What have you actually PLAYED tracker for 2010 (Season 3)

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for the past week (October 18th through 24th)...

 

The classic game (eligible for the Top 10):

 

Trantor the last stormtrooper (Commodore 64) 113 minutes in 2 sessions

 

The non-classic games (not eligible for the Top 10):

 

Moby Dick (Online): 144 minutes in 2 sessions

Mazda Burning Gears (PC): 15 minutes

Cheese Hunt (Online): 23 minutes in 2 sessions

Chomper (Online): 3 minutes

Extreme racing (Online): 2 minutes

Ultimate Collision 3D: 3 minutes

FWG Evolution: 254 minutes

Sushi Cat: 1 minutes

Bed and breakfast: 39 minutes

Joy Ride: 6 minutes

Box Office: 67 minutes

Nanny in space: 3 minutes

Creepy Rider: 1 minutes

Noodle Shop: 24 minutes

 

Let's see... quite a few games here. The only classic game I played was "Trantor the last stormtrooper". I never played this game before, but I knew the Trantor character because the German game mag Power Play used it for a cartoon called "Starkiller" in the late 80's. Trantor basically is a horizontal scrolling shoot'n'run (you can also jump, but not very high) with occasional elevators leading from one level to the next. There are 8 levels in total, and each level contains extra gas for your flamethrower, one extra item and one letter from the password, except for two levels which contain the master console and the transporter in addition to the other three items. You need to get all the letters from the password, then enter that into the master console where you get an escape code, then you enter that code into the transporter. Or at least it's supposed to work this way...

 

However, things aren't always that easy. There are only some disctinct passwords in the game, so once you know the starting letter and have played the game with that starting letter before, the remaining letters will also be the same. But you can only enter the password into the master console once you have retrieved all the letters, even if you know what the password will be before that.

 

And then you are supposed to enter the access code into the teleporter, but there's another flaw with that. I got the prompt to enter the access code which I didn't know, so I entered anything, which was promptly rejected. I accidentally entered the teleporter again, and this time I just entered "AAA" on the prompt just to get over it. And guess what? This was accepted as the correct access code, even though I didn't get an access code yet! So by entering "AAA" I accidentally finished the game before its time.

 

Then I played a lot of Moby Dick where you play a whale which grows bigger and bigger with everything it eats (similar to Shark! Shark! on the INTV and Go! Fish on the 2600). However, you can also go to the surface and throw up some boats there, which will cause the sailors to fall out of their boats so you can eat the sailors. I managed to reach the maximum size of 2000.

 

Then I replayed Mazda Burning Gears because the third track has been added in the meantime.

 

Cheese Hunt is a simple jump'n'run where you play a mouse which has to collect cheese. Looks a bit like "Snoopy" on the Commodore 64 with the big mouse sprite and the cartoon-like graphics.

 

Chomper is another underwater game where you play a fish which has to eat the red worms, but avoid the green ones (oh yes, my avatar is a green worm, probably that's the reason why you have to avoid them)

 

Extreme Racing is some uninspired 3D racing game on a straight track.

 

Ultimate Collision 3D is a 3D game where you have to knock over all the cones in the level with your car.

 

Joy Ride is a 3D racing game which has beautifully detailed landscapes, but at the cost of a low framerate.

 

FWG Evolution is another game which I played for a long time, and finished in one session... in that game, you have to breed bugs. There are 15 races of bugs, and you have to get the right combinations and have them mate in order to produce the correct sort of baby bugs. You can also buy and sell bugs, equip your tank with food and toys (!) for the bugs and let your bugs race and fight against competing bugs. The goal is to create the bug on the top of the pyramid.

 

Sushi Cat is a game I played before, where you have to throw a round cat through a maze system in order to collect as many Sushi as possible. I've played - and abandoned - this game before, so I only spent a single minute on it.

 

In Bed and Breakfast, you have to run a Bed and Breakfast hotel, a bit similar to Diner Dash. Similar to that is Noodle Shop, where you have to run a noodle shop and create several types of noodles and other things. Also similar to that is Box office, where you take over a box office and sell movie tickets, drinks, ice cream and popcorn to the cinema visitors.

