Gabriel

Bought Aegis Earth: Protonovus Assault because it was under $20 for the disc which thanks to some reward points made it free. Haven't played it yet, but I popped in the disc and something new happened. The system didn't treat it as a game disc. It treated it as an install file. No value judgement on that, just an observation.

I just got done trademarking the term "video games" when the term is used in discussion whether written or verbal of electronic games or in any communication about what type of entertainment a media object is categorized as. Start sending me money beyotches!!

I'm pretty sure teenage Gabriel would find current day Gabriel's game collection to be video game heaven.

I'm on my third PS3. I've been through a 60G phat, a 120G slim, and am currently on a 500G superslim. I have a 500G superslim in reserve. I've destroyed one PS3 controller, but that was all on me, not the controller. All the others are fine, but the batteries are sometimes irregular. I'm also on my third 360. All of them have been original models. I haven't had the last 360 hooked up for about two years. I never bothered with a reserve system. I don't know how many 360 controllers I've gone through. I know all the ones that have failed have been wireless. They reach a point where they just won't work/won't resync with the system. The rechargable batteries also become useless after a while, refusing to hold a charge at all. That's why I prefer to use wired controllers for the system. The Wii operates fine. But I put it in the closet some time ago and there it has stayed. I never bothered with a reserve system. The controllers eat batteries like crazy. This was one of the reasons I retired the system. I was tired of replacing batteries literally every time I turned the system on. Other than that, I still have the same two controllers I started with.

Yep. It's one of the best regarded dungeon crawler boardgames ever, swapping the number one of all time spot with Warhammer Quest (its arguable successor) depending on the day of the week.

Someone would have had to pay me to take most of those games in that batch. The presence of Ballz 3d alone means they'd have to give me a couple of hundred dollars. There are a couple of nice ones in there, but even at half the price that went for it's extravagant.

I loved the catalogs during the Atari days. In particular, I remember seeing Slot Racers and Space War in those catalogs and really wanting them. I liked the more modern catalogs featuring the painted game covers to the older cartoonish ones, but each had their memorable aspects. The earlier 5200 catalogs were my favorites. In the later 5200 era they went to poster/pamphlet things. Those weren't as fun as the little booklets. But yeah, I spent a lot of time poring through them all and dreaming about what games to beg for next.

My physical copy of this game finally arrived on Friday (April 15). The thing that miffs me is that it was shipped in a special box with artwork and the shipping label was pasted directly on said box. And of course, the only wording visible on the box is "Open quickly so we soon make battle with much sweatiness!" which got me some interesting looks from the person at my apartment complex responsible for accepting the packages. Inside the game and soundtrack were sealed. The Gaijinworks holo label on my game says that it's SN5LE0822. I haven't opened either, but it looks like the game comes with a fairly meaty instruction manual and some kind of insert. Honestly, I have yet to even play the DL version I got months ago. When I heard I had a package on Friday, I didn't even remember I was still waiting on this game. I thought it would be a Megaminx puzzle I had ordered which seems to be on the slowest boat from China.

Vectrex for me

This popped up in my Amazon recommendations today and I immediately pre-ordered. I've been waiting for this one to materialize for a while.

Just to air my particular opinion on this point again, I don't think it was just an Atari thing. Ports of arcade games meant something different in the pre-2600 Pac-Man world. Arcade ports were merely inspired by their arcade counterparts rather than having any real meaningful similarity. It wasn't until the Colecovision and it's centerpiece of Donkey Kong that there was a movement to have home games be carbon copies of their arcade parents. Which is funny, because Colecovision Donkey Kong has a lot of dissimilarities to the arcade game, but it LOOKED arcade perfect at the time, and that was what was important. But after that you saw a lot more attempts to copy look and/or feel, and a lot of talk about bringing the arcade experience home.

I liked 2600 Defender back in the day. I played it a lot, and basically mastered it. That said, its deficiencies were plain for anyone to see. After I got the 5200 version of Defender, I didn't go back to 2600 Defender very often. When I got 2600 Stargate, there was even less reason. I do get a nostalgic kick out of playing 2600 Defender. I do sometimes pop it in for old time's sake. But it's definitely not a particularly good port. It's a perfect example of a game which was OK for it's time, but that time is now long over. I don't hate it. I don't regret my time with it. I have many fond memories of playing it. I can't imagine not having it available in my 2600 collection of games. But I can readily admit I only liked it because I was 12 and had no other home option for the game available.

I didn't really keep track, but I seem to remember my first controllers for the system failing after the first year of use. Buttons would just stop working, and once the fire button on the controller started flaking out, the start button usually followed closely behind. Outside of the controllers that came with the system, I think I went through 3 others, all purchased from 1984 to maybe 85 when the last store which stocked them closed down. One of those three failed in a year just like the ones that came with the system. The other two lasted for some time. My last controller died after a particularly long game of Defender sometime around 1990. It worked fine all through the game, but when I picked it up to play again the next day the fire button was dead and the stick permanently went hard left. A couple of weeks after that the start button died. I always thought it was weird how there were two sets of fire buttons, but if one side went out the other side always went with it. Plus, it seemed odd how the start button would fail soon thereafter, but the top fire buttons and reset usually worked fine. After that, I'd sometimes forlornly pop games in to look at their attract modes and wish I could play. I'd press really hard on the start button, hoping that maybe it would work. No luck.

