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

[+thegoldenband]

Here's the summary for Week 36, running from September 4 - 10. We logged 3245 minutes of eligible play, playing 63 games on a total of 15 systems.

Top 10:

1. Phantasy Star II (Genesis) - 391

2. Metal Slug (Neo Geo AES/MVS) - 269

3. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 223

4. LadyBug (Atari 2600) - 183

5. Andro Dunos (Neo Geo AES/MVS) - 148

6. Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine (Genesis) - 132

7. Viewpoint (Neo Geo AES/MVS) - 131

8. Pac-Man (Atari 2600) - 130

9. Steel Machine (Philips CD-i) - 128

10. Aero Fighters 2 (Neo Geo AES/MVS) - 103

Pre-NES top 10:

1. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 223

2. LadyBug (Atari 2600) - 183

3. Pac-Man (Atari 2600) - 130

4. Pac-Man (C64) - 90

5. Space Dungeon (Atari 5200) - 80

6. River Raid II (Atari 2600) - 60

7. Centipede (Atari 2600) - 35

7. Dragonfire (Atari 2600) - 35

7. Beef Drop (Atari 5200) - 35

10. Aquaventure (Atari 2600) - 25

Top 10 systems:

1. Neo Geo AES/MVS (1147)

2. Atari 2600 (809)

3. Genesis (631)

4. Game Gear (140)

5. Philips CD-i (138)

6. Atari 5200 (115)

7. C64 (90)

8. NES/Famicom (45)

9. Atari 8-bit (37)

10. Atari 7800 (36)

Last week Phantasy Star III, this week Phantasy Star II. (Next week Phantasy Star?)

Meanwhile it's another one of those "three charts, three platforms" weeks, in which the Neo Geo grabs the system laurels and Kaboom set us up the bomb on the pre-NES charts.

[zylon]

"Last week Phantasy Star III, this week Phantasy Star II. (Next week Phantasy Star?)"

 

Nah, still working on II and one more ending to get in III. II is very tough compared to the others and time consuming because of the battle system. I actually hit "fight" on menu and walk away. I'm also not using the pause-menu trick to avoid fights and am playing it straight.

Last played the 1st one about 20yrs ago.

[Eltigro]

I need to revisit some Phantasy Star. The only one I actually have on the Genesis is III, and have played it through to one ending. I have I, II, and III on the gba and I think maybe some on the genensis compilations for Gamecube or XBox 360... can't remember.

 

I've been out of this thread for a bit because I'm working on catching up on some PS3 stuff... Uncharted 2, Wipeout HD, Ni Ni Kuni... I'llbe back at some point. :-)

[+thegoldenband]

P.S.: If anyone has any tips for Mac compatible spreadsheet software for keeping track of gaming statistics I'd sure appreciate them! I am quite serious about starting a modern gaming tracker next year but it does seem like a pretty daunting task since I don't know the first thing about spreadsheets or how to use them for this purpose, so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

Do it, it's a great idea! I just use the Excel-compatible spreadsheet program in NeoOffice (a fork of OpenOffice) and the text editor TextWrangler. There's very little nuance required in my use of the spreadsheet; the main things are the =SUM(firstcell:lastcell) function and the "Subtotals..." macro item, which I use to do the 1000-minute club/all-time stats and the system totals, respectively.

 

Also, any formula can be copy & pasted into a whole column if you have a valid first entry for the first row in your clipboard. If I have the formula =SUM(D2:AV2) in cell AW2, and that calculates the total gameplay for a certain game, then I just paste the contents into all the rows in that column and it automatically changes it to =SUM(D3:AV3) and so on.

 

In TextWrangler, the main things I use are the function that automatically give a prefix to a list of entries separated by newlines, and the function that then numbers those entries. That allows me to automatically generate the numbers before the Top 10 without typing them in manually, unless two games are tied in which case I have to do an edit.

