Eltigro

Don't know if it's been mentioned or not, but it appears isozone has taken theirs down, too.

I don't think I've played it since the 80's... no, I take that back... I'm sure I tried it out on the Game Cube disc when I got it back when I got my Game Cube... but other than that, nah...

I did find that doing a wheelie just as I hit the ramps helped out immensely. Figured that out without the manual somehow. But now reading the manual, I might have to go back and try out the "neutral zone" thing.

Only one modern game for me this week... PSP Sega Rally Revo - 60 min (I gotta say, Sega Rally 2 for the Dreamcast is better. I don't particularly like the analog stick on either system, though. But it feels a bit better on the Dreamcast or at least I seem to have a better feel for how far I'm pushing it than I do with the PSP's nub. Anyway, I race several times on the single race mode, first track, with Impreza, middle tire choice, and automatic transmission. I was getting consistent 3rd and 4th place finishes (out of 6 cars) but then got a 2nd and on the next race got 1st. That was when I quit.... while I was ahead. It's probably another game that really rewards practice, but I haven't done it. The visuals are pretty good. The car sounds a little less than impressive, though. Also seem to get into wrecks with other cars way too easily, but that could be a side effect of the inexperience with using the analog nub as I referenced earlier. As far as PSP racing games go, though, I think I like Wipeout Pure better.)

Popping in this week later than usual... Master System Enduro Racer - 60 min (Played this one for quite a while. Found some spots where I could pretty much just ride to the finish line. Pretty fun game once you get the hang of it. I almost finished the 10th level... ran out of time in site of the finish line.) Shinobi - 14 min (This plays so much better with the Genesis pad. My SMS controller isn't responding like it should. I probably would have gotten the other one out of the drawer and used it, but the Genesis one was right there so I figured, why not. Anyway, I've never really played this enough to get good at it. I did get to the third stage, though... which I think is farther than I've gotten before... ) Playstation Castlevania SotN - 321 min (My game time says 6 hours and 21 minutes, but I think I had already put an hour into it before I picked it back up this week. Anyway, when I started, I had just beaten the first boss (Slogra and Gaibon) and now I've got most of the first castle explored. There are still a couple places I haven't been, but I've been having fun. I have taken a little time here and there to grind a level or two when I found some easily defeated and exp rich enemies. I don't have this game memorized and haven't been using a guide, so discovering things by exploring and backtracking once I get a new ability. Playing this on my PSP. It's one of those Playstation for the PSP games or whatever... has all the cutscenes it appears, unlike the XBox 360 version which cut them out for size considerations.)

If you're looking more for King Kong type characters... there's some in Primal Rage... and in King of the Monsters for Neo Geo....

You can shoot monkeys in Safari Hunt for the SMS. It's a light gun game that I enjoy more than Duck Hunt. Strider has that mechanical gorilla boss. Great looking game, but I hate the controls. Alex Kidd looks like a monkey... There's some monkey enemies in Legendary Axe... they're in hidden pits on level 4 with armadillos... Samba de Amigo features a monkey... never played it though. Rampage has George. Aladdin games have Abu, I believe... Lion King has Rafiki...

I've not done a lot of online gaming because, as others have said, people suck. I was in an online race in Forza once where it was just three cars. Me and two other people. I always try to race clean. The other two people did nothing but try to crash each other... thankfully leaving me alone. Because they couldn't control themselves and quit trying to make each other lose, I won. What happens afterwards? One of them complains to me that I was being an asshole. Really? So busy being an asshole with another asshole that you couldn't see the name of the asshole that was being an asshole to you? People suck.

An "if I knew then what I know now" kind of thread? Okay... I wouldn't have thrown away boxes for my NES games when I got them. I wouldn't have sold all my NES stuff (system, games, Nintendo Power collection, power glove...) in a garage sale when I got my TurboGrafx. I would've kept all my TurboGrafx game boxes. I kept the boxes for the hardware (system, turbo tap, controller...) but not the games. I would've scrounged together money to buy several copies of Magical Chase back when it was only $40. I would've kept better track of my original clear GameBoy. No idea where that went. I wouldn't have loaned out all my Playstation games... because they got "lost"... weren't worth much then, but, like the aforementioned Magical Chase, some of them are pretty valuable now (Suikoden II and Einhander especially) I would've bought a Saturn and a bunch of games back when they were going clearance and I worked in Electronics at Target... and kept the box for the Saturn. I wouldn't have gotten rid of the extra Sega Saturn I had back in the early 2000s. Doesn't hurt to have spares. Boxes in general. I would've kept my Genesis box, my Playstation and Playstation 2 boxes, That's all I can think of at the moment... more will probably hit me later. Of course, now thinking of all this stuff has made me angry... thanks a lot! lol

