Eltigro

Doh! lol... Guess I was thinking it was out earlier than that. Oh well.

Only one modern game for me this week... PC Sea of Thieves - 240 min (Another Twitch streamer was talking about playing this one with me on stream, so I downloaded it and started it up so I'd know what I was doing. It's pretty, I'll give it that. But it is definitely not made for single player. It's doable, but it's cumbersome. It should be fun once I'm in there with someone I know.)

A few "classic" games this week... SNES Darius Twin - 90 min (Why are Darius games so hard?) Raiden Trad - 75 min (Why are Raiden games so hard?) Super R-Type - 75 min (Why are R-Type games so hard?) Thunder Spirits - 120 min (This was probably the easiest game I played that day and it's still hard. lol) GameBoy Advance Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance - 30 min (Played this some while on a picnic with the wife and kids. Used my original GBA. Forgot how hard these things are to see, even in good light. One of these days I'll look into getting one of those backlit screen mods for it.)

Yeah, when I go to an arcade I have a hard time remembering everything. I had to sit back and really think about what all my son and I played at the National Videogame Museum a couple weeks ago. At the time I'm always thinking, "I'll remember" but then I don't.

My modern stuff... It was a Microsoft week... XBox Forza Motorsport - 170 min (May be getting tired of this one. It is a fun racing game and definitely better than I expected (and I think better than GT4). If you have an OG Xbox, I'd suggest it. It's really not too far from the more recently Forza Motorsport games.) XBox 360 Raiden IV - 10 min (I like the Raiden series, but I'm not that great at them. I kept going on this one and got further than I have before. I was actually using the continues this time instead of just stopping when I ran out of lives.) PC Forza Horizon 5 - 120 min (Played a bit to run some rivals races. Def a fun racing game, but after a bit, I just got tired of it and quit playing. It's great with friends, but alone, after all the races have been run, it just gets repetitive.)

Got some "classic" stuff I played this week, but not much... Arcade (MAME) 1943 The Battle of Midway - 10 min (I really like this series. But man this is hard. I played a TON of 1943 for the NES back in the day. A game that really needs the NES Advantage.) Knights of the Round - 30 min (Hack and Slash beat em up kind of game... with Arthur, Percival, and... Lancelot I think? I played Percival. Guy with a big Axe. Kind of the basic, walk to the right and kill bad guys game play, but done well I think.) Pac-Man - 2 min (So hard to play these without a proper joystick. One day...) Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon - 15 min (Actually a pretty fun beat-em-up. I tried out each of the characters available (I think) and had some fun. When you do their special, a large version of the character pops up and does something (a kick or a scream or whatever) in a very anime looking version. Thought it might be fun to have those animations with a clear background as something to put on my stream.) Robotron 2084 - 10 min (An arcade favorite. I think I recently wrote about it in here from when I played it at the NVM.)

Only one game this week for me... XBox Forza Motorsport - 610 min (I had played this for one race back in the day at a friend's house. I did terrible. But I've played a lot of Forza games since then. I recently picked up a used copy and have really been enjoying it. It says right on the cover "Better than Gran Turismo 4!", and I agree. If for no other reason than the license tests. But anyway, it's great racing. Not as many upgrade options or cars as the latest games, but still really good. I'll be playing and thinking, "Man, I can't believe this is an OG XBox game." I'm playing it via my XBox 360 so I can have HDMI out, but there's been some graphical glitches and a few sound issues that make me wonder if I should have played it on the older XBox instead. Just wondering if it's not really 100% BC. Oh well. I'm too far into the game now to want to start over just to see if the glitches go away.)

Could have been laziness... like the "Heavy 4 Switch 2600" on the front of some system boxes where they essentially photoshopped it instead of just taking a new picture. lol

In these Modern Times... not much on this tracker this week... XBox 360 Sonic & Sega All Stars Racing - 5 min (This was set up at the National Videogame Museum in the Third Party Software area. My son and I played against each other in the arena style thing... like the Mario Kart Battle Mode or whatever. He beat me by one thingie... not sure what they were... circling my cart... like the balloons in Mario Kart... anyway, it was fun. Maybe I should get that one...) 3DS Pokemon Y - 120 min (This was my son while over for the weekend. Got him the game after going to the museum. It was a late birthday gift (he also got Pokemon Arceus). I don't know how far he got in the game. I know nothing about the pokey mans.)

