What have you actually PLAYED tracker for 2021 (Season 14)

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom! - 75 minutes

Solar Fox - 108 minutes

 

 

[+wongojack]

10 hours ago, carlsson said:

In the case of the Amiga, we separate times based on graphics system. It means games using the OCS graphics (Amiga 1000, 500, 2000) goes into the general Amiga category and games using the ECS or more commonly AGA graphics (Amiga 500+, 600, 1200, 3000, 4000) goes into its own category. However since the later are backwards compatible, it is perfectly possible to play OCS games on an 1200. In your case, I identified that Slamtilt indeed is an AGA title, while Super Cars II doesn't seem to exist in enhanced versions so I combined your both times.

 

I'll mainly be using Lemon Amiga to verify titles.

 

Edit: Of course CD32 is counted separately, though to most intents it is an Amiga 1200 with CD-ROM and the Chunky2Planar chip.

Thanks, from this point, I will note games that require AGA as the differentiator.  I was looking at Lemon Amiga anyway, so that is easy enough.

 

AND indeed, the version of Super Cars II that I downloaded was labeled as AGA, but it didn't seem to look any different than the other version I played.  What made me even go look for AGA version was a comment on Lemon Amiga that someone preferred to original palette from the older version.

[carlsson]

Not sure but it seems like the original version of Super Cars II requires Kickstart 1.3 and that you might need a Kickswitch or softkicking your Amiga 600/1200 down from KS 2.X or 3.X to the older version. It is possible that a patched (cracked) version of the game was released that runs on newer models and to keep it apart from older versions it is named AGA despite the game would not initiate those graphics modes.

[+wongojack]

28 minutes ago, carlsson said:

Not sure but it seems like the original version of Super Cars II requires Kickstart 1.3 and that you might need a Kickswitch or softkicking your Amiga 600/1200 down from KS 2.X or 3.X to the older version. It is possible that a patched (cracked) version of the game was released that runs on newer models and to keep it apart from older versions it is named AGA despite the game would not initiate those graphics modes.

Yeah, I think I got my games confused.  I can't seem to find the review that mentioned the palette differences.  Maybe I was reading about "Super Skidmarks" instead.

 

Anyway, I'm clear on how to log the time.

[Nintendo64]

Here are my retro game times for the week.

 

Arcade

 

Burgertime                      -15 Minutes        I have always enjoyed playing this game, but am not to good at it. I need to figure out how to avoid the enemies better, and not use the pepper so early on in the game.

 

NES

 

Burgertime                      -10 Minutes       Although not graphically as good as its Arcade counterpart, I still find the NES version very fun/challenging to play.

 

Galaga                             -20 Minutes I am trying to get better at this game, but it still proves very difficult to me. The best score I had was around 190,000 but I cant seem to get past that score.

 

Kung Fu                           -25 Minutes I played this on two separate sessions, and just feel that it is one of the many NES titles that are nice to be able to play for short time intervals. This is a really fun beat em up, and I highly recommend it to anyone.

 

Ghosts N' Goblins            -155 Minutes Again, as of right now, this is my favorite game on the NES and it is always fun to play. I was doing something else at the same time, so this is a rough estimate because I had to pause the game plenty of times to multi-task.

 

PS1

 

Metal Gear Solid               -280 Minutes  I finally completed this game after all these years and thought it was quite enjoyable. The music is anxiety inducing to me, so I usually had the sound off and listened to my personal music collection while playing this game. The story line does get somewhat crazy a little more than halfway into the game, but I enjoyed it none the less. The funny thing is I couldn't tell when this game was going to end. It seemed like there were multiple times where I thought the game was about to end, but It kept on throwing a couple more action scenes during the final moments in the game. The final scene was fun to play and I would recommend this game to anyone. 

[carlsson]

Here's the summary for Week 03, running from January 18 - 24. We logged 4414 minutes of eligible play, playing 41 games on a total of 16 systems.

 

Top 10:

 

1. Imadoki no Vampire: Bloody Bride (PlayStation) - 482 min. (#2)
2. Super Castlevania IV (SNES) - 370 min.
3. Hyper Final Match Tennis (PlayStation) - 313 min.
4. Wings (Amiga) - 301 min. (#5)
5. Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX (Game Boy Color) - 293 min.
6. Metal Gear Solid (PlayStation) - 280 min.
7. Sword Master (NES/Famicom) - 209 min.
8. Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons (Game Boy Color) - 207 min.
9. Star Fox [aka Starwing] (SNES) - 194 min.
10. Super Mario World (SNES) - 187 min. (#6)
 

Pre-NES top 10:

 

1- Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 138 min. (PN#3)
2. Mario Bros. (Arcade) - 117 min.
3. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 75 min.
4. Pac-Man Collection (Atari 7800) - 65 min. (PN#3)
5. Pac-Man Collection (ColecoVision) - 50 min.
6. Nibbler (Atari 8-bit) - 44 min.
7. Frenzy (ColecoVision) - 40 min. (PN#5)
8. Eggomania (Atari 2600) - 33 min.
9. Alligator People (Atari 2600) - 30 min.
10. Demons to Diamonds (Atari 2600) - 26 min.