 

Nanny in space is a game where you are an astronaut and have to jump down from platform to platform by choosing the correct direction and power of your next jump.

 

Finally, Creepy Rider is another crappy racing game.

 

Actually, some games refer to each other by having a button on the title screen saying "Play <next game>". I think Bed & Breakfast refers to Noodle Shop, which refers to Box Office, which refers to FWG Evolution, which in turn refers to Build-a-lot, but that's a game you have to download and buy (or play a trial version) rather than playing it online, so I didn't bother doing that, thus it doesn't appear in the list of played games.

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom!-383 minutes

[The_Laird]

My updated play list for this last week:

 

Sega Saturn

 

Sega Touring Car Championship - 30 Minutes

Worms - 2 Hours

True Pinball - 30 Minutes

 

Atari Lynx

 

Lynx Poker - 20 Minutes

Mega Pak 1 - 20 Minutes

Shanghai - 1 Hour

 

Atari Jaguar

 

Tiny Toon Adventures - 20 Minutes

Tempest 2000 - 30 Minutes

Superfly DX - 5 Minutes

[Taskmaster99]

SNES

------

Final Fantasy 3(6) - 1 hr. 10 min.

 

Genesis

--------

Zombies ate my Neighbors - 20 min.

 

Neo Geo AES

-------------

Windjammers - 20 min.

[+thegoldenband]

Times for the past week:

 

Odyssey^2:

Moto Crash - 3 min.

Puzzle Piece Panic - 8 min.

Robot City - 5 min.

Shark Attack - 3 min.

Spiderman - 3 min.

 

Sega CD:

Earnest Evans - 30 min.

 

SNES:

Art of Fighting - 68 min.

Hard Drivin' - 7 min.

Jimmy Connors Pro Tennis Tour - 117 min.

 

PlayStation:

Total Eclipse Turbo - 4 min.

 

N64:

Conker's Bad Fur Day - 15 min.

F-Zero X - 10 min.

Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero - 83 min.

Nagano Winter Olympics '98 - 125 min.

Super Mario 64 - 20 min.

 

Dreamcast:

Silver - 4 min.

 

Seems to be the week of unusual control schemes! Everything I played for more than a few minutes has some sort of weird complication, ranging from the hilarious awkwardness of Earnest Evans (who moves like a marionette) to the maddening inconsistency of Art of Fighting (in which a fireball is sometimes not a fireball).

 

Then there's Jimmy Connors Pro Tennis Tour, in which you have to "wind up" your shots -- releasing the button is what unleashes the swing. This makes a kind of sense, in that there's a direct connection between preparation and results, and there are some good things about the engine. Unfortunately, it gets frustrating quickly. The game rewards aggressive play in theory, but trying to put any kind of "oomph" behind a volley results, more often than not, in dumping it into the net. Maybe a manual would help? Still, not bad for less than a buck.

 

Finally, Nagano was recommended by a friend who played it in his childhood, and warned me not to expect too much. It's sort of a dumbed-down, tarted-up Winter Games with more bells and whistles, but there are some strange gameplay decisions. For example, you have no direct control over your position in the speed skating event -- you're just hitting the L and R buttons in rhythm. This approach might work in 2D, I suppose, but in a 3D game it just makes the player feel detached from the events on screen. Worse yet is the snowboard halfpipe, in which the computer spoonfeeds you a list of buttons to push before your character executes the trick.

 

Ultimately, Nagano feels one-dimensional and undercooked. Having said that, there's some fun to be had. The ski jump isn't so bad once you get used to it, and the curling event is fairly well designed. But where's the biathlon, guys?

Edited October 25, 2010 by thegoldenband

[Taskmaster99]

Neo Geo AES

------------

Windjammers - 20 min.

Samurai Shodown - 10 min.

[zylon]

2600:

Yars' Revenge 30min

TI99/4a:

Moon Patrol 15min

A8:

River Raid 15min

Demon Attack 30min 2 player co-op advanced mode(#10)

SMS:

Outrun 20min

5200:

River Raid 3hrs.

