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

[+thegoldenband]

My times for the week:

 

NES:
Solar Jetman - 62 min.

 

PlayStation:
The Curling (SuperLite 1500 Series) - 7 min.
Imadoki no Vampire: Bloody Bride - 518 min.
Simple 1500 Series Vol. 24: The Gun Shooting - 2 min.
Simple 1500 Series Vol. 100: The Uchuu Hikoushi (The Astronaut) - 5 min.

 

Spent almost all of my gaming time this week playing a goofy vampire-themed dating sim/RPG hybrid with my wife. It's a fan translation, and unfortunately crashed at a key point in the game, but we were able to run the original Japanese disc for long enough to get past that bit.

[+wongojack]

Amiga 

Wings 262

 

Gameboy Color

Game and Watch Gallery 2 105

 

 

As for Game and Watch Gallery 2, I love these collections.  This one has G&W Donkey Kong which is great.  I also played the modern version of Vermin quite a bit.  Mostly, I played a lot of Wings this week (I have even more time in the modern tracker).  I emulated it both within the Cinemaware collection in Steam AND in Win UAE.  Actually, a lot of the playtime was testing out various options as I was re-familiarizing myself with UAE.  I even ran the game in A1200 mode for a while because it seemed really sluggish.  Does that mean we log some time for the A1200?  I can't remember how we log Amiga time in the tracker.  Its an A500 game, so I vote it all goes there (if we even log separate time).

 

I played 3 versions of Wings fairly heavily this week:

• GBA - very interesting additions to the game IMO.  This version is great and even offers you the chance to fly for the Central powers, but the actual dogfighting is the worst of any version I played.
• Amiga - still a classic, but some of the features in the GBA version made me want more from this.  For example, it would be nice to see less of your plane when flying.  The version inside the built-in emulator in the Cinemware collection was fine.  I wouldn't go hunting some perfect emulation settings (like I did).
• Wings Remastered (for PC) - I spent the least amount of time with this one.  Immediately, I noticed how much easier it was which was kind of a let down.  I think it does get harder, but this version also lost some of its charm with the update.  I'll probably give it more of a chance in the future though.

 

 

[Nintendo64]

Didn't play much for this week, but here are the games I played

 

Atari 2600

 

Demon Attack                -15 Minutes             Again I really enjoy playing this game, especially with some 80s music in the background. I think one of the best things about this game tracking thread is that it got me into playing the Atari 2600 for the first time last year, and I have really enjoyed some of the games I have played for the system.

 

Acid Drop                        -10 Minutes            This is a really fun game that is similar to a Tetris-like puzzle game. I was actually surprised to find out that this was the last commercially released retail game for the Atari 2600 in 1992. That is a pretty impressive run for a system, spanning from 1977 to 1992 for retail releases.

 

NES

 

Super Contra 2               -5 Minutes              This is a Contra hack that is very fun, yet very difficult to play. I really enjoy picking up and playing this game, as for it is very challenging to even get past the first level. I highly recommend this game if you like challenging Contra games.

Edited January 18, 2021 by Nintendo64

[Nintendo64]

  

16 hours ago, carlsson said:

Nibbler

This looks like a fun game to play. It looks like a mix between pacman and snake, a game I remember playing on my first nokia phone a long time ago.

 

On 1/15/2021 at 1:23 PM, agb said:

Berzerk

This game looks really fun, and I hope to get a chance to play more of it in the near future. I think I saw somewhere on this forum that someone did a remake of it for the NES, and it looked like a really good version of the game to play as well.

 

22 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Sonic 3 & Knuckles

These Sonic games are really fun. I was on a Sonic kick last year where I played through a few of the games for the series.

 

9 hours ago, thegoldenband said:

Solar Jetman

I have never heard of this game until I looked it up. It looks fun to play, and reminds me of another game on the NES, but I can't quite remember the name of the game.

 

5 hours ago, wongojack said:

Amiga 

Wings

I have never played the Amiga before, but the graphics look really nice, and the gameplay for Wings looks like an interesting take for a shooter type of game.

Edited January 18, 2021 by Nintendo64

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Kaboom! - 15 minutes

Solar Fox - 34 minutes

 

 

[digdugnate]

I got distracted by modern games, so not much love on the classic front.

