TheGameCollector

2024-04-22T22:27:54Z

This last week I played:

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance for PS2 - 445 minutes

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 for PS2 - 239 minutes

Zelda 2024-1 by Tim D. (Hack) for NES - 289 minutes

Explaining these unnamed Zelda Hacks:

I met a couple of guys on Facebook who are using various tools to make their own Zelda hacks and sharing them. They start with the Zelda Randomizer just to add a couple features, but they build most of the hack by scratch using a couple other tools. One modifies the overworld and the other modifies the dungeons. It's kind of like playing Zelda Randomizer, except it can be more challenging sometimes and you can appreciate how it is more thought out rather than fully computer generated. Since these guys are just making a lot of hacks and not naming them anything special in particular, I'll just go by their numbered labels and year created when playing them and just name whose it was. Other people may end up with the games too. I might not receive everything they ever make or have time to play all of them. So for example, for next week's tracker I started working on Zelda 2024-1 by Jim B., but I might also play Zelda 2024-3 by Tim D. (he doesn't really like his second one.) Not disclosing their full last names allows them to stay private in case Nintendo wants to go crazy with trying to ban this sort of thing (it's my idea to do that).

If they ever decide to fully name one of the hacks, I will let you know which year, number and author to change the title for. I don't know, I might want to try to make one myself someday.

When I play actual randomizer games, I just put all the time under one entry for the randomizer because it is all made by the same computer in the same process, but when it is someone's hand made work I don't think it's as respectful to lump all those together, even if they have the time to make a bunch of them.

Progress:

Marvel Ultimate Alliance: I finished the game on Easy mode, unlocking all the characters including Silver Surfer and Nick Fury.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2: I started a new game on Easy mode, chose the anti-registration story when given the choice and have so far unlocked Cyclops, Jean Grey, Gambit, and The Thing.

Zelda hacks: I completed Tim's first hack from this year.

April 17

I'm actually surprised that version of Marvel Ultimate Alliance hadn't been played on the tracker yet. Has it ever been played on here for any of the other systems? There is a website called MarvelMods that lets you download characters and edit the PC version to play as those custom characters. X-Men Legends II PC version as well. I'd like to replay those on there sometime and do that. They even have characters from all kinds of random other series like Goku, Vegeta, Luigi, Sonic, Batman and Kain.

It could also be that the game is from 2006 so everyone played it that year when it came out and just chose not to revisit it by the time we started doing trackers.

April 16

This last week I played:

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance for PS2 - 828 minutes

Progress: I started a new file on Easy mode and made it to Chapter 4. I have unlocked all the characters except Silver Surfer and Nick Fury.

April 8

This past week I played:

X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse for PS2 - 758 minutes

Progress:

I completed the game on Easy mode and have unlocked Iron Man and Deadpool. Sometime I will need to play again on Normal to unlock Dark Phoenix.

April 1

This past week I played:

X-Men Legends for PS2 - 400 minutes

X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse for PS2 - 297 minutes

Progress:

X-Men Legends: I continued leveling up until all of the characters were level 40, then kept playing until I completed the game. Rogue was the one to deliver the final punches to Master Mold.

X-Men Legends II: I started a new file on Easy mode and worked my way into the Nuwali Temple in Chapter 2.

March 26

This last week I played:

Super Mario Bros.: Level-Headed for NES - 116 minutes

X-Men Legends for PS2 - 488 minutes

Progress:

Super Mario Bros. Level-Headed: I played through 6 more games from my 3rd set and completed all of them.

X-Men Legends: I played until reaching The Lost Passages which is IMO the best place to level up other than the Danger Room by defeating the endless enemies that try to protect the crystal that has Professor X trapped. Just don't try to defeat too many at once at their spawn point with Beast's pinball attack or you get the green screen glitch that crashes the game.

