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

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom! - 649 minutes

Seaquest - 13 minutes

 

 

Kaboom! High score of the week: 125,625

 

 

[oyamafamily]

ARCADE:

Missile Command - 5 minutes

Super Breakout - 2 minutes

 

ATARI 2600:

Amidar - 25 minutes

Atlantis II - 3 minutes

Cakewalk - 10 minutes

Forest - 15 minutes

Ixion [prototype] - 25 minutes

M.A.D. - 10 minutes

Miner 2049er Volume 1 - 10 minutes

Miner 2049er Volume 2 - 15 minutes

Music Machine - 5 minutes

Pharaoh's Curse - 8 minutes

Philly Flasher - 8 minutes

Rainbow Invaders - 20 minutes

Return of Mario Bros. [hack of Mario Bros.] - 25 minutes

Room of Doom - 10 minutes

Save Our Ship - 15 minutes

Spacechase - 25 minutes

Space Invaders - 13 minutes

Space Invaders Arcade [hack] - 10 minutes

Space Jockey - 5 minutes

Spiderdroid [Amidar Variant] - 60 minutes

Stronghold - 5 minutes

Yars' Revenge - 42 minutes

Many of 2600 games listed above I played for Summer Contests at HighScore.com. I'm the current leader on Atari Systems Worldwide Trophy Cracking, with 34 trophies which I took from other users until now. My current projection is to reach 81 trophies at maximum number.

Here are the current numbers of Summer Contests, Atari Trophy Cracking Competition:

 

ATARI 5200:

Realsports Basketball - 10 minutes

 

ATARI 7800:

Summer Games - 7 minutes

Edited August 8, 2016 by oyamafamily

[oyamafamily]

SOME EVIDENCES OF THE WEEK:

 

1) 2600 Cakewalk

 

2) 2600 M.A.D.

 

3) 2600 Ixion

 

4) 2600 Miner 2049er Volumes 1 & 2 / The Music Machine in the same video

 

5) 2600 Pharaoh's Curse

 

6) 2600 Spiderdroid (variant of Amidar)

 

7) 2600 Yars' Revenge

 

8 ) 2600 Rainbow Invaders

 

9) 2600 Spacechase

 

10) 2600 Stronghold

[+thegoldenband]

My times for the week:

 

NES:

Action 52 - 8 min.

Caltron 6-in-1 - 326 min.

Quattro Arcade - 174 min.

Super Cars - 5 min.

Game Boy:

Double Dragon II - 78 min.

Kwirk - 318 min.

Megalit - 161 min.

Genesis:

ESPN Speed World - 7 min.

On the Game Boy front, I beat Double Dragon II on Normal and Hard, thus beating the game. Not especially difficult at all, that one. Then I beat all 10 floors of Easy and Average modes in Kwirk, and made it through the first few floors of Hard.

However, though I also beat Megalit on Easy without much trouble, I quickly got stuck in the game's Quest mode (which is its equivalent of Normal or Hard). Ah, well.

On the NES front, I worked on Stunt Buggies from the Quattro Arcade multicart, a Rally-X clone that gets my blood pressure up. I've never liked maze games with indestructible enemies; I play video games to annihilate my foes, not just briefly sideline them by using my severely limited resources -- that's too much like real life.

Then, since I clearly need to have even more puzzle games on my plate, I beat the Porter game from the Caltron 6-in-1 cart -- if you can call slavishly following a walkthrough "beating" a game. (I don't normally do that, but simply wanted to clear the game off the list for the folks at NA.)

[Skippy B. Coyote]

I had a heck of a time fitting all the games that were played in my household this week into the usual weekly picture, but by golly I did it!