Only one modern game for me this week... and surprise! It's not Hot Shots Golf! lol PS3 Pier Solar - 236 min (I had started this game a while back and played for a bit before my gaming ADD kicked in and I wandered off after a new shiny squirrel. Anyway, playing this time I actually moved the story along a bit. I'm not super thrilled with the combat system that requires you to use up turns to "gather" energy or whatever in order to do more powerful attacks or spells. I'd rather just have a normal mana gauge. Also it seems there's not much choice for weapons and armor. Or maybe there are, but they just don't show them to you until you're further in the game. I mean, c'mon, Shining in the Darkness (which I also played this week) gives you a ton of options at the start... I mean, you don't have the money to buy them yet, but there they are. So far I've seen one sword for my main character. The other two characters have had one upgrade each iirc, but the main guy still has his regular iron sword. I did figure out that you could change between "HD" and "16 bit" style graphics. While the HD graphics have a pretty watercolor like style to them, I found it difficult to find my way around sometimes, so I preferred the "16 bit" style. There was also a "HD+" style, but I didn't notice a difference. You can also turn scanlines on and off. I preferred them off as having them on just seemed to make everything darker. There's also a couple options on the music style, but neither are really that memorable. I mean, I quit playing about an hour ago, and I can't hum any of the tunes... but I can hum the Tavern song from Shining in the Darkness... so that's something... But believe it or not, I am kinda having fun with the game.)

Everything was emulated this week... 7800 Donkey Kong - 7 min (I've never been that great at Donkey Kong, but I did okay on this one. Still didn't get anywhere near as far as I'm sure some of you can. Anyway, this version has three screens, which is one more than the version of Donkey Kong I've played the most... the 2600 version.) TurboGrafx-16 Legendary Axe - 28 min (Just played until my first game over. I got to the end boss of level 4... the two Punjabi guys. These guys (not my picture). I was able to kill one of them, but the other one got me. What's frustrating is that there are health pickups right there, but I can't get to them when I need to.) Terra Cresta II - 5 min (A shooter. I'm bad at them but I like them. An interesting powerup system where it appears that parts are attached to your ship... not sure what was going on, honestly... I didn't last long enough to really figure things out. Oh well...) Genesis Aero Blasters - 10 min (Inspired by the latest Battle of the Ports again, I downloaded the rom of Aero Blasters for the Genesis. I had played the TurboGrafx version and I didn't see a lot of difference here... besides the loading screen... I mean, it doesn't say that's what it is, but apparently it is. Anyway, a great looking shooter. I'm not too thrilled about how powerups are distributed, but I didn't design it. There seem to be several enemies that either you can't kill and just have to avoid or else I'm just not doing something right... ) Shining in the Darkness - 108 min (I have this cartridge, but it refuses to work, so I downloaded a rom. It's a pretty decent dungeon crawler. Simple so far. I saw something about having other party members but so far it's just me. The dungeon/labyrinth is pretty boring, but then I've mainly just had to grind up some levels so I can get a little farther to grind up some more levels.) Saturn In the Hunt - 14 min (Sometimes I just don't get computers. When I first downloaded this game, it worked great. Then suddenly, it didn't. Now it does again. I don't know if there were some updates to Launchbox or something that broke and then fixed it or what, but suddenly I can play it again. A great looking game... the pixel art is outstanding. The Metal Slug of its genre. I got a little farther than I have before, but that still used all my continues. I'm not good at this game, but dammit I wish I was.)

Out of all my playtime this week... I only had one game that would qualify for this tracker... PSP Hot Shots Golf Open Tee - 60 min (I finally got a new course unlocked. And I absolutely sucked at it! lol... I think my final score was something like 8 over par.) I played a lot of older stuff... check out the classic games tracker for those.

