What have you actually PLAYED tracker for 2015 (Season 8)

[Opry99er]

Hmmm.... That sounds interesting. I love a good business simulation game, and this one sounds CHALLENGING.

[jfitzenr]

Lurked a little bit, figure this is a good first post eh?

I was reading through this thread, spotted something I had heard of, and... I was up until dawn last night. Ya jerks! I'm appalled that nobody turned me on to Sword of Vermilion before now! I can't put my finger on what it is but this game is absurdly immersive and addicting somehow. It feels like a glorious blend of old-school PC/Western RPGs with enough JRPG influence and a simple enough interface to make it easily playable...thanks zylon for piquing my interest, and damn you zylon for ruining my sleep schedule! At least it's pulling me away from Ultima IV - I don't think I have the patience to play through U4 again!

 

I've been laid up with a back issue for a few days so... lots of gaming goodness!

 

GENESIS - Sword of Vermilion ~280 minutes

GENESiS - Gain Ground - 40 minutes

 

 

NES - GI Joe: A Real American Hero - ~150 minutes

 

Colecovision - Tapper ~35 minutes

Colecovision - Jumpman Jr - 15 minutes

 

PC - Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar - ~70 minutes

[+thegoldenband]

^Awesome, welcome aboard, and a great first post! BTW Gain Ground is one of my all-time favorite Genesis games -- I'd put it in my personal Top 5.

[Opry99er]

Welcome aboard!!! SoV is getting some play time this week!

[+thegoldenband]

Welcome aboard!!! SoV is getting some play time this week!

 

Plus I beat it back in 2010 and logged some long hours with it back then. So with zylon and now jfitzenr playing it, it's rapidly turning into one of the heavy hitters of the all-time stats -- it's the second most-played Genesis game (behind Warrior of Rome II), and I believe it should crack the Top 20 as of this week.

[jfitzenr]

Genesis - Sword of Vermilion - ~140 minutes

 

Why can't I stop? And why oh why did I decide to play this game without a walkthrough or guide? Darn thing is going to take me hundreds of hours isn't it?

[adamchevy]

Robotron 2084-Atari 7800 90 minutes

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom! - 694 minutes

 

 

High score of the week: 213,484

 

 

[oyamafamily]

ATARI 2600:

Dig Dug - 140 minutes (see video and the respective statistical tables)

Highest Score: 2,500,000 points. It was too irresistible to play and extend my gameplay after I rolled the score.

 

ATARI 7800:

1) Dig Dug - 45 minutes

Highest Score: 252,970 points, for 7800 HSC Season 8 / Round 2

 

2) Pac-Man Collection - 15 minutes

 

NES / FAMICOM:

Ms. Pac-Man [Tengen] - 15 minutes

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week (November 16th through 22nd)...

 

Intellivision:

Q*Bert - 222 min. in 4 sessions

 

Online (non-eligible):

Nonogram of the week - 87 min.

 

This week I continued to play the Intellivision version of Q*Bert. I managed to reach Level 5 multiple times and even cleared Round 1 of it once.

 

I also solved the Nonogram of the week on the German site where I always play. This time I made it in only 87 minutes (for a 30x30 Nonogram).

 

Other than that, I played around with a bit with a site called Deep Dream Generator which distorts pictures in a certain way by turning everything in the picture that looks a bit like a thing it knows into that thing. Popular occurences are various kinds of birds, crocodiles, dogs, dog heads, cockerels and other animals, far-eastern buildings, bells and lots of eyes.

 

For instance, here's a distorted picture of the operator shown on the previous page of this thread:

 

Edited November 22, 2015 by Kurt_Woloch

[+Ksarul]

I actually got to add a little more game time while I was doing some hardware testing. . .

 

TI-99/4A

 

Nonogram: 30 Minutes

Arcturus: 20 Minutes

St Nick: 10 Minutes

Spot Shot: 60 Minutes

Road Hunter: 15 Minutes

Stranger: 10 Minutes

Titanium: 10 Minutes

Flappy Bird: 30 Minutes

TI Scramble: 10 Minutes

Bouncy: 10 Minutes

 

Almost forgot one:

 

Submarine Battle: 40 Minutes

Edited November 23, 2015 by Ksarul

[BillyHW]

Robotron 2084-Atari 7800 90 minutes

 

The programmer of the 7800 version of 2084 has been posting on the forums lately.

[adamchevy]

The programmer of the 7800 version of 2084 has been posting on the forums lately.

I know, I told him that he is a bad ass! We are a lucky bunch on atariage.

[Opry99er]

Additional TI-99/4A time:

 

DiceCrash (20 minutes)

Aperture (30 minutes)

St. Nick (45 minutes)

Crossfire (10 minutes)

Henhouse (15 minutes)

[Iwantgames:)]

Not much gaming this week.

 

TI-99/4A -

 

Crossfire - 30min

 

Dice Crash - 200min

[+thegoldenband]

My times for the week:

Atari 2600:

Stargunner - 3 min.

Intellivision:

Super Pro Curling - 10 min.

Tower of Doom - 979 min.

