What have you actually PLAYED tracker for 2019 (Season 12)

[carlsson]

Here's the summary for Week 33, running from August 12 - 18. We logged 2499 minutes of eligible play, playing 35 games on a total of 13 systems.

Top 10:

 

1. Phantasy Star II (Genesis) - 640 min.
2. Doom (PC (DOS)) - 329 min.
3. Dragon Quest V (SNES) - 252 min.
4. GORF (Atari 2600) - 205 min.
5. Asteroids Deluxe (Arcade) - 122 min.
6. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 112 min.
7. Doom II (PC (DOS)) - 101 min.
8. Ninja Spirit (TG-16/PC Engine) - 90 min.
9. Pac-Man Collection (Atari 7800) - 66 min.
10. Tetris (Alexsey Pajitnov 1984) (PDP-11) - 55 min.

 

Pre-NES top 10:

1. GORF (Atari 2600) - 205 min.
2. Asteroids Deluxe (Arcade) - 122 min.
3. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 112 min.
4. Pac-Man Collection (Atari 7800) - 66 min.
5. Tetris (Alexsey Pajitnov 1984) (PDP-11) - 55 min.
6. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 54 min.
7. Pole Position II (Atari 7800) - 40 min.
8. Ms. Pac-Man (C64) - 38 min.
9. Aviator Arcade 2 (C64) - 25 min.
10. Squish 'em (Atari 2600) - 25 min.

 

Top 10 systems:

1. Genesis (640)
2. Atari 2600 (435)
3. PC (DOS) (430)
4. SNES (252)
5. Arcade (217)
6. TG-16/PC Engine (146)
7. Atari 7800 (106)
8. PlayStation (100)
9. C64 (70)
10. PDP-11 (55)

 

Phantasy Star II singlehandedly not only takes the title on the individual list, but also leads the Genesis to the most played system, exactly 1 minute less than the Atari 2600 received last week. This week the 2600 still is in 2nd place, much thanks to several HSC members playing GORF but of course also Kaboom! and the other usual suspects. Lots of DOOM this week, both in the classic tracker and the modern one.

 

No new members to the 1000 Minute Club.

[Atarian7]

Participation is down.  I guess it's that time of year.  Carlsson, maybe you could do a graph showing minutes of play per month including previous years. 

If it's too much trouble don't bother, but it would be interesting to see.

 

 

[Eltigro]

I don't know about overall, but personally, my times have been higher than normal.  I've been streaming on Twitch, so that makes me focus on games I might not have otherwise, plus I'm entering scores for HSC type things both here and on another site.

[agb]

My times are much lower than normal due to the outdoor weather bring so good. With the HSC back and the cooler weather coming my times should increase quite a bit. 

[Eltigro]

Ha!  Cooler weather would get me outside more.  As it is, we're close to or in triple digits here just about every day.  I'd rather be inside in the AC playing games.

[carlsson]

Yeah, I have the Excel document set up and reasonably updated so I'll post some stats and graphics later to compare over the year and with previous seasons.

[karokoenig]

Set mode: Vacation.

Set priority for gaming: low.

High Score Club token entry:

 

Atari 2600

Solar Fox: 5 minutes.

[Mallard Games]

Atari 2600:

Mallard Season - 120 min.

I Ran - 55 min.

Combat - 23 min.

Adventure - 9 min.

Edited August 25, 2019 by Mallard Games

[digdugnate]

no Classic Games for me this week   I got caught up playing 'Rad' on the Switch and then this weekend it's been the demo for Dragon Quest 11.

[oyamafamily]

ATARI 2600:

Draconian - 40 minutes

Gorf (for the NEW HSC Season 9) - 27 minutes

Pepsi Invaders (aka Coke Wins) - 16 minutes

Solar Fox (for the NEW HSC Season 9) - 10 minutes

 

ATARI 7800:

Pac-Man Collection - 87 minutes

 

EVIDENCES OF THE WEEK:

 

1) My 7800 Pac-Man Collection gameplay footage, with Puck-Man

 

2) My 2600 Draconian gameplay footage (Quadrant Alpha, 2 short matches - Normal and Hard skills)

 

3) My 2600 Pepsi Invaders (Coke Wins) gameplay footage

 

Edited August 25, 2019 by oyamafamily
Adding the 2600 game, Gorf

[carlsson]

Nothing at all for me. ? Long days, many videos to watch, having a cold. The only type of gaming was playing Bubbles in Emacs, which is a modern game and I don't even count the minutes I spend on it.

