What have you ACTUALLY played tracker - Modern Edition (2023)

[+jgkspsx]

More on the modern side this week, but that will change.

 

Apple iOS:

Duolingo - 102 minutes

Pikmin Bloom - 419 minutes

 

Nintendo Game Boy Advance:

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow - 45 minutes

Never trust somebody like this dude.

 

Nintendo Switch:

PC Building Simulator - 755 minutes

Got a five star rating and lots of efficiency upgrades. At this point I am just playing it for the story.
 

I am getting progressively more serious about upgrading my PC in real life. I even ran 3DMark Time Spy for real:

Yeahhhh, I have a lot of work to do. Getting a new graphics card is probably the hard part.

 

Spirit of the North - 85 minutes

Very pretty game. I grabbed this screenshot by accident, haha.

 

Tetris 99 - 30 minutes

Destroyed the CPUs twice in a row and held my own against real players. Not bad...

 

PC:

QPID - 15 minutes

Very fun little puzzle game. It's not very arcade-y, though. Lots of retries and continues, and no score.

 

Sony PSP:

BattleZone - 30 minutes

not great, but not terrible fusion of T-MEK with Twisted Metal.

[+thegoldenband]

My time for the week:

 

Plug & play unit:

Jakks Plug & Play TV Games Disney 5 in 1 - 7 min.

 

Fired it up with my kid, but she's still a bit too young for it.

[+wongojack]

PC 

Minecraft (for Windows) 222 

 

XOne 

Catastronauts 34 

Out of Space 60 

 

X360 

Fallout New Vegas 1750

 

I started playing Fallout New Vegas last week and got much deeper in this week.  I actually started a new game on the so-called "hardcore" mode which doesn't change difficulty but forces you to eat, drink, and sleep.  I like managing that stuff better though - feels more like playing Wasteland or an older RPG.

[+DrVenkman]

PC: 

 

Microsoft Flight Simulator 75

The Planet Crafter 654

[Hwlngmad]

Yesterday's (06/26/2023) totals:

 

Android

1) Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars Chapter 0 - 40 minutes

[Hwlngmad]

Yesterday's (06/27/2023) totals:

 

Android

1) Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars Chapter 0 - 27 minutes

[Hwlngmad]

Yesterday's (06/28/2023) totals:

 

Android

1) Peglin - 25 minutes

[Hwlngmad]

Yesterday's (06/29/2023) totals:

 

Android

1) Pinball Deluxe: Reloaded - 15 minutes

2) Retro Bowl - 40 minutes

3) Peglin - 35 minutes

[carlsson]

Week 25

 

Top games

 

1. Fallout New Vegas (Xbox 360) - 1750 min. (#5)
2. PC Building Simulator (Switch) - 755 min. (#1)
3. Planet Crafter, The (PC) - 654 min.
4. Pikmin Bloom (iOS) - 419 min. (#3)
5. Minecraft for Windows (PC) - 222 min. (#2)
6. King's Field: The Ancient City (PS2) - 125 min. (#6)
7. Duolingo (iOS) - 102 min. (#4)
8. Spirit of the North (Switch) - 85 min.
9. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (PC) - 75 min.
10. Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars Chapter 0 (Android) - 67 min.

 

Top systems

 

1. Xbox 360 (1 game) - 1750 min. (#4)
2. PC (4 games) - 966 min. (#3)
3. Switch (4 games) - 924 min. (#1)
4. iOS (2 games) - 521 min. (#2)
5. Android (4 games) - 182 min. (#7)
6. Browser based (6 games) - 153 min.
7. PS2 (1 game) - 125 min. (#5)
8. Xbox One (2 games) - 94 min. (#8)
9. GBA (1 game) - 45 min.
10. PSP (1 game) - 30 min.

11. Plug & Play (1 game) - 7 min.

 

Total 4797 minutes and 27 different games (of which 13 new) on 11 different systems, with 7 participants.

 

Fallout New Vegas goes from 175 minutes last week to 1750 minutes this week, and by a clear margin is the most played game. It likewise brings the Xbox 360 as the most played system. Regarding Sonic Origins on the Switch, previously we tracked Sonic Mania Plus separately from the original game. I suppose it may be analog to list this one separately, depending how much the DLC adds. Also welcome to our new and returning participants.

[carlsson]

On 6/26/2023 at 5:09 AM, jgkspsx said:

I am getting progressively more serious about upgrading my PC in real life.

I'm still running Windows 7, so I can't even run the Time Spy benchmark even if I wanted. However, checking the CPU benchmark at PassMark, my CPU clocks in at 2305 pts on a scale where the high end CPU's are doing 50,000++ and the extreme 120,000+. I'm sure if I upgrade to newer hardware, I could tenfold the benchmark results without spending silly money. Then again I don't really feel like I have to, since the only games I play are emulated retro games and the occasional solitaire game.

