What have you actually PLAYED tracker for 2022 (Season 15)

[DragonGrafx-16]

C64:

Zeta Wing - 86 mins
Beamrider - 73 mins 
Galenica - 11 mins
R-Type - 14 mins
Gyruss - 13 mins (plus the 19 from last week that was missed)
Tenebra - 39 mins (A new game released last December... it's a neat puzzle game involving torches)
The Great Giana Sisters - 10 mins

 

NES:

Super Mario Bros. - 24 mins

[+jgkspsx]

It was a breakout week for me... a Super Breakout week, even.

 

Arcade:

Space Panic - 25 minutes.

What a frustrating but compelling side-view Heiankyo Alien clone. I liked it better when it was called The Berlin Wall for the Game Gear. Still, given that it pre-dates Donkey Kong, this has to be one of the most influential games nobody ever talks about.

 

Super Breakout - 15 minutes.

The multicade I was using has only a trackball, and it wasn't calibrated very well for this. I tried my best, it wasn't much - I couldn't spin, so I tried to nudge.

 

Super Bug - 20 minutes.

This is pretty fun on the VCS with the classic joystick in paddle mode, but the overloading of the up and down joystick directions to shift is pretty frustrating. This is still pretty remarkably fun!

 

 

Atari 2600:

Saboteur - 25 minutes

 

 

Super Breakout - 250 minutes for HSC, games 5 and 7

 

Atari 5200:

Super Breakout - 15 minutes

 

 

Xaris Arena - 25 minutes

Kind of like Breakout fused with Pong. It's a lot of fun but a little more frantic than I can keep up with.

 

 

Atari 7800:

Food Fight - 20 minutes for HSC

 

 

Atari Lynx:

Unseen - 45 minutes. I think I have a pretty good mental model at this point and I think I know what I want to try, but I wore out my batteries 75% of the way through a promising attempt. It may not be widely known, but you have to "lose" at least once in order to get the real non-bad endings.

 

Milton Bradley Microvision:

Alien Raiders - 230 minutes.

Judging by the videos on YouTube and the scores on HighScores.com, nobody else on earth knows how to play this one right. Never thought I'd be the world's best player at anything that wasn't released by Tiger Electronics, but here we are. This is a very unique game with only one similar game I know of - Demons to Diamonds on the Atari 2600. This is like a cross of that with Space Invaders. But this one came first by two years!

 

 

Nintendo Entertainment System:

Mappy - 30 minutes for HSC

 

 

Nintendo Virtual Boy:

Got to try out some unreleased games and rarities...

 

Bound High - 45 minutes

This apparently finished and unreleased game is a ton of fun. Apparently it makes a lot of people motion sick, but not me. My only complaint is that it immediately resets when you lose and your score disappears, but that's hopefully only true in story mode. It's a meaty and compelling game that uses 3D to good effect. It reminds me of the Skweek series. It got an OG Game Boy sequel (?!?!) - Chalvo 55 is a different genre (puzzle platformer instead of arcade) and perspective (side view instead of top view), but keeps the bouncing ball character. It's pretty great and if it had been released it would have been one of the more essential Virtual Boy games.

 

Faceball Remastered - 20 minutes

You would think the double d pad of the VB would be perfect for a FPS, but the control seems really laggy. I've also played enough of Faceball that I expect not to be able to strafe, so part of the control problems I've had may be my own habits getting in the way. But it also seems REALLY HARD compared to other versions of Faceball.

 

Space Invaders Virtual Collection - 20 minutes

I played the English translation. It's HARD in virtual mode due to an overly big hitbox and the difficulty of seeing where enemy shots will end up, but it looks pretty cool. I'm not sure what the point of playing the regular mode is, but I hear it's more playable.

 

 

Space Pinball - 25 minutes

This prototype for Galactic Pinball has a number of different tables and different mechanics. It is meant for sales demos instead of playing so there are no real high score table and it's really easy to accidentally exit the table, but if you condition yourself not to accidentally end your game it's a lot of fun. It's different enough that I recommend playing it if you can.

