What have you actually PLAYED tracker for 2016 (Season 9)

[BurritoBeans]

Arcade

Galaga - 20 minutes

Frogger - 20 minutes

 

Atari 2600

Galaxian - 30 minutes

Sir Lancelot - 60 minutes

 

Atari 5200

Star Raiders - 20 minutes

 

Atari 8-bit

Moon Patrol - 20 minutes

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back - 30 minutes

 

TI-99/4

Parsec - 20 minutes

 

Well, it was mostly Atari for me this week. At the store we got some cool stuff in which I'm really interested in buying (I'm not going to be the douchebag employee who buys stuff before it's on the shelves, I'm leaving it for a week or so in case any customers are interested that way they have a shot), and that's Sir Lancelot for the 2600 and a 4-port 5200 console with controllers that worked after a cleaning. Sir Lancelot is the most rare cart I've had my hands on being a 7 on here, and I do have to say after a while of screwing around and figuring it out, it was alright to me. With the 5200, well I'm really glad I got to try it. They didn't have any games so I brought in the Star Raiders that I found out of the blue, and yeah the controller is a bit funky to use at first and they needed a good cleaning, but I did enjoy it - just the button placement was a bit strange to me, but I'm sure if I used it more/got it that I'd figure it out after a bit. The 600XL got some time as a copy of The Empire Strikes Back that's sat for a month wasn't being moved, so before we took it into the back to sit around I got it for $2.50 - I'm happy enough with that - and Moon Patrol got another runthrough. TI-99 also got used, as I like Parsec. Finally, I put some time in on the arcade with Frogger and Galaxian - my dad and I have been competing for the highest score on those two games when I'm not messing with NAM-1975 or he's not playing the random shmups, and he's better than me at Galaxian by a good bit but I can do a bit better at Frogger if I put some focus into it.

 

So yeah, I got a bit of stuff in here and there. Hunting is going to eat up my time as we want to get some small game so we have food at home without having to drive a good while to the store, but other than that I think I finally got the urge to play something after a while of just not wanting to play any of my systems - cool stuff (to me at least)

[+thegoldenband]

Here's the summary for Week 42, running from October 10 - 16. We logged 3639 minutes of eligible play, playing 57 games on a total of 16 systems.

Top 10:

1. Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (PlayStation) - 628

2. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 497

3. Star Voyager (NES/Famicom) - 354

4. Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES/Famicom) - 165

5. Centipede (Atari 2600) - 157

6. Attack, The (TI-99/4A) - 156

7. Starmaster (Atari 2600) - 135

8. Ms. Pac-Man (Atari 7800) - 131

9. Davis Cup Tennis (TG-16/PC Engine) - 120

10. Ms. Pac-Man (Atari 2600) - 113

Pre-NES top 10:

1. Kaboom (Atari 2600) - 497

2. Centipede (Atari 2600) - 157

3. Attack, The (TI-99/4A) - 156

4. Starmaster (Atari 2600) - 135

5. Ms. Pac-Man (Atari 7800) - 131

6. Ms. Pac-Man (Atari 2600) - 113

7. Pac-Man (Atari 2600) - 70

8. Sir Lancelot (Atari 2600) - 60

9. Tombstone City (TI-99/4A) - 49

10. Battlezone (Atari 2600) - 43

Top 10 systems:

1. Atari 2600 (1185)

2. PlayStation (628)

3. NES/Famicom (611)

4. TI-99/4A (225)

5. TG-16/PC Engine (170)

6. Atari 7800 (154)

7. Arcade (145)

8. Game Boy (116)

9. PC (DOS) (85)

10. Atari Lynx (81)

With Halloween approaching, perhaps it's appropriate that -- despite some big numbers from the Atari VCS -- the PlayStation survival horror game Resident Evil 3 grabs the top spot.

[oyamafamily]

TO JIN:

I have some secrets to avoid getting angry when I play games for all purposes, including High Score Clubs:

 

1) Practice with all difficulty options / settings available. On 7800 Ms. Pac-Man, for example, there are 8 levels to choose (Teddy Bear, Cherries, Strawberry etc.); always start with the lowest difficulty level to get more familiar, and try with other starting levels, including Banana.

