What have you actually PLAYED tracker for 2022 (Season 15)

[carlsson]

Here's the summary for Week 25, running from June 20 - 26. We logged 1931 minutes of eligible play, playing 51 games on a total of 21 systems.

 

Top 10:

 

1. Action 52 (Genesis) - 225 min.
2. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 177 min.
3. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 106 min. (#6)
4. Blast Off Pinball V1 (Radio Shack) (Handheld/Tabletop) - 85 min.
4. Klax (Atari 7800) - 85 min.
6. GhostRush (CoCo 1 & 2) - 80 min. (#4)
7. Granada (Genesis) - 75 min.
7. Pinball Master (Radio Shack) (Handheld/Tabletop) - 75 min.
9. Pokemon Red Version (Game Boy) - 68 min. (#1)
10. Klax (Arcade) - 66 min.

 

Pre-NES top 10:

 

1. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 177 min. (PN#10)
2. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 106 min. (PN#3)
3. Klax (Atari 7800) - 85 min.
4. GhostRush (CoCo 1 & 2) - 80 min. (PN#2)
5. H.E.R.O. (Commodore 64) - 45 min.
5. Tutankam (CoCo 1 & 2) - 45 min.
7. Eggomania (Atari 2600) - 35 min. (PN#1)
8. Defender (Arcade) - 29 min.
9. Crystal Castles (Arcade) - 25 min.
9. Solar Quest (Vectrex) - 25 min.

 

Top 10 systems:

 

1. Atari 2600 - 319 min. (#1)
2. Genesis - 300 min. (#9)
3. Handheld/Tabletop - 267 min.
4. Arcade - 201 min. (#4)
5. CoCo 1 & 2 - 125 min. (#6)
6. NES/Famicom - 97 min. (#3)
7. Atari 7800 - 95 min.
8. Game Boy - 89 min. (#2)
9. N64 - 85 min.
10. Atari ST - 55 min.

 

As the heat waves strike, people are busy at work or away on vacation, the numbers go down. It paves the way for Action 52 on the Genesis to become the most played game this week! The evergreen Kaboom! is in a strong second place and also takes the pre-NES title. Systems wise the Atari 2600 and Genesis are in top, but the handheld LCD and tabletop games are not very far behind!

 

A new entry to the 1000 Minute Club is Granada (Genesis) which becomes #495 with a total of 1022 minutes played.

 

[Steven Pendleton]

Looks like I'm adding at least one new game to the list of arcade games next week, as today I found some really cool stuff.

 

[Steven Pendleton]

Semi-scheduled stop at Mikado on Wednesday means arcade games. Got the clear on Hishouzame in the arcade, which felt really good. I have not been practicing it a lot recently, so it took me 4 attempts. Took breaks between Hishouzame sessions to play other things. Also a rare visit from the SuperGrafx, although I used the MiSTer since I was too lazy to actually set up the real SuperGrafx.

 

Neo Geo AES/MVS
Garou: Mark of the Wolves - 14
Neo Turf Masters - 5

 

Arcade
1941 Counter Attack (Japan) - 24
Battle Garegga - 5
Hishouzame - 40
Out Zone - 8
Sennou Game Teki-Paki - 5
Space Harrier - 5
The Typing of the Dead - 10
Thunder Dragon 2 - 3
VS. Super Mario Bros. - 5

VS. Super Mario Bros. was never available in arcades in Japan and Nintendo, being the typical jackasses they are, threatened legal action against arcade operators that imported it back in the 80s or something like that. What a garbage company, unless it was for using the various bootleg versions.

 

SuperGrafx
Aldynes - 10

 

G/MD
Metal Slug (beta) - 8

It's this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I guess evil is talkative and that's bad for some reason. Yeah, this is the Typing of the Dead cabinet. The keyboards are Dreamcast keyboards, which I guess makes sense since this is running on a NAOMI, which is basically a Dreamcast.

 

 

 

 

 

^ you know your local arcade is badass when it has Battle Garegga, Hishouzame, Thunder Dragon 2, The Typing of the Dead, Space Harrier, Neo Turf Masters, and Teki-Paki. Proof of Hishouzame clear:

 

 

4th place is me, as well, but I got frustrated and didn't bother to put my name in there and walked away.