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week (August 19th through 25th)...

 

Atari 2600:

Chaotic Grill - 18 min. in 2 sessions

Colony 7 - 5 min.

 

I tried the new version of Chaotic Grill which was released last week. The improvements are noticeable, but I still see room at the top especially for the music.

While at it, I also briefly replayed Colony 7 on the Atari 2600, but only for one game.

 

[+thegoldenband]

My times for the week:

 

NES:

Challenge of the Dragon - 4 min.
Felix the Cat (Dragon Co.) - 105 min.
Hydlide - 156 min.
Marvel’s X-Men - 129 min.
Seicross - 5 min.
Tetris (Tengen) - 40 min.
Wait and See - 95 min.
 

Beat Dragon Co.'s version of Felix the Cat, which is a totally different game from the regular Hudson release, though the gameplay is very much along the same lines. It's pirate jank, but as pirate jank goes, it's fairly playable.

 

And speaking of jank, I also beat Hydlide and Marvel's X-Men for the NintendoAge effort, both for the third time ever if I'm not mistaken.

 

On the other hand, I'd really like to beat Wait and See aka "Nu, Pogodi!", a sort of Bugs Bunny-themed platformer from the same company as Felix above, so that I can clear it off my list of "games I once beat with savestates and need to beat legit" -- but I don't know if I can see myself pulling it off. There are two areas in the game that are just so, so dicey and janked-out that making it past even a fraction of them is a crapshoot, and there's no way to stockpile lives or regain health to brute-force matters...

 

 

[agb]

Times for the week are all Atari 2600:

eggomania 24 mins score of 120,064. 

Gorf for HSC 91 mins. First time playing with ok score but not great. Liked the game a lot 

Solar Fox for HSC 204 mins. First place so far with score of 5,611,100. 

[+wongojack]

Arcade

Asteroids Deluxe 123

[carlsson]

Oh yes, in the mean time here is the graph for minutes per week. It is starting to become cluttered. Perhaps current year, maximum and average ratings would be enough to plot in the future. With the exception of week 29, the past eight weeks have been well below the average from previous years.

 

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom! - 118 minutes

GORF - 84 minutes

 

I like GORF but it is harder than I remembered it being when we played it in season 5.   My score for season 5 was 25,100.  My score this time around was 10,600.

 

[Eltigro]

I've realized I suck at Gorf... lol... 

 

I'll have my times in this evening. 

[Eltigro]

As promised...

 

2600

Gorf - 15 min (I mentioned earlier that I suck at Gorf.  I really didn't put the time into it, though.  So I can't be so hard on myself.  If i had played for hours and still only got to 4700, that'd be one thing.  But I put in less than an hour total, so, meh.  I'll try to put more time into Solar Fox for the HSC.)

 

TurboGrafx-16

Blazing Lazers - 22 min (Died way earlier than I have recently in this game.  Actually just kinda gave up at one point.  It was toward the end of a stream and I just wasn't feeling it.)

Dragon's Curse - 45 min (This is essentially Wonder Boy III:  The Dragon's Trap for the TurboGrafx.  I'm not sure why they had the name change, but whatever.  I played the remake Wonder Boy:  The Dragaon's Trap that came out a couple years ago... and completed it.  I had a lot of fun and never was too frustrated.  But this one I just couldn't get down... I've gotta blame it on lag from emulation.  Not sure what else it would be, unless they really did make this harder or the hit boxes different or something.  Who knows.)

R-Type - 45 min (Got to where I usually do...  the end of stage 3.  I do better on the actual hardware, so I'm blaming lag again...  I'm only playing this via emulation because I don't have a way to stream it otherwise.  No capture card or computer that can accept incoming video signal (just has video out, I think)... anyway, there it is.)

