What have you actually PLAYED tracker for 2017 (Season 10)

[Eltigro]

This was another "themed" week for me, but this time it was intentional. =)

 

NES

Sqoon (emulated) - 5 min (Didn't really know what I was doing here. Looked it up later and may try again, but it was pretty hard. My problem was that many things that looked like they might be powerups weren't and when I "collected" them, I was sent to the bottom of the sea...)

 

Saturn

In the Hunt (emulated) - 14 min (Just such a good looking game. Love the cartoony "Metal Slug" like look of it. I got farther than I have before which wasn't far, but I also found a different button on my controller that shoots both the torpedoes and the rockets/depth charges at the same time. No more trying to hold down two buttons at once for me.)

 

Ineligible

XBox One

Song of the Deep - Not sure on time, but I thought I saw something that said I had spent 8 hours or so on it but I can't find it now. So that's what I'm going with... 480 minutes (not that it matters for the tracker...) Anyway, this really is a nice little game. It's not very long or difficult, the puzzles aren't too challenging, but it's just a nice little game that tells a story. Like a children's book, but in game form. It even hints at a sequel in the end sequence. I'm really surprised that something that I enjoyed this much is in any way connected to GameStop. Who knew?

 

So, did you guess the theme this week? I'll give you one more hint in video form...

 

 

PS: I thought about playing either Silent Service (NES) or 688 Attack Sub (Genesis) but I wanted some games that were a little more pick-up-and-play than hardcore sims.

[Mephitblue]

Atari 2600

Bezerk - 45 minutes

Chopper Command - 10 minutes (Got the Activision Badge)

Frogger - 10 minutes

Gorf - 10 minutes

 

Atari 7800

Joust - 30 minutes

Dig Dug - 15 minutes

 

Ineligible

Nintendo Switch

Zelda Breath of the Wild - 3 hours

 

PSP

Star Ocean Second Evolution - 2hours

[+thegoldenband]

My times for the week:

 

Sega CD:

Super Strike Trilogy - 3 min.

3DO:

Icebreaker - 7 min.

PlayStation:

Power Serve 3D Tennis - 187 min.

Tennis Arena - 284 min.

Nintendo 64:

Bomberman 64: Arcade Edition (J, trans. Eng.) - 363 min.

Beat both tennis games -- thoughts on Power Serve 3D Tennis here -- and Bomberman 64 too. That meant winning a match in Power Serve 3D Tennis (the game offers nothing else); becoming world #1 in Tennis Arena; and doing a bunch of different things in Bomberman 64.

[karokoenig]

Atari 2600

Cosmic Commuter: 15 min

Pengo: 10 min

 

Sega Master System

Alien Syndrome: 2 min

Choplifter: 3 min

Ghostbusters: 18 min

Superman: 4 min

The Ninja: 3 min

 

Sega Mega Drive

James Pond 3: 10 min

 

I was worried I'm late to this week's party. Some testing and some HSC. Nothing spectacular.

[Skippy B. Coyote]

I've been feeling kinda sick today so I'll probably have to wait until tomorrow to take my usual weekly picture and do a proper writeup, but for now here's my household's play times for the week copied and pasted from my tablet:

 

 

Ineligible

---------------

Doom II (Game Boy Advance) - 13 minutes

 

Game Boy

----------------

Marble Madness - 35 minutes

Mortal Kombat - 13 minutes

 

Game Boy Color

--------------------------

1942 - 92 minutes

Centipede - 63 minutes

Dance Dance Revolution GB - 59 minutes

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons - 742 minutes

 

PlayStation

------------------

Final Doom - 298 minutes

 

 

 

 

Total Video Game Play Time This Week

--------------------------------------------------------------

1,315 minutes (21 hours 55 minutes) [1,302 minutes eligible]

 

 

Individual System Play Times This Week

----------------------------------------------------------------

Game Boy Color: 956 minutes

PlayStation: 298 minutes

Game Boy: 48 minutes

Game Boy Advance: 13 minutes

[+Darrin9999]

Neo Geo AES:

 

1. Alpha Mission II - 255 min

2. Ghost Pilots - 289 min

[+thegoldenband]

Here's the summary for Week 28, running from July 10 - 16. We logged 4844 minutes of eligible play, playing 67 games on a total of 17 systems.