 

Top 10 systems:

 

1. PlayStation (1077) (#2)
2. SNES (751) (#1)
3. Game Boy Color (500)
4. Amiga (441) (#5)
5. NES/Famicom (429)
6. Atari 2600 (302) (#7)
7. Genesis (192) (#4)
8. Game Boy (150) (#3)
9. Arcade (148) (#10)
10. ColecoVision (105) (#6)
 

Imadoki no Vampire: Bloody Bride advances further, from #10 via #2 to #1 though the margin down to Super Castlevania IV is just short of two hours. For once in a while, zero pre-NES games make the overall list, but Solar Fox at least claims #1 on the old-timers list, just ahead of the arcade version of Mario Bros. On the systems side, the PlayStation and SNES swap positions from last week.

 

Imadoki no Vampire: Bloody Bride (PlayStation) also becomes member #428 in the 1000 Minute Club with a total of 1141 minutes.

Edited January 26, 2021 by carlsson

[Nintendo64]

On 1/22/2021 at 10:46 AM, Atarian7 said:

I wrecked a joystick playing Solar Fox.  It gets stuck in the up position for 2 seconds and I have to pull down hard to get it to change direction.

 

Where you able to get the controller working for Solar Fox this past week?

 

On 1/24/2021 at 5:03 PM, Kurt_Woloch said:

Alligator people

That looks like a really different type of game to play, as the swamp seems to close in on you, and you need to try to find a way out.

 

On 1/25/2021 at 12:45 AM, wongojack said:

I went looking for easy to find hard disk images of pre-installed Amiga games in fully set up environments, but they were harder to find than I expected.  I have disk images of almost every Amiga game ever released, so I guess I will just continue to use those for emulation.

That is interesting to know that you have almost every Amiga game. What emulator do you use for Amiga emulation?

 

On 1/25/2021 at 12:45 AM, wongojack said:

The game is really more of a "war is long" simulator than anything else.  Surprisingly, the length is kinda fun as it helps with the immersion into the life of a WWI fighter squadron.  The pilots didn't know when the war would end and wondered if the next mission would be their last.  The player gets much the same feeling while playing, and while one does improve as the game goes on, there's enough random chance and difficult situations that trying to keep a single pilot alive for the entire war is fruitless.  I think part of the lesson of the game is learning to accept that - interesting experience overall for sure.

I might have viewed the wrong version of Wings last week, but I'm not sure. I looked at a youtube video of the Amiga 1990 version of Wings, and I thought the graphics were good and it looks like a fun game to play. That sounds like an interesting concept for a game to not know when it was going to end. I kind of got the same feeling when playing Metal Gear Solid, although I'm sure not anywhere near to the extent of Wings.

On 1/24/2021 at 11:45 PM, thegoldenband said:

Sword Master

Nice to see that you finished this game, it looks fun to play and kind of reminds me of Castlevania.

 

On 1/25/2021 at 6:03 AM, Skippy B. Coyote said:

Super Castlevania IV - 370 minutes

Did you finish this game in this time? This is one game that I would like to complete one day, but I only have finished the first 3 for the NES, and Castlevania 64.

 

On 1/19/2021 at 12:16 AM, Steven Pendleton said:

Be sure to play them again and check out the glitches and dev oversights, especially in 3 & Knuckles.

I do need to try to go back and play this game because I really enjoyed the first two Sonic titles. I was also able to listen to the Panzer Dragoon Red Book soundtrack and I really enjoyed it. I thought that the orchestra music was really soothing to listen to on certain tracks. Thank you for that suggestion.

 

2 hours ago, carlsson said:

Here's the summary for Week 03, running from January 18 - 24. We logged 4414 minutes of eligible play, playing 41 games on a total of 16 systems.

Thank you for doing adding up all the times for the week, and taking the time to do so.

Edited January 26, 2021 by Nintendo64

[+wongojack]

2 hours ago, Nintendo64 said:

That is interesting to know that you have almost every Amiga game. What emulator do you use for Amiga emulation?