NES:

Back to the Future - 25 min.

PlayStation:

A-Train - 2 min.

Burstrick Wake Boarding!! - 3 min.

Jupiter Strike - 5 min.

The Raiden Project - 2 min.

Space Griffon VF-9 - 2 min.

Other than a half-hearted attempt at Back to the Future and trying out a few new acquisitions, it was all Tower of Doom, all the time. By beating Catacombs/32 Levels and the Wizard Hunt earlier this week, I've now beaten every Adventure with the Waif except the most difficult one, Grail Quest.

I've had a couple very strong runs going, but lost both around Level 22-23. On one of them my game bugged out -- after exiting a battle, my invisible character could no longer move or fight -- and on another I botched a tricky situation. The former run was especially depressing since I had an Orange Rosary which made me immune to all traps -- and it's nice to walk around freely in a game otherwise fraught with environmental danger.

Thanksgiving means it'll probably be another couple weeks yet, but I really want to beat Grail Quest and finally achieve complete victory over this game. Unfortunately I really am at the mercy of the game's RNG; on one run I'll have more food than I know what to do with, while on the next I'll starve to death while otherwise in perfect shape. And I can't use my favorite Cyan Grail to get permanent haste and a health boost, since you can't quest your Grail and eat it too.

[Skippy B. Coyote]

This was by far the smallest week for gaming since my household started participating in the tracker half a year or so back. The misses ended up getting to the final mission in Command & Conquer on the PS1 before getting stuck and (for the time being) giving up on it, and I found myself returning to my old hobby of Magic: The Gathering that I took a break from a year or so ago. I spent most of my free time this week building and play testing new MtG decks, so I didn't have a lot of time to dedicate to video games. Nevertheless, my wife and I still took the time to sit down in front of the multicade and play some arcade games together the last few nights so we do have some play time to contribute.

 

Here's our times for the week:

 

 

Arcade

Arkanoid - 15 minutes

Centipede - 5 minutes

Donkey Kong - 38 minutes

Donkey Kong Junior - 5 minutes

Frogger - 15 minutes

Millipede - 11 minutes

Ms. Pac-Man - 20 minutes

Pac-Man - 10 minutes

Space Invaders - 9 minutes

Super Breakout - 20 minutes

1942 - 9 minutes

PlayStation

Command & Conquer - 83 minutes

Total Play Time This Week

240 minutes (4 hours even)

Individual System Play Times This Week

Arcade: 157 minutes

PlayStation: 83 minutes

Edited November 23, 2015 by Jin

[carlsson]

Hmmm.... That sounds interesting. I love a good business simulation game, and this one sounds CHALLENGING.

I just realized there are three High Flyer games on Gamebase64, so for completeness it could be good to mention I played the one by Dave Rotor & Peter Wood, once released by Commodore Business Machines themselves:

http://gamebase64.com/game.php?id=3532

 

What's interesting is that one of the other two games on the opening screen says it is © Commodore Ltd under license from Ceteka Software Ltd. Based on the screenshot, it seems to have many elements in common with the other game, which makes me curious to try that one this week.

http://gamebase64.com/game.php?id=18163

 

Edit: Ok, a quick play test shows that "Ceteka Software" were not native English speakers, but must've played the former game and got inspired to make their own clone instead of just copying it. Very simple, but actually more playable in its simplicity...

Edited November 23, 2015 by carlsson

[+thegoldenband]

Here's the summary for Week 47, running from November 16 - 22. We logged 5191 minutes of eligible playtime, playing 60 games on a total of 12 systems.

Top 10:

1. Tower of Doom (Intellivision) - 979

2. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 694

3. Sword of Vermilion (Genesis) - 665

4. St. Nick (TI-99/4A) - 430

5. Silent Hunter (PC (DOS)) - 361

6. Q*bert (Intellivision) - 222

7. Dice Crash (TI-99/4A) - 220

8. G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (NES/Famicom) - 150

9. Dig Dug (Atari 2600) - 140

10. Crossfire (TI-99/4A) - 136

Pre-NES top 10:

1. Tower of Doom (Intellivision) - 979

2. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 694

3. St. Nick (TI-99/4A) - 430

4. Q*bert (Intellivision) - 222

5. Dice Crash (TI-99/4A) - 220

6. Dig Dug (Atari 2600) - 140

7. Crossfire (TI-99/4A) - 136

8. Robotron: 2084 (Atari 7800) - 90

9. Henhouse (TI-99/4A) - 60

9. Spot Shot (TI-99/4A) - 60

Top 10 systems:

1. TI-99/4A (1301)

2. Intellivision (1211)

3. Atari 2600 (837)

4. Genesis (705)

5. PC (DOS) (431)

6. NES/Famicom (190)

7. Arcade (157)

8. Atari 7800 (150)

9. PlayStation (97)

10. ColecoVision (50)

Tower of Doom? Kaboom? I can't tell the difference between all them -ooms, but one of 'em took the top spot on both individual charts this week, and the other's at #2. But the TI-99/4A narrowly holds on to the #1 spot on the system charts, so it's not a triple sweep.

