What have you actually PLAYED tracker for 2017 (Season 10)

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week (December 18th through 24th)...

 

Android phone (non-eligible):

Crazy Taxi: City Rush - 104 min. in 7 sessions

Super Burger Time - 75 min. in 2 sessions

 

Arcade:

Son Son - 169 min. in 2 sessions

 

MSX:

GP World - 21 min.

 

Online (non-eligible):

Stockstream - 159 min. in 5 sessions

 

Uzebox (non-eligible):

Joyrider - 5 min.

Pac Man - 5 min.

65535-in-1 - 33 min.

 

This week I played quite a few different games. I continued to play Stockstream and Crazy Taxi: City Rush. In Stockstream I sold a stock way too hastily while other players still were sitting on it while it continued to climb. In Crazy Taxi: City Rush, I completed the Beach stage and moved on to the Uptown stage.

 

Then I tried Super Burger Time on my phone. This is a variation on "Burger Time" which at the start looks ridiculously easy since you only have to assemble one burger and are only chased by one enemy. However, the steering is somewhat difficult since you only have an on-screen joypad where I often miss the correct spot to press. Mostly the game keeps true to the arcade patterns, but with better graphics, but there are some gameplay differences. Most notably, the technique that would let enemies fall down along with the burger patties doesn't work here because the enemies are instantly killed in this case, and the patties don't fall farther than without an enemy on it.

 

Then I revisited the arcade game Son Son which I played normally for some time, and then I played it through with the help of state save.

 

On the MSX I played GP World by Sega which borrows the name of their laserdisc racing game, but of course doesn't have a laserdisc, so the graphics are greatly simpllfied and only shows the road as two thick lines on the roadsise. On the upside, it has a tile-based track editor, and I tried to find out which combinations of track segements you can lay down there.

 

Finally, I played two games on the Uzebox, Joyrider, which is a top-down car game similar to Grand Theft Auto, Pac-Man and 65535-in-1, which as the name suggests is several games in one, out of which I stalled at the Sliding Puzzle. I also quickly tried some other games on this system, but didn't really get into them.

[oyamafamily]

ATARI 7800 - Pac-Man Collection - 366 minutes in several sessions

 

EVIDENCES OF THE WEEK:

 

1) Pac-Man Collection videos presented for 7800 HSC Season 2017-2018, Round 8

 

2) Other Pac-Man Collection videos just to have fun

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS, GUYS!

[+thegoldenband]

My times for the week:

 

NES:

3-D WorldRunner - 187 min.

SNES:

Brain Lord - 27 min.

Cannon Fodder - 11 min.

Date Kimiko no Virtual Tennis - 14 min.

Dragon View - 893 min.

Super Putty - 17 min.

Turn & Burn: No-Fly Zone - 20 min.

Beat Dragon View and 3-D WorldRunner; thoughts here. In between I spent some time trying out various SNES games to decide which one I'd like to tackle next.

[agb]

Times for the week.

PS one museum Galaxian 40 minutes.

 

Atari 2600 Times are

Turmoil 18 minutes

Solar Fox 91 minutes

Dig Dug 22 minutes

Ms. Pac-Man 156 minutes

 

High scores were ms Pac-Man 72,830 and turmoil 63,830.

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom! - 108 minutes

Hunchy 2 - 109 minutes

 

 

Kaboom! : 80,667

 

Hunchy 2 : I am still on level 13 but I got most of it figured out. Just need to execute.

 

 

I got very close to playing both of those games the same amount of time but it wasn't planned.

 

 

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS to everyone!

 

 

[Skippy B. Coyote]

It's been a super busy last couple days with family around here, so for now I'm just going to post my household's play times for the week then come back later to do the usual picture and write up when I have a bit more down time.


Ineligible
Clubhouse Games (Nintendo DS) - 134 minutes
Jerry Rice & Nitus' Dog Football (Nintendo Wii) - 303 minutes
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Nintendo Wii) - 1,080 minutes

PC-DOS
Final Doom - 35 minutes

PlayStation
Bust-A-Move 2: Arcade Edition - 51 minutes
Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown - 189 minutes

Sega Genesis (Emulated on Nintendo Wii)
Raiden Trad - 30 minutes


Total Play Time This Week
1,822 minutes (30 hours 22 minutes) [305 minutes eligible]

Individual System Play Times This Week
Nintendo Wii: 1,383 minutes
PlayStation: 240 minutes
Nintendo DS: 134 minutes
PC-DOS: 35 minutes
Sega Genesis: 30 minutes

[zylon]

Genesis-

 

Shining Force II- 10hrs 57min (via 360 compliation disc)

Double Dragon- 28min (testing my new 112-in-1 cart, works perfectly)

[BurritoBeans]

NES:

Duck Hunt - 10 minutes

 

If this isn't my shortest week of the year I don't know what is.

