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Student Driver

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    Indianapolis, IN
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Dragonstomper

Dragonstomper (6/9)

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  1. In adventure games: having some required step in the game that is found only through trial and error, not through logic, in-game-story clues, or anything else that would make sense. D had one of these-- the secret passage through the stone wall near the end, required to confront your adversary. There are no clues about that passage in the game, there is nothing visual that would suggest "hey, there's something about that wall... perhaps I should investigate!" Fighting/shooting games that have a boss at the end of each level, then... get this unique idea has you fight every boss one right after the other one more time before getting to the final boss! One on one fighters that have special moves/combos that require controller motions that don't match your character's movements. Most of the special moves in the original SFII kinda make sense-- they match the character movements and you feel like you're charging up or whatever. Half-roll of the joystick, Konami code, and you have to time a jump right at the end... 999 hit combo! Right.
  2. What's the definition of "skill based" that they're using? The single time I was at a casino, about 6 years ago, I played a Ripley's Believe It or Not! machine that had a trivia subgame; not sure if trivia knowledge would count towards skill-based, but it was definitely something different than a 100% luck-based machine.
  3. I clicked on this link thinking it was going to be about one of the books of type-in adventure games that flourished briefly in the 80s... there was one I used to get from the library that had all text contained in DATA statements encoded by some cypher; the type-in program would decode the DATA statements and print them, which allowed you to type in the games without having everything spoiled by seeing the print out. I always made errors in typing those in, which meant my games had spelling or grammar errors. Anyway. I've got a somewhat similar tome to the OP's-- A Shortcut Through Adventureland-- written by four different authors. I picked it up in the mid 80s even then marveling at the novelty of a walkthrough book for computer adventure games. It covers a bunch of games I'd never have the chance to play as a C64 owner (except for some early Sierra games like Mission: Asteroid). The main reason I got it: a guide to Time Zone, a game I'd only heard of from the Levy book Hackers. I still haven't played it to this day!
  4. On his FAQ he answers why LCD shutter glasses can not be used. Here's what he wrote: --Shutter/polarized glasses - if you are going to put something on your head covering your eyes for 3D, it is worth considering making shutter/polarized glasses which allows the computer to deliver a different image to each eye. This results in stereoscopic displays. Combined with head tracking, you get a DARPA grade 3D simulator. When just doing head tracking, the conflicting stereo depth cues weakens the illusion. I would love to do this, but it's quite a bit more hardware, and requires synchronization with the display refresh (or light polarization) which often isn't easy especially given the wide variety of display technologies out there. -- So basically he thinks the Wii could not handle the amount of processing needed to make it work that way. Even without the LCD shutter glasses I think it should be explored by Nintendo. I thought that the major processing done by his demos were from PCs, with no processing power contributed by the Wiis... I wonder if the tracking algorithms on the PC side are so intensive as to preclude on-the-fly shutter-glasses rendering. Still neat, and I don't mean to diminish the effect he's created as-is; in a toss-up between headtracking and visual 3D, his effect seems more crucial in creating a submersive game.
  5. Thanks for the news on Future Spy! (Shame it's an unlockable, it's a decent enough game that should be out in the open...) Is it an arcade emu, or a Mega Drive port? Super Zaxxon's seen a few releases over the years, but nowhere near the number that the original Zaxxon has. ...now to budget a PS2 console into my budget sometime...
  6. Check out Super Zaxxon and Future Spy as well (through MAME or something, unless you have a well-stocked classic arcade nearby). They're interesting takes on the Zaxxon forumla, less adapted for other systems (AFAIK, Future Spy has never been ported)... I'd actually kinda dig a Future Spy conversion, since I never really dug Zaxxon.
  7. I've seen the last video before (neat, but still seems to be lacking true 3D visuals-- it needs to be combined with LCD shutter glasses), but was really impressed with the project regarding interactive whiteboards. I did instruction for a program in my university that had sunk a lot of money into "SMARTboard" interactive whiteboards. They were essentially giant white touchpads-- project an image onto them, use a finger or special stylii to activate the surface. Neat, but expensive ($1000 to $3000 depending on size), and fragile-- writing on them with dry erase markers, as many instructors would do, would damage the boards, and undue pressure with the stylii or a fingernail can actually indent or puncture the surface. With this guy's project, you could use a normal dry-erase whiteboard ($50-500, and most schools already have them) and Wiimote/pen combo (perhaps $100 with properly fabricated pens), and even mark up the board with dry erase markers to your heart's content if you wanted. I figure my school could have saved $800 to $1300 per board using the Wii setup, and they installed around 30 on one floor of my program's building. (Not to mention that the most often-used whiteboards, those used by the math instructors, actually wore out and had to be replaced). We're always hurting for money, and saving $24,000 to almost $40,000 would have allowed us to invest in a ton of other vital educational supplies. I've also done work at a couple of struggling inner-city schools that would love to have interactive gear, but can't justify the cost. So, yeah, I see an immediate and actual use for this.