 

Top 10:

 

1. Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons (Game Boy Color) - 742

2. Bomberman 64 (JPN, Eng. trans. by Zoinkity) [aka Arcade Edition] (N64) - 363

3. Phantasy Star III (Genesis) - 317

4. GoldenEye 007 (N64) - 300

5. Final Doom (PlayStation) - 298

6. Ghost Pilots (Neo Geo AES/MVS) - 289

7. Tennis Arena (PlayStation) - 284

8. Alpha Mission II (Neo Geo AES/MVS) - 255

9. Pac-Man (Fairchild Channel F) - 223

10. SteamRoller (ColecoVision) - 198

 

Pre-NES top 10:

 

1. Pac-Man (Fairchild Channel F) - 223

2. SteamRoller (ColecoVision) - 198

3. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 168

4. Cosmic Creeps (Atari 2600) - 145

5. Frantic (ColecoVision) - 114

6. Adventure (PDP- - 74

7. Berzerk (Atari 2600) - 45

8. Cosmic Commuter (Atari 2600) - 44

9. Atari Climber (Atari 2600) - 31

10. Joust (Atari 7800) - 30

10. Hammurabi (PDP- - 30

 

Top 10 systems:

 

1. Game Boy Color (956)

2. PlayStation (769)

3. Atari 2600 (728)

4. N64 (663)

5. Neo Geo AES/MVS (544)

6. ColecoVision (333)

7. Genesis (327)

8. Fairchild Channel F (223)

9. PDP-8 (124)

10. Game Boy (48)

 

We nearly have a close race in Week 28, but then Oracle of Seasons comes along and flattens everybody! It's not quite a runaway for the Game Boy Color itself, though, as the PlayStation and VCS put up respectable numbers on the system charts to at least take #2 and #3.

 

Meanwhile the Channel F makes a rare appearance in all three charts -- and what's more, its homebrew port of Pac-Man beats out all other pre-crash contenders to take the top pre-NES spot. And the PDP-8 makes its first-ever appearance on the tracker and even makes #9 on the system charts, with two games in the pre-NES Top 10.

 

Finally the VCS release of Beamrider may not make the top 10 this week, but it sneaks into the 1000-minute club, with 1013 minutes logged to date giving it spot #292.

[+thegoldenband]

BTW my notes indicate that with carlsson's play of Waterworld this week, we're down to 31 North American-released VCS games that have never been seen on the tracker -- to wit:

 

Atari Video Cube

Basic Math

Berenstain Bears

Checkers (Activision)

Codebreaker

Eli's Ladder

Extra Terrestrials

Gamma-Attack

Gauntlet

Glacier Patrol

Glib

Hunt & Score

International Soccer

IQ-180*

Killer Satellites

Math Gran Prix

Out of Control

Party Mix

Spitfire Attack

Star Fox

Stone Age*

Strawberry Shortcake

Super Challenge Baseball

Super Challenge Football

Super Football

Survival Island

Survival Run

Sword of Saros

Tac-Scan

Video Jogger

Video Reflex

 

Really weird that Survival Run and Tac-Scan have never shown up!

[zylon]

 

Here's the summary for Week 28, running from July 10 - 16. We logged 4844 minutes of eligible play, playing 67 games on a total of 17 systems.

Top 10:

1. Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons (Game Boy Color) - 742

2. Bomberman 64 (JPN, Eng. trans. by Zoinkity) [aka Arcade Edition] (N64) - 363

3. Phantasy Star IV (Genesis) - 317

4. GoldenEye 007 (N64) - 300

5. Final Doom (PlayStation) - 298

6. Ghost Pilots (Neo Geo AES/MVS) - 289

7. Tennis Arena (PlayStation) - 284

8. Alpha Mission II (Neo Geo AES/MVS) - 255

9. Pac-Man (Fairchild Channel F) - 223

10. SteamRoller (ColecoVision) - 198

 

 

That was Phantasy Star III, not IV that I played this last week. Little by little, I am endeavoring to reach all 4 different endings on this game. I am back to IV for this week.

Edited July 19, 2017 by zylon

[+thegoldenband]

That was Phantasy Star III, not IV that I played this last week. Little by little, I am endeavoring to reach all 4 different endings on this game. I am back to IV for this week.

Thanks for that -- fixed!

