What have you actually PLAYED tracker for 2023 (Season 16)

[DragonGrafx-16]

5 hours ago, carlsson said:

Is that a TurboGrafx-CD game? Traditionally we separate the Hu-card games on TG-16/PC Engine and the CD games on TG-CD/PC Engine CD though except for sound and storage capacity I suppose they're very much alike.

The funny thing is that the CD games can still use the sound chip for music. Star Parodier uses the sound chip for some of the boss music.

[carlsson]

Here's the summary for Week 13, running from March 27 - April 2. We logged 3826 minutes of eligible play, playing 73 games on a total of 19 systems.

 

Top 10:

 

1. Sonic 3 & Knuckles [aka Complete Version] (Genesis) - 376 min.
2. Kyuukyoku Tiger (Arcade) - 350 min.
3. Adventures of Dino Riki (NES/Famicom) - 327 min.
4. AD&D: Dragonstrike (NES/Famicom) - 273 min.
5. Maniac Mansion (Commodore 64) - 210 min.
6. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 190 min. (#4)
7. Clock Tower (SNES) - 166 min.
8. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 149 min. (#8)
9. Super Mario Bros. (NES/Famicom) - 133 min.
10. Last Blade (Neo Geo AES/MVS) - 105 min.

 

Pre-NES top 10:

 

1. Maniac Mansion (Commodore 64) - 210 min. (PN#5)
2. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 190 min. (PN#1)
3. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 149 min. (PN#4)
4. Conan (Commodore 64) - 80 min.
5. Defender (Intellivision) - 38 min.
6. Millipede (1983 or 1984 version) (Atari 8-bit) - 21 min.
7. Robotron: 2084 (Atari 7800) - 19 min.
8. Gaplus (Arcade) - 17 min.
9. Eggomania (Atari 2600) - 15 min. (PN#9)
10. Moon Lander (Vtech Laser 500) - 14 min.

 

Top 10 systems:

 

1. NES/Famicom (16 games) - 1010 min. (#1)
2. Genesis (4 games) - 538 min. (#3)
3. Atari 2600 (7 games) - 396 min. (#4)
4. Arcade (3 games) - 375 min. (#6)
5. Commodore 64 (2 games) - 290 min. (#5)
6. SNES (8 games) - 268 min.
7. Game Boy (11 games) - 262 min. (#7)
8. Neo Geo AES/MVS (3 games) - 143 min.
9. PC DOS (3 games) - 130 min.
10. Atari Jaguar (2 games) - 95 min.

 

The top three games Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Kyuukyoku Tiger and Adventures of Dino Riki are evenly spaced, about 25 minutes between each. On the pre-NES side, Maniac Mansion has a slightly lower margin, 20 minutes over Solar Fox. The only entry to hold its position from last week is the NES/Famicom on the systems list, again with both number of games and highest amount of minutes.

 

As some of you may have figured out, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Genesis) enters the 5000 Minutes Club with a total of 5072 minutes, which puts it as all-time #44 and Genesis #5.

[Hwlngmad]

On 4/3/2023 at 2:57 PM, carlsson said:

Is that a TurboGrafx-CD game? Traditionally we separate the Hu-card games on TG-16/PC Engine and the CD games on TG-CD/PC Engine CD though except for sound and storage capacity I suppose they're very much alike.

It is.  I had originally separated it out from the regular PCE / TG-16, but then lumped it all together.  Apologies as I will make sure to denote if something is PCE CD / TG-16 CD going forward.

[Atarian7]

On 4/3/2023 at 2:44 PM, agb said:

No good scores but all fun.

You didn't get a good score on Solar Fox?

 

 

[carlsson]

While pretty much noone tends to play Atari Jaguar CD games, for reference we list those separately too. Sega CD perhaps is more obvious, and things like Amiga CD32, FM Towns Marty etc are a given to have their own entries. However on e.g. PC DOS and Windows 95/98, we don't separate media format further.