Edited July 3, 2022 by Steven Pendleton

[Prosystemsearch]

Here are my times: 

 

Atari 2600: 

Q*bert- 6 minutes

Wizard of Wor- 2 minutes

The official Frogger (Supercharcher)- 3 1/2 minutes

Laserblast- 3 minutes

Kool-Aid Man- 5 minutes

Lock N' Chase- 10 minutes

MIllipede- 3 minutes

Montezuma's Revenge- 3 minutes

Entombed- 3 minutes

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes back- 12 minutes 

Star Wars: Return of the Jedi Death Star Battle- 6 minutes

Super Breakout- 10 minutes

 

Game Boy:

Mortal Kombat 2- 1 1/2 minutes

Battletoads- 2 minutes

 

NES:

Arkanoid- 2 minutes

NARC- 9 minutes 

Baby Boomer (Unlicensed)- 11 minutes

Megaman- 5 minutes

Edited July 3, 2022 by Prosystemsearch

[carlsson]

Atari 8-bit:
Kik-Start - 17 min.
Preppie! - 9 min.
Skateboard (AMC Soft) - 15 min.
Skate Crazy (Atari User) - 8 min.
Topper - 5 min.

 

For the month of July we're playing something called "Summer of fun" with a mixed bag of games, also including BMX Simulator and Star League Baseball not yet featured above. We'll see exactly how much fun it is a few weeks in, but it was a good start with some variation.

 

Edited July 3, 2022 by carlsson

[Prosystemsearch]

Almost forgot that I also played about 7 minutes of Megaman 3 for the NES and roughly the same of Robot Tank for the Atari 2600 as well as 2600 Spiderman for about 3 1/2 minutes!  OOPS!

Edited July 3, 2022 by Prosystemsearch

[Kurt_Woloch]

Here are my times for this past week (June 27th through July 3rd, 2021)...

 

sorry, again no gaming this week, and I do not yet know when it will resume.

[+wongojack]

A2600 

Enduro 32 

 

Just one game for me in either tracker this week.  I'm on vacation in the UK and not finding/making time for video games.

[oyamafamily]

ATARI 2600:

Pac-Man - 84 minutes

 

ATARI 7800:

KLAX - 135 minutes

 

ATARI LYNX:

KLAX - 310 minutes

 

GAMEBOY COLOR

KLAX - 50 minutes

 

NES / FAMICOM

KLAX - 15 minutes

 

SEGA GENESIS

KLAX - 20 minutes

 

EVIDENCES OF THE WEEK: My KLAX gameplay footages on several systems, which I dedicated specially to LGBTQIA+ people, who deserve more respect and dignity in the entire world. This week we celebrated the LGBTQIA+ International Pride Day.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 4, 2022 by oyamafamily

[+thegoldenband]

My times for the week:

 

NES:

Bump 'n Jump - 32 min.

Kung Fu - 76 min.

Kyonshiizu 2 - 3 min.

 

Beat one loop each of Game A and B in Kung Fu, the latter as a 1LC (i.e. without losing a life).

[Atarian7]

Atari 2600

Hunchy II - 3 minutes

Kaboom! - 37 minutes

Solar Fox - 50 minutes

 

 

[agb]

Arcade

Klax 19

 

Atari 2600

Solar Fox 77

[TheGameCollector]

This week I played:

 

Pokemon Red Version for Game Boy - 719 minutes

Super Mario Bros.: Level-Headed v.0.3.9. - 26 minutes

 

Progress:

Pokemon Red - I finished leveling up all of the in game Pokemon into their evolved forms bringing the Pokedex to 123 which is the max before any trading. The next step is to copy my file to my PKHex folder and start new files to get just what I need to trade for. Things like alternate starters, alternate fossils etc.

 

Mario - I only had time to play one game. This one ended near the end of the game with a glitch where the level didn't scroll after Mario went down the flagpole, causing the game to be stuck.