 

I also use tabs to generate my formatting automatically. My main spreadsheet (which I save afresh each week, e.g. "WHYP 2017 wk36.xls") has columns for System, Game, and each year or (in the current year) week. Once I've input all the week's times, I sort the spreadsheet in descending order by this week's times, so that the entries at the top are all the games that got played that week. Then I copy and paste the whole thing into a blank temporary document, delete all the columns that aren't active that week, and move the System column so that it's two columns to the right of the Game column, separated by a blank column. The point of doing that is so that I can search and replace using two tabs vs. one tab and automatically create the necessary formatting. That is, what starts out as:

 

NES(tab)Mega Man(tab)204

 

becomes

 

Mega Man(tab)(tab)NES(tab)204

 

And then, if I search for two tabs ("\t\t" in TextWrangler) and replace it with the string " (", and then search for one tab and replace it with the string ") - ", I automatically get:

 

Mega Man (NES) - 204

 

TextWrangler then supplies the prefatory period and number, as described above, which gives me the following for all ~10 entries at once:

 

4. Mega Man (NES) - 204

 

For system totals, I paste the weekly stats into a second blank document, but without the game names -- only the system and the time is included. Then I sort it by system, and tell it to compute the "Subtotals..." for the system category, using the playtime as the data source. It will then generate a new list with new entries that include the word "Sum"; those contain the total minutes played on each system.

 

I copy that into a new text document, tell TextWrangler to copy all lines that contain the string " Sum" to the clipboard, and paste that into another blank document -- where I strip out the " Sum", paste the remaining data back into another blank spreadsheet, sort that by times, and voilà, I have my system times. (All I need to add are the periods and numbers, as described above.) It sounds like a hassle when described, but it really only takes about 30-60 seconds.

 

Pre-NES times I do manually, by deleting later systems by hand in my scratch document. I should probably set a pre-NES flag in the spreadsheet, but the only place it's a potential hassle is for arcade games.

 

BTW I know cvga was doing originally more complex tracking of individual playtimes, etc. Cool stuff, but my method doesn't allow for that -- and ultimately I fear it'd take a task that already requires significant data entry and make it even more time-intensive. But if you wanted to do something like that, you'd need a proper database.

[zylon]

I need to revisit some Phantasy Star. The only one I actually have on the Genesis is III, and have played it through to one ending. I have I, II, and III on the gba and I think maybe some on the genensis compilations for Gamecube or XBox 360... can't remember.

 

I've been out of this thread for a bit because I'm working on catching up on some PS3 stuff... Uncharted 2, Wipeout HD, Ni Ni Kuni... I'llbe back at some point. :-)

 

The 360 compilation's port of the Phantasy Stars has been spot-on IMHO. Haven't tried the 1st on on there yet. I did find the Shining Force duo to be missing pieces. The game is intact with all levels and enemies, but a lot of the characters that you can find are missing. Not a deal breaker, but worthy of note.

[+wongojack]

P.S.: If anyone has any tips for Mac compatible spreadsheet software for keeping track of gaming statistics I'd sure appreciate them! I am quite serious about starting a modern gaming tracker next year but it does seem like a pretty daunting task since I don't know the first thing about spreadsheets or how to use them for this purpose, so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

Excel is available for Mac. I can get you a key for O365 if you want.

[carlsson]

I think it is up to each individual to keep stats of their own play time, and the general commissioner (borrowed from PBM/PBEM terms) should only worry about the global view.

 

One thing that might interesting to look at is how often people go back to playing the same games, whether those are for 20th century systems or newer. I believe with modern gaming, you play the game until you either complete it or give up, and then cross it off your list while with many of the earlier games either there was no task to complete or you return to replay it in hope for an even better score. Thus while many modern games surely will rack up play time in the range of 3000-5000 minutes in just a short period of time, once a stint is done, it is done.

[Skippy B. Coyote]

Thank you very much for the thorough explanation if your organization system thegoldenband! I have heard of OpenOffice and I have a friend who has used it a bit and liked it, but (embarrassing as this is to admit) I have never used a single piece of productivity software outside of simple word processing applications so a lot of this is way over my head.

 

What I can say confidently though is that I am willing to learn! Fortunately I've got a good 3 and a half months until next year so I do have some time to watch tutorial videos and learn the ropes.

