Skippy B. Coyote

Woah, that 50th anniversary of the moon landing really hit you hard! ...Sorry, that typo was just way too good to pass up. In all seriousness though I'm so sorry that you had to go through that, sepsis is some majorly scary stuff, and I'm glad that you'll be out of the hospital and recovered enough to join us this season. I'm sure looking forward to getting back into it too after my own medical troubles made me have to bow out during the bracket challenge at the end of last season. Best wishes and I look forward to seeing you back in action!

This is the Donkey Kong I've been waiting for! Absolutely brilliant game, it really blows every other Atari 2600 port of Donkey Kong (both official and unofficial) clean out of the water. There's really only two little things I'd like to suggest tweaking before the final release, if they wouldn't be too difficult to implement. The first would be to give Mario/Pauline a fixed jump trajectory rather than allowing the player to adjust their jump midair, just since that's how the arcade version and all the official home versions of DK that I know of play. The second would be to allow the player to fall a little further before the game considers it a fall damage death. As it stands the elevator stage requires an incredible degree of precision to jump onto and off of the moving elevator platforms without dying, much more so than it probably should take. That's it for my critiques though! Everything else is just phenomenal and I'm pretty sure that anyone who has played this game would agree that it would have been about 100X better to open on Christmas morning back in 1982 than Coleco's official Donkey Kong port. 👍

Thank you so much guys! The fixed versions work perfectly and it's great finally getting to play this game on real hardware. I had played it on the Activision Anthology collection for the Game Boy Advance before but had never tried it on the big screen. I'm definitely going to have to add a copy of Skeleton+ to my cart the next time I make an AtariAge Store purchase.

Hey there guys and gals! Up until today I've never had a single problem with any game on my Harmony Encore, everything from Pitfall II to any homebrew I've thrown at it has played perfectly, but I decided to try out Skeleton+ today (the rom was downloaded from the official AtariAge page here: https://atariage.com/software_page.php?SoftwareLabelID=2381) and my Harmony Encore seems to be having a problem with it. I can hear the sound from the game just fine, but the picture is nothing but a black screen. Has anyone else had issues running Skeleton+ on their Harmony Encore cart or is there just something goofy going on with my particular Harmony cart?

I'm gonna use Retrogoober's template here because it's well thought out and I'm lazy. Activision: Pitfall II: Lost Caverns, H.E.R.O., Kung-Fu Master, Starmaster Arcade: Road Runner, Ms. Pac-Man, GORF, Joust, Q*Bert, Berzerk, Centipede, Ikari Warriors, Venture  Two paddle games: Astroblast & Kaboom! Two homebrew games: River Raid 3 (Game 16) & Wolfenstein VCS: The Next Mission  Would love to play: Alien, Halloween, Midnight Magic, Secret Quest, Montezuma's Revenge, Off the Wall, Skate Boardin'

Off to a great start! It doesn't matter how big or small your collection is, as long as you enjoy playing what you have; and Sonic 1-3 and Mortal Kombat I & II for the Genesis are some of my all time favorite games.

The 2019 - 2020 season of the Atari 2600 High Score Club starts soon, so I thought I'd dress for success.

I'm happy with my regular old Switch, since I play docked on the TV probably 80% of the time and I wouldn't want to give that up. A Switch that doesn't switch kinda defeats the purpose for me, but Nintendo has a good track record for removing their system's main selling point in a cheaper alternative and selling millions of them (see the 2DS) so I'm sure the Switch Lite will do quite well. I do have to admit that I like the form factor of the Switch Lite though, so they could probably sell me on picking one up if they ever came out with a really cool retro themed one like this original Game Boy themed Switch Lite mockup: It wouldn't replace my regular Switch since I do prefer playing on the big screen most of the time, but I could see it being neat to have.

