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

[DragonGrafx-16]

1 hour ago, Prosystemsearch said:

Wait, why is it quite hard on the Dreamcast's internal laser when it comes to reading burned games? But yet its not so much the case for the laser of the PC-Engine CD, Sega CD, and Sega Saturn? ?

Dreamcast bootleg games exploit a format not used for retail games. Normal Dreamcast games are GDRom which is slightly larger than nornal CDs. PC Engine and Sega CD are audio CD format and have no copy protection. Saturn is also audio CD format but has copy protection which is defeated using modded hardware or a Psuedo Saturn cart.

Edited July 21, 2021 by DragonGrafx-16

[+jgkspsx]

3 hours ago, Prosystemsearch said:

Wait, why is it quite hard on the Dreamcast's internal laser when it comes to reading burned games? But yet its not so much the case for the laser of the PC-Engine CD, Sega CD, and Sega Saturn? ?

I have heard, without much substantiation, that burned games will quickly kill a PC engine/Turbografx/Duo CD. If you’ve ever tried to rip a Super CD you have likely discovered that they did some really weird things when pressing those CDs that make it hard to rip them with conventional imaging software, so the conjecture is that “normal” CDs are harder on the hardware. I don’t really believe it, but that’s what people say.

 

Given what the poor Dreamcast drive goes through for pressed GD-ROMs, it’s a miracle that any are still running. GRINDING NOISES INTENSIFY

[+wongojack]

On 7/20/2021 at 2:12 PM, carlsson said:

Just curious if it also was a dedicated cab.

[carlsson]

So that is a custom, aftermarket marquee etc? Nice done, probably makes a lot of visitors think this is a 1981/82 original release.

[+wongojack]

6 minutes ago, carlsson said:

So that is a custom, aftermarket marquee etc? Nice done, probably makes a lot of visitors think this is a 1981/82 original release.

Yes.  The control panel was also all custom, and I assume the side art but I don't remember looking at that.

[Steven Pendleton]

I am pretty tired, so I will post a bit earlier than I usually do and go to sleep early. Happy birthday to Thunder Force IV, which turned 29 yesterday.

 

Neo Geo AES/MVS
Baseball Stars 2 - 38
Fatal Fury - 7
Fatal Fury Special - 2
The King of Fighters '98 - 33
Metal Slug - 20 (estimate)
Neo Turf Masters - 49 (estimate)
Real Bout Fatal Fury - 3
Real Bout Fatal Fury 2 - 10
Real Bout Fatal Fury Special - 25 (estimate)
Shock Troopers - 5

 

FC/NES
Akumajou Densetsu - 3
Slow Mole - 8

This is a new game that was released several weeks ago that you can go download for free. Apparently there is a not-free version with more stuff being released on cartridge soon. Not sure what to think of it, but it's an interesting way to waste some time, I suppose.

 

Arcade
Thunder Force AC - 25

 

Genesis/Mega Drive
Thunder Force IV - 52

 

Saturn
Thunder Force IV -39
Thunder Force V - 33

 

Game Boy
Solar Striker - 6

[oyamafamily]

ATARI 5200:

Defender - 46 minutes

Ms. Pac-Man - 4 minutes

Pac-Man - 75 minutes

 

ATARI 7800:

Pac-Man Collection - 61 minutes

Summer Games - 10 minutes

 

ATARI 8-BIT:

Food Fight - 58 minutes

Joust - 5 minutes

Jr. Pac-Man - 49 minutes

Ms. Pac-Man - 42 minutes

Pac-Man [Atari Version] - 53 minutes

Pac-Man Arcade [tep392] - 40 minutes

 

EVIDENCES OF THE WEEK: My new gameplay footages on Atari 8-BIT

1) Jr. Pacman Root Beer - 63780 pts

 

2) Ms. Pacman Orange and Pretzel matches

 

3) Food Fight Beginner - 5017800 pts (this video recorded on Altirra Emulator)

 

Edited July 25, 2021 by oyamafamily

[digdugnate]

Really just dribs and drabs this week for Classic Gaming- I think I'm pretty well done.  Overall, it was a 'quiet' week for gaming at Casa Digdug.

