JB

Suddenly? It HAS been a problem like that forever, well since day one of the NES anyways. I think he means, why is the lock-out chip suddenly a problem? The answer is the lock-out chip isn't the problem; it just makes a symptom of the problem more apparent. If I'm not mistaken, the lock-out chip's functionality relies on certain pins making contact with the cartridge. If any one of those particular pins is having trouble keeping contact, while the rest of the pins have a good connection, the game might seem to work when the system is first powered up, only to start resetting itself every two seconds after that. Disabling the lock-out chip gets rid of this particular symptom, but as JB alluded to, it doesn't solve the problem. Fixing or replacing the connector (and keeping everything clean) solves the problem. Actually, I meant the lockout chip IS the problem. The lockout chip requires a far better connection than the ROM buses do as far as I can tell, and one that can't reliably be attained with a ZIF connector. It's (quite frustratingly) usually the only problem in any given cartridge connection. And fully refurbishing the connector only helps for a little while(as has been noted, this was a problem with BRAND NEW NESes). Or am I the only person that usually has the game load properly, then flash the title screen/music because the lockout didn't engage?

Didn't watch the video, but I've been recommending Metal Storm for years. The fact that the grav flip comes off as a natural intuitive feature instead of a gimmick impresses me greatly. It's also a beautiful game. Animations are on a level you'd expect from something another generation or 2 out. Most SNES games didn't have animation as fluid as Metal Storm. 'S also one of .... I believe 3 NES games with parallax scrolling. I'm always impressed with just how far the NES was pushed, especially since they never used coprocessors on it. And as trivia, the Japanese version is different. Added an intro cutscene and a death trap to stage 6, as well as changing the color palate to accommodate a white Gundam power suit. But.... Contrary to popular belief, the game was NOT crippled for the US release. We actually got the game FIRST, and apparently they used us as a final beta. Fine with me. I'd probably never clear stage 6 if the edges of the screen were instant death. ... Wouldn't mind that cutscene, though.

So does that mean it's a piece of shit? It's a decent controller. It's not AS good as the original Advantage, but it's still a good device. Start and select aren't as readily-available as they were on the original, and the top row of buttons is offset a bit more than I care for. I also miss the instant-acess turbo controls, but let's face it, you can't really do that with the SNES. L and R I can go either way with. Some games work better with the Super Advantage layout, others work better with them stacked on top of each other("the Street Fighter layout"). Perhaps the BEST thing about the Super Advantage is that, like the original, the ball on top of the stick is threaded. With the same threads as the original. And if you ask me, the larger ball of the Super is a lot more comfortable. And I've heard ASCII actually made the original Advantage and Nintendo released it under license. Which explains why the sticks are so similar, as well as why Nintendo didn't sue their ass off for stealing the trademark.

Maybe it's just me, but Rondo of Blood seems to rely on that playstyle less than most of the other pre-RPG versions. It's the only one of them I've ever been able to stand, in any case. CV2, of course, just put invisible holes everywhere so you can't do anything without lobbing holy water every step. Whoever thought THAT was a good idea should be shot.

Chrono Cross doesn't get enough respect. It's a pretty good game that gets crapped on because Chrono Trigger fans had grossly unrealistic expectations. Some of my favs are Chrono Trigger(AV masterpiece, and lots of replay value), Crystalis, Symphony of the Night, Valkyrie Profile, Tales of Destiny, Lunar 2(SegaCD version), and Grandia 2. Xenogears is half of a great game. I wish I could put it in this list, but disk 2.

I heard Nintendo despises fun destroying amazing graphics so much that they are planning the Wii2 to be so innovative that it will be a slightly higher clocked N64 with no video out at all! Imagine how much fun that will be when we are finally free of the shackles of graphics!! That's lame. Fortunately Microsoft's there for us. The XBox 720 will have a photorealistic holoprojector, but no input whatsoever. That way the player can't screw up the most perfect game ever with silly "interaction."

Actually I don't see this doing much unless the games he's having trouble with are imports or Camerica games. Whethter the console blinks or not rarely has anything to do with the lockout chip. Most likely it's going to be the pin connector If it blinks, it's ALWAYS involving the lockout chip. It may be that the lockout chip is really finicky about it's connection and the connector isn't giving it a clean enough signal, but it's the lockout chip that's resetting the system once every 2 seconds. Disable that, and the blink WILL go away. After that, you just have to get the gray screen, white screen, insert-color-here screen, or garbled screen to look like a real game.