 

Arcade:

Burger Time --  45 minutes

Donkey Kong 3 -- 45 minutes

 

[Skippy B. Coyote]

A heck of a week for gaming around here this week! My big focus of the week was the Metroid series, playing through Metroid II for the Game Boy on my Game Boy Color via the EverDrive GB X7 early in the week, then spending the rest of the week playing through Super Metroid for the SNES via Nintendo Switch Online and using a SNES Classic Edition controller for an authentic Super Nintendo feel. This week marks the first time in my life I've ever beaten Super Metroid, and holy heck what a game! It was definitely one of the absolute best video games I've ever played, and the ending was shocking emotional for a game from the 16-bit era. I'm not generally prone to getting misty eyed over video games, but having just finished Metroid II before playing Super Metroid... well... I'm not gonna lie, the ending made me cry a little bit >_<

 

As far as other gaming this week went, the misses spent a little bit of time trying to get past the part she seems to be stuck at in Phoenix Wright and I tried out Super Mario World for the first time and absolutely hated it. Not for any faults of the game mind you, I'm sure it's a great game, I've just always been utterly terrible at Mario games and find the floaty controls to be incredibly frustrating. So, I think I'll stick to Sonic for my 16-bit platforming needs

 

That's all for this week! Until next time, and as always, best wishes and happy gaming to you and yours!

 

 

 

 

Ineligible

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy (Nintendo Switch) - 50 minutes

 

Game Boy

Metroid II: Return of Samus - 306 minutes

 

Super Nintendo

Super Mario World - 245 minutes

Super Metroid - 1,145 minutes

 

 

Total Video Game Play Time This Week

1,746 minutes (29 hours 6 minutes) [1,696 minutes eligible]

 

Individual System Play Times This Week

Super Nintendo: 1,390 minutes

Game Boy: 306 minutes

Nintendo Switch: 50 minutes

[+wongojack]

5 hours ago, Skippy B. Coyote said:

A heck of a week for gaming around here this week! My big focus of the week was the Metroid series, playing through Metroid II for the Game Boy on my Game Boy Color via the EverDrive GB X7 early in the week, then spending the rest of the week playing through Super Metroid for the SNES via Nintendo Switch Online and using a SNES Classic Edition controller for an authentic Super Nintendo feel. This week marks the first time in my life I've ever beaten Super Metroid, and holy heck what a game! It was definitely one of the absolute best video games I've ever played, and the ending was shocking emotional for a game from the 16-bit era. I'm not generally prone to getting misty eyed over video games, but having just finished Metroid II before playing Super Metroid... well... I'm not gonna lie, the ending made me cry a little bit >_<

 

 

Wow - what an amazing account of Metroidy-ness

 

I've finished both Metroid II and Super Metroid, but I honestly can't say I remember the ending of either one.  What happened in the endings that had such an impact?

[Steven Pendleton]

15 hours ago, Nintendo64 said:

These Sonic games are really fun. I was on a Sonic kick last year where I played through a few of the games for the series.

Be sure to play them again and check out the glitches and dev oversights, especially in 3 & Knuckles. That game has an extremely large amount of funny glitches and some really fun oversights that you can use to do weird stuff like fighting Sonic's Marble Garden Act 2 boss as Knuckles (yes, Tails does carry Knuckles and it does work properly), fighting Knuckles' Marble Garden Act 2 boss as Sonic/Tails, fighting bosses in the bonus stages, taking characters to places they are not supposed to be able to get to (mostly Knux, but Sonic has a few, like getting him into Knuckles' Launch Base Act 2 using the overflow glitch), seeing events from Launch Base in Ice Cap, blue Knuckles that the game treats as Sonic and calls Tails but still has Knuckles' properties, and generally completely breaking the game.

 

9 hours ago, Skippy B. Coyote said:

Super Metroid

Did you do the reset glitch? Do it if you haven't, since it's a lot of fun to do weird stuff like killing Crocomire in 1 shot with the Plasma Beam.

[Atarian7]

Hey carlsson, it should be 39 minutes for Solar Fox, not 34.

 

[carlsson]

^^ Ok, got it! I'll do the stats in some 4-6 hours so there is still time for late additions.

[carlsson]

Here's the summary for Week 02, running from January 11 - 17. We logged 4061 minutes of eligible play, playing 43 games on a total of 18 systems.

 

Top 10:

 

1. Super Metroid (SNES) - 1145 min.
2. Imadoki no Vampire: Bloody Bride (PlayStation) - 518 min. (#10)
3. Metroid II: Return of Samus (Game Boy) - 306 min. (#4)
4. Sonic 3 & Knuckles [aka Complete Version] (Genesis) - 300 min.
5. Wings (Amiga) - 262 min.
6. Super Mario World (SNES) - 245 min.
7. Akumajou Dracula X: Gekka no Yasoukyoku (JP version of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night) (Sega Saturn) - 170 min. (#1)
8. M.U.L.E. (Atari 8-bit) - 128 min.
9. Game & Watch Gallery 2 (Game Boy Color) - 105 min.
10. Defender (ColecoVision) - 75 min.
10. Tobu Tobu Girl Deluxe (Game Boy) - 75 min.
 