[psquare75]

Sega Master System

Action Fighter 30 min

Out Run 30 min

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom!-467 minutes

 

High score of the week: 328,994

[Taskmaster99]

PC Engine

---------

Batman - 20 min.

Street Fighter 2 - 10 min.

Fantasy Zone - 30 min.

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for the past week (October 25th through 31st...)

 

The classic game (eligible for the Top 10):

 

Space Panic (Arcade) 19 minutes

 

The non-classic games (non-eligible for the Top 10):

 

Frontierville (Facebook app) multiple hours

Cafe World (Facebook app) 77 minutes in 2 sessions

Restaurant City (Facebook app) 41 minutes

Mafia Wars (Facebook app) 3 minutes

 

Verbosity (online game) 32 minutes

Tagatune (online game) 17 minutes

Squigl (online game) 4 minutes

Popvideo (online game) 5 minutes

 

I don't think I have to say too much about Space panic, other than the graphics were actually better than I reminded them... I think they used 3-color sprites as in Pac Man, but only background tiles with 2 colors each (or maybe they do support more, but don't use them).

 

I tried and replayed several Facebook apps yesterday and today. The old one was Restaurant City which I played extensively last year (or was it in 2008 already?). The new ones are Frontierville, which is another country game similar to Farmville (done by the same company... don't know why they put out two similar games like this), Mafia Wars (which isn't very good in my opinion... you just click on buttons to execute jobs which are described as text) and Cafe World, which is another restaurant simulation. Restaurant city has changed a bit from what I saw last... you don't have to "feed" your employees anymore, although you sometimes have to boost their morale. Instead, you now open your restaurant for a pre-determined length of time, and the longer you open it, the higher the cost will be... 30 minutes are free. I didn't write an exact time for Frontierville because that game is still in progress in the background while I write this.

 

Verbosity, Tagatune, Popvideo and Squigl are four games from the site gwap.com. I don't recall what Squigl was. Tagatune is a music tagging game similar to Google Picture Labeler, but for music. You and your partner get played different musical pieces, and you have to tag them. The thing is, sometimes you and your partner get different pieces, and sometimes the same, and you have to guess from your and your partner's tags if you got the same or different pieces. If you guess right, you get points.

 

Popvideo is basically the same thing for videos, although in this case, you play against multiple enemies, and the race is on who gets the most points. Each player gets as many points as he has tags in common with the other players.

 

Verbosity works a bit different. The computer issues one word, and one player has to describe the word using 6 pre-determined sentences like "...is the opposite of..." or "...is usually in...". The other player has to guess what the word is. If he guesses right, or both players pass, the roles get swapped, so the describer now has to guess and vice-versa.

[larry_kaplan]

Atari 2600

Kaboom!-467 minutes

 

High score of the week: 328,994

 

Congratulations Atarian7. That is quite an impressive achievement. 100 patches!

 

Larry

[+thegoldenband]

Times for this past week:

 

Sega SG-1000:

H.E.R.O. - 60 min.

 

Sega Genesis:

Castlevania Bloodlines - 5 min.

Divine Sealing - 5 min.

Double Dragon II - 15 min.

Earnest Evans - 65 min.

ESWAT - 10 min.

Splatterhouse II - 10 min.

Splatterhouse 3 - 23 min.

Target Earth - 10 min.

Williams Arcade's Greatest Hits - 10 min.

XDR: X-Dazedly Ray - 5 min.

 

Sega CD:

Earnest Evans - 136 min.

Microcosm - 10 min.

 

If it weren't for the completely bizarre controls, Earnest Evans would actually be a very good game -- it's certainly got no shortage of ideas, some of which are pretty loopy. I beat the Sega CD version fair and square on real hardware, after playing through the Genesis version with an emulator (and savestates) so I could get a sense of the whole game. I'm glad I did, since the final boss is one of those "relatively easy if you know what to do, instant death otherwise" types.

 

The two versions are almost identical, but the Sega CD release (which is Japanese-only) has animated cutscenes, a different soundtrack, and one or two slight gameplay differences.

 

I also played through all twenty levels of H.E.R.O. on the SG-1000, again via emulation (and with savestates). Towards the end, it gets so difficult that I'm not really sure how any human could make progress -- the controls just don't allow for the necessary precision to (for example) fly between a lava block and the water while maintaining a steady altitude. The VCS version isn't as fancy, but I think it plays better in this case.

