gdement

I really liked Paper Mario, it's much more fun than I expected. Exploration is good, with lots of important secret items to find. But I especially like the battle system. It's more interesting than most turn based RPGs. It was fun to take risks in that game because how well you play the battles makes a big difference to the outcome. If you play them well enough, and plan your moves carefully, then you can beat much stronger enemies than you otherwise would. Finding and setting up badges also makes a big difference. Although on the surface it just looks like a kid's RPG, it has a lot more complexity than I expected and is actually more rewarding and interesting than the average Final Fantasy game.

They need to have better handling of subcategories. Many of them should be treated more as filtering attributes rather than separate categories. For example, if you're looking in the NES "games" category, it should also include all the subcategories like "new in box" etc. It seems to force you to look in each subcategory explicitly in order to see them. Same would apply to the C64 - they could list those games in a "computer games" category but have a subcategory for C64. If they did it this way people could browse as general or specific a category as they want.

I bought a "Sega Arcade Power Stick" on ebay, which arrived here yesterday. This is the 3-button Genesis joystick that everybody raves about, and I wanted to try it out. The one I bought was advertised as "mint condition", but "as-is, no returns" from a seller with 4.9 stars in every category and 100% fb. This shows how useless and inflated the feedback system is. The only thing "mint" is the cosmetic appearance. It's clean. But the controller is obviously worn out. First my minor complaint - the C button binds when pushing it at an angle, which is clearly a result of wear since the other buttons aren't doing that. But the big problem is that the joystick is broken. Specifically, it doesn't have any autocentering from the right side. If I push it to the right, it will just lay there without recentering itself. If I push left and release it, it will sometimes throw itself all the way to the right. I haven't tried opening it yet, and I probably will soon, but is this something simple to fix? Or should I just toss it? I'm hoping it's just a broken spring, but of course I have no idea where I'd find another the correct size, except by salvaging another joystick which would be pointless. I tried playing Castlevania Bloodlines with it (great game I also bought recently) but it's no fun with 5200 style controls.

I made another try last night, but had a terrible game. This is the Castlevania I remember. I died *twice* on the 2nd level. One was a classic medusa-head-knocks-me-into-pit maneuver. Oh how I used to lose my temper at that exact spot... Then I died 2 or 3 more times on the 3rd level, ending my game. I don't remember why, but I got to the mummies with 1 hp left and no way to hit them from above. So I died. Starting a new guy at the end of level 3 sucks. It's very hard to deal with the fireball statue things without a long whip. I got back to the boss another time but didn't have enough health or weapon to win.

They should have designed the expansion port to carry power from the CD to the base console.

Ah - so that's what he meant! I was wondering what the cross was.

89,200 I had a clean run going, then I hit stage 4. I lost most of my lives at the beginning of that stage. Still, I had the holy water as I got to frankenstein, which is the only way I can beat him. But I messed up and the monkey dude got loose before I hit them. After losing the holy water I had no chance with my last life. Those snake things before the boss sure give out a lot of points though. It's funny how hard stages 2 and 3 used to be when I was younger. I used to lose my temper on stage 3 especially. They're so much easier now it doesn't seem like the same game I remember, but I'm using a real cart so I guess it is. Now it's 4 that starts killing me. I guess I'm getting better, maybe I'll beat this game before I die.

I just noticed this, not much time left to play though. I wonder if other people aren't aware of it either. Should this be extended through Halloween or something?

I don't know who the hell Gordon Freeman is, but even so I feel no inspiration to vote for Mario. Link is better, Samus is better, any Ultima character is better, etc etc.

The only game on the list that I've played for very long is Wizardry proving grounds. Knight of Diamonds is pretty much the same though (I didn't vote). I like Wizardry, but it's a niche. There's not really any story, so you might not like it for that. The most notable thing about it is that character death actually matters, you don't get cheap and 100% successful resurrections. So far I've had a few deaths which I resurrected (at great cost), and 1 which permanently killed my lead fighter. That didn't upset me, since I knew that's part of the game's challenge. You don't automatically win just by playing, you have to manage your characters and expeditions carefully. The death thing will either be cool to you, or you'll hate it. I like it - it gives a sense of real danger while playing the game. When you see 1 of your characters in trouble during a fight, you will be scared, not bored. I keep a roster of bench players and mix up the party assignments, so I don't have all my eggs in one basket. Even if I lost a full party of 6 characters, I wouldn't be starting over. I have others that aren't far behind in development and they could recover the bodies before long. [for better graphics/sound/etc, there's also Wizardry 5 on the SNES, which is still the same style of game]

I'm now completely convinced that the 100uF 10v Chhsi caps in these early Genesis boards, are crap. If you have those on your board, be suspicious of them. I say this because I replaced some more caps in this Genesis, this time caps that aren't under the heatsink and don't have the heat to blame. I found that once again, all the 100uF 10v Chhsi that I pulled were way out of spec, but the other brand (Elecon) were generally okay. I've not yet found a single Chhsi that's good.

112,600 I wish. I'm using a thumbstick controller on an emulator, because the D-pad is so bad the thumbstick is actually the better option.

Sounds vaguely familiar to something they had at a mall in the Phoenix area in the early 90's (like 1990 I think). I was only there once, while visiting relatives on a vacation, so I don't remember it clearly. It was a huge arcade out in the open, near the food court area, and they did have a big ride like that. I don't know if it was linked up to a video game though, I didn't ride it.

I'm impressed it still has the missiles. I certainly lost mine on the toys I had. The missiles are probably worth $50 each now. I remember looking up how much my old Star Wars toys were worth a few years ago, it kind of made me sick. I sold that stuff at a garage sale when I was just old enough not to care about it anymore. Got like $20-$30 for all of it. Which I thought was a lot of money at the time.

