Skippy B. Coyote

Bonus Guess: Atlantis

I've had this same problem with every Tac-2 joystick I've ever used, so you're certainly not alone in it. I never could figure out the cause, I just got rid of the Tac-2 sticks and used other joysticks instead.

There's so many great homebrews in the AtariAge store that if you ask 5 different people you're likely to get 5 different responses, but for my tastes I'd go with: Dungeon Lady Bug Lead Wolfenstein VCS: The Next Mission Zippy the Porcupine

Further temptation for those on the fence about picking up a physical copy: I didn't think to take a picture of it when I was doing the photo shoot, but one really neat touch is that the back of the cart has the Big Evil Corp. logo embossed in it where you'd normally find the Sega, Konami, etc. logo, so they did actually go through the trouble of having the cartridge shells for Tanglewood custom manufactured rather than just using a generic aftermarket cart shell.

Fantastic selections! I can definitely see why those two would be your top picks, they're really pulse pounding and complex arrangements. My #1 favorite shmup song is a lot simplier, but it's been stuck in my head for half past forever so I've gotta go with: https://youtu.be/TUCImuInDds

That's awesome! Thunder Force III has been my favorite horizontal shoot 'em up for a long time, but I lost my old copy in a major collection sell off a few years ago so I'm really happy to have another one now. It's also got quite possibly my favorite video game soundtrack of all time (it's a tossup between Thunder Force III and Ecco the Dolphin for the Sega CD) so I totally approve of your ringtone. If I had to pick a favorite song from the game, which is really tough since they're all excellent, I think I'd have go with the theme for Stage 2 Gorgon.

Very, very cool looking board! Since this game uses some pretty heavily customized boards I was wondering if there's going to be ongoing production runs for years like you did with Zaku or if it's going to be a "one and done" sorta deal?

Courtesy of Mrs. Jin, who actually spent a couple hours playing it until she beat the game before I got my chance to play it.

My thoughts exactly! Just because Nintendo decided to make the d-pad on the Switch separate buttons doesn't mean it's a good idea. I guess they're just trying to ape what seems trendy right now.

After pondering the matter for a few days I have come to a distinct conclusion: I have no need for this overpriced modern contraption.

It's a cool game for sure! I've always liked just about everything from HAL Labs, and they did have a few Game Boy games outside of the Kirby series and spin-offs. Trax is a fun vertically scrolling tank shooter and if you're into European imports then Adventures of Lolo is a pretty sweet puzzle game. Speaking of European imports, there's another lesser known pinball game for the Game Boy called Hollywood Pinball that's quite good. It was only released in Europe and comes on one of those black backwards compatible Game Boy Color carts, but it's still pretty inexpensive and well worth tracking down a copy of if you're looking for more quality pinball games to play on the trusty old DMG.

Starting off the new year with a couple fighting games! 1. Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers (Sega Genesis) This was actually my first time playing Super Street Fighter II, as my only previous experience with Street Fighter on home consoles was Street Fighter II': Special Champion Edition for the Sega Genesis as well. Overall I liked SSFII quite a bit more than Special Champion Edition, due to the brighter and more vibrant graphics as well as the addition of 4 new characters, more balanced special move sets, and more approachable computer AI difficulty. The only thing I didn't like as much about SSFII was the music, which I thought sounded a lot more bombastic and exciting in Special Champion Edition; especially in Ken and Guile's stages. In spite of the slightly lackluster music I still enjoyed SSFII immensely, and I think it will likely replace Special Champion Edition as my go-to Street Fighter game for the Sega Genesis. 2. Mortal Kombat (Sega Genesis) I'll admit it, I've always been a Mortal Kombat guy. I appreciate Street Fighter's complexity and balance, but at the end of the day when I sit down to play a fighting game I don't want to have to think about careful zoning and timing my forward jumps perfectly to avoid anti-airs, I just want to kick some butt and relax without having to think too much. For that purpose, it doesn't get much better than Mortal Kombat! This game defies almost all the conventions that a competitive fighting game player would look for in a "good" game, but holy heck is it ever fun to play! Jump around, do some uppercuts, mash those punch buttons, tear off a few heads, impale a couple people on spikes, and just have a jolly old time of it. To this day the original Mortal Kombat on the Sega Genesis is still my all time favorite fighting game!

