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

[neogeo1982]

Another mostly Sega week again.

Game Gear:

 

Donald Duck Deep Duck Trouble - 100min

Arcade Classics - 45min

Joe Montana Football - 30min

Chess Master - 45min

Sonic Chaos - 30min

Sonic 2 - 30min

Samurai Showdown - 90min

Aerial Assault - 40min

Star Wars - 180min

Super Columns - 60min

Last Bible - 200min

Ms. Pacman - 45min

 

[Keir]

In an unusual turn of events, I had no classic gaming this week, only modern! 😲

[Hwlngmad]

Yesterday's (11/5) totals:

 

Game Gear

1) Super Off Road - 20 minutes

[+thegoldenband]

My times for the week:

 

Intellivision:

Frog Bog - 6 min.

 

Vectrex:

Art Master - 2 min.

Mine Storm - 7 min.

Rip Off - 7 min.

Space Wars - 8 min.

Vector Pilot - 5 min.

 

[Skippy B. Coyote]

I just had surgery this morning to get my gallbladder taken out, because apparently a regular diet of pan crust pizza and fried noodles has consequences, so I'm still a bit too mentally fuzzy and rundown feeling to talk much about the games I played this week. Here's my times though in any case!

 

 

Game Boy Color

Monopoly - 369 minutes

 

 

PlayStation

Silent Hill - 120 minutes

[+GoldLeader]

7 minutes ago, Skippy B. Coyote said:

I just had surgery this morning to get my gallbladder taken out, because apparently a regular diet of pan crust pizza and fried noodles has consequences, so I'm still a bit too mentally fuzzy and rundown feeling to talk much about the games I played this week. Here's my times though in any case!

 

 

Game Boy Color

Monopoly - 369 minutes

 

 

PlayStation

Silent Hill - 120 minutes

 

 

Whoa!  Get well soon brother!

[+jgkspsx]

Arcade:

 

Qix - 15 minutes

 

Game Boy:

 

Castlevania Legends/Akumajo Dracula Dark Night Prelude - 20 minutes

Some Halloween fun.

 

Frisky Tom - 25 minutes

Those damn mice!

 

Game Gear:

Power Strike II/GG Aleste II - 10 minutes

Some bad half-asleep playing.

 

Genesis:

Awesome Possum Kicks Dr. Machino's Butt - 20 minutes

That is the full title and I insist we use it.

 

Castlevania Bloodlines - 25 minutes

One of my favorite entries in the series!

 

NES:

Captain Comic - 15 minutes

This was a big deal on PCs way back when but is much better on NES.

 

SNES:

Equinox - 30 minutes

Managed to glitch the game hard on the first boss. Apparently bad enough that I fought a different boss in a weird broken room!

 

Kirby Star Stacker - 15 minutes

Never loved this, still don't.

 

Vectrex:

 

Last week was the annual tournament, Vector War XIII, and this is what I played.
 

Cavern Rescue - 75 minutes

An awesome new homebrew I was happy to spend some quality time with. Unfortunately I left my copy of Vyrzon in another castle so I couldn't play the other member of 2023's best.

Count Vecula - 25 minutes

This counting-based fixed shooter by Professor Doktor Peer Johanssen, the leader of the Vectrex Academy, is the hardest educational game I've ever played.

Fortress of Narzod - 20 minutes

Couldn't beat the wizard this time. Next time!

 

Happy Bird - 10 minutes

A new implementation of Flappy Bird from a student at the Vectrex Academy. It's very fun but I have a sentimental attachment to ol' Veccy Bird.

 

Heads Up Soccer - 45 minutes

Probably the least popular Vectrex game. It's slooooow. And on game 3 the CPU is way too aggressive.

 

Polar Rescue - 20 minutes

I didn't qualify for this one because I mistakenly thought the threshold was 3000 points lower, and I wanted to put up a score on Heads Up game 3. It was a bad decision in both parts.

