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

[Opry99er]

This will be my final posting of the week, as I will have Zero play time today and tomorrow.

 

TI-99/4A:

 

Neverlander (additional 45 minutes)

St. Nick (additional 20 minutes)

 

 

VCS:

 

Stay Frosty 2 (additional 10 minutes)

 

 

Intellivision:

 

Christmas Carol vs. Ghost (additional 320 minutes)

 

 

Christmas Carol is eating my soul... But I don't care. It is that good.

[+thegoldenband]

I have a question that has probably been addressed but I couldn't find it; Tecmo Super Bowl is one of my favorite and most played games ever. I recently have logged a few hours on a hack of TSB that updates the rosters to modern players. Should I log this as Tecmo Super Bowl, or just leave it off?

 

You're welcome to post hacks -- just indicate what they are, e.g.:

 

Genesis:

Tecmo Super Bowl [2015 roster hack] - 180 min.

[oyamafamily]

ATARI 2600:

1) Mario Bros. - 35 minutes

Highest score of the week: 209,300 points for Bonus at 7800 High Score Club Season 8 / Game 3

 

2) Xevious - 40 minutes

Check out the topic "2600 Xevious Prototype Found"

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/240536-2600-xevious-prototype-found/

 

ATARI 7800:

Dungeon Stalker - 30 minutes

Learn more about a new Atari 7800 game

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/236861-dungeon-stalker-a-new-atari-7800-game/

 

INTELLIVISION:

Christmas Carol vs. the Ghost of Christmas Presents - 42 minutes

For Carol vs. The Ghost 2015 Championship - Score of this week: 1,810

Edited December 6, 2015 by oyamafamily

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom! - 449 minutes

 

 

High score of the week: 100,602

 

I didn't play as much this week because I didn't have many long games. I need a little rest anyway.

 

 

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week (November 30th through December 6th)...

 

Amstrad CPC:

Er-Bert - 31 min.

 

Intellivision:

Q*Bert - 221 min. in 6 sessions

 

Vectrex:

Spike hoppin' - 39 min.

 

This week I played two more Q*Bert variants. One is Er-Bert on the Amstrad CPC. I don't think it's that great... you have two enemies like Coily on the board, and they don't hatch out of eggs. Also, there are 4 board patterns, only one of which is a pyramid. This makes for a not-too-faithful adaption, similar to the Game Boy Color version... no, worse.

 

The second one is Spike Hoppin' on the Vectrex. They took some liberties there as well, but it's closer to the original Q*bert although the jump patterns don't look like faithful jumps at all. Also the scoring is different... you don't get many points for completing a round, and extra lives come every 5,000 points.

 

After that I returned to the Intellivision version of Q*Bert, but I think I've maxed it out by now, peaking in round 5-2 and about 85,000 points. Once I was close to finishing 5-2, but then came Sam and destroyed it all again.

 

Apart from that, I fixed my TI-99 variant Ku-Bert, and I analyzed the color schemes of the original arcade version. Seems like there are only 7 distinct pallettes comprising 2 colors for the sides of the cubes and 3 colors for the cubetops, 2 of which also can be found on the flying discs. Contrary to what you may think, the source and destination colors of the cubetops are not always the same index in the pallette, but different ones depending on the round played. For instance, in Round 1-1, you color the blue cubetops yellow, while in round 2-3, which has the same pallette, you color the pink cubetops blue and then yellow, however, in both rounds the colors blue, yellow and pink have the same pallette index, instead the game changes between different indexes for the source, intermediate and destination colors. Typically, the cubetops start out having the pallette index which they were colored to in the previous round, although there are exceptions to this.

[BurritoBeans]

<insert numbers here>...

Atari 2600:
Battlezone - 25 minutes

Compucolor 8001:
Star Trek - 215 minutes

Sega Genesis:
Decapattack - 35 minutes
Sonic the Hedgehog - 30 minutes

Sharp X1:
Choplifter - 10 minutes
The Earth Fighter Rayieza - 115 minutes

So yeah, I played some stuff this week. The Compucolor came out, alongside Star Trek for a bit of a run. It's a fun game, and I spent a decent bit of time on it. I played my Genesis a little bit, but I really don't have to many games so it just pushed out an hour. The Atari got some Battlezone played on it, I don't even remember why I felt like it but I just played it randomly. Finally, the Sharp X1 Twin got pulled out again as I tried out some RPG that Square did, and played a bit of good 'ol Choplifter (And failed hard). I also played a while with that Christmas Carol game, but I dunno if it counts and all that since it was on my PC (No Intellivision for me) so I'm just leaving it out.

Nothing too exciting I guess, oh well.

Edit:
Thanks carlsson and goldenband!

