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gdement

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Stargunner

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  1. Steve believed it was still his property and would not give his blessing on doing a run of Repros. Not much he can do now 29 years later. The code is still his property, but if somebody was in position to make repros they could offer him a royalty. He wasn't motivated by a couple thousand to go look to see how many more he may have in storage. He was absolutely against reproing, do you think a few bucks per cart would change his mind? It's been a long time since I read that thread, but from what I remember it sounded to me like he took offense when he perceived that people wanted to start copying his game. It sounded to me like a respect for copyright issue. But it's a distant memory and I don't feel like digging up the thread.I've never met the guy, I have no idea if a royalty would change his mind. But it would be an appropriate way to open the conversation.
  2. Steve believed it was still his property and would not give his blessing on doing a run of Repros. Not much he can do now 29 years later. The code is still his property, but if somebody was in position to make repros they could offer him a royalty.
  3. I love that game, it's the one game that really made my Sega CD seem worthwhile. I actually think it's better than the arcade version. Maybe I'm blind, but the color palette argument never held water to me. I don't see it, the graphics are very good in this version. Beating the game single player is hard but doable, I did it a few times back in the 90s. So basically I think the challenge is pretty well calibrated - you can beat it but you have to get a lot of experience first. I still find it hard though, I never reached a point where I didn't struggle with it. I've never beaten Final Fight in 2 player, nobody I ever played with was very good at it.
  4. I'd have made at least some changes, maybe not all the same ones though. The lockout chip definitely made sense. That made them a lot of money. Detachable controllers make sense. I'm also glad that they added all the buttons to the 2nd controller in exchange for losing the microphone, but that's not real important. I would want to avoid changing the cartridge connector, except they need some accommodation for the lockout chip to work. Maybe it could repurpose an existing pin for lockout without breaking compatibility with anything important. Keep the audio pin though, I agree it sucks that they broke that. An alternative to the lockout chip, and the connector pinout changes that may require, would be to instead use a boot ROM which checks a digital signature key like the 7800 used. That may have legal issues though, I know Atari wasn't able to export that system, not sure what would happen with Nintendo trying to bring it in. I'd probably keep the cart shells the same as the jap ones, not much reason for them to be different. Except - having a larger shell allows room for an adapter when supply problems require it. As long as the lockout chip is used, the boards will never directly interchange. The expansion connector might make some sense, even though obviously it didn't get used. They usually don't. At minimum I would have definitely added the lockout chip, and detachable controllers. The rest I'm not sure about, it would depend on more investigation. I think digital signature would have been a cleaner way to add a lockout with a minimum of redesign and electrical incompatibility.
  5. My first rental was Goonies II. I still love that game, it's exactly the type of game I always associate with the NES. The last rental for a long time was Mortal Kombat for the Sega CD. I had already lost interest in the system but when that came out I decided to try it. It sucked of course. A few years later I think the last game I ever rented was Driver 2 for the Playstation. That was a fun game to screw around in.
  6. I've always been suspicious of games that require the help of a remote online system to access (including anything on Steam). I'm afraid in 10 more years, every new game made will only be a rental. It's not a big deal to some people, but when I buy a game I want to know I can play it as long as I like, regardless of whether anyone else on the planet cares about it anymore. It's at the point where whenever a modern game gets my interest, I have to research this issue before deciding to buy it.
  7. Log in to Google Checkout, and I'm suddenly presented with the latest novel from their legal department. I can't access customer orders until I agree to it. What makes them think I have time to read this at their whim? Perhaps I have orders to attend to? No "later" option given. If I were to decline, how would I even refund people's money? I'm really starting to hate that company, they could burn to the ground and I wouldn't shed a tear.

    1. ventrra

      ventrra

      None of the services like that are perfect. I've read plenty about people having trouble with Paypal and I got screwed by Moneybookers this weekend. I would guess that ALL of them will give people problems at some time or other.