 

Spinball - 30 minutes

Despite janky physics I think this is a fun game. People object to the randomness of collisions and I saw plenty but it's still impressive on a system that can't use the video buffer for collision detection.
 

Star Castle - 15 minutes

Better than normal score for me!

 

Tee Time - 25 minutes

A fantastic minigolf game from a student at the Vectrex Academy.

 

VecDrift - 15 minutes

An LCD-style dodging game from Peer Johannsen's Vectrex Academy at Pforzheim University, it plays great and fills a curious gap in the Vectrex's library.

 

Web Wars/Webwarp - 15 minutes

Just took a quick run at one of my favorites.

 

Wet Cat - 20 minutes

The high score homebrew phenomenon of 2023 was the most aggressively contested game of the competition. It is fiendishly addictive. Amazing job by the university student who made it!

 

 

[Hwlngmad]

Yesterday's (11/6) totals:

 

Game Gear

1) Super Space Invaders - 20 minutes

[carlsson]

10 hours ago, Skippy B. Coyote said:

I'm still a bit too mentally fuzzy and rundown feeling

Here is a C64 SID song for you:

Comment from the composer Warren Pilkington:

 

I was suffering with a urine infection at the time I composed this (just don't get one folks - it's awful). The title refers to two drugs I was prescribed, one of which actually sent me delirious. I guess this tune was my calming influence around all that.

[carlsson]

Here's the summary for Week 44, running from October 30 - November 5. We logged 2825 minutes of eligible play, playing 75 games on a total of 14 systems.

 

Top 10:

 

1. Monopoly (Game Boy Color) - 369 min.
2. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 275 min. (#3)
3. Last Bible (Game Gear) - 200 min. (#1)
4. Star Wars (Game Gear) - 180 min.
5. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 144 min. (#5)
6. Silent Hill (PlayStation) - 120 min. (#2)
7. Tetris (Nintendo) (NES/Famicom) - 107 min.
8. Popeye (TI-99/4A) - 105 min.
9. Donald Duck: Deep Duck Trouble (Game Gear) - 100 min.
10. Samurai Showdown (Game Gear) - 90 min. (#9)

 

Pre-NES top 10:

 

1. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 275 min. (PN#1)
2. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 144 min. (PN#2)
3. Popeye (TI-99/4A) - 105 min.
4. Cavern Rescue (Vectrex) - 75 min.
5. Heads Up Action Soccer (Vectrex) - 45 min.
6. Popeye (Arcade) - 33 min.
7. Spinball (a.k.a. Flipper Pinball) (Vectrex) - 30 min.
8. Eggomania (Atari 2600) - 26 min.
9. Count Vecula (Vectrex) - 25 min.
9. Tee Time (Vectrex) - 25 min.

 

Top 10 systems:

 

1. Game Gear (15 games) - 945 min. (#1)
2. Atari 2600 (4 games) - 461 min. (#3)
3. Game Boy Color (1 game) - 369 min.
4. Vectrex (17 games) - 344 min.
5. NES/Famicom (16 games) - 212 min. (#5)
6. PlayStation (1 game) - 120 min. (#2)
7. TI-99/4A (2 games) - 111 min. (#6)
8. Arcade (5 games) - 80 min. (#10)
9. Game Boy (4 games) - 68 min.
10. SNES (2 games) - 45 min.
10. Genesis (2 games) - 45 min. (#4)

 

Monopoly on the Game Boy Color, last seen in the tracker in 2017, makes a comeback and takes the overall title ahead of two of last week's top games. Solar Fox retains its position as the most played pre-NES game on a list with 8/10 different titles from last week. Three systems record 15+ games each, of which the Game Gear gets the most playing this week.

Edited November 7, 2023 by carlsson

[Hwlngmad]

Yesterday's (11/8) totals:

 

Game Gear

1) Surf Ninjas - 25 minutes

2) T2: The Arcade Game - 15 minutes

[neogeo1982]

Yet another Sega week for me. Many new finds and acquisitions.