 

Arcade:

Frogger -- 30 minutes

Street Fighter Alpha 2 -- 15 minutes

 

Sega Genesis:

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 -- 30 minutes

 

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week (July 19th through 25th) on classic systems:

 

Adventurevision:

Turtles - 3

 

Arcade:

Donkey Kong 3 - 22 min.

Jr. Pac-Man - 138 min. in 8 sessions

Jungle King - 7 min. in 2 sessions

Kangaroo - 37 min

Mr. TNT - 3 min.

Pengo - 12 min

Space Firebird - 24 min.

Tetris (SEGA) - 8 min.

Time Pilot - 5 min.

 

This week, apart from playing Turtles on the Adventurevision for a few minutes, I played an assortment of arcade games. In Jr. Pac-Man which again is the game played for the most time, I didn't get any farther. In Jungle King, I didn't manage to cross the river.  I noticed, however, that there is a rope hanging over the water which you can never reach because Tarzan jumps into the water instead at that point.

In Kangaroo, I managed to complete the first set of levels after several tries. In Mr. TNT, I only managed to beat Level 1, but not more than that... I rememer the C-64 version was easier though. In Pengo, I cleared some levels, and in Time Pilot the game ended at the Jets level.

 

Then I played Space Firebird, an early Nintendo game which has similarities to Donkey Kong 3, which I plaayed next.

 

As for Tetris, I played the SEGA version this time which was only available in Japan probably because Atari Games had the arcade rights for the rest of the world. Both companies used relatively modest hardware for the time... both are 8-bit systems despite coming out in 1987 and 1988. The Atari version uses a 6502 CPU and, I think, 2 POKEY's for sound while the SEGA version uses a Z80 and... well... actually it seems this is based on Master System hardware, also judgeable from the sound it emits which only features square waves, no FM sound. Gameplay-wise, The SEGA version is simpler than the Atari version by not breaking up the game into distinct levels, but rather you only have one continuous game. Surprisingly, on the SEGA version the speed reduces again on Level 10, similar to what happens on Nintendo's Game & Watch games.

[carlsson]

Atari 8-bit:
Caverns of Mars II - 146 min.
Phobox - 60 min.

 

C64:
Summer Games II - 100 min.

 

A8 times obviously are due to the HSC, with a few really enjoyable games this time around: easy enough to get into, tricky enough to get very far in.

 

I visited a BBQ party with friends and we tried to play Summer Games II. Unfortunately it turned out that the fencing event is of the kind everyone meets everyone if you have two joysticks, which means 5 players equals 10 rounds x surely 2-3 minutes each which was a little too much for my friends' attention spans so we never finished the game. Everyone have grown up with vintage computers (Commodore, Sinclair or Atari) but most are in the age when they only collect games to put on a shelf than playing those, and they prefer to listen to music over playing 30++ year old games so the amount of playing we obtained was more than expected.

 

[DragonGrafx-16]

Aleste (Sega Mark III/ Master System) 12 mins

Power Strike II (Sega Master System) 7 mins

(both played on Aleste Collection on Switch)

 

Super Mario World (SNES) 32 mins

(played on Switch) 

[+thegoldenband]

My times for the week:

 

Master System:
Andre Agassi Tennis - 34 min.

 

Genesis:
XDR: X-Dazedly-Ray - 40 min.

 

3DO:

Guardian War - 91 min.
Iron Angel of the Apocalypse: The Return - 345 min.

Montana Jones - 111 min.
Rise of the Robots - 122 min.

 

Beat Iron Angel etc. and Montana Jones, and also cleared Rise of the Robots on Easy and Medium difficulties.

[+jgkspsx]

Sega Genesis:
 

Target Earth - 15 minutes. aka Assault Suit Leynos. Man, is this hard.

 

Pocahontas - 15 minutes. Way underrated Flashback-meets-Metroid game. Clearly the primary inspiration for Tanglewood, but if you ask me the two characters make this one more interesting than that excellent game right out of the gate.

 

James Pond 3 - Operation Starfish - 15 minutes. Gotta go fish! I mean fast. I mean… you know.
 

Skitchin’ - 25 minutes. Road Rash 2 and 1/2… a little too complicated to really hit the Road Rash buttons, but not a bad game.

