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

[carlsson]

Thanks for caring about me. Wongojack is correct, this has been yet another of those crazy weeks with long days/evenings at work and plenty of other things to take care of once I get home. I have no plans to give up the tracker(s) just yet. Hopefully things will settle down in a month or two.

[carlsson]

Here's the summary for Week 42, running from October 16 - 22. We logged 2365 minutes of eligible play, playing 29 games on a total of 9 systems.

 

Top 10:

 

1. Last Bible (Game Gear) - 750 min.
2. Pokemon Silver (Game Boy Color) - 267 min. (#7)
3. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 216 min. (#4)
4. Columns (Game Gear) - 180 min.
5. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 133 min. (#1)
6. Karate Champ (NES/Famicom) - 94 min.
7. Amoeba Jump (Atari 2600) - 90 min.
7. Ms. Pac-Man (Atari 2600) - 90 min.
7. Revenge of the Beefsteak Tomatoes (Atari 2600) - 90 min.
10. Traffix (Verkeersrally) (Commodore 64) - 60 min.

 

Pre-NES top 10:

 

1. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 216 min. (PN#3)
2. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 133 min. (PN#1)
3. Amoeba Jump (Atari 2600) - 90 min. (PN#5)
3. Ms. Pac-Man (Atari 2600) - 90 min. (PN#10)
3. Revenge of the Beefsteak Tomatoes (Atari 2600) - 90 min.
6. Traffix (Verkeersrally) (Commodore 64) - 60 min.
7. Vulgus (Arcade) - 35 min.
8. Amidar (Atari 2600) - 28 min.
9. Astro Command (Radio Shack/Epoch) (Handheld/Tabletop) - 25 min.
10. Starmaster (Atari 2600) - 20 min.
 

Top 10 systems:

 

1. Game Gear (7 games) - 1034 min. (#2)
2. Atari 2600 (11 games) - 707 min. (#1)
3. Game Boy Color (1 game) - 267 min. (#7)
4. NES/Famicom (3 games) - 157 min. (#4)
5. Game Boy (2 games) - 65 min.
6. Commodore 64 (1 game) - 60 min. (#3)
7. Arcade (2 games) - 48 min. (#5)
8. Handheld/Tabletop (1 game) - 25 min.
9. Intellivision (1 game) - 2 min.

 

The rumors about my death are greatly exaggerated! Unlike a famous character from the Bible (relating to the overall #1 this week), I haven't ascended yet, just off work for the week. The pre-NES list also sees an old friend back in top, namely Kaboom! System wise, the Game Gear swaps places with the Atari 2600 this week.

 

Pokemon Silver (Game Boy Color) becomes member #541 in the 1000 Minute Club with a total of 1219 min.

[neogeo1982]

Finished Last Bible and had another Sega week overall.

Game Gear:

Last Bible - 660min

Ristar - 120min

Samurai Showdown - 100min

Primal Rage - 20min

Mortal Kombat - 10min

Columns - 20min

Joe Montana Football - 40min

NFL Football '95 - 40min

Bust-A-Move - 60min

Robo Cop 3 - 20min

GP Rider - 20min

 

Dreamcast

NFL 2K1 - 60min

Dead or Alive 2 - 20min

 

[carlsson]

Atari 8-bit:
Necromancer - 7 min.

 

VIC-20:
Gridder - 22 min.
Metagalactic Llamas - 16 min.
Sword of Fargoal - 37 min.

 

Yay! More than one hour of gaming, for the first time since July! Necromancer is HSC material, the VIC games I played because I wanted to. SoF went very good until it ended suddenly, perhaps because I was low on hit points. Too bad that the game doesn't display the final score.

 

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week (October 23rd through 29th, 2023) on classic systems:

 

TI-99/4A:

St. Nick - 134 min. in 4 sessions

 

The only game I played this week was "St. Nick" on the TI-99/4A. In it, you wander around a maze as Santa Claus and have to pick up certain things... trouble is there are 4 types of presents, and you have to collect all of the 1st, then all of the 2nd and so on... while avoiding the others because if you touch one that isn't on yet, an elf comes out and leaves more gifts in the maze while you are frozen and the timer continues to go down.

The funny thing about this game is that the difficulty is a bit inconsistent... later rounds in one level contain more gifts, but you also get more time to complete them. Then after, I think, 6 rounds, the level changes and with it the game speed. This actually makes Level 2 easier than Level 1 because the timer is still ticking down at the same rate, but you can now do more in that time since you are now faster. The elf that comes out also runs faster, so you lose less time when it does. However, Level 3 poses the problem that it's become so fast that it's now getting hard to move the player precisely so you are more likely to touch something not intended and have the elf come out again. I got to Level 3 Round 3 and then left the game behind because of this.

 

 

[+thegoldenband]

My times for the week:

 

Intellivision:

Blockade Runner - 7 min.

Frog Bog - 6 min.

 

Genesis:

Winter Challenge - 4 min.

 

PlayStation:

Army Men: Air Attack 2 - 83 min.

Bubsy 3D - 19 min.