[Skippy B. Coyote]

I've been feeling kinda sick today so I'll probably have to wait until tomorrow to take my usual weekly picture and do a proper writeup, but for now here's my household's play times for the week copied and pasted from my tablet:

 

 

Ineligible

---------------

Doom II (Game Boy Advance) - 13 minutes

 

Game Boy

----------------

Marble Madness - 35 minutes

Mortal Kombat - 13 minutes

 

Game Boy Color

--------------------------

1942 - 92 minutes

Centipede - 63 minutes

Dance Dance Revolution GB - 59 minutes

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons - 742 minutes

 

PlayStation

------------------

Final Doom - 298 minutes

 

 

 

 

Total Video Game Play Time This Week

--------------------------------------------------------------

1,315 minutes (21 hours 55 minutes) [1,302 minutes eligible]

 

 

Individual System Play Times This Week

----------------------------------------------------------------

Game Boy Color: 956 minutes

PlayStation: 298 minutes

Game Boy: 48 minutes

Game Boy Advance: 13 minutes

 

 

 

Alright, time to finally do that weekly write up now that I'm feeling better!

 

 

 

 

For me this past week was all about the Game Boy Color. I played through 1942, Centipede, and Dance Dance Revolution GB for the NintendoAge.com effort to beat as many Game Boy Color games as possible (a thread that I'm actually running this year) then started in on what I knew was going to be a very long quest in The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons. That made up the bulk of my gaming time this week as I alternated between playing Oracle of Seasons on the Game Boy Color when I was out and about by myself and on the GameCube's Game Boy Player when I was at home and the misses wanted to watch me play. Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages have long been some of my wife's all time favorite games so she had a lot of fun watching me play through the first of the two, and having just completed Oracle of Seasons last night I'll be moving on to Oracle of Ages in the not too distant future.

 

The only other games I played this week were Marble Madness on the Game Boy for the NintendoAge effort to beat original Game Boy games, then a few rounds of Mortal Kombat while I was out on a smoke break. I also spent of a bit of time playing Doom II on the Game Boy Advance to help me make up my mind as to whether or not I should sell my Game Boy Advance SP, but that was all the gaming for me this week. On the spousal unit's gaming agenda for the week there was one and only one game: Final Doom for the PlayStation. Playing on Ultra Violence difficulty she put the nail in the coffin on both the Plutonia Experiment and Master Levels chapters, bringing Final Doom to a close and adding it to her personal list of games beaten in 2017.

 

As far as what next week has in store I know I'm going to be playing through The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages on the Game Boy Color now that I've wrapped up Oracle of Seasons, and there are a couple other GBC games that I'm looking forward to starting in on too if I get the time. Duke Nukem and Resident Evil: Gaiden in particular. Speaking of Resident Evil, the misses has a horror game on her "to play" list for the coming week as well; but in her case it's a Nintendo DS game so it sadly won't be eligible for the tracker. Well, I think that about takes care of everything for this week's belated post! Until next time, best wishes and happy gaming to you and yours.

[+Darrin9999]

I finally got in a good amount of gaming this week!

 

Neo Geo AES:

 

1. 3count Bout - 25 min

2. Alpha Mission II - 350 min

3. Baseball Stars 2 - 225 min

4. Blue's Journey - 85 min

5. Fatal Fury - 30 min

6. Ghost Pilot's - 310 min

7. King of the Monster's - 45 min

8. Magician Lord - 38 min

9. Nam-1975 - 110 min

 

[oyamafamily]

Atari 2600 - Pengo - 118 minutes

 

Evidence of the week: Pengo gameplay video for 2600 NEW HSC Season 6, Week 26 - 232,090 points

 

[carlsson]

Atari 2600:

Custer's Revenge - 2 min.

E.T. - 5 min.

Fall Down - 18 min.

Wizard of Wor - 4 min.

Atari 8-bit:

Gateway to Apshai - 18 min.

Shamus Case II - 14 min.

C64:

C64anabalt - 2 min.

Decathlon - 4 min.

Giana Sisters - 9 min.

Micro Hexagon - 5 min.

Monster Buster - 30 min.

VIC-20:

Frogger '07 - 2 min.

Gridrunner - 4 min.

Hellgate - 3 min.

Lazer Zone - 3 min.

Metagalactic Llamas - 15 min.

Tetris+ - 6 min.

I've just returned from a BBQ party with a bit of retro gaming. Most of the above times are estimates, but somewhat accurate. There may be a few games I tried but haven't counted, the above games were ones I seriously attempted to play (including Custer's!).