While the Nintendo Switch once again got most of the love around here this past week, I still made a little time for classic gaming and got an Atari joystick back in my hands for the first time in a while. Ineligible Doom (Sony PlayStation) - 103 minutes Mortal Kombat II (Nintendo Game Boy) - 17 minutes Ms. Pac-Man (Atari 2600) - 15 minutes Ms. Pac-Man: Special Color Edition (Nintendo Game Boy Color) - 14 minutes Solar Striker (Nintendo Game Boy) - 33 minutes Nintendo Switch DOOM (Nintendo Switch) - 405 minutes Doom 3 (Nintendo Switch) - 680 minutes Horizon Chase Turbo (Nintendo Switch) - 175 minutes Total Video Game Play Time This Week 1,442 minutes (24 hours 2 minutes) [1,260 minutes eligible] Individual System Play Times This Week Nintendo Switch: 1,260 minutes Sony PlayStation: 103 minutes Nintendo Game Boy: 50 minutes Atari 2600: 15 minutes Nintendo Game Boy Color: 14 minutes The big games for the week in my household were a trio of Nintendo Switch titles, including the 2016 DOOM reboot along with the recently released Switch port of 2012's Doom 3: BFG Edition, and the stellar classic arcade style racing game Horizon Chase Turbo that just got a physical release on the Switch last week. I started off the week playing DOOM, but after a little pondering decided to download and try out Doom 3 rather than finish a 4th play through of DOOM. It ended up being a good choice, because at 7 hours I'm still having a total blast playing Doom 3 again for the first time in about a decade. The new Switch port of Doom 3 is a bit different than the original version I played back in the Xbox days, on account of now having your flashlight mounted to your armor rather than it being a handheld affair, so you can now use the flashlight and a weapon simultaneously. It might not sound like a big change but it definitely makes the game feel significantly different to play, and while it does lower the feeling of tension and dread creeping around the darkened tunnels of the Mars base quite a bit it's also really convenient to not have to constantly switch back and forth between your flashlight and a weapon. I've got mixed feelings on the change and do wish they would have included an option to play the game the original way, but other than the flashlight issue it's a solid port and still very much Doom 3 in every respect. While I've been working my way through Doom 3 the misses got back to her game of Doom on the PlayStation this past week, blasting through another half a dozen or so levels, and then we both played a fair bit of Horizon Chase Turbo on the Switch. I don't generally get into racing games because they often require major time investments making a character or customizing cars, sitting through some long story, or learning all the subtle nuances of a complicated control scheme, but this one feels just like you walked up to a racing game arcade machine back in the 90's and plunked in a couple quarters. It's fast and simple to jump into, has a beautifully clean cel-shaded visual style and catchy music, easy to use controls, 100+ tracks and dozens of cars to unlock, and the races only take 2 or 3 minutes to complete. Horizon Chase Turbo has been a big hit with everyone around here and I'm sure it's a game we'll be filling lots of a little snippets of free time here and there with whenever we have some downtime. Rounding out the week I pulled my backlit original Game Boy out of it's case for the first time in a few months to play some old favorites, and with the next season of the Atari 2600 High Score Club starting in a week and a half or so I felt like it was a good time pick up an Atari joystick and fire up the Light Sixer again last night. I only played one game of Ms. Pac-Man, but it was still just as enjoyable as ever and I'm seriously looking forward to playing some more Atari in the weeks to come. I think that just about covers everything for this week, so until next time and as always, best wishes and happy gaming to you and yours!

While the Nintendo Switch once again got most of the love around here this past week, I still made a little time for classic gaming and got an Atari joystick back in my hands for the first time in a while. Ineligible DOOM (Nintendo Switch) - 405 minutes Doom 3 (Nintendo Switch) - 680 minutes Horizon Chase Turbo (Nintendo Switch) - 175 minutes Atari 2600 Ms. Pac-Man - 15 minutes Nintendo Game Boy Mortal Kombat II - 17 minutes Solar Striker - 33 minutes Nintendo Game Boy Color Ms. Pac-Man: Special Color Edition - 14 minutes Sony PlayStation Doom - 103 minutes Total Video Game Play Time This Week 1,442 minutes (24 hours 2 minutes) [182 minutes eligible] Individual System Play Times This Week Nintendo Switch: 1,260 minutes Sony PlayStation: 103 minutes Nintendo Game Boy: 50 minutes Atari 2600: 15 minutes Nintendo Game Boy Color: 14 minutes The big games for the week in my household were a trio of Nintendo Switch titles, including the 2016 DOOM reboot along with the recently released Switch port of 2012's Doom 3: BFG Edition, and the stellar classic arcade style racing game Horizon Chase Turbo that just got a physical release on the Switch last week. I started off the week playing DOOM, but after a little pondering decided to download and try out Doom 3 rather than finish a 4th play through of DOOM. It ended up being a good choice, because at 7 hours I'm still having a total blast playing Doom 3 again for the first time in about a decade. The new Switch port of Doom 3 is a bit different than the original version I played back in the Xbox days, on account of now having your flashlight mounted to your armor rather than it being a handheld affair, so you can now use the flashlight and a weapon simultaneously. It might not sound like a big change but it definitely makes the game feel significantly different to play, and while it does lower the feeling of tension and dread creeping around the darkened tunnels of the Mars base quite a bit it's also really convenient to not have to constantly switch back and forth between your flashlight and a weapon. I've got mixed feelings on the change and do wish they would have included an option to play the game the original way, but other than the flashlight issue it's a solid port and still very much Doom 3 in every respect. While I've been working my way through Doom 3 the misses got back to her game of Doom on the PlayStation this past week, blasting through another half a dozen or so levels, and then we both played a fair bit of Horizon Chase Turbo on the Switch. I don't generally get into racing games because they often require major time investments making a character or customizing cars, sitting through some long story, or learning all the subtle nuances of a complicated control scheme, but this one feels just like you walked up to a racing game arcade machine back in the 90's and plunked in a couple quarters. It's fast and simple to jump into, has a beautifully clean cel-shaded visual style and catchy music, easy to use controls, 100+ tracks and dozens of cars to unlock, and the races only take 2 or 3 minutes to complete. Horizon Chase Turbo has been a big hit with everyone around here and I'm sure it's a game we'll be filling lots of a little snippets of free time here and there with whenever we have some downtime. Rounding out the week I pulled my backlit original Game Boy out of it's case for the first time in a few months to play some old favorites, and with the next season of the Atari 2600 High Score Club starting in a week and a half or so I felt like it was a good time pick up an Atari joystick and fire up the Light Sixer again last night. I only played one game of Ms. Pac-Man, but it was still just as enjoyable as ever and I'm seriously looking forward to playing some more Atari in the weeks to come. I think that just about covers everything for this week, so until next time and as always, best wishes and happy gaming to you and yours!