 

Sega Master System:

Where In the World Is Carmen Sandiego? - 90 minutes

While adult me knows all of the geographic clues without having to look them up, dodging bullets and knives proved to be a big problem. I started on Private Eye difficulty and played through two cases without being able to avoid the henchmen attacks. I went back and finished the Sleuth difficulty and got promoted up to Private Eye, and did better, but took a wrong turn and called it a night.

 

[TheGameCollector]

This week I don't have any times to add, but I have a classic gaming related story. I was just too busy adjusting an old TV, setting it up and rearranging my adjustable metal shelving for my games to truly play any. I started up some old basics like Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Kirby's Adventure, Sonic the Hedgehog, Pilotwings, Kirby Super Star and Super Mario World, just to adjust the settings and compare between games until they all looked right, but I'm not going to count any of that as actual gaming time as most of the time they ran they were just on but inactive. Any time I tried to make this old 1984 wood cabinet RCA tube TV as bright as my other tubes, it would just get blurry even after turning the focus on the flyback all the way up. I think restoring it any further is beyond me but it looks decent enough to use it, especially in the dark.

[Steven Pendleton]

I forgot something again because I forgot to take a picture of the cabinet I played it on to remind myself.

 

Arcade

Thunder Dragon 2 - 10

[+wongojack]

No classic time for me, but I did add a lot of time playing pinball collections in the modern tracker.  That's pretty classic right?

[onlyinajeep]

Arcade @ https://www.thequarterbarrel.com/

Elevator Action - 12 minutes

Missile Command - 5 minutes

Pole Position II - 5 minutes

 

CoCo 3

Contras - 10 minutes

 

NES via Switch

Dig Dug II - 20 minutes

NES Open - 10 minutes

 

[Skippy B. Coyote]

A pretty laid back week for me this week on account of other hobbies being a bit distracting, but I did still manage to get in some gaming time! I spent most of my gaming time just finishing up a Hard difficulty playthrough of Alien: Isolation on the Switch, then played some Guardian for the Atari 2600 High Score Club as well as a bit of Princess Rescue just for my own enjoyment

 

 

Ineligible
Alien: Isolation (Nintendo Switch) - 620 minutes

 

Atari 2600
Guardian - 56 minutes
Princess Rescue - 43 minutes

 

Total Video Game Play Time This Week
719 minutes (11 hours 59 minutes) [99 minutes eligible]

 

Individual System Play Times This Week
Nintendo Switch: 620 minutes
Atari 2600: 99 minutes

Edited April 4, 2022 by Skippy B. Coyote

[DragonGrafx-16]

20 hours ago, DragonGrafx-16 said:

C64:

Zeta Wing - 86 mins
Beamrider - 73 mins 
Galenica - 11 mins
R-Type - 14 mins
Gyruss - 13 mins (plus the 19 from last week that was missed)
Tenebra - 39 mins (A new game released last December... it's a neat puzzle game involving torches)
The Great Giana Sisters - 10 mins

 

NES:

Super Mario Bros. - 24 mins

I forgot that I played around 14 mins of Soul Force on C64.

[Eltigro]

9 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

I forgot something again because I forgot to take a picture of the cabinet I played it on to remind myself.

 

Arcade

Thunder Dragon 2 - 10

 

Yeah, when I go to an arcade I have a hard time remembering everything.  I had to sit back and really think about what all my son and I played at the National Videogame Museum a couple weeks ago.  At the time I'm always thinking, "I'll remember" but then I don't.