[Hwlngmad]

Today's (04/05/2023) totals:

 

GBC

1) Hot Wheels: Stunt Track Driver - 20 minutes

2) Space Invaders - 10 minutes

3) Hollywood Pinball - 15 minutes

[Skippy B. Coyote]

So far this week I've been doing a little back and forth testing of games released on both the original PlayStation and Sega Saturn, and I've come to the conclusion that they're all pretty much identical aside from the Saturn versions looking a little crappier

 

[+neogeo1982]

8 hours ago, Skippy B. Coyote said:

pretty much identical

What are you comparing to? Something like Thunderforce or Grandia or Silhouette Mirage might change your mind...

[DragonGrafx-16]

8 minutes ago, neogeo1982 said:

What are you comparing to? Something like Thunderforce or Grandia or Silhouette Mirage might change your mind...

Thunder Force V on Saturn is usually considered the superior version.

[+neogeo1982]

I keep forgetting to to post times on my work weeks. So I'll just post all these for next week then. And after 34 years I finally beat Ninja Gaiden!

 

NES

Ninja Gaiden - 630min

Gauntlet - 40min

Dragon Power - 30min

Super Pitfall - 90min

Baseball Stars - 120min

Bad Dudes - 30min

Super Mario Bros. - 30min

Alwa's Awakening - 90min

Shingen the Ruler - 180min

 

[Skippy B. Coyote]

12 hours ago, neogeo1982 said:

What are you comparing to? Something like Thunderforce or Grandia or Silhouette Mirage might change your mind...

 

I haven't tried any of those titles yet, the games I checked out were Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, Area 51, Crypt Killer, Die Hard Trilogy, and Alien Trilogy. In all of those cases (as far as I can tell at least) the Saturn and PS1 versions were identical, with the exception of the Saturn versions having slightly lousier graphics

 

I totally believe that when it comes to 2D sprite based games the Saturn versions were superior though, since the Saturn was a real 2D pixel powerhouse. At the moment though I'm doing a full play though of Resident Evil on the Saturn to see if I can spot any changes from the PS1 version, just cause it's really neat to be trying one of my all time favorite games on a different system than the one I always played it on; and I kinda like the Saturn's big chunky polygons and pixel dithering effects 

 

Edited April 6, 2023 by Skippy B. Coyote

[Hwlngmad]

Today's (04/06/2023) totals:

 

MSX

1) Pinball Blaster - 10 minutes

 

GBC

1) Hot Wheels: Stunt Track Driver - 30 minutes

[agb]

On 4/5/2023 at 10:08 AM, Atarian7 said:

You didn't get a good score on Solar Fox?

 

 

Not this week I usually turn the game off at 3 mil. Half an hour is good enough for me. 

[DragonGrafx-16]

3 hours ago, Skippy B. Coyote said:

 

I haven't tried any shoot 'em ups, the games I checked out were Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, Area 51, Crypt Killer, Die Hard Trilogy, and Alien Trilogy. In all of those cases (as far as I can tell at least) the Saturn and PS1 versions were identical, with the exception of the Saturn versions having lousier graphics

 

I totally believe that when it comes to 2D sprite based games the Saturn versions were superior, since the Saturn was a real 2D pixel powerhouse. At the moment though I'm doing a full play though of Resident Evil on the Saturn to see if I can spot any changes from the PS1 version, just cause it's really neat to be trying one of my all time favorite games on a different system than the one I always played it on and I kinda like the Saturn's big chunky polygons and pixel dithering effects 

 

Thunder Force V is 3D locked to a 2D camera angle. There might be some flat sprite layers in the graphics though.

[TheGameCollector]

This week I played:

 

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for Nintendo 64 - 10 minutes

Sonic the Hedgehog for Sega Genesis (via Sonic Mega Collection for Gamecube) - 48 minutes

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for Sega Genesis (via Sonic Mega Collection for Gamecube) - 66 minutes

 

Progress:

Sonic 1 - I completed the game with all emeralds

Sonic 2 - I completed the game as Sonic & Tails with all emeralds

 

Zelda OoT - I re-entered my existing file just to create a funny meme. I have not made it public except to a small group.

 

Basically, I have recently taken a liking to this newer pop punk and emo band called As December Falls. Well, recently they released a song on youtube called "Alive." Spotify labeled the genre of some of their music as "Pixie" which they had never heard of so as kind of a joke about it, the singer uploaded a short video of herself with a filter called "Pixie" which gave her fairy wings with the song "Alive" playing in the background.

