What have you actually PLAYED tracker for 2021 (Season 14)

[Steven Pendleton]

1 hour ago, DragonGrafx-16 said:

Yeah I have no need for a headphone jack and if I could I would replace my Model 1 Genesis with a VA4 Model 2 and save some more space.  Never mind. I would then need a Master System XD

If you REALLY want to save space, get the Mega Jet, as it can natively run Mark III and Master System games with a ROM cart, unlike the Nomad. It's also not that much bigger than the Vita, incredibly. Pretty sure the Mega Adaptor will not fit on the Mega Jet, though. Perspective makes it look huge, but it's actually really tiny:

 

[DragonGrafx-16]

31 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

If you REALLY want to save space, get the Mega Jet, as it can natively run Mark III and Master System games with a ROM cart, unlike the Nomad. It's also not that much bigger than the Vita, incredibly. Pretty sure the Mega Adaptor will not fit on the Mega Jet, though. Perspective makes it look huge, but it's actually really tiny:

 

Nah it's fine. I'm sure with some rearranging I can fit my Duo RX since I won't need my white HuCard only PC Engine hooked up anymore. 

 

And besides all of my Genesis games are well Genesis and would not work in the Mega Jet. lol

Edited March 22, 2021 by DragonGrafx-16

[+thegoldenband]

My time for the week:

 

3DO:
Phoenix 3 - 48 min.

 

This game is so gloriously Nineties. I love it.

[agb]

Times for the week

NES

Galaga 13   Fun game

Hogans Alley 24

Super Mario Bros 63

 

Atari 2600

Atlantis 39 for HSC

Demons to Diamonds 7

Eggomania 31

Human Cannonball 25 FB HSC

Solar Fox 103

 

 

[Steven Pendleton]

1 hour ago, DragonGrafx-16 said:

Nah it's fine. I'm sure with some rearranging I can fit my Duo RX since I won't need my white HuCard only PC Engine hooked up anymore. 

 

And besides all of my Genesis games are well Genesis and would not work in the Mega Jet. lol

Genesis games will fit in a Japanese Mega Drive. The problem at that point would be the region lock and most games are not region locked. Still, the Mega Jet is pretty rare and they want way too much for them online, so at that point you might as well get a Nomad anyway, especially since the Nomad and the Mega Jet are basically the same thing. Nomad can't run Mark III or Master System games without a simple mod, though. I wonder why they specifically disabled that on the Nomad but left it on the Mega Jet.

Edited March 22, 2021 by Steven Pendleton

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Atlantis - 45 minutes

Hunchy 2 - 5 minutes

Kaboom! - 126 minutes

Solar Fox - 50 minutes

 

Stink at Atlantis; Out of practice on Hunchy 2; made it to 80,000 on Kaboom!; made it to 1 million once on Solar Fox but my left hand started to cramp so didn't get much further.

[+wongojack]

Atari 2600 

Beamrider 52 

Drive 16 

Kaboom 26 

Super Breakout 18 

 

C64 

Arkanoid 55 

Beamrider 27 

Galencia 21 

Montezuma's Revenge 42 

 

Dreamcast 

Re-Volt 6 

 

Intellivision 

Beamrider 90 (pb 70494 sec 21) 

Choplifter 7 

Clowns and Balloons 8 

Donkey Kong Arcade (aka D1K) 2 

Donkey Kong Arcade 2 (aka D2K) 92 

Flapee Bird 2 

King of the Mountain 6 

Leprechaun's Flight 8 

Mermaid (v 0.8) 10 

Missile Domination 2 

MM SP Skiing 25 

Ms. Pac Man 2 

Robot Blast 6 

Rocketeer (alpha) 4 

Shark Shark 7 

Shark Shark 2 10 

Space Raid 22 

Super Chef BurgerTime 15 

Tic Tac Toe (Claus Baekkel) 5 

 

I started the week playing various Intellivision games on my new LTO flash cart.  @carlsson - I promise to test Slalom soon ;).  I also popped in a stand-alone copy of D2K that I happen to own.  As the week went on, I ended up getting into some simple projects that I have been putting off.  The first ones were to refurbish some Atari Joysticks and paddles that I have the parts for, so I ended up testing those in various C64 and Atari games.  The piece of software that I used the most this week was probably a C64 program called "Game Controller Tester."  I also ended up testing a little cable that combines Chroma and Luma on my Commodore 1702 monitor.  That let me connect my Dreamcast via S-Video and play a race in Re-Volt.