 

I finally caught COVID this week so I probably have less game time than I would have. For a day and a half I felt too sick to do anything.

Gotta catch 'em all, COVIDmon. Funny but not funny.

 

I'm still sick but my work won't let me go back until after next Tuesday so I expect to get lots of game time in if I can stay feeling well enough. And thankfully I will be paid for my usual hours out of my sick time which is separate from PTO. Maybe I'll get to finish the Pokemon Red/Blue living dexes and move on. I'm more prone to play RPGs than action based games when I feel like this due to being kind of dizzy.

Edited July 4, 2022 by TheGameCollector

[carlsson]

20 minutes ago, TheGameCollector said:

Maybe I'll get to finish the Pokemon Red/Blue living dexes and move on.

Hint: Pokémon Red is now only 543 min away from the 10K club...

[TheGameCollector]

3 minutes ago, carlsson said:

Hint: Pokémon Red is now only 543 min away from the 10K club...

I can guarantee it will reach that eventually. I still have my unfinished 3DS files for when I get bored on the buses or at work on days where I'm done with the work early too. Last year the 3DS was my preference for playing the series, but getting my new PC in October changed all that.

[Skippy B. Coyote]

Just a tiny bit of Pac-Man Championship Edition on the NES for my classic gaming time this week, though I did play a ton of Metro 2033 Redux on the Switch for the modern tracker!

 

NES
Pac-Man Championship Edition - 5 minutes 

[onlyinajeep]

Acorn Archimedes

Lemmings - 100 minutes

 

Acorn Electron

Thrust - 20 minutes

 

Arcade (via MiSTer)

Birdiy - 20 minutes

Frogger - 10 minutes

 

CoCo2 

Moon Shuttle - 20 minutes

Tutankam - 110 minutes

 

Commodore Amiga

Torch 2081 - 80 minutes

 

Dragon 32

Shark Treasure - 25 minutes

 

MSX

Oils Well - 20 minutes

 

[+Cafeman]

Via Sega Saturn Williams Classics disc: 

 

Robotron (30 mins)

Joust (45 mins)

Defender (30 mins)

Defender II (15 mins)

Bubbles (15 mins)

 

Atari 5200 Megamania (30 mins)

 

[+jgkspsx]

Do we have parity between the trackers? I wonder...

 

Arcade:

Akka Arrh - 20 minutes

 

I feel like I'm missing something. Looks really cool, though.

 

 

Gravitar - 25 minutes

I am not good at this.

 

OutRun - 55 minutes

Slowly getting better...

 

 

Atari 2600:

Gravitar - 180 minutes

 

My Gravitar obsession continues. Posted two hours of video to YouTube and played another hour beyond that...

 

 

 

Wabbit - 30 minutes

Played the first game with an obviously female human protagonist.

 

 

It's hard, and quickly gets impossible, but I feel like it's a little more fair somehow than the very similar Strip-Off!, since the rabbits only come from one direction and the UFOs come from both directions.

 

Atari Jaguar:

Gravitic Mines - 35 minutes

Got back to #2 on the leaderboards for most of the training missions, made a video for the aedification of others. What do you mean, the training missions aren't the whole game? ohhhhh....

 

 

Fairchild Channel F:

Videocart 8: Mind Reader - 15 minutes

It's Mastermind, basically. Pretty fun.

 

Videocart 8: Nim - 85 minutes

Nim was the first game implemented with an electronic "AI" opponent in the Nim-a-tron at the 1939 World's Fair, but it has rarely been released for home consoles because it is pretty primitive and there's not much to look at. Well, it's only fitting that the Fairchild Channel F, the first programmable home video game console, got it on a cartridge. I used to know how to play it but completely lost it. I re-taught myself how to play it (by which I mean I read the manual) and look at me now! OK, I still lost the 9 pile variant but at least I held my own. Once you figure out the trick it's impossible to lose as long as you do the calculations right, but doing them for nine piles in your head is pretty engaging anyway.

 

 

 

Videocart 17: Pinball Challenge - 45 minutes

Mostly played game 1 but played around with the two player modes a bit. People hate this and I understand why, but I spent enough time with it as a kid that it feels natural enough to me. 