 

 

 

Ineligible

Ultimate Shooting Collection (Nintendo Wii) - 129 minutes

Game Boy

Alleyway - 5 minutes

Boggle Plus - 10 minutes

Gargoyle's Quest - 16 minutes

Mortal Kombat II - 4 minutes

Operation C - 24 minutes

Paperboy - 24 minutes

Solar Striker - 3 minutes

Street Fighter II - 4 minutes

Super Mario Land - 3 minutes

Tetris - 5 minutes

Game Boy Color
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX - 91 minutes

Ms. Pac-Man: Special Color Edition - 69 minutes

PlayStation

Crypt Killer - 14 minutes

Kagero: Deception II - 493 minutes

Spider: The Video Game - 130 minutes

Star Wars: Dark Forces - 58 minutes

Tetris Plus - 36 minutes

Time Crisis - 271 minutes

Total Play Time This Week
1,389 minutes (23 hours 9 minutes) [1,260 minutes eligible]

Individual System Play Times This Week
PlayStation: 1,002 minutes

Game Boy Color: 160 minutes

Nintendo Wii: 129 minutes

Game Boy: 98 minutes

As you may have guessed by the enormous slew of Game Boy games with small amounts of play time on them, this week I finally got my first soldering iron, converted my backlit and biverted Game Boy into a regular backlit Game Boy by removing the bivert chip and repairing the traces that were cut for the bivert mod, then set about testing the system out with variety of games to see how they looked. The short version of the story is that I was absolutely thrilled with it after undoing the bivert mod, the system now works beautifully, and it's very easy to see the screen in any lighting condition both indoors and out. It's exactly what I wanted and I definitely learned that if you ever have any plans to play a Game Boy anywhere other than indoors in dimly lit places then do not bivert it! The backlight is great in any lighting condition, and eliminates much of the motion blur that the original Game Boy screen tends to suffer from, but with the bivert chip the screen will wash out under any reasonable amount of light. For best results stick with a regular non-biverted backlight, unless you plan to do all your Game Boy gaming in the dark.

With my first soldering project a success and my Game Boy now fixed up just the way I want it I did play a fair bit of Game Boy and backwards compatible Game Boy Color games this week, but I think the games that I really had the most fun with were Time Crisis and (once again) Spider: The Video Game on the PlayStation. The more I play Spider the more I love it, and Time Crisis is just an absolute classic that is not to be missed for any light gun gaming fan. The only downside of Time Crisis is that it is ridiculously hard! I've been really wanting to add Time Crisis to my list of games beaten in 2016, but after hours of practice I still can't get past the final boss fight even on the Easy mode that gives you 5 lives per credit (as opposed to the usual 3 lives per credit) and a little extra time. I did manage to beat the game once by going into the cheats menu and giving myself 9 lives per credit, which is something you can do on the Time Crisis arcade machine, but since that is considered cheating on the home console version I won't be able to add this one to my games beaten list until I can at least conquer it on the Easy difficulty.

I think the biggest thing holding me back in the game at this point is the slightly inconsistent accuracy and the heavy weight of my Nyko Super Cobra light gun, so I'm probably going to have to try to track down an affordably priced authentic Namco GunCon light gun to use before I'll be able to beat Time Crisis. The authentic GunCon should be more accurate and a lot lighter in the weight department, making aiming faster and easier and reducing arm fatigue over the 20 minutes or so it takes to play through the game. After the misses' birthday party this week my finances are pretty well tapped out for the rest of the month, but hopefully come next month I can try to pick up a proper Namco GunCon to get my PlayStation light gun gaming fix with; and maybe a Konami Hyper Blaster for the other non-Namco PlayStation light gun games while I'm at it.

Speaking of the misses, this week she spent all of her gaming time exploring three new PlayStation games that she got for her birthday: Tetris Plus, Star Wars: Dark Forces, and Kagero: Deception II. She liked all of them a lot, but the big hit of bunch was definitely Kagero. For those unfamiliar with the game, the basic premise of it is that you must construct Rube Goldberg machines of death and destruction to murder all the unfortunate souls who wander into your mansion; for which you are awarded points based on the complexity of your murder machine. For instance, you will earn more points by creating a trap that uses springboard on the floor to fling someone across the room into a spiked wall, drops a vat of oil on their head once they hit the ground, then finally shoots them with flaming arrows from a hole in the wall to set them ablaze than you would for constructing a trap that simply drops a large boulder on their head to do them in. It's an utterly bizarre and twisted premise for a game, but it does lend itself to some amazingly fun and downright addictive puzzle gameplay of trying to construct the most elaborate trap combinations possible to rack up the points and unlock new more complex and powerful traps with the points you earn. There is a really strange story tacked on to give some purpose to all the trap construction and death, but the main draw of the game is the unique and twisted puzzle action. I was a little worried about what my wife was going to think of this game when I gave it to her as a gift, but after just a few levels she was totally hooked and has been playing it every day since. I'd say it was a (literally) bloody big success!