[+wongojack]

On 3/15/2021 at 5:08 PM, wongojack said:

 

 

Intellivision 

80s Hits V1 8 

 

FYI that this is just a music player.  I noticed the discussion and thought I'd point it out.  Probably shouldn't have been logged.

[carlsson]

Personally I'm not opposed to include some non-games, but it isn't really much of an effort to load a music demo to listen to while you're doing something else. Using a vintage word processor or a drawing program might be enjoyable, but it stretches the intent of the tracker a little. Something like Game of Life probably is at the border to what is a game and what is artwork, i.e. defining a pattern of cells and see for how long it lives.

 

For that matter, Slalom on the Intellivision is the game I've spent by far least amount of time developing. Essentially one evening trying to figure out how the language/scrolling worked and much later at New Year's Eve, give it a little polish and a title screen to increase the number of entries to the contest. You might enjoy Lucia, Merry Memory or Ouranos more, or even the unfinished Alligator Swamp.

[+jgkspsx]

I think including music cartridges would unfairly bias the results, as I have left Remute albums looping for tens of hours on end

[carlsson]

Yeah, I used to listen to High Voltage SID Collection as background music when working, which is a nice thing to mention in your weekly report but isn't the same as playing the games from which the music origins.

[+wongojack]

1 hour ago, carlsson said:

You might enjoy Lucia, Merry Memory or Ouranos more, or even the unfinished Alligator Swamp.

I'm not sure i've got all 4 of those on the LTO, but I want them.   I'll check this week.

[carlsson]

Lucia (forgotten in the INTV ROM thread), Merry Memory and Ouranos! (the only contest entry I was somewhat pleased with, but not so much others), plus the unfinished Alligator Swamp.

Edited March 22, 2021 by carlsson

[Nintendo64]

Here are the retro games I played this past week.

 

Atari 2600

 

Communist Mutants From Space          -55 Minutes  This game is a really fun and versatile shooter for the Atari 2600. I tried out the different modes/options for the week, which helped put a different spin on the way the game plays. Thank you to wongojack for making me aware of the different game modes for this classic game.

 

Demon Attack                                        -15 Minutes    The guided fire option in Communist Mutants reminds me of mode 3 in Demon Attack, which also makes the game play differently. I like how certain developers did the best with what they could for this system, and input the different modes to change the way the games play depending on the options you choose.

 

NES

 

Vice Project Doom                                 -40 Minutes    This is a really fun game that starts out with a Spy Hunter style first level. The second and third level are vastly different from the first level, which makes this game really interesting to play. It is always enjoyable to play games that have variated levels throughout the game.

 

TurboGrafx 16

 

Final Soldier                                           -40 Minutes    This is a really well done shooter for a system that seems to have plenty in that genera. The graphics and gameplay are really well done, but the thing that stood out most to me was the music: it has a great soundtrack and found it really enjoyable to listen to while playing the various levels.

Edited March 22, 2021 by Nintendo64

[Nintendo64]

6 hours ago, wongojack said:

As the week went on, I ended up getting into some simple projects that I have been putting off.  The first ones were to refurbish some Atari Joysticks and paddles that I have the parts for, so I ended up testing those in various C64 and Atari games.  The piece of software that I used the most this week was probably a C64 program called "Game Controller Tester."  I also ended up testing a little cable that combines Chroma and Luma on my Commodore 1702 monitor.  That let me connect my Dreamcast via S-Video and play a race in Re-Volt.

That's really an interesting project that you did for the week and its really cool that there is a program called "Game Controller Tester".  I also looked into that game called Re-Volt and it looked like it was a fun game to play, kind of reminding me of a Micro Machine type of game.

 

6 hours ago, Atarian7 said:

Stink at Atlantis; made it to 1 million once on Solar Fox but my left hand started to cramp so didn't get much further.

I can understand how the Atari 2600 controller could make your hand cramp up after playing that game for such a long period of time. I'm also no good at Atlantis as well for the little I played it a while ago.

 

18 hours ago, agb said:

Galaga 13   Fun game

Glad to see this on the list. I think it is a really fun game to play as well, and also very challenging.

 

On 3/21/2021 at 11:31 AM, Steven Pendleton said:

Thunder Force III - 37
Thunder Force IV - 31
Thunder Force V - 7
Thunder Force AC - 5

This looks like a really fun series to play on the Saturn. I have played the series on the sega genesis, which was fun and really challenging. Maybe one day I will get a better emulation setup for the saturn because the one I have currently is not so great. I am finding out that Sega Saturn is not the easiest system to emulate, especially the syncing of the music in certain games. Everyone seems to always talk bad about N64 emulation, and although certain games don't run so well, I always thought the old version of project64 does a really good job emulating the system.