Tale Spin - 12 min (Oh my god this game is hard.  I don't even think it's a lag issue.  There are so many projectiles and things trying to kill you.  And your sprite is big and moves slow... gah!  Right now with the Sony/Disney Spider-Man thing going on, we're supposed to be upset with Sony, but this had me cursing Disney!)

Tatsujin - 5 min (This is the TG version of Truxton.  And it is more difficult I think.  Not sure why... if it's faster or what, but I don't get anywhere near as far in it as I do Truxton... but again, I'm playing this via emulation and have the actual cart of Truxton, so...  )

 

Genesis

Phantasy Star II - 360 min (Got to this dungeon that's a... garbage dump?  Anyway, that's where you get this scooter thing that let's you travel the waterways.  And the dungeon is a complete troll.  There's two sides to it... and they do not connect.  I was stuck on one side forever.  Trying to figure out what the trick was to get to the other side... and then someone gave me a hint.  But without A.  A map and B.  That person's hint, I don't know if I would have ever figured it out.  I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't played, but... wow...  watch some videos to see what I mean.  The name of the dungeon is Roron.)

 

SNES

Dragon Quest V - 150 min (Working on two RPGs like this at the same time can be taxing...  where was I in this game?  I just got my kitty back and I think the next thing to do is help someone finding a spell or something so I can warp to different towns I've been to.  I think...  If I didn't say it last week, this game has started to open up.  At the beginning it didn't seem like much more than a slight graphical upgrade to something like Final Fantasy on the NES.  But there's more to it... including getting monsters to fight with you and equipping and training them and such...  fun game.)

Edited August 26, 2019 by Eltigro

[Skippy B. Coyote]

It was a somewhat slow but nice week for gaming around here this past week. A little Doom 3, a few new Atari games to play. Good stuff!

 

 

 

Ineligible

Doom 3 (Nintendo Switch) - 580 minutes

 

Atari 2600

Gremlins - 37 minutes

Frankenstein's Monster - 61 minutes

Millipede Trak-Ball - 15 minutes

Missile Command Trak-Ball - 30 minutes

Shooting Arcade - 109 minutes

Solar Fox - 35 minutes

 

 

Total Video Game Play Time This Week

867 minutes (14 hours 27 minutes) [287 minutes eligible]

 

Individual System Play Times This Week

Nintendo Switch: 580 minutes

Atari 2600: 287 minutes

 

 

 

The primary game that kept me occupied this past week was Doom 3 on the Switch. I had beaten the main game two weeks ago and spent the last week playing through the Resurrection of Evil and Lost Mission expansions, both of which were excellent though I definitely liked Lost Mission the best of the two. I wrapped up the two expansions on Saturday and I'm actually kinda sad they're over, I really enjoyed everything Doom 3 had to offer and I know I'll be back to play it again in the years to come. 

 

Other than Doom 3 the rest of the games played around here this past week were Atari 2600 games, a couple of which we just got physical copies and the rest were played off the Harmony Encore cartridge. For the physical games both my wife and I played the rather rare horror themed titles Frankenstein's Monster and Gremlins. Of the two Frankenstein's Monster was the big hit, and we both played it a good dozen or so times trying to beat it but neither of us were able to succeed yet. Frankenstein's Monster is definitely a fantastic game that's worth the somewhat high price tag. Gremlins... not so much.

 

Don't get me wrong, Gremlins isn't a bad game, it's just not a $30 game in terms of gameplay or uniqueness. If you can find a copy for $10 or so I'd say go for it, but don't pay full price for this one. For the Atari games that were played off the Harmony cart this past week, both the trak-ball hacks of Millipede and Missile Command were fantastic and definitely games I need to buy physical copies of from the AtariAge store and the light gun game Shooting Arcade is one that I absolutely need to get a repro made of. Between the two Atari 2600 light gun games, the Shooting Arcade prototype and Sentinel, Shooting Arcade is by far the better of the two and is still quite a bit of fun to play today.