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week (July 17th through 23rd)...

 

Arcade:

Lock 'n' Chase - 5 min.

Pac-Man - 32 min.

Pacmania - 7 min.

 

Bally Astrocade:

Muncher - 22 min.

 

Channel F:

Pac-Man - 154 min. in 8 sessions

 

Creativision:

Crazy Chicky - 6 min.

 

Emerson Arcadia:

Super Gobbler - 13 min.

Crazy Gobbler - 19 min.

 

Game Boy:

Pac-Man - 20 min.

 

Online (non-eligible):

Elephant Quest - 124 min.

 

VIC-20:

Centipede - 31 min.

Frogger - 3 min.

Galaxian - 4 min.

Jelly Monsters - 17 min.

Pac-Man - 6 min.

Pole Position - 7 min.

Seafox - 267 min. in 10 sessions

 

Windows (non-eligible):

Dance Pac-Man - 6 min.

Pac-Man (Wolfpack) - 6 min.

 

This week I played a whole bunch of different games, although I played some of them only briefly. After taking the Channel F version of Pac-Man to Round 7, I tried a whole lot of other Pac-Man variants which I'll list here:

 

Pac-Man (Arcade): This is, of course, the original, and it plays much smoother than the Channel F version and also is a bit faster.

Lock'n'Chase (Arcade): This is another variant that appeared in the arcade, but I think it's not as well thought out. The maze is pretty regular, and it's hard to escape the enemies.

Pacmania (Arcade): This is a later evolution of Pac-Man where you can jump, but there's also more than 4 ghosts in the maze.My experience with "normal" Pac-Man games didn't help too much here.

Muncher (Astrocade): This is pretty close to the original Pac-Man, other than the sprites are a bit small compared to the maze, and at a certain point in the game, the speed doubles, but at that point, you can get far in the maze when the ghosts are blue because the blue time hasn't halved.

Pac-Man (Game Boy): I actually played this on a Game Boy Advance, but it's still the Game Boy version. Due to the system being black-and-white, all ghosts have the same color, so you can't distinguish them from one another. I don't know if they actually have a different AI from each other anyway.

Crazy Chicky (Creativision): This one of the worse Pac-Man clones. The steering lags a bit and it's hard to hit the proper passage entrances, also there's a slowdown each time you have to turn. Although the game is pretty slow, it's rather hard.

Super Gobbler (Arcadia): This version is not too great either, but it plays a bit better, quicker and smoother than Crazy Chicky.

Crazy Gobbler (Arcadia): This seems to be the Arcadia version that's closest to the original Pac-Man (on this system), but they squeezed it in only 2K (!) and thus made some simplifications, such as the maze being symmetrical horizontally and vertically or the ghosts immediately jumping back to the house when eaten.

Dance Pac-Man (Windows): This one has got different variations, among them some that come pretty close to the original Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man games, but it doesn't run properly on my PC (flickers like mad).

Pac-Man (VIC-20): This version by Atarisoft is severely screwed up. The maze only vaguely represents the original one, and it's pretty hard because the ghosts can get you at the starting point in a matter of seconds. Also, Pac-Man and also the ghosts jump forward by up to 8 pixels on changing direction which makes gameplay a bit jerky and unpredictable.

Jelly Monsters (VIC-20): This one is a MUCH better approximation of the original arcade Pac-Man. The maze does represent the arcade one pretty well except for cutting away some of the lower part, and the motion is fluid without any jumping going on.

Pac-Man (Windows, Wolfpack): This is a version written in VB by a colleague under the name of Wolfpack Games, but he has since removed it from his homepage as far as I know. It doesn't run as fast as it should even on Windows XP anyway, or maybe the Direct X version is at fault. It's close to the C-64 version of Pac-Man, but there are a few differences, for instance the game doesn't stop if you eat a ghost.

 

After trying out all possible versions of Pac-Man, I briefly played some other VIC-20 games. As with Pac-Man, there's another clone of Galaxian by Commodore, but this time I played the Atarisoft version which isn't bad either... at least not as bad as the C-64 version. Centipede on first glance also has more smooth animation than on the C-64, but suffers from slowdowns and a slow moving cannon. Finally, Frogger has got very jerky motion, moving everything in 8-pixel steps. I think there has been a better homebrew version made, but I didn't try that one.