[The_Laird]

I totally forgot to update this yesterday so I will do it today instead. Here is my play record for last week:

 

Sega Saturn

 

Pro Pinball: The Web - 1 Hour

Highway 2000 - 1 Hour

Cool Spot Goes To Hollywood - 30 Mins

Virtua Racing - 1 Hour

Streetfighter: The Movie - 20 Mins

Digital Pinball - 1 Hour

Destruction Derby - 30 Mins

Magic Carpet - 20 Mins

NHL All Star Hockey - 20 Mins

Virtua Fighter Remix - 20 Mins

Die Hard Arcade - 30 Mins

Worldwide Soccer '98 - 1 Hour

Bust A Move 3 - 30 Mins

 

Atari Lynx

 

Lynx Poker - 10 Mins

Shanghai - 30 Mins

Megapak 1 - 30 Mins

 

Sega Mega CD

 

Spiderman Vs. The Kingpin - 30 Mins

Wolfchild - 30 Mins

Hook - 20 Mins

 

Atari Jaguar

 

Ruiner Pinball - 1 Hour

Worms - 3 Hours

Frog Feast - 10 Mins

[Taskmaster99]

SNES

-------

Earthbound - 1 hr.

 

Genesis

--------

Castlevania Bloodlines - 30 min.

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom!-467 minutes

 

High score of the week: 328,994

 

Congratulations Atarian7. That is quite an impressive achievement. 100 patches!

 

Larry

 

 

Thank you. As you can see by the last 3 digits of the score "994" I was one bomb away from extending the game.

[Taskmaster99]

N64

------

Killer Instinct Gold - 45 min. (Trying to remember all the combos. Its been a looooong time)

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom!-456 minutes

 

 

High score of the week: 134,593

 

The high score came early in the week. I've been in a little bit of a slump the past

few days.

Edited November 7, 2010 by Atarian7

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week (November 1st through 7th)...

 

The classic games (eligible for the Top 10):

 

Turtles (Arcade) 160 minutes in 2 sessions

Rod-Land (Arcade) 11 minutes

 

The non-classic games (non-eligible for the Top 10):

 

Restaurant city (Facebook) 14 minutes

Frontierville (Facebook) 63 minutes in 2 sessions

Millionaire city (Facebook) about 98 minutes in 2 sessions

Crazy planets (Facebook) 9 minutes

My farm (Facebook) 10 minutes

Farmville (Facebook) 15 minutes in 2 sessions

Disco empire (Facebook) 111 minutes in 2 sessions

 

As for the classic games, I revisited Turtles this week for two sessions... in the first session, I had a first impressive game, but abandoned the game when in the second game I lost my first life quickly. In the second session, however, I played for much longer and finally made the roof (beating the 8th floor). Then I played some Rod-Land. This is a game I played extensively on the Amiga back in the day. The Amiga version is pretty good with fluid animation and such, but still lacks some details from the arcade version. I think the arcade original of a game is usually the best version, although I know of some exceptions... for example, the TI-99 port of Hustle is much more colorful and also has much better sound and music than the arcade original, which is monochrome and only emits beeps on one channel. Some SEGA games look better to me in their home versions too... most notably Spy Hunter and Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom. Sega, when porting their own arcade games to home systems, often strayed away from the arcade version considerably, creating new level structures and such, and the home versions are sometimes more playable than the arcade originals. As for Turtles... well, there are various versions mainly for not so popular systems (the Philips G7000 and VG-5000, the Entex Adventurevision, Select-a-game and dedicated tabletop game, the Tomy Tutor and the Palladium... I guess it was called that way). I think I told you about all the differences of those versions when I played them (except two of the Entex and the Tomy Tutor versions which I couldn't get hold of).

 

And then... I played a bunch of Facebook games. I guess I already told you about Restaurant City, Farmville and Frontierville... Millionaire city looks a lot like Sim City, although it works a bit differently... your main job in the game is to fill your city with houses, roads, shops and plants, and then you have to collect the income of shops and constantly renew leasing contracts for the houses.