[littleman jack]

Atari 800 (with my son)

Crossfire--15 minutes

Jawbreaker--35 minutes

Jumpman Junior--45 minutes

Maniac Miner--20 minutes

Preppie II--60 minutes

Star League Baseball--50 minutes

Tail of Beta Lyrae--30 minutes

 

 

[Steven Pendleton]

2 hours ago, Eltigro said:

 

Yeah, when I go to an arcade I have a hard time remembering everything.  I had to sit back and really think about what all my son and I played at the National Videogame Museum a couple weeks ago.  At the time I'm always thinking, "I'll remember" but then I don't.

Yeah, I will always forget something if I don't take a picture of the cabinet. There was that time a while ago when I played like 17 games or 19 games or something like that. No way in hell could I have remembered all of them if I hadn't taken pictures of all of them.

[carlsson]

Here's the summary for Week 13, running from Mar 28 - Apr 3. We logged 3152 minutes of eligible play, playing 68 games on a total of 15 systems.

 

Top 10:

 

1. Super Breakout (Atari 2600) - 761 min. (#2)
2. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 236 min. (#4)
3. Alien Raiders (Microvision) - 230 min.
4. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 102 min. (#7)
5. Tatsujin (Arcade) - 96 min.
6. Pac-Man Collection (Atari 7800) - 90 min.
6. Where In the World Is Carmen Sandiego? (Sega Master System) - 90 min.
8. Guardian (Atari 2600) - 86 min.
8. Zeta Wing (C64) - 86 min.
10. Tail of Beta Lyrae, The (Atari 8-bit) - 78 min.

 

Pre-NES top 10:

 

1. Super Breakout (Atari 2600) - 761 min. (PN#1)
2. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 236 min. (PN#2)
3. Alien Raiders (Microvision) - 230 min.
4. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 102 min. (PN#4)
5. Pac-Man Collection (Atari 7800) - 90 min.
6. Guardian (Atari 2600) - 86 min.
6. Zeta Wing (C64) - 86 min. (PN#10)
8. Tail of Beta Lyrae, The (Atari 8-bit) - 78 min.
9. Beamrider (C64) - 73 min.
10. Preppie II (Atari 8-bit) - 60 min.

 

Top 10 systems:

 

1. Atari 2600 - 1277 min. (#1)
2. Arcade - 411 min. (#3)
3. Atari 8-bit - 303 min.
4. C64 - 279 min. (#4)
5. Microvision - 230 min. (#10)
6. Atari 7800 - 155 min.
7. NES/Famicom - 154 min. (#5)
8. Virtual Boy - 110 min.
9. Sega Master System - 90 min.
10. Atari Lynx - 45 min.
 

With the exceptions of Tatsujin and Carmen Sandiego, all the other entries on the overall top 10 list this week turn out to be pre-NES entries, headed by Super Breakout on the Atari 2600 well ahead of Solar Fox which though takes second place by a margin of 6 minutes over Alien Raiders on the Microvision. The most played system again is the 2600 on a list where 50% of the entries are new from last week.

 

No new additions to the 1000, 5000 or 10000 Minute Clubs. For those who don't keep track, I recently added similar "clubs" to the modern tracker, though with the bar a bit higher at 50 hours (3000 min), 150 hours (9000 min) and 300 hours (18000 min) which so far relatively well in percentages of total number of games match the classic tracker.

[+wongojack]

18 hours ago, Eltigro said:

 

Yeah, when I go to an arcade I have a hard time remembering everything.  I had to sit back and really think about what all my son and I played at the National Videogame Museum a couple weeks ago.  At the time I'm always thinking, "I'll remember" but then I don't.

 

16 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Yeah, I will always forget something if I don't take a picture of the cabinet. There was that time a while ago when I played like 17 games or 19 games or something like that. No way in hell could I have remembered all of them if I hadn't taken pictures of all of them.

I'm always taking notes in OneNote on my phone anyway (for this tracker), so I usually just make a note when I'm finished playing a physical machine.  It is a little time consuming, but it works.

[digdugnate]

Here's my Classic time for the week; I'm pretty well done with any time worth tracking.

