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Artlover

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Posts posted by Artlover

  1. Posted

    Ok, try this, unplug your hard drive, and unplug all the memory cards, I'd bet like mine, you still have the NXE ;)

    Yes, a stripped down NXE that can't do anything more then boot game discs and defeats the purpose of having NXE at all.

     

    NetFlix, PhotoParty, custom avatars and all that (pretty much every single thing NXE add's over the old dash) is non functional without the additional storage or memory.

  2. Posted

    Even if it lived longer, it wouldn't have better graphics

    And you know this how? :ponder: :roll:

     

    PS2 games in 2002 wern't nothing to brag about and a far cry worse then compared to PS2 games now.

     

    Lets pretend history went a bit different, knowing what we know now. PS2 was killed off after only a couple of years and we come along and say the best looking game at 'that' time is the best it could have ever done. - See how incredibly stupid such a remark is. :ponder:

  6. Posted

    If all the levels and everything was unlocked at the beginning of the game I'd personally find it to be really boring, there wouldn't be much incentive to play it, or even feel like there's much point.

    So the only point and purpose to playing games is to unlock content, not to enjoy the merits of the actual game itself?

     

    Yeah, I know the only reason I try to come in first in racing games is to unlock something, not because that's the point of the game and gives me a higher score. And the only reason I try to score under par in Outlaw Golf is to earn tokens to beat my caddy up with, not because that's the objective of Golf. Etc., etc., etc.. :ponder: :ponder: :ponder:

     

    If a game is so boring that the only worth wild merit it has is unlockable content, I don't think said unlockable content is going to make the game any better.

     

    Nintendo's SMBB is a pretty good indicator of what is wrong with this concept. First it strongly hypes up being able to play as certain popular characters that are not accessable till after you've played for hours and hours and hours in single player mode first. Ain't that just f'in briliant for a party game. Guess Nintendo figures a good host will play the game 10+ hours first by himself to unlock everything so it will be ready when party time comes along.

  9. Posted

    I've never seen one of these before. :-o

     

    Guess this game is only for big manly men that stand 7 feet tall and can pick up a sheet of plywood length wise. Kids & midgets are out of luck unless they each bring in a stool or step ladder and play in pairs. :P

     

    But seriously, that's crazy! :dunce: :lolblue:

  10. Posted

    http://www.klov.com/images/11/118124215870.jpg

     

    That angled piece between the top back edge of the control panel and bottom front edge of the monitor with the swirly gold things & purple inlays?

     

    Anyone know what the original piece was made out of. I'd venture to say even wood might have been a possibility.

     

     

    Anywho.... Light. That's a very visible location, one that points up towards the player. Even if it was dim, I personally think a light there would be distracting when trying to play. Unless you plan on mounting whatever you're going to put there completely different then how that cab originally had it. If it was perfectly vertical so the light only came straight out towards your mid-section, it wouldn't be an issue. But then that also might look sorta funny breaking the flow of the lines not to mention it would be mostly right up against the monitor frame out and not leave you much room to do anything behind it. :ponder:

  11. Posted

    It's not about hardcore. It's about DRIVING PHYSICS and REALISM (car and environment models, sounds, car control etc).

    Oh, so you're talking Forza on the Xbox then.

     

    And of course the bottom line is, there are a bazillion PS2 games. There are only 2-300 DC games... A lot more variety on the PS2.

    Why do you keep bringing up this worthless point. OF COURSE it has more games, 9 years later and it's still being supported. It wasn't killed just a couple of years out of the gate. This doesn't have anything to do with the intended discussion.

  12. Posted

    Well the up front thing to do would be to name the bad apples so they can be avoided by unknowing buyers and kept from spoiling the bunch. CTCW is far to wet behind the ears to have scum floating in the beautiful pond it's becoming.

    Ya know, all in all, I kinda don't agree. Everyone seems to be floating this "once a criminal always a criminal" mentality and aren't even willing to give anyone a chance to redeem themselves. That's BS. Everyone deserves a second chance. If they blow it again, then yeah, kick them to the curb. Till such time, no, they deserve to be given the benifit of the doubt. Such attitude only serves to ensure they WON'T redeem themselves because there is no point if everyone has already decided it doesn't matter to them regardess. People will act like they are treated.

  13. Posted

    $60 including working controllers is not a bad deal if it is local. I would check to make sure that all buttons work on the controllers.

     

    You would not believe the number of 5200 systems that I have bought online that have arrived damaged. Often the plastic cracks while being shipped. You are better off buying local if you can.

    When I was in Oklahoma a few years ago, I bought a tested and working 5200 locally from GameXchange complete with hook ups and controllers for $29.95.

  15. Posted

    Huh? Magneto-optical media exist, just not for the mass-market because they're too expensive. It does work pretty well, actually. So well it's the recommended medium for archival - unlike DVDs, which die away quickly.