Nothing to report from my household for the first week of the new year, but we did log a fair bit of time for the classic gaming tracker.

It was a fairly small week for gaming around here for the first week of the new year. The misses and I were fighting a lot this past week… we played Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat! It was great! Game Boy Revenge of the 'Gator - 34 minutes PC-DOS (Emulated on Nintendo Wii) The Ultimate Doom - 230 minutes Sega Genesis Mortal Kombat - 49 minutes Primal Rage - 61 minutes Street Fighter II': Special Champion Edition (Emulated on Nintendo Wii) - 140 minutes Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers (Emulated on Nintendo Wii) - 173 minutes Total Video Game Play Time This Week 687 minutes (11 hours 27 minutes) [687 minutes eligible] Individual System Play Times This Week Sega Genesis: 423 minutes PC-DOS: 230 minutes Game Boy: 34 minutes Not being sure what exactly to play for the first game of the new year, I ended up procrastinating on making up my mind for a few days until my wife suggested that we play Street Fighter II together; since it's always been one of her favorite games and we hadn't played any Street Fighter in quite a while. Unfortunately our copy of Street Fighter II': Special Champion Edition for the Sega Genesis was lost in the great collection purge of 2016, but our Wii was ready to step in and provide some Street Fighter goodness via emulation while I hunt for a new physical cartridge with a nice label. We also played Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers for the first time, which we actually found ourselves liking quite a bit more than Special Champion Edition even if the music in The New Challengers did sound a little lackluster compared to Capcom's previous effort. After a whole lot of street fighting fun I decided to give my favorite 16-bit fighting game, the original Mortal Kombat, a go and easily cleared the game on Medium difficulty with Sub Zero using only a couple credits. Not to be outdone, the spousal unit then took charge of the 6-button Genesis arcade stick and proceeded to clear the game as Raiden on only 1 credit without ever losing a round. She really gets competitive whenever we play fighting games! With Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat under our belts I decided to do one more fighting game this week and played a bit of Primal Rage, but unfortunately wasn't able to beat it in spite of my best efforts… probably because I forgot to set the number of continues to the max of 10. Ah well, maybe next week! Outside of the fighting game jamboree the only other games I played this week were half an hour or so of Revenge of the Gator pinball on the original Game Boy, just for nostalgia's sake, and a fair bit the original PC-DOS version of The Ultimate Doom via emulation on the Wii. By the time the week was 3/4 of the way over I still had no idea what I wanted to play for my first big game of the new year, but Doom is never a bad choice and I've been having fun with it. Next week the misses intends to get back to the game of Tomb Raider II that she was playing towards the end of December, but for this week she wasn't in any hurry and felt content to stick to a few fighting games. Well, I think that about covers everything for the first week of the year! Until next week, and as always, best wishes and happy gaming to you and yours!

It's about darn time! If it works with the AVS then this is gonna make a whole lot of people very, very happy... or not. Hyperkin doesn't exactly have the best track record when it comes to quality.

Great game choices this week! I've always really liked the Pac-Man Plus on the 2600. It's a remarkably good hack!

Aww… it will be a bit of a bummer to not have you at the head of this long running AtariAge institution thegoldenband, but carlsson did do a fantastic job running the modern tracker this year so I'd say you picked a most worthy successor. And hey, 10 long years is a pretty darn good run for a hobby activity like this! I'm just glad to hear you'll be sticking around as a player every week, because we'd sure miss you if you left altogether. I hope the passing of the reigns makes your life a little more relaxing and less stressful, and gives you a bit more time to play some of those games you've been doing all the record keeping for over the past decade. Thank you again for your many long years of service to the AtariAge community and I'll be looking forward to seeing you again in 2019 as a fellow player!