 

With my sense of humor, I thought of a funny idea for a video edit. In response to this, I realized I could play the hook to "Alive" on Link's Ocarina by using the Z and R buttons to change the notes to what I needed. These are the steps I took:

1 - I went to the Great Fairy fountain and started recording video.

2 - It took me a few minutes, but I eventually got a good take of the notes to "Alive" for my video edit.

3 - I re-started recording then I summoned the Great Fairy the normal way using Zelda's Lullaby.

4 - I downloaded the youtube short video of the singer Bethany as the Pixie.

5 - I edited a video together by silencing the audio of Zelda's Lullaby and replacing it with the audio of the ocarina playing Alive. I edited a still image to say "You Played Alive." instead of "You Played Zelda's Lullaby." When the iconic unlock chime played, instead of the Great Fairy appearing at the fountain, the short video clip of the "Great Pixie Bethany" appeared over where the Great Fairy was supposed to be, and started playing pillar boxed so you could still see the fountain room in the background. I set the audio levels to still include the game sound effects and music with the fairy's laugh and all, but you can also hear their music in the background for that part of the video as well.

 

Out of respect for Bethany I said I won't release it outside of their Patreon Discord unless she eventually logs in and says she likes it. I don't want to spread it around if she hates it or feels embarrassed by it, you know? The other 2 main dudes in her band got a good chuckle out of it though. I was saying maybe if I put it on Youtube and named it the right thing, maybe a bunch of people just looking for YTP's or other funny videos of Link would find it and check out their music after hearing that little clip. My wife said it was cute and one other fan said it was brilliant. I guess just wish me luck on it being received well by her.

 

I am probably going to call it "Link Summons the Great Pixie Bethany of As December Falls."

 

My video is supposed to be a metaphor that just like Link's Great Fairy, the songs this "Great Pixie" has written about being strong through depression or any other difficult feelings heals the world by giving people with the same struggles something to make them feel less alone in that experience. Amazing that I could use a video game's footage to express that.

 

[+neogeo1982]

Most time spent on 1 modern game but I did fit in a couple hours.

NES

Shingen the Ruler - 210min

Super Mario 2 - 60min

Millipede - 20min

[Steven Pendleton]

Gyrodine is finally here.

 

Arcade
Gyrodine - 18
Kyuukyoku Tiger - 114
Xexex (Japan) - 12

[Prosystemsearch]

Here are my times:

 

Atari 2600:

Ms. Pacman- 6 minutes

Jr. Pacman- 4 1/2 minutes

Killer Satellites (Supercharger)- 8 minutes

Lock n' Chase- 7 1/2 minutes

The Official Frogger (Supercharger)- 7 minutes

 

NES: 

Gyruss- 7 1/2 minutes

Burgertime- 6 minutes

Abadox- 6 minutes

Contra-  7 minutes

Alien Syndrome (unlicensed)- 3 1/2 minutes

 

Sega Genesis:

Super Street Fighter 2- 4 minutes

Sonic the Hedgehog 1- 3 minutes

Castlevania Bloodlines- 3 1/2 minutes

[carlsson]

Atari 8-bit:
Millipede - 127 min.

 

So I played almost an hour of a partially flickering, somewhat buggy game without being able to improve my score. Then I realized a PAL fixed version of the game was released a while ago, which eliminates nearly all the bugs and within 15 minutes of playing I had doubled my previous score as well as increased my former personal best by 25%. Unfortunately I wasn't able to improve it further, but the fixed version made the game go from almost unplayable to somewhat enjoyable. It is almost 15 months since I played a single game for this long or more.

