherwise massively "updated" versions. If you play 45 minutes of Robotron via Midway Arcade Treasures for the XBox, those 45 minutes are counted towards the arcade game. When you're playing arcade compilations, be sure to list each game separately (don't just put "Midway Arcade Treasures - 45 min.")

6. You don't just have to post a bare list of times -- comments, stories, gripes, and helpful hints are always encouraged! If you're struggling with a level, got a new high score, or have some thoughts about what's great or what stinks about a particular game...well, that's the kind of stuff that makes this fun to read.

How to make the statskeeper's life easier:

- If you post a big list of games, please consider alphabetizing them first (after grouping them by platform).

- Posting your times in minutes, rather than hours + minutes, makes things a little simpler.

- Even if you don't know the exact time, it's better to post a specific number and say it's an estimate. If you say you posted a bunch of games for "between 20 minutes and an hour", I'll just average everything out to 40 minutes, but it'd be better to have a sense of which games you played more and which ones you played less.

- If there's room for confusion or ambiguity, please address that in advance so I don't have to research it myself. Non-US releases, homebrews in progress, alternate titles, and expanded re-releases can get especially tricky.

That about covers it. I've just posted the summary for 2015 (starting here), including the all-time top games, so those who like stats are welcome to check that out.

One more thought:

If you haven't participated before, or if you did and got busy with other things, consider taking part in 2015! You may find that it has some interesting side effects -- I've found that keeping a log dramatically changes how I think about my own gaming, and mostly for the better.

P.S. Past years of the tracker: 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015

[Opry99er]

Fresh start to the new year!!!! Won't get much (if any) time in tomorrow, so I'll go ahead and post tonight.

 

 

VCS:

 

Oink! (40 minutes)

Stay Frosty 2 (35 minutes)

Turmoil (25 minutes)

 

 

TI-99/4A:

 

Parsec (180 minutes)

 

 

Intellivision:

 

Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (30 minutes)

Bowling (35 minutes)

Burgertime (20 minutes)

Christmas Carol (45 minutes)

 

 

GameBoy:

 

Baseball (15 minutes)

Super RC Pro Am (20 minutes)

 

 

GameBoy Color:

 

Inspector Gadget (30 minutes)

 

 

 

 

That's it. Happy New Year to all of you!!!

[karokoenig]

Bye bye 2015, and hello there, 2016. I doubt I will have time to play today, so it'll probably be a big fat zero for me. But next week, there WILL be playtime. More on that later.

[carlsson]

Amiga OCS:

Amiga Columns - 15 min.

Premier Manager 1 - 255 min.

[Atarian7]

Have I been doing this for 6 years? I thought it was just a few if that.

[oyamafamily]

ATARI 7800:

1) Beef Drop - 111 minutes

Highest Score on Easy Skill: 2,434,850 points. Check out video / statistical table.

 

2) Food Fight - 95 minutes

 

3) Summer Games - 5 minutes

 

ATARI 2600:

Track and Field - 5 minutes

 

GAMEBOY:

Ms. Pac-Man - 155 minutes

Highest Score on Arcade Difficulty: 220,000 points, for Bonus Challenge at LYNX HSC 2015-2016

[+Darrin9999]

Colecovision:

 

1. Knightmare - 30 min

2. Spelunker - 20 min

3. The Stone Of Wisdom - 45 min

4. Frontline SCE - 20 min

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past shortened week (January 1st through 3rd)...

 

Arcade:

Q*bert - 79 min. in 2 sessions

 

Online (non-eligible):

Nonogram of the week - 35 min.

 

TI-99:

Q*bert - 19 min.

 

This year started similar as the last one ended... with Q*bert. I had two more sessions with the arcade original of Q*bert, and in one of them I got through to Level 8. Then I replayed the TI-99 version for a total of three games, but I didn't manage to complete Level 5 Round 1 there, mostly because of the less generous colision detection and the fact that you can't see the enemies falling down on the pyramid in time, unlike the arcade version.

 

Then I attempted to solve the Nonogram of the week which says it's from December 28th, but it's clearly another puzzle. This time, however, I got stuck because at some point I couldn't find a hint how I should continue, and the puzzle was far from being solved, so I gave up.

[+Darrin9999]

Odyssey 2:

 

1. Air Assault - 60 min

2. Astrododge - 5 min

3. Frogger - 35 min

 

Vectrex:

 

1. Parcel Panic - 20 min

2. Space Tree X - 15 min

3. Warrior - 15 min

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom! - 185 minutes

 

 

High score of the week: 66,644

 

 

Full house! ^^

[BurritoBeans]

Woohoo, first times for 2016!

 

Atari 2600:

Video Olympics - 20 minutes

 

Compucolor 8001:

Star Trek - 10 minutes

 

Dreamcast:

Resident Evil CODE Veronica - 45 minutes

 

Mac:

Deja Vu - 45 minutes

Deva Vu II - 50 minutes

Shadowgate - 22 minutes

Uninvited - 50 minutes

 

NES:

Shadowgate - 30 minutes

Uninvited - 15 minutes

 

PC-Engine:

Solider Blade - 15 minutes

 

Sharp X68000:

Cameltry - 25 minutes

 

Well, I got a good bunch of games in for the few days. I grabbed the MacVenture series on Steam so I threw some times into those and the NES counterparts (that I own at least), Soilder Blade got played again, Star Trek got more playtime as I messed with it, Cameltry got its usual times, and Video Olympics finished off my times as being something just to fight boredom. Nothing special, but eh - at least I got some stuff in.