Game Gear

Fatal Fury Special - 180min

Last Bible Special - 150min

Magical Puzzle Popils - 100min

Fifa Soccer 96 - 40min

Star Wars - 40min

Star Trek TNG Advanced Holodeck - 30min

Columns - 20min

Bust A Move - 20min

 

 

[carlsson]

You are what you play. Since I again didn't manage to play any retro games, I am nothing this week. Time will tell if I am anything next week as well, as my schedule still is full of musts.

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this week (November 6th through 12th) on classic systems (no modern gaming for me this week)... systemS? Well... if you consider each arcade game a system of its own...

 

Arcade:

'96 Flag Rally - 39 min.

600 - 13 min.

4 Fun in 1 - 26 min.

Ali Baba and 40 thieves - 43 min.

Elevator Action - 15 min.

Marble Madness II (Prototype) - 40 min.

Super Cobra - 9 min.

 

This week I played an assortment of Arcade games, all on the website Retrogames.cc. I guess you can say that this site is for arcade games what Youtube is for music... you can find most games you can think of here.

'96 Flag Rally is a more modern take on Rally-X with some enhancements (but by a different company).

600 is a variation on "Turtles", the differences being that you just have to pick up the baby turtles and not deliver them to a house, just go to the exit at the closing of each level. Your bomb suppliy is also dependent on an energy level and cannot be replenished at will like in "Turtles". Also, you get chased by cars instead of biting turtles.

4 Fun in 1 is a "game" where you can select from 4 different games... a Centipede clone, Galaxian, Scramble and Pac-Man. They all seemingly run on Scramble hardware while all are more or less heavily based on the original code of the resprctive game, except for Centipede, which is called "Cosmic Convoy" here and is totally newly written, probably at least in part because this machine is using a different CPU (Z80 or compatible) than the original Atari machine which hosted Centipede. The other 3 games have only been slightly changed regarding their graphics.

Ali Baba and 40 thieves is another take on Pac-Man, or rather, on lesser known maze games like Turtles and Devil Fish. Here you have sacks of money at the bottom with the thieves coming through the maze to take up the money sacks and deliver them to the top (the "Sesame"). You have to prevent them from getting there and snatch those money bags if possible. After squashing 40 money bags or monsters, the level is completed and restarts with faster monsters.

You'll notice that these games come first in the alphabet, which is because I'm going through all arcade games offered on Retrogames and play the ones that look interesting, in alphabetical order, however, the bottom three games deviate from that order since I sought for them on purpose.

I hadn't played Elevator Action in its original form since I got the new SSD in my home PC a few months ago. I got to the 2nd building and got stuck there.

Then for the first time I played "Marble Madness II", which is an expansion on the original Marble Madness. I like this game quite a bit, but it's still not such fun that I would play it for a prolonged period of time. In those 40 minutes, I continued to use continues which eventually got me through all the stages except for the last one which doesn't allow using multiple continuations in a row.

Finally, "Super Cobra" is an expansion of Scramble which I've been playing some time ago.

 

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom! - 130 minutes

Solar Fox - 27 minutes

 

 

[Keir]

Week of 11/6/23 - 11/12/23

 

Atari 2600

Gorf - 10

Marauder - 5

Polaris - 15

 

Total time = 30 minutes

[Hwlngmad]

Totals from 11/10, 11/11, and 11/12:

 

Atari 2600

1) Bridge - 10 minutes

2) Star Voyager - 30 minutes

[agb]

Times for the week:

 

NES

Tetris 65

 

Arcade

Asteroids 7

 

Atari 2600

Eggomania 15

Kaboom 5

Solar Fox 182 

 

All fun.

[+thegoldenband]

My times for the week:

 

Intellivision:

Frog Bog - 4 min.

 

NES:

Super Pitfall II (prototype) - 11 min.

 

Genesis:

Winter Challenge - 26 min.

[+LS650]

In anticipation of getting a 2600+ before the end of November, I've got my old Sear Video Arcade II connected and have been playing a lot of my VCS collection.