 

 

I think it is up to each individual to keep stats of their own play time, and the general commissioner (borrowed from PBM/PBEM terms) should only worry about the global view.

 

One thing that might interesting to look at is how often people go back to playing the same games, whether those are for 20th century systems or newer. I believe with modern gaming, you play the game until you either complete it or give up, and then cross it off your list while with many of the earlier games either there was no task to complete or you return to replay it in hope for an even better score. Thus while many modern games surely will rack up play time in the range of 3000-5000 minutes in just a short period of time, once a stint is done, it is done.

Good points Carlsson! If I did start a 2000-Current tracker I'd want to run it much the same as thegoldenband runs the classic gaming tracker, since I think he's got a brilliant system in place that makes it fun and easy to read the statistics at the end of each week, but there may have to be a couple minor changes for the modern tracker.

 

Obviously the Pre-NES Top 10 is out, though I have been pondering the idea of having a Pre-HD Top 10 to make sure those systems like the PlayStation 2, GameCube, and original Xbox that aren't quite "retro" to most people but definitely not "modern" either don't get overshadowed by the current generation systems. I haven't quite made up my mind about it yet though since "Pre-HD" is kind of a gray area for a lot of computer games and it would include just about every handheld up to the Switch, so maybe it isn't the best idea.

 

I've always liked the 1,000 Minute Club a lot, but you do make a good point about the length of most story focused modern games. Outside of the arcade-like quick play experiences offered by The Pinball Arcade and games such as Pac-Man Championship Edition and Galaga Legions most modern games tend to have a good 20 hour or longer story to them, which would put the majority or modern games that were played to completion in the 1,000 Minute Club. With that in mind it may be best to skip the 1,000 Minute Club and just do the 5,000 Minute Club, or perhaps have a club somewhere in between for the modern gaming tracker.

[+thegoldenband]

Thank you very much for the thorough explanation if your organization system thegoldenband! I have heard of OpenOffice and I have a friend who has used it a bit and liked it, but (embarrassing as this is to admit) I have never used a single piece of productivity software outside of simple word processing applications so a lot of this is way over my head.

 

What I can say confidently though is that I am willing to learn! Fortunately I've got a good 3 and a half months until next year so I do have some time to watch tutorial videos and learn the ropes.

 

Good points Carlsson! If I did start a 2000-Current tracker I'd want to run it much the same as thegoldenband runs the classic gaming tracker, since I think he's got a brilliant system in place that makes it fun and easy to read the statistics at the end of each week, but there may have to be a couple minor changes for the modern tracker.

Aww, thanks! But to give credit where credit's due, it's really cvga's system -- I've just continued it, basically speaking. His wise decisions at the start of this process brought us to where we are today.

 

Obviously the Pre-NES Top 10 is out, though I have been pondering the idea of having a Pre-HD Top 10 to make sure those systems like the PlayStation 2, GameCube, and original Xbox that aren't quite "retro" to most people but definitely not "modern" either don't get overshadowed by the current generation systems. I haven't quite made up my mind about it yet though since "Pre-HD" is kind of a gray area for a lot of computer games and it would include just about every handheld up to the Switch, so maybe it isn't the best idea.

 

I've always liked the 1,000 Minute Club a lot, but you do make a good point about the length of most story focused modern games. Outside of the arcade-like quick play experiences offered by The Pinball Arcade and games such as Pac-Man Championship Edition and Galaga Legions most modern games tend to have a good 20 hour or longer story to them, which would put the majority or modern games that were played to completion in the 1,000 Minute Club. With that in mind it may be best to skip the 1,000 Minute Club and just do the 5,000 Minute Club, or perhaps have a club somewhere in between for the modern gaming tracker.

I like the idea of a "Discontinued Systems" chart, myself, for all post-1999 platforms no longer available at retail. I agree that 1,000 minutes is too low -- certainly, our 1000-minute club is getting very crowded at this point! -- maybe 5,000 or even 10,000 minutes is a good minimum for a 21st-century tracker.

