Skippy B. Coyote

A good week for gaming around here this week! Everything I played was played on my Retroid Pocket 3+, which mostly consisted of continuing to make my way through Ocarina of Time for the N64. I did get in a couple games of Monopoly for the Game Boy Color too, played a bit of what is probably the best home console port of Xevious on the PC Engine, and completed half a dozen more levels Alien Hominid for the GameCube. I was planning on finishing Alien Hominid this week but ended up getting distracted by a very long Ken Burns documentary Lastly, on Christmas morning I parked myself in front of the TV and used the HDMI out on my RP3+ to play Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams for the Sega Saturn on the big screen to commemorate the holiday! I had never played a NiGHTS game before but, once I learned the rather strange game mechanics, I really enjoyed it and think I'd like to play the full NiGHTS into Dreams game once I finish up Alien Hominid! Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good NiGHTS 🎄 Ineligible Alien Hominid (GameCube) - 43 minutes Game Boy Color Monopoly - 117 minutes Nintendo 64 The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - 438 minutes PC Engine Xevious: Fardraut Saga - 36 minutes Sega Saturn Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams... - 74 minutes

Just one modern game for me this week, but it's a goodie! GameCube Alien Hominid - 50 minutes

Coming in late to the party this week, but with a good bit of time to contribute! Game Boy Color Monopoly - 47 minutes Nintendo 64 The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - 943 minutes PC-DOS The Ultimate Doom - 102 minutes Sega Genesis Mortal Kombat - 60 minutes Mortal Kombat II - 16 minutes Street Fighter II': Special Champion Edition - 28 minutes

No modern gaming for me this week once again, I'm just been playing through the DOS classic The Ultimate Doom this past week

Decided to just play through the classic Ultimate Doom this past week. I'm three levels into the fourth and final episode at this point so I should finish it at some point within the next few days I think PC-DOS The Ultimate Doom - 249 minutes

No modern gaming for me this week, though I did play quite a few games for the classic tracker!

This week I just played a whole bunch of games on my Powkiddy V90, which is funny since I have several vastly more powerful and capable emulation handhelds with better screens and better controls, but I just kind of have a soft spot for this dinky little thing. Game Boy Solar Striker - 16 minutes Game Boy Color Monopoly - 385 minutes Neo Geo The Last Blade 2 - 80 minutes PC-DOS The Ultimate Doom - 106 minutes Sega 32X Kolibri - 12 minutes

Scurge: Hive is a really beautiful and impressive looking game for the GBA, but you're definitely right about it being quite difficult and for some reason it's just kinda failing to hook me. I did play a few more minutes of it this week, but then I decided I just felt like playing some Game Boy Color and Sega Genesis games instead and got distracted Game Boy Advance Castlevania: Circle of the Moon - 21 minutes Scurge: Hive - 9 minutes

Lots of gaming laid back in bed while I continue recovering from that surgery I had a few weeks ago, and this week the Anbernic RG35XX was my bed buddy. I ended up playing a ton of Monopoly for the Game Boy Color on it, and used it to play some Samurai Shodown II for the Neo Geo and do full playthroughs of Ristar and Ecco Jr. for the Sega Genesis as well. Game Boy Color Monopoly - 350 minutes Neo Geo Samurai Shodown II - 31 minutes Sega Genesis Ecco Jr. - 100 minutes Ristar - 154 minutes

No classic gaming for me this week, though I did play some Game Boy Advance games for the modern tracker

Just a little GBA for me this week Game Boy Advance Alien Hominid - 118 minutes Connect Four / Perfection / Trouble - 21 minutes Scurge: Hive - 42 minutes

I'm back with a bit of time to contribute! I spent the past week recovering from a gallbladder removal surgery, which I had to have done on account of a rather enormous gallstone that was likely to perforate my gallbladder at some point if I didn't get the gallbladder removed, so I went ahead and got the surgery done. The recovery has been going better than expected and I'm fairly mobile and able to get back to most of my usual routine after a week of healing, though it'll be another week before I can return to work and probably another month before I can resume eating a normal diet. For now I'm stuck on a really low fat diet while my body figures out how to digest fats again without the aid of a gallbladder, but slowly and steadily I'm getting there. Anyhoo, this week I finished the playthrough of Silent Hill for the original PlayStation that I started for Halloween and after that I did a full playthrough of Metroid: Zero Mission for the Game Boy Advance. They were both a lot of fun and a great way to pass the time while I've been parked in bed recovering! Ineligible Silent Hill (PlayStation) - 109 minutes Game Boy Advance Metroid: Zero Mission (Game Boy Advance) - 652 minutes