Last three games:  Ms. Pac-man, Boing!, and Snoopy vs the Red Baron, about 20 mins each.

[+jgkspsx]

I finally got all my Color Computer stuff in one place and thanks to @Keir I have at least one usable joystick now, so I tested all of my ancient cartridges. Which I foolishly forgot to photograph so here is a photo of an MC-10 on which I have never played a game.

Then I got an Odyssey 2 at a local game show for a good price and finally got to test the big box of cartridges I had amassed.

Finally I picked up an Atari / MyArcade GameStation Pro and tested almost all of the new to me games on it including making a video tour of the Piko Interactive bonus games that aren't on the Evercade:

Then this weekend I got the new Super Pocket handheld by the Evercade people from @Songbird and have had to test it out. Uh, for science.

Which is all to say that I played so many different games this week that if I posted screenshots of all of them Albert would start charging me rent. So I will necessarily be sparing with the screenshots and the descriptions this week. If you are curious about anything, please ask - you know how I like to talk about what I play!

 

Arcade:

Avalanche - 15 minutes

Battle Lane Vol 5 - 20 minutes

Bubble Bobble - 25 minutes

Cheese Chase - 10 minutes

Cloud 9 - 25 minutes

A FANTASTIC game I had never heard of before it was included here. At first you might think it's just a Centipede knockoff, but there is a lot more to it, and a lot of subtlety. I hope the Game Station Pro isn't the only console that gets it.

Flying Shark/Sky Shark/Hishousame - 125 minutes

Working on this for a high score challenge, and it is HARD.

Galaxy Gunners - 35 minutes
Liquid Kids/Mizbak's Adventure/Mizubaku Daibouken - 45 minutes

I am THRILLED that this obscure and wonderful game is getting a wide-scale release. It was on the PC Engine and on the Taito Egret II Mini but has never been easily available to Western consumers. Now it's on the Switch as a single and in the Taito Milestones 2 collection, and built into the new Super Pocket that will hopefully be sold in brick and mortar stores. Really nice to see.

Lucky Boom - 5 minutes

Maniac Square - 15 minutes

Mighty Warriors - 10 minutes

Minky Monkey - 5 minutes

Puzzle Bobble/Bust-a-Move (non-Neo Geo version) - 15 minutes

Quantum - 20 minutes

Sky Raider - 10 minutes

This graphically impressive, mechanically banal, and morally reprehensible game was the opposite of a hidden gem. I'm glad it was included so people can see it but it ain't no good.

Super Breakout - 10 minutes

Super Bug - 5 minutes

World Rally - 45 minutes

Did a comparison video between Evercade and GameStation Pro and it's not kind to the GSP.

Atari 2600:

Breakout - 5 minutes

Circus Atari - 5 minutes

Demons to Diamonds - 10 minutes

Yars' Revenge - 15 minutes

 

Atari 5200:

Frisky Tom - 15 minutes

This port looked poor in videos I watched but I like it just fine.

Meebzork - 5 minutes

Game Boy:

Boxxle/Sokoban - 15 minutes

The Fidgetts - 6 minutes

Power Racer - 20 minutes

This Tecmo conversion of a 1979 Sega arcade game developed in the USA by Gremlin adds a lot of interesting stuff to a classic and often copied formula. However, IT DOESN'T SHOW YOUR SCORE ON GAME OVER! Augh!

Super Hunchback - 20 minutes

Viking Child - 10 minutes

 

Game Gear:

Power Strike II/GG Aleste II - 10 minutes

 

Genesis:

Zany Golf - 5 minutes

 

NES:

Bad Street Brawler - 35 minutes

This very silly yet compelling beat em up was created by @Andrew Davie, who has sadly left AtariAge for now. It is frequently criticized but I enjoyed it more than a lot of beat em ups.

