thegoldenband

My times this week: NES: Bases Loaded - 76 min. Hotman (Hottāman no Chitei Tanken) - 12 min. PlayStation: Space Griffon VF-9 - 112 min.

That sounds very similar to the SNES version, but that one had passwords. Still, those rope-jumping sequences pretty much ruin the game, which is otherwise fun and very nice-looking (at least on the SNES). And the physics also made no sense, because the enemies scrolled with the screen, rather than with the game world -- a lot like the ghosts in the famously disastrous staircase sequence in Ghostbusters NES. I don't know why, or how, a game with so much obvious TLC allowed something so fundamentally joyless to be part of the final build.

I did one sector, or 8 (really 9) planets, at a time. I'd never try to do the whole game start to finish in one sitting, it's far too long for that!

My times for the week: NES: Bases Loaded - 103 min. Destination Earthstar - 7 min. Gyruss - 79 min. Hotman (Hottāman no Chitei Tanken) - 17 min. Jeopardy! Junior Edition - 23 min. Metroid X [Metroid ROM hack] - 37 min. Beat Gyruss and Jeopardy! Junior Edition.

74. Millipede (NES) Going by the standards used by beat-every-game projects, I "beat" this by clearing Round 16 on both A and B difficulties, after which the content apparently loops (more or less). Not going to rate it, but it's a moderately entertaining port that's on the easy side -- in both cases, I made Round 25 or so on my first try. n/a 75. Gyruss (NES) One of the first games I ever "beat", but that was back around 1989 with the 30-life code. This time I did it legit, and boy, did I need every extra life I earned along the way, as I was down to my last ship when I finally beat the end boss. Up to that point, however, the game really isn't that tough -- I went into that boss battle with 5-6 lives in reserve -- and doesn't deserve its reputation for punishing difficulty: I beat it on only my second attempt. It certainly plays well, but occasionally enemy projectiles were almost impossible to see, and I don't know that I enjoy edge-crowding mechanics or mostly-invulnerable enemy types in a game like this. But that's getting very picky. B+. 76. Jeopardy! Junior Edition (NES) Happened to have a cart for this, so I thought I should play it. Most of the challenge was in figuring out that you use the D-pad to ring in (so annoying to miss out on answering that first clue!), or in understanding the format the computer expected (if the clue was something like "THIS IS EIGHT OUNCES", the required response was "1 CUP", not just "CUP"). Otherwise I just started hitting the buzzer before I even saw the question...uh, answer...and won by, I don't know, $12k to $900 or something like that (the other CPU player ran out of money before Final Jeopardy). It's competent, but not really meant for me, so how can I grade it? n/a

Nice trend happening lately, as GCNDex and FamiThon have returned. Both projects had self-canceled a while back despite putting out a ton of videos, but both are now back in business, with FamiThon putting out a video about Volleyball today. I also want to give a shout-out to Sega Masters, which is almost done converting its old blog entries into video form, and has covered a few additional games besides, putting it about 2/3 of the way through completing the US library. That series deserves more attention than it's received -- the creator's clearly put a lot of work into it.

I have to admit I'm intrigued, despite the price and lack of analog outs. I noticed that it plays Atari 2600 games as well -- does it do that through the native cartridge slot, or require an adapter? A zero-lag, HDMI-capable system that plays Atari would be an interesting thing to have.

Let's remember that our colleague is only 13 (IIRC), so do cut him some slack. Young folks brimming with enthusiasm may not always perfectly execute every rule of decorum or "read the room" correctly. But they're the force that infuses a scene -- any scene -- with new energy. Without that, it becomes a bunch of old men grumbling at each other about how much better things used to be. And the surest way to stay young in spirit as you get older is to stay inspired by the energy of youth. If you know any people over 70 who still have that light in their eyes (and you know the light I mean), they usually appreciate the young and feel uplifted by their energy, rather than resenting it.

My times for the week: NES: Ikari Warriors II: Victory Road - 92 min. Millipede - 15 min.

My times for the week: SG-1000: Chack’n Pop - 798 min. NES: Cabal - 54 min. Wheel of Fortune - 9 min. Wheel of Fortune: Family Edition - 25 min. Wheel of Fortune: Featuring Vanna White - 49 min. Wheel of Fortune: Junior Edition - 9 min. Beat all these games! Thoughts here. Defeating Chack'n Pop at last was a welcome relief -- another one to clear off the replay list -- while Cabal was unexpectedly easy.