 

Lastly for the week, I had a great time playing Solar Fox for the Atari 2600 High Score Club. I had always heard that it was a unique and really fun game but had never played it before, and by golly it sure was both of those things! I don't think I'm terribly good at Solar Fox so I doubt I'll do very well in the HSC this round, but it's still an awful lot of fun to play. Well, I think that about wraps up everything for this week, so until next time—and as always—best wishes and happy gaming to you and yours! 

Edited August 27, 2019 by Jin

[carlsson]

Here's the summary for Week 34, running from August 19 - 25. We logged 2534 minutes of eligible play, playing 33 games on a total of 7 systems.

Top 10:

 

1. Phantasy Star II (Genesis) - 360 min.

2. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 254 min.
3. GORF (Atari 2600) - 217 min.
4. Hydlide [aka Hydlide Special (JPN)] (NES/Famicom) - 156 min.
5. Dragon Quest V (SNES) - 150 min.
6. Marvel's X-Men [aka Uncanny X-Men] (NES/Famicom) - 129 min.
7. Asteroids Deluxe (Arcade) - 123 min.
8. Mallard Season (Atari 2600) - 120 min.
9. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 118 min.
10. Shooting Arcade [prototype] (Atari 2600) - 109 min.

 

Pre-NES top 10:

1. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 254 min.
2. GORF (Atari 2600) - 217 min.
3. Asteroids Deluxe (Arcade) - 123 min.
4. Mallard Season (Atari 2600) - 120 min.
5. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 118 min.
6. Shooting Arcade [prototype] (Atari 2600) - 109 min.
7. Pac-Man Collection (Atari 7800) - 87 min.
8. Frankenstein's Monster (Atari 2600) - 61 min.
9. I Ran (Atari 2600) - 55 min.
10. Draconian (Atari 2600) - 40 min.

 

Top 7 systems:

1. Atari 2600 (1151)
2. NES/Famicom (534)
3. Genesis (360)
4. SNES (150)
5. TG-16/PC Engine (129)
6. Arcade (123)
7. Atari 7800 (87)

 

Another slow week which didn't even reach 10 different systems but I'll include the top list anyway which consists of 45% Atari 2600. However the individual top list is yet again won by Phantasy Star II with Solar Fox in a strong second place.

 

Despite the somewhat low turnout on minutes played, we have two new entries to the 1000 Minute Club:

 

#381 Dragon Quest V (SNES) - 1009 minutes

#382 Marvel's X-Men [aka Uncanny X-Men] (NES/Famicom) - 1092 minutes

Edited August 27, 2019 by carlsson

[carlsson]

Atari 8-bit:
Conquest of the Crown - 22 min.
Crownland - 37 min.

 

Yeah, I got almost one hour of playing games this week. I haven't played this much since early July.

 

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week (August 26th through September 1st) on classic systems...

 

sorry, I didn't play anything this week. I visited my father in the hospital twice, fetching and bringing him things he needed, both from his flat where I also cleaned up the mess he left a bit, and from his car. And I went swimming also because it might be the last hot week for this year, so in September there should be more time for gaming again. But I did manage to sneak in some rides on rented scooters with Lime now letting you ride scooters placed outside of the service area in Vienna.

[Eltigro]

My times for the week!  (Games marked with * are emulated.)

 

Atari 2600

Blue Print* - 5 min (This game is a bonus for the HSC.  I had NO idea what was going on.  I was able to score a few points... I think I got up to about 350... but I think I need to read a manual.)

Donkey Kong - 10 min (Okay, some of these weren't actually played by me, but they were still played.  We had some company over for dinner and of course, at some point, the husband and I retreated to the game room.  He was amazed that I had an actual working 2600.  lol  Anyway, there were a few different games he wanted to play to take him back to his childhood and this was one of them.  I don't know that he ever got past the second screen, but he had fun playing it.)

Oink!* - 10 min (Played this one for the next round of the HSC.  Another game I had never played.  Seems like a backwards Breakout or something.  Played a round of it to figure out what was going on, then played another with a decent score.  I know I can do better, though.)

