JB

I've heard the 3rd game is actually worth playing. 'S not the best game, but it's not festering crap, either.

I've seen both. Didn't buy either.

Heh. The worst part is that's probably a fairly accurate guess.

You just have to be careful though. "Rare" has become only of the most over-abused slogans in Ebay when it comes to classic collecting. Somewhere, the definition changed from "legitimately scarce" to sometimes meaning "woefully common game that I bought from O'Sheas for .80 cents and am now trying to trick a newbie into thinking it's a bargain." Be careful. Wha? I thought for SURE that rare meant "for sale".

To be fair, the CD-i was never really intended as a game system. This is very evident in the controller. It's a remote control with a trackball mounted on it. The CD-i was intended more for things like digital encyclopedias and stuff, as well as VCD playback.

I've got standard Atari sticks, Gemsticks, the Gemini controllers, a Quikshot, and the Wico trackball. I used the Quikshot most untill the base button died.

what braingames works with Video Touch Pads? The keyboard controllers, video touch pad, and kid's controllers are all the same thing, just in diffrent shells. So yes.

Ahhh... "Memmaker" That program basically saved my life on numerouse occasions. Playing DOOM with a grand total of 4Mb of RAM is no mean feat MemMaker crashed my computer and rendered it unbootable(god bless boot floppies and those lovely F-key startup modifiers).Every time.

For what? Combat?

Might also wanna look for "video touch pad".

That game became SO COOL when I got my Video Touch Pad.

I actually like R-Type because it's NOT that bad about lost lives. Sure you aren't fully equipped, but compare it to that OTHER long-running shooter series. I loathe Gradius with a passion, because you literally start too weak to survive. Should you die, there are places that become physically impossible to get through. You literally can't move fast enough. A notable example being a few levels in on Gradius 3, where you're dropped into a tunnel that scrolls rapidly. Die, respawn in the tunnel, and the tunnel moves up faster than you can move down, and you will be crushed to death in the top-left corner untill you run out of lives. By comparision, R-Type becomes insanely hard, but never impossible.

But somebody said that by doing that, the picture would have poor video output... how poor is it? No worse than any other Atari. It's a perfectly fine image for most purposes. And most people are not feeding thier TVs with twin line anymore... At the most primitive, most people probably feed thier TVs with Coax (cable, satalite dish, etc) and it only takes a second to connect/disconnect the inputs... Well, my TV's access to the back is restricted, and hte antenna feed has the full-fledged nut connector, so it bolts down. I find the switchboxes annoying enough given the limited access without haivng to unfasten and refasten things. Actually, I DO use a coax switchbox. The switchbox style I prefer has both 300 and 75 ohm inputs and outputs. One like this one. Ah. As I siad, in my area there's really no point to reducing noise with an RCA-coax adapter because there's so much being picked up already that bypassing the noise induced in the switchbox is like trying to not scratch a surface you just sandblasted. ... I really oughta sit down and mod all my systems for AV outputs sometime. 'Kay. Just being nitpicky. I do that sometimes. ... I've run into the plug it straight into the AV port people before. You'd think the fact that there's no audio plug would be a clue that something was wrong. On a related note, I've also seen people thoroughly befuddeld by mono AV cables. They can't figure out how to hook it up when there's only 2 plugs instead of 3, start looking for a set of plugs that only has 2 connectors, then get upset when they can't find any.

All the good ones? Seriously though, what list of obscene games would be complete without Ninja Gaiden?

Oh, and about the RCA plug having a plastic cover... The easy solution is to grab a pocket knife and cut the plastic back a little.

The big problem with that: Most people actually use their TVs for, well, TV. Hence, being able to have an antenna or cable hooked up is kind of important. If they use their VCR tuner exclusively AND the VCR's connected through the AV ports, THEN it becomes viable. As long as they only use ONE RF-only system. ... And personally speaking, my area's noisy enough that any image coming through an RF line has problems(damn the Genesis 2 and it's proprietary connector). And why the quote marks around RCA? It IS an RCA connector.

You said you had the AC adapter earlier. Now I'M confused.

Yep. A standard 3-plug AV cable works too, but the extra plugs just get in the way. Good. Very good.

PlayChoice games ARE diffrent than standard NES games. At the very least there's a diffrent form factor plus the extra ROM space for holding the instructions. http://www.atarihq.com/tsr/nes/pc10.html ... Heh. Apparently they have a whole second NES on the board dedicated to reading instructions out. ... VS games can actually SEE the coin counter as opposed to just running on a timer, right? That would be a big improvement right off, IMO.

As I understand it, that's EXACTLY the problem. There's just not enough of a signal to trip an automatic RF switch all the way. Get a nice RCA cable and plug your 2600 into a manual switchbox like you'd use for any other classic system. If you don't have one, hit your local Radio Shack. GAH! Beat me to it. ... Hmmmm... I wonder if an antenna amplifier could be used to raise the signal up enough to work with an automatic switchbox. I've got the amp left over from somethign else, but no coax/rca adapters.

'Kay. Thanks.

As much as I love the 5200 sticks(yes, I really do), they AREN'T good for all games. No controller is. In my case, the offending title is Qix. The PC-5200 adapter described in the 5200 FAQ seemed perfect, as it's cheap, 100% compatible, and I already have a PC stick that should be near-perfect for my purposes. I looked at the schematics, and as I expected, it seems pretty straightforward. Except for 1 tiny little thing. What are the 2 capacitors for? They're the only thing keeping it from being just wires and connectors, and I don't really understand why they're there. Can someone explain?

What are the diffrences between the VS. System and PlayChoice 10/NES, anyways? I suspect it added the FamiCom Disk System sound channels, or something siomilar, but what else was there?

Yah. The fact that so many SegaCD and Saturn units stil work while the PS is near-legendary for it's high failure rate(at least initially, though the models that don't overheat are dying now) is sad. ... Well, I've heard a lot of Saturns are approaching the end of their life now, but that still gives them a leg up on PlayStation since they lasted so much longer.

Ahhhh.. So that's what the "mode" button is for. Any other uses? I know it CAN be used as a normal button in games that support the 6-button pad, but the only game I know of to do so was MetalHead on the 32x.