"Bort, or no?" Funnily enough, it's an episode about humans vs. evil robots...

68. Chack'n Pop (Sega SG-1000) Very demanding single-screen platformer with significant puzzle elements. The SG-1000 port of this Bubble Bobble predecessor is much better than the Famicom version in just about every way, but I do wish they'd dialed back a couple of the player-unfriendly elements. In particular, the abundance of "walking dead" scenarios in later levels gets old fast. B. 69. Wheel of Fortune: Junior Edition (NES) 70. Wheel of Fortune: Family Edition (NES) 71. Wheel of Fortune: Featuring Vanna White (NES) 72. Wheel of Fortune (NES) After I tried running Gyruss on my EverDrive and got a near-instant crash, I figured I'd run through a Wheel of Fortune game to see if the issue was with my NES. I ended up doing all four, with the same settings across the board: hardest difficulty, 2 CPU opponents, final puzzle solved correctly. It's bizarre that the NES has four distinct WOF games. Three of them are quite similar, though, with the original game and Family Edition getting a C+ for their superior presentation, while Junior Edition gets a C- for its sparser, cheaper feeling. Family Edition took me about 25 minutes to beat, the others under 10 minutes each. However, the Vanna White game is a stinker by comparison, with much slower gameplay (it took an hour to beat) and a revised interface that conceals the operation of the wheel from the players. Perhaps not coincidentally, it seems as though the CPU cheats: compared to my 9-10 Bankrupts and Lose a Turns, the CPU only got one. It also doesn't warn you when you've reached the final round, and...I dunno, it just kinda sucks. D-. 73. Cabal (NES) Good, clean, mindless fun, this cover-based shooter is an easy game masquerading as a hard one. It'd be nice if there were more to it, but then again sometimes it's nice to have a game that doesn't offer "more". Gotta love the bowlegged victory dance too. C+.

My times for the week: Sega SG-1000: Chack’n Pop - 104 min. Mahjong Solitaire - 93 min. Beat the homebrew Mahjong Solitaire, a nice implementation of Shanghai-style gameplay.

67. Mahjong Solitaire (Sega SG-1000) Really nice homebrew from Under4MHz that offers "Shanghai"-style tile matching, and does so impeccably. Try it yourself! If it doesn't already have a version of Shanghai, a ColecoVision port of this seems like a natural idea. A.

Awesome that you'll be able to do a complete Intellivision review set! I love projects like that. They're coming out with a Stadium Mud Buggies re-release as well, which I'm looking forward to picking up.

66. Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu (NES) Some unusual decisions went into this action platformer -- right down to the inclusion of a 99-continue code in the manual (!), which I obviously didn't use. One wonders if the designers started out with the intention of making a tough and challenging game, but backed off and ended up offering lavish health power-ups and easy boss fights. Anyway, it plays well, looks good, and doesn't offer much challenge at all once you get on its wavelength. Funny thing is when I first played the game, I had a hard time with it, but once I sat down on real hardware I beat it on my second attempt. B-.

My times for the week: NES: Batsu & Terry (JPN) - 60 min. Jackie Chan’s Action Kung Fu - 81 min. Beat Jackie Chan’s Action Kung Fu.

I don't know about Lotus II, but I know someone who spent weeks and weeks trying to beat Lotus Turbo Challenge on a Japanese Mega Drive, finally did -- and only then realized that they could/should have been playing at the intended speed all along, since they live in a PAL/50Hz region. Apparently the game is significantly harder at 60Hz. There's a list going at Sega-16 of games that weren't optimized for 60Hz (a list of the opposite, i.e. games that weren't optimized for 50Hz, would be ridiculously long of course). It's not always 100% clearcut but some cases are clearly too fast, like Shadow of the Beast. The vast majority are Amiga ports. There are also some PAL exclusives that don't work properly at 60Hz; here's a list in progress. One of the most insidious is Smurfs 2, which will reliably crash a few stages into the game. I had to beat that one in an emulator.

At about $171 USD as of today, I'd say that's a very competitive price as long as it works -- I'd jump on it. I paid about $100 for mine with 1 controller, 1 game with manual + overlay, and a fairly beaten-up box, but that was back in 2009 before prices exploded. The only completed listings on Ebay that sold for $200 or less usually have major issues or missing controllers. It's a very special system, well worth owning just on aesthetics alone. I don't play mine much but it sure gets a lot of oohs and aahs when I have friends and family over. Not that that happens much these days...

