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

[carlsson]

7 hours ago, DragonGrafx-16 said:

Star Parodia (PC Engine CD) 56 mins (just realized this game is actually called Star Parodia and not Star Parodier)

It seems both are correct; Wikipedia writes Sutā Parojā in romanized Japanese and Star Parodier as the English title. It was previously logged with the later title, so I'm keeping it like that.

 

Avenger, Nexzr and Steam-Heart's were new to the tracker though, increasing the list of TG-CD/PC Engine CD games to 34.

 

Steam Hearts (PC Engine CD) 7 mins (I thought this game was kind of mediocre)

The Wikipedia article agrees: "Critics generally found the gameplay to be average, with the erotic content being the sole distinguishing feature."

Edited March 29, 2021 by carlsson

[Steven Pendleton]

50 minutes ago, carlsson said:

It seems both are correct; Wikipedia writes Sutā Parojā in romanized Japanese and Star Parodier as the English title. It was previously logged with the later title, so I'm keeping it like that.

Japanese-understanding type of human here; can confirm both are correct.

Edited March 29, 2021 by Steven Pendleton

[DragonGrafx-16]

3 hours ago, carlsson said:

It seems both are correct; Wikipedia writes Sutā Parojā in romanized Japanese and Star Parodier as the English title. It was previously logged with the later title, so I'm keeping it like that.

 

Avenger, Nexzr and Steam-Heart's were new to the tracker though, increasing the list of TG-CD/PC Engine CD games to 34.

 

 

 

The Wikipedia article agrees: "Critics generally found the gameplay to be average, with the erotic content being the sole distinguishing feature."

I didn't even know that Steam Hearts had erotic content in it. lol 

[carlsson]

Perhaps you need to play it for another 7 minutes to get there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam-Heart's#/

[DragonGrafx-16]

23 minutes ago, carlsson said:

Perhaps you need to play it for another 7 minutes to get there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam-Heart's#/

But the gameplay is garbage so I won't be. lol

Edited March 29, 2021 by DragonGrafx-16

[Atarian7]

10 hours ago, agb said:

The AA HSC is really tough this year. Finished in 17th place two years ago and I’m struggling to be in top 40 this season

The competition has gotten a lot tougher but also the game selection hasn't been that good for me so far.   Dark Cavern is a good one though.  

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Dark Cavern - 20 minutes

Hunchy 2 - 2 minutes

Kaboom! - 144 minutes

Solar Fox - 132 minutes

Star Wars : The Empire Strikes Back - 14 minutes  

 

[+wongojack]

Atari 2600 

Beamrider 20 

Berserk 2 Player 17 

Berserk VE 45 

Gyruss 12 

Juno First 49 

Man Goes Down 2 

Stay Frosty 2 25 

 

C64 

Buggy Boy 10 

Montezuma's Revenge 30 

 

Intellivision 

Atlantis 18 

Beamrider 39 

Dragonfire 9 

Major L Baseball 4 

Meteors (nanochess) 6 

Ouranos 3 

Pinball 47 

Thin Ice 35 

World Championship Baseball 9

 

 

This week, I ended up doing a lot of tinkering as I continued to refurbish and repair various controllers.  I spent a lot of time trying to make adapters for the Intellivision Flashback controllers which require 8 of 9 wires to be re-wired in order to function with an original Inty.  I got it working and used my new-found experience to also repair some Atari paddle controllers that had a short in the wire.  It's tough to do all the work nice and neat while avoiding shorts between the new little 26 gauge connections, but I managed to create 3 cables this weekend that have a reasonably compact repair and a contour that fits with the original wire.  I have one more cord that I want to repair (that I know of) for a Sears Inty controller and a few more little controller refurbishing things on my list.

[Skippy B. Coyote]

Super fun week for gaming this week! While I continued my playthrough of Tomb Raider II and the spousal unit finished her playthrough of Resident Evil 3 on the PlayStation, we got a Neo Geo MVSX arcade machine in the mail and I spent a ton of time playing it and soft modding it to run not only the entire Neo Geo library but a ton of other classic arcade games as well. My favorite Neo Geo games have always been the Samurai Shodown series, so I put a good bit of time into those, and the misses really likes Puzzle Bobble so she played a few games of that as well.