March 19

This last week I played:

Atari 2600

Asteroids - 11 minutes

Centipede - 9 minutes

Dodge 'Em - 2 minutes

Freeway - 10 minutes

Laser Blast - 1 minute

Missile Command - 23 minutes

Space Invaders - 50 minutes

Spacechase - 8 minutes

Stampede - 9 minutes

Video Pinball - 6 minutes

Zelda Randomizer for NES - 454 minutes

X-Men Legends for PS2 - 446 minutes

Progress:

Atari games - I just played and streamed for fun

Zelda - I played the last 2 games from my 2nd set. I was able to complete game 9, but game 10 seemed to lack arrows, including silver arrows. Because of this I couldn't defeat the final boss who in this situation ended up being Zelda because my character was an enemy rescuing Ganon.

X-Men Legends - I played until defeating Juggernaut on Muir Island. Psylocke is now on the team, meaning I've unlocked all the characters. I forgot how you could level up and gain healing items and money in the Danger Room courses so that makes the game as good as I remember. It helps to purposefully not complete at least one course until you're near the end of the game.

March 12

The past week I played:

Super Mario Bros.: Level-Headed for NES - 196 minutes

Zelda Randomizer for NES - 217 minutes

X-Men Legends for PS2 - 179 minutes

progress:

Zelda: I completed 1 more randomly generated game from my 2nd set.

Mario: I completed 9 out of 10 more randomly generated games from my 3rd set. The one I didn't complete had a glitch when I grabbed a flagpole during an auto-scrolling level that didn't stop scrolling soon enough. It might be beatable if I replay it and just grab the flagpole at the bottom at the last second instead of jumping for the top.

X-Men Legends: I played until reaching the point where I have to choose to either go to the Astral Plane or the Weapon X Facility next.

March 5

This week I played:

Super Mario Bros.: Level-Headed for NES - 177 minutes

Zelda Randomizer for NES - 889 minutes

X-Men Legends for PS2 - 447 minutes

Progress:

Mario: I completed 9 games from my 3rd set of roms with original graphics and normal difficulty.

Zelda: I completed 4 games that have remixed dungeons, secrets, item locations and random playable characters. In games where you play as a monster, Zelda is the final boss and you save Ganon.

X-Men Legends: I started a new save file and completed the U.S.S. Arbiter mission where Gambit is first playable.

February 27

This week I played:

Zelda Randomizer for NES - 1,464 minutes

A randomizer for The Legend of Zelda. Not to be confused with Zelda Reloaded Randomizer which came later, this version that began in 2015 and was last updated in 2019 is the version I used to make all the roms in these first four sets.

Progress: First I completed all 6 games in Set 1 which were just item locations being randomized. It was still very interesting because I never knew where to expect to find what I needed so it had me exiting levels, entering others and going back to earlier levels. Sometimes I even had to skip levels and do them later because an item needed to access the level was not available yet, such as the raft, either candle or the recorder. It took quite a bit of strategy and remembering what was left unfinished. I tried the second quest of the first game and found out that it is unbeatable because some of the levels are inaccessible due to some key items not being in stores where they need to be. It seemed with these 6 games' store item selections, none of the second quests would have been beatable so I didn't bother to try any others. The one second quest did give me a bunch of random glitched sword pickups and kept cycling through the sword designs.

Set 2 is more random with a higher difficulty. Even the level locations, enemy locations, item locations and shapes of rooms inside dungeons are different. Sometimes even the playable character is random. In game 1 I controlled Link with different colors than usual, in the 2nd game I controlled a green Ghini and saved Ganon from the final boss, Zelda and fought Link in place of every Ghini. In the 3rd game I played as a red Gibdo and as before, Link took the place of all enemy Gibdos. In this second set I completed games 1 and 2, but got stuck in game 3. I could not find the recorder within any levels. If level 8 is in the pond/lake I can't use the recorder on, then I could be stuck. I am saving my file for later just in case I want to look harder. These games actually don't even have second quests upon completion.

February 19

This week I played:

Super Mario Bros.: Level-Headed for NES - 359 minutes

Progress:

I completed all 20 games from my second set of roms, all playable as Peach with easy difficulty and random graphics, music and level design.