[Iwantgames:)]

Since I got called in to work tomorrow I doubt I'll get anymore gaming in so here's my times for the week

 

Sega CD

 

Rise of the Dragon - 30min

 

 

3DO

 

Battle Chess - 30min

PO'ed - 35min

Rise of the Robots - 15min

Ultraman Powered - 20min

Yu Yu Hakusho - 75min

[oyamafamily]

ATARI 2600:

Dragonfire - 15 minutes

Spacechase - 17 minutes

Sprintmaster - 3 minutes

 

ATARI 5200:

Zaxxon - 5 minutes

 

ATARI 7800:

Joust - 5 minutes

 

The Bonus Round on 2600 NEW HSC Season 6 ended last Monday, and who won this contest was.... ME, oyamafamily. As a result of this, I won one more prize - another 2600 cartridge. Now, I'm waiting for the opening of 2600 NEW HSC Season 6 Medal Bracket Tournament, which will start next week (September 18th).

[karokoenig]

No gameplay at all last week for me. Very very busy week at work, bus also very very successful and satisfying. It doesn't happen every day that you can present a previously unknown genus of marine reptile from the age of dinosaurs to the public.

 

https://www.facebook.com/148622565207007/photos/pcb.1467173203351930/1467165506686033/?type=3&theater

[+Darrin9999]

Neo Geo AES:

 

1. Mark of the Wolves - 32 min

2. Metal Slug - 145 min

3. Neo Mr. Do! - 88 min

4. Puzzle Bobble - 25 min

5. Robo Army - 18 min

6. Shock Troopers 2nd Squad - 20 min

7. The King of Fighter 94 - 40 min

 

Really loving Metal Slug!

[carlsson]

Amiga OCS:

Pinball Fantasies: Partyland - 18 min.

Atari 8-bit:

Bandits - 16 min.

Squish 'Em - 16 min.

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week (September 11th through 17th)...

 

Arcade:

Gyruss - 167 min. in 4 sessions

Jr. Pac-Man - 26 min.

Ms. Pac-Man - 26 min.

 

Atari 2600:

Pac-Man 8K (by Dintari) - 75 min. in 2 sessions

 

TI-99/4A:

Q*bert - 29 min. in 2 sessions

 

Quite a few replays this week... I replayed Gyruss (reached Jupiter a few times), Jr. Pac-Man and Ms. Pac Man in their original arcade version. Then I played Pac-Man 8K by Dintari on the Atari 2600. Midway through that, I switched to version "v7 Test" of it which has got a few improvement over previous versions, most notably the 2-channel intermission music which, sadly, to my ears is still a bit mis-transcribed. Finally, I also replayed Q*bert on the TI-99 and reached Level 6 in my second attempt.

[+thegoldenband]

My times for the week:

 

NES:

The Last Starfighter - 2 min.

Philips CD-i:

Steel Machine - 269 min.

Beat Steel Machine, which turned out to go much quicker than I'd expected -- once I got past Level 3 (of six), anyway. Thoughts here, along with Deadly Towers and the two tennis games I beat recently.

[oyamafamily]

TO ADD - Moon Cresta - Atari 7800 - 5 minutes

[zylon]

Genesis-

 

Phantasy Star II- 8hrs 33min

- have acquired all Nei items and about to begin final section of game. The last Dezo dungeon was a good chunk of that time...

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom! - 283 minutes

 

 

High score of the week: 164,982

 

 

[Iwantgames:)]

I managed to sneak a bit more gaming in last night

 

2600

 

Wall Jump Ninja - 25min

 

 

3DO

 

Immercenary - 20min

Out of this World - 60min

 

I also tried Princess Maker 2 for a few minutes but don't count as I couldn't actually do anything since it's all in Japanese lol

[Skippy B. Coyote]

Once again there unfortunately wasn't much tracker eligible gaming done in my household this past week, and I'm sick with a cold for the second time this month. Crikey!




