Herbarius

Nobody can answer my questions? Come on, there must be dozens of people here that have both a Colecovision and an Atari 2600, as well as VCS games that use keyboard controllers...

I think there's nothing wrong with "epic style" per se, if used well it can kickass... But, as with everything, if used too much, it becomes bland. And I agree it sure has been overused (and dumbed down). Blame movies like 300. In Lord of the Rings it was still great IMO, as it hasn't been overused yet when the LotR movies came out, and of course it also is fitting to a saga like that. What I don't really understand though is why you included "shaky cam" in your list. There's nothing epic about that, if anything it's the opposite.

Yes, MSXs really tend to look nice somehow... very "Knight Rider"

None of your links work, except the 3rd...

I'm quite unhappy with the options you get in this poll. You can only choose between the 3 hardware designers, only one of those also does games. However, in my opinion, what really counts on the E3 is the games.

While we're at it, I always wondered at what extend the numerical keypads are or are not compatible. Like: Can you use a stock Colecovision controller as a substitute for a 2600 keyboard controller? Also: Are Sega Master System controllers fully comaptible to the Atari 7800? (utilizing both buttons?) Or to put it into a general question: Controllers with the same plug and the same kind of buttons - do they always work interchangably? If not, which are interchangable, which aren't? Are there some instances with unexpected results, maybe like the numerical keypad does function, but the order of keys is reversed, or something similar?

I always thought, both are valid (dialectal) variations.

"Donkey Kong Country" as far as I know it just looked impressive, but from a technical viewpoint it really wasn't. The characters were made from 3D models during development, but rendered as sprites which were included in the game like normal.

However, if I'm not mistaken, they weren't really affordable.

Yes, I think that's the thing Nintendo did most of the time. They propably also had some innovations going on, but I wouldn't say they're particularly innovative. The really innovative guys often aren't too commercially successful, because they have a harder time getting acceptance by the public.

I like the second design better, but I also would prefer the button on the left. That argument is a little flawed, because when you watch someone play a game, you usually don't look at him from that angle - because that way you can't see the screen, or at least you've to turn your head to look at the screen. The first design is a nice idea but somehow I don't like it at all. It's hard to read, for one thing. And people unfamiliar with the CX40 design might not easily notice it is supposed to be a joystick.

Yes, it looked blank, unless my memory is playing a trick on me.

Wow, I didn't know that was even possible. After all, the reverse (reading any CBM formatted disks on a MS-DOS machine) is completely impossible (unless you're connecting an actual Commodore drive to your PC using the appropiate cables). More power to the C64 I guess

Hi Kat, welcome to AtariAge. Is this really the end of your appearance on GWTG, or is it possible there might be some guest episodes with you? If you look at Famicom Dojo they do videos with two people in different places all the time. Basically they record their footage seperately, send it via the Internet an then edit it together so it looks like some kind of "live video conference" (which of course it isn't ) EDIT: I just read what I wrote about Classic Game Room back then... It seems I really didn't quite get it back then. CGR is hilarious, one of my favourite shows on Youtube, nothing boring about it or anything... Well I guess, first you've got to get used to the humor before you can appreciate it. They really should release it on Vectrex. And too bad it doesn't have flamethrowers.

It's the C64 DTV. The joystick that was around a few years ago. I have a PS/2 keyboard hooked up to it. I must have soldered something wrong. Oh, of course, I shpuld've paid more attention. Well, I guess you should doublecheck where you soldered everything and compare it where it was supposed to go. Sorry, I can't really help you with that. Both joysticks, are you sure? To my knowledge, and in my experience, the second joystick port doesn't do that. Whatever, that it typed out "LOAD" on a single keystroke eliminates this possibiliy, that must be some DTV-specific feature (similar to something those "making your life easier"-cartridges for the normal C64 do) EDIT: Wait a minute, does it type out LOAD and then "automatically presses RETURN", or in other words does it immediately ask you to "press play on tape"? That's actually what Shift+Run/Stop does on a normal C64. So yeah, it seems you've got some wires soldered wrong.

Do you have some Cartridge attached? Where did you get the computer from? Does it maybe have a modified EEPROM? If it were just the issues with G and H putting out wrong characters, I would say there is some defect. But the V key typing out "LOAD" appears to hint at some intentional modification... (which also may have gone bad over time)

Copying is the only use? Well, you immediately contradict yourself demonstrating a pretty neat use of a second drive. Then, as already stated, if you want to use GEOS, two drives are a must have. Then it may say you from swapping disks all the time. Like when you have one disk with a bunch of utilities, and then some other disk you're currently working with, or which has games you want to play, and you do not want to swap them, but just have the utilities in drive 9, that's pretty neat, isn't it?