February 13

This week I played:

Super Mario Bros.: Level-Headed for NES - 392 minutes

Progress: I played the last 22 roms of my first generated set using a Powerpak on a real NES and succeeded in completing only 6 of them. That random difficulty setting is typically actually really hard with a high percentage of results being "brutal" difficulty. Since then, I've generated 1 set of Easy and 9 sets of Normal difficulty games to try.

February 6

The last 2 weeks I played:

Super Mario Bros.: Level-Headed for NES - 575 minutes

Progress:

After fixing my capture card audio timing issues in OBS Studio, I started over in playing the first rom set I created with totally random difficulty while streaming it. I used a real NES with a Powerpak to play and record it. I was able to complete 17 out of 29 games so far.

I almost wonder if I should set up some kind of challenge where I dare people to try to complete the extra hard generated hacks I couldn't by sharing them somewhere. Maybe one of those pro speed-runners could handle the difficulty.

PS: I just found out that Level-Headed was updated to v0.3.10 last August which introduced a couple bug fixes but not really any game generating differences. The creator started working on adding things for the next future build including pipe exits for underwater, underground, and auto-scrolling levels.

January 23

This past week I have played:

NES:

Super Mario Bros.: Level-Headed - 256 minutes

Gamecube:

Sonic Adventure 2: Battle - 124 minutes

Switch:

Pokemon Scarlet - 61 minutes

Pokemon Violet - 105 minutes

Progress:

Sonic Adventure 2: Battle - I re-completed the second half of the Dark Story to fix my memory card save then completed the Last Story.

Super Mario Bros.: Level-Headed - I completed 11 out 13 generated games I attempted.

Pokemon Scarlet - I downloaded the event item needed for getting the new mythical Pokemon later on and defeated my 3rd gym.

Pokemon Violet - I started a new file, caught various Pokemon and downloaded the event item needed to get the new mythical Pokemon later on.

January 17

I kind of wonder if for tracking purposes we retroactively should just group together the different revisions of the same game after all. For example last year I played a lot of Sonic World (fan game) and tried out R1, R7, R8 and R9 but then mostly stuck with R9. But really isn't the average person just going to say they played Sonic World (fan game) without bothering to really look up what version they're running?

The Sonic World DX team on the other hand have made it clear that DX is a different game from Sonic World because it has a lot of revamping of the way models, moves and physics work rather than just simply adding to what World was directly.

It doesn't matter if we're playing Sonic the Hedgehog 1.0 or 1.1 on Genesis for example because the only difference are some visual effects and one ring added to Labyrinth Zone. The only difference between Donkey Kong Country 1.0 and 1.1 is that they removed the level warp trick in the first world map.

Another game I've differentiated in the past was Super Mario Bros. Level-Headed. Does it really matter much if sometimes I played games generated by 0.3.8 and others by 0.3.9? It's still Level-Headed either way.

On the other hand The Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy with the differences was packaged in completely different formats. NES cartridge and Aladdin cartridge. I think in this case they probably are different enough but I don't know. This is just gameplay tracking, not speedrun tracking. So the different walking speed, item locations and star count differences don't really make a difference. If the Famicom version of a game counts as the same game, then maybe Aladdin carts should too. Super Mario Bros. 3 for Famicom has the difference in the number of hits a powered up Mario can take for example, but it is still Super Mario Bros. 3.

I'm just brainstorming ways to simplify it.

If a game jumps platforms, on the other hand I think that should be separate. Like Sonic Megamix for Genesis ends at 3.0, but Sonic Megamix for Sega CD begins at 4.0.

January 16

This last week I played:

Sonic Adventure 2: Battle for GameCube - 172 minutes

Progress:

I played through the Dark story only to find out that because of the way I used save states, the memory card save function stopped working halfway through. For next week's stats you will see the time for replaying that part through finishing the final story.

January 9

This week I played

Sonic Adventure 2: Battle for GameCube - 172 minutes

Progress:

I started a new file and completed the Hero story.