[agb]

Atari 2600

 

Amidar for the FB HSC 20. Did good. 
 

Solar Fox. 239. 
High Score of 16,426.700. When I got to rack 255 for the third time, I got caught in the corner two times in a row. I had all seven extra lives left. This ties twin galaxies all time record. I thought I was going to beat the record. Ugh. 
 

in my 60s, sitting crossed legged on the floor for two hours 45 minutes. Took five minutes to stand up again. 
 

 

[Atarian7]

Awesome score!  If you tied the record, I take it you got all the challenges?  I always miss a few challenges.

 

Don't you have a chair you can sit on?  Or would that be too high?

[Keir]

Week of 10/23/23 - 10/29/23

 

Atari 2600

King Kong - 5

Threshold - 5

 

Total time = 10 minutes

 

Very little game time for me last week. Hoping this week is better.

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom! - 152 minutes

Solar Fox - 165 minutes

 

No high scores to report this week.

 

 

 

[Skippy B. Coyote]

Finally back with some time to contribute! Autumn turned to winter last week here in Minnesota, and I'm not much a fan of the cold so the time of year for outdoor activities this year is over for me. Now it's time for 5 or 6 months of winter and lots of relaxing indoors playing video games!

 

 

Colecovision

Venture - 32 minutes 

 

PlayStation

Silent Hill - 625 minutes

 

Sega Genesis

Sonic 3 Complete - 244 minutes

[+jgkspsx]

About equal time on both sides of the divide this week.

 

I really need to get a TRS-80 joystick working so I can play some of these awesome games I have retrieved from storage.

 

 

Arcade:

Battle Lane! Vol. 5 - 65 minutes

Finally broke the 100000 barrier.

 

Game Boy:

Boulder Dash - 15 minutes

BreakThru! - 25 minutes

Not the Data East car shooter but an obscure Spectrum Holobyte ripoff of puzzle classic SameGame/Chain Shot.

Dragon's Lair: The Legend (EU Version) - 20 minutes

This reskinned port of Elite's Speccy classic Rollercoaster (!!) has been updated from the NA/JP release to eliminate fall deaths, making it one of the easiest versions around. However it's still really hard.

 

Game Gear:

Wonder Boy/Revenge of Drancon - 15 minutes

Did you know this awesome and exclusive Game Gear conversion has a level select menu? I didn't until just this week.

 

Genesis:

Bone Marrow - 25 minutes

Said goodbye to August's game of the month before updating my Evercade VS.

 

Tiger Sega Pocket Arcade:

Sega Raceway/Indy 500 - 20 minutes

 

NES:

Chew Chew Mimic - 90 minutes

This homage to everyone's favorite RPG enemy and to Sega's Chu Chu Rocket is fantastic fun from the creator of Flea and Tapeworm Disco Puzzle. It's November's Evercade game of the month and it's excellent.

Double Dragon 2 - 125 minutes

Worked my way up to a gold medal in the Cadey's Challenge.

R-Zone:

Daytona USA - 15 minutes

 

Super Nintendo:

Equinox - 15 minutes

Firepower 2000/Super SWIV - 25 minutes

 

Turbografx 16:

Alien Crush - 65 minutes

[agb]

7 hours ago, Atarian7 said:

Awesome score!  If you tied the record, I take it you got all the challenges?  I always miss a few challenges.

 

Don't you have a chair you can sit on?  Or would that be too high?

Thank you Atarian7. I think I missed some challenges. I think after you finish rack 0, the score jumps to the same amount for everyone. 
 

A chair wouldn’t work as it’s too high for where my Atari and tv are plus I’ve been sitting in the floor for over 40 years. I use a chair for my flashbacks and other gaming systems. 

[Keir]

3 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

 

I really need to get a TRS-80 joystick working so I can play some of these awesome games I have retrieved from storage.

Oh? What did you find?

 

I have a couple TRS-80 joysticks I’m getting rid of.

[Atarian7]

I had a chair before we moved, but now I am sitting on the floor to play.

 

I guess 40 years is too long of a habit to break.

[Hwlngmad]

16 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

BreakThru! - 25 minutes

Not the Data East car shooter but an obscure Spectrum Holobyte ripoff of puzzle classic SameGame/Chain Shot.

Hark, another puzzler on the Game Boy for me to try out.  Will give it a go soon enough.

[Hwlngmad]

Yesterday's (10/30) totals:

 

2600

1) M. A. D. - 10 minutes

2) Thunderground - 30 minutes

3) Strategy X - 10 minutes

[carlsson]

Here's the summary for Week 43, running from October 23 - 29. We logged 3582 minutes of eligible play, playing 47 games on a total of 17 systems.

 

Top 10:

 

1. Last Bible (Game Gear) - 660 min. (#1)
2. Silent Hill (PlayStation) - 625 min.
3. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 404 min. (#5)
4. Sonic 3 Complete (fan made ROM hack) (Genesis) - 244 min.
5. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 152 min. (#3)
6. St. Nick (TI-99/4A) - 134 min.
7. Double Dragon II: The Revenge (NES/Famicom) - 125 min.
8. Ristar (Game Gear) - 120 min.
9. Samurai Showdown (Game Gear) - 100 min.
10. Chew Chew Mimic (NES/Famicom) - 90 min.