 

2) Pause your gaming sessions periodically and do stretching exercises / drink water or fruit juice / eat fruits or vegetables etc.

 

3) Listen to romantic / easy musics, or play another games on different systems.

 

4) If you are not familiar with certain games and want to learn how to play, watch videos on YouTube first.

Example: Midnight Mutants for Atari 7800 - type "atari 7800 midnight mutants" in the search field and you will find complete videos to study the full walkthrough. This example is an excellent suggestion to celebrate Halloween.

[carlsson]

By romantic music, are you suggesting songs like Je T'aime by Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg? :-P

[oyamafamily]

By romantic music, are you suggesting songs like Je T'aime by Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg? :-P

No, I'm not. Just the all-time Love Songs - I don't have any specific suggestions to listen to.

[Skippy B. Coyote]

TO JIN:

I have some secrets to avoid getting angry when I play games for all purposes, including High Score Clubs:

 

1) Practice with all difficulty options / settings available. On 7800 Ms. Pac-Man, for example, there are 8 levels to choose (Teddy Bear, Cherries, Strawberry etc.); always start with the lowest difficulty level to get more familiar, and try with other starting levels, including Banana.

 

2) Pause your gaming sessions periodically and do stretching exercises / drink water or fruit juice / eat fruits or vegetables etc.

 

3) Listen to romantic / easy musics, or play another games on different systems.

 

4) If you are not familiar with certain games and want to learn how to play, watch videos on YouTube first.

Example: Midnight Mutants for Atari 7800 - type "atari 7800 midnight mutants" in the search field and you will find complete videos to study the full walkthrough. This example is an excellent suggestion to celebrate Halloween.

Those are all great suggestions Oyama! I haven't tried all of them yet, but I am happy to say that I haven't gotten angry even once while playing over 4 hours of Ninja Golf for the Atari 7800 this week for the High Score Club (I'll post the exact time on Sunday night).

 

I think a lot of it is just learning to accept that there are some types of games that I'm not very good at, like maze games for instance. But also remind myself that's okay because there are other types of games that I am good at and can do really well in, like vertical scrolling shooters and platformers. And even though there are some games like maze games that I'm not good at right now I can always learn and get better by patiently practicing and watching others play it on YouTube, like you suggested.

 

You're also right about it being good to take breaks to stretch and stay hydrated, especially when you're playing at a high level for half an hour or more on end. Maintaining a high level of focus and reaction time for long periods can make you feel really exhausted and sometimes even a little shaky afterwards, so it's definitely a good idea to take breaks to let your mind and body relax for and refresh for a while when needed.

 

I haven't tried listening to soft quiet music while playing yet, but I do like watching episodes of The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross on YouTube between games. Very relaxing!

[Atarian7]

With games like Kaboom! sometimes you need to take a day or two off. It really takes a lot of mental energy to get a high score.

That's part of the reason I like the HSC. I can play another game competitively and get a break from Kaboom!. I find it hard to play another game unless I'm playing for something.

[Skippy B. Coyote]

With games like Kaboom! sometimes you need to take a day or two off. It really takes a lot of mental energy to get a high score.

That's part of the reason I like the HSC. I can play another game competitively and get a break from Kaboom!. I find it hard to play another game unless I'm playing for something.

I can certainly imagine that marathon play of Kaboom! must be beyond mentally taxing. I feel all jittery and mentally frazzled after just 15 or 20 minutes of Kaboom!, so you must have one heck of a mental constitution to be able to play for as long as you do almost every week. You know, I've always meant to ask you what keeps you coming back to play Kaboom! week in and week out? Is it a drive and perseverance to reach the one million point kill screen, or something else entirely?

[Nutsy Doodleheimer]

Here is what I played during the week.