Nothing to add. I'm just bumping an interesting thread with stuff I didn't know before.

The Shining Force games are pretty good. I've never played them on the original hardware, but I've played the ports of them to the SegaCD.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again. I got my original 5200 on a summer day in 1983. I had just graduated 7th grade. That day I went to see Return of the Jedi for the first time. It was fantastic. Directly after that I went to K-Mart to buy my dream game system. You've never seen someone so happy to be playing Super Breakout. I milked every bit of goodwill I could to get myself games that summer. I played a huge amount of Defender, Qix, Star Trek, Star Raiders, Pole Position, Baseball, and Football. My stepdad and I would play games of Football against each other and wager a dollar on each game. Then I discovered the awesome play 2-5 and won nearly all the time. With Baseball, I'd move the centerfielder down directly in front of the batter to cause instant outs and irritate the piss out of whoever I was playing against. I showed off Defender to all my friends and they would immediately not care about the Colecovision anymore, because Defender was so damn awesome. I was such an Atari fanboy back then. Star Trek and Star Raiders were my personal starship Enterprise to roam the galaxy in. I probably drove enough around the track in Pole Position to reach Saturn at least. And Qix? I remember I used to play on Expert and usually give up at 500K, but I think my high score was in the high 700K or so. I played the holy shit out of that one too.

The sub forums listed again are exactly that. They're just the same forums listed again. It's just a categorization thing. That way if you're a 5200 fan you have a link to the 5200 HSC in the 5200 section, but if you're just a broad HSC fan then you have the same forum linked in that category too. As for why there aren't certain HSC forums, then the historic answer is simply that no one has demonstrated any interest in HSCs for that platform. An HSC needs someone to run it and some interested participants. Cross that hurdle and other parts will follow. Why should the Sega Genesis forum be underneath O2 and Vectrex? Admittedly, I don't see anything to their order other than the date they were added, but what order are you suggesting?

Depending on the day, I'd answer either Pac-Man Collection, Astro Blaster, or Frenzy.

One of the XLs. The DSi was OK, but it's not worth playing any of these on the "regular" postage stamp sized screen of the non-XL models.

Knowing Vic, the UMD release of Summon Night 5 will probably be after even that one you list.

The fighting game kick continues. I just picked up Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late. Why? Cuz all the girls in it fight in high heels. Hawt. I think I had considered getting this when it was new. I don't remember for sure. I do know that for some reason I had categorized it as a visual novel. The actual reason why I looked at it again was because I was looking for a visual novel to check out and ran into this one again. Another reason I might have skipped it was because it looked like a Guilty Gear or Blaz Blue game, and those two had specifically turned me off 2d fighting games several years ago. Under Night is a lot like Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax. I imagine they're by the same developers (I haven't actually checked). Both have very similar menus and options. They even have the same semi-pixely look to the fighters. The feel very similar too. Whereas Fighting Climax uses fireball motions for practically all special moves, Under Night has more input variety. I'm a of a bit mixed feelings on this, because I just want to pick up and play games and not remember move lists, but it's not too bad. I know I've made a lot of snide remarks about modern fighting games that feel like 16-bit fighters. But I have to admit that quality is what I really like about all three of the fighting games I've picked up lately. They don't feel hyper obsessed with technical play to the point where just learning to play the game becomes a chore. I can spontaneously play these with a friend and not have to spend half an hour relearning the game every time it's powered on. I don't feel like I'm locked into a single character because of everyone having vastly different and idiosyncratic move lists. This one is probably the least pick up and play of the three, but it's still within tolerance levels. So, yeah, it's pretty fun. So far, I like Eltnium. She's fun to play.

Game Title Appears Demo Screen appears Press action on left controller, game starts I score 20 points per hit on the red smiley and one point for shooting the wall. I decide to rack up a high score by holding down fire next to a wall. I hit pause. Screen changes mostly blue and starts color cycling. Game is paused. Unpaused by hitting action button on left joystick. Continued shooting wall for mad pointz!

Almost tempted to go in for this one based on the novelty value being through the roof.

From level 1 regular my top score is 61,711. And if I just keep on continuing from the last checkweb I passed, then I've scored 276,603 after starting from level 31.

This isn't game related, but this is something I saw the other day that irritated me. Someone I know wants a toy of the VF-21/22 from Macross Plus/Macross 7. Their birthday is coming up, so I decided to look and see if I could find a good quality 1/60 scale Yamato release on ebay from a seller who didn't look shady as under an awning at midnight. One auction caught my eye because it was about the price range of the item I was seeing, but just a little bit cheaper. It had a stock picture from the Yamato 1/60 box of a Macross 7 release. I checked the auction out. After a bit of reading, I realized they weren't selling the transforming toy. No, they were selling a "custom made and painted wooden model". There were no pictures of this "custom wooden model". There were only pictures of the packaging of the Yamato toy release and of the Yamato toy. There was no room to doubt that they were trying to mislead someone. Scams like that really piss me off, because there's an extra layer of maliciousness there. I mean, they could have just pretended they were selling the toy and never shipped anything for their rip off scheme, but these people have gone that extra little mile to put their scam in small print to try and trick someone.