 

Finally, I settled on Seafox on the VIC-20, a game which I played back in the day on the C-64. The VIC-20 version is faster and harder, and I didn't manage to complete the 3rd mission yet while I did complete the game on the C-64 back in the day.

 

I also played an online game, Elephant Quest, which is basically a jump and run game playing in, I think, 45 rooms connected by various doors, some of which have to be opened by keys you find on the way.

[zylon]

Genesis-

 

Columns- 1hr 28min

Tetris- 2hrs 5min

Thunderforce III- 20min

Insector X- 21min

Phantasy Star IV- 10hrs 43min (completed)

[oyamafamily]

TIMES TO ADD

 

Kabobber (Atari 2600) - 15 minutes

Ikari Warriors (Atari 7800) - 12 minutes

[Eltigro]

I finally figured out the kinks in some Saturn emulation issues I've been having, so I kinda went on a spree...

 

7800

Mario Bros. (emulated) - 25 minutes (I think this is probably my favorite version of this game. Not sure why, just has the simple gameplay and sounds, nothing flashy.)

 

Saturn (all emulated)

Guardian Heroes - 12 minutes (An interesting beat-em-up with some RPG elements on first inspection... interesting mechanic to move in and out of the playfield... press one shoulder button to come toward the camera, the other to jump away... enemies are actually on three or four different planes at once and you jump between them... haven't gotten very far into it... I just played until the first death)

Gunbird - 8 minutes (Shmups are one of the two genres of games that I really would like to own for the Saturn, but of course they are almost invariably too expensive for me. Gunbird seems pretty fun so far, just played until my first game over... notice it didn't take long, lol)

Panzer Dragoon Saga - 470 min (This is one of the big ones... one of the reasons I wanted to emulate the Saturn... RPGs are another of the genres I'd like to collect for the Saturn, but they are too expensive and this one is one of the most expensive... it's a really fun game so far, I'm on the third disc and enjoy the unique action oriented battles... but even as much as I'm enjoying it, I just don't think I could justify the 600 to 1000 dollar price tags I've seen on it...)

Panzer Dragoon II: Zwei - 10 min (I have the first Panzer Dragoon, and this is more of the same kind of on rails gameplay, but it seems to be one of the best and most enjoyable of the type. I'll probably finish up Saga, then go back and play the first one on my Saturn, then play Zwei. I beat the original back when I first got my Saturn, so I'll try to go all through this one, too.)

 

Ineligible

Game Boy Advance

Mario Kart: Super Circuit (emulated) - 60 minutes (This isn't one of my favorite Mario Kart titles, but I had never played it before. It still has that mode 7 look like the SNES original, which, while isn't bad, isn't an effect that I ever really liked that much. I prefer the later, actual 3D versions like Mario Kart 64, Double Dash, and the Wii version.)

 

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom! - 338 minutes

Pengo - 30 minutes

 

 

Kaboom! High score of the week: 106,947

 

 

[+thegoldenband]

My times for the week:

 

Sega Master System:

ALF - 34 min.

Double Dragon - 27 min.

Maze Hunter 3D - 4 min.

Missile Defense 3D - 7 min.

Quartet - 10 min.

Secret Command - 12 min.

SNES:

David Crane's Amazing Tennis - 29 min.

Sega CD:

Final Fight - 45 min.

PlayStation:

Buttsubushi - 76 min.

CT Special Forces - 75 min.

Davis Cup Complete Tennis - 3 min.

Dreams Into Reality - 2 min.

Happy Salvage - 7 min.

Hyper Final Match Tennis - 3 min.

Jumping Flash - 19 min.

Simple 1500 Series Vol. 79: The Shisenshou - 3 min.

V-Tennis 2 - 12 min.

Nintendo 64:

Jeopardy! - 36 min.

I beat the main mode of Buttsubushi on the highest difficulty and have now started on the 100-level puzzle mode, with 24 puzzles down. EDIT: And I also beat Jeopardy! on the hardest settings.

Nothing else too major to report, though I came within a whisker of beating ALF for the second time. (I was showing a family member what a bad game it is -- though actually, as they noted, it's almost like an Ed Wood movie in video game form, and so becomes oddly endearing.)

[karokoenig]

Vacation week, on the road. Therefore, no electronic gaming of any sort. Instead, real life... .