Well, I think that about wraps it up for this week. As far as what next week has in store, I've been having so much fun with Time Crisis that I'm sure I'll take a few more cracks at it even without an authentic GunCon to play with. I think I'm going to get in at least a few more hours of Spider as well, and I know the misses is going to keep playing through Kagero. Beyond that though it's anyone's guess! I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Edited August 8, 2016 by Jin

[BurritoBeans]

Eh, I got a little bit of time in.

 

Neo Geo Pocket:

Gal's Fighter - 45 minutes

Rockman Battle and Fighters - 20 minutes

 

So yeah, nice and short again. Took a nice big trip to japan to visit family and all that good stuff, so I didn't have much for games apart from the NGPC which I had in my pocket on the way down (Good enough) and some stuff I got while over there (I'll have playtime on that for next week). With the NGPC, yeah I had Gal's Fighter which is alright, not the biggest fighting game fan but I did like Last Blade on the NGPC and all that. I also got this Rockman game, it reminds me of the arcades (probably the same thing for all I care) that I played via the Gamecube Mega Man Anniversary Collection, just with less graphics and all that. That's all, not really much.

[Syzygy1]

Eh, I got a little bit of time in.

 

Neo Geo Pocket:

Gal's Fighter - 45 minutes

Rockman Battle and Fighters - 20 minutes

 

So yeah, nice and short again. Took a nice big trip to japan to visit family and all that good stuff, so I didn't have much for games apart from the NGPC which I had in my pocket on the way down (Good enough) and some stuff I got while over there (I'll have playtime on that for next week). With the NGPC, yeah I had Gal's Fighter which is alright, not the biggest fighting game fan but I did like Last Blade on the NGPC and all that. I also got this Rockman game, it reminds me of the arcades (probably the same thing for all I care) that I played via the Gamecube Mega Man Anniversary Collection, just with less graphics and all that. That's all, not really much.

 

Do you agree with me that Bass is the best out of the three in terms of gameplay?

[+wongojack]

Arcade

Ms Pac Man 61

Galaga 19

Pole Position 7

Xevious 7

Mappy 3

Sega Star Wars Trilogy 3

2600

Jungle Hunt 10

Sky Diver 30

Asteroids 15

Air Sea Battle 20

Slot Racers 10

Frog Pond 7

 

 

I started the week playing the X360 version of Ms Pac Man a bit, and then at the end of the week, my niece had a birthday party where she said she wanted to play old games with me. She is a 4th grader, and she knows that I like the stuff. What ended up happening is we went to a local arcade with mostly redemption games. I did play Sega's Star Wars Trilogy there which seemed like it only had the R working in RGB - blah. I played some other fun non-tracked games there including a Jurassic Park sit down shooter with my brother in law, a Kung Fu Panda twitch reaction game, and a phone to arcade conversion game called "Arcade Crossy-Road."

 

After the arcade, we went back to their house where she opened my gifts which were an Atari Flashback and a Namco Plug n Play. The Flashback was a bigger hit than the plug n play, but I did a pretty good job directing them to the two player simultaneous games Sky Diver and Air Sea Battle - so it was a bit more fun for 2 young kids (my nephew is in 2nd grade). I was surprised at how much they wanted to play both devices. I've done my duty now and introduced them to the world of classic gaming. I think this was the first time either of them had actually held a joystick in their hands, so that alone made me feel good - let alone the fact that they were experiencing Christmas morning 1979 right in front of my eyes (thanks Air Sea Battle!).