 

The big highlight for me though was spending hours (and hours) creating my own custom firmware and game list for it though, so on start up I can select between running the whole Neo Geo library, the whole Capcom CPS I/II/III library, or my own custom mix of arcade game favorites. The MVSX is running FinalBurn Alpha under the hood, so I was able to install all my favorite FinalBurn Alpha arcade game ports including my all time favorites Aliens and Alien vs. Predator! I played through both of them several times this week and I am just absofreakinlutely in love with this little arcade machine. The build quality is top notch, way better than any of the Arcade1Ups that I've played, and the joysticks are great as well if you like the feel of the classic Happ style sticks (though you can replace them with Sanwa JLF sticks if you prefer). The only thing that really needed replacing on it was the buttons, and I've got a full set of Happ buttons with 20g microswitches for it arriving in the mail from GroovyGameGear later today.

 

 

 

Arcade

Aliens - 69 minutes

Alien vs Predator - 103 minutes

Ms. Pac-Man - 85 minutes

Ms. Pac-Man (Speed-Up Hack) - 10 minutes

 

Neo Geo MVS

Puzzle Bobble - 23 minutes

Samurai Shodown - 25 minutes

Samurai Shodown II - 65 minutes

Samuri Shodown V Special - 104 minutes

The Last Blade 2 - 12 minutes

 

PlayStation

Resident Evil 3: Nemesis - 221 minutes

Tomb Raider II - 274 minutes

 

 

Total Video Game Play Time This Week

991 minutes (16 hours 31 minutes) [991 minutes eligible]

 

Individual System Play Times This Week

PlayStation: 495 minutes

Arcade: 267 minutes

Neo Geo MVS: 229 minutes

[+jgkspsx]

Oh man, that reminds me: I beat Bust-a-Move (Puzzle Bobble) for the Game Gear last week too! (Thanks to save states.) That took probably at least 120 minutes. Oh well, there’s always next week.

 

EDIT: I added it to my sheet.

[carlsson]

No problem, I can add that to this week.

[twoquickcapri]

Arcade:

Raiden - 80 mins.

 

Jaguar:

Iron Soldier - 20 mins.

Raiden - 30 mins.

 

SNES:

Super Mario World - 60 mins.

 

Watched my wife play Mario 3 last week better then I've ever played it. This week we played Super Mario World together and it was like she never played a video game before. You would think the skills would transfer.

 

[Skippy B. Coyote]

2 hours ago, twoquickcapri said:

Arcade:

Raiden - 80 mins.

 

Jaguar:

Iron Soldier - 20 mins.

Raiden - 30 mins.

 

SNES:

Super Mario World - 60 mins.

 

Watched my wife play Mario 3 last week better then I've ever played it. This week we played Super Mario World together and it was like she never played a video game before. You would think the skills would transfer.

 

 

I'm not surprised! I'm pretty good at Super Mario Bros. 3 but can't play Super Mario World worth a darn. The controls in SMW feel super floaty and slippery to me! 

 

[Nintendo64]

Here are my retro times for the week. I spent a good amount of time modding a few games for the NES for the first time. I wanted to try to change sprites in the game to see if I could, and it was actually a fun experience to see your artwork within the game. I didn't count that towards my game time though.

 

Atari 2600

 

Communist Mutants from Space           -25 Minutes   This is one of my favorite games on the system, and it is a pretty difficult one. If you tweak the settings I feel like this game is easier to play, but either way it is very fun game.

 

Demon Attack                                        -15 Minutes  It all started with me playing the PS2 Activision Anthology which really got me into playing this game. I have really enjoyed learning about other Atari 2600 games in this thread, and I especially enjoy the shooters for this system.

 

NES

 

Castlevania                                             -90 Minutes     This is and always has been one of my favorite games for the NES. I actually spent a good amount of time modding the sprites in this game, something I've always wanted to try out and had a fun time doing so.

TurboGrafx 16

 

Final Soldier                                           -35 Minutes       This is a great shooter that has a really good soundtrack. I am going to find different shooters to play on this system over the next couple of weeks, as for I know this system has plenty of them.

Edited March 30, 2021 by Nintendo64

[carlsson]

Here's the summary for Week 12, running from March 22 - 28. We logged 6398 minutes of eligible play, playing 113 games on a total of 23 systems.