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week on classic systems:

 

Arcade:

Jump Bug - 108 minutes in 4 sessions

 

This week I tried out the game "Jump Bug" which was mentioned in a long German podcast about the game "Forbidden Forest" on the Commodore 64 which, they said, was probably the first game to feature parallax scrolling on the system (it came out in 1983), and then they stated that scrolling in the arcade has only been invented in 1981 and named "Jump Bug" as the first game to feature scrolling. It's actually based on Scramble hardware, which is also from 1981 and had the same scrolling capabilities as "Galaxian" which, however, only used scrolling to move the formation left and right. I think Atari even had earlier scrolling games in black and white, but anyway... Jump Bug is still interesting in that it's actually a forerunner of Super Mario Bros. in some ways. You always jump, but you can adjust your jumping height and landing speed while in the air... actually, also a bit similar to Bomb Jack. Also, you have to collect 48 rewards (most of them bags of money) to get an extra life (only one per game though, if you complete them again you only get bonus points), which reminds me strongly of the coin system in Super Mario Bros. Also the game does feature parallax scrolling in some areas where the clouds high above scroll more slowly than the clouds further down the screen. This is actually possible due to the scrolling system offered by that hardware where each strip of 2 lines (16 pixels high on the vertical screen) can scroll independently from the other strips, and also can have its own pallette (which, in turn, is not as fine-grained as on Pac-Man hardware where each tile has its own pallette index). The best use of that was of course made in "Frogger" where the logs, turtles and cars use this scrolling feature.

[+thegoldenband]

Barely above detection level this week:

 

NES:

Pac-Man - 7 min.

Super Mario Bros. 3 - 4 min.

 

Just showing the kid video games, for more or less the first time.

[Skippy B. Coyote]

Big week for classic gaming for me this week! I played a whole bunch of Game Boy and Game Boy Color games on the Powkiddy V90 this week (it's quickly become my favorite way to play GB and GBC games), and I've kinda gotten hooked on Tetris again since I found a rom hack for Tetris DX on the Game Boy Color that replaces the default Music A option with the song from the original Game Boy version of Tetris! Tetris DX is definitely my favorite version of Tetris and the only complaint I ever had about it was that it was missing the iconic song from the original Game Boy version, so it's really cool to finally have that fixed. 

 

Moving on, I did full playthroughs of Resident Evil for the Sega Saturn and Kingsley's Adventure for the PlayStation this week! I played them both on the Retroid Pocket 3+ using HDMI out to play on my big modern HDTV and I had a ton of fun with both of them! The Saturn version of Resident Evil was pretty similar to the original PlayStation version in most regards, though the omission of automatic targeting when aiming makes it MUCH harder and they also add in one new enemy type and Battle mode that unlocks after completing the game which is very similar to the Mercenaries mode seen in later Resident Evil titles. Neat stuff!

 

Kingsley's Adventure on the PlayStation is one of my favorite Zelda-like style games, kind of similar to Ocarina of Time but nowhere near as polished and kinda silly. I still enjoy it a lot though, even if the last dungeon is absurdly difficult! 

 

I also spent a good bit of time playing Splatterhouse for the PC Engine on the Powkiddy V90, though I wasn't able to beat it, and played a fair amount of Pac-Man Championship Edition for the NES and a bit of Assault Rigs for the PlayStation  the Anbernic RG35XX. All in all it was a fun week for classic gaming with a good bit of variety!

 

 

 

Game Boy

Boggle Plus - 133 minutes

Operation C - 84 minutes

Solar Striker - 10 minutes

 

Game Boy Color

Shanghai Pocket - 13 minutes

Tetris DX - 80 minutes

 

NES

Pac-Man Championship Edition - 28 minutes

Super Mario Bros. - 13 minutes

 

PC Engine

Splatterhouse - 125 minutes

 

PlayStation

Assault Rigs - 27 minutes

Kingsley's Adventure - 564 minutes

Resident Evil: Director's Cut - 25 minutes

 

Sega Saturn

Resident Evil - 462 minutes

 

Edited April 10, 2023 by Skippy B. Coyote

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Hunchy 2 - 14 minutes

Kaboom! - 57 minutes

Solar Fox - 226 minutes

 

 

[+wongojack]

DOS 

Pinball Dreams Deluxe 50 

 

Intellivision 

Nova Blast 14

 

Not too much going on here on the classic side.  Still going with games that require less than 120MB, but this time Pinball Dreams is from my GOG Library (and most of its size is DosBox files).

 

 

 

[agb]

NES

Super Mario Bros for NES HSC  117.  Fun game to play but having difficulty after years of not playing.

 

Atari 2600

Eggpmania 98, a couple of games over 100,000.  123.000 was my high this week.

Solar Fox 127, no high scores.

 

All fun.