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Here's one for the great game/horrible acting archives: Castlevania - Symphony of the Night. "Die monster! You do not belong in this world!" says Richter in a tin can. and "What is a man?" Dracula says as he dramatically tosses his glass to the ground. These performances actually turned me completely off to the game initially. I didn't rediscover its true greatness until about 2 years after. - Jason

I mostly find it annoying ("It's a-me...Mario!!"). The Prince in Sands of Time was good. The voices in TIE Fighter (Mac/PC) were also good. On that note, I can't think of any games where voice acting is completely necessary. Nope, won't miss 'em. They'll just have to go back to using the programmers as voice actors. It's not like there'll be a dramatic change in quality . - Jason

Hi Andrew, Should I no longer link to http://www.taswegian.com/TwoHeaded/Atari2600/dasm on my webpage? - Jason

I agree. Tetris Attack (Panel de Pon) ranks as my favorite puzle game on any console. If anyone's got an N64, check out Pokemon Puzzle League. It's from the same series as Tetris Attack but with the Pokeomon license thrown in. It's also only 2-players though. 862660[/snapback] I really enjoy Tetris Attack but there's one problem with the game play that bothers me. When things get really hectic and the tiles are piling to the top of the screen, all you really need to do is start randomly moving the D-pad and jamming the button. I've saved my own skin (and racked up a decent amount of points) many times doing this when things started heating up but it just feels so wrong. - Jason

If you're running Mac OS Classic, MPW (Macintosh Programmer's Workshop) is the app you'd use to run DASM. The "Worksheet" is just the title of the main window where you type your commands (i.e. 'dasm source.asm -f...'). Check out my 2600 Programming with Mac OS Classic site for more info (just updated, actually ). - Jason

Played it with two players and had a blast. It was short and sweet. It's not traditional Zelda but for multi-player action I'll take this over the Mario Party games *any* day (of course, I'll take *any* game over the Mario Parties so I guess that's not saying much ). Anyway, I suggest trying it with a buddy or three and giving it a second chance. - Jason

<Beavis & Butthead laugh> GamePube </Beavis & Butthead laugh> 855691[/snapback] STUPID LAME CUBE LOL!! :!: 855858[/snapback] Here, wrap these around my last post... <Just being silly, I actually like my GameCube as much as all my other systems. Hey, they're video games. It's all good.> </Just being silly, I actually like my GameCube as much as all my other systems. Hey, they're video games. It's all good.> Ahh, much better.

<Beavis & Butthead laugh> GamePube </Beavis & Butthead laugh>

Here's some old code I polished up and made a bit more flexible. Note that it's completely unoptimized in the display kernal. I don't understand skip or switchdraw enough to implement it (someday I'll learn!). I'm sure there's lots of room for improvement! Basically, you use the joystick to move SpriteMan around the screen (no, he doesn't mess up when he gets to the edge of the screen, I'm anal about that stuff and put a stop to it ). Press the fire button to cycle through the animations. This code requires an "idle" face (can easily be modified if this isn't desirable). That is, what the sprite looks like when it's not moving. This face isn't included in the animation cycling when you press the fire button. Here are some important constants. Change as appropriate for the individual sprite... FACE_DURATION is the number of frames between each face update. Increase to slow down the face animation. Decrease to speed up. This could be made a variable and mapped to the second joystick. I'm just too lazy at the moment . SPRITE_HEIGHT is self-explanatory. It's currently set to 16. NUM_ANIMATION_FACES is the number of faces of animation (not counting the idle position). Press the fire button to cycle through these faces. I've tested this with StellaOSX v1.4.2. My Supercharger is packed up otherwise I'd test it on real hardware. Let me know if you encounter any problems/glitches. Hope this works for ya! I've been hoping SpriteMan would come in handy some day! - Jason SpriteMan.zip

Popular consensus is that we console players are too stupid for such games. Or that they don't sell. I like the Starfighter games, Crimson Skies, and Secret Weapons over Normandy well enough (still need to play Yager ), but what I really want is X-Wing or Tie Fighter on these machines. Alas, it doesn't look like it's ever going to happen with the scripted stuff we get now. 852992[/snapback] If the Rogue Squadron/Leader games played more like X-Wing/TIE Fighter I'd be a lot more enthusiastic about them. The ability to target your opponent and match their speed in a dogfight is priceless. - Jason

So...judging from your 'Best Of Nintendo' lists, you like puzzles, racers, flying games, and classic games. So would you say that there aren't a lot of good games in those categories for PS? 852775[/snapback] Speaking of flying games... <steps onto soapbox> I, for one, would like to take this opportunity to complain that there aren't enough (any?) flight simulators for modern consoles. I had really hoped to start seeing some when the PlayStation came out but nooooo. Here we finally have hardware (and enough controller buttons) to do a realistic (or even semi-realistic) flight sim. I'm not talking Ace Combat or Star Wars Rogue Squadron action-style games. I'm thinking more in terms of the flight sims you'd find on the Mac/PC: Red Baron, A-10 Attack!/Cuba, F-18 Hornet, etc. We got realistic driving sims, why no flight? </soapbox crumbles underneath after eating too many bean burritos> Oh, and here are my favorite PS1 games... Atari Anniversary Edition Redux Castlevania - SoTN (chalk up another fan) Chrono Cross Gran Turismo Metal Gear Solid Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee - Jason

