What have you actually PLAYED tracker for 2018 (Season 11)

[Opry99er]

Hehe... yea, it's a bit dumb, but I never even knew about patches when I was a kid... I had bare carts, no manuals, etc.

 

Of course most of these are a bit cost-prohibitive to buy on eBay... so I'm considering having the ones I've earned screen printed on thick fabric (which I will back with thick card stock) so I can display them in a case somewhere in my dungeon.

[karokoenig]

Atari 2600:

Seawolf: 65 min

Squish 'em: 7 min

 

Homebrew weeks in the HSC. Next two weeks: Paddles!

[Atarian7]

Hooray for paddles!

[digdugnate]

Hehe... yea, it's a bit dumb, but I never even knew about patches when I was a kid... I had bare carts, no manuals, etc.

 

Of course most of these are a bit cost-prohibitive to buy on eBay... so I'm considering having the ones I've earned screen printed on thick fabric (which I will back with thick card stock) so I can display them in a case somewhere in my dungeon.

sorry to veer off-topic of the thread, but I was talking to my wife last weekend about a similar concept! I think it's a very cool idea.

 

(incidentally.... if you do something like this please let me know the cost )

Edited May 19, 2018 by digdugnate

[digdugnate]

I've been 'berserk about Berzerk' this week:

 

Atari 2600

 

Berzerk 150 minutes

Ladybug 30 minutes

[carlsson]

Atari 8-bit:

C'est la Vie - 47 min.

Run for the Money [scarborough Systems] - 6 min.

Over at the HSC, we're trying to figure out different tactics for C'est la Vie, to make it last a little longer than it otherwise would. I also downloaded Run for the Money by Tom Snyder, which some describe as worthy contender to M.U.L.E. This game seems much more child oriented with fewer elements of action plus that I was unable to escape the status screen after one round so I only played it briefly. Generally there seems to be a lot of games people like to compare to M.U.L.E. but on second look don't quite hold up to that statement, see also Kaiser and others. It reminds me that I haven't played the real deal for nearly a year, so perhaps I'm due for a round in one of the upcoming weeks.

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week (May 14th through 20th) on classic systems:

 

Commodore 64:

Crazy Kong (Interceptor) - 9 min.

Crazy Kong (Supersoft) - 11 min.

 

Intellivision:

Auto Racing - 32 min. in 4 sessions

 

TI-99/4A:

Slymoids - 71 min. in 2 sessions

 

This week I continued to play Auto Racing on the Intellivision in order to map it and slowly fill the off-track gaps. Then I tried two Donkey Kong clones, one by Interceptor Software (Ian Gray) and one by Supersoft (similar to one clone of Burger Time). Actually I looked for another clone made by Kingsoft back in the day, but couldn't find it. Out of the two I played, the one by Supersoft is better... it has the slanted lines and the screens look more "correct" than on Interceptor's version.

 

Finally, I replayed Slymoids for the TI-99 in two sessions, but the games are getting pretty long... each session sonsisted only of a single game.

[carlsson]

Kurt: By chance, are you looking for Kong by Anirog? I understand that Anirog republished a couple of Kingsoft titles, so quite possibly the two could have had further cooperation.

[oyamafamily]

ATARI 2600:

Galaxian - 37 minutes

Missile Command - 57 minutes

Squish' Em - 10 minutes

 

ATARI 7800:

Commando - 64 minutes

 

EVIDENCE OF THE WEEK: My Commando gameplay footage, presented for 7800 HSC Season 2017-2018, Round 19

[Eltigro]

Not much for me this week...

 

2600

Moon Patrol - 33 min (Got a little farther than I have before. Man, some of those jumps get tricky! And I don't mind the music! lol)

[agb]

Times for the week are:

All Atari 2600

Sea Wolf 185 mins for HSC. Great game. Loved it.

Solar Fox 160 mins

Sqishem 48 mins for HSC. Liking it.