 

Arcade:

Donkey Kong - 45 minutes

Donkey Kong 3 - 35 minutes

Mappy - 35 minutes

Rally-X - 15 minutes

 

[Steven Pendleton]

I only slept for like 4 hours for some reason, so I'm going to post early and sleep. Same! Same! Same! is here. Some other things, as well, but mostly not.

 

Arcade
DoDonPachi - 7
Hishouzame - 71
Out Zone - 41
Same! Same! Same! - 16
Same! Same! Same! (2P version) - 99
Tatsujin - 27
Tatsujin Ou - 46
Truxton II - 27

 

G/MD
Same! Same! Same! - 498
Tatsujin - 27
Zero Wing - 100

[carlsson]

Atari 8-bit:
Tail of Beta Lyrae, The - 94 min.

 

Finally I reached beyond 10,000 pts which is rather mediocre by the standards of top players, but since I'm not one of those, it was an achievement. This round ends on Wednesday but I doubt I'll have any time to play in the beginning of next week.

 

[Eltigro]

A few "classic" games this week...

 

SNES

Darius Twin - 90 min (Why are Darius games so hard?)

Raiden Trad - 75 min (Why are Raiden games so hard?)

Super R-Type - 75 min (Why are R-Type games so hard?)

Thunder Spirits - 120 min (This was probably the easiest game I played that day and it's still hard.  lol)

 

GameBoy Advance

Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance - 30 min (Played this some while on a picnic with the wife and kids.  Used my original GBA.  Forgot how hard these things are to see, even in good light.  One of these days I'll look into getting one of those backlit screen mods for it.)

 

 

[DragonGrafx-16]

C64:

Zeta Wing - 15 mins

Rogue 64 - 23 mins

 

PC Engine:

Cyber Core - 19 mins

Override - 15 mins

 

PC Engine CD:

Seirei Senshi Spriggan - 21 mins

 

[agb]

Atari 2600

 

Amidar 19

Beamrider 36

Dodge Em 36

Bowling 7

Defender 9

Enduro 19

Guardian 14

Laser Blast 15

Solar Fox 185. Broke 7 mil one game

Video Olympics 10

 

Played some of my earlier favorites during Yankee Red Sox game. All fun. 
 

 

 

 

 

[Skippy B. Coyote]

With the spring beginning, lots of projects to do around the house, and the Nerf season starting up again I didn't have a whole lotta time for gaming this week. I played a bit of Atari 2600 for the High Score Club, and well, that's pretty much it!

 

 

Atari 2600
Guardian - 9 minutes
Reactor - 73 minutes

[+jgkspsx]

On the classic side for me this week:

 

Arcade:

Galaga - 7 minutes on a real machine

 

Atari 2600:

Guardian - 75 minutes for HSC

Rarely has a paddle game been so hard on the hands.

 

 

Atari 7800:

Food Fight - 35 minutes for HSC

 

Atari Lynx:

S.T.U.N. Runner - 30 minutes for HSC and for fun.

 

 

Handhelds:

1943 - 10 minutes

Star Trek: 25th Anniversary (Konami) - 35 minutes

 

 

Star Trek: First Contact (MGA) - 30 minutes

 

 

Star Trek: The Next Generation (Tiger) - 20 minutes

 

Milton Bradley Microvision:

Alien Raiders - 25 minutes. Posted a video of how to play.

 

 

NEC Turbografx/PC Engine:

1943 Kai - 15 minutes

 

 

Ninja Ryukenden - 20 minutes

 

 

Shubibinman 2 - 20 minutes

 

Nintendo Entertainment System:

Mappy - 20 minutes for FB HSC

 

Nintendo Super Nintendo Entertainment System:

Super Turrican - 20 minutes

 

 

Sega Master System:

Double Dragon - 20 minutes

 

 

Lord of the Sword - 30 minutes

 

 

Sega SG-1000:

Flicky - 15 minutes

Flipper Pinball - 10 minutes

 

 

Golgo 13 - 15 minutes

 

 

Safari Hunt - 15 minutes

Space Mountain - 45 minutes

 

 

Technically for the Othello Multivision. I like this game a lot more than most people. It stays slow for too long, but when it gets faster it's pretty entertaining.