Edited June 30, 2023 by carlsson

[+jgkspsx]

I can’t run the Jaguar BigPEMU emulator on my machine, which was the point that I decided something must be done.

[+jgkspsx]

3 hours ago, carlsson said:

Regarding Sonic Origins on the Switch, previously we tracked Sonic Mania Plus separately from the original game. I suppose it may be analog to list this one separately, depending how much the DLC adds.

The DLC adds 12 Game Gear games that are just the normal Game Gear games, as well as adds Amy Rose to every game and Knuckles to Sonic CD. I lean towards treating it as one thing since it’s just a $10 DLC upgrade but I defer to your judgment.

[carlsson]

As you know, I'm almost entirely clueless when it comes to video games made past 1993, so I wouldn't be any wiser without researching it online. We definitely can combine those two entries.

[carlsson]

On 6/30/2023 at 11:42 PM, carlsson said:

I could tenfold the benchmark results without spending silly money.

And now I've spent more than two hours trying to figure out what $250 in gift cards could get me, with the limitation that I must only buy from (online) stores accepting the gift cards. Surely I could spend real money instead but it would leave me with having to spend the gift cards on something else.

 

It looks like I could get an AMD Ryzer 5 4600G setup with a A520 based motherboard and 32 GB for that money, perhaps add a little extra. I'm hoping I can reuse my current chassis, PSU (though only 300W), HDD, DVD etc. Perhaps adding a SSD would help with performance. No monster, but on average 16000 pts on PassMark which is nearly 7 times my current score and it seems adequate gaming graphics if I ever wanted to take that route. But I haven't bought anything yet...

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this week (June 26th through July 2nd, 2023) on modern systems:

 

Browser-Based:

Burger Time (Flash) - 42 min. in 2 sessions

Commando 2 - 7 min.

Commando C64 - 3 min.

Donkey Kong 2 (Flash) - 10 min.

Q*bert 2004 - 34 min.

SL Knight Pinball (Kongregate) - 4 min.

Sushi Go Round - 26 min.

 

This week I played quite a few browser games, looking for games I can play without any install. Burger Time is a Flash remake of the arcade original with no sound and a few differences... if you wonder, those Flash games now run in Ruffle, a Flash emulator on the respective page. In Burger Time, the patterns have been replicated well, but the hitboxes are different and the enemies movement patterns are as well... they tend to move away from the player more often. The graphics have also been redesigned in a higher resolution.

 

Commando 2 is a commando game viewed from the side (similar to "Green Beret" or "Rush'n Attack"), while "Commando C64" is a pretty accurate representation of the C-64 version of Commando, but remade in Flash. It plays the music by Rob Hubbard, but the sound effects play on top of it which would be impossible on the C-64 because you need more than 3 sound channels for that. The game, however, ends at the end of the first level since your soldier never enters that door.

 

Donkey Kong 2 is kind of a sequel to the original Donkey Kong with the same mission, but different screens out of which I already had my difficulties with the first one.

 

Q*bert 2004 was released by Sony Pictures back in 2004 and is a pretty accurate representation of the arcade version, but there seem to be problems in Ruffle in that Coily disappears instead of hatching from the egg.

 

In SL Knight Pinball, I looked for a pinball game similar to "David's Midnight Magic", but it doesn't work out at all. The ball movement isn't very well programmed, and if the ball is on the upper level, you can't quite make it out, and you don't know where your flippers are.

 

Finally, Sushi Go Round is a restaurant simulation where you try to make the correct Sushi portions as quickly as possible and order replacement ingredients in between that as well.

[+jgkspsx]

2 minutes ago, Kurt_Woloch said:

Browser-Based:

Burger Time (Flash) - 42 min. in 2 sessions

Commando 2 - 7 min.

Commando C64 - 3 min.

Donkey Kong 2 (Flash) - 10 min.

Q*bert 2004 - 34 min.

SL Knight Pinball (Kongregate) - 4 min.

Sushi Go Round - 26 min.

Are these all Flash or are some HTML5 etc? I feel like Flash was the platform for the games built with it, but I don’t know how it was historically tracked.

[carlsson]

I believe Adobe Flash became obsolete before the modern tracker was invented, so we've tracked those as "browser based" regardless which add-on library was used to run the code. Otherwise we would start diving JavaScript games from back-end driven games. We already had a few separate entries for Twitch etc as a platform, which to most part is a website with its own application, and in that respect games you might be playing on Facebook would have their own category too.

[+wongojack]

On 7/1/2023 at 6:26 PM, carlsson said:

And now I've spent more than two hours trying to figure out what $250 in gift cards could get me, with the limitation that I must only buy from (online) stores accepting the gift cards. Surely I could spend real money instead but it would leave me with having to spend the gift cards on something else.