 

Pre-NES top 10:

 

1. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 404 min. (PN#2)
2. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 152 min. (PN#1)
3. St. Nick (TI-99/4A) - 134 min.
4. Sword of Fargoal (VIC-20) - 37 min.
5. Venture (ColecoVision) - 32 min.
6. Thunderground (Atari 2600) - 30 min.
7. Gridder (VIC-20) - 22 min.
8. Amidar (Atari 2600) - 20 min. (PN#8)
9. Metagalactic Llamas Battle at the Edge of Time (VIC-20) - 16 min.
10. M.A.D. (Atari 2600) - 10 min.
10. Strategy X (Atari 2600) - 10 min.

 

Top 10 systems:

 

1. Game Gear (12 games) - 1125 min. (#1)
2. PlayStation (3 games) - 727 min.
3. Atari 2600 (8 games) - 636 min. (#2)
4. Genesis (3 games) - 273 min.
5. NES/Famicom (2 games) - 215 min. (#4)
6. TI-99/4A (1 game) - 134 min.
7. Dreamcast (2 games) - 80 min.
8. VIC-20 (3 games) - 75 min.
9. TG-16/PC Engine (1 game) - 65 min.
10. Arcade (1 game) - 65 min. (#7)

 

Last Bible retains Last Position, i.e. first position (huh, that sounds weird), though Silent Hill makes a grand return in second place. Solar Fox certainly is no HTTP/404 as it marches back into first place on the pre-NES list. On the last list, six of the top 10 systems are new from last week, and we see nearly twice as many systems entering.

 

Two new entries in the 1000 Minute Club:

#542 Last Bible (Game Gear) - 1410 min.

#543 Silent Hill (PlayStation) - 1273 min.

 

It means another 28 games entered this threshold this year, with two months to go. Compared to the last two years, that is slightly fewer. It should be mentioned that three of the games played this week were staggering close to entering the club, with 990, 988 and 931 mins respectively.

[+jgkspsx]

On 10/30/2023 at 8:30 PM, Keir said:

Oh? What did you find?

 

I have a couple TRS-80 joysticks I’m getting rid of.

I'll take 'em! All of mine are destroyed.

[Prosystemsearch]

I had a lot of College work to do over the last few weeks, so here I go now:

 

Atari 5200-

Buck Rogers- Planet of Zoom: 3 minutes

Berzerk: 2 1/2 minutes

BallBlazer: 3 minutes

 

Commodore PET-

Dungeon of Death: 2 minutes

Android NIM: 8 minutes

 

Game Boy-

Megaman- Dr. Wily's Revenge: 17 minutes

Klax: 6 1/2 minutes

 

NES-

Double Dragon: 6 minutes

Berzerk (Homebrew): 4 minutes

Bee 52 (unlicensed): 7 1/2 minutes

Dudes with attitude (unlicensed): 8 1/2 minutes

Afterburner (unlicensed): 3 minutes

Star Wars: 5 minutes

Tetris (licensed Nintendo version)- 12 minutes

Castlevania 3- Dracula's Curse unknown ROMhack: 3 1/2 minutes

Stakk-M (unlicensed): 9 minutes

Arkanoid- Dimension of Doh: 4 minutes

Burgertime: 13 minutes

Baby Boomer: 8 minutes

Abadox: 6 minutes

Toobin': 5 minutes

NARC: 7 minutes

 

 

[carlsson]

Unfortunately, this was yet another draw blank week for me. It means 4 out of the last 7 weeks without any retro gaming.

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week (October 30th through November 5th)...

 

Arcade:

Congo Bongo - 16 min.

1942 (C64 music) - 2 min.

4 en raya - 14 min.

Popeye (Revision D) - 33 min. in 2 sessions

 

TI-99/4A:

Popeye - 105 min. in 11 sessions

Star Wars - 6 min.

 

This time I continued to play "Popeye" on the TI-99/4A and finally made it through the round of all 3 stages. I also played some "Star Wars" on it, and this seems to be a heavily dumbed down version of the arcade game, rather, of its first stage where you try to defeat enemies on your way to the death star. In this version, the starfield is still, and there are some odd objects jumping around on the screen.

 

Then I discovered that Retrogames.cc now also has got arcade games to offer. I tried a few of them... in 4 en raya, 2 people are actually playing "Connect four" with some twists, Then we have 1942 (C64 music), which is the same game as the original version, but now if you play the game, you get background music similar to the one in the Commdore 64 version.  The last thing I played was the arcade version of Popeye where I finally also made it through one cycle of 3 ronuds and reached over 45,000 points.

 

 

[agb]

Atari 2600

 

Eggomania 26

HERO 16

Solar Fox 163

 

all fun. 
 

[agb]

I forgot to add

 

NES Tetris - 95 minutes. 

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom! - 144 minutes

Solar Fox - 112 minutes