January 1

I didn't have time to play at the end of the year so there won't be any more from me in here.

January 1

I didn't have time to play at the end of the year so there won't be any more from me in here.

January 1

Actually in Sonic R, Amy does use a car.

December 26, 2023

I have had a couple busier weeks just uploading my old game recording videos from 2009 to YouTube and copying VHS tapes to a PC rather than gaming and streaming. It is gaining me some more YouTube followers at least who surprisingly like the low quality VHS look of those videos. One thing that is nice is that I even have my first playthrough of New Super Mario Bros. Wii in that format.

December 17, 2023

This week I played:

Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut for GameCube - 185 minutes

Progress: I played through the story modes for Amy, Big, E-102 Gamma, and Super Sonic.

December 10, 2023

Most of this is week 47 late minutes (posted on the wrong topic by mistake that week.) + Week 49 minutes (added to Sonic Adventure DX only)

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - Master Quest for GameCube - 212 minutes

Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut for GameCube - 212 minutes

Sonic Origins Plus for PS5 - 143 minutes

Super Smash Bros. Melee for GameCube - 406 minutes

Progress:

Zelda Master Quest - I finished the Spirit Temple and completed the rest of the game except for getting the gold scale and 7 pieces of heart.

Super Smash Bros. Melee - I completed All-Star mode on very easy with the rest of the characters besides Dr. Mario and Mario whom I already completed that with previously. I played the stadium modes minimally to unlock the N64 stages, and completed all 51 Event Matches to unlock the final stage and sound test.

Sonic Adventure DX - I started a new game and completed Sonic's story. [Today, end of week 49 I played through the Tails and Knuckles story modes]

Sonic Origins Plus - I completed Sonic 3 & Knuckles as Sonic & Tails together and completed 4 mission modes with S rank in the Sonic 2 section.

If you're considering Zelda an N64 rom, just paste the values over there from here. I thought the button name changes in the rom was enough to call it a new version. (L-targeting instead of Z-targeting, red and green buttons instead of green and blue, C-stick referenced instead of C buttons, moon symbols on mirror shield and pushable blocks changed into symbol that looks like two diamonds with a horizontal wrench with two dots in the holes between them.) [In fact even if you tally it as an N64 rom, it is actually a modified/officially hacked version because it includes that symbol change and button graphics changes.]

The Master Quest version on the other hand was only officially released on Gamecube. Fans extracted the rom from the Gamecube release and got it working on Nintendo 64 and emulators, but it was never officially released physically on a Nintendo 64 in any region.

December 10, 2023

6 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

If it's running in an N64 emulator (and I am certain it is) and does not have any additional functionality I think it belongs in classic. Date doesn't matter.

I know it's been suggested before, but I kind of think in 2024 it might be easier to just merge the two sections (Classic & Modern), just have 1 time tracker and move the thread to General Gaming since that section exists now, IMO. General Gaming forum didn't exist when the two threads were created. Then people don't have to nitpick about PC and arcade game dates either. PS2, Gamecube and Xbox are also kind of becoming antiquated when you're on PS5 that only plays discs going back to PS4, Microsoft barely has any BC for OG Xbox, and Switch and even WiiU had only select ports or remakes of GameCube games. They're 3 generations ago (4 for Nintendo unless you say either Wii U was part of Wii or Switch was part of Wii U; late next year it will likely be 5 ago).

With a merged topic showing the top 20 systems instead of top 10, we could also get a good comparison of newer console to older console ratio. It would probably kind of show how popular Atari 2600 playing still is among this community next to the current console use on this board. It may even give incentive for some users to try to play their old systems more frequently if the numbers dip.

December 9, 2023

On 11/23/2023 at 8:38 PM, jgkspsx said:

Ocarina of Time is just the N64 game in an emulator, right?

The rom has been edited to change the colors and names of the buttons as well as the copyright date year to 2003 on the title screen. If you guys want to put it in Classic, just move it yourself.

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