  8. Took me a few weeks-- my average download speed was something like 2 kB/s. Torrents are great if there is always a big swarm, but suck for small groups.
  9. If you go to a new version of DAPHNE, it wouldn't hurt to try old video/audio and ROM sets with it before deleting wholesale. I was unsuccessful in getting old video/audio/frame file sets for Bluth games working with the newest DAPHNE-- it seems the programmers are really pushing the DVD method-- which makes me wonder if original arcade-game owners of Bluth games are out in the cold despite having access to the originals. However, non-Bluth games seem to work fine with older files (I'm using sets for Interstellar, the Data East games, and Astron Belt that I got years ago), though in my experience, the update killed MACH 3l it now looks for ROM sets completely different from older sets, and different from the MAME sets. It wouldn't hurt to archive stuff to DVD-R if you're gonna delete, though, since you may find it necessary to revert to an older DAPHNE. So the files (other than the Bluth ones) are the same? Or are these updated somehow? Tempest I'm getting a bit out of my expertise here, so you will want to defer to any experts you happen to hear from, but from my experience: Regarding video/audio files for non-Bluth games: There's no "updated" files, per se, though if a kind LD owner has gotten access to better capture software, there might be better files available over time. Old video files for non-Bluth games will still work, so updating video files is only necessary if you want better video quality (and, of course, there's a better quality version floating around). I actually have high- and low- quality versions of most games sitting around, just for the heck of it. (I assume there's a chance that DAPHNE's expectations for video files could change from release to release, which is why I suggest testing the files you've got if you update. Gives you an excuse to play some games, at least.) Regarding ROM files: in my experience, MACH 3 "broke" from .9x to 1.x-- the same ROMs that loaded fine in .9x are unaccepted by newer versions, and I just get a nice error screen; the .9x ROMs are the same as the MAME set, and I have no idea what the new set is supposed to be from... so this is an update of some sort. Regarding Bluth games: DAPHNE 1.x+ seems to expect the "official" files as opposed to the previously-available video and ROM rips. I haven't been able to use older files, and have to launch old versions of DAPHNE to play Bluth games. (IMO this stab at quasi-legitimacy kind of hurts the "archive" project status of DAPHNE, but that's a whole 'nother thread.)
  10. If you go to a new version of DAPHNE, it wouldn't hurt to try old video/audio and ROM sets with it before deleting wholesale. I was unsuccessful in getting old video/audio/frame file sets for Bluth games working with the newest DAPHNE-- it seems the programmers are really pushing the DVD method-- which makes me wonder if original arcade-game owners of Bluth games are out in the cold despite having access to the originals. However, non-Bluth games seem to work fine with older files (I'm using sets for Interstellar, the Data East games, and Astron Belt that I got years ago), though in my experience, the update killed MACH 3l it now looks for ROM sets completely different from older sets, and different from the MAME sets. It wouldn't hurt to archive stuff to DVD-R if you're gonna delete, though, since you may find it necessary to revert to an older DAPHNE.
  11. So now it has to download the game files EVERY time I want play the game? It no longer uses the video files that have been floating around the net for ages? IIRC those files are HUGE and would take forever to download. Where are they hosted? What happens when that server goes away? Tempest No. The DVDs allow you to authorize the legit torrent download; after that point, you do not need to download the video files again, nor have the DVDs present to play the game.
  12. It always amazes me that so few people question that. I think you are only the 3rd or 4th to even ask about it! It's a screen used prop from a videogame related movie called Existenz (it's a Cronenberg film). A good friend of mine is a movie prop collector and managed to buy most of the props from that film, so he gave me one to put in my case to see if anybody noticed it! In the movie, it's a 'cartridge' for the main system that they the film centers around. Oh, okay! I'm feeling kinda stupid, because I actually own Existenz (on LD!) but sincerely do not remember much about the film. I guess it's been nearly a decade since it came out and I watched it.
  13. Going into LD collector geek mode: I've seen the 2 million figure myself-- I think that was actually the estimated peak penetration of household markets by 1996 or 1997 (and it included every player manufactured from the 70s on, including nearly useless analog-audio-only players)-- but the early adoption of DVD by the LD crowd in 1996 caused the market to quickly contract. By ~2000, when US software production ceased, movies were seeing releases of only 250 copies, and most announced titles were canceled for lack of pre-orders. Non-collectors dumped their collections and players onto the market en masse, which was the reason I found the Halcyon player so easy to find. There may have only been 750 made, but at that point, there were perhaps 1000 LD collectors at most of note in the US, and few were interested in rebadged non-digital single-side players... so there was still a surplus of players for the supporting market. It was a great time for me! Anyway, that AMS documentation would be great to see eventually. No pressure on you to scan or photograph it, but that info would be great for sites for handheld collectors.
  14. Nice avatar ...I don't recognize the girl in the avatar. Who is it? (So's I can Google image search and... uh.... never mind.) I think my rarest would be my boxed/complete SQ:WW or the wooden-box & doo-dads Qb.
  15. [nosy]What's the "Biological Father" boxed... thing?[/nosy]
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