    Yes, "other"alternate magneto-optical formats exist. Not Orange Book, part 1 CD-MO. That was a failure.

     

    Cost. Yeah, MO does have one of the crappiest cost per GB out of most archival methods. AIT, DLT, LTO, VXA, REV give you much more bang for your buck, but they are also tape and/or removable HDD technologies. IE, they have ease of use and reliability issues.

     

    But if you don't need a lot of capacity, MO isn't too bad. I've seen 2.3GB MO drives for like $275 and 2.3gb media for $25. Could probably find them even cheaper if I really looked. As it is, it's cheaper then the cheapest drives and media for other technologies like those mentioned above. Only thing cheaper would be Zip drives, but not by much and with the downfall of even signifigantly worse capacities and reliability issues.

     

    All in all tho, it seems that DLT tape is over all still the most common archival format being used by companies. Having used it a lot myself, it's actually pretty good. Reasonable cost and reliable as hell, which is surprizing for tape.

  17. Posted

    I didn't think it was that bad. Never had all the problems you seem to either. :ponder:

     

    Thought it was better then Lego StarWars myself. Atleast I finished Indy, which I never bothered to do with SW.

     

    As for the puzzle solving. If Lego Indy is causing you grief, don't try playing an older RE game! :P :lolblue:

  18. Posted

    Interesting that the ENTIRE console market would be affected by one company's TWO games then, right?

    I'm sorry, what does this have to do with anything you originaly brought up. You were first trying to make a claim that ET was popular and a success, using sales numbers as justification, and now you're talking about the industry on a whole. :ponder:

     

    No one, atleast I didn't say thse two games killed the VG industry. I'm just saying that neither is actually as successfull as people would like to think when put into context.

     

    Besides, games like Pac-Man and ET did to a degree contribute to failure in way of customer loyality. Between Pac-Man and ET both comming out in 1982, both being produced in excess, both being over hyped, both leaving a trail of unhappy customers in their wake's. You're right, people had better thing to spend their money on then gambling on the next turd-in-a-box.

     

    Do you have any figures of what they sold?

    Many sources say 1.5 million units of ET were sold. Figure $30 each = $45 million - $21 million for license = $24 million - production costs which I have no idea what they were. Couple of bucks? Fine, say $3 million in production. So $21 million in profit. Funny thing is, in the end, even some of their lesser selling games made them just as much (if not more) profit because they didn't have licenses cutting into nearly half of it. Pretty much any game that sold atleast 750k copies made them that much.

     

    The entire console market had gone walkies.
    It still doesn't explain the death of the industry as a whole.

    No, it doesn't, and again, not the topic of discussion you started or I was replying to. So why bring it up?

     

    "Official" titles should sell better than unofficial titles. Everybody wants the official game. Name-recognition does a lot for a product ;)

    Who's talking unoffical titles. Ms.Pac-Man was a 1000x better then Pac-Man. It wasn't over produced, it wasn't over hyped, didn't have a $20+ million dollar license hanging over it, didn't sell like Pac-Man or ET either. Very few games sold like Pac-Man and ET, either before or after. Well, NOTHING sold like Pac-Man, period.

     

    I believe the top tens goes like this:

     

    1 - Pac-Man (7 million)

    2 - Pitfall (4 million)

    3 - Missile Command (2.5 million)

    4 - Demon Attack (2 million)

    5 - ET (1.5 million)

    6,7,8,9,10 - Atlantis, Adventure, River Raid, Kaboom and Space Invaders (all at just over 1 million)

     

    Centipede, Berzerk, Vanguard, Asteroids, Defender..... I could keep naming great games that captured the essence of their arcade counter parts VERY well, and none of them sold like Pac-Man.

     

    First you say that they didn't sell, and now you say they did.

    Where did I ever say it didn't sell? :ponder: Putting it in context of units sold version units produced is something different.

     

    rather than toward a game that you know you already figure that you aren't going to like (based on opinions gathered beforehand).

    You keep claiming this, yet speaking for myself, I know for a fact this wasn't the case. Only game magazine I ever got or saw was AtariAge, and even they wern't exactly accurate with their screen shots nor unbiased. Other then the occasional TV ad, I had no first hand experience in knowing diddly squat about anything. I didn't even have any friends that had a 2600. We were poor back then and lived in the slums with other poor families. Most of my friends had to go outside and actually play with physical balls and stuff in the hot sun for fun. Tho one of them did have a Coleco Telstar Ranger. Comparitively speaking, 2600 Pac-Man wasn't so bad I guess. :ponder:

     

    You're right, eyes and ears don't help at all. Apparently, not even trying the game.