 

NES:

 

Hogan's Alley: 15 Minutes

 

Arcade/Mame:

 

Vs. Castlevania: 30 Minutes

Centipede: 10 Minutes

Mario Bros: 5 Minutes

Donkey Kong: 20 Minutes

Rampage World Tour: 225 Minutes

Lucky and Wild: 25 Minutes

Tron: 10 Minutes

Turbo: 5 Minutes

Track and Field: 15 Minutes

[carlsson]

This will be a week of zero gaming on my part. :-/ Better luck next week, when a visit to an arcade hall on free play is on the plans.

[karokoenig]

Partly due to a few days off and due to sickness (couldn't do much else for two days), my gameplay times are a wee bit higher than normal:

 

Atari 2600

Cross Force: 3 min

Return of the Jedi Deat Star Battle: 3 min

 

SNES

Wings 2 – Aces High: 28 min (US version of Blazing Skies)

 

PC (DOS)

Historyline 1914-18: 755 min

Silent Hunter: 82 min

 

Played the Atari just to test a CX joystick which I'm gonna send to Darthkur. He won the gold medal finals in this year's HSC.

 

Really wanted to like Wings 2. I played the heck out of Wings on the Amiga back in the days, and what a fine game that was! Wings 2 on the SNES... it's crap. That's really all I can say. A huge disappointment. I really don't know if it's just a super lazy cash grab or if the Super Nintendo really isn't good enough for the job. I suspect the former.

 

Now... World War I and II continued, with a major effort going into Historyline. I beat 5 more maps, and there are only three left to conquer, before I can finally consider Historyline utterly beaten with both sides. I know from past experience that these last three will be long and challenging. Let's hope I find the time.

[Atarian7]

My goal to reach 999,999 is what keeps me coming back week after week. At the time I set this goal I thought "if I can do this then I can accomplish ALMOST anything on video games". I don't know

if that is true but that's what I thought at the time.

The past few years I've been playing every week because of this tracker. Before then I was playing less frequently since around 2003. LOL

Edited October 23, 2016 by Atarian7

[oyamafamily]

ATARI 2600:

Missile Command - 17 minutes

Pac-Man - 57 minutes

For this Pac-Man session on 7800 console, I got one more new record - 35,413 on Game 6, Difficulty B. I still play this game very well with my Sega Master System controller.

 

ATARI 7800:

Ninja Golf - 100 minutes

This week I practiced with easy skill and I completed the 9 stages with my 144,480-point final score. I applied one of my secrets to avoid getting angry / nervous. In one of screenshots provided below, you will see in the final message "Omedeto Gozaimasu!", which means CONGRATULATIONS, in Japanese.

And for 7800 NEW HSC Season 1 / Round 2, I made it to stage 9 and got so close to the ending, obtaining my highest score of 171,370 points (Normal skill).

Edited October 23, 2016 by oyamafamily

[oyamafamily]

Ninja Golf for 7800 NEW HSC Season 1, Round 2

[oyamafamily]

And I forgot to tell all the participants of this thread my news:

I won the Bronze Medal Tournament Finals on 2600 NEW HSC Season 5 and one more prize as a result of this.

The new prize is an original Atari 2600 Cartridge entitled DOUBLE DUNK (Super Basketball), which replaced Big Bird's Egg Catch. For my Atari 7800 console sessions, I can play only NTSC games (only on Stella Emulator, I have no restrictions in terms of color format - PAL, NTSC or SECAM).

Edited October 23, 2016 by oyamafamily

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week (October 17th through 23rd)...

 

Online (non-eligible):

Space Invaders - 13 min.

 

PC (non-eligible):

Space Birdz - 72 min. in 3 sessions

 

TI-99:

TI Invaders (Hack) - 23 min.

 

I started off the week by playing a hack of TI Invaders where the cheat mode is active and also the enemies don't fire. I still managed not to clear the 7th or 8th round because the invaders become so fast even without firing back. But the cheat mode also offers slower enemy motion and starting at up to round 40, although the last enemy pattern move seems to occur at around round 20.

 

For a comparison, I then played an online version of Space Invaders which takes some liberties from the arcade original as well.

 

Finally I replayed Space Birdz, a 2004 Windows game similar to Phoenix for the first rounds, but then going on with warp tunnels, stages similar to Galaga and Alpha Centauri and a Rotten Egg Swoop. Actually it's a demo version of a shareware game that should have been much larger, but the final version doesn't seem to have been released, and its homepage has since gone offline´. But this demo version already is pretty impressive as-is, with many additional weapons and possibilities.