[Iwantgames:)]

Most of my game time this week was spent on the excellent port of Amiga classic Wings on GBA which isnt qualifying here but its definitely one of my all time favorite games on every platform it appeared on

 

Anyway heres my qualifying times:

 

C64 -

 

Adventures of Big Mac - 5min

Deceptor - 25min

Defender of the Crown - 30min

Excaliba - 5min

Laser Squad - 20min

Sinbad and the Throne of the Falcon - 20min

 

 

Sega Genesis-

 

It Came From The Desert - 105min

[+wongojack]

It was a big week for me because I took some time off from work to basically just chill at the house. Here is my tracked time:

 

A2600

Megamania 6

 

 

Coleco

Air Battle (unfinished) 2

Antarctic Adventure 23

Bump n Jump 26

Bustin' Out Vol Zero 6

Campaign '84 167

Carnival 25

Chateau du Dragon, Le 6

Circus Charlie 40

Donkey Kong 24

Donkey Kong Jr 43

Gulkave 2

JBulman Jr (Jumpman Jr Hack) 11

JETP4K 7

Pepper II 23

Rockcutter 9

Sky Jaguar 9

Smurf Rescue 31

Space Invaders Collection 2

Space Hunter 15

Space Panic 19

Super DK 28

Super DK Jr 13

Super Space Acer 11

War 5

War Games 143

Zombie Near 15

 

 

FM Towns

Zak McCracken & Alien Mindbenders 327

 

 

I'm not sure why I don't play the Coleco more often. I have a very nice one that has been AV modded and the controllers are all nice and refurbished. I had a desire to play Wargames which I have a complete copy of, so I gave that a work out. Here are some of my best scores on difficulties 1-4:

 

90,350,000 diff 1

132,460,000 diff 2

212,060,000 diff 3

170,020,000 diff 4

 

I've also got an AtariMax flashcart, so I played a lot of homebrews and prototypes like Super Donkey Kong which has the level transitions and a pie factory stage that is unfinished. I also ended up playing Campaign '84 quite a bit which I beat on the hardest difficulty.

Between Coleco gaming, I was playing Zak McCracken via SCUMM VM and Pinball Arcade on Steam.

[+thegoldenband]

My times for the week:

 

Genesis:

Paperboy - 230 min.

Shaq Fu - 289 min.

SNES:

Shaq Fu - 62 min.

Finally beat Shaq Fu on the Genesis -- that is, I beat Story mode on Expert difficulty, over six years after I first attempted it! That said, reviewing my notes, I guess I hadn't actually played it since 2012, and not for nearly as long as I'd thought: I guess it was so frustrating that it felt like I'd put in dozens of hours in 2011-12, but in reality I only put about 7-8 hours into Expert back then, after spending 2-3 hours on the lower difficulties.

Either way, it was a millstone around my neck, and I'm pleased to finally be rid of it. Kinda neat that it took exactly 500 minutes between last week and this one. My old skills were mostly intact, so most of the process came down to improving my match strategy, though there are still a few opponents I don't feel I've mastered.

Then I futzed around with the SNES version, but it plays quite differently, and Hard mode is just too cheap for words. Not sure I have it in me to deal with a game where opponents do literally 4-5x as much damage as you do, can dizzy you after just 2-3 hits, and never get dizzy themselves.

Lastly, I started working on Paperboy again, this time tackling Middle Road on Medium difficulty, since I beat Easy Street on Easy last year...no wait, that was two years ago? Yikes! Anyway, I got to Saturday a few times and broke 100K points on my last run, so I feel like a good run will probably get me through Sunday. I kind of hate this game but, as the tired saying goes, it is what it is. At least I'm improving steadily.

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom! - 352 minutes

Hunchy 2 - 56 minutes

Seawolf - 49 minutes

 

 

Kaboom! : 152,692

[Opry99er]

Weekend times (Sat and Sun)

 

 

VCS:

 

Dragster (390 minutes).

 

 

 

Vectrex:

 

Mine Storm (210 minutes)

 

 

 

Got down to 6.07 on Dragster, but can't quite break through into patchville yet on it.

[Eltigro]

VCS:

 

Dragster (390 minutes).

 

 

That's a LOT of races...

[Flojomojo]

6.5 hours Dragster is probably 10x my lifetime play time on that cartridge. Wow

 

That's a LOT of races...

 

 

Weekend times (Sat and Sun)


VCS:

Dragster (390 minutes).



Vectrex:

Mine Storm (210 minutes)



Got down to 6.07 on Dragster, but can't quite break through into patchville yet on it.

[Opry99er]

My wife thinks I'm insane, and I'm starting to agree. I've watched a ton of videos on strategy, etc., but still can't break 6 seconds.