Intellivision:

Christmas Carol vs. the Ghost of Christmas Presents - 220 minutes

Edited December 6, 2015 by BurritoBeans

[carlsson]

We do count emulated gameplay, so you might list the Intellivision minutes too.

[+thegoldenband]

Emulated gaming absolutely counts, yes indeed.

[zylon]

5200-

HERO- 25min

 

I mostly took a week off from any hardcore gaming while deciding what my next quest will be...

[jfitzenr]

This is part of why I'm drawn to this forum, I keep discovering things I've never even heard of. Compucolor? I thought I had heard of everything, but... not that. That thing looks really interesting! I really wish my family had kept the CoCo we had now!

 

Anyway...

 

Genesis - Sword of Vermilion - ~270 minutes

 

Beat it! I don't think I can recall many video games that are THIS close to brilliant, but just... whiff. I still think the game is really good, and I'm glad that I played through it (thanks to this community for pointing it out to me!) but it's really one of the sad stories of gaming of that era to me. Fantastic ideas all around, fun interface, and the plot both starts and ends fairly strong... I recommend anybody interested in RPGs give it a shot, but it's really one of those games that's disappointing simply because the potential it had is literally like "best game on the console" level. If you're emulating I highly recommend you save-state before each boss battle. I DO highly recommend the game though. I have to put it up there with some of the B-C list RPGs of the era (Lufia, Secret of the Stars, etc.) If you're an RPG fan you really owe it to yourself to give this one a whirl.

 

NES - Tecmo Super Bowl (2015 Roster Hack) - ~190 minutes

 

Tecmo Super Bowl is probably, if I'm honest, my favorite video game ever created. I hadn't played the latest hack version this year, but I do it pretty much every year, and I'm thankful there's a whole community around this game. I pretty much HAVE to play a season with my Bears every year. This year, won the Super Bowl, but lost 3 regular season games... the one benefit of liking a bad team is that it makes video games more challenging! Side note: I simmed a season, and it said that Carolina beats New England in the Super Bowl, 27 to 14. So sayeth the Tecmo. That really sounds eerily reasonable, and if it's even close to accurate I'm going to make my accountant re-structure my retirement account and just bet on football based on Tecmo

 

SNES - Final Fantasy 2. ~130 minutes

 

I was trying to run through this game just for funsies since I've literally beaten it about 20 times. I tried to run through as fast as I could, even keeping levels low... well shit, I did too well. For those that have played; I got to the Giant of Babil with my highest level character being level 24! I have now found myself ready for the last dungeon at levels 28-29. For those that are curious, it's usually recommended you beat the game in the 60s or 70s. I don't imagine I'm going to ever grind enough to beat it on this save. But this really is one of the best games ever.

 

NES -

 

Mega Man 5 - ~70 minutes

 

TG16 -

 

Galaga 90 - 35 minutes

 

 

SNES -

 

Super Star Wars - 25 minutes

 

ARC -

 

Wonderboy in Monster Land - 50 minutes

 

Once I beat Megaman 6 (for the what, fifth time?) I'll have beat Sword of Vermilion, all the megamans, and be close to FF2. All my 'projects' will be over! I need a new project. Or "quest" as Zylon puts it.

Edited December 7, 2015 by jfitzenr

[Opry99er]

Damnit, I lied.... Had to get one more good session in tonight before bed.

 

 

Intellivision:

 

Christmas Carol vs. the Ghost of Christmas Presents (75 additional minutes)

[+thegoldenband]

My times for the week:

Arcade:

Dig Dug - 6 min.

Galaga - 9 min.

Atari 2600:

Sneak 'n' Peek - 2 min.

Intellivision:

Brickout - 6 min.

Number Jumble - 3 min.

Tower of Doom - 338 min.

Genesis:

Disney's TaleSpin - 86 min.

Newman-Haas Indy Car Racing - 27 min.

Paperboy - 24 min.

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Echoes of the Past - 21 min.

Game Boy:

Baseball - 7 min.

Elevator Action - 8 min.

Jeopardy! - 39 min.

Jeopardy!: Platinum Edition - 34 min.

Jeopardy!: Teen Tournament - 50 min.

Jimmy Connors Tennis - 85 min.

Marble Madness - 13 min.

New Chessmaster - 7 min.

Smurfs 2 [smurfs Travel Around the World] - 3 min.

Tennis - 27 min.

Xenon 2: Megablast - 5 min.