World GP - 15 minutes

[+wongojack]

NES
TMNT III: The Manhattan Project 378

 

I played TMNT III for the NES HSC.  I think I had heard about this game, but I had definitely never played it.  I had fun with it, but the genre isn't my favorite.  I did get pretty good at the first 3 or 4 levels, so I might give it a few plays next week.  I had Super Shredder (the final boss) on the ropes in one of my games, but I couldn't finish him off!

[TheGameCollector]

This week I played

 

Defender II for Arcade (via Williams Arcade's Greatest Hits for SNES) - 44 minutes

 

Gex for Playstation - 34 minutes

 

Joust for Arcade (via Williams Arcade's Greatest Hits for SNES) - 137 minutes

 

Pokemon Blue Version for Game Boy - 955 minutes

 

Robotron: 2084 for Arcade (via Williams Arcade's Greatest Hits for SNES) - 15 minutes

 

Sinistar for Arcade (via Williams Arcade's Greatest Hits for SNES) - 58 minutes

 

Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 64 - 191 minutes

 

X-Men: Children of the Atom for Playstation - 43 minutes

 

 

I'm still not quite sure if the SNES version of Williams Arcade's Greatest Hits is close enough to arcade perfect to count as the Arcade version or not. I'll leave it up to you, but I'm listing the four games' separate times so you know which games I played and have the option of putting the minutes where you want them. The SNES version does have the ability to set dip settings for the difficulty and extra life bonuses which I took advantage of.

 

Progress:

Defender II - played a few times on default settings and didn't get very far. I changed the dip settings to max starting lives, most frequent bonuses, and lowest difficulty. Then I abused smart bombs to get to level 61.

 

Gex - played thru the first area

 

Joust - played a few times on default settings and didn't get very far. I changed the dip settings to max starting lives, most frequent bonuses, and lowest difficulty. I rolled the level counter back to 0 and decided to stop playing at wave 2 (102)

 

Pokemon Blue - obtained more Pokemon by playing and trading with other files of Pokemon Blue, then leveling some of them up

 

Robotron: 2084 - played a few times on default settings and didn't get very far. I changed the dip settings to max starting lives, most frequent bonuses, and lowest difficulty. The furthest I made it was wave 13. A new record for me.

 

Sinistar - played a few times on default settings and didn't get very far. I changed the dip settings to max starting lives, most frequent bonuses, and lowest difficulty. I was able to smash 14 Sinistars. Another new record for me.

 

Super Smash Bros. - First I completed 1 player mode on very easy with Jigglypuff then Ness which were the last 2 characters. Then I played vs mode as every character vs every character once. I unlocked item switch in the process. I also unlocked sound test by redoing Mario's board the platforms challenge. So basically everything is unlocked on this file.

 

X-Men: Children of the Atom - Beat arcade mode on difficulty 1 as Wolverine, but had to use save states on Juggernaut and Magneto.

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Guardian - 80 minutes

Kaboom! - 155 minutes

Solar Fox - 115 minutes

 

I won this week in the HSC, but that's only because the top players like Kermit and Skippy didn't  put much time into it. 

 

I scored 153,941 on Kaboom!.

 

Nothing notable happened with Solar Fox.

Hey agb,  great score on Solar Fox.

[+thegoldenband]

Just a bit this week:

 

NES:

Sky Kid - 1 min.

Pocohontos [sic] - 27 min.

 

Couldn't deal with Sky Kid, so I played a Chinese bootleg downport of Pocahontas for Mega Drive. (Except not really -- it looks kind of the same, but the gameplay has been drastically pared down in favor of some really low-grade platforming.)