 

Sega Game Gear:
 

Sylvan Tale - 60 minutes. Making a serious attempt to complete this for once. It’s a little rough compared to Zelda but it is marvelously fast and smooth.

X Men in Mojo World - 15 minutes. This very uncommon game is just an expansion pack for earlier X-men games.

 

The Chessmaster - 60 minutes. The default difficulty plays like a five year old. I am not ashamed to say I mopped the floor with it again and again just to feel better about my very poor chess skills.

 

Tesserae - 20 minutes. This is a confusing game. It’s essentially peg solitaire but with different colors of pegs. And they fuse together into intermediate colors. And then it’s a whole mess.

 

Stargate - 40 minutes. This is a boring puzzle game, and a frustrating one (if you start messing up you will be doomed in a hurry). But somehow it’s strangely addictive. I played it while watching the deeply stupid but undeniably entertaining Stargate movie.

 

Sega Mark III

 

Aleste - 25 minutes. Pretty rough compared to later games in the series, but a damn good time anyway.

 

Atari 2600

 

FlapPing - 30 minutes. I finally skunked the computer.

 

 

Balloon Trip - 35 minutes. Random levels and no music mean that this is not quite the masterwork that the NES original is, but this is still a lot of fun.

 

 

NEC Supergrafx:

 

Aldynes - 65 minutes. This game is just sadistic. I got to (EDIT: only) level 5 with some assistance from save states.

 

Turbografx CD:

 

Ys Book I & II - Ancient Ys Vanished - 20 minutes. Just did some grinding.

 

Vectrex:

 

Stramash Zone - 60 minutes. Spent significant time with each of the modes and with both a double joystick and a single. It’s an amazing accomplishment but it is a little frustratingly slow and I’m concerned about what it’s doing to my poor Vectrex CRT.

[carlsson]

3 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

Sega Genesis:
Target Earth - 15 minutes. aka Assault Suit Leynos.

I noticed that Assault Suit Leynos is the JP title while Target Earth is the US title. Both have been logged before. From what I could see, Target Earth is somewhat censored when it comes to gore and sexual references, but otherwise I don't know if the game is different enough to list both. I know we have dozens of examples of this in the tracker and a decision is made per entry if multiple versions should be listed together or separately, so anyone with knowledge or opinions may chime in.

Edited July 26, 2021 by carlsson

[twoquickcapri]

Sega Saturn:

Grandia - 104 min.

 

Nintendo Virtual Boy:
Wario Land - 262 min.

 

Did end up going back and beating Final Fantasy X. Was at the last save point of the game but just could not beat the second form of "sin". Ended up grinding for around 4 hours and beat him with no problem. Only FF games I have to left beat are 2, 12 and 15. Not including mmorpg and direct sequel.

 

Got a controller extension cord for the consolized Virtual Boy I built last year. Never got around to playing anything on it due to the short controller cable. Now I can be a whole 5 feet away for the system and it's great.

[Steven Pendleton]

1 hour ago, carlsson said:

I noticed that Assault Suit Leynos is the JP title while Target Earth is the US title. Both have been logged before. From what I could see, Target Earth is somewhat censored when it comes to gore and sexual references, but otherwise I don't know if the game is different enough to list both. I know we have dozens of examples of this in the tracker and a decision is made per entry if multiple versions should be listed together or separately, so anyone with knowledge or opinions may chime in.

It gets even more confusing when the title screen of Assault Suit Leynos says Assault Suits Leynos. So is it plural or not? Make up your mind, developers... I know that it's probably a Japanese -> English thing, though, as スーツ translates as suit but is romanized as suutsu, so I'm sure someone got confused and put Assault Suits Leynos on the title screen even though the box clearly says Assault Suit Leynos.

 

I actually found a copy of the PS4 remake today, which is totally not related, but interesting. It's quite expensive, as used copies now apparently are selling for 25000 yen each. The original MD version is quite cheap for a Japanese MD game and is very easy to find.

[carlsson]

At least I understand that suit is a noun here, part of a combat machine known as assault suit, unlike e.g. Leisure suits Larry...

 

Edit: Fool on me, the other title really is Leisure Suit Larry, without the s so I assume it is not "suit" as verb in that case neither.