One 3rd-party pad I was really fond of was a Performance/Interact/WTFEver "Dual Impact" Not the best pad ever, by any stretch. But it was REALLY comfortable to hold and use, which Sony sure as hell can't claim. It was my primary controller(despite a less precise d-pad than I cared for, and a loose left thumbstick that would hang JUST outside the deadzone sometimes when at rest) until it died. At which point I opened it and saw how atrocious the actual build quality was. Despite that, I'd've bought another one if the mold hadn't been retired by whoever owns the brand now. The PC version, the "AxisPad", is still around. But from what I've heard it's a foul-tempered, marginally functional device. Besides, I can find PC gamepads I like fairly easily. As far as fixes go.... I've scrubbed 5200 stick flex circuits with pencil erasers. ... glued foil to 5200 stick buitons when I got sick of scrubbing the switches. ... swapped parts from 3 different revisions of 5200 stick to get my preferred look and feel. ... scrubbed a PS2 pad's flex circuit with a pencil eraser. ... scrubbed a few Genesis pad boards with a pencil eraser... and ye olde Q-Tip/rubbing alcohol combo. ... scrubbed a Vectrex controller board with a pencil eraser. ... soldered a severed cable on an SNES pad back together. ... opened a NES2 pad and reconnected a dislodged connector. ... opened my NES and bent the cart pins back. ... pried a piece of cardboard out of my NES' cart connector(to this day I have no clue how it got there). ... made a nasty kludge with a Dreamcast extension cable to fix a joystick with a broken connector... it didn't work and the stick was thrown out anyways. ... cursed vehemently and physically abused a PS1 with a failing power supply. ... cursed vehemently and physically abused an NES that needed the cart slot restored. ... dismantled a Genesis cart and scrubbed the contacts with Q-Tip/alcohol, pencil eraser... and maybe fine-grit sandpaper. It's been a while, so I'm not sure if that one ACTUALLY came out. But that cart was NASTY. ... resoldered a 2600 power connector that broke loose. And perhaps the one TRULY redneck repair I've made... ... sliced a failed 2600 brick off the cord and wired it into a 9-volt battery because I was in the middle of a Berzerk binge when it crapped out, and the battery was there NOW but a replacement brick wasn't.

OMG!!! NO!!! That looks like a great way to break some of the 'oh so thin' wires inside the cables. It's also hard to do, at least on versions of the stick I've tried it with. I did it once, I think. Just to see if it actually worked. Which it does, sort of. It won't look a ffith as neat as their's, and only just barely fits.

I meant IoG was half-assed and simplistic(writing-wise, anyways). SoM is just half-finished. And it DOES let go sometimes. Usually when a bug takes it down. I've tripped on bugs so many times in my last 2 plays, concluding with the mana beast knocking me off-screen unrecoverably, that it's really soured me to the game. My PoV is that he doesn't level up. He collects items. That's no more RPG than the power-up bubbles in Gradius. I view item collection as VERY different from actual character growth. Tangent: I'd like to see more games like FF2j/FFLegend, where instead of rigid XP levels you have stats vary with what you're actually DOING. The XP level is basically a holdover from tabletop RPGs, where it served to simplify book-keeping for the players. With a computer keeping track of everything, you can be more elaborate. Healing items aren't an RPG element. They're a common feature of ANY game where you can take more than one hit. Enix didn't actually DEVELOP any of those. EVO excepted, you just listed ... everything Quintet did at the time. Plus Illusion of Gaia, and the US-denied Terranigma(Very rare instance of Europe getting a localization that we didn't) But yeah, they published some good stuff. Pity their US division never messed with most of them, and the ones it DID mess with got mangled. The pig IS pretty funny. It's just so absurdly over-the-top, even if you WERE taking the game seriously, you have to laugh(or at least smile). True, it does a pretty bad job justifying things. I viewed it mainly as an excuse to stab/bash stuff. It's one of those ones I take a very gameplay-centric approach to. Story segments come off as amusingly bad or "shut up so I can go kill something". Sadly, it's extremely linear. One of the most rigid "stage" setups I've seen in the genre(whichever it may be). No real opportunity to wander about smacking random stuff in the head. That's what keeps me from messing with it more often. Aside from collecting the red gems, there's nothing to do that isn't required at the time. Odd... I remember LIKING IoG's music, but not any ACTUAL music... I guess I should play it again to jog my memory. Or rummage an SPC set up. Chrono Trigger and Lunar are among the few to actually stick with me, music-wise. I've found that all but the best and worst music tends to blend in with the game. It's hard for me to pick out as a standalone. Sometimes I hear it and go "What was that? I've heard it before...", but I can't place it without some of the game attached to it(add random explosions, for example, and it becomes more recognizable. ).

Zanac is awesome. More games need adaptive difficulty.

SNES has an integrated RF modulator. So that one WON'T work, though the composite and s-video cables will. Moral of the story: RF is dead. Stop using it.