 

It looks like I could get an AMD Ryzer 5 4600G setup with a A520 based motherboard and 32 GB for that money, perhaps add a little extra. I'm hoping I can reuse my current chassis, PSU (though only 300W), HDD, DVD etc. Perhaps adding a SSD would help with performance. No monster, but on average 16000 pts on PassMark which is nearly 7 times my current score and it seems adequate gaming graphics if I ever wanted to take that route. But I haven't bought anything yet...

Buy it!

[+thegoldenband]

My time for the week:

 

Plug & Play:
Jakks Plug & Play TV Games Disney 5 in 1 - 203 min.

 

Alternatively, if we want to break it down by game, I played 3 of the 5 built-in games:

 

Plug & Play (Jakks Plug & Play TV Games Disney 5 in 1):

Lion King: Timon to the Rescue - 66 min

Lilo & Stitch: Stitch's Search for Paradise - 43 min.

Aladdin: Aladdin and the 5 Gems of Agrabah - 94 min.

 

It's an interesting question which way to do it; I'm not sure how I'll handle it for my own beaten games list.

 

(Last week I submitted 7 minutes for this system, but I don't quite remember how the times were distributed. Best guess: 1 minute of Timon, 2 of Stitch, 2 of Aladdin, and 1 minute each of Donald Duck: Donald's Golf Tournament and Lion King: Simba and the Tree of Trials.)

 

More detail: two different iterations of this plug-and-play were issued. The revised version (not the one I have) had the same five built-in games, but could also accept one of three GameKey cartridges that added 2 or 3 games to the system. Two of the cartridges offered two of the same games -- that is, one compatible GameKey cart added games A & B, one added games C & D, and one added C, D & E.

 

So -- since you can play the same games via multiple distinct releases of the plug-and-play and via multiple distinct multigame carts -- there might be a case to be made for a "Jakks Plug & Play" category that tracks individual games? Not sure, and I'll follow @carlsson's lead, but the fact that these systems can occupy a grey area between a one-function unit and an expandable pseudo-console makes things interesting.
 

By the way I beat the Lilo & Stitch and Aladdin games. The former is very easy, the latter more difficult, but both have some surprisingly tricky and nuanced platforming to offer.

 

 

[+neogeo1982]

Android

Survive - 180min

[Hwlngmad]

Yesterday's (07/02/2023) totals:

 

Android

1) Retro Bowl - 55 minutes

2) Peglin - 40 minutes

[+wongojack]

PC 

Minecraft (for Windows) 545 

 

X360 

Fallout New Vegas 250 

 

XOne 

Out of Space 85 

Touryst, The 90 

 

Less Fallout this week.  My wife has decided she wants to play Minecraft, so we've been playing that together along with some other games.

[+jgkspsx]

Balance has been returned to the Force. Or at least to my video game playing between classic and modern. Still a little too straightforward for my tastes over here.

 

Apple iOS:

Duolingo - 212 minutes

Pikmin Bloom - 297 minute

 

Nintendo Switch:

PC Building Simulator - 320 minutes

Pikmin 4 - 140 minutes

Finished the demo. It’s a long demo!

[Hwlngmad]

Monday and yesterday's (07/03 and 07/04) totals were:

 

Android

1) Pinball Deluxe: Reloaded - 10 minutes

2) Peglin - 15 minutes

3) Brotato - 30 minutes

4) Huntdown - 20 minutes

5) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge - 15 minutes

[carlsson]

Week 26

 

Top games

 

1. Minecraft for Windows (PC) - 545 min. (#5)
2. PC Building Simulator (Switch) - 320 min. (#2)
3. Pikmin Bloom (iOS) - 297 min. (#4)
4. Fallout New Vegas (Xbox 360) - 250 min. (#1)
5. Duolingo (iOS) - 212 min. (#7)
6. Survive (Android) - 180 min.
7. Pikmin 4 (Switch) - 140 min.
8. Aladdin: Aladdin and the 5 Gems of Agrabah (Jakks Pacific TV Games) - 94 min.
9. Touryst, The (Xbox One) - 90 min.
10. Out of Space (Xbox One) - 85 min.

 

Top systems

 

1. PC (1 game) - 545 min. (#2)
2. iOS (2 games) - 509 min. (#4)
3. Switch (2 games) - 460 min. (#3)
4. Android (7 games) - 365 min. (#5)
5. Xbox 360 (1 game) - 250 min. (#1)
6. Jakks Pacific TV Games (3 games) - 203 min. (#11)
7. Xbox One (2 games) - 175 min. (#8)
8. Browser based (7 games) - 126 min. (#6)

 

Total 2633 minutes and 25 different games (of which 10+ new) on 8 different systems, with 6 participants.

 

A lot of building is going on at the top of the list, with Minecraft ahead of PC Building Simulator. Also I followed the suggestion to split the Jakks Pacific games as some might appear separately. That always is a tough nut to crack, when is it a compilation or a multi-event game and when are the games separate enough to count each one.

 

Anyway, no changes to the 50, 150, 300 Hour clubs.