[+wongojack]

Arcade

Star Wars Trilogy 1

DOS

Gobliiins 3

Beneath a Steel Sky 1

Day of the Tentacle 2

Full Throttle 2

Sam and Max HtR 3

FM Towns

Indiana Jones & FoA 1

Loom 2

Monkey Island II 2

The Secret of Monkey Island 4

Genesis

Phantasy Star II 45 (via GBA)

Windows 95/98

Broken Sword SotT 2

King's Quest VI 4

The Curse of Monkey Island 5

Previous week I recorded no time, but I played quite a bit of Monkey Island 2 special edition. I've since been playing quite a bit of Telltale's "Tales of Monkey Island," and it got me interested in getting SCUMM VM going again. Turns out since the last time I messed with it, I've actually purchased quite a few legal copies of supported games, so that made testing and seeing what was working kind of interesting. Looks like when version 1.10 goes mainstream it will support even more games that I have in my Steam or Gog libraries. One thing about playing through SCUMM VM is that I'm not always 100% sure which version of the game I am playing. Is that the DOS version of Full Throttle or the Win '95? Pretty sure it is DOS . . .

I was in Vegas for work for most of the week, and I stopped by the Excalibur arcade where I dropped a few dollars. There was something wrong with the joystick on the Star Wars Trilogy machine, and I died so fast that I didn't play a second time. However, it looked nice and clean and functional. They also had the Beach Head 2000 pod set up. I played a game of that, but it wasn't the version that rotates.

How's this for gaming? My colleagues taught me how to play craps, and I more than doubled my meager bet of $60. I don't usual gamble, but I had a lot of fun with it on this trip. On the last day of my trip, I went to the Pinball Hall of Fame where I played several pins and some classic EM arcade games.

Phantasy Star II was played while in-transit flying. I also played a handful of other ineligible GBA games.

=======================

Ineligible

Pinball

Aerosmith

Black Hole

Gottlieb Countdown 1979 - The sounds on this one were sooo 1979, really great

Goldeneye

Chicago Coins Hi Score Pool 1971

Shaq Attaq

The Pinball Circus (Upright) - The sign on the machine said it was one of only 2 ever built!

The Simpsons

Wizard of Oz

Arcade EM

Midway Dune Buggy 1972

Bally Target Zero 1970

[Skippy B. Coyote]

This week marks the first week in 10 months, since the third week of September last year to be exact, that my wife's PlayStation doesn't make an appearance!




Ineligible
999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (Nintendo DS) - 490 minutes

Game Boy
Boggle Plus - 27 minutes
Quarth - 12 minutes

Game Boy Color
Frogger - 50 minutes
The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages - 147 minutes
The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons - 241 minutes
Woody Woodpecker Racing - 289 minutes


Total Play Time This Week
1,256 minutes (20 hours 56 minutes) [766 minutes eligible]

Individual System Play Times This Week
Game Boy Color: 727 minutes
Nintendo DS: 490 minutes
Game Boy: 39 minutes



The reason for the spousal unit's current departure from the PlayStation over last week is that she dusted off her Nintendo DSi XL and got back into playing it with a new game for her DS collection. 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors made up the entirety of her gaming time this past week; which is rather fitting since we've been watching all of the Saw movies (and there are actually 7 of them, if you can believe that) in order together over the past couple weeks. With a similar premise to the movies, albeit a touch less gore, 999 has fit right in with her entertainment routine as of late. Admittedly though her tolerance for violence and gore in movies is a lot higher than mine and I did have to request that we take a break from all the torture and dismemberment to watch some G rated movies the last couple days, which ended up being Balto yesterday and Balto 2: Wolf Quest today. Maybe tomorrow I'll be up for some more blood and guts, but it sure has been nice taking a break to watch some heartwarming animated movies in the meantime. I guess I'm just a big softie!

Getting back on topic and moving on to tracker eligible games, this week was another week almost entirely devoted to Game Boy Color gaming for me. I finished up The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and started in on Oracle of Ages, both of which have been and continue to be a great time. I've been mostly playing them on the GameCube's Game Boy Player but I have been popping them in my actual Game Boy Color to take out and about now and then à la an old school Nintendo Switch. Another thing I was really excited about was finally finding a use for my Game Boy Color link cable, since with Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons you can actually use a link cable and two Game Boy Color compatible systems (in this case an original GBC and the GameCube's Game Boy Player) to transfer save data from one game to the other to change the story of whichever game you play second into one long cohesive story that meshes with the story of the game you played first. You can also transfer over rings collected in either game that grant all sorts of special abilities like increasing sword damage or allowing you to breathe underwater. Fun stuff!