I'm back with a bit of time to contribute! I spent the past week recovering from a gallbladder removal surgery, which I had to have done on account of a rather enormous gallstone that was likely to perforate my gallbladder at some point if I didn't get the gallbladder removed, so I went ahead and got the surgery done. The recovery has been going better than expected and I'm fairly mobile and able to get back to most of my usual routine after a week of healing, though it'll be another week before I can return to work and probably another month before I can resume eating a normal diet. For now I'm stuck on a really low fat diet while my body figures out how to digest fats again without the aid of a gallbladder, but slowly and steadily I'm getting there. Anyhoo, this week I finished the playthrough of Silent Hill for the original PlayStation that I started for Halloween and after that I did a full playthrough of Metroid: Zero Mission for the Game Boy Advance. They were both a lot of fun and a great way to pass the time while I've been parked in bed recovering! Ineligible Metroid: Zero Mission (Game Boy Advance) - 652 minutes PlayStation Silent Hill - 109 minutes

Game Boy Advance Connect Four / Perfection / Trouble - 150 minutes

I just had surgery this morning to get my gallbladder taken out, because apparently a regular diet of pan crust pizza and fried noodles has consequences, so I'm still a bit too mentally fuzzy and rundown feeling to talk much about the games I played this week. Here's my times though in any case! Game Boy Color Monopoly - 369 minutes PlayStation Silent Hill - 120 minutes

Finally back with some time to contribute! Autumn turned to winter last week here in Minnesota, and I'm not much a fan of the cold so the time of year for outdoor activities this year is over for me. Now it's time for 5 or 6 months of winter and lots of relaxing indoors playing video games! Game Boy Advance Connect Four / Perfection / Trouble - 213 minutes

Finally back with some time to contribute! Autumn turned to winter last week here in Minnesota, and I'm not much a fan of the cold so the time of year for outdoor activities this year is over for me. Now it's time for 5 or 6 months of winter and lots of relaxing indoors playing video games! Colecovision Venture - 32 minutes PlayStation Silent Hill - 625 minutes Sega Genesis Sonic 3 Complete - 244 minutes

No gaming time at all for me the past couple weeks, since I've been spending more of my free time on other activities, but it looks like the temperatures here are going to be dropping quite sharply in a few days so I imagine I'll be spending more time inside and doing some gaming again this coming week.

No gaming time at all for me the past couple weeks, since I've been spending more of my free time on other activities, but it looks like the temperatures here are going to be dropping quite sharply in a few days so I imagine I'll be spending more time inside and doing some gaming again this coming week.

Here I am forgetting to post my times again! Ah well, on next week's tracker they go. Android The Pinball Arcade - 33 minutes Game Boy Advance Ultimate Card Games - 11 minutes PSP Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection - 50 minutes

Here I am forgetting to post my times again! Ah well, on next week's tracker they go. Arcade Ms. Pac-Man (Speed-Up Hack) - 13 minutes Space Invaders DX - 14 minutes

Pinball time! Android The Pinball Arcade - 84 minutes PSP Pinball Hall of Fame: The Gottlieb Collection - 12 minutes

No classic video gaming for me this week, though I did spend quite a bit of time playing my new Tomy Astro Shooter tabletop pinball machine!

So I got my Tomy Astro Shooter in the mail last night and omigosh it's SO much better than I thought it was going to be! I thought it was going to feel like a cheap toy, but it actually feels and plays just like a real electromagnetic pinball machine from the early 80's; minus the solenoid flippers. It's got active bumpers, kick out holes, rollovers, a skill shot, sound effects for everything (flippers and plunger included), and a couple other features I noticed that I've never heard anyone mention before! The first surprising feature I've never seen anyone talk about is that the spinning lights above the flippers are actually lightly magnetized, so if the ball rolls over a light while it's rotating around it can alter the trajectory of the ball. The ball has to be moving fairly slowly for the magnets to have an effect, but it is still a neat touch I think. The other feature I thought was very cool is that the point value of the Hyperspace cellar hole jackpot isn't static and can be increased by shooting other objectives on the board! Based on the table artwork for the American Pinball reskin of Astro Shooter those objectives seem to be the Kickout Craters on the left side of the table and the Cosmic Channels rollovers in the upper right of the table: When none of the bonus objectives have been hit the jackpot starts at 5,000 points but it rapidly increases the more you shoot the Kickout Craters and Cosmic Channels rollovers, and by the time I finished my highest scoring game where I got 91,635 points the Hyperspace jackpot was awarding around 15,000 points every time I hit it. The increasable jackpot adds a lot more strategy and depth than I was expecting from a toy pinball game! Altogether I now totally understand why even though Astro Shooter came out in the early 80's it's still considered the absolute best tabletop pinball machine ever made more than 40 years later. It's just astonishing how incredibly much effort Tomy put into this thing, and aside from the analog flippers it really does play just like a real EM pinball machine from the early 80's! I didn't find the noise of the motor running to be off-putting either once I started playing.

I'm happy for Albert, since it means he'll have a lot less work stress in his life handling every aspect of the forum and be able to focus more on doing the things he enjoys as well as helping guide Atari as a company to make more of what Atari fans really want and less of what they don't. It sounds like things should be mostly business as usual around here too, so the only thing I'm sad about is that I wasn't able to get a copies of Venture Reloaded, Zippy the Porcupine, and Scramble before they were pulled from the AtariAge store. Such is life though.