Went to the National Videogame Museum yesterday, so I got a few classic minutes... (all times approximate) Jaguar Tempest 2000 - 30 min (This was actually played on a Jaguar in store demo kiosk they had set up at the museum. Got 364,537. Good enough for 3rd place on the TOP GUNS scoreboard in the game. I think I was the only one with a score entered, though. Most people prob don't really try I guess.) Vectrex Berzerk - 5 min (Another display piece at the museum. The Vectrex is set up on the counter of their "Video Game Crash Store" vignette. They have it set up like a store from the crash with clearance signs and going out of business signs and stuff... with a counter and register and whatnot that people can sit behind and take pictures. I don't know what score I got, but it was fun to be able to play a Vectrex. It's a system I've wanted for quite a while.) Atari 2600 Pac Man - 2 min (This was played on one of those big Atari display pieces (I attached a pic). I saw my son playing with it and realized he had started a two player game of Pac Man. So we took turns for a bit going back and forth. He needs more practice. lol) Pitfall - 5 min (Son playing this one. They had it set up in one area that was talking about third party games. The joystick in player 1 port was messed up, though... and "up" on the joystick wasn't working, so he couldn't climb up the ladders. I reached below and swapped the plugs so the other joystick was in port 1 and it worked fine. You're Welcome NVM for fixing your display. lol) C64 Gorf - 5 min (Not me, but my son. He tried out som Gorf on one of the displays in the vintage computer section. I wasn't sure what it was at first... was thinking Gorf, but wasn't familiar with the C64 version, so I was second guessing myself.) Atari 800 Pac Man - 3 min (Much better version of Pac Man than the 2600 version. I played this on the vintage computer section.) Apple IIe Karateka - 5 min (My son played this one. He was getting pretty decent at killing the baddies, but I feel he didn't get very far. I told him about how, if you approach the princess at the end wrong, she'll kill you and he thought that was pretty silly.) Arcade Frogger - 5 min (Son on this one again. We had actually been talking about Frogger the day before because I have some Frogger magnets on the fridge. He got the 1st place on the scoreboard, but I don't think many people had played it... probably gets turned off and resets every night. His score wasn't really that high, but high enough. No George Costanza here. He played some other games, too, but not sure what because we split up in the arcade.) Galaga - 5 min (I used to play this quite a bit, but something about this machine didn't feel right. The shots weren't coming out like I was used to or something. Didn't do too hot.) Gyruss - 3 min (I was better at this on the NES.) Sunset Riders - 3 min (I was pretty terrible at this game, but it's really the first time I had ever tried the arcade version. Still... didn't even get to the first boss.) Robotron 2084 - 5 min (I always have to try this when I see it. Just such a fun game and it just seems to be the epitome of 80's arcade for me. The lights, the sounds, the crazy gameplay. Such fun. But I'm not that great. I got to about the fifth level or so?) Playstation Crash Bandicoot - 5 min (Son playing this one. Not sure if he had played it before. I always liked how colorful this game was and all the fun sound effects.) Spyro the Dragon - 5 min (My son was playing this one, too. They had it running on a PS2 for some reason, but it was Spyro 1 I believe, so in the Classic Tracker it goes.) And that's all I can remember right now.

I'll bet that's accurate. Modern games seem to be able to keep people's attention for longer I think. I mean, people can still pick up something like Space Invaders and play it for hours, but people aren't as likely to pick up something like Elden Ring or Dying Light 2 or whatever and only play it for a few minutes.

My modern game time this week... PS2 Gran Turismo 4 - 520 min (Streamed this one this week. Forgot how much I hate those damn license tests. It's hard going back to some of these older games with no analog gas/brakes. Well, it kinda has analog gas/brakes in that the PS2 buttons are pressure sensitive. I can press harder on the brakes and actually see on a little graph thing in the bottom left hand corner and see the red bar go up when I press harder. The thing is though... it hurts. My thumb starts hurting far faster by pressing harder on that button than my finger does on pulling a trigger on later controllers with analog triggers. Other than that, the game is decent, there's still some things that annoy me... This is the newest Gran Turismo game I have. I moved over to the Forza Motorsport series and have enjoyed them. Don't have the newest one of that series either, though. I have 3, 4, and 6, but they're pretty darn good.)

I did play a little bit of "classic" games this week... Playstation Wipeout XL - 10 min (Started playing this but really wasn't feeling it. Wanted to stream it, and start fresh, but was playing it on my PS3 and it apparently had some saved game on there... didn't feel like figuring out how to delete the save to start new, so I just changed games.)