 

I might have viewed the wrong version of Wings last week, but I'm not sure. I looked at a youtube video of the Amiga 1990 version of Wings, and I thought the graphics were good and it looks like a fun game to play. That sounds like an interesting concept for a game to not know when it was going to end. I kind of got the same feeling when playing Metal Gear Solid, although I'm sure not anywhere near to the extent of Wings.

 

Amiga emulation is kind of difficult.  Its a computer, so you need to understand some of the nuances of how the computer worked and what versions of the hardware were sold.  On top of that, similar to some consoles, it requires a type of bios file called a "Kickstart."  That's fine, but the trouble comes when you realize that there are multiple versions of that kickstart required for different software configurations.  I've even found that some of those kickstart files only work with very specific versions of an emulator, so I've personally had to hunt down multiple versions of kickstart 3.1 to get different emulated configurations to work.  To get the Amiga hard drive to emulate (at least to do it yourself), you also have to get the Amiga graphic OS running which is called the "Workbench."  Now you are really in computer territory, and I honestly find DosBox with all its various command line options to be easier.  The good news is you don't need to use the hard drive as it was not required by any game (that I know of), so I usually just stick to swapping disks. 

 

All Amiga emulators are related to a base commonly referred to as "UAE."  On Windows it is Win UAE, but I've seen all kinds of variations.  There was a rather famous version for the Sega Dreamcast that was even popular during the commercial release period of the DC.  Probably the easiest way to get into Amiga emulation is to pay for a product called Amiga Forever.  I've never used it, but I know that it takes care of the kickstarts and workbench for you, so you don't have to go hunting for those.  It comes with some games, but you'll of course want to add your own. 

These days when I'm looking for roms, I go to a place like iptorrents (dot) com or pleasuredome (dog) org (dot) uk.  These are membership sites that are safe for downloads, but you have to follow their rules to participate.  However I did stumble across a site called gamesnostalgia (dot) com that let me download Amiga emulation packages that already had the hard drive fully configured for a single game.  That was particularly easy, so there could be a big package of pre-configured games like that floating around the inturwebs.

 

This is the Amiga version of Wings, and Lemon Amiga is a great place to browse for info about Amiga games (just like Lemon 64 for C64 games).  I'll say that the version I finished just recently was the Game Boy Advance version, but the same comment applies.  When you are playing the game, you are given a specific date as part of the journal that the fictional protagonist keeps, so you know of course that World War I will end on Nov 11, 1918, but you don't know how many missions you must fly.  Even in the last month of the war, the game kept throwing missions in there and, indeed, one of my pilots died on the final mission on the final day of the war - Blasted Bosche!
 

I might have given the wrong impression saying that the length of the game was a differentiator by itself.  It has more to do with the fact that they've put you fully into the role of a pilot in the squad.  Somehow the game delivers a piece of that experience to the player and you end up saying to yourself "Well those pilots would have felt that it was hopeless too" or "Finally a clear victory, I'm getting better at this" only to be dashed in a subsequent mission when you end up crashing due to anti-aircraft fire.  War is hell.

[Nintendo64]

  

3 hours ago, wongojack said:

Amiga emulation is kind of difficult. 

Wow thank you for such a plethora of information based on the Amiga emulation. I forgot to consider that its actually emulating a computer from a long time ago. I understand the fact that you need the "bios" in order to emulate a system, as for it is the same for systems like PS1 and PS2. It actually sounds similar to the PS2 right now, but maybe its because I don't have a powerful enough computer to run certain PS2 games that I own. There are so many software configurations, which need to be changed for different games, that it is much easier just playing the game on the original console. Its also interesting that you need something like "Dosbox", which makes sense because it looks as though you need to emulate the older version of DOS that was on the Amiga PC. I forgot about those older days, in the early 90's for me, when I had to run all of my computer games through DOS on my gateway 2000 PC (I think it was around 1992 when I got that PC, and first started learning about a computer's GUI through windows 3.1, although I do remember using a MAC in school before then and playing games like Oregon Trail. I truly do miss those days).

 

3 hours ago, wongojack said:

This is the Amiga version of Wings,

It sounds like an interesting take on a game to be put into the role of a pilot, and try to recreate on the pilots point of view through a video game. I can see how they could constantly be thinking, "When is this going to end?" It must have been hell on earth to try to stay alive during a real life mission, actually make it out alive, only to be thrown back into the crossfire almost immediately.

 

Thank you for all of the information you have provided. I will try to look into some of these sites in the near future.