  8. I always seem to lose interest in RPGs before finishing them. Eventually I come back to them and don't know where I am anymore. That's not necessarily a bad thing, I like RPGs to be big and "beating" an RPG isn't very important to my enjoyment of it. I did okay at finishing the old linear, story based console RPGs on the NES and Genesis, at least when I was a kid. I stopped finishing them in later years though. FF7, FF8, Lunar, and some others were all abandoned. Open ended PC games though have always been hard for me to finish. In those type of games, I mostly just like to wander and do random quests. The storyline is not my attraction to the game, in fact I get annoyed at games which push their storylines too hard. I just want to hang out in the world of NeverEverWonderWoodLand, not grind through a "story". It took me years to finish Ultima 7, which is still the only Ultima game I've actually beaten. Part of that was technical problems but part of it was just being too distracted with sidequests and such. I think the last RPG I "finished" was the Morrowind main quest. It took persistence to do that. Now I have the expansions to do, but I'm bored with that character. I started a new character which can't handle the expansions, and I don't really feel like doing them anyway. There's too many more interesting things to do. I'm almost done with Fallout 3, but I stopped playing it again right before what I think was the last mission. I just wasn't in the mood for it anymore.
  9. I haven't liked the way Bethesda's game design has evolved since Morrowind, so buying Skyrim was already going to be an arbitrary act of loyalty to a series. I had still decided to buy it though, in fact I was going to buy it at launch, something I haven't done in about 10 years. I turned against buying Skyrim because it requires internet based DRM, which I dislike, and more specifically it bundles Steam, which I hate and refuse to install on my computer. That's my boycott, not the Scrolls lawsuit. I'm going to register a trademark for "Craft" and rule the world.
  10. I think that may be the best baseball game I've ever watched. And I'm not even a Cards fan.

    1. chrisbid

      chrisbid

      75 game 6 was better, but i didnt see that live

    2. Lendorien

      Lendorien

      I saw parts of it (at work). It was pretty thrilling.

  11. Getting sick of people who take the time to find an item online, spend good money to buy it, and can't be bothered to type a coherent shipping address. The official language of the USPS is English, not whatever crap falls out of your keyboard while you're munching on Doritos.

    1. Random Terrain

      Random Terrain

      That's too much of a hassle, man. Just smoke some weed and relax. Who cares if the address is wrong? It's just things, man. People are important, not things. Now let's take some ecstasy and hug.

  12. I rented that game once on my front loader and it worked. I don't have it anymore so I can't check the BIOS version, but it was a very early unit. I got it at Christmas when it had just come out, and from what I've read I think there was only 1 shipment at that point. ..however, it did break down (no power-prob the fuse) and I had it repaired at a local shop. I don't remember if that happened before or after I rented MK, and I have no idea if they did anything to the BIOS. I suppose it's possible.
  13. I haven't played a lot of football games, but my favorite is NCAA 2003. I'm sure there's something better though. That and 1 of the Madden games are the only 2 modern football games I've played. They're both closely related games but I found I liked the NCAA version better. I put my high school into the game, and in a little over 1 season brought them up to a #1 ranking in the Big 10. Wishful thinking. In real life my high school was 0-forever the whole time I attended. I hear they won a game the season after I graduated. People stormed the field, it was a big deal, sadly enough.
  14. I'm planning to some day. Back when I played it, I had never played a PC RPG any newer than Ultima 3, and after that I had been playing NES RPGs. So I had this crazy idea in my head that if I could pick something up, I obviously should. I littered the contents of an entire Martian town in a 3 screen radius around the landing site. Other than that accomplishment I never got far into the game.
  15. I think the popularity of Ultima 8 has shifted in recent years. Ultima veterans turned against U8 because it's a very different game (and flawed, but all the Ultimas have flaws). Later on, I think it became popular with people who weren't longtime Ultima fans and didn't have the same expectations. And after this many years, it's also become easier for veterans to put those expectations aside and give it a second look as a different kind of game. For these reasons, I think U8 has become more popular in recent years than it was in the past. I've seen a number of positive comments on it from people who look at it as more of a Zelda type adventure game. When I was a kid I couldn't get anywhere in U2 without starving to death, so it was impossible to like a game that wouldn't even let me play. The rate of food consumption in such a sparse world struck me as blatantly unfair and kills the game. Garriott was on something when he released it like this. But I've been told that it is in fact possible to play U2 productively, and I know people have done it, so I will try again someday when I get hold of it. Right now, U2 ranks with Alternate Reality as the 2 most difficult RPGs to play for more than 10 minutes. As far as the space travel and all that, I don't mind it, I think it's just weird enough to be cool. I like the wildness of the Sosarian Ultimas. U4+ have a more straight-laced feel to them. My first RPG was U3. All the Ambrosia grinding didn't bother me because the concept of an RPG was new to me so I liked going through the process. I still do within reason, but at this point it's become more of a nuisance. I had pretty much the opposite take on the interface. U6 is a cool game but the interface is so painful it's hard to play. U7's interface is good, I can't think of any major problems with it. That was one of the best improvements it had over U6. Food in U7 wasn't a big deal to me, I think we ate twice a day. If Spark complained during the day I ignored him, we ate dinner as a family. Combat in U7 was pretty bad though.. basically just engage combat mode and watch the carnage. My Avatar hardly gained any levels.
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