 

  

5 hours ago, carlsson said:

For that matter, Slalom on the Intellivision is the game I've spent by far least amount of time developing. Essentially one evening trying to figure out how the language/scrolling worked and much later at New Year's Eve, give it a little polish and a title screen to increase the number of entries to the contest.

That is really interesting that you developed a game for the Intellivision. I would love one day to try to just edit certain sprites in old NES games.

Edited March 22, 2021 by Nintendo64

[Steven Pendleton]

4 hours ago, Nintendo64 said:

This looks like a really fun series to play on the Saturn. I have played the series on the sega genesis, which was fun and really challenging. Maybe one day I will get a better emulation setup for the saturn because the one I have currently is not so great. I am finding out that Sega Saturn is not the easiest system to emulate, especially the syncing of the music in certain games. Everyone seems to always talk bad about N64 emulation, and although certain games don't run so well, I always thought the old version of project64 does a really good job emulating the system.

They are literally identical to the Genesis/MD versions aside from the addition of kids mode and the sound effects sounding worse on the Saturn. Yes, worse on the Saturn. The way that the music loops on the Saturn is quite poor, as well, as it kind of suddenly fades out and then restarts. The only real advantage is that Thunder Force IV gets to use the Saturn's extra Blast Processing^TM to reduce the slowdown. I suppose that the Saturn is also the only home port of Thunder Force AC, though (the only other releases that I am aware of are emulated, not ported), so if you like Thunder Force IV and AC, Gold Pack 2 is a good thing to buy. They also save your settings and I think maybe your high scores, but other than that, there's no difference at all.

[Skippy B. Coyote]

Super big week for gaming this week! Aside from a little Pac-Man on the Game Boy Color it was all PlayStation around here this past week, with the misses wrapping up her playthrough of Resident Evil 2 then starting in on Resident Evil 3 and me finishing the original Tomb Raider then getting most of the way through Tomb Raider II. We're absolutely loving the the XStation modded PlayStation and I have a feeling that even once the novelty of, "Oooh! New toy!" wears off it's going to continue to see a lot of use. As far as next week goes, we'll probably finish up our respective games of Resident Evil 3 and Tomb Raider II, then I think I might give the original Resident Evil a play since yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of it's release in Japan. The Neo Geo MVSX 3/4 scale arcade machine I purchased not long ago is set to arrive in the mail this week, along with some proper Happ buttons with 20g soft touch microswitches to replace the purportedly lousy buttons on it, so I imagine we'll have some Neo Geo time to contribute next week in addition to all the PlayStation goodness. That's all for this week though, so until next time and as always, best wishes and happy gaming to you and yours!

 

 

 

Game Boy Color

Pac-Man: Special Color Edition - 31 minutes

 

PlayStation

Resident Evil 2 - 369 minutes

Resident Evil 3: Nemesis - 384 minutes

Tomb Raider - 336 minutes

Tomb Raider II - 1,104 minutes

 

 

Total Video Game Play Time This Week

2,224 minutes (37 hours 4 minutes) [2,224 minutes eligible]

 

Individual System Play Times This Week

PlayStation: 2,193 minutes

Game Boy Color: 31 minutes

[carlsson]

Here's the summary for Week 11, running from March 15 - 21. We logged 5004 minutes of eligible play, playing 105 games on a total of 23 systems.

 

Top 10:

 

1. Tomb Raider II (PlayStation) - 1104 min.
2. Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (PlayStation) - 384 min.
3. Resident Evil 2 (PlayStation) - 369 min. (#3)
4. Tomb Raider (PlayStation) - 336 min. (#1)
5. Puzzled (Arcade) - 161 min.
6. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 153 min. (#5)
7. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 152 min. (#9)
8. Draconian (Atari 2600) - 150 min.
9. Donkey Kong Arcade 2 (D2K) (Intellivision) - 92 min.
10. Beamrider (Intellivision) - 90 min.

 

Pre-NES top 10:

 

1. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 153 min. (PN#1)
2. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 152 min. (PN#4)
3. Draconian (Atari 2600) - 150 min.
4. Donkey Kong Arcade 2 (D2K) (Intellivision) - 92 min.
5. Beamrider (Intellivision) - 90 min.
6. Atlantis (Atari 2600) - 84 min.
7. Pac-Man (Atari 2600) - 60 min.
8. Arkanoid (C64) - 55 min.
8. Communist Mutants from Space (Atari 2600) - 55 min.
10. Beamrider (Atari 2600) - 52 min.