 

So yeah, I pretty much ended up living at work all of this week because the holiday. I started off wanting to play the next Ultima game... and then the 16K card in my Apple decided it didn't like my II+ anymore - the stupid thing works perfectly in my //e, on the Laser 128, etc. - I put my other 16K card in and whaddya know, it works except that two of the ICs are a bit dead and need replaced. After that I wanted to play Missile Command on the arcade machine and see if I could top my existing high score but nah the arcade was full and the multicade at home is being worked on plus I had to get back to work so that was the end of that. Finally, yesterday*, after skiing down to work and two hours of pushing people from ditches I picked up the zapper on the tester NES and played a bit of Duck Hunt... before completely failing because my hands were frozen and shaking like crazy, which told me to go get warmed up and start doing what I was there to do. Tip to myself, wear gloves when it's all of 5F, 40mph winds, and snowing six inches an hour - they really help, especially when grabbing onto and pushing on cold metal.

 

I have no idea I'll get even the slightest amount of gaming in if any for the last bit of the year here... I would like to say I could clear through one last game, but between having to go into work every day (always a ton of customers after holidays anyways) and spending a ton of time skiing between places I don't know what will happen.

 

*edit - I can't remember what day it is, had "today" on the bit with playing games when it was yesteday... I didn't get anything in today since I was frozen again at work trying to piece together broke arcades and whatnot since family was out. Same deal, it was a blizzard again anyways, just with less duck hunt and more being frustrated at big wooden things... oops.

Edited December 26, 2017 by BurritoBeans

[+wongojack]

7800

Dig Dug 5

 

Arcade

Dig Dug 106 (New Personal Best 115,620)

 

N64

Zelda OoT 470

 

 

PC Engine

Devil's Crush 19

Time Cruise 6

Xevious 7

 

SG 1000

The Castle 22

Gulkave 18

HERO 15

Monaco GP 4

Sega Flipper 3

Sega Galaga 10

Space Mountain 3

Yamato 5

Zoom 909 4

 

SNES

California Games II 8

Kirby's Super Star 13

Pinball Dreams 6

[+Darrin9999]

Intellivision:

 

1. Christmas Carol vs. The Ghost of Christmas Presents - 289 min

 

 

Neo Geo AES:

 

1. Alpha Mission II - 25 min

2. Blazing Star - 40 min

3. Garou ; Mark Of the Wolves - 20 min

4. Ghost Pilots - 36 min

5. Metal Slug - 75 min

 

 

Colecovision:

 

1. Pacar - 15 min

2. SHMUP! - 15 min

[Eltigro]

Later than usual with my entries because of the holidays...

 

Atari 2600 (all on Flashback Portable)

Asteroids - 25 min (If I have a bit of down time and have my portable in my pocket, Asteroids is my go to.)

Galaxian - 10 min

Millipede - 5 min (I'll never be that good at these without a trackball.)

Miniature Golf - 5 min (I played this until it hung up on me. Ball got stuck somewhere off screen or something and had to reset.)

Miss It! - 5 min (Never heard of this one before... mainly dots fly around the screen and you avoid them. The longer you go, the more dots appear. Pretty basic game play, but not too bad.)

Yars' Revenge - 5 min (The classic. I used to be really good at this, but while showing it to my daughter, I shot myself with the cannon... lol)

 

Sega Master System

Shooting Gallery - 45 min (Was having trouble with my light gun games until I turned my brightness all the way up on my TV. Wondering if it's a sign of needing a new CRT... Anyway, this was surprisingly fun. More variety than Duck Hunt, by far.)

[+thegoldenband]

Here's the summary for Week 51, running from December 18 - 24. We logged 4798 minutes of eligible play, playing 76 games on a total of 20 systems.