Awww, c'mon. Sure it's half-assed, simplistic, and linear, but it's still a fun game. Not even when THE PIG COOKS HIMSELF?!?!?! ... Seriously, Enix America never WAS known for great translations. Or good ones. Or mediocre ones. I think the only half-decent job they did was with Robot Alchemic Drive. It's at least grammatically consistent, and has a majority of the text looking like actual english. Most of the rest of their work looks like it was done with a Japanese-English dictionary and a proof-reader that learned english at night school. I suspect Illusion of Gaia would make a lot more sense if someone COMPETENT had translated it. Oh, come on. Now you're just being petty. FF1's plot was "Garland kidnapped the princess. And four fiends are wrecking the world. Oh shit, the fiends were sent by Garland, who went back in time when you killed him! And made himself immortal at the cost of the rest of the universe! And now he's dead for real! And the world broke anyways because of a time paradox. BTW mister gamer-person sir, you actually ARE the light warriors. Because the real world is what the game world turned into after you killed Garland." That's not a summary. It's the ENTIRE THING, from the opening blue screen to "the end". IoG had better writing than THAT. Even if it DID steal the ending(minus the groan-inducing "player is game character" bit). As far as turds go.... never make me play FF8 again. It may've been a more polished translation(read as: it was in english), but it wasn't BETT ER. Personal peeve: It's not an action-RPG. It's an action-adventure game. Secret of Mana = action RPG. Crystalis = action RPG*. Symphony of the Night = action RPG, albeit of a side-scrolling flavor. Zelda 2 = action RPG(barely). Illusion of Gaia/any Zelda other than 2/Blaster Master/Megaman X = action-adventure game. *And one I'd rank far higher than Secret of Mana. Not that SoM is a BAD game, but it's clearly only half-finished and DESPERATELY in need of another round of beta-testing. Heck, it's probably the best buggy and incomplete game I've ever played. Which says a lot, actually. And Crystalis is just pure unadulterated awesomeness. That helps, too.

No. The custom connector is a big clue.

The gender selection is probably because having the male connector on the console made it far less likely that the exposed pins would get mangled. And I don't see anything wrong with using a standard 15-pin DSub. It's a standard, readily available component. Really, compared to the wide array of proprietary ports that came to dominate the market(or even some flavors of DIN)...

There was. I saw it at a HalfPrice Books once.

Metroid Prime is THE game to own. Good call getting that one. I recommend PN03. And get laughed at. But it's a good game if you ask me, and it's cheap. I'd describe it as Berzerk 3D. F-Zero, StarFox Assault, and Resident Evil 4 are all good choices. Ikaruga is NOT a classic shooter. It's equal parts modern pattern-based bullet-cloud shooter and color-matching puzzle game. I STILL can't figure out what the appeal is, other than "Hey, it's a scrolling shooter!" But I don't like Gradius either, so my opinion isn't exactly that of a "mainstream" shooter fan.

Yes, the storage area was designed for the controllers. You can wrap the cords around the stick shafts, turn the sticks upside down and place them inside, lining up the top of the sticks with the raised bumps on the bottom of the storage area. Alternatively, you can leave them plugged in and route the cord out the notch on the far side of the bay. This really only works with just one stick, though.

IMO it's too thick to use as a gamepad, and too squat to use as a joystick. And the buttons are in the wrong direction for stick usage(fire should be under the index finger), and too far apart for pad usage. The best solution I've found is a bastard pad-stick grip, where I pinch the stick between 2 fingers and wrap the rest under it. And rest the right end of the stick on a table so I can hammer at the buttons. ... It kills my left fingers fairly rapidly. Never broke my stick, though I DID have to clean it recently. After a decade or 2, the fire button got a lot less responsive.

Reliability aside, why would you want to trade a 5200 stick for a Vectrex... thing. I love the Vectrex, I really do. Perhaps more than is healthy. But the controller is an abomination.

I think it's a 3D0 game. Probably Wing Commander.

At least in the US, no.Trademarks only lapse if they're abandoned or ignored(which is why Bayer doesn't still have control of the name Asprin). As long as they're in use and actively protected, they don't lapse. And if they DO lapse, and no one else lays claim to them, you can reclaim them later.

And of course it was a group like the Red Cross, there wouldn't be anyone critizing the offending group either. If the Red Cross were pulling a stunt like this, I'd be quite unamused. I WOULD have some bad things to say about them. Though I suspect Hasbro might be less annoyed by the Autobot Ratchet advocating saving lives than Nintendo's gonna be by PETA jacking Yoshi for their semi-terroristic propaganda*. Regarding the Johnson&Johnson suit.... But the red cross symbol is generally considered universal. I doubt they can really win their case, as from my POV it's gone generic. If they DO somehow win, the negative publicity will hurt them more than letting the Red Cross use the red cross will. It was a pretty bad call on their part. *I proudly admit to being anti-PETA.

SSF is making good progress. http://www7a.biglobe.ne.jp/~phantasy/ssf/ Menus are in english. I haven't messed with it recently, partially because my comp is a tad too slow(Actually, I've been told they sped up a bit right after the version I tested, so I guess I just don't care enough...).

'S funny... audiophile I know just rolled his eyes. His logic: get a CD player with digital outputs and an amp with good DACs. He actually makes a valid point. Keep it digital to the end and you introduce the minimum possible interference. BUT... my stereo lacks digital inputs, my budget lacks room for an upgrade, and my PS1 is dead. Been tempted to invest in a DVD/SACD/DVDA/CD/MP3/WTFEver player. But I don't really listen to disks that much.