The best thing you can do for yourself is check out the games in emulation. Then factor in all hardware issues that concern you, determine if you can live with them, and let that be your guide. If you base your decision solely on what everybody is posting, you may very well be passing on a system (or two) that you may actually enjoy. - Jason

Pure hate? I'll say 'Panic!' for SegaCD (see this topic). As for "can't stand but I keep coming back to it because of all the rave reviews thus I must be missing something": Super Mario 64. A minute of that and I'm ready to chuck it out the window. - Jason

Neither Final Fantasy or Zelda are role-playing games. It's a mislabel. The whole phrase comes from paper'n'dice games that are played by 3 or more humans who take on the personality of their character(s) when they play. They're playing a role. Improvisational acting as it were. Which means when they get into a dialogue with another character, they decide exactly what to say. They don't choose from a list of predetermined phrases. That's not role-playing. I suppose games like Dragon Warrior and Ultima were dubbed "role-playing games" because that was essentially what the programmers were attempting to duplicate. Sure, they were able to automate such tasks as rolling stats and handling combat mechanics, but the core of the RPG was lost and what we are left with is an adventure game. - Jason

Thumbs up! Love the new difficulty curve. I was trying to think of death animations. How about having the fish that eats you grow one size bigger, he says, "Gone Fish!" (with text and/or AtariVox), and zooms off the screen. Or have an all out feeding frenzy where an even bigger fish eats the fish that ate the player. Then an even bigger fish than that comes from the opposite direction to eat THAT fish, etcetera. Lastly, the biggest fish finishes the job. Each fish would come from the opposite direction as the fish before it and they would swim pretty fast to their target with a possible half second delay before the next fish comes. The sound of each successive bite could be one step lower than the previous. Maybe I've thought on this too much... The label contest entries got me thinking of that one. Anyway, here's my high score. - Jason

No contest for me: Zelda. I've beaten almost all of 'em. Still working on Oracle of Ages and Majora's Mask. I've only beaten one FF and that was #7. I appreciate the series well enough (I own quite a few of them) but sudden encounters that pop out of nowhere with no warning really do nothing for me. - Jason

I second that. Nothing says "thumb cramp" like Activision Boxing. - Jason

Lynx II ...especially with Warbirds on the screen The GBA SP NES Edition comes in a close second. - Jason

That wasn't flicker, that was um, temporary hyperspace, yeah that's what it was. 842477[/snapback] I actually once thought that was a feature. I once hooked up my rapid fire unit to see if I could blast my way through everything and not get hit. Didn't work so well. To get back on topic, I think Pac-Man, E.T., and Defender get undeserved grief. Wanna try 'James Bond 007'? It'll make you want to rip it out of the Atari and plug in Moon Patrol. How about the yawn-inducing 'Space Jockey'? Side scrolling shooting in all its below-average glory. Surely not the worst 2600 games, but far less playable than Pac-Man, Defender, or E.T. - Jason

I started out in the newsgroups (r.g.v.c.) and visited the 2600 Nexus in 2001 for the rarity guide. When I went back to see if the guide had been updated I discovered the site name had changed to AtariAge. I've lurked the forums since 2002 and finally joined in 2003. - Jason

My award for biggest waste of time and space goes to... (insert drum roll here) ...'Panic!' for SegaCD I'm not even sure it qualifies as a game but here's how it "plays": 1 - Press any button. 2 - Watch "wacky" animation. 3 - If you progressed to the next screen, goto 1, else goto 1. 4 - Goto 1 This game had the shortest time in my possession of all the games I have ever owned since the dawn of my video game hobby. Had I obtained it for free, I would have gleefully burned the instructions and gone clay pigeon shooting with the CD. "PULL!"...KA-BLAM! Then I would have reused the case for one of my case-less Sega CD games. - Jason

I agree with Jess. They are 3 distinct libraries of games and, to me, that's what makes them separate systems. - Jason

The instructions for the Power Base Converter only mention F-16 Fighting Falcon as a game that cannot be used with it. For Montezuma's Revenge, it just says you need to use the original SMS controller. Are there graphical or gameplay glitches with Montezuma's Revenge? - Jason

I vote to keep the ones we have now. They're simpler, subdued and not as distracting (when used sparingly). The new ones are overbaked, if you know what I mean. The artwork is too goofy/cute (i.e. annoying). I dislike them immensely. - Jason

I bought this game back in the day primarily because of an EA Buy 2 Get 1 Free deal, played it, and returned it. This was before I ever used a Mac, BTW: circa 1991 or so. I hated the control and the way the guy spun around for what seemed like 15 minutes when he was dizzy. In recent years, however, I discovered that in the Mac version you aim with the mouse. I'm sure that makes a big difference in the game play experience. As for games that shame my collection...hmm. I only collect to play so I try to avoid crap games but sometimes you see a deal and it's something you've never played and are curious about... 2600 - James Bond 007 (this is Bond? WTF?) 7800 - Dark Chambers (painfully unfun; yes I own Karateka) SNES - The Tick (repetitive, repetitive, repetitive) SegaCD - Panic! (not a game; random button pushing; sold it) - Jason