Top 10:

1. Dragon View (SNES) - 893

2. Shining Force II (Genesis) - 657

3. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64) - 470

4. Pac-Man Collection (Atari 7800) - 366

5. Christmas Carol vs. the Ghost of Christmas Presents (Intellivision) - 289

6. Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown (PlayStation) - 189

7. 3-D World Runner (NES/Famicom) - 187

8. SonSon (Arcade) - 169

9. Ms. Pac-Man (Atari 2600) - 156

10. Hunchy II (Atari 2600) - 109

Pre-NES top 10:

1. Pac-Man Collection (Atari 7800) - 366

2. Christmas Carol vs. the Ghost of Christmas Presents (Intellivision) - 289

3. SonSon (Arcade) - 169

4. Ms. Pac-Man (Atari 2600) - 156

5. Hunchy II (Atari 2600) - 109

6. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 108

7. Dig Dug (Arcade) - 106

8. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 91

9. Archon (Atari 8-bit) - 50

10. Galaxian (Arcade) - 40

Top 10 systems:

1. SNES (1009)

2. Genesis (715)

3. Atari 2600 (574)

4. N64 (470)

5. Atari 7800 (371)

6. Arcade (315)

7. Intellivision (289)

8. PlayStation (240)

9. NES/Famicom (197)

10. Neo Geo AES/MVS (196)

Week 51 has nine different platforms in the top 9 spots, which is always nice.

At the top of the charts we have the 16-bit wars all over again, with the Genesis and SNES led by RPG sequels on their respective platforms; this time, it's the Nintendo console and the weird Kemco game that take the #1 spot.

Also notable are the 1-minute margins this week, with Kaboom getting edged out by Hunchy II (and missing the overall top 10) by only 60 seconds, and the NES exceeding the Neo Geo AES by the same amount.

[zylon]

Genesis-

Shining Force II- 3hrs 17min

 

Completed, except hidden bonus battle. I played through using none of the bonus items like "healing rain", etc, just to see if I could. At the end, if you wait until the FIN screen with the jewels comes up, let it sit a few minutes and the "And more..." message will appear. Press and hold "C" to go to a bonus battle against all the SFII bosses at once on a map shaped like Sonic.

[Atarian7]

This year wraps up nicely with the 31st falling on a Sunday.

 

 

[karokoenig]

There won't be any time for me to play today or tomorrow, so I'll wrap up my gaming year 2017 right now:

 

Commodore 64

Apple Cider Spider: 28 min

Defender: 6 min

Fiendish Freddy: 4 min

Flimbo’s Quest: 7 min

Ghosts ‘n Goblins: 10 min

International Soccer: 5 min

Klax: 3 min

Power at Sea: 48 min

Titanic: 8 min

 

As I hoped, I did manage to get some playtime on my good old C64 while visiting my parents over christmas. The experience was slightly hampered by the fact that I only had a bad joystick, but at least it worked.

So, I tested the 4-game multicart my Secret Santa sent me, and it worked fine. Need a better joystick to enjoy the games. Especially Klax, which I loved back in the days. Then I played a few random games, just to check if my old floppy disks still work, which they mostly do. More playtime was invested into one round of "Power at Sea", World War 2 naval "simulator". Today, you'd call it a series of mini games, I guess. I like it very much. I also beat Apple Cider, which is a cute early platformer published by Sierra Online. It stands out because it has an end sequence once you make it to the top. Took me a few attempts, but I still had it in me and was rewarded with a nice Spider Party :-).

 

See you guys in 2018!

[Skippy B. Coyote]

This year wraps up nicely with the 31st falling on a Sunday.

 

That it is! I'm guessing the cutoff time this week will be 11:59 PM Sunday night rather than the usual 3:00 PM Monday afternoon?

[carlsson]

Atari 8-bit:

Archon - 45 min.

The Clash of Kings - 1 min.

War Room - 8 min.

Just like Karokoenig, I'm not expecting to fit in any more retro games this year so I'll post early.

[+thegoldenband]

That it is! I'm guessing the cutoff time this week will be 11:59 PM Sunday night rather than the usual 3:00 PM Monday afternoon?

 

Naah, I'll let it go until Monday as usual. If people end up playing late on New Year's Eve, I want them to be able to go to bed and post the next day if that's their jam.