Yeah, I look at it for a quick and dirty reference sometimes or just for fun. It's a good place to start for some research... but need to dig deeper into the listings to see what's going on. This one was making me scratch my head, though, as it seemed the value was in the box. Makes sense now, though. I mean, of course if there's something that turns out to be rare and valuable, it's not the one I have. lol

In a bit of a different direction... Still only one game, but a different one this time around. Not sure if I'll go back to NMS any time soon. May have worn myself out on it. We'll see. PS3 Dragon's Crown - 480 min (This game is deeper than I thought it would be... not as deep as the sorceress's cleavage, but I digress... It very much seems to be one of those games that you could argue was "made for guys". The beat-em-up gameplay is pretty fun. I've only tried the fighter (big wide shouldered armored guy) and the amazon (big wide hipped armorless lady), and they're pretty similar. I played the fighter for about an hour before I streamed it to see if I would be able to stick with it for a whole stream, then switched to the amazon and streamed for seven hours. Haven't tried the magic users (mage and sorceress) or the ranged character (elfin archer) which probably play a bit differently. There's also a dwarf who, though I haven't tried him, probably plays similarly to the fighter and amazon. Along with the beat-em-up gameplay, there's also some RPG elements, such as leveling up and being able to change weapons and armor. It is multiplayer, up to four players, but I played solo. However, you can retrieve the "bones" of other players' characters (at least I think they're from other players) at various points and "resurrect" them to help you. Honestly, there's a lot going on in the game and I think I've typed long enough. I'll probably stream it again next week, though I'm not sure yet. We'll see.)

Does it matter what game? Here's the title screen from Lock 'n' Chase. I'm guessing it's not because of all the "Mattel" stuff instead of "INTV"? Or is it a font thing? Either way, I guess I'm out of luck.

Okay read through a thread about Tutorvision and Tutorvision variations of the Super Pro System... but still have a question. A lot of what was talked about in that thread was very technical... reading chips and such... is there a way to see if a Super Pro System is one with the Tutorvision internals by just looking? I don't have a way to run roms, just my games. I have pictures of my Intellivisions in my gallery that I took a few years back... some internal shots, too. I've been told that my SPS may be an older one... based on some of the internal pics and relatively low serial number, but not sure if that matters or rules anything out.

So I put my stuff into Price Charting just to look at how much it's going for every once in a while. Anyway, for a long time, my TG-16 and Jaguar were tops as far as value goes on the site, but when I checked the other day, my Super Pro System had leapfrogged them into 1st place. And it's mainly because of the box. I know this stuff is getting rarer, but the sudden jump made me curious. Anyone know of any specific reason this might have happened other than just "someone listed it for that and someone paid it"? (Looked up the box for the regular brown Intellivision and it was like $10.) PS Also, I do this just for fun... shits and giggles if you will... not seriously looking at it like the stock market or something. Just neat to see how much some of this old stuff is going for sometimes.

Just one game again for me... it's been a weird week, so times are down. PC No Man's Sky - 770 min (I don't even remember what all I did. I think it's counting down something every time I warp to a new system or something. We'll see where this goes. I'm learning that these main, big quests... well... I don't understand what the f is going on. I know I need to fly to the icon and do a thing, but that's it. Part of it is I do so much other crap in between that I forget what was going on. Oh well.)

Just one modern game this week again... PC No Man's Sky - 1282 min (Just continuing messing about. Did do a bit more on some of the quest lines, did some quests from the space station mission vendor, made some upgrades, and stuff. NMS had an update this week and I saw a couple bugs... There was a sentinel attack on my settlement, and of course, the settlers ran for cover. I defeated the sentinels, but the settlers are still running around like the attack is still underway. Another one was that, before the update, I had been playing and sent my frigates out on missions of anywhere from 5 to 24 or so hours. After the update, I check on them, expecting to debrief the commanders and collect the rewards, but the time on all of them had been changed to anywhere from 50 to 60 hours. So I had to wait a couple days to get them back. Oh well, just slowed down my income for a bit. Sent them out on more missions today, and the times seemed correct... so far.)

Unfortunately no. I'd like to get one of the Gamedrives, but just can't afford it right now.

Nope... I didn't know it was a mission even. Thought you just had to get lucky and find one crashed somewhere. I've seen a few, but honestly, I don't like them. lol I like mine to look more like Star Wars than Swamp Thing.