[BillyHW]

More MAME with my nephews this weekend:

 

Arcade/MAME

 

Mat Mania (1985, Technos) - 20 min. Still my favourite wrestling game.

 

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1985, Atari) - 30 min. Surprisingly enjoyable. Great music and sounds. Will definitely play more of this.

 

Commando (1985, Capcom) - 30 min. Super hard, but still awesome and great music.

 

Space Fever (1979, Nintendo) - 5 min. Shameless Space Invaders clone. Why would Nintendo be making a Space Invaders clone? Last week it was Konami. Strange. Clone isn't even the right word. These are downright bootlegs.

 

Zig Zag (1982, bootleg) 10 min. A Dig Dug bootleg.

 

Space Wars (1977, Cinematronics) 15 min. Similar to the 1962 Spacewar! for the DEC PDP-1 that I posted a number of weeks back.

[+thegoldenband]

My times for the (short) week:

Atari 2600:

Racer - 3 min.

Turbo - 1 min.

Xevious - 1 min.

NES:

Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle - 6 min.

The Chessmaster - 9 min.

Jeopardy! - 28 min.

Jeopardy! 25th Anniversary Edition - 30 min.

Kid Niki - 116 min.

Marble Madness - 5 min.

Rad Racket: Deluxe Tennis II - 87 min.

Rescue: The Embassy Mission - 70 min.

SNES:

The Chessmaster - 21 min.

Sega CD:

AH-3 Thunderstrike - 169 min.

N64:

All Star Tennis 99 - 30 min.

Centre Court Tennis - 142 min.

Virtual Chess 64 - 22 min.

Beat a bunch of games, mostly for various efforts at NintendoAge -- pretty much everything I played for 9 minutes or more on a Nintendo system was a victory. Some I'd beaten before, but Centre Court Tennis (on Normal difficulty) and the two Jeopardy! games were new.

Otherwise I made progress in AH-3 Thunderstrike, a great-looking game that suffers badly from poor documentation and unclear objectives.

[Iwantgames:)]

TI-99/4A

 

Parsec - 16min

 

 

That's it. Most of my time was spent playing Dying Light and programming my TI game.

[Opry99er]

Must add...

 

 

Game Boy:

 

Baseball (50 minutes)

 

 

This game is just sickeningly bad. The slowest, least responsive, and least fun baseball game I have ever played. I absolutely cannot believe I played two full 9 inning games tonight, losing 11-4 and 7-3 respectively. It is truly painful, and I am a lover of baseball games... Never really met a baseball game I didnt like.

 

This one is now in a league of its own, so to speak... (I could go off on a baseball movie pun tirade, but I will refrain...for now. )

 

Anyway, that's it for the week. I am off in search of a new baseball game to play. Every winter, I get in a baseball frenzy. Three winters ago I bought an N64 JUST to play my favorite baseball game of all time, ASB99. Then I sold it that Spring when the Rockies started Spring Training.

 

Anyway, carry on. My rant is over.

[Skippy B. Coyote]

Starting off the new year with a short, but still fun week.

 

 

Arcade

Centipede - 9 minutes

Millipede - 7 minutes

Pac-Man - 7 minutes

Space Invaders - 6 minutes

Game Boy

Boggle Plus - 17 minutes

Game Boy Color

Monopoly - 202 minutes

PlayStation

Alien Trilogy - 58 minutes

Tomb Raider III - 21 minutes

Total Play Time This Week

327 minutes (5 hours 27 minutes)

Individual System Play Times This Week

Game Boy Color: 202 minutes

PlayStation: 79 minutes

Arcade: 29 minutes

Game Boy: 17 minutes

Not much to say about this week really, since there wasn't a whole lot of time to play games. I managed to get in a few games of Monopoly on the Game Boy Color here and there, played a little Boggle Plus on the bus, spent a couple minutes blasting bugs on the household multicade, and remained completely stuck and frustrated in Tomb Raider III. My wife had a much more enjoyable gaming session on the PlayStation this week though, spending an hour or so playing Alien Trilogy and blasting a completely different kind of "bug" than the ones found in Centipede and Millipede.

That's all the gaming news from around here that's fit to print for the first week of 2016!

[+Nutsy Doodleheimer]

Arcade:

 

Tempest: 15 Minutes scored around 121,000

 

Track and Field: 20 Minutes Scored around 110,000

 

Vs. Super Mario Bros. 45 Minutes cleared the game without warping and scored about 2,300,000

[+Darrin9999]

Odyssey 2:

 

1. Frogger - 50 min

2. Death Race - 5 min

3. Piggyback Planet - 25 min

 

Atari Jaguar:

 

1. HMS Raptor - 20 min

2. Alice`s Mom`s Rescue - 25 min

[+thegoldenband]

Odyssey 2:

 

1. Frogger - 50 min

2. Death Race - 5 min

3. Piggyback Planet - 25 min

 

Atari Jaguar:

 

1. HMS Raptor - 20 min

2. Alice`s Mom`s Rescue - 25 min

 

Were these times from today (Monday), or yesterday (Sunday)? I'll assume Monday unless you tell me otherwise.