Beat Tower of Doom by finally completing the Grail Quest with the Waif. After that I tried finding out what would happen if I defied the goals for the Wizard Hunt and Grail Quest, by (respectively) not killing a wizard and using the Grail before leaving the Tower. The former ultimately proved impossible, since there was a wizard in the room with the stairs and avoiding him was impossible, but I did use the Grail on Level 32 and seemed to suffer no ill consequence other than immediately ending the game. That makes me wonder: what would happen if I didn't get it at all, or bartered it to a monster?

In addition, I beat the three Jeopardy! Game Boy games for the first time, and "re-beat" Tennis, Marble Madness, and Jimmy Connors Tennis (on Intermediate), as well as winning a game against New Chessmaster on a low difficulty.

Finally, after futzing around with a few Genesis games that didn't much engage me, I then beat TaleSpin, a mediocre-to-poor Disney platformer, on Easy. Not looking forward to Normal difficulty...

[Iwantgames:)]

TI-99/4A -

 

Dice Crash - 35min

 

 

Intellivision -

 

Carol vs. Ghost - 97min

 

 

PlayStation 1 -

 

Descent - 100min

 

 

Color Computer 2 -

 

Canyon Climber - 50min

[Opry99er]

 

My times for the week:

.

.

.

I then beat TaleSpin, a mediocre-to-poor Disney platformer, on Easy. Not looking forward to Normal difficulty...

 

 

 

 

How in the world did you sit through that game?!?!?! I bought it thinking I'd found a lost gem... When I played it, I literally threw up in my mouth a little.

 

Mad props, man.... No way I have the patience to sit through that miserable toilet of a game...

[+thegoldenband]

How in the world did you sit through that game?!?!?! I bought it thinking I'd found a lost gem... When I played it, I literally threw up in my mouth a little.

 

Mad props, man.... No way I have the patience to sit through that miserable toilet of a game...

 

Heh, thanks. The first couple levels are pretty awful, but things improve a bit later on. Still, it's absolutely a bad-sounding, bad-looking game that controls poorly and isn't designed well at all. If it weren't so lavish with the continues, I probably wouldn't have stuck with it today; I'd played it once before for a short while and was repulsed, but my memory of that helped get me off to a better start this time around.

[Skippy B. Coyote]

Gaming this week was fairly similar to the last around here, but with a bit less time logged due to a houseguest coming to visit.

 

 

 

Ineligible

The Pinball Arcade (Android) - 32 minutes

Arcade

Centipede - 8 minutes

Millipede - 5 minutes

Space Invaders - 8 minutes

Game Boy

Boggle Plus - 97 minutes

Solar Striker - 42 minutes

Game Boy Color

Monopoly - 661 minutes

PlayStation

Tenchu: Stealth Assassins - 367 minutes

Tomb Raider II - 242 minutes

Total Play Time This Week

1,462 minutes (24 hours 22 minutes)

Individual System Play Times This Week

Game Boy Color: 661 minutes

PlayStation: 609 minutes

Game Boy: 139 minutes

Android: 32 minutes

Arcade: 21 minutes

Just like last week I was on a big Monopoly kick, but this time around I actually won the majority of games I played. I still can't take down the #1 top ranked computer opponent, but I've beaten all the rest now. I also spent a fair bit of time continuing to play through Tomb Raider II, and I know I'm nowhere near done with it yet. I'm sure I've still got at least another 8 hours or more to go, but that's alright by me. I'm really enjoying playing through it again for the first time in years so I have no complaints about the length of the game. I took some time to do a play through of Solar Striker for the Game Boy this week too, and to mix things up a bit this time I decided to play it on the Game Boy Color and tinker around with the color palettes until I found an aesthetically pleasing one that I hadn't used for it before. I ended up going with the "Down arrow and no buttons" palette that's a sort of lavender and pink pastel mix, which sounds really weird for a shoot 'em up but I thought it actually worked really well and made the 4th level boss look especially cool.

As far as the other member of my household goes, the misses dedicated all of her gaming time this week to Tenchu: Stealth Assassins on the PlayStation and ended up finishing the story mode with the female ninja character. She did get pretty frustrated with the controls (mostly the very touchy blocking) during a few points in the game, but with some practice she did manage to complete every level and seemed to have a lot of fun with it. No clue as to whether or not she's going to go back and play through it again with the male ninja, but I wouldn't be surprised if she did since I got the impression that she liked the game quite a bit overall.

That's all for this week!

Edited December 7, 2015 by Jin

[jfitzenr]

I swear you just summed up my childhood! lol. TR2 was fantastic, and the original Tenchu was one of my top five-ten PS1 games. Brilliant.

[Skippy B. Coyote]

I swear you just summed up my childhood! lol. TR2 was fantastic, and the original Tenchu was one of my top five-ten PS1 games. Brilliant.