 

Top 10 systems:

 

1. PlayStation (2193) (#1)
2. Atari 2600 (849) (#2)
3. Intellivision (323) (#3)
4. Sega Saturn (260)
5. TG-16/PC Engine (242)
6. NES/Famicom (188) (#5)
7. Arcade (172)
8. C64 (145) (#7)
9. Genesis (121)
10. Game Gear (95)
 

The top four games this week all origin on the PlayStation! I'm sure it has happened before, in particular in the beginning when the tracker was entirely an Atari 2600 affair, but I don't know when it happened most recently. We have two Tomb Raiders vs two Resident Evils, and the second Lara Croft installment wins over Jill Valentine, Claire Redfield, Leon S. Kennedy and whichever other playable characters those games have.

 

Pre-NES is almost as impressive with three 2600 titles in the top: Solar Fox, Kaboom! and Draconian. The later becomes member #439 in the 1000 Minute Club with 1001 minutes!

 

Systems wise, it comes as no surprise that the PlayStation stays in the top with almost 44% of the total playtime this week. Just outside of the top 10 we even have the Tiger R-Zone at 80 minutes which actually happens to double its all-time total from 80 to 160 minutes!

[Eltigro]

Damn, I knew I was going to be too late...  my stats for last week...  only 1 game.

 

PS1

Suikoden - 1260 min (Three streams, 8:52 on Tues, 5:45 on Wed, and 6:22 on Thurs.)

[carlsson]

No worries, we'll add to next week.

[Eltigro]

Okay... but I played another eight hours today.  lol

[Steven Pendleton]

Shouldn't Puzzled count as Neo Geo AES/MVS instead of arcade? I wonder if the Neo Geo would count as "arcade" if the AES or maybe even the Neo Geo CD never existed.

[carlsson]

I was unsure about that. If it existed as an arcade cabinet, yet with Neo Geo hardware, is it an arcade game or a Neo Geo game? We previously had a few games played in MAME that look like arcade games but actually never existed in their own cabinets so those were listed as Neo Geo games. I don't know how reliable Arcade-Museum is in this regard, but they got a long list of games in the Neo Geo MVS class which then should be moved/merged from Arcade to Neo Geo if we stick to that principle.

[Steven Pendleton]

5 minutes ago, carlsson said:

I was unsure about that. If it existed as an arcade cabinet, yet with Neo Geo hardware, is it an arcade game or a Neo Geo game? We previously had a few games played in MAME that look like arcade games but actually never existed in their own cabinets so those were listed as Neo Geo games. I don't know how reliable Arcade-Museum is in this regard, but they got a long list of games in the Neo Geo MVS class which then should be moved/merged from Arcade to Neo Geo if we stick to that principle.

Yeah, that's the thing, since the Neo Geo MVS itself is an arcade machine and the AES is literally identical to the MVS except for the cartridges and the soft DIP switch settings that run the games in AES mode instead of MVS mode. If you take games that never even got AES releases, like Shock Troopers, and run them on your AES with a cartridge converter, they still have their own AES modes that run perfectly.

 

I think maybe it's the existence of the AES that causes people to think of Neo Geo games as Neo Geo games instead of arcade games. People who are REALLY into Sega arcade games might separate games that run on various Sega arcade hardware (System 16, System 24, Y Board, Model 1, Model 2, NAOMI, etc.), but most people generally just think of them as "Sega arcade games"... but then again, the Neo Geo itself as an arcade machine and all of its games were heavily marketed under the Neo Geo brand to make the Neo Geo stand out from other arcade machines at the time.

 

There was something else that I thought of, but I kind of forgot what it was, so I'll have to end it here until I hopefully remember what it was that I was going to say~

[carlsson]

In this case, Puzzled for the Neo Geo AES/MVS has not yet been tracked so it would be easy to just move an entry, but I realize things get complicated if there were cabinets that to the common man look like arcade games, contain Neo Geo hardware and that the exact same game may exist in other media formats to be played on a home console. I see what you mean by the Sega comparison, and for that matter we have 8 Vs games (e.g. Balloon Fight, Duck Hunt, Super Mario Bros) listed as Arcade while those most certainly consist of Famicom hardware put into a cabinet.

 

Perhaps we'll have to live with that Arcade is an anomaly of a system description, which we already know from the fact that it may contain so many different types of hardware and effectively runs from 1971/72 to 2000 in this tracker, which is why I previously noted the release year for every game. Thegoldenband asked if arcade games should be ordered by date of system hardware instead of release date but that is a bit much splitting hairs for what I have time for.