Pitfall - 10 min (This was another one that our guest played.  Earlier in the day, he had posted a pic on Facebook of what looked like a catalog pic from back in the day advertising Pitfall.  I replied to his post with a pic of my cartridge.  So of course he had to play it some.  We talked about how neither of us never knew what to do in the game.)

Pressure Cooker* - 5 min (Looks like one of those games my ex-wife used to play... Diner Dash I think it was.  I didn't immediately figure out what was going on, but I did make a few burgers.)

Solar Fox* - 73 min (This was me, playing for the HSC.  I had never played this before the other day.  And today I played for probably around 15 to 20 minutes before I remembered, "Hey, there's a button.  Let's see what that does."  What it did was open up the game a bit for me.  I started strategizing and resetting if things didn't go according to plan.  If I died or didn't get the Skip a Rack bonus on the first stage, reset.  lol)

 

SNES

Dragon Quest V* - 170 min (I got a little further...  former party members got married and I've found some rich man's daughter that I might be marrying.  I've got to find a couple rings first (her old man sent me on a quest to prove myself).  One of the rings is a "fire ring" and it's in a volcano, of course.  One neat thing about this Dragon Quest (I don't know if it's a feature in others... never played them) is you can sometimes get the monsters you fight to join you as party members.  Well, there's two that fight with you and then another two that can ride in a wagon with you.  They get experience and level up, but don't actually fight until you trade them out or whatever.  Well, it so happens that when your party wipes, the monsters in the wagon get out and you can continue to fight with them.  Well... I know this, because that's what happened.  Party wiped in the volcano, and the one monster I had in the wagon finished off the battle that wiped me, then I made it out of the dungeon and all the way back to town (running from every fight) to get resurrected and healed and try again.  It was pretty enthralling actually.  Fun game and ready to play more next Tuesday.)

Super Empire Strikes Back - 5 min (This was another game that my guest played.  He's a huge Star Wars game, so when he saw that, he knew he had to play it.)

Super Star Wars* - 10 min (Another one played by my guest.  I have the actual cartridge, but wanted to show him that you could do it via emulation.  He had started to ask me how much he would expect to pay if he were going to get a Super Nintendo and controller and the three Star Wars games.)

 

TurboGrafx-CD

Cosmic Fantasy 2* - 180 min (Started playing Cosmic Fantasy 2 last Thursday on my "Thurbo Thursday" stream.  Great cut scenes, good sense of humor, great music... but the gameplay itself is kinda meh.  The combat is pretty basic... not Ys Book I and II basic, but still basic.  I have progressed a little way into the game and it's fun.  I've read that the story is pretty good, so maybe that can make up for the lackluster game play.  I did also read, though, that this is supposedly the first 3rd party published game for a CD based console.  It was published by Working Designs in NA.  Thought that was interesting.)

 

Genesis 

Phantasy Star II* - 378 min (Lots of grinding.  I've been told this is a very grinding heavy game.  I also had what I think was my first boss battle and almost didn't make it.  I'm playing mostly blind (I'm using maps, but that's about it.)  Anyway, I had lost three out of four party members and had no way to heal the last one when he killed the boss.  Then I thought, "I'm still screwed, because I have no way to get out of this dungeon."  But thankfully, the game automatically transports you out and to a town to progress the story.  It was a close one, for sure.  Now I'm busy grinding to level up other characters to help in the next section.  All the fights are against robots now instead of "biomonsters".  The game has a bit more depth than I had at first thought.)

 

GameBoy

Tetris - 30 min (Played some Tetris outside before dinner guests showed up.  I've never been that great at Tetris, but if I'm playing GameBoy, it's my go to game.  I don't have a lot of GameBoy games, though...)

 

 

[+thegoldenband]

My times for the week:

 

NES:
Mega Man - 77 min.

Mega Man 5 - 153 min.
Mickey Mousecapade - 10 min.

 

Game Boy Color:
Snoopy Tennis - 36 min.

 

Beat both of the above Mega Man games (via the GameCube collection). MM5 is kind of a hassle toward the end.