 

Lastly, the one other game I wanted to talk about this week is a seriously awesome title that I had been wanting for years and finally got a copy of this past week: Woody Woodpecker Racing for the Game Boy Color. While at first glance it may sound like just another licensed game, this Mario Kart clone is actually an incredibly well designed game from the same team at Konami that were responsible for so many fantastic Game Boy and Game Boy Color gems. It plays like an isometric 3D version of Mario Kart, just with Woody Woodpecker characters and different weapon power-ups. The track design is great, the music is outstanding in typical Konami fashion, there's tons of vehicle upgrades and characters to unlock, and graphics really push the Game Boy Color to it's limit. The only complaint I could really make about the game is that it's tough as nails, but for a game of this age I think that's alright since it definitely extends it's replay value. At this point I'm about 1/3 of the way through the game and I know it's going to take me a whole lot of practice to make it to the end with gold medals in every Cup and unlock everything there is to unlock.

 

Looking ahead to next week I think it'll probably be a lot more of the same from both myself and the misses. I plan to continue my quest in The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and keep on racing in Woody Woodpecker Racing, and I've got no idea how far the spousal unit has left to go in 999 but I'm sure she'll keep playing it through until the end. Next week should be a fun week for handheld gaming for both of us! Until next time, best wishes and happy gaming to you and yours.

[+thegoldenband]

Here's the summary for Week 29, running from July 17 - 23. We logged 5057 minutes of eligible play, playing 94 games on a total of 23 systems.

Top 10:

1. Phantasy Star IV (Genesis) - 643

2. Panzer Dragoon Saga (Sega Saturn) - 370

3. Alpha Mission II (Neo Geo AES/MVS) - 350

4. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 338

5. Ghost Pilots (Neo Geo AES/MVS) - 310

6. Woody Woodpecker Racing (Game Boy Color) - 289

7. Seafox (VIC-20) - 267

8. Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons (Game Boy Color) - 241

9. Baseball Stars 2 (Neo Geo AES/MVS) - 225

10. Pac-Man (Fairchild Channel F) - 154

Pre-NES top 10:

1. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 338

2. Seafox (VIC-20) - 267

3. Pac-Man (Fairchild Channel F) - 154

4. Pengo (Atari 2600) - 148

5. Pac-Man (Arcade) - 32

6. Centipede (VIC-20) - 31

7. Monster Buster (C64) - 30

8. Mario Bros. (Atari 7800) - 25

9. Muncher (Bally Astrocade) - 22

10. Crazy Gobbler (Emerson Arcadia 2001) - 19

Top 10 systems:

1. Neo Geo AES/MVS (1218)

2. Genesis (942)

3. Game Boy Color (727)

4. Atari 2600 (542)

5. Sega Saturn (400)

6. VIC-20 (368)

7. PlayStation (200)

8. Fairchild Channel F (154)

9. Sega Master System (94)

10. Game Boy (59)

Why, hello, Neo Geo! SNK's console with the giant carts earns an unexpected win on the console charts, while Phantasy Star IV gets the #1 spot on the individual charts, and Kaboom does what Kaboom often does. So, three wins, three consoles -- which is always nice, and reflects this week's system-diverse stats.

Meanwhile it's the time of the season for Oracle of Seasons to reach the 1000-minute club, with spot #293 going to the GBC game that's logged 1088 minutes so far.

[karokoenig]

Gonna be the early bird this week, since I'll be travelling tomorrow and Sunday.

 

Atari 2600

Defend your Castle: 15 min

Moon Patrol: 8 min

Pac Man: 10 min

Tanks but no Tanks: 18 min

 

PC (DOS)

Historyline: 80 min

 

"Defend your Castle" - now there's a fun project. This two-player homebrew (very much like Artillery Duel) is sold by a dutch guy here on AA - PCB and sticker only - for supercheap. All you need to do is provide your own cartridge. A very interesting and low-budget way of getting homebrews, I believe.

 

I used one of my Pac Man carts and found the PCB in there totally bulged and corroded. Looked like it has been microwaved and then thrown into a sewer for 2 weeks. Curious as I am, I stuck it into the Atari - and surprisingly, it still worked. Hence the Pac Man playtime.

 

Oh yeah... and another short fix of Historyline. Who would have ever thought...?