I kinda tried to really mix it up this week... NES Excitebike - 30 min (I really haven't played this much since the 80s. I got this cartridge a little while back in some stuff a coworker gave me, but haven't played it much since then other than to test it to make sure it works. It does. Did pretty well on game A... racing against the clock... game B with other racers on the track was not as easy. I didn't bother with the construction mode.) Sega Master System Choplifter - 6 min (Man I forgot how hard this game is. Those anti-aircraft batteries are tough to kill. They shoot so fast. I did save a few captives, but nowhere near enough. Only time I see the later stages is in the attract mode.) TurboGrafx-16 Blazing Lazers - 42 min (Did my little cheat thing and got a few extra men. Still didn't finish it. Did okay for a while but then started getting killed too quick. Out of practice...) Legendary Axe (emulated via PSP) - 10 min (One thing I've noticed is that a lot of the TurboGrafx games I try on my PSP suffer from slowdown. Must just be the emulator because I know the PSP is powerful enough. Anyway, I think some of that is what caused my quick death in this game. On real hardware, I get much farther much easier.) Magical Chase (emulated via PSP) - 30 min (Of course this one is emulated... anyway, got farther than I usually do. Was playing this while waiting on laundry to finish at the laundromat. A fun game, but bet it'd be better on the big screen with a better d-pad.) Raiden - 11 min (Probably the hardest version of Raiden I own. Still a great game and with some advantages over some of the other versions. They may be easier, but I think this one is better.) Jaguar Raiden - 9 min (Given that this version of Raiden has no autofire and it's still easier than the Turbografx version is saying something. One day, when money isn't an issue, I'll get a custom made joystick with autofire for this game. I'd love to be able to play it with a real joystick for better control... the Jag's d-pad works fine, but it's gotta be better with a joystick. And autofire... man this game needs it.) Tempest 2000 - 28 min (Tried the Tempest Plus mode with the AI bot floating around helping. Was a much easier game and got a good bit farther than before. The highest level I got to (don't know what number) changed the grid color from blue to red and had different music. Anyone know what that means? Was it like a round 2 or boss stage or something special?) Genesis Truxton - 15 min (Still need to tear apart my arcade stick and see what's going on inside. Mostly works fine, but every once in a while... anyway, didn't play for long. Great game.) SNES Raiden Trad - 28 min (This one reminds me a lot of the Jaguar version. Very similar music. This one is MUCH easier, though... why? Autofire. Got a decent ways into it, but noticed one thing in this that the TurboGrafx version doesn't have. Slowdown. Yeah... I know it plagues many SNES games and that's why there's not many shooters on the system, but still. Anyway, the sound is pretty good, but the explosions were somewhat inconsistent. Sometimes they sounded great with a lot of bass, and sometimes meh. Those explosions are one of the few areas where I think it outdoes the TG version.) Saturn Panzer Dragoon - 27 min (Was watching a Twitch streamer play Panzer Dragoon Saga and decided I wanted to go back and play this again. I just played until my first game over. Somewhere in level 4 I think. Had some continues, but didn't mess with them.) Dreamcast Sega Rally 2 - 32 min (Been a while since I played this much and my lack of practice was obvious. I was still able to get to the third stage in the Arcade Championship mode... but just barely. And once there I never made it to the first checkpoint. Game over yeah!) Shenmue - 170 min (Played this some because of the recent thread asking if people actually liked it. It had been so long since I played it, that I couldn't really remember much. I played along using a walkthrough, and made some progress that I don't think I made before. I played part of the game three times because I'm not sure what I'm doing with the saves and continues and whatever. I'm really good at that part now, though. lol Anyway, thought it was interesting at one point I bought a soda and got a lucky can... something that could be turned in for a collectible figurine (in game) if I could connect my Dreamcast to the internet and log on to Shenmue Passport or whatever... can't do that anymore... for now the can will stay in my inventory. Think I can turn it in for something in game, too, but haven't investigated it yet. Was freaking out at the end of my play session because I was trying to race to the convenience store to buy some squid legs for the kitten. I made it just before they closed! lol)

An all time low?

Nope. Don't have a multimeter. May be able to take it to work and check it.

The Wipeout XL soundtrack is the only video game soundtrack I ever bought. =)

See, that's just it. I think I probably would play a lot more Tempest and like it a lot more if I had a rotary. But I'm afraid I won't, also. I don't have a lot of games for my Jaguar, what other games work well with a rotary?

Not really unintentional, and perhaps just underneath "awesome"... I always liked the fact that any TurboGrafx game could be reset by holding Start and pressing Select... (or maybe the other way around)... instead of having to go press a button on the console.

I'd love to have a rotary for Tempest... just don't know if I want to spend the money... I feel it's gotta be better than the d-pad...

The power supply for my Jaguar will start buzzing after a while. As in, the wall wart itself will have an audible buzz/hum coming from it that gets louder the longer it is left plugged in. It seems to power the Jag okay, but it worries me that it may damage the Jag or that it is a sign that the power supply itself is about to go out. Any ideas? Just get a new one? It is an actual Jaguar part, not an aftermarket one.

I have Shenmue, but haven't played it in years. I don't remember it as being particularly exciting, but it was interesting. Now I feel like it might be on the games tracker this week... lol