Edited January 27, 2021 by Nintendo64

[+wongojack]

1 hour ago, Nintendo64 said:

  

Its also interesting that you need something like "Dosbox", which makes sense because it looks as though you need to emulate the older version of DOS that was on the Amiga PC.

I think I may have been a bit confusing here.  You can't use DosBox for the Amiga.  I was just using it as an example of another complicated computer emulation solution.  As in - "Amiga emulation is so hard that I'd rather try and configure DosBox." 

[Nintendo64]

42 minutes ago, wongojack said:

I think I may have been a bit confusing here.  You can't use DosBox for the Amiga.  I was just using it as an example of another complicated computer emulation solution.  As in - "Amiga emulation is so hard that I'd rather try and configure DosBox." 

Oh I see what your saying, sorry I got that mixed up. It looks like both Dosbox and Workbench are both complicated setups when trying to emulate some of the older computer systems. If I do try to emulate Amiga, I will try to look into getting Workbench and some of the different kickstart BIOS files. It would be nice if the Amiga was easier to emulate as for I do like emulators that are easy to use and in executable form. One of my favorites is FCEUX for the NES.

Edited January 27, 2021 by Nintendo64

[carlsson]

For those of us who grew up with Amiga computers and still may own them, emulation is not half as mysterious as it may be to someone who never experienced the system before. But then again the same probably could be said about any system, that the more previous experience the easier it is to understand how to use it. For instance many consoles require you to press the reset button before you can start playing, which might be foreign for someone who isn't used to that (but easy to learn that's how it works).

[Nintendo64]

1 hour ago, carlsson said:

For instance many consoles require you to press the reset button before you can start playing

It's funny you say that because I have to press reset to play the Atari 2600 games I have played. Growing up with the NES, I never knew that you had to press the reset button in order to start a game on any system. After mapping the buttons on Stella, I realized that fairly quickly and was easy to learn like you said.

Edited January 27, 2021 by Nintendo64

[Atarian7]

17 hours ago, Nintendo64 said:

Where you able to get the controller working for Solar Fox this past week?

I used another joystick.  I have a few spares.

 

 

[Atarian7]

It's another week with no Atari 2600 in the top ten.  ?

 

 

[Nintendo64]

18 hours ago, Atarian7 said:

used another joystick.  I have a few spares.

Glad to hear it. I'm still trying to get better at Solar Fox, but it is a very tough game for me.

Edited January 28, 2021 by Nintendo64

[Atarian7]

5 hours ago, Nintendo64 said:

Glad to hear it. I'm still trying to get better at Solar Fox, but it is a very tough game for me.

It was/is tough for me too.  Sometimes I still don't make it past the teens (rack #) and other times I make it to the 40's rack.  I have still only made it to a

million points one time.

It's very addictive though. 

 

 

[carlsson]

Yes, this week was even more special because not a single pre-NES system made the overall top 10, which it also had in common with week 16, 2020. I don't have the time to go even further back in time, but the most played pre-NES game being almost 50 minutes behind the 10th overall game probably hasn't happened in a year or more.

Edited January 28, 2021 by carlsson

[Steven Pendleton]

On 1/27/2021 at 4:44 AM, Nintendo64 said:

I do need to try to go back and play this game because I really enjoyed the first two Sonic titles. I was also able to listen to the Panzer Dragoon Red Book soundtrack and I really enjoyed it. I thought that the orchestra music was really soothing to listen to on certain tracks. Thank you for that suggestion.

Yeah, that's good, right? I listened to some of it myself a few days ago. Panzer Dragoon's music is beautiful. Too bad Zwei's music, with the exception of 3 tracks, is all done by the Saturn's sound chip, so you can't stick it in your computer and dump the music, but Zwei has good music as well.

 

As for Sonic 3 & Knuckles... well, it's going to be on my list for this week, as well. I played it once 2 days ago as Tails and did so incredibly badly that I deleted my 100% complete Tails save file today and will restart it from the very beginning as Tails. Also need to do Sonic alone, as well, so I'll have 2 additional 100% complete playthroughs in addition to the 1 I already did this week. Hell, I think I'll start the game in just a few minutes since my Mega Drive is hooked up and I can transfer the cart (yes, 1 cart, as I'm using the MegaSD and the copy of the game that I bought on Steam to play the game) over to my Nomad and play in bed for a while. Sometimes the wobblyness of the 2 carts together can crash the game on the Nomad, so I prefer not to do it that way... but it looks damn cool to stick your 32X in your Nomad and then put Sonic 3 & Knuckles in the 32X and then play it that way. Just be sure to plug in the 32X so as to not damage it when playing this way!