Edited July 26, 2021 by carlsson

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom! - 90 minutes

Moon Patrol - 62 minutes

Solar Fox - 114 minutes

 

Made it to Rack 88 and a score of 1,732,200 on Solar Fox.  It takes me about 11 minutes to get to 1 million.

[agb]

1 hour ago, Atarian7 said:

Atari 2600

Kaboom! - 90 minutes

Moon Patrol - 62 minutes

Solar Fox - 114 minutes

 

Made it to Rack 88 and a score of 1,732,200 on Solar Fox.  It takes me about 11 minutes to get to 1 million.

Nice Solar Fox score. I track my solar Fox time using 10 minutes per million. I skip most racks during the game. Nice moon patrol score also in the HSC. 

[agb]

Times for the week

Atari 2600

 

Astroblast 38

Commando Raid FB HSC 18

Moon Patrol HSC 39

Solar Fox 50

 

forgot to post Taz three weeks ago 20

 

HSC has ended. Didn’t even make the playoffs. Terrible season for me against great competitors. Good luck to Oyamafamily and Atarian7 in the playoffs. 

[Skippy B. Coyote]

This was really one of those, "I have no idea what I want to play" kinda weeks for me, so I just played a bit of this and that. I started off the week playing some arcade fighting games I hadn't tried before and discovered that Vampire Savior (Darkstalkers 3) is absolutely awesome, I think I played through it a good 4 or 5 times. After that I decided to compare how Mortal Kombat II looked on the sharp 1080p modern display of my MVSX cabinet versus how it looked on the old standard definition Sony Trinitron CRT TV I have my Sega Genesis hooked up to, and I think I actually prefer the sharp modern 1080p look. I wouldn't be surprised if someday I find myself selling all my old original hardware and replacing them with Analogue systems and the like with 1080p output for playing on the modern TV, but I'm also kinda lazy and trying to sell all my original hardware sounds like waaaaay too much work and hassle so I can't see that happening anytime soon.

 

After muddling around with some fighting games for awhile I finally got around to trying out a couple games I picked up on sale for $2 each on the Nintendo Switch eShop not long ago, The First Tree and Furwind. I really enjoyed The First Tree and it's relaxing calmly narrated story, in spite of the game's hilariously awful controls. There was something pretty amusing about just how horrendously bad the controls were though, since it's not exactly a demanding game and is mostly just a sorta laid back 3 hour long walking simulator with a touching story to listen to along the way, so the controls weren't too important. Furwind on the other hand is a game that demands you break out your best d-pad equipped controller, because holy cow is that game ever hard! It's a 2D platformer with some charming pixel art and pretty fun gameplay, but the difficulty can be pretty punishing at times. There's a reason Furwind gives you unlimited lives by default, because you're gonna need them. 

 

The only other games I played this past week were a variety of Doom titles. At first I started replaying the 2016 Doom reboot but decided I didn't really feel like it, then Id Software surprise dropped a new free add-on for classic Doom II so I decided to give it a play. Earthless: Prelude is a 12 level expansion from the makers of Deathless, which was by far my favorite new Doom expansion to come out last year, and the team did just as amazing of a job with Earthless: Prelude! It really felt like an episode that could have been designed by the folks at Id Software back in the day, with great pacing and really cool and interesting level design. Definitely give it a play if you're in the market for some new Doom content! After Earthless: Prelude was finished I started in on a playthrough of Doom 3, and I'll probably be continuing it over most of next week. For now though, I'll leave you with a pretty screenshot from The First Tree and say that I hope you're all doing well and enjoying your summer!

 

 

 

 

Ineligible (All Nintendo Switch)

DOOM (2016) - 15 minutes

Doom II (Classic), Earthless: Prelude - 365 minutes

Doom 3 - 95 minutes

The First Tree - 210 minutes

Furwind - 245 minutes

 

Arcade

Dig Dug - 9 minutes

Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge - 18 minutes

Pac-Man Plus - 6 minutes

Vampire Savior - 84 minutes

 

Neo Geo AES/MVS

Samurai Shodown II - 34 minutes

 

Sega Genesis

Mortal Kombat II - 64 minutes

 

 

Total Video Game Play Time This Week

1,145 minutes (19 hours 5 minutes) [215 minutes eligible]

 

Individual System Play Times This Week

Nintendo Switch: 930 minutes

Arcade: 117 minutes

Sega Genesis: 64 minutes

Neo Geo AES/MVS: 34 minutes

 

[carlsson]

Here's the summary for Week 29, running from July 19 - 25. We logged 3747 minutes of eligible play, playing 81 games on a total of 20 systems.

