What have you actually PLAYED tracker for 2020 (Season 13)

[StormSurge]

ATARI 2600

Circus Atari: 46 minutes

[+wongojack]

No classic time for me this week.  Much like @Skippy B. Coyote, I played a ton of Breath of the Wild (but for WiiU).

[agb]

Times for the week are;

 

Atari 2600

Solar Fox 100 mins

 

Arcade on PSone, mostly on Namco Museum:

asteroids 24

galaga 28

galaxian 36

pole position 43

pole position 2. 10

 

all fun. 

[carlsson]

Here's the summary for Week 46, running from November 9 - 15. We logged 1772 minutes of eligible play, playing 44 games on a total of 8 systems.

 

Top 10:

 

1. Simple 1500 Series Vol. 056: The Sniper (PlayStation) - 250 min.
2. Buttsubushi (PlayStation) - 157 min.
3. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 143 min. (#6)
4. Laser Gates (Atari 2600) - 125 min.
5. Simple 1500 Series Vol. 079: The Shisenshou (PlayStation) - 117 min.
6. Mario Bros. (Arcade) - 116 min. (#8)
7. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 112 min. (#3)
8. Bases Loaded (NES/Famicom) - 76 min. (#2)
9. Meteor Shower (Atari 7800) - 72 min.
10. Double Dragon (PlayStation) - 65 min.

 

Pre-NES top 10:

 

1. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 143 min. (PN#4)
2. Laser Gates (Atari 2600) - 125 min.
3. Mario Bros. (Arcade) - 116 min. (PN#6)
4. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 112 min. (PN#2)
5. Meteor Shower (Atari 7800) - 72 min.
6. Asteroids (Atari 2600) - 48 min.
7. Circus Atari (Atari 2600) - 46 min. (PN#3)
8. Pole Position (Arcade) - 43 min.
9. Galaxian (Arcade) - 36 min.
10. Astrowar [aka Kampf im Asteroiden-Gürtel, Missile War, Sternkrieg etc] (Atari 2600) - 30 min.

 

Top 8 systems:

 

1. PlayStation (630) (#2)
2. Atari 2600 (597) (#1)
3. Arcade (266) (#4)
4. NES/Famicom (112) (#3)
5. Atari 7800 (90)
6. Genesis (45) (#6)
7. Atari 8-bit (22) (#8)
8. N64 (10)

 

This week is won by the Sniper (volume 56 in the Simple 1500 Series) ahead of Buttsushi Buttsubushi, both PlayStation. The evergreen Kaboom! takes the pre-NES title ahead of Laser Gates, both Atari 2600. While it was a record breaking week in the modern games tracker with over 12,000 minutes logged, over here in the classic tracker things are more moderate, though the two mentioned systems increase the totals a little. Only eight different formats played, and none of the games exceed total 1000 minutes etc.

 

[+thegoldenband]

5 hours ago, carlsson said:

This week is won by the Sniper (volume 56 in the Simple 1500 Series) ahead of Buttsushi Buttsubushi, both PlayStation.

I always have to make an effort not to type "Buttsubishi", which makes it sound like a cross between a Mitsubishi and, well, a butt. (Settle down, Beavis.)

 

Also, if anyone is curious, I posted some comments about the Sniper and the Shisenshou here. It really is bizarre that the Sniper's reward for beating the game is, essentially, a mass murder simulator, but at least those bonus stages have some actual level design on offer.

[Steven Pendleton]

Only modern games again this time.

[carlsson]

Atari 8-bit:
Car Crash [TRBB] - 11 min.
Dodge Racer - 4 min.
Head On - 10 min.
Raymaze 2000 - 15 min.

 

Of course due to the HSC and to be honest I had not played a minute until 6 PM on Sunday evening when I decided I needed to have at least some minutes to post.

 

[oyamafamily]

ATARI 2600:

Crossbow - 25 minutes

 

ATARI 7800:

Crossbow (for HSC) - 75 minutes

Pac-Man Collection - 106 minutes

 

EVIDENCES OF THE WEEK:

1) My 7800 PMC gameplay footage, with Ms. Pac-Man on normal speed and Banana - Score 37,360

 

2) My 7800 Crossbow gameplay footage, presented for High Score Club 2020-2021 - Score: 2,077,500 (Mouse as light gun)

 

Edited November 22, 2020 by oyamafamily

[Kurt_Woloch]

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

 

Arcade:

Mario Bros - 338 min. in 10 sessions

Q*Bert - 22 min.

Xevious - 3 min.