Thanks Travis! I pre-ordered both from Best Buy and picked them up at my local store.

Lately I've picked up 3 new Switch games, plus the misses scored a couple games for her Sega CD collection and I nabbed one for the 32X. We've been having a great time playing them all, and I especially dig how the physical limited edition of Raiden V: Director's Cut came with the game's soundtrack on a mini cd sized perfectly to fit inside the Switch game case. That is so freakin' cool!

The Nintendo Switch is easily my favorite game system since the Sega Genesis thanks to it's hybrid home console/handheld functionality and fantastic variety of games, and in spite of the rising popularity of digital media there's still a ton of great Switch games to be found on physical cartridges. My Switch library is pretty modest so far with only 10 games to speak of, since I haven't really been "collecting" for the system as much as I have been just picking up games I wanted to play. Still, I figured it could be fun to have a thread for everyone to show off what's in their Switch collections to see what other folks around here have been playing. I'll start things off with a couple pictures of my Switch system and game library:

No classic gaming from my household this week, but we did play a fair bit of modern games and I actually took the time to get back in the swing of things and do one a full write up with a picture and all that good stuff like I used to do for the modern tracker this week. You can find the post here.

It was a pretty small week for gaming around here this past week, but there was still a bit of fun to be had. Nintendo Switch Dust: An Elysian Tail - 40 minutes Fox n Forests - 195 minutes Raiden V: Director's Cut - 475 minutes Total Video Game Play Time This Week 710 minutes (11 hours 50 minutes) [710 minutes eligible] Individual System Play Times This Week Nintendo Switch: 710 minutes Not a whole lot of variety this week with all the games played around here being on the Nintendo Switch, but they were all great games. Now that I've got a physical copy of Dust: An Elysian Tail I started in on a second play through of it, and I also got around to finally finishing up Fox n Forests with 100% completion this past week. Admittedly I did have to use a guide to find some of the especially well hidden collectibles, but I didn't really mind since I was able to find 95% of the items in the game on my own. The big gaming highlight around here for the week though was Raiden V: Director's Cut, which just came out on Thursday. I had preordered the limited edition physical version of the game from Best Buy a few weeks ago and was there to pick it up on launch day, and let me tell you it was worth the wait! It's classic Raiden through and through, but with a proper voice acted storyline, modern HD graphics, a life bar, and some new weapon options this time around. The only complaint I could really make about the game is that it gives you unlimited continues and you always start exactly where you left off when you continue, so aside from having your score reset there is zero punishment for failure on any difficulty setting. Aside from the unlimited continues, Raiden V is definitely no slouch in the difficulty department though. In order to finish the game on Easy difficulty I had to use a good 10 or 12 continues the first time I played through it, though now that I've beaten the game a few times I am getting a lot better at it and can get through the first 3 of 8 stages without using any continues. Replaying the game has been tons of fun too, since there's quite a few branching paths for each level after the first one depending on your performance as well as 3 different ships and 9 weapons to choose from, and 6 different endings to get so there's a lot replay value to be had here. Even Mrs. Jin had fun playing through Raiden V on her own once, and the 2 player simultaneous mode coupled with the unlimited continues makes it a great game for two player couch co-op play. In short, if you're a fan of the classic Raiden games or old school vertical scrolling shoot 'em ups in general then you can't go wrong with Raiden V: Director's Cut on the Switch, it was definitely the game of the week around here this past week! That's all for this week, so until next week best wishes and happy gaming to you and yours.