 

Top 10:

 

1. Suikoden (PlayStation) - 2120 min.
2. Tomb Raider II (PlayStation) - 274 min. (#1)
3. Action 52 (NES/Famicom) - 269 min.
4. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 242 min. (#6)
5. Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (PlayStation) - 221 min. (#2)
6. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 144 min. (#7)
7. Bust-a-Move (Puzzle Bobble) (Game Gear) - 120 min.
8. Super Metroid (SNES) - 119 min.
9. Pac-Man Collection (Atari 7800) - 115 min.
10. Samurai Shodown V Special (Neo Geo AES/MVS) - 104 min.
 

Pre-NES top 10:

 

1. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 242 min. (PN#1)
2. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 144 min. (PN#2)
3. Pac-Man Collection (Atari 7800) - 115 min.
4. Legend of the Amazon Women (C64) - 96 min.
5. Ms. Pac-Man (Arcade) - 85 min.
6. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (Atari 2600) - 82 min.
7. Dark Cavern (Atari 2600) - 70 min.
8. Lode Runner (C64) - 59 min.
9. Pepsi Invaders/Coke Wins (Atari 2600) - 57 min.
10. Lode Runner (Arcade) - 51 min.

 

Top 10 systems:

 

1. PlayStation (2615) (#1)
2. Atari 2600 (854) (#2)
3. Arcade (423) (#7)
4. NES/Famicom (417) (#6)
5. Neo Geo AES/MVS (342)
6. C64 (195) (#8)
7. TG-16/PC Engine (194) (#5)
8. SNES (179)
9. Intellivision (170) (#3)
10. TG-CD/PC Engine CD (148)
 

The dominant game this week is Suikoden on the PS1 which has 1/3 of the total minutes. Some of it was leftover from late posting last week, but about 40% of the minutes are fresh, meaning that even if it had been included last week it would have won this week. Tomb Raider II by a margin of 5 minutes is ahead Action 52. The pre-NES list is as usual headed by Solar Fox and Kaboom! though rest of the entries are new from last week. Systems wise the PS1 dominates ahead of the 2600 etc. We have a new entry further down on the systems list in form of the Tiger/Sega Pocket Arcade which I noticed has a handful different games for it which validates it on its own instead of a general handheld. In the mean time, I noticed that we have G&W listed separately so I moved some entries from the catch-all Handhelds to that category.

 

No new entries to the 1000 Minute Club, but Suikoden (PlayStation) enters the so-called 5000 Minutes Club with a total of 7066 minutes which places it as all-time #15, a mere three minutes ahead of Phantasy Star II (Genesis). For that matter, Tomb Raider II (PlayStation) also climbs from #21 or so to #12 and thus is the most played PlayStation game with 7376 minutes despite the big climb for Suikoden. In order to enter the top 10, any game needs to exceed 8800 minutes which either of these might as well do over time.

[Eltigro]

Finished up Suikoden today and started Suikoden 2.  Will have those numbers for this week. 

[Nintendo64]

On 3/29/2021 at 9:34 AM, Atarian7 said:

Dark Cavern

I just played a little of this game, and I thought it was really fun. I kind of reminded me of pacman combined with shooting elements.

 

On 3/28/2021 at 9:38 AM, jgkspsx said:

Duke Nukem 3D - 30 minutes (much better than it has any right to be)

That's funny, and after looking at a video of the game I see what your saying. It doesn't look that bad for that system.

 

On 3/28/2021 at 9:11 PM, thegoldenband said:

Cleared 14 of the minigames in Action 52, including the famous Cheetahmen, which brings me up to 46/52 beaten.

That is an amazing achievement. I didn't even know you could actually beat that amount of games on Action 52. I always thought allot of them were broken, like Cheetahmen, and that some of them couldn't even be completed to the end.

 

On 3/28/2021 at 10:54 AM, Steven Pendleton said:

SFC/SNES
Super Metroid - 119

I used the time from the ending thingy. That's not an exact time measurement because the timer stops during room transitions and when you open the menu and stuff, but it's close enough, I think. I was worried that I wouldn't make it under 2 hours because I got stuck in a room that I'd never found before, but I did! 89% completion and I FINALLY found the last Power Bomb Tank after searching for it for 15 years or so.

That is one game I have on my bucket list to complete, now especially since I finally finished the NES Metroid. Did it really take you 15 years to find that last power bomb tank? I am just wondering because if so, that is some dedicated gaming to not go look up where the room is located on youtube. I can understand if it did because that game looks like a giant puzzle. It also took me a really long time to getting around to finally completing Metroid on the NES myself.