Pre-NES top 10:

 

1. M.U.L.E. (Atari 8-bit) - 128 min.
2. Defender (ColecoVision) - 75 min.
3. Pac-Man Collection (Atari 7800) - 60 min.
3. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 60 min. (PN#1)
5. Frenzy (ColecoVision) - 50 min.
5. Pac-Man (proto) (ColecoVision) - 50 min.
7. BurgerTime (Arcade) - 45 min. (PN#8)
7. Donkey Kong 3 (Arcade) - 45 min.
9. Berzerk (Atari 2600) - 43 min.
10. Fast Eddie (Atari 2600) - 36 min.

 

Top 10 systems:

 

1. SNES (1409)
2. PlayStation (532) (#7)
3. Game Boy (381) (#5)
4. Genesis (323) (#10)
5. Amiga (262)
6. ColecoVision (229) (#3)
7. Atari 2600 (189) (#2)
8. Sega Saturn (170) (#4)
9. Atari 8-bit (140)
10. Arcade (109) (#6)
 

Samus Aran delivers a strong week, represented both in 1st placed Super Metroid and its direct predecessor Metroid II: Return of Samus in 3rd place. Between them is a vampire themed dating simulator which in time is more contemporary with TV series like Buffy than True Blood. The pre-NES list is topped by the old time "video board game" M.U.L.E. followed by a mix of ColecoVision, Atari and Arcade games. The systems list is dominated by the SNES (almost 35%) and the variation remains high with 18 different systems.

 

None of the games exceed 1000, 5000 or 10000 minutes.

[Atarian7]

The Atari 2600 didn't make it into the top 10 list.  I wonder if that is a first.

 

[carlsson]

Nicely spotted! It is a rare occurrence but not previously unheard of. In week 16, 2020 the Atari 2600 also didn't reach the overall top 10 but that time it was only 2 minutes short, compared to 15 minutes this week.

[Atarian7]

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. 

 

 

[carlsson]

It sounds like a suitable joystick for playing racing games, if those are programmed to shift gear with joystick up and down.

[Steven Pendleton]

Not much here this time. One of my friends stopped by 12 hours ago and we played a few games but I didn't keep track of the exact times. Interestingly enough, 2 of the games we played were things that I'd already played this week, Xeno Crisis and Akumajou Dracula for the FDS, so I estimated times for the other games we played and added some extra time to those 2 games.

 

Genesis/MD
Hellfire - 4
Sonic the Hedgehog - 55

I actually played Switch Sega Ages Sonic, which adds the drop dash from Sonic Mania. Maybe I should put it over on modern side like I did with the PSP version of Symphony of the Night since this is a unique release of this game due to the drop dash, but I'll put it here this time.
Xeno Crisis - 133 (estimate)

Have I told you that you need to play Xeno Crisis? Well, you do, so now I have.

 

Arcade
Gradius - 16

 

FDS
Akumajou Dracula - 52 (estimate)

 

Neo Geo AES/MVS

Shock Troopers - 35 (estimate)

 

FC/NES

Super Mario Bros. 3 - 10 (estimate)

Edited January 24, 2021 by Steven Pendleton

[oyamafamily]

ATARI 7800:

Pac-Man Collection - 65 minutes

 

ATARI LYNX:

Ms. Pac-Man - 88 minutes

 

COLECOVISION:

Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom - 5 minutes

Frenzy - 40 minutes

Pac-Man Collection - 50 minutes

Tutankham - 10 minutes

 

EVIDENCES OF THE WEEK:

1) My new score on CV Pac-Man Collection - Pac-Man Normal skill - 180,000 points

 

2) My LYNX Ms. Pac-Man gameplay footage - 80,980 points on Cherries / Arcade Maze

 

Edited January 24, 2021 by oyamafamily

[carlsson]

Atari 8-bit:
Nibbler - 44 min.

 

Not much to write about, in the middle of the current HSC round. I was planning to play some more but that would have to wait for another week.

 

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week (January 18th through 24th) on classic systems...

 

Arcade:

Mario Bros - 117 min. in 4 sessions

 

Atari 2600:

Alligator people - 30 min.