 

Dash Galaxy - 25 minutes
Escape from Atlantis - 5 minutes
Free Fall - 5 minutes
Gorodki - 5 minutes
Lan Master - 5 minutes
Little Lancelot - 5 minutes
Mermaids of Atlantis - 5 minutes
Noah's Ark - 5 minutes
Pow2 - 5 minutes
Pyramids of Ra (NES version) - 5 minutes
Snakki - 5 minutes
Target Renegade - 10 minutes
The Mutant Virus - 15 minutes
Thunderbolt - 5 minutes
Treasure Master - 10 minutes
Zooming Secretary - 20 minutes

 

Odyssey 2:

Alien Invaders-Plus! - 10 minutes

Alpine Skiing! - 5 minutes

Attack of the Timelord! - 15 minutes

Baseball! - 20 minutes

Blockout!/Breakdown! - 10 minutes (split)

Bowling!/Basketball - 5 minutes (split)

Computer Golf! - 5 minutes

Cosmic Conflict! - 5 minutes

Football! - 10 minutes

Freedom Fighters! - 10 minutes

Hockey!/Soccer! - 5 minutes (split)

Invaders from Hyperspace! - 10 minutes

KC Munchkin! - 20 minutes

KC's Crazy Chase! - 25 minutes

Killer Bees - 20 minutes

Monkeyshines! - 20 minutes

Out of This World! / Helicopter Rescue! - 15 minutes (split)

Pick Axe Pete! - 15 minutes

Pocket Billiards! - 5 minutes

Speedway!/Spinout!/Crypto-Logic - 15 minutes (split between the first two)

SubChase!/Armored Encounter! - 10 minutes (split)

Thunderball! - 30 minutes

Turtles - 20 minutes

War of Nerves - 5 minutes

 

TRS-80 Color Computer 2:

Atom - 60 minutes

This atom building game was not overwhelmingly fun but it was very unique and I just kept playing it.

 

Bustout - 20 minutes

I was really taken with this one, which is so much more than a Breakout clone.

Color Baseball - 15 minutes

This was graphically impressive but fielding was maddening.

Downland - 25 minutes

A truly excellent game.

Microbes - 20 minutes

Another case of what initially looks like an Asteroids clone becoming something else very different.

Mindroll - 20 minutes

I could not make any progress at all in this. I don't get it at all.

Monster Maze - 20 minutes

This Berzerk clone is SO buggy I just couldn't believe it.

 

Panic Button - 15 minutes

Polaris - 10 minutes

Project Nebula - 10 minutes

Quasar Commander - 10 minutes

Reactoid - 20 minutes

 

Skiing - 10 minutes

Neat Night Driver esque first person view with a frightening crowd of elves when you arrive at the end.

Slay the Nereis - 25 minutes

Okay, this is primarily just a Centipede clone, but it's a very good one.
Space Assault - 10 minutes

Stellar Lifeline - 65 minutes

Still my favorite.

 

 

Vectrex:

Sea Pup - 25 minutes

Spinball/Flipper Pinball - 35 minutes

Trying to learn the ins and outs... mostly outs.

 

[Skippy B. Coyote]

I'm back with a bit of time to contribute! I spent the past week recovering from a gallbladder removal surgery, which I had to have done on account of a rather enormous gallstone that was likely to perforate my gallbladder at some point if I didn't get the gallbladder removed, so I went ahead and got the surgery done.

 

The recovery has been going better than expected and I'm fairly mobile and able to get back to most of my usual routine after a week of healing, though it'll be another week before I can return to work and probably another month before I can resume eating a normal diet. For now I'm stuck on a really low fat diet while my body figures out how to digest fats again without the aid of a gallbladder, but slowly and steadily I'm getting there.

 

Anyhoo, this week I finished the playthrough of Silent Hill for the original PlayStation that I started for Halloween and after that I did a full playthrough of Metroid: Zero Mission for the Game Boy Advance. They were both a lot of fun and a great way to pass the time while I've been parked in bed recovering!

 

 

Ineligible 

Metroid: Zero Mission (Game Boy Advance) - 652 minutes

 

PlayStation

Silent Hill - 109 minutes 

 

Edited November 14, 2023 by Skippy B. Coyote

[+wongojack]

17 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

 

Sky Raider - 10 minutes

This graphically impressive, mechanically banal, and morally reprehensible game was the opposite of a hidden gem. I'm glad it was included so people can see it but it ain't no good.