 

 

LCD/Tabletop:

Radio Shack Blast Off Pinball v2 - 35 minutes

I think it's not quite as good as their earlier efforts because it's weird (the ball moves in a sine wave!) but it does have an orbit, three ball locks, and multiball, so it's kind of a wash. Another $5 pickup with a lot of play value.

 

 

Radio Shack Space Alien - 20 minutes

It has a piezo buzzer but it only uses it for the alarm clock function. A silent game is sad, but it's probably less annoying to adults.

 

Tomy Tron - 45 minutes

The best tabletop of all time? It's certainly up there.

 

TomyTronic 3D Planet Zeon - 20 minutes

R-Zone eat yer heart out again.

 

NEC PC Engine:

Jinmu Denshou - 35 minutes

I'm too bad at this to post a video yet, but it's a pretty inventive 3D runner in the tradition of 3D World Runner. Crossed with Space Harrier bosses that take forever and a day to kill.

 

 

Oh, and you have a health bar instead of lives, and if the boss hits you too much you lose the ability to shoot them and have to slash them instead, which is almost impossible. It's another fun, creative, technically impressive, and hugely frustrating game from Wolf Team.

 

Nintendo NES/Famicom:

Airball - 75 minutes

I never knew this microcomputer classic of frustration and pain was almost released on the NES. Tengen decided against it for whatever reason, costing manufacturers of televisions and NES controllers untold millions in replacement item sales.

 

Sega Master System:

Dangerous Demolition - 15 minutes

Another awesome @drludos game joins the collection thanks to France's Côte Gamers.

 

Mecha8 - 45 minutes

A very fun and colorful Colecovision port also from Côte Gamers. The hitbox for your mecha is dicey but otherwise it's pretty fun and forgiving on the easy mode. I think the hitbox would be really frustrating on higher difficulties.

 

Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap - 25 minutes

When you play SMS games you're accustomed to on the Game Gear on the big screen, you think "the viewport is still really small. Is it really bigger than the Game Gear's?" Then you play the Game Gear version for comparison, and... yes, the viewport is considerably larger.

 

 

Sega Genesis:

Granada - 85 minutes. Learning all the tricks, getting better...

 

 

Task Force Harrier EX - 25 minutes

It's a plain plane game but it's a fun plane game. Great to put it in your Nomad and go playin’ plain airplanes en plein air.

 

Tiger R-Zone:

Men in Black - 20 minutes

 

 

Played through it again for video. Playing it through the phone camera severely limits my ability to avoid attacks so I only got halfway. I need to find another way.

[carlsson]

On 4/12/2022 at 2:44 AM, DragonGrafx-16 said:

Those SNES arcade games from Williams Arcade's Greatest Hits are ports and not emulation and so are not listed under arcade.

I'm revisiting this subject now, as we've got some games played on the Saturn. Per this preview in the Official Sega Saturn Magazine from 1997, the games included really are supposed to be emulations of the arcade ROM. Now it is perfectly possible that different studios worked on the compilation for Genesis, SNES, Saturn, PlayStation, DOS, Windows, Game.com and Dreamcast, of which some ported the 5-6 arcade games and some wrote an emulator. Up till now, Williams Arcade's Greatest Hits a.k.a. Williams Arcade Classics has been treated as a monolith entry but I'm starting to wonder how it should be. Going by hardware capacity, it makes sense if the PlayStation, Saturn, DOS and upwards emulated the gaems while Genesis and SNES reimplmented those.

[carlsson]

Here's the summary for Week 26, running from June 27 - July 3. We logged 3509 minutes of eligible play, playing 91 games on a total of 24 systems.

 

Top 10:

 

1. Pokemon Red Version (Game Boy) - 719 min. (#9)
2. Klax (Atari Lynx) - 310 min.
3. Gravitar (Atari 2600) - 180 min.
4. Klax (Atari 7800) - 135 min. (#4)
5. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 127 min. (#3)
6. Tutankam (CoCo 1 & 2) - 110 min.
7. Lemmings (Acorn Archimedes) - 100 min.
7. Magic Numbers (Mind Reader & Nim) (Fairchild Channel F) - 100 min.
9. Granada (Genesis) - 85 min.
10. Pac-Man (Atari 2600) - 84 min.