[+Darrin9999]

 

Were these times from today (Monday), or yesterday (Sunday)? I'll assume Monday unless you tell me otherwise.

 

Today (Monday)

[+thegoldenband]

Here's the summary for the short Week 1, running from January 1 - 3. We logged 3314 minutes of eligible play, playing 75 games on a total of 21 systems.

Top 10:

1. Premier Manager 1 (Amiga) - 255

2. Monopoly (Game Boy Color) - 202

3. Parsec (TI-99/4A) - 196

4. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 185

5. AH-3 Thunderstrike [aka Thunderhawk] (Sega CD) - 169

6. Ms. Pac-Man (Game Boy) - 155

7. Centre Court Tennis (N64) - 142

8. Kid Niki (NES/Famicom) - 116

9. Beef Drop (Atari 7800) - 111

10. Food Fight (Atari 7800) - 95

Pre-NES top 10:

1. Parsec (TI-99/4A) - 196

2. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 185

3. Beef Drop (Atari 7800) - 111

4. Food Fight (Atari 7800) - 95

5. Q*Bert (Arcade) - 79

6. Air Assault (Odyssey^2) - 60

7. Stone of Wisdom (ColecoVision) - 45

7. Christmas Carol vs. the Ghost of Christmas Presents (Intellivision) - 45

9. Oink! (Atari 2600) - 40

10. Stay Frosty 2: Stay Frostier (Atari 2600) - 35

10. Bowling [aka PBA Bowling] (Intellivision) - 35

10. Frogger (Odyssey^2) - 35

Top 10 systems:

1. NES/Famicom (396)

2. Atari 2600 (315)

3. Arcade (298)

4. Amiga (270)

5. Game Boy (257)

6. Game Boy Color (232)

7. TI-99/4A (215)

8. Atari 7800 (211)

9. N64 (194)

10. Sega CD (169)

And the top game this week is...Premier Manager 1? Huh, I didn't see that coming.

In fact, each chart is topped by a different system -- an uncommon event -- as the NES somehow sneaks away with the top spot despite having only one game in the Top 10, while Parsec for the TI-99/4A takes the pre-crash crown.

Meanwhile the Atari 7800 adds two games to the 1000-minute club, as Beef Drop and Food Fight take spots #187 and #188 with 1088 and 1009 minutes logged respectively. I guess it's a good week for vittles on the 7800.

[Opry99er]

Cool!! Kind of a shake-up from the past several weeks... Some oddball stuff in there.

 

I have already logged over 200 minutes on a particular Intellivision game today alone... I need to stop playing it but I can't.

[+Darrin9999]

Atari Jaguar:

 

1. JHL 15 - 30 min

2. Kobayashi Maru - 20 min

 

Odyssey 2:

 

1. Frogger - 30 min

2. Piggyback Planet - 22 min

3. High Water Patrol! - 25 min

4. Hot Love! - 10 min

5. Jungle Girl - 5 min

 

 

JHL 15 is (Jaguar Hockey League 2015 w/ updated rosters from NHL 2015 rosters)

[jfitzenr]

ARCADE (took a trip to a retro arcade, I swear I could live in one of these places) I can't recall everything I played and logging 2 minutes of Donkey Kong and 25 Seconds of Q-Bert just shows how embarassingly bad I am at these games anyway so... anyway here's the ones that took up most of my time

 

VS. Hogan's Alley - 45 Minutes (I wasn't letting this one get away without my name on top of the High Score chart. Crushed it!)

Chiller - 20 Minutes (First time I've had the pleasure of playing a real, honest-to-goodness Chiller)

The Simpsons - 20 Minutes (Even worse of a quarter muncher than I remembered, but oh so fun)

Mario Bros - 15 Minutes

Galaga - 25 Minutes

 

Anyway also just checkin' in, I wanted to say thanks to TGB, last year was my first time ever taking part in this whole thang and it's tons of fun. Sad I got nothing console wise to log recently - nabbed a Wii U for the holidays and Mario Maker, NES Remix, and Shovel Knight are eating up what little free time I've had!

 

Big ups to BillyHW for giving Mat Mania some love: I haven't played that game in probably ten years, but I was enamored with it back in the day. Maybe time to fire up some MAME over here!

[Opry99er]

So far this week:

 

 

TI-99/4A:

 

Parsec (60 minutes)

 

 

Gameboy:

 

Baseball (35 minutes)

 

 

Intellivision:

 

Bowling (240 minutes)

 

World Championship Baseball (190 minutes)

 

 

 

 

 

 

We have started an Intellivision Bowling League over on the Intellivision forums. No fees to join, and trophies and prizes will be given out for achievements!!!