 

On 3/28/2021 at 10:41 PM, agb said:

Frogger FB HSC 38

I have always enjoyed this series. I always thought this was a retro game that was different from the rest in a good way, even though there are plenty of variations of this game in today's age.

On 3/29/2021 at 3:59 PM, Skippy B. Coyote said:

Arcade

Aliens - 69 minutes

Alien vs Predator - 103 minutes

Both of these games looked really fun to play. I wish they would have released Alien vs Predator on a console

 

On 3/29/2021 at 11:58 AM, wongojack said:

This week, I ended up doing a lot of tinkering as I continued to refurbish and repair various controllers.  I spent a lot of time trying to make adapters for the Intellivision Flashback controllers which require 8 of 9 wires to be re-wired in order to function with an original Inty.  I got it working and used my new-found experience to also repair some Atari paddle controllers that had a short in the wire.  It's tough to do all the work nice and neat while avoiding shorts between the new little 26 gauge connections, but I managed to create 3 cables this weekend that have a reasonably compact repair and a contour that fits with the original wire.  I have one more cord that I want to repair (that I know of) for a Sears Inty controller and a few more little controller refurbishing things on my list.

That is a really neat project that I'm glad you were able to complete. Does the rewiring of the controllers involve soldering? Its also funny that I just recently found out that Sears had differently labeled Atari games and systems. I remember back in the day going through those huge Sears catalogs and seeing all the different things they offered at the time.

 

23 hours ago, carlsson said:

Tomb Raider II (PlayStation) also climbs from #21 or so to #12 and thus is the most played PlayStation game with 7376 minutes

That is really interesting to know. With all that time being played in that game, I need to try and give it a thorough play through one of these days. Also did you really develop the Slalom game for the Atari? I was trying to locate the exact title of the game you were talking about, but I couldn't find it. Thanks for taking the time to compile the list for the week as always.

Edited March 31, 2021 by Nintendo64

[+wongojack]

@Nintendo64 - I created Intv Flashback adapters both with quick disconnects and soldering.  You can read more about my efforts at adapter building here:  https://atariage.com/forums/topic/237113-intellivision-flashback-controller-adapters-round-2/?do=findComment&comment=4790383

 

[carlsson]

40 minutes ago, Nintendo64 said:

Also did you really develop the Slalom game for the Atari?

Heh.. no! Back in February 2015, I made a very simple slalom game on the Intellivision, that I fleshed out with a simple title screen and entered in the upcoming programming contest. I never anticipated that it would create a following (if that is the right word to use).

[+jgkspsx]

On 3/28/2021 at 9:38 AM, jgkspsx said:

You’re gonna laugh.

 

Tiger game.com:

Jeopardy! - 5 minutes, cart only worked once out of 10 attempts even after cleaning and contact enhancement (and the contacts look perfect - but the board got a bad scrape during manufacturing...)

There is nothing wrong with my copy. The game simply won’t start if another cartridge is installed. The quality assurance at Tiger HQ made Jaguar-era Atari look like Nintendo.

[Skippy B. Coyote]

20 hours ago, Nintendo64 said:

Both of these games looked really fun to play. I wish they would have released Alien vs Predator on a console

 

Aliens and Alien vs Predator are both tons of fun! It's a shame they never got home console ports, though Alien vs. Predator did make an appearance on Capcom's enormously sized (and enormously priced) Home Arcade stick. Given the options you're probably best off just checking this one out via emulation

 

 

 

[+thegoldenband]

20 hours ago, Nintendo64 said:

That is an amazing achievement. I didn't even know you could actually beat that amount of games on Action 52. I always thought allot of them were broken, like Cheetahmen, and that some of them couldn't even be completed to the end.

Thank you! Action 52 is almost always a case where "beating" the game means looping back to Level 1, but there are some exceptions like The Ooze. A lot of the games that were thought to crash or be unplayable turn out to work if you get the right ROM variant.

 

Unfortunately the games that are left are a real murderer's row, with the exception of Meong which shouldn't be too bad, and maybe Beeps N Blips which is probably doable. But otherwise it's basically the worst and most punishing games on the cart: Sharks, Storm Over the Desert, Spread Fire, and Micro Mike. I can imagine beating the first three with unlimited patience, but Micro Mike I don't know that I'll ever be able to beat.