After seeing several of these threads I feel pretty bad for thoughtlessly removing that piece of paper from my Atari, when I opened it up the first time, and throwing it into the trash... To my defense, I had no idea every Atari had this, for all I knew the previous owner put it in there for some reason unknown to me... It was almost an automatic "this doesn't belong here" reaction... (no, it didn't have a stamp)

I've tried the toothpaste method several times in the past, and it never worked. It were PC CD-ROMs. I also noted that the surface of the discs treated that way tended to look much worse (to the eye) than before the treatment. However, I have had some limited success using coke (soda)... which you could say is the logical opposite of toothpaste I just used some paper cloth, wet it with the soda, and then polished the surface of the disk. Even the explanation of why it might have worked still is the opposite to the toothpaste: While with toothpaste you try to abrase the area around the scratches to level them down, with cola I think the sugar might fill in the scratches. (so use real coke, not light or zero or something like that) Obviously you wouldn't want to clean it with water at the end of the procedure, but just take another dry piece of cloth and continue the polishing, until its dry and not sticky anymore.

Not really, there are hundreds and thousands of current (modern) games like this available on your PC usually for free or for a small fee, thousands more available via emulation and of course there are thousands more available by simply dragging out an older gaming system. I don't think they would make it as a full retail console release unless they were on a compilation disk or as a cheap $5-$10 DLC, but still no one has to miss out on these simple games, you would only miss them if you didn't play them. Availability of the games isn't a problem. Not sure I understand these "gee I wish all modern games were like games I've played in the 80s", "all modern games suck because they are all 100% the same" and "the video game market is doomed because of modern games"....posts. They've been going on for months under different titles and they are all exactly the same. My advice, move on. Stop playing modern games and play the millions of games you WANT TO FRICKEN PLAY. I don't think I understand where you're going with this. Of course I'm able to play whatever I want right now. At least what's availabe on the hardware I own (or can be emulated with hardware I own). But playing something I like and being curious about some aspect of game design or about what kind of emotions games can produce in the player are two different pairs of shoes... So I do think it's worth analyzing it more closely. Not because I want to complain about the way modern games are, but because I like to think about stuff like that, to feed my curiosity, to gain new insights about my favourite hobby.

You mean those games where you had to play the same levels over and over again until you memorized every dance step from the first level to the last? The kind where you became the programmer's little twitching trained monkey for high scores and a pat on the head? They still do that, they just make you wait a little longer before you get your food pellet for being a good little lab rat. No I think he meant (of course that's speculation, but it sounded to me like that) like the feeling you can get from games like Centipede or Galaxian, when you play them for some time, and get really focussed, you sometimes, often only for a couple of seconds, or at the very best some minutes, the feeling of... yeah how shall I put it other than what he already said "being in sync" with the game. I don't think games where you have to memorize stuff tend to do that, rather games where you have to react quickly to an ever-changing environment or threat. It's like, you play that game again and again, and always you get some score like (now made up completely arbitrary, not supposed to be scores of either Centipede or Galaxian) in the range of 2000 and 3000, slowly getting better, approaching the range of 3000 and 4000, but then there is one round where you get that feeling of being "in the zone" and you suddenly get a score of >10,000... and then when you try it again you struggle but don't even come close to that again. Playing the game a lot you may start to be able to create that feeling on puropose, or at least have it occur on a more regular basis. But when you finally get pissed of with the game and don't play it for a while, then pick it up at a later date, it all starts from the beginning. EDIT: Going to the toilet I just had another thought on that issue: Games like Tetris seem to offer a more steady transition between these states of minds than games like Centipede have. That may be some part of the reason of the huge "hookability" of those games. Surely this is worth being analyzed more closely.

That feature has been in there at least since Windows 3.1. Of course, the applications involved have to permit it. It didn't work too well in the beginning, but it got better continuously from version to version. Today I think it works quite reasonable.

Yes, Windows ME is the same as 98SE with updated drivers (hence the "more usb support"), crippled DOS mode and the icons taken from Windows 2000.

That's not it, I fully understand what that game looks like but... sorry, I really have to get some sleep now. If you don't mind I would like to drop you a PM later, trying to clarify my question/problem to you (after I slept and also clarified that whole issue to myself a little more )

Yes, the seventh generation of consoles is getting "pretty old", I realized this a year or so ago already. It's already going on longer than any other generation. I don't think its necessarily a bad thing. When the "hardware spiral" is turning slower, more focus can be on the actual games themselves. RandomTerrain, about your game idea, I've read that idea of yours before, but it just sounds to me like some kind of life simulator sandbox thingie, but: where is the game? Let's say we take your idea and apply it to a car racing game. Now you can leave the track, smash through some barriers and then explore the surrounding area, stop at Burger King on the way and get some fries, etc. Well, congratulations. That's one of the very important differences between simulations and games: Games simplify stuff on purpose. That gives them focus. The same reason why you don't need realistic graphics, or why realistic graphics can actually make things worse: If you have abstract graphics, your brain directly gets fed everything that is relevant, almost in nearly the way it needs it. There is little work left for the brain to do concerning abstracting from the real-looking environment to the abstract model in your head. Let me be honest with you: I have said sometimes before that I really like your ideas about game design. But this idea of yours, that "mega-sandbox", seems to contradict everything else you say. I can't wrap my mind around it, so please, maybe you can explain it to me, how this paradox can be resolved.