[Skippy B. Coyote]

I think the biggest thing holding me back in the game at this point is the slightly inconsistent accuracy and the heavy weight of my Nyko Super Cobra light gun, so I'm probably going to have to try to track down an affordably priced authentic Namco GunCon light gun to use before I'll be able to beat Time Crisis. The authentic GunCon should be more accurate and a lot lighter in the weight department, making aiming faster and easier and reducing arm fatigue over the 20 minutes or so it takes to play through the game. After the misses' birthday party this week my finances are pretty well tapped out for the rest of the month, but hopefully come next month I can try to pick up a proper Namco GunCon to get my PlayStation light gun gaming fix with; and maybe a Konami Hyper Blaster for the other non-Namco PlayStation light gun games while I'm at it.

As a little update to my weekly gameplay post from Monday, I was planning on waiting until next month to try to scrape together the cash for a GunCon and see if I could track one down for a reasonable price on eBay, but as luck would have it I actually stumbled on one at a local game store today! The GunCon was in pretty rough looking shape, with what looked like blue marker smudges all over the place and half the orange paint on the end of the gun flaking off here and there, but there was almost zero scratching anywhere on it and I had a feeling that if I spent a little time working on it with some light solvents I could get it cleaned up nicely. So, I decided to take a chance on it. I was a bit short on cash, but after trading in some old Sega Genesis accessories that I wasn't using anymore for store credit I was able to bring the GunCon home and get to work on it. After about an hour and a half of work with some light model plastics grade paint thinner to remove the funky looking orange paint that was required for sale in the US from the front end and a good rub down with 70% isopropyl alcohol on the rest I'm pleased to say that it looks almost brand new! There are still a few tiny little scuffs here and there, but I'm really happy with how well it cleaned up and how close to new condition it looks now.

 

 

 

And I'm even happier to report that it plays just as good as it looks! The accuracy is outstanding, the gun's build quality feels solid as a rock, and it's vastly lighter in weight and faster to aim with than the Nyko Super Cobra that I had been using. I immediately noticed my shooting accuracy in Time Crisis go up by a good 10%, and my stage clear times improved by a pretty significant margin too. Then, best of all, on my second try with the new GunCon I finally managed to beat Time Crisis! I can't even describe how incredibly satisfying it was to finally beat this game after a good week or so of trying and failing every day, and now that I have beaten it I honestly don't think I could have done it with the Super Cobra light gun. Thanks GunCon!

Edited August 9, 2016 by Jin

[+thegoldenband]

Here's the summary for Week 32, running from August 1 - 7. We logged 5485 minutes of eligible play, playing 102 games on a total of 16 systems.

Top 10:

1. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 649

2. SimCity 2000 (PC (DOS)) - 540

3. Kagero: Deception II (PlayStation) - 493

4. Caltron 6-in-1 (NES/Famicom) - 326

5. Kwirk (Game Boy) - 318

6. Time Crisis (PlayStation) - 271

7. Quattro Arcade (NES/Famicom) - 174

8. Silent Hunter (PC (DOS)) - 169

9. Save New York (C64) - 162

10. Megalit (Game Boy) - 161

Pre-NES top 10:

1. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 649

2. Save New York (C64) - 162

3. Ms. Pac-Man (Arcade) - 61

4. Spiderdroid (Atari 2600) - 60

5. Mario Bros. (Arcade) - 50

6. Yars' Revenge (Atari 2600) - 42

7. Galaga (Arcade) - 39

8. Nebula (Epoch Super Cassette Vision) - 34

9. Sky Diver (Atari 2600) - 30

9. Starmaster (Atari 2600) - 30

Top 10 systems:

1. Atari 2600 (1168)

2. PlayStation (1002)

3. NES/Famicom (811)

4. PC (DOS) (769)

5. Game Boy (655)

6. Arcade (317)

7. Game Boy Color (250)

8. C64 (162)

9. WonderSwan (127)

10. Neo Geo Pocket Color (65)

Despite close challenges from SimCity 2000 and the PlayStation, it's the Atari 2600 and Kaboom that reign in a busy week.