    Did you not read what I said. I can't ever remember actually getting to "try" any game before I bought it on account there was always some little bastard there that wouldn't give it up. If no one was playing, it was broken. Back in those days the consoles were right out in the open on a display shelf, so little bastards would steal or break the carts, or stick shit down the slot, or pull the cables out the back and let them fall down the hole, or throw the controllers on the floor and break them, etc..

     

    So stick to your guns that the majority of the public had no idea what they were buying then. No matter how you spin it, it's completely untrue.

    Yet you agree several times that it sold on name. :ponder: Which is it? :?

     

    Hell, the box itself shows a screenshot.

    Back in those days, when did a box shot EVER actually represented very well what the game was going to look like? Yeah, go look at the box shot of Pac-Man. That sure captures the horrible ghost flicker, don't it. It also somehow captures how horrible the control is too I guess?

     

    All I know is when I popped Pac-Man in for the first time, I was like "what the heck is this crap?" My first reaction to ET was: "I don't get it. Grrr, f'in wells, screw this." :P

  19. Posted

    I've been going through my floppy collection and finding out what still works and what doesn't. I've got a lot of disks that have software that I never or very rarely used so I'm reformatting them to see if they're still good.

    Why aren't you backing this stuff up first?

     

    This could be stuff only you have that no one elses know about and might be interested in.

  22. Posted

    Generic LS series chips are probably not worth the effort to desolder.

    I still would myself. Still cheaper and easier then trying to buy them.

     

    Remember, even this stuff is slowly becomming a commodity. Everyone uses microcontrollers now so no one cares much about old school linear ic's.

     

    Why do you think you can buy STAMP's at RadioShack, but not a 7400?

  23. Posted

    That is correct. Word-of-mouth travelled pretty quickly even without the internet in the 80's (that's why truely HORRIBLE games are generally higher in rarity). ET was not such a despised game back then...neither was Pac-Man. This is reflected in the fact that they are two of the most common carts around.

    They just happen to be two of the most overstocked games at the time investors were leaving the sinking ship.

    And they aren't common, maybe because, they WERE two of the most overstocked games? Or maybe everyone DID despise them and dropped them like a bad habit.

     

    Sorry, but games like Pac-Man and ET represent a very specific aspect of products and marketing: NAME. People bought these games based on name alone, and Atari made millions of carts ahead of time because they expected that to be the case. Most of the sales were very early on, before word of mouth could really sweep the nation. Atari could have made a Pac-Man cartridge that didn't do anything more then show a big Pac-Man logo and it still would have sold like hotcakes till everyone figured out the hotcakes were made from poop. It was a short lived bubble. Sales stalled once "everyone" realised that they sucked.

     

    ..and people make the false connection in retrospect that it was those two games that caused the loss of millions. When actually, the reverse is true. Atari made millions off the carts it DID sell, and the scrapped overstock helped lower inventory value saving them money. Both carts were successes.

    Did Atari make enough from ET to pay off the $21 million dollar licensing fee? Which by the way was like twice what the movie even cost to make.

     

    Yes, Atari made millions. That in and of it self means nothing nor does it classify the game as being a success. In context of how many were produced, no, generally speaking selling only 1/4 of your stock is not considered successfull. In context of how many people actually like it, no, generally when most people piss and moan about it to the point of sending their own copies back to them for a refund, it's not a success.

     

    These games were like fly by night quick money grabs, where a lot of people were suckered in to handing over their money early on, and once the word got out, millions of cartridges got dumped in a hole.

     

    The whole word of mouth, store demos, good games sell & bad ones dont arguments can all be dismissed with the following statement: If Pac-Man wasn't called Pac-Man, if ET wasn't called ET, they wouldn't have sold the numbers that they did. That's a fact that can be verified by the fact that there were many MANY great games that didn't sell those kinds of numbers despite being 100x better. Just the fact that most games period didn't sell those kinds of numbers. Just the two games based on one of the most popular arcade games ever and one of the most popular movies ever. Do the math.

     

    $30 was a fortune to a kid...way too much to piss away on something if it has nothing but negative feedback surrounding it.

    Come on, most kid's weren't spending their own money, it was their parents and relatives.

     

    Oh...but we apparently lived in bubbles back then too. Completely oblivious to the products we bought...even when stores allowed you to try out games on display :roll:

    You mean those store displays that were always occupied by some punk bully little bastard that wouldn't let anyone else play because it was his own personal arcade. Yeah, they were a real help.

  24. Posted

    Need some opinions/thoughts.

    I guess it's up to you really.

     

    Personally, if it was me, I'd pull/test/save EVERY chip. Ram included.

     

    It's stupid to throw away hard to find parts for classic hardware. Even more so in your case when you're trying to put together as many good ones as you can.

     

    Gotta remember these formerly common parts aren't so common anymore. It's easier/cheaper to pull a 6510 then it is to try and buy a new one.

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