What have you actually PLAYED tracker for 2020 (Season 13)

[Steven Pendleton]

The thing with those black GBC carts is that they are still technically just Game Boy games that get enhanced with color and/or stuff if you play them on the GBC. In the case of the games that got both regular GB and black carts, I suppose you could consider them to be something like patched versions of the existing games that may or may not take advantage of the GBC's hardware (it is slightly more powerful than the Game Boy. Comparing it to the relationship between the PC Engine and the SuperGrafx is not entirely inaccurate from what I understand, but the difference in power between the SuperGrafx and the PC Engine is much bigger than the difference between the GB and the GBC)... but then you have things like Link's Awakening DX, which, aside from the different title, has some added elements, like that extra dungeon, which I believe can be accessed on a non-Color Game Boy, but you won't be able to figure out any of the puzzles without color... or I guess by cheating by looking at the answers on the internet. Pretty sure most of the games that are GBC enhanced just add color, but it's not something I've seriously investigated so I'm sure I'm probably wrong.

 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I have no idea.

 

I also remembered that there is an extremely small amount of GBC games that actually get a few enhancements if played on the GBA, as well. The only 4 that I am aware of are Shantae, Oracle of Ages, Oracle of Seasons, and Wendy: Every Witch Way.

Edited November 25, 2020 by Steven Pendleton

[Nintendo64]

22 hours ago, wongojack said:

 

It's a great little spinoff that shows what the GameBoy can do without getting too ambitious.  It is a bit hard to track down a physical copy though (but not too crazy).  I would advise trying it in emulation first.

 

Also apparently available for the 3DS virtual console:  Gargoyle's Quest Review - IGN

 

 

Great thanks for that information, maybe I'll try that one day because I've always liked the Ghosts' N Goblins series

Edited November 25, 2020 by Nintendo64

[carlsson]

In the long run, I suppose it doesn't matter much if the exact game is listed twice in the tracker. I believe we already have a fair number of duplicates, both games released in different regions with small changes (like the special Japanese versions), games that were barely hacked graphically and like in this case, games that may play (and look different) on different systems. I can definitely log the Dragon Warrior separately for GB and GBC, and same about the Pokémon games. The only drawback is that a game slower grows in number of minutes if it is possible to log it on many different systems despite the code and in this case physical media is the same. Or for that matter I can move GBC games to the lowest denominator, i.e. as GB games.

[Steven Pendleton]

Yay, a semi-official game!

 

Genesis/MD
Sonic 3D Blast: Director's Cut - 15

So this is a ROM hack of Sonic 3D Blast (obviously), but it was made by the game's original lead programmer several years ago. Sonic is MUCH faster now...

[Prosystemsearch]

Here are my times:

 

Atari 2600:

Missile Command- 7 minutes 

Ms.Pacman- 6_1/2 minutes

Cat Trax- 4 minutes

Official Frogger (Starpath SuperCharger version)- 5 minutes

Communist Mutants from Space (for Supercharger)- 8_1/2 minutes

Fast Food- 3 minutes

No Escape!- 7 minutes

Space Invaders- 2_1/2 minutes

Q*bert- 5_1/2 minutes

Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back- 2 minutes

Tapper- 7 minutes

Amidar- 3 minutes

Condor attack- 2 minutes

Lock n' Chase- 9 minutes

Chopper command- 3 minutes

 

Arcadia 2001

Robot Killer- 5 minutes

Breakaway- 7 minutes

Pong- 2 minutes

Missile War- 3 minutes

Cat Trax- 6_1/2 minutes

Crazy Climber- 7_1/2 minutes

Crazy Gobbler- 2 minutes

Jungler- 8 minutes

Galaxia- 4_1/2 minutes

Space attack- 6 minutes

 

[oyamafamily]

ATARI 2600:

Joust (for HSC Paper Medal Knockout Tourney Semi Finals) - 185 minutes

 

ATARI 7800:

Crossbow (for HSC) - 115 minutes

[carlsson]

Atari 8-bit:
Cavernia - 11 min.

 

Again no gaming for the entire week until late Sunday evening. Detection level alert!

 

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week (November 23th through 29th)...

 

Arcade:

Mario Bros. - 121 min. in 7 sessions

 

I'm trying to keep my sessions short these days, so less playing time than last week, but still the same game... no improvements, I'm holding steady at about 160,000 points per game.

The family rules have changed... the family consists of my father and me, and my father has changed the rules. The new focus isn't on building up my life anymore, it's at tearing it down. Not completely, but by throwing away as many things as possible which I don't need. I guess the goal is to get rid of about 80% of the things I own, but I don't know if I'll make it that far before my father loses interest and the rules change yet again.