Next, the 1000-minute club gains member #226 in the form of Boggle Plus and its 1003 minutes. Or maybe it's 1003 unites, or tunes, or minuets: who knows?

Finally, times may be a bit delayed for the next couple weeks, as I'm moving hundreds of miles. Don't worry, though, the updates will come!

[Iwantgames:)]

Good luck with the move! I moved to my new house months ago and still haven't got all my stuff straight yet lol. Really need to get my CoCo hooked up, but can't find the video cord at the moment. Might just have to go buy one. But at least the wonderswans getting some tracker time

[Skippy B. Coyote]

Next, the 1000-minute club gains member #226 in the form of Boggle Plus and its 1003 minutes. Or maybe it's 1003 unites, or tunes, or minuets: who knows?

 

Finally, times may be a bit delayed for the next couple weeks, as I'm moving hundreds of miles. Don't worry, though, the updates will come!

Holy cow! Have I really played that much Boggle Plus? I guess those 5 or 10 minute games of Boggle while I'm out taking cigarette breaks have really added up!

 

Also, I hope your move goes well and that you like the new place! Moving is always a huge and pretty stressful hassle, so I hope that yours goes smoothly and that your new home is everything that you could hope for.

[Atarian7]

Have a nice safe move thegoldenband.

[Opry99er]

Absolutely... I know waaaaay too much about cross-country moves to envy you your task.

 

Be safe, and don't put your collectible vintage gaming equipment in a box and set it on top of the dresser. Don't ask.

[Syzygy1]

Rez on the PS2, because the main character Swayzak is really hot.

[Nutsy Doodleheimer]

Good luck on the big move Goldenband and wish you the best at your new home and residence.

 

I didn't do too much this week.

 

Colecovision:

 

Donkey Kong: 10 Minutes

 

NES:

 

Castlevania: 30 Minutes

Kung Fu: 20 Minutes

 

 

 

Arcade/Mame:

 

Mario Bros: 35 Minutes

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: 25 Minutes

1943: 10 Minutes

Pole Position: 15 Minutes

The Simpsons: 15 Minutes

Track and Field: 20 Minutes

Rampage World Tour: 30 Minutes

[karokoenig]

PC (DOS)

Silent Hunter: 163 min

 

What can I say without repeating myself? Nothing, I guess. So I don't .

[Iwantgames:)]

Due to flooding I've been trapped inside so game time it is lol

 

 

Just in case power goes out here's my times so far :

 

Wonderswan

 

Lode Runner - 60min

 

 

NES

 

Mario - 75min

 

 

Coco 2

Finally got the CoCo setup and logged for the tracker

 

Downland - 10min

 

Mega Bug - 20min

 

 

Genesis

 

Sonic the Hedgehog - 415min

Decided to see how high I could get the score but finally got board lol

 

 

Streets of Rage 2 - 115min

Edited August 14, 2016 by Iwantgames:)

[Atarian7]

Where is all that flooding? And how many inches of rain did it take to do that?

[Iwantgames:)]

Where is all that flooding? And how many inches of rain did it take to do that?

Welsh Louisiana. They said some areas got up to 26" and forecast calls for rain everyday till Friday so only gonna get worse

[Opry99er]

Weird week in terms of gameplay...

 

PC-DOS:

 

Oregon Trail (490 minutes)

SimCity 2000 (540 minutes)

 

 

GBA:

 

Final Fantasy IV (660 minutes)

 

 

 

 

My son is homeschooled, so I have introduced him to edu-tainment simulation software. We each played through Oregon Trail several times this week, trying different difficulties and strategies. His favorite is Banker, buy everything you can up front, and hunt every few days...

 

I have found a combination I like for high scores. Carpenter, strenuous pace, filling meals, and rest often.... Every landmark, rest at least one day. Keeps up health.

