RCmodeler

That must be where Win95 got the idea, heh. No actually it was the Apple Macintosh that had the first "shutdown" screen. I'm surprised you didn't know that. Never used a Mac? Anyway, Apple was also the first computer to add an automatic "turn off" option so there was no need to flip an off switch. Win 95 simply copied the Mac.

Aren't you long overdue to go write another "best of something" post? Okay. What is the best marketing campaign(s) ever by a gaming company? . . . HERE are my choices: (1) Zelda Collection/GameCube bundle - pure genius (2) Porting Space Invaders to the 2600 - This brilliant marketing move literally sold millions of Ataris and saved the console from near-death. (3) NES Exclusive Licences - Call it "unfair practices" if you wish, but Nintendo's decision to sign developers to exclusively develop for their NES console left the competition with very little software... thereby making the NES the one to own for the most games.

It depends on how you define hack. Related Question: Is Super Mario Bros 2 a "hack" of Doki Doki Panic? Seems to me that if the answer is no, than the answer is no to Taz and Asterix.

Another Pit Secret: As soon as you see yourself fall in, press the fire button. That way you don't fall all the way to the bottom. Yeah, the pits are a pain, but so is getting eaten by a dragon in Adventure or put to sleep by Tsetse flies in Raiders. It separates the men from the boys.

Oh really?!?!? (looks left) Trust me, I don't look anything like that! hahahahahaa! "My short joystick is no worse than your itty-bitty-titties." Okay that was the end of that relationship, but at least I won the argument. Most satisfying breakup ever. They think... I've noticed some older women (late 20s/early 30s) WANT to have their chests looked at. I haven't figured out why yet. But anyway, I've long since moved past that stage. I don't even bother looking unless she bends over in front of me... and then it's more accident than actual intent. (One of my coworkers keeps doing that... she really should wear higher necklines!) IMHO smaller is better. Quality over quantity. I wouldn't date a girl who did not play with her tiny joystick at least once a week. And enjoy the song "I Touch Myself" by the Divinyls. I like women who like themselves. (ducking and running) My old high school pal Chad met a really cool wife who loves games as much as he does. Lucky bastard! I met a real cutie at the local gamestop. She's into video games (obviously) and wears cat ears to work. CUTE! She was flirting with me a little bit, but then I told her I was 31 and she looked like she was having revulsion spasms. (sigh) It sucks to be old. So if any of you live in Lancaster PA go check out the cute gaming girl at the Park City Gamestop. Maybe you can hook up. Octopussy - Best James Bond title ever.

Atari sounds like a big high school. Or college. A place to do work and have fun at the same time! E.T. - I liked it. It was no more confusing than Raiders or Adventure. Donkey Kong & Jr. - I liked them too. Pac-Man - I totally enjoyed it... so did everyone I knew. It was the most fun you could have at home. Ms. Pac-Man - When this came out, Pac-Man started gathering dust. Jr. Pac-Man - Ditto. This was the closest to the arcade you could get at the time, and it made the previous efforts look pitiful. For me, the arcade didn't even exist. My mom never took me there, and even if she did, I didn't have any money to spend. So for me, the Atari was the shizzle. Pac-Man & Donkey Kong were the greatest games I had ever played!

Has it ever been disputed that I got bad info on it? I said as much myself. Doesn't make any the less irksome. I see.... then why blame Nintendo? It's not their fault.

Overkill. I just turn it off. However, I have my PS2 plugged into a surge protector just in case of lightning strike or something else catastrophic.

When/where was Zelda Collection advertised as a pre-order offer? I never saw or heard such an advertisment.

Sounds similar to Rez.... which was an awesome game.

Okay time to come out of the closet. I like E.T. Or rather used to back in the day. To me, E.T. was just as much fun as Raiders of the Lost Ark or Adventure. I spent many hours as a kid mastering the game, even the randomized version. I felt like I had accomplished something everytime that silvery/shimmery spaceship arrived to take me home! (whew) It's good to get that off my chest.

I'd love to see a Nintendo website like http://www.atariguide.com But of course, no ROMs... otherwise the great Nintendo would take you to court!