 

Pre-NES top 10:

 

1. Gravitar (Atari 2600) - 180 min.
2. Klax (Atari 7800) - 135 min. (PN#3)
3. Solar Fox (Atari 2600) - 127 min. (PN#2)
4. Tutankam (CoCo 1 & 2) - 110 min. (PN#5)
5. Magic Numbers (Mind Reader & Nim) (Fairchild Channel F) - 100 min.
6. Pac-Man (Atari 2600) - 84 min.
7. Joust (Arcade) - 45 min.
7. Pinball [aka Pinball Challenge] (Fairchild Channel F) - 45 min.
7. Tron (Tomy) (Handheld/Tabletop) - 45 min.
9. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) - 37 min. (PN#1)
10. Enduro (Atari 2600) - 32 min.

 

Top 10 systems:

 

1. Game Boy - 723 min. (#8)
2. Atari 2600 - 570 min. (#1)
3. Arcade - 389 min. (#4)
4. Atari Lynx - 310 min.
5. NES/Famicom - 266 min. (#6)
6. Fairchild Channel F - 145 min.
7. Genesis - 138 min. (#2)
8. Atari 7800 - 135 min. (#7)
9. CoCo 1 & 2 - 130 min. (#5)
10. Handheld/Tabletop - 120 min. (#3)
11. Acorn Archimedes - 100 min.
 

Pokémon Red Version is back in first place with more than twice as many minutes as runner-up Klax on the Atari Lynx. The race is a little more close on the pre-NES front, but from "nowhere", Gravitar sweeps into first place. Systems wise the Game Boy sees 719 + 2 + 2 minutes which is enough take the title. We have a new entry on the systems front, namely the Acorn Archimedes.

 

No new entries to the 1000, 5000, 10000 Minute Clubs this week, even after making small adjustments on previously misrecorded games on arcade and Neo Geo.

 

I'll come up with some mid-season stats later this week!

[+jgkspsx]

56 minutes ago, carlsson said:

Going by hardware capacity, it makes sense if the PlayStation, Saturn, DOS and upwards emulated the gaems while Genesis and SNES reimplmented those.

This is correct. (The gamecom version were ports too, natürlich.)

[carlsson]

Yup, so now I have dissolved the Saturn times (practically only logged by Cafeman) into respective arcade game, while the Game.com/Genesis/SNES versions remain as own entries. Damn tricky about those compilations released right in the middle when actual emulation started to become reasonable.

[TheGameCollector]

4 hours ago, carlsson said:

Yup, so now I have dissolved the Saturn times (practically only logged by Cafeman) into respective arcade game, while the Game.com/Genesis/SNES versions remain as own entries. Damn tricky about those compilations released right in the middle when actual emulation started to become reasonable.

I've seen Sonic Jam for Sega Saturn's contents listed separately before, but those games were actually re-built and ported to the Saturn, not emulated according to experts on the Sonic Retro forum. This is what allowed for easily making the Easy modes were certain obstacles and enemies were removed and is also responsible for the higher quality sound effects such as when a ring is collected.

[Steven Pendleton]

Saturn Sonic Jam = ports

game.com Sonic Jam = trash

Sonic Mega Collection = (not great) emulation

Toaplan Shooting Battle 1 = emulation

Saturn Batsugun = emulation

 

and both of those last 2 are technically illegal bootlegs lol

 

I actually played Toaplan Shooting Battle 1 recently on MiSTer and I think I logged the games on that collection as PS1 instead of arcade. I don't think I knew those were mostly emulation at the time, but I don't really remember. My source for that is here: https://www.gamengai.com/#/cmnt-info?id=2332&p=5

 

They do have arranged music and some really funky scrolling, however. Not sure what's with the weird scrolling.

Edited July 6, 2022 by Steven Pendleton