My times for the week: Sega Master System: Great Baseball - 10 min. Phantasy Star - 366 min. Quartet - 80 min. Beat Phantasy Star and Quartet.

65. Quartet (SMS) Has its charm, but the reversal of jump and fire buttons -- something that doesn't usually bother me -- turns out to be a real annoyance in this one, as does the relentless, ceaseless respawning of enemies. Also, you get the feeling that whoever put the manual together realized that Japanese-style "to win, you must uncover obscure secrets with zero clues" gaming wasn't going to fly in the US, as the booklet gives away just about all of those secrets. Without that to pad its length artificially, Quartet is really quite slight, and not really that tough once you learn the levels and location of health power-ups. I beat it in well under 2 hours, after only having played it briefly once or twice before. Perversely, there's a streak of real fun in there -- much more so than in, say, Vigilante or Kung Fu Kid or ESWAT, but still not as much as there should have been. C-.

64. Phantasy Star (SMS) It's good! I get tired of opening chests all the time, mind you, and money doesn't mean much for the last 25% of the game. And it'd be nice to have some way of recharging magic points while on the road, or getting non-garbage item drops from enemies. But considering how early an effort this is, it's remarkably slick, polished, and user-friendly, and that last 25% is much less of a hassle than I'd expected. A.

I decided to put together a list of all the licensed, North American-released NES games that haven't been tracked yet, and it turns out to be a bit over 200 games. No promises for accuracy, but it's probably close: A lot of obvious choices but a few surprises to be sure: no Power Blade 1 or 2? Or -- to stick to common, often-played games -- no Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle, RoboCop, Strider, or Xexyz? The funny thing is, I own a few of those like Thunderbirds and WURM, so maybe I'll move them up on my to-play list. Also I'm 90% sure I've played Alfred Chicken and Cabal sometime in the last 10 years, but I guess it was only for a moment or I didn't log the time. Also a few of these have been played as substantially different versions from other regions or prototypes, e.g. Power Punch II (played as the Mike Tyson prototype) or Castlequest (played as Castle Excellent). BTW I found a couple doubles in the list of NES games that have been played -- 100% my fault, since they date to the pre-Carlsson era: "Atlus Golf Grand Slam" and "Golf Grand Slam" should be combined, as should "Ultimate Air Combat" and "Utlimate [sic] Air Combat". On the other hand "Magic John" isn't a typo for "Magic Johnson's Fast Break" nor a mythical game about an enchanted toilet, but a Famicom exclusive that I apparently played five years ago...? No memory of it, but then again it was only 2 minutes!

Aha, got it. It looks like the number of tracked 32X games hasn't changed since the end of 2018, so here's the word: Officially-released games untracked on the 32X (cartridge format): FIFA '96 (European exclusive), NFL Quarterback Club, RBI Baseball '95, Sangokushi IV (Japanese exclusive), Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Officially-released games untracked on the 32X CD: Slam City with Scottie Pippen, Surgical Strike (Brazilian exclusive) Unsurprising that it's mostly sports, plus a language barrier game, a super-rare Brazilian release, and the Star Trek game. On the Vectrex front, it looks like only three original releases are left, and equally unsurprising that they're all 3D games: Officially-released games untracked on the Vectrex: 3D Crazy Coaster, 3D Mine Storm, 3D Narrow Escape If I ever get the 3D imager or an equivalent replacement, I'll give them a whirl! Regarding the Protector/YASI thing, I actually found the post in question, which dates from 2009 when the tracker was young and spring was in the air: Unfortunately grandcross has under 50 posts, so I assume that poster is long gone, and probably wouldn't remember which game was played back in 2009 anyway. I'm guessing Protector, based on the difficulty.

Just for clarity, that was a list of Atari 2600 games released in North America -- there were still a bunch of PAL games that could be added. There are also some fringe titles that were released in NTSC format but as bootlegs. For the overall list, as far as I know this blog entry from IHATETHEBEARS is still definitive -- -- and it looks like we both use it as a reference. I would think the Sega 32X can't be too far from a complete reckoning, though there is the complication of the four out-of-region exclusives (2 European, 1 Japanese, 1 Brazilian). 40 games total, as I recall. The Vectrex's original release library might be pretty close to 100% too.