If you ever bothered to use the smooth scaling (which I doubt), you'd see it clearly states: PLAYSTATION DRIVER ...with no suffix. That's for the *original* playstation now called PSone. The smoothing only works on older PS1 games, and basically what it does is boost the textuing from lo-res to hi-res (320x240--->640x480) which eliminates the jaggies. (NES/S-NES emulators do the same thing if you choose that option.) PROOF: Play Final Fantasy 7 with and without the smoothing. It definitely makes a difference, especially in the battle screen.

If someone bought the cube in August for $150... and the price dropped to $99 in September... do they have a right to be angry? No. Why? Because any person with half a brain should know that as time passes, consoles drop in price and/or include bundled extras. YOUR duty as a loyal customer is to (a) decide to pay more now for instant gratification or (b) pay less later and deal with the pain of withdrawal. You choose (a) therefore Zelda Colection will cost you a few extra bucks (ebay). I choose (b) so yippee for me, I get it for free. ASIDE: I get a lot of customer coming in and saying, "I paid $150... now it's $99. I want a refund!" to which I reply, "Tough." A sale only applies during the specified time period. If you bought it early when it was still $150 (or even $250 a year ago), then it's your own dumb fault.

If the O2 is a computer..... then my C=64 was a console (all I ever did was play games).

Amazon - The World's Largest Book Store Amazon was sued and forced to change its name, because it's *not* a bookstore. Neither is the Phantom's online content. However, there's an easy way to get around it..... just put up 35,000 titles of PD games plus older games like Battle Chess or Wing Commander that are easily licensed. And no, this isn't an April Fool's joke. If it was, it would have been revealed last April 1.

I never thought Rare was "all that". Yeah, I enjoyed Banjo-Kazooie and Conker, but the other games I could have lived without (like Battletoads). As for Starfox Adventures, it was a fun little game, but nothing special. The different parts just didn't flow well together (like a FF or Zelda game). What really killed it was the final battle. After ~30 hours of leveling up with new weapons, suddenly you jump into a ship and fight the final boss. It made all the previous leveling up/fighting *pointless.* So anyway, Rare doesn't impress me much. Maybe if all I had was a poorly-supported N64, I'd drool over them, but I'm not that poor. I have other (and better) choices than Rare.

Does she have a short circuit? What is her/its story?

It all depends on the game. Mario & Zelda are bright and cheery on the Cube. But Metroid Prime is dark and somewhat blurred. So, if you want bright & cheery on the PS2, just go play Kingdom Hearts which shows lots of bright/sunny scenes in the first few hours. Dark Cloud 2, Grandia 2, and Pac-Man World are also bright & cheery. Get your friend to show you some of those more light-hearted games... something on par with the Mario & Zelda games you're used to. Or else, compare what you saw on PS2 to darker games like Metroid Prime.

I'm one of those people. I get totally frustrated when I buy a new game, pop it in my PC, and then it doesn't work... or else works and then frequently crashes. And yes I have a top-of-the-line P4. While I could reconfigure my settings to make these broken PC games work, I don't feel like wasting time. That's really what it's all about..... my time is precious and I don't want to waste it changing my settings. So I play consoles instead. Plug-n-play instantly.

I sold my Cube for $160. I'll buy it back when the Zelda Bundle comes out. Works for me!

The camera in Mario 64 was nearly perfect. I don't understand why companies don't simply copy that. You could move it 360 degress and at 3 different distances. I never had a problem orienting my camera to a good view. METROID PRIME: It was very forgiving because Samus could jump so far... but if you have a platformer requiring pixel-perfect jumps (or else plunge to your death), then the first-person view doesn't work. I had 15 lives saved up in TUROK 2, and ran through all of them because I couldn't get past the platforming level! Argh!

Teaser: The part you see when you first turn on a game... usually a quick sample of gameplay. My favorites are: - Soul Edge - Great FMV intro with cool music. - Vandal Hearts - Good Battle demo. Too bad it's just one battle and not multiple ones. - Metroid Prime - A nice movie of random locations overlaid with kick-butt music. - Super Mario RPG: Awesome music! - Chrono Trigger: Both awesome music and awesome battle scenes.

Like Commodore=64 and Amiga used to be. Those computers were kick-butt game machines. Problem is that only rich people with ~$1000 could afford them.

PS2 uses DivX? Or are you playing the Cube version?