[agb]

12 hours ago, Atarian7 said:

It was/is tough for me too.  Sometimes I still don't make it past the teens (rack #) and other times I make it to the 40's rack.  I have still only made it to a

million points one time.

It's very addictive though. 

 

 

I find it very relaxing to play. I like to play for a couple million until I switch to tougher games that I’m not good at. 

[Atarian7]

I made it past a million again yesterday.     Rack 58 which I think is higher than the first time I made it.

[Nintendo64]

On 1/28/2021 at 8:19 AM, Atarian7 said:

It was/is tough for me too.  Sometimes I still don't make it past the teens (rack #) and other times I make it to the 40's rack.  I have still only made it to a

million points one time.

It's very addictive though. 

 

I made it past a million again yesterday.     Rack 58 which I think is higher than the first time I made it.

 

Yeah it is very addictive, but I would need to practice allot in order to get a million points. Very well done.

On 1/28/2021 at 8:46 PM, agb said:

I find it very relaxing to play. I like to play for a couple million until I switch to tougher games that I’m not good at. 

It is relaxing to play for me as well, but again it must have taken a while to be able to get up to anywhere near a million points, right?

 

On 1/28/2021 at 9:34 AM, Steven Pendleton said:

Yeah, that's good, right? I listened to some of it myself a few days ago. Panzer Dragoon's music is beautiful.

Also need to do Sonic alone, as well, so I'll have 2 additional 100% complete playthroughs in addition to the 1 I already did this week.

Yes I really did enjoy the music, thank you for letting me know about the soundtrack. Hopefully one day I will be able to get the game and play it.

 

For some reason I like just playing as Sonic alone and not with the other characters. Either way I am going to try to play a that game either this weekend or next week as well.

Edited January 30, 2021 by Nintendo64

[Eltigro]

1/24 - 1/30 Times for me.

 

Haven't submitted in a bit.  Just been lazy.  Loved the year end stats as always and always wonder how much I influenced them.  I think I may have helped the number of games played stat a good bit for those weeks when I had like 60 games or whatever.    

 

SNES

Arcana - 60 min (Didn't even know this existed until I did a stream where I played a bunch of SNES games.  It's a dungeon crawler that reminds me a lot of Shining in the Darkness for the Genesis.  Almost exact same setup for towns and such... but this one has a map!  It automaps your dungeons as you explore them!  I played it for about three hours last week, but only for about an hour this week.  Should be putting more time into it next week.)

 

TurboGrafx-16

The Legendary Axe - 60 min (Was going to stream this, but it just didn't seem to be working out for me.  I kept making stupid mistakes and dying and such.  I was playing it through one of those Hyperkin HDMI adapters on my flatscreen so, maybe there was some lag that was hitting me or something.  Anyway, I was getting frustrated so I changed to a different game.)

[Steven Pendleton]

I will go ahead and post 7 minutes earlier than I normally do. Not much to say this time.

 

Genesis/MD
Castlevania Bloodlines - 12
Contra The Hard Corps - 5 (estimate)
Sonic 3 & Knuckles - 347
Xeno Crisis - 22

 

Neo Geo AES/MVS
Fatal Fury Special - 11
The King of Fighters '98 - 25
Magician Lord - 10
Neo Turf Masters - 9
Real Bout Fatal Fury - 27

[carlsson]

Atari 8-bit:
Blue Max - 22 min.
Nibbler - 19 min.

 

Genesis:
Barbie Super Model - 70 min.
Thunder Force IV - 2 min.
Truxton / Tatsujin - 4 min.
Winter Challenge - 20 min.

 

So HSC round 1 (Nibbler) ended today and round 2 (Blue Max) follows. More difficult game than I remembered from the C64 days.

 

The Mega Drive (Genesis) times are due to me testing the Everdrive I received as part of the Secret Santa exchange. I suppose one shouldn't swap games too often, since it would eventually wear the Flash memory and the SD storage, but then again it might be good for 10,000 or 100,000 changes. As it turned out, I tested it with two of my more valuable games (Thunder Force IV and Truxton), in case I feel like selling those and play from the Everdrive. I also played a little Winter Challenge, which is the winter version of the Summer Challenge I played on PC DOS last summer. Not the most enjoyable winter sports game I've tried but then again I haven't looked into what the Mega Drive library looks like on this horizon.

 

As it turned out, the game that got my attention was ... Barbie Super Model! Eventually I managed to survive through all four stages and was greeted with the grand finale screen, but no score posted as far as I could see. I was a little disappointed there were not more stages or that the game would loop with higher difficulty, but then again I suppose the target audience for this game was girls around 10 years old, not 45 year old men used to playing somewhat challenging action games.