joeybastard

Am I a little blind or are your eyes that good??? Look in the upper right. The cart cube is turned counterclockwise from the manual cover cube.

Air Fortress on the NES. I got it for a buck at a flea market and figured it was just another generic side shooter but it's not that at all. It's a little of that, a little Metroid-like exploration and overall just completely kick butt. Hunchy II on the VCS. I figured it would be OK platformer, now it's my 2nd fav homebrew of all time.

So says the Journey fan! You're right though.

There are Breakout machines coming out this summer too. They also allow you to play Breakout for a bonus award. Has anybody else played the Pac-Man slots that came out a couple of years ago? They were OK, you didn't get to play Pac-Man, they were just themed the same. Konami also makes a lot of slots that you can find around Vegas now. They have nothing to do with Konami video games but they are decent slots to play. Vegas is my favorite place on Earth. I'm planning my yearly pilgrimage now actually.

This just my personal opinion but the only game that is good and costs over $25 in the VCS homebrews is sold out at the moment.

I seriusly doubt this. The controllers only works especially well with a small number of games. This explains why games like Wii Sports and Wii Play are the top selling Wii software even now. Most people are buying the Wii for those two games. They feel very natural when using the Wii-Mote. Most other games do not. The Wii-Mote isn't going to take the place of a good old hand held controller. I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about kids who start out with a Wii. They have no habit to break, you do. A 4 year old kid who has only used a Wiimote to play games and continues to do so for 3-4(maybe more) years is going to feel plenty natural using it for pretty much any game. You don't feel natural doing it because you have 20+ years of joysticks and gamepads. It's not the same thing.

I can't help but compare the problems some people have with the Wii remotes to the problem some people had with gamepads back in the NES days. Lots of people still don't like gamepads and prefer a joystick. It's the same thing for remote vs. regular controller. The thing is, a whole generation of kids grew up using the NES pads and can't get comfortable with joystick. The same thing will happen with the Wii remote. That doesn't make anybody right or wrong, it's just a personal preference formed by what you got used to.

For calling Al out in public like this I have some suggestions but it's probably best if I keep them to myself.

The whole point of having forums is to express personal opinions. If you want facts, you should go to a more solid information source such as a search engine or a wikipedia. I don't want facts. It would be nice to just have people with nettiquette sometimes to avoid flame wars. There's a difference between, "I only liked Aerosmith's music in the 1970s" compared to "everything they did after 1980 was a pile of crap" Both say the same thing, but one is significantly ruder than the other. I don't much want to drag this out but I think what you see as rude, many people see as casual. While it's true most of us don't know each other in real life, we do "know" each other on here so I don't think the casual expression of the opinions is out of line. I occasionally read and post on a Las Vegas message board where everybody is so formal and so concerned with not stepping on toes that the discussions are really boring most of the time. A casual community like AA is much more fun and in the end, I think we're tighter because of it.

Power Off! is actually a good illustration of why honest reviews are needed. I gave it a 5 because I love the game. I didn't find the controls to be lacking and I really enjoy the overall execution. I'm not saying you're wrong in your assessment, I'm saying it would be good if what you said here is available in the store so potential buyers can make up their own minds. It sounds to me like you would give it about a 3. It's better than some games and not as good as others.

100% agreed. Personally I don't like it, that 90% of the reviewing people tend to give only 4 or 5 stars. If a game gets "only" 4 stars from those, what does that mean? The game is good? Or does it suck? And what do 5 stars mean here? It is ok? Decent? Brilliant? Other people, like e.g. Nathan Strum are more honest. If they don't like a game they write it. And they explain very detailed why. You may not always agree, but at least you get some reliable feedback. So even an average 3 star review from his is IMO more worth than a 5 star review of someone who always gives 5 stars. Albert could add some math to the reviews based on the reviewer. So votes from people who don't use the scale would automatically get adjusted. E.g. someone who always votes 5 stars gets corrected to 3 stars. Someone who votes only 4 or 5 stars, gets corrected to 2 and 4 stars. But that's probably overkill. But it would help, if we could sort or filter the reviews by the reviewer. Then you could reevaluate each review yourself. The problem with curving the review scores is that in some cases it could be true that the games deserve the higher marks from the reviewer. For example, almost all of my reviews are 4 or 5 stars but that's because I buy fewer HBs than many people so I'm more picky about what I buy. If I only buy the really good games and that's all I review, then the 4 or 5 stars is honest. Although having said that, I will admit there are 2 HB reviews I did that I now think were too "nice" in an attempt to be encouraging at the time.

If you're fair and give a reason for why you feel like you do, I can't see why anybody would get angry. Well, somebody will probably get angry anyway but that's really their problem not yours. For example, don't just say, "The graphics suck." If you said, "The graphics needed better defined shapes and some more color would have helped," you're being helpful rather than just bashing.The fact is, some games just aren't as good as others, there's nothing wrong with telling why you feel that way. Also, if enough people say this game needs work, it might encourage the author to try again and try harder next time. That's not a bad thing.