 

 

Anyway, SimCity 2000 was really just because I love the game, but I am making him dissect the tax rates and ordinances and explain to me why people respond a certain way to different stimuli.

 

 

FF4 is pure fun.... No education value there.

Edited August 14, 2016 by Opry99er

[carlsson]

Interton VC-4000:

Hunting (Interton #12) - 10 min.

Invaders (Interton #32) - 4 min.

Ineligible:

Bubbles (Emacs game) - several hours

Bubble Breaker (Flash game) - ditto

Bricks Breaking (Flash game) - ditto

Bricks Breaking 2 (Flash game) - ditto

By chance, I discovered Bubbles in Emacs and got instantly hooked. It led me to look up similar Flash based games, of which I found a few. Since neither of these count, I didn't bother keeping track of time but hours on each game is rather likely. I'm sure there are retro implementations somewhere too, but I didn't look for any. One day I might try to implement it myself.

On the eligible games, I was bidding for several VC-4000 games last week of which I missed the auctions ending so I got barely outbid on some cheap ones but at least got Hunting, which just like all other Interton games is rather dull. Graphically they're generally a-ok (but apparently inferior to say Intellivision or Odyssey^2) but what strikes me is that the programmers don't seem to have grasped what it takes to make a game fun and challenging. That could be said for many pre-NES games, but not as consistently as with this system. Just a few tweaks here and there, and those games could've be rather playable and enjoyable instead of something you at most spend 10 minutes with all variations before you put it away.

[karokoenig]

what strikes me is that the programmers don't seem to have grasped what it takes to make a game fun and challenging. That could be said for many pre-NES games, but not as consistently as with this system. Just a few tweaks here and there, and those games could've be rather playable and enjoyable instead of something you at most spend 10 minutes with all variations before you put it away.

 

You're right about the games on the Interton. They are not exactly mindblowingly fun. But that can be said of most Odyssey 2/G7000 games as well. What I like about the Interton is how it feels. Everything is sturdy, stable, the carts are built like tanks, I like the artwork and design of the game boxes - and I quite like the controllers. An oddity among game systems, and I'm happy to have one.

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week (August 8th through 14th)...

 

Atari 2600:

Pressure Cooker - 37 min. in 3 sessions

 

Facebook (non-eligible):

New York Taxi License - 15 min.

School Driving 3D - 20 min.

Solitaire Racer - 32 min. in 2 sessions

 

NES:

Firehouse Rescue - 5 min.

Snake, Rattle & Roll - 97 min. in 3 sessions

 

Online (non-eligible):

14-15 Puzzle - 12 min.

 

I played various games this week. First I continued playing Solitaire Racer, then I took a look at School Driving 3D, but most of the time was spent trying to properly get it to run. The problem here is that there's ads on the left and right side covering part of the playfield (maybe unless you have a pretty wide screen). Then I played New York Taxi License, which is another 3D taxi game set in New York, where you have to complete various little tasks.

 

Then I briefly tried Firehouse Rescue on the NES, but somehow it doesn't run properly... maybe I picked the wrong system type for it. It's better with Snake, Rattle & Roll where I reached a higher level than the last time I played it some years ago.

 

Then I tried an online version of a 14-15 puzzle game, which is a game I already played as a toddler (not on the PC though). Somehow by now I can find a way to solve it while I didn't manage to do that back then. It's a bit similar to the game 2048 which I played earlier this year, but sadly the online version quite often puts out a combination which is impossible to solve.

 

Finally, I revisited Pressure Cooker. I think this is a game where I could attempt to write a bot playing it (if I get enough time) because there's not too many different things at a time going on, and the game is actually divided in different phases which are not too complicated to do... first you have to catch an ingredient or decide to repel it instead. Then when you have it, to have to put it on the correct plate. Finally, if it was a cover, you have to put the plate into one of the chutes. Each of those tasks should not be too complicated to program an AI for.

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom! - 635 minutes

Seaquest - 34 minutes

 

 

Kaboom! High score of the week: 166,875