 

I played quite a bit of Mario Bros. this week... I desperately tried to clear Round 24, after that the round counter would switch to "KO", but I didn't make it... the farthest I got was Round 23 at a score of about 190,000. And lately I seem to get worse at it, not better...

therefore I also broke out and replayed two other games, Xevious (but not for a long time) and Q*bert (for a longer game). Nothing new to report there...

By the way, Mario Bros., played in MAME, seems to have a bug... if you start MAME and the game, there's a setting that gives you extra lives every 20,000 points, but if you reset the game, it won't give any extra lives anymore.

[agb]

Times for the week

 

Atari 2600

Solar Fox 180 mins

 

Arcade on ps one

Asteroids 10 mins

Galaga 16 mins

Pole Position 1 - 20 mins

 

all fun. 

[+thegoldenband]

My times for the week:

 

NES:
Bases Loaded - 165 min.

 

PlayStation:

Action Man: Destruction X - 408 min.
Buttsubushi - 25 min.
Double Dragon - 212 min.

 

Beat the Neo Geo port Double Dragon on the higher difficulties (Normal and Difficult), thus beating the game for my purposes. Thoughts here; it was a pleasant surprise to master the game -- or at least find a brutally efficient pattern -- in the process of my Difficult run, as I don't "own" a SNK fighting game boss every day.

 

A PAL-exclusive release, Action Man: Destruction X is an unexpectedly fun and well-made little game -- sort of Grand Theft Auto Jr., I guess, or maybe a really souped-up version of Motor City Patrol for NES. In any event I beat it on Normal, and got gold medals in the Driving School, Spotlight, and Combat minigames. Extreme difficulty would be next, and I hope it doesn't demand that I start driving carefully -- barreling through the city at full tilt is half the fun of the game.

 

I also cleared a few more puzzles in Buttsubushi, and won a half-dozen more games in Bases Loaded.

[Eltigro]

Some more TurboGrafx this week...

 

Bonk's Adventure - 52 min (Actually timed and recorded a play through to submit to speedrun.com.  I'm 8th place.  lol...  It's really the only game I can consistently beat.  First place is around 27 min, so I've got a lot to improve.)

Bonk's Revenge - 60 min (I'm not nearly as good at Revenge as I am Adventure.  Never beaten this one, but I've also played it far less.)

Blazing Lazers - 40 min (Just played until I ended the stream.  I may see if I can submit a time for this one, too.  I mean, I have beaten it in the past, but it's not as easy as Bonk's Adventure.  And there's no entries for it on the speedrun site.)

 

(Video of the BA run if you wanna watch any of it.)

 

Edited November 23, 2020 by Eltigro

[+wongojack]

GameBoy

• Donkey Kong Land 25
• Dragon Warrior I & II 21
• Gargoyle's Quest: Ghosts N Goblins 70
• Kid Icarus of Myths and Monsters 30
• Kirby Pinball Land 11
• Mario's Picross 39
• Oddworld Adventures 67
• Pokemon Gold 47
• Tennis 20
• Warioland 53

 

I recently bought a "Super GameBoy."  I stumbled across it while shopping in a specific seller's store for something else and decided to buy it.  I think I only paid like $14 for it, so it was a total impulse buy.  Anyway, that was a few weeks ago and this was the week that I decided to get out my GameBoy carts and play.  I think I've owned some of these without ever playing them for years!  I have some time off this week, so I plan to play even more neglected GB carts in the days to come.

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom! - 113 minutes

Laser Gates - 35 minutes

Solar Fox - 33 minutes

 

 

[Skippy B. Coyote]

No classic gaming time to speak of around here this week, as I once again spent much of the week playing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on the Switch and filled in the remaining time by starting a new game of the 2016 DOOM remake. Still, I did manage to log a good bit of time for the modern tracker. 

[Nintendo64]

Didn't play much this week, but I wanted to tryout Klax for a few different platforms and see which version I thought was the best

Atari 2600

 

Klax                            -5 Minutes    This is a very fun puzzle game where you try to catch different color blocks and stack them in order to attain points

 

NES

 

Klax                            -10 Minutes What can I say this is very similar to the Atari 2600 version, but I believe has better graphics.

 

TurboGrafx        

        

Klax                             -5 Minutes Again a very similar game to the other two versions, but I believe the NES version was the best of the 3 Klax versions that I played. If you like puzzle games, you should try this game out on any console.

 

Arcade

 

Black Widow                 -25 Minutes  This is a very fun shoot em up game, and I would recommend it to anyone who likes a real challenging scrolling around shoot em up.