It might discourage giving a personal opinion and ending with an attack, such as "... is crap and you're an idiot for thinking that way." but it doesn't discourage personal opinions. What could possibly be the point in discussing anything on the board without some kind of personal opinion? Wouldn't we all just read news sites if we weren't curious how other people felt about the subject? Nobody is flaming each other in here, we're all aware the opinions belong to the poster and aren't some "greater truth". You can post however you want but be prepared for really boring threads if no personal and subjective opinions are expressed.

Yes, that is what human beings do in casual communication, they express personal opinions. No one is claiming this is a scholarly tome on an important subject or any kind of 'fact.' In real life, do you only discuss things on a completely non-subjective, "just the facts" level?

63,480

Somebody review Melbourne Tatty since I'm on the fence about ordering that one! I always write reviews but I want to get some more play time in on my holiday order carts before I do it.

I was waiting for someone to post about the snake...I was like "wtf is this?" ...then I pulled it out, and it made me jump I didn't order B*nQ, what is this snake thing you guys are talking about?

SS is great. From the moment I turned it on to the lovely picture of Stella and the "Have You played Atari Today" jingle, I was in love. Supercat did a great job on the menu system, both in functionality and graphics/sound. Elf Dash is my favorite game at the moment but Stay Frosty might take the lead eventually. Both are pretty kick ass. Grandma's Revenge is fun too. I was always a sucker for Death Race so this fits in there nicely. Tossing Cookies is OK, I haven't played it as much as the others so I don;t have much to say at the moment. Cold War is fun but since it's 2 player only, I haven't had much chance to play it yet. My wife played a couple of rounds with me but she wasn't into it. All in all, a great package. Good games and lots of 'em, good music, good manuals/labels. It's my fav holiday cart yet which says a lot because I really like Toyshop Trouble from last year.

...Unless it were some crappy punk band someone here likes. Well, most punk bands don't have super elaborate guitar parts so they wouldn't be a good choice for GH regardless of how much better than Aerosmith I think they might be. I think the suggestions of Sabbath or Led Zep make much more sense for the GH series. Not to mention, that in GH, the more raw stuff sounds very watered down in the covers. Check out The Stooges "Search and Destroy" in GH2. While the original sounds like pure insane aggression, the GH version sounds like.... well like Aerosmith The cover band plays the notes right but they just can't get the "snarl" on the harder/rawer stuff. Exactly! I'm a fairly shitty guitar player so while it works for RB, making a GH out it wouldn't be a good choice. Genre discs would be cool. GH: Metal, GH: Rockabilly, GH: 50's, GH:60's, etc.

I tried both positions with Space Battle, no go. It's funny you mention SI because that's what I tried it with originally when I suspected the switches were acting up. Thanks for the help folks but I'm just going to look for another 7800 when I get some more free time. In the meantime, the VCS works great, just has some more RF interference.

Check your difficulty switches. If the left one is set to 'A', fuel pods will never drop. The right switch controls the speed of the enemy bombs. Thanks, I did when it first happened. They are both set to 'B' but it's still no fuel. I really think my 7800 is just messed up. I've cleaned and replaced the power switch but it still doesn't work right, the Pause sticks even with the case off and a cleaning, etc. Now, I'm guess the difficulty switces aren't functioning right either. I should probably just bite the bullet and look for another one.

I think it depends on the gameplay. I'm always willing to give up better graphics for better gameplay. If you could have killer music with good gameplay, I wouldn't care about lower-res graphics. I might be in the minority on that though. I think many people get more WOW! factor with visuals. For example, I rarely see anybody mention the excellent music Paul Slocum did for Marble Craze and Thrust+ Platinum, but in both cases, the music is my favorite part of those games. Although that could be because I stink at both of those games too

Which tunes and graphics did you like best? My fav is the excellent representation of Stella with the "Have you played Atari Today" jingle when you first turn it on. In the menu itself, I think the version of "Deck the Halls", sounds the best. All of the music sounds good on it though with the mulitple voicings going on. I just think "Deck the Halls" sounds the most in "tune". On some of them, there's some notes that sound a little "out" in that 2600 way. My favorite of the graphics is the Stay Frosty one but I like the text trick you did on each title when you move to the next screen. If this new driver means even better music then yes, I'm looking forward to it. I can't program so the technical aspects of it will be lost on me but I'm always up for better sounding games.

Most of the Gingerbread Man carts were made with the 0840 boards. Joey--if you can slip up the dust cover mechanism in the cart and look at the edge of the board, does it have gold or silver contacts? If the contacts are gold, this is one of the 0840 boards. If so, I can exchange it for an F8 board and we can see if that works in your 7800. ..Al It does have gold contacts but really, it's not a big deal and I'm sure you have more pressing things to worry about. I can play it on the VCS just fine

That sounds just like my 7800! This is my second, and while the picture quality is much better, I still occasionally have the image getting brighter or duller for a few seconds. My old one did it on whatever TV I tried it on. (The new one has only ever been connected to my 1984-vintage Toshiba.) To add to my 7800 weirdness, when I play Space Battle on it, no fuel pods drop. Ever. Otherwise the game plays fine except I keep running out of fuel. When I play it on my VCS, I get fuel pods. Weird! Oh well, I guess that solves my dilemma about which console to get the video mod for. I was going to do it to the 7800 figuring on having 7800 & 2600 RF free gaming but if the 7800 is going to be this flakey, I think I'll do it to the 2600 since I play that much more.