The future is probably digital... I can see some of my old systems being discarded... the most likely victims are the TI-99, the Atari 2600 and the Odyssey^2 which all don't have a proper video output, but are designed to do RF output only... and the CRT TV that has RF input should go as well.

The future will most likely be digital and integrated, and the old systems will be emulated at best... with the old analog systems being discarded as well. Thus my Hi-Fi tower will lose most of its devices, those which are there to deal with all the different types of analog or at least non-integrated media... laser discs, CD's, VHS tapes, audio cassettes and vinyl records. Today you can have all the stuff as digital files which was used to be played on those devices.

That's the distant future however... the stepping stone is content... I still have much content on one of those media types only, however, if I'm not using many of these, it still doesn't make sense to keep them.

I know this is a bit out of topic, but these are the things I'm thinking about nowadays.

 

[agb]

Times for the week

 

Arcade on ps one

Asteroids 17 mins

Galaxian 14 mins

 

ps one space invaders 46 mins

 

Atari 2600

Eggomania.  95 mins. Got new paddles with a flashback. 
Solar Fox 172 mins. 
 

All fun. 

 

 

[+wongojack]

Big week for me as I continued to dig into my GameBoy carts.  All of this was played via physical carts in either a Super GameBoy through the SNES or a GameBoy Advance SP.  Every game marked with an asterix is in a non-grey cart shell.  That typically means it has additional color modes for the GBC.

 

Gameboy

• Amazing Spiderman 2 55
• Batman 47
• Donkey Kong Land* 39
• Gargoyle's Quest 40
• Golf 50
• Hunt for Red October, The 9
• Kid Icarus of Myths and Monsters 43
• Kirby's Pinball Land 20
• Mario's Picross 33
• Oddworld Adventures 99
• Pokemon Gold* 313
• Quest for Camelot* 20
• R-Type DX* 22
• Skate or Die: Tour de Thrash 45
• Star Trek: 25th Anniversary Ed 361
• Star Trek: The Next Generation 60
• Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back 45
• Super Breakout* 48
• Tennis 37
• Toy Story 2* 23
• Warioland 30

 

The two games with the most time here are very different.  Star Trek 25th is a cart that my family has owned for almost 30 years.  I could never do much with it back then, but I'm really giving it a lot of time now.  Fun game if a bit frustrating.  It is a mix of horizontal shmup and overhead explore sequences.  The other big time commitment was to Pokemon Gold Version which as we covered last week is mainly thought of as a GameBoy Color game.  I have never played any Pokemon games and have to say that I have never even finished a single episode of the cartoon.  I was too old for it when it was new and have never gotten back to it - until now.  Its a fun little RPG and the Pokemon make for above average party members in terms of variety and strategy. 

 

As for a surprise in the group, I'll throw out a comment about Skate or Die: Tour de Thrash.  What is interesting is that you can find reviews of this game from when it was new (and since).  None of the reviews are very complimentary with one magazine claiming it was the worst game they reviewed in 1991.  In contrast, I found the game to actually quite fun.  It reminded me of the 2600 versions of the Epyx "Games" series.  Just a short menu to get you to 2 events (Half Pipe and Race), but it certainly captured what was fun about Skate or Die.  This might be a game that has actually aged better than expected.  When it was new, I could see how some might think it was overpriced and too simple, but now it provides a nice break from a lot of the other game genres on the GameBoy.  It gets the fun of the half pipe right and the racing is reminiscent of Antarctic Adventure (nothing wrong with that).

 

Another thing . . . I didn't expect to like the music in these games as much as I have.  I know that people have been using GameBoys for electronic music for some time, but I just thought it was nostalgia.  I actually think the music and sound is better than the NES, but I don't know what the hardware differences are like.

 

 

 

[Nintendo64]

Well I only played one game this week, but it was a good one

 

Super Nintendo

 

Super Mario World                 - 185 Minutes              This is a really good addition to the Super Mario Series. Growing up with a Sega Genesis, I really didn't have a chance to play this game, although I might have played it on one or two occasions at someone else's house. I also wanted to try to complete a game this week, and I was able to do that with this game. Come to think of it, this might be the first Super Nintendo game that I have actually beaten. Either way I definitely recommend playing this game if you ever get the chance.

Edited November 30, 2020 by Nintendo64

[Nintendo64]

3 hours ago, wongojack said:

Skate or Die: Tour de Thrash

 

Another thing . . . I didn't expect to like the music in these games as much as I have.  I know that people have been using GameBoys for electronic music for some time, but I just thought it was nostalgia.  I actually think the music and sound is better than the NES, but I don't know what the hardware differences are like.