 

Nintendo 64

 

Wave Race 64               -15 Minutes  Not much to say here that I didn't mention last week, but I really do enjoy this game and the bouncing on the water physics of this game are very well done

[Nintendo64]

21 hours ago, wongojack said:

GameBoy

• Donkey Kong Land 25
• Dragon Warrior I & II 21
• Gargoyle's Quest: Ghosts N Goblins 70
• Kid Icarus of Myths and Monsters 30
• Kirby Pinball Land 11
• Mario's Picross 39
• Oddworld Adventures 67
• Pokemon Gold 47
• Tennis 20
• Warioland 53

 

I recently bought a "Super GameBoy."  I stumbled across it while shopping in a specific seller's store for something else and decided to buy it.  I think I only paid like $14 for it, so it was a total impulse buy.  Anyway, that was a few weeks ago and this was the week that I decided to get out my GameBoy carts and play.  I think I've owned some of these without ever playing them for years!  I have some time off this week, so I plan to play even more neglected GB carts in the days to come.

Very nice buy, that sounds like a really good deal. How is that Gargoyle's Quest: Ghost N Goblins game?

 

On 11/22/2020 at 8:40 PM, agb said:

Arcade on ps one

 

Galaga 16 mins

 

It looks like you played an Arcade port of Galaga for the PS1. Have you ever tried  "Galaga Destination Earth" for the PS1 because that is also a very good/different version of Galaga to play. Either way both are very good games.

 

12 hours ago, Atarian7 said:

Laser Gates - 35 minutes

I don't think I have ever played this game, I might try to play it this week.

 

On 11/22/2020 at 12:51 PM, carlsson said:

Atari 8-bit:
Car Crash [TRBB] - 11 min.
Dodge Racer - 4 min.
Head On - 10 min.
Raymaze 2000 - 15 min.

 

Of course due to the HSC and to be honest I had not played a minute until 6 PM on Sunday evening when I decided I needed to have at least some minutes to post.

Glad to see you got in some gaming time this week. As always, thanks for taking the time to add up the game times for the week.

Edited November 24, 2020 by Nintendo64

[+wongojack]

3 hours ago, Nintendo64 said:

Very nice buy, that sounds like a really good deal. How is that Gargoyle's Quest: Ghost N Goblins game?

 

 

It's a great little spinoff that shows what the GameBoy can do without getting too ambitious.  It is a bit hard to track down a physical copy though (but not too crazy).  I would advise trying it in emulation first.

 

Also apparently available for the 3DS virtual console:  Gargoyle's Quest Review - IGN

 

 

[carlsson]

On 11/23/2020 at 9:06 AM, wongojack said:

GameBoy

• Dragon Warrior I & II 21
• Pokemon Gold 47

Is it right to presume that at least these two are Game Boy Color games? At least my online research suggests so. I don't know about the other titles, many already were listed as regular GB games.

[carlsson]

Here's the summary for Week 47, running from November 16 - 22. We logged 2421 minutes of eligible play, playing 38 games on a total of 10 systems.

 

Top 10:

 

1. Action Man: Destruction X (PlayStation) - 408 min.
2. Mario Bros. (Arcade) - 338 min. (#6)
3. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 213 min. (#7)
4. Double Dragon (PlayStation) - 212 min. (#10)
5. Bases Loaded (NES/Famicom) - 165 min. (#8)
6. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 113 min. (#3)
7. Pac-Man Collection (Atari 7800) - 106 min.
8. Crossbow (Atari 7800) - 75 min.
9. Gargoyle's Quest: Ghosts 'n Goblins (Game Boy) - 70 min.
10. Oddworld Adventures (Game Boy) - 67 min.

 

Pre-NES top 10:

 

1. Mario Bros. (Arcade) - 338 min. (PN#3)
2. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 213 min. (PN#4)
3. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 113 min. (PN#1)
4. Pac-Man Collection (Atari 7800) - 106 min.
5. Crossbow (Atari 7800) - 75 min.
6. Laser Gates (Atari 2600) - 35 min. (PN#2)
7. Black Widow (Arcade) - 25 min.
7. Crossbow (Atari 2600) - 25 min.
9. Q*Bert (Arcade) - 22 min.
10. Pole Position (Arcade) - 20 min. (#8)
 

Top 10 systems:

 

1. PlayStation (645) (#1)
2. Arcade (434) (#3)
3. Atari 2600 (391) (#2)
4. Game Boy (315)
5. Atari 7800 (181) (#5)
6. NES/Famicom (175) (#4)
7. TG-16/PC Engine (157)
8. Game Boy Color (68)
9. Atari 8-bit (40) (#7)
10. N64 (15) (#8)

 

Another week, another less common PlayStation game in the top. This week Action Man: Destruction X is 70 minutes ahead of the pre-NES winner Mario Bros. (Arcade version). After separating some possible GBC games from the other GB games, we reach 10 systems of which the PlayStation retains the first place.