[zylon]

Genesis-

 

Phantasy Star III- 10hrs 8min (4th ending reached)

 

5200-

 

Super Breakout- 10min

[zylon]

Genesis-

Shining Force II- 46min (completed bonus battle)

 

-That's why I saved the special items.

[Iwantgames:)]

Well didnt get as much game time as Id planned this week. Only 1 game :/

 

Vectrex

 

Big Blue - 34min

[Atarian7]

Status update: I got to level 14 on Hunchy 2. I will try to get to 15 before the year is over.

 

 

[carlsson]

Oh well, I managed a little gaming before going to bed last night:

 

Atari 2600:

Bowling - 5 min.

 

Now I'm at my parents with a laptop, and since I normally don't use PC based emulators for proper game playing, that'll be all for this year.

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week (December 25th through 31st)...

 

Android phone (Non-eligible):

Crazy Taxi: City Rush - 72 min. in 7 sessions

 

Commodore 64:

Galaxy - 21 min.

Jr. Pac-Man - 47 min. in 2 sessions

Q*bert - 217 min. in 5 sessions

 

MS-DOS:

J-Bird - 46 min.

 

Non-electronic games (non-eligible):

Rubik's Cube - 104 min. in 2 sessions

 

Online (Non-eligible):

Stockstream - 166 min.

Papa's pancakeria - 41 min.

 

PC (Non-eligible):

DKAATribute - 5 min.

 

Sord 5:

Step up - 6 min.

 

This week I played a bunch of different games on different systems due to having the week off work. I continued to play Crazy Taxi: City Rush and Stockstream. In Crazy Taxi: City Rush, I'm still at the 3nd district (Downtown) and trying to optimize my way through town, while in Stockstream I made some suboptimal trades where I can only hope they will work out.

 

On the Commodore 64, I played a Galaga clone called Galaxy and the official Q*bert port in which I managed to beat Level 9 in a one-hour game, actually twice in a row, through the first occurence of Level 9-4 was pretty hard since I ran out of flying disks, but eventually I still made it. I also managed to exceed the maximum of 7 extra lives displayed and found that the game is super-fair with its extra lives in that it gives you any extra lives you may have missed later on losing one of your lives instead of just not issuing it as many other games do.

 

Then I tried the C-64 version of Jr. Pac-Man by Quicksilva which isn't exactly true to the original arcade version in that the mazes are smaller and don't scroll. Also the toys come at your power pills pretty quickly and the power pill effect wears off pretty fast from Level 2 on. The game is also rather fast and hard, and it's got a quirk with the joystick detection in that it stores directions where Jr. can't go at the moment, but goes on reaching an intersection... even if you don't hold the joystick in that direction anymore! Well, the game gets playable if you turn on Turbo mode and play it at half speed in VICE.

 

Spurred by the success on Q*bert, I played a MS-DOS Q*bert clone called J-Bird which is generally a bit slower. I couldn't get it to run under DOS Box in Composite mode though, maybe because I don't know how to get the selection screen where you could set the monitor type. This version is actually a bit more difficult because the player moves a bit more slowly relative to its enemies, though it gives you extra lives a bit more often to make up for that.

 

I also played one more round of Papa's Pancakeria and managed to max out the wall space with posters.

 

Then I played "Step up" on an obscure computer called Sord 5, a game a bit similar to "Squish 'em" where you have to climb up a building avoiding various enemies.

 

After solving Rubik's Cube a few times, I discovered a new approach on a strategy on Youtube which consists of only 4 distinct move blocks, one of which unfortunately isn't shown, but I managed to find it on my own. It also consists of moves that are pretty repetitive and thus easy to remember, but they are longer than the moves I'm used to from my old strategy. You also can express all the moves in that strategy by only looking at the front since you never have to turn the front or back section. I guess there's a compromise between length of moves, number of moves and strategy complexity.

 

Finally I played a PC game called "DKAATribute" made with Game Maker which shows Mario against Donkey Kong in some new levels where, for instance, DK throws the barrels instead of rolling them, and also issues flies attacking Mario. It's a bit of a cross between Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong 3.

Edited December 31, 2017 by Kurt_Woloch

[oyamafamily]

Atari 2600

Space Invaders - 29 minutes

Pac-Man - 6 minutes

 

Atari 7800

Pac-Man Collection - 554 minutes in several sessions.