Ineligible
The House of the Dead: Overkill (Nintendo Wii) - 62 minutes
Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection (Nintendo 3DS) - 162 minutes
Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition (Nintendo Wii) - 2,131 minutes
Sonic Generations (Nintendo 3DS) - 23 minutes
StreetPass Mii Plaza (Nintendo 3DS) - 104 minutes

Atari 7800 (Emulated on Nintendo Wii)
Centipede - 9 minutes
Pac-Man Collection! - 44 minutes

Game Boy
Alleyway - 41 minutes

Sega Genesis (Emulated on Nintendo Wii)
Mortal Kombat - 27 minutes


Total Play Time This Week
2,593 minutes (43 hours 13 minutes) [121 minutes eligible]

Individual System Play Times This Week
Nintendo Wii: 2,193 minutes
Nintendo 3DS: 279 minutes
Atari 7800: 53 minutes
Game Boy: 41 minutes
Sega Genesis: 27 minutes



The big game of the week in my household this past week was once again Resident Evil 4 on the Wii, with over 2,000 minutes logged in a single week due to my wife finishing the game then starting a new game with some of the extras she unlocked by beating it and me starting my own game in RE 4 as well. I had forgotten just how incredibly good this game was since the last time I played it was when it first came out on the GameCube, but watching my wife play through it over the last couple weeks definitely inspired me to want to play it again. And I gotta say, the Wii's motion controls really add a lot to the game! Taking aim and shooting zombies in the head has never been faster or more precise, and for a seasoned Resident Evil fan the Wii remote aiming almost makes the game a little too easy. Over the course of the week I did a full play through of Resident Evil 4 and started a new game with the new guns I unlocked by beating it, and both the misses and I will probably be playing through our respective second rounds of RE 4 in the week to come. For $6 we sure are getting a lot of play value out of this one!

For tracker eligible gaming I did get in a bit of Alleyway on the Game Boy last night, but ended up shutting it off after 10 levels since I was just feeling too craptacular from this cold to keep playing. My wife's Wii arcade stick got an upgrade this past week with a pretty new joystick ball top and shaft cover / dust washer set, so when she wasn't using it to play Resident Evil 4 I snagged it for a bit to play some emulated Mortal Kombat and Centipede. It wasn't long before she took notice though and ended up taking it back to play Pac-Man Collection!, which led to us trading off the controller to play a few rounds of Pac-Man Plus and Ms. Pac-Man together.

All in all it was a pretty good week for gaming in spite of this darn cold. Next week I'm hoping to get back to my game of The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages on the Game Boy Color that I was playing last month, if I can get used to the unlit GBC screen again since I've been getting really spoiled by bright and crisp backlit screen of the New 3DS lately. And on that note, before I wrap things up I should mention that Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection is surprisingly awesome on the 3DS. I know that the critics and hardcore pinball fans didn't care for it very much due to the small selection of tables and the ball physics not being quite as refined as the home console versions, but man do those tables ever look amazing in 3D and I think they still play really well even with the slightly looser physics.

Anyway, that's all for this week! Until next time, best wishes and happy gaming to you and yours.

Edited September 18, 2017 by Jin

[BurritoBeans]

Pong Stuff?

Pong (Coleco Telstar) - 55 minutes

 

Now, I had no clue to put my one eligible time so yeah, it's under "Pong" for now. I didn't exactly play any of the handhelds, ended up messing with the guitar everywhere so even if I had the NGPC in the pocket I didn't play it, oh well.

 

So, I found a Telestar in pretty nice condition for all of $10 at work... the Telestar has been on the shelf at work since about a year before I started working there and nobody would ever get it because it was backwards on a high shelf and looked like beige tupperware. I pulled the thing off as we were cleaning and re-organizing the store to house some new items and add more space for records since they're selling really well, I pulled the thing down and the boss said I could keep it for $10 so I took it as I figured it was a good enough deal for something I've never had. Took the thing home and I set it up with dad, he told me a story about how he used to play a Telstar with one of his friends in high school so I thought that was neat. Turns out the digital TV didn't like the signal - it must be a bit weak, I'd imagine there's an adjustment for the RF modulator though - so we hooked it up to the tube in my room and hey, it works. The numbers look a bit wonky, but I mean it works and the paddles aren't too jittery so that's really good - I'll end up cleaning it out and maybe swapping caps if there are any as I figure it'd be the best thing to do if I want to keep the old hardware going. In the end though, I mean it's three games of pong... nothing too crazy, but hey it was cheap, a neat thing to add to the collection, and looks like a beige control panel for an arcade with woodgrain.