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom! - 366 minutes

 

 

High score of the week: 261,553

 

 

[BurritoBeans]

Arcade:

Beast Busters - 45 minutes

Space Gun - 30 minutes

 

Neo Geo MVS:

Crossed Swords - 125 minutes

 

Well, I didn't get a ton of games in, but I was happy with what I did get. Beast Busters and Space Gun I got while I was bored, as I wanted something simple to just sit there and play all while shooting stuff, and yeah they're enjoyable enough games. One thing I found with Beast Busters is that a full three players turns out to be a lot of fun - I was playing it alone like I usually do, but two people came up and asked if they could use the other guns so I said sure - it's hectic but it's cool. With the Neo Geo, I had a friend over and while browsing through games in the arcade machine they saw Crossed Swords and thought it sounded cool - I've never really played it much before, but with a bunch of pushes of the credit button and a bit of time, we ended up clearing it up to Stage 6, letting it game over to do some other stuff, and then beating it. We both had a good bit of fun playing it, and even if we got frustrated with some of the enemies (Giant enemy crabs are annoying) we still liked the game - for what I get the sequel is a Neo Geo CD exclusive, so I'll probably emulate it or throw it on the MAME PC in the arcade machine so I can try it out.

[zylon]

5200-

Up 'N Down- 45min

 

NES- via emulator handheld

 

Mike Tyson's Punchout- 30min

Xenophobe- 25min

Edited October 24, 2016 by zylon

[+adamchevy]

Atari VCS: H.E.R.O 40 minutes

Vectrex Minestorm 80 minutes

[+thegoldenband]

My times for the week:

 

NES:

Amagon - 30 min.

Laser Invasion - 15 min.

Marble Madness - 12 min.

Mega Man - 88 min.

Super Mario Bros. - 49 min.

Beat Super Mario Bros. without warping or continuing, Marble Madness without getting extra time from a second player, and Mega Man without using the pause trick on bosses. All on real hardware, too. A week for doing it the honest way, I guess!

[+wongojack]

Lynx

The Space Incident (Yastuna 2) 15

Chip's Challenge 15

Klax 8

Todd's Adv 44

 

 

SNES

Super Mario Bros (all stars) 35

Aladdin 25

[twoquickcapri]

Gameboy Color:
Pokémon Crystal - 257 min.

Edited October 24, 2016 by twoquickcapri

[Skippy B. Coyote]

It was a big week for testing new hardware around here, but less than I would have liked due to the coaxial connector on my CRT retro gaming TV once again failing. Nevertheless, some good times were had.




Ineligible
Doom (Game Boy Advance) - 29 minutes

Arcade
Asteroids (played on Midway Presents Arcade's Greatest Hits: The Atari Collection 1 for PlayStation) - 34 minutes
Centipede (played on Midway Presents Arcade's Greatest Hits: The Atari Collection 1 for PlayStation) - 17 minutes
Ms. Pac-Man (played on Namco Museum for Game Boy Advance) - 11 minutes
Tempest (played on Midway Presents Arcade's Greatest Hits: The Atari Collection 1 for PlayStation) - 18 minutes

Atari 2600
Centipede TB - 6 minutes
D.K. VCS - 14 minutes
Frogger - 19 minutes
Kung-Fu Master - 17 minutes
Lead - 2 minutes
Millipede TB - 10 minutes
Missile Command TB - 6 minutes
Ms. Pac-Man - 7 minutes
Reactor TB - 16 minutes
Scramble - 10 minutes
Space Rocks - 26 minutes
Star Castle Arcade - 12 minutes
Star Wars: The Arcade Game - 6 minutes

Atari 7800 (all emulated on Nintendo Wii)
Asteroids - 29 minutes
Centipede - 20 minutes
Ninja Golf - 288 minutes
Pac-Man Collection - 11 minutes
Robotron 2084 - 27 minutes

