DarthDuke Posted March 1 Share Posted March 1 Spent part of February 29th playing video games. I try to treat Leap Day as a holiday and relax and do fun stuff to celebrate. This year, I got an Atari 7800 for Christmas, so part of this Leap Day was spent playing Dark Chambers, Xevious, Centipede (both versions), Millipede, Defender, Joust, Strategy X, Ghost Manor and Spikes Peak. I also played Claymates, Clay Fighter 2, Gauntlet and Golden Axe 2 on my SNES and Sega Genesis. Played Defender and Joust on my Atari 7800, SNES and Genesis back to back. I'm not sure why, but I'm a huge fan of those Williams arcade games. They are borderline too hard for me, but the way they are designed, I still enjoy playing them a lot even though I die a lot. It's fun to play the three different versions. The Atari 2600 version of Defender is my favorite because you can hide behind the horizon to avoid getting hit. The Sega Genesis version of Joust is my favorite I think because of how well suited the controller is for it and to some degree, I like the way it sounds on the Genesis the best. I like the Genesis' kinda growly sound for some games. Makes Defender sound cool too. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TampaBay Posted March 1 Share Posted March 1 1 hour ago, Keir said: That place sounds awesome! 59 minutes ago, DarthDuke said: Wow! That's a big arcade for having freeplay games! I've seen freeplay cabinets in hobby stores where I live, but not this many. Does this place charge any kind of admission or at the door fee? There used to be a high-end bar/restaurant here where you could have somewhat expensive, but quite good, drinks and gourmet level bar food (excellent bison burgers for example). But the upside was that they had a lot of freeplay arcade cabinets, pool tables, darts, etc. Not nearly this many though. I think the arcade side of the place was maybe a fourth the size of this one, but it was still a great place to hang out and to have parties. Covid killed it off unfortunately. It never came back. @DarthDuke @Keir Thanks, yeah, it's a lot of fun. I try to go once every couple of weeks. It's really big with dozens of cabinets. The photos I posted are probably less than half of it. They do a really nice job maintaining everything, I feel fortunate to have it nearby. Yes, there's an admission at the door. $8 for kids from morning til night, and $14 for adults. It's 11am to 11pm and you can leave and come back as much as you want for the day, to stroll around the town, get a bite to eat, go back and play some more games, etc. Sorry I should have mentioned that. I just mentioned it was free-play because it's so much more fun when you can just play as much as you want, for as long as you want, without feeding quarters or tokens into the machine. It's surprisingly never too busy. They even have a weekly and a monthly pass at a discount. I might actually get one of those! 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TampaBay Posted March 1 Share Posted March 1 1 hour ago, DarthDuke said: I'm not sure why, but I'm a huge fan of those Williams arcade games. They are borderline too hard for me, but the way they are designed, I still enjoy playing them a lot even though I die a lot. Their games are great. Joust and Defender are two of my all-time favorites as well. Defender is known to be notoriously difficult, so you are not the only one! I just use the smart-bombs as much as I can! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+jgkspsx Posted March 1 Share Posted March 1 1 hour ago, DarthDuke said: Spent part of February 29th playing video games. It helps @carlsson a lot if you post them in similar formats to others. Make sure to list your time for each game or it defaults to five minutes. 4 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted March 1 Author Share Posted March 1 Yeah. Games without system are not considered at all by me. Games with system but no time are accounted for 5 min each. Games with all parameters set are logged as written down. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthDuke Posted March 1 Share Posted March 1 3 hours ago, TampaBay said: @DarthDuke @Keir Thanks, yeah, it's a lot of fun. I try to go once every couple of weeks. It's really big with dozens of cabinets. The photos I posted are probably less than half of it. They do a really nice job maintaining everything, I feel fortunate to have it nearby. Yes, there's an admission at the door. $8 for kids from morning til night, and $14 for adults. It's 11am to 11pm and you can leave and come back as much as you want for the day, to stroll around the town, get a bite to eat, go back and play some more games, etc. Sorry I should have mentioned that. I just mentioned it was free-play because it's so much more fun when you can just play as much as you want, for as long as you want, without feeding quarters or tokens into the machine. It's surprisingly never too busy. They even have a weekly and a monthly pass at a discount. I might actually get one of those! That's a good deal! I can easily spend more than $14 at Pinball Hall of Fame when I'm there for an afternoon. I don't mind because it goes to charities like Salvation Army. Would be awesome to have a place like the one you are talking about though. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthDuke Posted March 1 Share Posted March 1 2 hours ago, jgkspsx said: It helps @carlsson a lot if you post them in similar formats to others. Make sure to list your time for each game or it defaults to five minutes. I never keep track of how long I do things for fun. I've never thought of it. If that format needs to be followed, I guess I won't post anymore. Thanks for letting me know. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthDuke Posted March 1 Share Posted March 1 3 hours ago, TampaBay said: Their games are great. Joust and Defender are two of my all-time favorites as well. Defender is known to be notoriously difficult, so you are not the only one! I just use the smart-bombs as much as I can! Yeah, smart bombs are fantastic! In the versions where I can't hide behind the horizon, I use the bombs a lot. Maybe one of the reasons why I don't mind Defender being so difficult is the satisfying payoff that I get from even managing to rescue one humanoid from a lander. I don't get frustrated if I don't get a higher total score than I have before because that play mechanic is more satisfying to me than a score. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthDuke Posted March 1 Share Posted March 1 2 hours ago, carlsson said: Yeah. Games without system are not considered at all by me. Games with system but no time are accounted for 5 min each. Games with all parameters set are logged as written down. Sorry. New to this forum thread. Didn't realize that posts had to be in a certain format. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted March 1 Author Share Posted March 1 The entire idea behind this thread is to count times, accumulate over the year and get total numbers at the end of the year. Of course you're welcome to post which games you've been playing even if you didn't keep the slightest track of time. Sometimes you can tell if you played a game for 5 or 30 minutes though, or sat in front of it for two hours and skipped dinner. Rough estimates are perfectly fine. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+jgkspsx Posted March 2 Share Posted March 2 2 hours ago, DarthDuke said: I never keep track of how long I do things for fun. I've never thought of it. If that format needs to be followed, I guess I won't post anymore. Thanks for letting me know. I mean, I enjoy your posts, but carlsson does a lot of work in this thread and I always worry about getting in his way. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TampaBay Posted March 2 Share Posted March 2 (edited) 2 hours ago, DarthDuke said: Sorry. New to this forum thread. Didn't realize that posts had to be in a certain format. You don't have to go too crazy. I don't keep "super close" track as I go along. At the end of the day or every couple of days, I just list the games I played, what system its on (arcade, Atari 2600, etc.) and a rough estimate rounded to the nearest 20 mins of how long I played. I agree about saving people in Defender! Edited March 2 by TampaBay 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keir Posted March 2 Share Posted March 2 When I started posting in this thread I wasn't sure about the whole keeping track of my time business, but now I find it's actually kind of fun. I don't worry about being too precise, I just think about roughly how long I've spent playing games and round to the nearest 5 minutes. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+wongojack Posted March 2 Share Posted March 2 5 hours ago, DarthDuke said: I never keep track of how long I do things for fun. I've never thought of it. If that format needs to be followed, I guess I won't post anymore. Thanks for letting me know. There is some effort involved, and it isn't for everybody, but you learn some things when you start tracking the actual time you play games. I usually just use my phone to quickly note my start time and then keep a running log each week. On Monday, I get the log organized by system and post it here. It adds a new dimension to what I think a lot of us feel which is that our backlog of games is ever growing and having some data points as measures of progress brings some relief. Maybe that's just me. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TampaBay Posted March 2 Share Posted March 2 38 minutes ago, wongojack said: There is some effort involved, and it isn't for everybody, but you learn some things when you start tracking the actual time you play games. I usually just use my phone to quickly note my start time and then keep a running log each week. On Monday, I get the log organized by system and post it here. It adds a new dimension to what I think a lot of us feel which is that our backlog of games is ever growing and having some data points as measures of progress brings some relief. Maybe that's just me. I also think it's interesting to see trends I might not otherwise have noticed as easily. Apparently I really like driving games! Ha. I didn't realize just how much time I spent driving until I saw a lot of my game play on Out Run, Daytona USA 2, Pole Position, Gran Turismo, Cruis'n USA, etc. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+jgkspsx Posted March 2 Share Posted March 2 I take photos of pretty much everything I play (as you will have by now noticed). It definitely makes me realize the time investment more... except for that week I played for like 25 hours and said I hadn't played very much... 5 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+thegoldenband Posted March 2 Share Posted March 2 Yeah, it's kind of like keeping a gaming journal, and can lead to some interesting insights. It's amazing how weird my sense of time can be -- I find out a game I thought I played a year or two ago, I actually beat a decade ago. (And once in a while, the opposite happens!) Just the other day I thought I remembered that it took me 6+ hours to beat a game in a single sitting -- but nope, it was only about 4. Is that important? Dunno, but it was interesting to me. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+neogeo1982 Posted March 2 Share Posted March 2 This threads making me realize all I play is Sega anymore. I need to trend back to other things in my video diet 🫣. After all my goofing around to get Phantasy Star back online, I've still only met 2 other lonely souls to adventure with so far. Sega Master System The Ninja - 90min (HSC) Sega Game Gear Battletoads - 30min Wonderboy - 20min Samurai Shodown - 20min Sega Dreamcast Phantasy Star Online ver2 - 1215min Chuchu Rocket - 60min Gunlord - 60min Stupid Invaders - 30min Dead or Alive 2 - 20min Zombie Revenge - 30min 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted March 2 Author Share Posted March 2 (edited) 18 hours ago, jgkspsx said: I always worry about getting in his way That is very generous of you, but a single post here and there don't affect my work here much. Actually what does take most of the time is to track down arcade games (regarding release years) and alternative titles of some games for the newer systems, to determine if it is the same one as previously tracked or a new spinoff in the same series of games. Edited March 2 by carlsson 5 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurt_Woloch Posted March 3 Share Posted March 3 Here are my times for this week (February 26th through March 3rd 2024)... today is March 3rd in the USA as well, right? RIGHT??? Anyway, here are my... yeah, as said above. Arcade: Elevator Action - 57 min. in 3 sessions This week I continued to play the original arcade version of "Elevator Action" just for a little distraction (rhymes, huh?). One of the sessions was pretty short because right after starting the game, it came to me what I actually wanted to do, so that session only lasted for one game. I managed to beat the 2nd building multiple times and start the 3rd, maxing out at about 17,500 points. What was also interesting, but isn't a game, is a paper that came out on "Cellular functions of spermatogonial stem cells in relation to JAK/STAT signaling pathway"... whatever that is. This scientific paper has actually been written by AI and the illustrations created by Midjourney. On the surface, this looks like a legit scientific paper, but if you look at the figures a bit more closely you'll realize that they are pretty much nonsense, and the descriptions of the figures are gibberish with the words that are in principle correct often varying in spelling, i.e. the term "spermatogonial stem cells" once appears as "Spermatocial stem cells", then there is an "iollotte sserotgomar cell", there are "senctolic stem cells" and "dielocttal stem ells", with the "e" of "dielocttal" actually being a mirrored "s" (a "2" in lowercase). And the madness goes on like this in the other figures which are all AI generated... 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted March 3 Author Share Posted March 3 Atari 8-bit: Galaxian - 18 min. I had not played any games for the entire week, when I felt the itch to play something at 11 PM on Sunday evening. I had two games of the current A8 HSC game, and in my second attempt surprisingly set a new personal best. Better end while you're ahead, so this is as far I got this week. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted March 3 Author Share Posted March 3 (edited) On 2/29/2024 at 6:11 PM, DarthDuke said: I got Strategy X, XONOX double ended Spikes Peak with Ghost Manor, and Midnight Magic for the Atari 2600. Also found Claymates for the SNES. On 3/1/2024 at 6:28 PM, DarthDuke said: This year, I got an Atari 7800 for Christmas, so part of this Leap Day was spent playing Dark Chambers, Xevious, Centipede (both versions), Millipede, Defender, Joust, Strategy X, Ghost Manor and Spikes Peak. I also played Claymates, Clay Fighter 2, Gauntlet and Golden Axe 2 on my SNES and Sega Genesis. Played Defender and Joust on my Atari 7800, SNES and Genesis back to back. [..] The Atari 2600 version of Defender is my favorite because you can hide behind the horizon to avoid getting hit. The Sega Genesis version of Joust is my favorite I think because of how well suited the controller is for it and to some degree, I like the way it sounds on the Genesis the best. I like the Genesis' kinda growly sound for some games. Makes Defender sound cool too. I parsed your posts and came to this breakdown, which is what I will use unless you like to update it: Atari 2600: Defender - 5 min. (*) Ghost Manor - 10 min. Midnight Magic - 5 min. Millipede - 5 min. Spike's Peak - 10 min. Strategy X - 10 min. (*) Doesn't exist on the 7800, unless you played Bob DeCrescenzo's recent homebrew? Atari 7800: Centipede - 5 min. Dark Chambers - 5 min. Joust - 5 min Xevious - 5 min. Genesis: Gauntlet IV - 5 min. Golden Axe II - 5 min. Williams Arcade's Greatest Hits - 10 min. (Defender + Joust are part of this compilation) SNES: Clay Fighter 2 - 5 min. Claymates - 10 min. Edited March 3 by carlsson 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prosystemsearch Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 Here Are my times from the previous week: NES/Famicom Bee 52 (unlicensed): 16 minutes Abadox: 6 minutes After burner (unlicensed): 4 1/2 minutes Big Nose the Caveman (unlicensed): 7 1/2 minutes Burgertime: 7 minutes Fester's Quest: 6 1/2 minutes Fantasy Zone (unlicensed Tengen version): 10 minutes Ghosts n' Goblins: 5 1/2 minutes Game Boy Klax: 8 1/2 minutes Megaman: Dr. Wily's Revenge: 17 minutes Game Boy Advance Warioware Inc: 20 minutes Nintendo DS Cooking Mama 2: 14 minutes YU-GI-OH Nightmare Troubadour: 19 minutes 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
agb Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 Atari 2600 Adventure of Tron 34 Robotank 8 Solar Fox 60 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TampaBay Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 For the week ending Sunday, March 3. The following is in addition to anything previously posted: Arcade: * Altered Beast: 20 mins * Bubble Bobble: 20 mins * Cruis'n USA: 45 mins * Daytona USA 2: 20 mins * Out Run: 10 mins Atari 8-bit: * Bruce Lee: 20 mins Atari 5200: * Qix: 20 mins Atari 2600: * Asteroids: 20 mins * Centipede: 20 mins * Keystone Capers: 20 mins * Montezuma's Revenge: 20 mins * Moon Patrol: 10 mins * Turmoil: 30 mins * Yars' Revenge: 20 mins Playstation 1: * Dino Crisis: 20 mins * Gran Turismo: 20 mins Nintendo 64: Star Wars Rogue Squadron: 20 mins 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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