Apologies for being super late this week, the tablet that I do all my online stuff on died today and I spent the last 11 hours scrambling to recover what I could from it (including my household's play time log for the week) and transfer it all over to a new tablet. Thankfully I was able to recover everything important to me, so here's my household's times for the past week! Ineligible Battlecorps (Sega CD) - 93 minutes Mega Bomberman (Sega Genesis) - 247 minutes Metal Head (Sega 32X) - 222 minutes Pac-Man (Arcade, played on Namco Museum Arcade Pac for Switch) - 5 minutes Sonic & Knuckles (Sega Genesis) - 120 minutes Nintendo Switch Darkwood - 110 minutes Dust: An Elysian Tail - 225 minutes Total Video Game Play Time This Week 1,022 minutes (17 hours 2 minutes) [335 minutes eligible] Individual System Play Times This Week Sega Genesis: 367 minutes Nintendo Switch: 335 minutes Sega 32X: 222 minutes Sega CD: 93 minutes Arcade: 5 minutes

Apologies for being super late this week, the tablet that I do all my online stuff on died today and I spent the last 11 hours scrambling to recover what I could from it (including my household's play time log for the week) and transfer it all over to a new tablet. Thankfully I was able to recover everything important to me, so here's my household's times for the past week! Ineligible Darkwood (Nintendo Switch) - 110 minutes Dust: An Elysian Tail (Nintendo Switch) - 225 minutes Arcade Pac-Man (Played on Namco Museum Arcade Pac for Switch) - 5 minutes Sega 32X Metal Head - 222 minutes Sega CD Battlecorps - 93 minutes Sega Genesis Mega Bomberman - 247 minutes Sonic & Knuckles - 120 minutes Total Video Game Play Time This Week 1,022 minutes (17 hours 2 minutes) [687 minutes eligible] Individual System Play Times This Week Sega Genesis: 367 minutes Nintendo Switch: 335 minutes Sega 32X: 222 minutes Sega CD: 93 minutes Arcade: 5 minutes

That seems like a reasonable call. As far as I can tell the World's Smallest Tiny Arcade line have their own unique versions of the games on them that are very similar to the arcade originals but run a little slower and more choppy. They're really close to the original arcade versions, but not exact.

My quest to acquire all the limited release Switch games I wanted for my collection that I missed out on at the time of their release is now complete! Now I've just gotta keep up with the upcoming releases so I won't have to pay out the nose to eBay scalpers later down the line. Fortunately the only limited release Switch games on my wants list at this point are Raiden V: Director's Cut Limited Edition coming out July 25th, which I already have pre-ordered, then Night in the Woods that's scheduled for release at some point during the 4th quarter of this year.

Ineligible AH-3 Thunderstrike (Sega CD) - 44 minutes Pac-Man (Arcade, played on Namco Museum Arcade Pac for Nintendo Switch) - 25 minutes World's Smallest Tiny Arcade: Pac-Man (Dedicated Handheld) - 21 minutes Nintendo Switch Darkwood - 1,005 minutes Fox n Forests - 280 minutes Outlast II - 155 minutes Pac-Man Vs. (Played on Namco Museum Arcade Pac for Nintendo Switch) - 15 minutes PAW Patrol: On a Roll! - 60 minutes Total Video Game Play Time This Week 1,605 minutes (26 hours 45 minutes) [1,515 minutes eligible] Individual System Play Times This Week Nintendo Switch: 1,515 minutes Sega CD: 44 minutes Arcade: 25 minutes Dedicated Handheld 21 minutes

Ineligible Darkwood (Nintendo Switch) - 1,005 minutes Fox n Forests (Nintendo Switch) - 280 minutes Outlast II (Nintendo Switch) - 155 minutes Pac-Man Vs. (Played on Namco Museum Arcade Pac for Nintendo Switch) - 15 minutes PAW Patrol: On a Roll! (Nintendo Switch) - 60 minutes Arcade Pac-Man (Played on Namco Museum Arcade Pac for Nintendo Switch) - 25 minutes Dedicated Handheld World's Smallest Tiny Arcade: Pac-Man - 21 minutes Sega CD AH-3 Thunderstrike - 44 minutes Total Video Game Play Time This Week 1,605 minutes (26 hours 45 minutes) [90 minutes eligible] Individual System Play Times This Week Nintendo Switch: 1,515 minutes Sega CD: 44 minutes Arcade: 25 minutes Dedicated Handheld 21 minutes

Thanks GoldLeader! Truth be told all the PS1 games belong to the misses, but I guess it's kind of a shared collection. That's only about half of the horror games we've got, I just picked out some favorites to throw together for a fun picture.

Who likes horror games?