That's funny because I used to like to play Skate or Die for the NES when I was a kid, but I was never any good at the half pipe part of the game and would always fall down. Also that is very interesting you say that about the music pertaining to the Gameboy. Do you think that the Super Gameboy enhances the sound for the system, aside from having better speakers coming through the television set?

 

Edited November 30, 2020 by Nintendo64

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom! - 111 minutes

Solar Fox - 44 minutes

 

 

[+wongojack]

6 hours ago, Nintendo64 said:

That's funny because I used to like to play Skate or Die for the NES when I was a kid, but I was never any good at the half pipe part of the game and would always fall down. Also that is very interesting you say that about the music pertaining to the Gameboy. Do you think that the Super Gameboy enhances the sound for the system, aside from having better speakers coming through the television set?

 

Yeah Skate or Die is a classic.  I first played it on the C64 and it is a great game on that platform.  I think I enjoyed the Half-Pipe section on California Games better though.

 

As far as the SGB enhancing the audio, I don't know.  I found this on wikipedia (although, I didn't play any of these games this week):

"It is also possible for Super Game Boy games to make use of the Super NES hardware for extra effects, as demonstrated in Contra: The Alien Wars, Donkey Kong, Kirby's Dream Land 2, A Bug's Life, FIFA 98: Road to World Cup, Madden '97, Animaniacs and Toy Story; these games had expanded sound when used with the Super Game Boy."

 

I think I was just generally ignorant of the music that could be produced on the GameBoy.  I've spent a lot more time on the NES over the years and the music there has a certain quality that I don't always appreciate.  This just seemed different.

 

[Skippy B. Coyote]

No modern gaming for my household once again this week, though I did log a fair bit of time in the 2016 DOOM reboot and Breath of the Wild on the Switch for the modern tracker.

 

 

13 hours ago, wongojack said:

As for a surprise in the group, I'll throw out a comment about Skate or Die: Tour de Thrash.  What is interesting is that you can find reviews of this game from when it was new (and since).  None of the reviews are very complimentary with one magazine claiming it was the worst game they reviewed in 1991.  In contrast, I found the game to actually quite fun.  It reminded me of the 2600 versions of the Epyx "Games" series.  Just a short menu to get you to 2 events (Half Pipe and Race), but it certainly captured what was fun about Skate or Die.  This might be a game that has actually aged better than expected.  When it was new, I could see how some might think it was overpriced and too simple, but now it provides a nice break from a lot of the other game genres on the GameBoy.  It gets the fun of the half pipe right and the racing is reminiscent of Antarctic Adventure (nothing wrong with that).

 

If you had fun with that one I'd highly recommend checking out Skate or Die: Bad 'N Rad on the Game Boy as well! It was published by Konami and is literally just Castlevania on a skateboard, which sounds nuts but it totally works! It's one of those bizarre genre defying games that's a real hidden gem in the Game Boy library. 

 

Edited November 30, 2020 by Skippy B. Coyote

[+thegoldenband]

My times for the week:

 

NES:
Bases Loaded - 327 min.

 

Sega CD:
Third World War - 27 min.

 

PlayStation:
Buttsubushi - 145 min.
Dreams to Reality - 75 min.
Hyper Final Match Tennis - 185 min.
Missland - 10 min.

 

Dreamcast:
102 Dalmatians - 16 min.
18 Wheeler American Pro Trucker - 7 min.
Bangai-O - 6 min.
Boku no Tennis Jinsei - 6 min.
 

[carlsson]

On 11/29/2020 at 6:10 PM, Prosystemsearch said:

Arcadia 2001
Pong- 2 minutes
Galaxia- 4_1/2 minutes

After close evaluation, I take it you're playing from some sort of multicart or possibly the WinArcadia emulator? No matter how much I looked, I could not find Galaxia (or Galaxian) released, but figured out that at least the emulator plays the Zaccaria 1979 coin-op, which means I moved your minutes of Galaxia to Arcade. Similarly, while Breakaway has a Pong-like mode, I figure you may have played an AY-3-8550 based Pong which caused me to move those minutes as well, to Pong - Generic.

15 hours ago, wongojack said:

Every game marked with an asterix is in a non-grey cart shell.  That typically means it has additional color modes for the GBC.

 

Gameboy

• Pokemon Gold* 313
• Quest for Camelot* 20
• R-Type DX* 22
• Super Breakout* 48
• Toy Story 2* 23

I did so that every game already entered for plain Game Boy got listed under that system, and the five remaining games above were only listed as GBC games so I added the minutes such. Since you marked a few more with asterisks, it probably means that some of the GB games in the tracker really are GBC games with backwards compatibility, just like we now have GBC games that happen to play on GB... But hey, we're here for the fun, not academic reports!