Speaking of the TI-99/4A, this week's new arrival in the 1000-minute club is St. Nick, which has notched 1193 minutes so far to earn the 182nd seat among the elite.

(If sharp-eyed readers are wondering why it's not #181, that's because I've just discovered that H.E.R.O. for Atari 2600 apparently made the club in Week 37 as #172, with 1424 minutes logged as of now, but was overlooked. So now that's set to rights, and a H.E.R.O. gets its just reward.)

[Opry99er]

Excellent!!! The TI does not make it into the top 3 of individual game time, but manages to take the top spot overall as a system.

 

Intellivision making a splash this week too. Need to pick one of those up at some point...

[Iwantgames:)]

One these days I also need to get an intellivision. Just to play Christmas Carol on real hardware

[zylon]

Genesis - Sword of Vermilion - ~140 minutes

 

Why can't I stop? And why oh why did I decide to play this game without a walkthrough or guide? Darn thing is going to take me hundreds of hours isn't it?

 

Am taking the week off from the game, but will get back to it when I am back at my work apartment.

 

I'm actually in the final quarter of the game. I think I have 3 copies of it as it always seems to be available and prone to an odd battery issue. This one always seems to have the welded tab on bottom of the battery broken off. This was the last Sega RPG to come with a hint book, but none of mine have it. Once you start getting some of the spells to use, it really rolls along.

There is a cool "cheat" built into the game that may help at some points. it is called "super strength". There is a sword you find and can also pick up from monsters later called Dark Sword. it is cursed; meaning you can not take it off or heal with magic while using it. Equip it only just before a boss battle and then have it removed at a church. I have used it in the past, but am not for this play-through.

 

http://mikesrpgcenter.com/vermilion/index.html

Edited November 25, 2015 by zylon

[jfitzenr]

 

Am taking the week off from the game, but will get back to it when I am back at my work apartment....

 

Don't tempt me! I decided I'm going to do it blind; I so rarely have an experience anymore of playing through a console RPG blind anymore, and it's refreshing! I know there's a lot of immunes but Chrono is the most fun overpowered spell in video game history! I already lost my dark sword... that stupid item shop jerk just wiped out all my grind money!

 

 

Excellent!!! The TI does not make it into the top 3 of individual game time, but manages to take the top spot overall as a system.

 

I really need to look into the 99 more. It's honestly probably the console/computer/etc. that I know least about. I hadn't even heard of its existence really until maybe a couple years ago. Never played or seen one or even emulated one, all I know is a few youtube videos and this thread basically but looks pretty awesome-- the arcade ports I saw on youtube look really impressive! (I was born in 85, but I remember playing Scarfman on my TRS80 and the Pac Man port on 2600, so the Pac-Man port for TI99 looks sick! ) They look pretty cheap online too... I really don't need an impulse purchase though, I've been trying to get RID Of my stuff!

[zylon]

^^ I'll save you some $ then. You will come to a village where an old man tells you about 15,000 in a cave. If you do not speak to him again, you can keep all of it. if you do talk to him again, he takes half.

 

also while I am up home, I am grabbing a couple better controls as my genny pad moves a space too many in the menus sometimes. Going to grab a few more of my "surplus" rpgs: light crusader, warriors of the eternal sun, mm-gates to another world, and one of my trusty phantasy star iii's.

Edited November 25, 2015 by zylon

[Opry99er]

 

Don't tempt me! I decided I'm going to do it blind; I so rarely have an experience anymore of playing through a console RPG blind anymore, and it's refreshing! I know there's a lot of immunes but Chrono is the most fun overpowered spell in video game history! I already lost my dark sword... that stupid item shop jerk just wiped out all my grind money!

 

 

 

I really need to look into the 99 more. It's honestly probably the console/computer/etc. that I know least about. I hadn't even heard of its existence really until maybe a couple years ago. Never played or seen one or even emulated one, all I know is a few youtube videos and this thread basically but looks pretty awesome-- the arcade ports I saw on youtube look really impressive! (I was born in 85, but I remember playing Scarfman on my TRS80 and the Pac Man port on 2600, so the Pac-Man port for TI99 looks sick! ) They look pretty cheap online too... I really don't need an impulse purchase though, I've been trying to get RID Of my stuff!

The unexpanded TI is pretty cheap... Can pick one up in nice condition for $30 or so with box. Any tape player will work with it for loading games, there is also the cartridge port which opens up a world of possibilities.

 

Expanding one can be as cheap as getting a nanoPEB for $50-60 which gives you access to 100% of existing software, OR you can get a real expansion box and peripheral cards for some real retro fun. That gets pricey though... $300 or so will get you a P Box with standard cards.

 

The new homebrews by marc.hull and Rasmus are very impressive, and Alex Kidd is just around the corner (playable demo already out there)

 

 

The TI-99 forum here on Atariage is very active and folks there can help you with any and all questions concerning the system.

 

Classic99 is a brilliant emulator with built in game ROMs which you can DL for free.

 

Come visit us. we are a nice bunch.