 

I played 2 different games this week. In Mario Bros., I finally managed to reach the KO round, which is phase 25. After that, however, it continues counting KO + 1, KO + 2, KO + 3 andl KO + 4, but then it reverts back to KO, however the numerical phase display at the start of each round keeps counting up, but the game doesn't seem to get any faster. It's at its breaking point at that point however with occasional slowdowns occurring. So I think I've beaten that one.

 

Alligator people actually seems to be a very relevant game to the current COVID-19 situation in that you play as a syringe and have to spray antidote at people who slowly turn to alligators in order to cure them. And the antidote is scarce, very much like the COVID-19 vaccine now given to people. I caught myself giving names to objects in the game which I didn't use when I last played the game, which was way before COVID-19 broke out. For instance, the yellow things you collect are now clearly doses. Nowadays you see syringes and people treated with them on TV every day, and the number of doses available comes up regularly as well, so the content of this game feels quite different than it did a year ago. And it wouldn't be difficult to rewrite the backstory so that it's about COVID-19 instead.

[agb]

Times for the week

Atari 2600

Demons to Diamonds 26

Eggomania 33

Solar Fox 30

all fun

[+thegoldenband]

My times for the week:

 

NES:
Sword Master - 209 min.

 

PlayStation:
Buttsubushi - 2 min.
Hyper Final Match Tennis - 313 min.
Imadoki no Vampire: Bloody Bride - 482 min.

 

Beat Sword Master and HFMT -- thoughts on those here -- and, with my wife, played through another 9 months or so in the life of a teenage vampire.

[+wongojack]

Amiga 500

Beneath a Steel Sky 6

Super Cars 90

Super Cars II 33

Wings 301

 

Amiga 1200

Slam Tilt 35

Super Cars II 11

 

Gameboy Color

LoZ Oracle of Seasons 207

 

 

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 floppy disk images of almost every Amiga game ever released, so I guess I will just continue to use those for emulation.  Still not sure how to log Amiga time.  The 1200 is definitely a different computer than the 500, so I kept them separate.  I don't really have a strong opinion about how it is ultimately recorded.

 

I played the same 3 versions of Wings this week that I played last week (others logged in modern tracker).  I managed to reach the Armistice on the GBA version which was somewhat satisfying.  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.

[carlsson]

25 minutes ago, wongojack said:

Still not sure how to log Amiga time. 

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.

Edited January 25, 2021 by carlsson

[Skippy B. Coyote]

Another busy, busy week of gaming around here this past week! I spent most of it just sorta casually playing through The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX, a good chunk of which was spent overnight in the hospital one night when I had to go into the ER for some pretty severe abdominal pain. Thankfully it ended up not being anything serious, just some really badly pulled muscles or a tweaked nerve cluster, and at least I got in a good bit of gaming time while I was there. 

 

Outside of Link's Awakening on the Game boy Color, and a couple playthroughs of Operation C on the Game Boy (which is actually a Contra game and has nothing to do with any sort of medical operation) I just played Super Nintendo via Nintendo Switch Online for the rest of the week. I had a lotta fun doing a full playthrough of Super Castlevania IV, which I'm pretty sure at this point is my favorite classic pre-Symphony of the Night Castlevania game, and I did a couple playthroughs of Star Fox as well. First I beat Star Fox on Level 1 difficulty, then I tried the Level 2 route and actually ended up not only beating Level 2 difficulty for the first time ever but actually beat it on one credit without using any continues at all! This week I also learned that... I still don't like Super Mario World. In fact, I kinda hate it because the controls are super slippery and I can't seem to last more than 20 seconds without accidentally running into an enemy or slipping off a ledge, but I keep trying to like it anyway because apparently it's a classic.

 

As far as the misses' gaming time for the past week went, it was just a couple more hours of Phoenix Wright and that was pretty much it. I'm not sure exactly what's on the gaming agenda for next week, but we do have an original PlayStation system modded with an XStation optical drive emulator coming from Powr Up Gaming in February so there will definitely be a lot of PS1 gaming happening around here in the late winter and early spring. That's all for this week, so until next time and as always, best wishes and happy gaming to you and yours! 

 

 

 

 

Ineligible

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy (Nintendo Switch) - 130 minutes

 

Game Boy

Operation C - 150 minutes

 

Game Boy Color

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX - 293 minutes

 

Super Nintendo

Star Fox - 194 minutes

Super Castlevania IV - 370 minutes

Super Mario World - 187 minutes

 

 

Total Video Game Play Time This Week

1,324 minutes (22 hours 4 minutes) [1,194 minutes eligible]

 

Individual System Play Times This Week

Super Nintendo: 751 minutes

Game Boy Color: 293 minutes

Game Boy: 150 minutes

Nintendo Switch: 130 minutes