 

Awesome! The PS1 was definitely my most played system in the later parts of my childhood and most of my teenage years, with the Game Boy Color coming in a close second. In a way it's kinda funny since those are the systems I still enjoy playing the most today lol The PS1 works really well for my wife too, since due to some physical limitations she can't hold a regular game controller and needs to use an arcade stick for all the games she plays. That makes later systems that use dual analog sticks a big "NO-GO" for her, but the single D-Pad/Stick control of the PS1 works great and I think she's come to love the system even more than I do.

 

Strangely I don't think I've ever played the original Tenchu, since my first (and I'm pretty sure only) experience with the series was Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven on the PS2. After watching the misses play the original I really should give it a go at some point though, and pick up the sequal for the PS1 while I'm at it.

Edited December 7, 2015 by Jin

[jfitzenr]

I wonder about Tenchu actually, and I'll have to give it a try. It was an amazing breath of fresh air at the time; a)I had never played a stealth game in that setting obviously and b) I felt like it was the first stealthy type game that actually controlled satisfactorily enough to not make me want to break controllers. I have no idea if the controls and game still hold up now though. Considering it's dirt cheap maybe I'll have to give it a go!

[+thegoldenband]

Here's the summary for Week 49, running from November 30 - December 6. We logged 6008 minutes of eligible playtime, playing 65 games on a total of 20 systems.

Top 10:

1. Christmas Carol vs. the Ghost of Christmas Presents (Intellivision) - 994

2. Monopoly (Game Boy Color) - 661

3. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 449

4. Tenchu: Stealth Assassins (PlayStation) - 367

5. Tower of Doom (Intellivision) - 338

6. Sword of Vermilion (Genesis) - 270

7. Tomb Raider II (PlayStation) - 242

8. Q*bert (Intellivision) - 221

9. Star Trek (Compucolor II) - 215

10. Tecmo Super Bowl (2015 Roster Hack) (NES/Famicom) - 190

Pre-NES top 10:

1. Christmas Carol vs. the Ghost of Christmas Presents (Intellivision) - 994

2. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 449

3. Tower of Doom (Intellivision) - 338

4. Q*bert (Intellivision) - 221

5. Star Trek (Compucolor II) - 215

6. Never-Lander (TI-99/4A) - 125

7. Earth Fighter Rayieza, The (Sharp X1) - 115

8. St. Nick (TI-99/4A) - 80

9. Stay Frosty 2: Stay Frostier (Atari 2600) - 50

9. Canyon Climber (CoCo 1 & 2) - 50

Top 10 systems:

1. Intellivision (1562)

2. PlayStation (709)

3. Game Boy Color (661)

4. Atari 2600 (601)

5. Genesis (493)

6. Game Boy (424)

7. TI-99/4A (265)

8. NES/Famicom (260)

9. Compucolor II (215)

10. SNES (191)

Nice week for the Intellivision, as top game Christmas Carol vs. the Ghost of Christmas Presents leads it to a sweep on all three charts.

It's one of three games in our Top 10 that join the 1000-minute club, as Christmas Carol, Monopoly (Game Boy Color), and Tomb Raider II (PlayStation) have claimed spots #183-185 in that competitive cabal, with 1830, 1566, and 1050 minutes logged respectively.

Meanwhile, Sword of Vermilion enters the all-time Top 10 at #8, with 5131 minutes logged to date, and joins the 5000-minute club as well. (As it happens, the Top 10 and the 5000-minute club are now one and the same, at least for the moment.) Sword of Vermilion is now the top Genesis game, knocking Warrior of Rome II down one spot to #11.

Right next door to that is Tower of Doom at #12, which has become the top Intellivision game with 4431 minutes, surging past Lock 'n' Chase (now #16). And the third-ranked Intellivision game is, of course, Christmas Carol.

[+DZ-Jay]

Wow! What an honour! Thank you guys for the excitement and for playing my game. I am very happy that the game is being enjoyed so much.

 

I'd also like to invite everyone to join us in the fourth annual Carol vs. The World! Championship here in AtariAge. It's a lot of fun, the ROM is free, and there are some cool prizes!

 

Cheers!

-dZ.

 

P.S. 994 minutes on Christmas Carol, and that's not counting the real veterans that have been playing and breaking records this week for the contest.

Edited December 8, 2015 by DZ-Jay

[+grips03]

Christmas Carol 16 hours this past week

[+Darrin9999]

christmas carol 9 hours this past week

[SiLic0ne t0aD]

Intellivision - Christmas Carol ~ 3 hours this past week..

 

haven't had much time to play but I should be good now, now that the bulk of my projects are behind me. :-)

[Opry99er]

I've been racking up minutes on Carol this week as well. Can't.......stop.......Caroling....