[+wongojack]

5 minutes ago, carlsson said:

I did so that every game already entered for plain Game Boy got listed under that system, and the five remaining games above were only listed as GBC games so I added the minutes such. Since you marked a few more with asterisks, it probably means that some of the GB games in the tracker really are GBC games with backwards compatibility, just like we now have GBC games that happen to play on GB... But hey, we're here for the fun, not academic reports!

Yeah, let's not make this an application for citizenship or anything.  Go with the flow . . .

[carlsson]

I wonder in which country you need to know which games for the Game Boy series play in colour or not in order to be granted citizenship. Nintendoland?

[+wongojack]

Just now, carlsson said:

I wonder in which country you need to know which games for the Game Boy series play in colour or not in order to be granted citizenship. Nintendoland?

[+wongojack]

That .gif also works for last week's post about "buttsushi"

[DragonGrafx-16]

Oop I forgot to post my times:

 

Thunder Force V (21 mins)
Batsugun (23 mins)
Daytona USA (15 ins)
Layer Section (22 mins)
Sega Rally Championship (15 mins)
Saturn Bomberman (46 mins)
DonPachi (35 mins)

 

All Sega Saturn

[Prosystemsearch]

13 hours ago, carlsson said:

After close evaluation, I take it you're playing from some sort of multicart or possibly the WinArcadia emulator? No matter how much I looked, I could not find Galaxia (or Galaxian) released, but figured out that at least the emulator plays the Zaccaria 1979 coin-op, which means I moved your minutes of Galaxia to Arcade. Similarly, while Breakaway has a Pong-like mode, I figure you may have played an AY-3-8550 based Pong which caused me to move those minutes as well, to Pong - Generic.

I did so that every game already entered for plain Game Boy got listed under that system, and the five remaining games above were only listed as GBC games so I added the minutes such. Since you marked a few more with asterisks, it probably means that some of the GB games in the tracker really are GBC games with backwards compatibility, just like we now have GBC games that happen to play on GB... But hey, we're here for the fun, not academic reports!

Yes, I played on Wincadia emulator.

[carlsson]

Cool. If you happen to play any Interton VC-4000 / APVS 1292 games later in the same emulator, those are listed as their own format (VC-4000) here in the tracker even if the emulator handles them all.

[carlsson]

Here's the summary for Week 48, running from November 23 - 29. We logged 3678 minutes of eligible play, playing 75 games on a total of 15 systems.

 

Top 10:

 

1. Star Trek 25th Anniversary (Game Boy) - 361 min.
2. Bases Loaded (NES/Famicom) - 327 min. (#5)
3. Pokémon Gold (Game Boy Color) - 313 min.
4. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 216 min. (#3)
5. Hyper Final Match Tennis (PlayStation) - 185 min.
5. Joust (Atari 2600) - 185 min.
5. Super Mario World (SNES) - 185 min.
8. Buttsubushi (PlayStation) - 145 min.
9. Mario Bros. (Arcade) - 121 min. (#2)
10. Crossbow (Atari 7800) - 115 min. (#8)
 

Pre-NES top 10:

 

1. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 216 min. (PN#2)
2. Joust (Atari 2600) - 185 min.
3. Mario Bros. (Arcade) - 121 min. (PN#1)
4. Crossbow (Atari 7800) - 115 min. (PN#5)
5. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 111 min. (PN#3)
6. Eggomania (Atari 2600) - 95 min.
7. Asteroids (Arcade) - 17 min.
8. Galaxian (Arcade) - 14 min.
9. Cavernia (Atari 8-bit) - 11 min.
10. Lock N Chase (Atari 2600) - 9 min.
 

Top 10 systems:

 

1. Game Boy (1013) (#4)
2. Atari 2600 (682) (#3)
3. PlayStation (461) (#1)
4. Game Boy Color (426) (#8)
5. NES/Famicom (327) (#6)
6. SNES (185)
7. Sega Saturn (177)
8. Arcade (157) (#2)
9. Atari 7800 (115) (#5)
10. Emerson Arcadia 2001 (45)
 

The two related systems Game Boy and Game Boy Color have a strong week, with Star Trek 25th Anniversary in first and Pokémon Gold in third place, with Bases Loaded inbetween. Pre-NES it is another week for Solar Fox, though the selection of games is a little weak meaning 9 minutes is enough to enter the list. The systems list sees a rare visit from the Emerson Arcadia 2001.

 

Bases Loaded (NES/Famicom) also becomes member #423 on the 1000 Minute Club with a total of 1092 minutes.