This time last year I was feeling really burnt out and cynical about retro gaming and collecting. I just wasn't happy with the hobby because I kept looking for new systems I had never played before rather than focusing on the ones I've always enjoyed, so over the course of 2018 I spent a lot of time and energy paring down my systems to just the ones I owned during my formative years. In late 2018 I also did quite a bit of housecleaning selling off games that I bought, put on the shelf, then never played or was only keeping around because they were rare and valuable and felt cool to have. With my assortment of systems and games now whittled down to just the stuff that really mattered to me at various points in my life, and my game collecting habits narrowed down to just the small handful of systems that I owned as a kid, I'm feeling much happier and more enthused about the hobby and life in general going into 2019. As far as what I have planned for 2019 goes, I just have two goals. The first goal is to only buy games that I know I will be excited to sit down and play as soon as I get them. If I see a game for sale that I'm somewhat interested in but know I wouldn't play right away and it would just sit on the shelf for an undetermined period of time then I'm going to pass it up and not buy it, and instead focus my limited collecting budget on just games that I feel like I absolutely have to dive into the moment I get home with them. I'm hoping that by doing that I'll be able to recapture a little of what made getting a new video game such an enthralling experience back when I was kid. My second goal is actually a little project that I talked about a bit in the What Did You Buy Today? thread over the Show Us Your Collection forum, which I'll quote for the sake of brevity: Once it's all done, between that Game Boy Advance and the New 3DS XL that I spent literally hundreds of hours playing over the past year I'll be able to play absolutely every handheld Nintendo game ever made up to the Nintendo Switch; which is a really appealing idea that fits with the "less is more" ideology that's brought a lot of happiness and contentment to my gaming hobby over the past year. I really like the idea of having just 2 handhelds for all my portable gaming needs, and with awesome backlit screens and rocking speakers in both of them. If Nintendo ever releases a smaller and more pocket friendly revision of the Switch I'll probably pick one of them up as well just to keep up with the modern games that interest me, but until then I think I'll be really happy just rotating between my souped-up GBA and New 3DS XL. I've still got a few nostalgic handhelds in my collection like a nicely backlit original gray brick Game Boy and a Game Boy Color that I break out every now and then when I need a nostalgia fix, but for my regular day to day gaming activities I think I'll be really pleased with the duo of the Game Boy Advance and New 3DS XL, so I'm seriously excited to get the GBA upgrade project underway. That's it for my plans for 2019!

Agreed! After crunching the numbers for just my own household I have a major appreciation for what an incredible amount of work you put into running this tracker every year, goldenband. I sure appreciate it too, the past 3 years I've been participating in the tracker have added some seriously needed structure to my gaming habits and made me think a lot more about what I play and the enjoyment I get out of it. So, thanks! Thanks a ton! I'll be hoping to see the tracker up and running in 2019 as well.

Oh believe me, I'm gonna be nervous as heck when it comes time to start cutting into the inside of the shell to fit the AGS-101 LCD screen in there. I'm confident in my ability to perform the soldering necessary for the screen and voltage regulator so I'm not worried about that, but I think I will spend the $10 or so to pick up a reproduction shell to practice my cutting and filing on before I go to work on the real thing. I'm not going to start cutting into such a pristine condition system until I know that I can do it cleanly without screwing anything up. For the flash cart I'm pretty set on the EverDrive GBA X5 rather than the EZ Flash Omega, and there's a few reasons for that. The first is that the EZ Flash Omega consumes 50% more power than the EverDrive GBA X5 (150 mAh vs 100 mAh). The EZ Flash Omega also has a non-replaceable RTC battery where as the EverDrive GBA X5 is easily replaceable, and there are widespread reports of save file corruption on the EZ Flash Omega that you don't have to worry about with an EverDrive. Lastly, since the only computers in my household are Macs and all the compiler programs for SMSAdvance to create .gba files from Game Gear and Master System for use on the EZ Flash Omega are in Windows only .exe format I would not be able to play Game Gear or Master System games on my GBA with the EZ Flash Omega. With the EverDrive GBA X5's native SMSAdvance emulator support there's no need for a Windows only compiler program, you just drag and drop the .sms and .gg game files onto the SD card and you're good to go. So the choice between the EZ Flash Omega and EverDrive GBA X5 is kind of a no-brainer for me. Yeah, the EverDrive is twice the price and sticks out a little but it consumes 50% less power, has a replacable RTC battery, no save file corruption to worry about, and native support for Game Gear and Master System emulation. I'm cool with paying twice the price and having a nub sticking out of my GBA for all that.