 

I played from about 11:00 pm to 2 am Saturday night, then woke up and played for about 45 minutes. Then the rest of the time was played last night , about 10 to 1ish.

 

It pisses me off watching guys like Omnigamer and darbian hit 5.74 and call it a "garbage run." I don't know where I'm screwing up, and I have watched the world record runs by those guys probably a hundred times each.

 

I hit 6.24 pretty regularly, I've had a few 6.11s and one 6.07.

 

It's got to be something at the takeoff or my chutch feathering in 4th gear. I can't even get close

[+wongojack]

VCS:

 

Dragster (390 minutes).

 

 

Woah - it is time to do some analysis. This borders on the old saying about doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Get out the pen and paper and write down everything you do step by step each race. Then change one thing and only one thing and test if it makes a difference - repeat. Eventually, you'll figure out something you can improve in much less time than 390 mins.

 

I hope you were at least getting drunk or something during part of that time.

[Opry99er]

Drinking gallons of ice water, listening to a baseball game (I have to record the broadcasts because I work 2nd. I don't pay attention to scores throughout the day so I can listen to the game at night as if it is happening in real time).

 

 

The problem is, I can't figure out how to switch from 2nd into 3rd without dropping out of the accelerator. If I try to speed shift, I blow the engine every time.

[Opry99er]

Just did it on an emulator!!!!

 

It was actually pretty easy. Maybe I need to look at my joystick.... I have several others, maybe I'll try another one out. I won't count an emulated score as a patch run, but at least now I have some confidence that it can be done.

[Skippy B. Coyote]

I've been feeling a little too exhausted to do anything seriously productive today, so for now here's my household's times submission for the week and I'll do the picture and writeup for it at some point later this week when I'm a bit less wiped out.

 

 

Ineligible

Clubhouse Games (Nintendo DS) - 120 minutes

Dillon's Dead-Heat Breakers Demo (Nintendo 3DS) - 21 minutes

Klonoa (Nintendo Wii) - 430 minutes
Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo Wii) - 58 minutes
Metroid Prime Trilogy (Nintendo Wii) - 1,078 minutes
Sega Bass Fishing (Nintendo Wii) - 83 minutes

StreetPass Mii Plaza (Nintendo 3DS) - 24 minutes
Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz (Nintendo Wii) - 184 minutes

 

Atari 8-Bit Computers
Pac-Man - 57 minutes

 

Sony PlayStation
Syphon Filter 2 - 62 minutes

 

 

Total Video Game Play Time This Week
2,117 minutes (35 hours 17 minutes) [119 minutes eligible]

Individual System Play Times This Week
Nintendo Wii: 1,833 minutes
Nintendo DS: 120 minutes
Sony PlayStation: 62 minutes
Atari 8-Bit Computers: 57 minutes
Nintendo 3DS: 45 minutes

 

 

 

Just did it on an emulator!!!!

It was actually pretty easy. Maybe I need to look at my joystick.... I have several others, maybe I'll try another one out. I won't count an emulated score as a patch run, but at least now I have some confidence that it can be done.

My high score in Dragster is 5.97, which I hit after about an hour of practice. The key thing that got me from finishing around 7 seconds to below 6 seconds was the realization do not use a joystick. Even the best joysticks have too long of a throw (the distance between where the joystick centers and how far it has to be pushed to activate a directional contact) for the average person to shift as quickly as they need to through those first couple gears to finish in under 6 seconds. What I ended up using was a CX-78 joypad for the Atari 7800, since it seemed reasonably traditional but still offered a much faster response time than a joystick, but a good clean Sega Genesis controller would work just as well if you have one laying around. Just get a smooth feeling and responsive joypad then tap your thumb on it like a coked-up woodpecker off the starting line until you figure out the right timing. Hope that helps!

Edited May 21, 2018 by Jin

[Opry99er]

Thanks for the advice, Jin!

 

I'm using a Wico Red Ball..... so, great for Megamania, sh** for Dragster. I need either an original CX Model Atari joy, or something like a Slik Stik or Tac-2.

 

On the keyboard in Stella, improved again.

[carlsson]

I'm sure my Starplex Deluxe Video Game Controller would be great for a game like that, if you need very fast action.