[carlsson]

20 hours ago, Nintendo64 said:

I wish they would have released Alien vs Predator on a console

From what I can tell, there never was a PC version of the side scrolling arcade game neither. Of course you have completely different AvP based games for the SNES, Jaguar and Game Boy, but since all of those games are different and only have the brand licensing in common, I understand that those don't count when you consider home versions of the arcade game. Personally I'm most used to the FPS Windows game from 1999 which also isn't strictly related to the arcade game. If we go by Mobyranks, the Jaguar and arcade versions seem equally popular though different games.

[oyamafamily]

ATARI 2600:

Frogger - 8 minutes

Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator (for HSC) - 2 minutes

 

COLECOVISION:

Jumpman Junior - 5 minutes

Mappy - 10 minutes

Tank Wars (for HSC) - 35 minutes

 

NES / FAMICOM:

Gun-Nac - 71 minutes

Edited April 2, 2021 by oyamafamily

[Nintendo64]

On 3/31/2021 at 3:30 PM, wongojack said:

I created Intv Flashback adapters both with quick disconnects and soldering.  You can read more about my efforts at adapter building here:  https://atariage.com/forums/topic/237113-intellivision-flashback-controller-adapters-round-2/?do=findComment&comment=4790383

That is very interesting and thank you for pointing me towards that thread. Soldering was never one of my fine points. I remember growing up I decided to install a mod chip on a PS2, and my uncle soldered the wire to the pin. The pin was so small, to this day I still don't know how he did it. Funny thing is the modded PS2 still plays burned games 19 years later.

 

On 3/31/2021 at 4:01 PM, carlsson said:

Heh.. no! Back in February 2015, I made a very simple slalom game on the Intellivision, that I fleshed out with a simple title screen and entered in the upcoming programming contest. I never anticipated that it would create a following (if that is the right word to use).

 

From what I can tell, there never was a PC version of the side scrolling arcade game neither. Of course you have completely different AvP based games for the SNES, Jaguar and Game Boy, but since all of those games are different and only have the brand licensing in common, I understand that those don't count when you consider home versions of the arcade game. Personally I'm most used to the FPS Windows game from 1999 which also isn't strictly related to the arcade game. If we go by Mobyranks, the Jaguar and arcade versions seem equally popular though different games.

That is really neat that you were able to create a game on the Intellivision, whether it was simplistic or not. I find game developing interesting, and maybe one day I learn how to develop or change gameplay elements in a game other than the sprites.

 

I'm pretty sure I have played the SNES version, but like you said it is a very different game than the Arcade Alien vs. Preditor.  The jaguar game looks pretty good, and that Windows game looks like a really fun FPS. I feel as though they could have created the arcade version of the game on the SNES and Genesis, and for that matter the Simpsons Arcade could have been done on those systems as well. 

 

On 4/1/2021 at 11:35 AM, Skippy B. Coyote said:

Aliens and Alien vs Predator are both tons of fun! It's a shame they never got home console ports, though Alien vs. Predator did make an appearance on Capcom's enormously sized (and enormously priced) Home Arcade stick. Given the options you're probably best off just checking this one out via emulation

Yeah I think your right, but for some reason I never really got into Arcade emulation. Mame is something that I never took the time to look into, but one day I would really like to try to play a handful of arcade games that weren't ported to home console systems.

 

On 4/1/2021 at 11:57 AM, thegoldenband said:

Thank you! Action 52 is almost always a case where "beating" the game means looping back to Level 1, but there are some exceptions like The Ooze. A lot of the games that were thought to crash or be unplayable turn out to work if you get the right ROM variant.

 

Unfortunately the games that are left are a real murderer's row, with the exception of Meong which shouldn't be too bad, and maybe Beeps N Blips which is probably doable. But otherwise it's basically the worst and most punishing games on the cart: Sharks, Storm Over the Desert, Spread Fire, and Micro Mike. I can imagine beating the first three with unlimited patience, but Micro Mike I don't know that I'll ever be able to beat.

Your welcome. I would think that it would be a daunting/punishing task to beat allot of those games. It is interesting to know that if you find the right ROM variant, then most of those games are actually playable. Good luck trying to complete the rest of the games on the list.

Edited April 3, 2021 by Nintendo64