DJ Clae

My launch day PS5 from Gamestop got lost in the mail sending it to my brother in Japan. I got to play it for one day. Against all odds I managed to get another PS5 from Walmart this morning to replace the one still lost in the mail. I happened to refresh brickseek right when a new store was listed a bit off the beaten path. Managed to get there on time to be number 10 out of 12. Pure luck. I never again want to be part of a brick and mortar new console rush! Especially not during a pandemic. I preorder online for a reason. This time I'm sending it by Global Express Guaranteed. The old one is still last updated 11/23. Last known location was New Jersey. I've never seen packages sent to Asia go anywhere but Chicago from here. I have no idea what it's doing in New Jersey.

Not sure how much I'll play it before the full next gen version gets released. I have too many games to play now. Maybe the game will get a second wind when the nextgen version launches. Maybe I'll get addicted early.

It sounds like Sonic Team has been working on a new game. I'm hoping for something perhaps a little better than Sonic Forces. One can hope for something back up toward the qaulity of Sonic Unleashed and Generations. I think they need to drop this old Sonic/new Sonic thing. The gimmick got very stale in Forces. Sega's financial situation doesn't give me much hope.

I wish the Series S didn't exist. Another platform for devs to optimize for, and padding for the Digital Foundry head to heads. All we care about is XSX vs PS5. Get that Series S out of there. Also Series S isn't living up to MS's promise of having the same experience as XSX but at lower resolution.

Thanks! I knew before I started it was going to be a long one. There are too many things to talk about. I know the explanation for it is simple, but it still floors me that games that were sold for hundreds of dollars were riddled with typos! You'd think for all the money we were paying we could at least get some proofreading.

Here's Blue's Journey. Been working on this one since early summer.

These small details in the shots posted don't make a huge difference in the here and now. However, all these separate small incremental changes add up over time in creating a more convincingly realistic image. I think that's the true generational difference. Who knows what kinds of graphics these next gen consoles will be producing when they reach end of life?

I can't find the post you refer to about the PS5 freezing, but yeah, I played the PS5 for one night, and managed to crash Spiderman Miles Morales twice. The second time the whole console locked up, I had to hard power off, and the console went through the hard drive repair sequence. Crashes where you have to hard power off the whole console are rare on Xbox platforms, supposedly because games run inside a virtual container. On the plus side, the hard drive repair sequence was lightning fast on PS5.

Not having a decent Halo Infinity ready at the Series X launch is a huge miss for Microsoft. Might as well replace "PS3" with "Series X" the "PS3 has no games" meme:

"Xbox XSXSXSXSXJust try buying the right system, parents"

The drive on my Series X doesn't click like that, but it whirred loudly, but only while installing Yakuza for some reason. The disc looks fine. I think my drive is okay. It was normal for every other game. The new Xbox discs are basically just Xbox One discs that act as a key to download the Series X version. The amount of data that gets installed off the discs is very small. And the installs take forever because each is near or exceeding 100 gigs from the Network. Hopefully this will change with time. And they make this sound like a benefit calling it the "Smart Delivery" system.

That's kinda naive if you expect to get one on launch day. These days you have to preorder consoles if you want them at launch. The problem with PS5 is that they didn't announce when preorders would open until a matter of hours before it happened, so a lot of people who wanted one missed the chance. My understanding is that just about everyone who wanted a PS5 who was preordering that day was able to secure one. Unfortunately for me that window came and went without me knowing. I was able to secure one in the additional Gamestop bundles preorder a week or so later, but it took some effort. The Series X preorder is an example of the normal way to do it. I had no issues securing a console, with a little patience on the pre-announced preorder day. I had my choice of multiple retailers with it in stock, and it just took some browser refreshing and being online at the right time to make it happen. It helped that my wife was also online and helping me.

Try a contact cleaner such as Deoxit D5 on the cards and system. Try another system eventually too. I'll bet they work.

Wow, you must be new to Youtube. It's all about the clickz and subs, yo. I'm all about the clickz.

Is Puzzled just Tetris for Neo Geo? I attempt to answer in the latest installment.

That's a valid point because it would be hard to prove or disprove that CDRs damage the console. For all we know, the Taiyo Yuden ones are just as bad. However, what I do know is that some consoles have more difficulty reading the cheap ones. My Turbo Duo in particular skips and has loading errors, especially when playing tracks in the latter portion of the disc.

I get that. My brother and I have a complete Neo Geo MVS collection because we love that system. It started out as just buying what we wanted and could get. Years later we were close enough, and there weren't that many games for the system, so we just finished it out. The same brother has a complete PC-FX collection. I know he likes that system, but not sure how that came about otherwise.

Okay, but I think you'll have more fun if you just buy games you want to play instead of approaching it as collecting.

Your mileage may vary, but those store brand CDRs are highly suspect for use in consoles. They tend to wear down the lens faster, and can cause read errors. You want Taiyo Yuden lacquer CDRs burnt at the slowest speed possible (to insure there's no variance in the burn speed). Although you could argue damaging the lens is a moot point if the eventual alternative is removing the drive assembly for an ODE anyway. Edit: I'm replying to an old post from the bottom of the first page apparently.

I remember Pulstar as a teenager. Drywall dents easily.

What an odd concept. Why does one become a "beginner collector?" Here's my advice: Buy the Xbox One and PS4 games you want now, maybe a few more you want every few years or so, then in 30 years if you still have them, you'll be a "collector." That's how I did it.

I wasn't talking about hurting oneself. Just the butterfly effect. If I hadn't gone to Korea in 2009 there's no telling what chain of events that would have set off instead. For all I know, I wouldn't be alive anymore. I'm just saying look on the bright side -- you are where you are and you're still kicking. Appreciate what you have now.

No offense taken. I've already been through this discussion on the Arcade Projects forum. Most people there seem to agree recapping is often more difficult than it's worth. The people who find it easy like yourself are few and far between. You really have to have the right equipment and skill I think. I've got my brother's Duo here that I've only replaced the faulty audio caps on, and currently seems to be working 100%. However, it's giving off the telltale fishy smell when powered on, so it needs a better cleaning with IPA than what I gave it and/or the rest of the caps replaced. I am currently using this Duo but both my brother and I don't want to pay to send it to someone. He has an RX as well, but I don't use it because he's keeping it stock so it doesn't have RGB.

Sorry to hear that. Well, you never know what could've happened the other way. You could be dead. And we don't want that. I wanted to get into JET too, like my brother did. When I didn't, I gave up and stayed in the US. When my career went south and the economy was bad in 2009 I was already tired of the idea of living in Japan, and instead embraced someplace else I had studied somewhat in college, Korea, as a new adventure. It was the right decision, but I was at the end of my rope at the time though. It's never too late.

Tanooki, my wife wants nothing to do with Japan too -- she's Korean. Glad I lived overseas though when I was young enough. I still have a brother living in Japan for nearly two decades now. That's crazy how you basically had to choose between working in gaming or in Japan as a young person. I think it's best to focus on all the things we're thankful we have, rather than the road not taken.