 

So, next week... well, if there's nothing else then handhelds all the way, if not then I don't know. I'll probably play a game of Pong or so every now and then, past that I sort of want to play Super Hydlide/Hydlide 3 again but I have to decide if I want to sit down with the Famicom or Genesis.

Edited September 18, 2017 by BurritoBeans

[+thegoldenband]

Here's the summary for Week 37, running from September 11 - 17. We logged 2344 minutes of eligible play, playing 39 games on a total of 15 systems.

Top 10:

1. Phantasy Star II (Genesis) - 513

2. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 283

3. Steel Machine (Philips CD-i) - 269

4. Gyruss (Arcade) - 167

5. Metal Slug (Neo Geo AES/MVS) - 145

6. Neo Mr. Do! (Neo Geo AES/MVS) - 88

7. Yu Yu Hakusho (3DO) - 75

8. Pac-Man 8K (Atari 2600) - 75

9. Out of This World (3DO) - 60

10. Pong (Coleco Telstar) (Handheld/Tabletop) - 55

Pre-NES top 10:

1. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 283

2. Gyruss (Arcade) - 167

3. Pac-Man 8K (Atari 2600) - 75

4. Pong (Coleco Telstar) (Handheld/Tabletop) - 55

5. Pac-Man Collection (Atari 7800) - 44

6. Q*bert (TI-99/4A) - 29

7. Jr. Pac-Man (Arcade) - 26

7. Ms. Pac-Man (Arcade) - 26

9. Wall Jump Ninja (Atari 2600) - 25

10. Spacechase (Atari 2600) - 17

Top 10 systems:

1. Genesis (540)

2. Atari 2600 (418)

3. Neo Geo AES/MVS (368)

4. Philips CD-i (269)

5. 3DO (255)

6. Arcade (219)

7. Atari 7800 (63)

8. Handheld/Tabletop (55)

9. Game Boy (41)

10. Atari 8-bit (32)

Last week Phantasy Star II, this week Phantasy Star II. (Next week Phantasy Star II?)

And right behind it is Kaboom, which edges out Steel Machine for the #2 spot.

[carlsson]

Amiga OCS:

Body Blows - 8 min.

Flashback - 13 min.

IK+ - 6 min.

Lotus III - 10 min.

Pinball Dreams: Steel Wheel - 12 min.

Pinball Fantasies: Partyland - 19 min.

Pinball Fantasies: Stones 'n Bones - 9 min.

Super Street Fighter II - 6 min.

SWIV - 5 min.

Atari 2600:

Miss It! - 21 min.

Atari 8-bit:

Bandits - 10 min.

Squish 'Em - 19 min.

C64:

Gwendolyn - 57 min.

Since I'm expecting to have a busy Sunday, I'm posting a bit early. The week started with a play through of Gwendolyn in WinVICE. Since the adventure game is written in BASIC and involves a lot of slow movement in the mazes, I had good use of the warp mode to speed up the playing, and slowed down to regular speed whenever I needed to use an object, as according to the solution I followed. I've never played this game before, but was curious what the ending looks like as it was posted elsewhere that in the end you get to see the princess, who is as pretty as the Strip Poker girls (both games from Artworx).

Then follows some Atari 8-bit HSC gaming where I got to improve my scores slightly but I'm still way behind the best players in the HSC. I also played a couple rounds of Miss It! on the Atari Flashback Portable before falling asleep.

The biggest chunk of games were on the Amiga 600 that I've been fiddling with for three weeks. Finally I have set up the Arcade Game Selector II with a little over a dozen games that will auto boot and let the user to pick a game with the joystick. It took a number of attempts before I got the configuration working and sometimes a game still will cause a guru meditation but generally all of them load. Now the challenge is how to move the computer without the internal 4 MB RAM expansion coming loose, as it is clipped on top of the CPU and fastened with a combination of velcro and tape.

[Iwantgames:)]

Nice those Amiga times make me want to set my 500 back up and play some Chaos Engine