 

No new entries to the 1000, 5000 or 10000 minute clubs.

[+wongojack]

47 minutes ago, carlsson said:

Is it right to presume that at least these two are Game Boy Color games? At least my online research suggests so. I don't know about the other titles, many already were listed as regular GB games.

They are GameBoy games.  To be more specific, they play on GB and GBC systems and include some bonuses for the Super GameBoy like custom borders and special coding for the multiple display palettes.  Anyway, the Super GameBoy doesn't play GBC games, so I listed them as vanilla Gameboy.

 

On Super GameBoy compatibility:  "The Super Game Boy is compatible with the same cartridges as the original Game Boy: original Game Boy cartridges, the Game Boy Camera, and dual-mode Game Boy Color cartridges (in Game Boy-mode). The unit could map the four shades of green to various colors on the screen."

[carlsson]

Ok, thanks.

 

The Dragonquest Wiki says that "No Dragon Quest titles were released for the Game Boy; however, Dragon Quest I & II and Dragon Quest Monsters were backwards compatible with the system" which would explain why both your Super Game Boy and a regular unit can play it. Same would be true about Pokémon Gold, and the question is if playing a game in B&W mode makes it list under the system it is played as or the system it says on the label. I suppose this equals playing a MSX2 game that downgrades to MSX1 if played on that system.

[+thegoldenband]

It's tricky, but I'd personally count GBC games that are GB-compatible under the Game Boy Color category -- pretty sure that's what I did in the past? Otherwise you potentially get the same game counted in two different contexts.

 

You can also tell visually: the charcoal GBC carts are monochrome-compatible, while the clear ones aren't. But then you get curveballs like the Pokémon games with their solid-color carts -- not to mention that a few games were issued both as GB and GBC carts, and when you play the GBC version on a monochrome GB, the gameplay is indistinguishable from the GB cart.

 

Quite a mess, but if memory serves, the monochrome GB releases of those games are rare European ones. (Montezuma's Return and Smurfs' Nightmare are two that I know of.)

 

I'm trying to think of what other cart-based systems pose this issue. Neo Geo Pocket Color and Wonderswan Color might, I can't recall what their backwards compatibility is like.

 

One console example that occurs to me is the SuperGrafx, where I think there's one game that will run on a vanilla PC Engine, and another is the Videopac+ G7400 aka Odyssey³ -- all but three of the G7400-enhanced games will also run on the older hardware. And a few CoCo 3 carts will switch to a CoCo 1/2 mode if they're on the older system.

 

These hardware devs sure didn't plan to make a tracker's life easy!

 

EDIT: Hoo boy, this gets complicated.

[carlsson]

Yeah. For that matter, are there examples of titles that exist in separate versions for both Game Boy and Game Boy Color, so it is important to keep the two separate? Most of the time I can silently look up which system those were released on and list. I believe Steven earlier discussed that single SuperGrafx game that also runs on PC Engine.

 

On the MSX, some games like Nemesis 2 IIRC are listed for MSX1 but detect MSX2 hardware and displays more colours. I believe I've got a homebrew game that works in the same way, which goes to tell there are both examples of games that downgrade on older hardware than they were intended for, and games that upgrade on newer hardware than intended for.

 

While RCA never released it on their own, I suppose the Studio III (a.k.a. European clones) would be first backward/forward compatible system. A few of the games display in B&W on the Studio II but with colours on the Studio III type systems.

Edited November 24, 2020 by carlsson

[+wongojack]

I am thinking about this more as a case of "advanced" backwards compatibility, and we should log it for the older system.  For example, I can go to a store and buy a used copy of an original XBox game and play it on the Xbox Series X.  A new version will be downloaded with enhanced resolution and small changes to make it run on the XSX - stuff like the ability to exit to the XSX menu.  This seems like pretty much the same thing as GameBoy games that also play on the GBC (or Super GameBoy).  Sure there are a few tweaks, but they are mostly just there to get you into the game and make it look slightly better.

 

But you say . . . "that example deals with a scenario where the platform was released after the fact and they did the work to make the game compatible."  For that, I show you this exhibit of a game marketed on two platforms.  I would log this as an Xbox 360 game since it runs in 360 compatibility mode even on the XBox One (and XSX).  Seems like the same thing as a GameBoy game running on a GBC.