 

Top 10:

 

1. Iron Angel of the Apocalypse: The Return (3DO) - 345 min. (#9)
2. Wario Land (Virtual Boy) - 262 min.
3. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 164 min.
4. Caverns of Mars II (Atari 8-bit) - 146 min.
5. Jr. Pac-Man (Arcade) - 138 min.
6. Rise of the Robots (3DO) - 122 min.
7. Montana Jones (3DO) - 111 min.
8. Grandia (Sega Saturn) - 104 min.
9. Moon Patrol (Atari 2600) - 101 min.
10. Summer Games 2 (C64) - 100 min.
 

Pre-NES top 10:

 

1. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 164 min. (PN#3)
2. Caverns of Mars II (Atari 8-bit) - 146 min. (PN#9)
3. Jr. Pac-Man (Arcade) - 138 min. (PN#6)
4. Moon Patrol (Atari 2600) - 101 min.
5. Summer Games 2 (C64) - 100 min.
6. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 90 min.
7. Pac-Man (Atari 5200) - 75 min.
8. Pac-Man Collection (Atari 7800) - 61 min.
9. Phobos (Atari 8-bit) - 60 min. (PN#1)
10. Stramash Zone (Vectrex) - 60 min.

 

Top 10 systems:

 

1. 3DO (669) (#6)
2. Atari 2600 (496) (#7)
3. Atari 8-bit (453) (#2)
4. Arcade (443) (#8)
5. Virtual Boy (262)
6. Genesis (256) (#1)
7. Neo Geo AES/MVS (226)
8. Game Gear (195)
9. Sega Saturn (176) (#10)
10. Atari 5200 (125)
 

While the overall top two games are post-NES, these games - Iron Angel of the Apocalypse: The Return and Wario Land - both represent far less seen formats 3DO and Virtual Boy. The order is restored on the pre-NES list with Solar Fox in first place, though only 18 minutes ahead of Caverns of Mars II followed by Jr. Pac-Man.

 

Apparently Sonic has ran away, which makes the Genesis drop from #1 to #6, while instead it is the above mentioned 3DO that becomes the most played of the week.

 

No new entries to the 1000, 5000 or 1000 Minute Clubs this week. In case anyone forgot to post their minutes, please do and I'll add them for next week.

[TheGameCollector]

Yeah I didn't have time to play in either section this week. I'm spending time converting my wife's DVD collection to mp4 (well, m4v I think as that saves chapter markers) as well as importing my cd collection.

[Steven Pendleton]

I got that Akura thingy for my Dreamcast a few days ago, so I spent some time testing various Dreamcast games with it. It's okay. It's absolutely not the ultimate Dreamcast HDMI box that it's advertised as, as it uses some pretty cheap generic components that are also used in those terrible Pound and LevelHike cables and there are problems with the aspect ratio and some other stuff because of this. Image quality is generally very good, but be careful in case you decide to buy one.

 

Saturn
Radiant Silvergun - 60

 

Genesis/MD
Gaiares - 15
Sonic the Hedgehog - 41
Xeno Crisis - 13

 

Dreamcast
Ikaruga - 7
Power Stone - 16
Sonic Adventure (Japan) - 43
Sonic Adventure 2 - 20
Soulcalibur - 5
Xeno Crisis - 12

 

SFC/SNES
Super Metroid - 6

 

Neo Geo AES/MVS
Garou: Mark of the Wolves - 20

[carlsson]

Atari 8-bit:
Caverns of Mars I - 16 min.
Caverns of Mars II - 77 min.
Night Rescue (1984) - 83 min.
Night Rescue 1941 - 70 min.
Phobos - 102 min.

 

All HSC main or bonus games. Caverns of Mars I is the vertically scrolling one that was not part of the HSC round but I was curious to compare to Phobos. Then we have the original BASIC listing for Night Rescue that has coarse scrolling, faster accelerating balloon and generally is hard as heck compared to the new version (1941).