 

Crazy Planets is a bit different game where you are standing on the surface of a planet and have to annihilate all the enemies on it using various weapons. My farm looks somewhat like a poor man's clone of Farmville (of course by another company). Finally, Disco Empire is similar to Restaurant City, letting you create a disco with furniture, lights and dancefloor tiles. Your main job there, however, is to create and sell various kinds of drinks. There's pretty much nothing you can do about the music that plays in your disco (the DJ isn't even visible).

 

The main reason why I played so many different Facebook games this week is that I try to play every game which I got a request for on Facebook. Thus, there are still more games to try: MMA Pro Fighter, Kingdoms of Camelot, My Empire, Gangster City, Animal Paradise, Zoo World, Country Life, Knighthood, Pet Society, Barn Buddy Game, Country Story, YoVille, Sorority Life, Bandenkrieg, Farm Pals, Gardenhood, Sunshine Ranch, (Lil) Farm Life, Happy Harvest and Happy Farm... definitely enough for the next weeks, although some games already sound like they might be pretty similar to each other...

[+thegoldenband]

Times for the week:

 

Atari 2600:

Acid Drop - 6 min.

Air Raid - 2 min.

Airlock - 5 min.

Boxing - 6 min.

Double Dragon - 25 min.

Forest - 4 min.

Human Cannonball - 20 min.

Kangaroo - 10 min.

King Kong - 6 min.

Kung Fu Master - 2 min.

Missile Control - 4 min.

Mission Survive - 7 min.

Mr. Postman - 4 min.

Panky the Panda - 3 min.

Parachute - 6 min.

Polaris - 3 min.

Realsports Tennis - 8 min.

Ski Hunt - 5 min.

Space War - 8 min.

Star Voyager - 5 min.

Starmaster - 6 min.

Super Cobra - 2 min.

Time Warp - 11 min.

UFO Patrol (aka X'Mission) - 7 min.

Walker (aka Clown Down Town, aka Schussel der Polizistenschreck) - 3 min.

Wings - 4 min.

 

Sega Genesis:

Budokan - 5 min.

 

N64:

Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero - 98 min.

 

Dreamcast:

Worms World Party - 37 min.

[zylon]

A8:

Dreadnaught Factor 5min

SMS:

Bubble Bobble 1hr

Castle of Illusion 5min

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom!-340 minutes

 

 

High score of the week: 160,816

 

Did better than last week but still having trouble getting into the zone.

[JayWI]

I humbly suggest there be a group of folks to keep the adding up going starting with the new year. We'll lose some stats, especially the historical all-time ones. Not sure how to do it but i've looked into some online database stuff we can all share. Any other ideas?

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week:

 

I haven't played any classic games, only Facebook apps:

 

Sunshine Ranch (Facebook app) 31 minutes

Lucky train (Facebook app) 13 minutes

Wizard's run (Facebook app) 68 minutes

Farm pals (Facebook app) 11 minutes

Frontierville (Facebook app) 41 minutes

Lil Farm life (Facebook app) 13 minutes

Bandenkrieg (Facebook app) 10 minutes

Simply Hospital (Facebook app) 5 minutes

Hell's Kitchen (Facebook app) 26 minutes

 

Let's see... Sunshine Ranch, Farm pals and Lil Farm life are all more or less clones of Farmville. Lucky train is a game where you have to fill trains with people and build around your station. Bandenkrieg seems to be some variation on Mafia Wars. Wizard's run is some kind of shoot-em-up, but you have 3 fire buttons with different kinds of fire (spells) which are all upgradeable. Upgrading works by gaining skill points which you get for killing a certain number of enemies.

 

Simply Hospital is some kind of hospital simulator where you add rooms for different treatments to your hospital and hire doctors (your facebook friends) to populate those rooms, which gets shown in a cartoon-like isometric 3D view.

 

The other games I've played before... so I guess I've already explained Hell's Kitchen and Frontierville before.

[Taskmaster99]

NGPC

------

Match of the Millenium - 20 min.

 

 

7800

-------

Double dragon- 10 min.

Centipede- 25 min.