PlayStation
Resident Evil: Survivor - 318 minutes


Total Play Time This Week
953 minutes (15 hours 53 minutes) [924 minutes eligible]

Individual System Play Times This Week
Atari 7800: 375 minutes
PlayStation: 318 minutes
Atari 2600: 151 minutes
Arcade: 80 minutes
Game Boy Advance: 29 minutes

 

 

 

The big highlight of the week around here was definitely trying out some new hardware. I finished the Atari 2600 arcade stick project that I had been working on for the last month and a half and was able to put a little time into trying out some homebrew games with my newly acquired Harmony Encore cartridge and the Atari CX-80 trackball. Unfortunately I wasn't able to log as much time with them as I would have liked due to the newly replaced coaxial connector on my CRT gaming TV dying on me once again and the Atari 2600 generally looking unplayably awful on my modern LCD HDTV, but hopefully within the next week or two I'll be able to find a suitable replacement CRT TV. In the meantime I was still able to have some great fun with the Harmony cartridge and trackball, and I was very pleased to find that my new CX-80 trackball is one of the ones that functions as a CX-22 and is thus able to play every CX-22 trackball hack. And oh boy what a difference using a real analog trackball makes for those games! I really can't wait until I have a properly functioning CRT TV again so that I can spend some more time enjoying the trackball hacks of Centipede and Millipede, and eventually pick up a copy of Centipede TB for the Atari 7800 from the AtariAge store once I'm able to acquire an Atari 7800 system to play it on.

 

The arcade stick I built was a bit of another story though. While it does work splendidly and looks phenomenal, it's a bit bigger and heavier than I was planning on and in retrospect I do wish I would have just bought an Atari 7800 arcade stick from UberArcade instead of building this one for the Atari 2600. I've been getting more and more into the 7800 lately and really enjoying all the games I've played on the system, so shortly after it's completion I decided to list the Atari 2600 stick that I built for sale in the Marketplace section for little more than the cost I paid for the parts to build it. My hope is to sell it and use the money to buy an UberArcade or Edladdin Atari 7800 stick and an Atari 7800 system to go with it, or just trade it for a 7800 stick or system. In the meantime I'm quite fine with using the CX-78 joypad to play all my Atari 2600 joystick games, since I really do love the heck out of that little thing. In any case, here's hoping my excellently crafted Atari 2600 stick will find a new home with someone who will put it to better use and I can start enjoying playing Atari 7800 on a real system with the money it brings in.

 

For the spousal unit's gaming time this week she didn't have to worry about the current lack of a coaxial connection on our gaming TV, since all of her gaming time was done on the PlayStation. She did two complete play throughs of Resident Evil: Survivor to wrap up her October Resident Evil marathon, the first time playing through it slowly and casually and the second time doing a pretty amazing speed run of the game and finishing it in just over an hour with an "S" ranking. That was so awesome to me that I just had to pop down in front of the TV and snap a picture of it before she moved on to the screen that showed the infinite rocket launcher weapon that she unlocked as a reward for the achievement. She didn't do a whole lot of gaming for the rest of the week after that, but she did pop Midway Presents Arcade's Greatest Hits: The Atari Collection 1 in the PlayStation on Sunday morning and got in a few games of Asteroids, Centipede, and Tempest. I may have nabbed the controller for a few minutes here and there between her games to play a little Asteroids myself.

 

 

All in all it wasn't a bad week. I love the new CX-80 trackball and Harmony cart, and I had a great time putting the Wii's emulation capabilities to use to play some Atari 7800 games. Now I just need to find a new CRT TV with a working coaxial connector so I can get back to playing Atari on real hardware. In the meantime I've still got other systems to enjoy, and I do have a neat little arcade game compilation for the Game Boy Advance coming in the mail this week to look forward to. And the misses, well, as long as she can play PlayStation I don't think she's too concerned about the rest.

[+Darrin9999]

Atari Jaguar:

1. Kobayashi Maru - 45 min

2. Checkered Flag - 33 min

3. World Tour Racing - 55 min

 

Vectrex:

1. Big Blue - 25 min

2. Warrior - 15 min

 

so far will add more