 

 

 

I have seen Sky Raider in emulation a handful of times and skipped over it . . . because, I have always assumed it was one of these early games that was meant to directly replicate an electromechanical counterpart.  There were huge machines with conveyor-style images on rollers that the player would try to "shoot" with a yolk or wheel.  An example I have seen and personally played is Bally's Target Zero:  Target Zero - Arcade by Bally Manufacturing Co. (arcade-museum.com).  Another example that looks similar is Midway's Stunt Pilot:  Stunt Pilot - Arcade by Midway Manufacturing Co. (arcade-museum.com).

 

Star Ship and Night Driver are other games that both in the arcade and on the 2600 often get criticized in a similar way, although Night Driver fares better.  These were also based on an older style of game that existed before the integrated circuit was available for entertainment purposes.

[carlsson]

19 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

I played so many different games this week

I'm counting to 90 different titles! Yowsa!

[carlsson]

Here's the summary for Week 45, running from November 6 - 12. We logged 2992 minutes of eligible play, playing 124 games on a total of 12 systems.

 

Top 10:

 

1. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 209 min. (#2)
2. Fatal Fury Special (Game Gear) - 180 min.
3. Last Bible Special (Game Gear) - 150 min.
4. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 135 min. (#5)
5. Hishouzame (Hishou Same, JP ver of Flying Shark) (Arcade) - 125 min.
6. Silent Hill (PlayStation) - 109 min. (#6)
7. Magical Puzzle Popils (Game Gear) - 100 min.
8. Stellar Lifeline (CoCo 1 & 2) - 65 min.
8. Tetris (Nintendo) (NES/Famicom) - 65 min. (#7)
10. Atom (CoCo 1 & 2) - 60 min.

 

Pre-NES top 10:

 

1. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 209 min. (PN#1)
2. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 135 min. (PN#2)
3. Stellar Lifeline (CoCo 1 & 2) - 65 min.
4. Atom (CoCo 1 & 2) - 60 min.
5. Ali Baba and 40 Thieves (Arcade) - 43 min.
6. Spinball (a.k.a. Flipper Pinball) (Vectrex) - 35 min. (PN#7)
7. Star Voyager (Atari 2600) - 30 min.
8. Thunderball! [aka Flipper Game] (Odyssey^2) - 30 min.
9. 4 Fun in 1 (Arcade) - 26 min.
10. Cloud 9 (Arcade) - 25 min.
10. Downland (CoCo 1 & 2) - 25 min.
10. K.C.'s Krazy Chase! (Odyssey^2) - 25 min.
10. Sea Pup (Vectrex) - 25 min.
10. Slay the Nereis (CoCo 1 & 2) - 25 min.
 

Top 10 systems:

 

1. Arcade (26 games) - 632 min. (#8)
2. Game Gear (11 games) - 630 min. (#1)
3. Atari 2600 (15 games) - 524 min. (#2)
4. CoCo 1 & 2 (16 games) - 355 min.
5. Odyssey^2 (24 games) - 310 min.
6. NES/Famicom (19 games) - 246 min. (#5)
7. PlayStation (1 game) - 109 min. (#6)
8. Game Boy (5 games) - 71 min. (#9)
9. Vectrex (2 games) - 60 min. (#4)
10. Genesis (2 games) - 31 min. (#10)

 

Two of the top three games attempt to be special, but in the end it is Solar Fox which is the most played game both overall and pre-NES. A lot of titles were played and added to the tracker this week, and the arcade category has the most amount of minutes, though only by a margin of 2 min to Game Gear.

 

None of the 124 games broke into the 1000, 5000 or 10000 Minute Clubs this week, but Kaboom! exceeded 240K minutes (240,049 to be exact). Most likely it will take another 1-2 years until it breaks a quarter million minutes unless more people add minutes to it.