For at least some of the niche items, you might try using a 30-day BIN combined with the "best offer" feature. That might be a good way to feel out the market. Stuff like that isn't likely to get competing bidders and it takes time before someone interested will show up. BIN/offer listings also appeal to some people who don't want the drama and waiting of an auction. Downside with offers is just that you have to review and respond to them, and if you're the type who gets offended by low offers then it may annoy you. Of course there's a big tradeoff between what prices you're willing to take, and how quickly things sell. Try to put up related items at about the same time, and offer combined shipping. That will attract people who buy several items and want a more economical unit cost. Make sure the combined shipping rate is clearly explained (many people won't ask, they'll assume the worst and not bid). For example, I recently got involved with bidding on several Genesis games, because the seller had posted them all at the same time with combined shipping of only $1 extra per added game. I ended up bidding on some games I wouldn't have bothered with on their own. So did other people apparently - I lost all of them. Also consider trying chasethechuckwagon.com, since they don't charge any fees for posting a listing it won't cost you any money unless something sells. Recently the owner has also been posting youtube vids to promote interesting items, so you could get a mention for some of the more unusual stuff.

The gameplay style has been decided to be similar to Zelda, which is the same basic style as Midnight Mutants. So it would be either the 2nd, or the 0th, depending if you call Zelda an RPG.

Thanks for the info. I've never been clear on what the difference is between a BP-1148 and BP-1200, but I guess there must be one. Nothing I've run into anyway. I'm assuming it has something to do with supporting way more pins than I need. 48 is plenty for me. The only problem I've had is that BPDOS v3.21 doesn't support many of the newer flash devices that I've sometimes tried to program. I think it was the 49Fxxx types that I had that problem with. From what I read I think they started enforcing renewable licenses with v3.70, so that's probably why v3.94a didn't work.

One more: Ultima: Warriors of Destiny (not "War")

You're probably right about that. I think the trademark is the biggest thing they feel they have to protect (because if they don't then they can lose rights to it). So with a different name that makes it easier for them to ignore, if they even notice it in the first place. Of course if the gameplay itself is also different, then it should have no problems even above the radar.

I've never played it, but from watching the reviews of it on "classic gameroom", it does look like a cool game for porting to an older system. When I saw the review originally I was thinking Atari 7800 paddle game. It's an active IP though so that could make it difficult to do legally.

I will check into the rarity of that and adjust it if need be. Thanks for looking. I see it's been adjusted down to 5, thanks for looking at that. The name of the game "Ultima: Quest of the Avatar" looks like it's been corrected on the game list, but not on the game details page. It's still mistyped in 3 places: It still has the incorrect name in the text of the game details page, in the html <title></title> (which shows in the title bar of the user's browser), and in the detail page's filename. Don't know how much you really care about the filename though. Not trying to nag, I'm just mentioning it because it appears that the name was already fixed on the game list so you might not be aware of the other issues. ==== Also, one other pedantic misspelling: Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (not Adventures) I noticed that while typing up a list of which games I own, because apparently I have too many now to remember them easily. I keep forgetting I don't have Excitebike in real life, just in Animal Crossing.

capitalism, like poker, gives tremendous advantages to players with bigger stacks. an average poker player with a big stack has a better chance of success than a great poker player with a short stack. the dreamcast was great, the playstation 2 was average, and sony used the leverage of its deep pockets to push the dreamcast off the market. i dont worship capitalism, i accept it for its advantages and its flaws. the dreamcast was a superlattive video game platform that was beaten into submission by an inferior platform. at least ive taken comfort in seeing sony's arrogance backfire with the ps3 I pretty much do worship capitalism, but I agree product dumping can be a problem in David vs Goliath cases. That tactic is supposedly illegal, but I'm not sure it's really enforced. It's generally accepted that console manufacturers lose money on hardware, but since Sony/Microsoft can afford it much more than Sega/Nintendo, it became a problem for the latter. I'm not sure how much a role that played in PS2 vs Dreamcast, but I do believe it was a factor. Sega didn't have enough money left after all their failures to go head to head against Sony. I think Dreamcast's failure was about 80% Sega's own fault, but Sony's deep pockets sealed their fate. However, if Sega had a better track record, they should have been able to raise needed money from investors. I don't know the details of their financial history but I'm sure not many banks/people were willing to hand them more money after all their screwups. The weakness for big companies though, is that they grow stupid and inefficient. That's where the smaller competitor can run circles around them. But they need investors to make that happen. Just to clarify my attitude, I don't really blame Sony for playing hardball. I just think they suck.

I never owned a Dreamcast, and wouldn't have bought one because of the reasons you stated. I had no confidence in their systems after seeing so many hardware releases. So I agree that Sega had their own problems. However, Sony's dumping tactics were a factor as well. They were a behemoth against much smaller companies, so when it comes to selling consoles at a loss, a company like Sony or Microsoft will always win against Nintendo, Sega, or Atari. Of those, only Nintendo is still in hardware, and they had to back down from the high end market to remain competitive.

Well if we're talking companies, Microsoft really doesn't bother me. The company that IMO wrecked the game industry (to my own personal taste) is Sony. Starting from the Sega CD days, you could chart a direct relationship between Sony's takeover of the game market and my own loss of interest. Not only did they deal the finishing blows to Atari and Sega, but they're also a movie company, and are most responsible for pushing the design traits I most dislike about modern games. They've done nothing for the industry that I really like. But I know they're a long ways from leaving the industry given that they dominate it. No matter, there's plenty of pre-Sony stuff to last me a lifetime. I do have some games on PS2, but if I can get them on Gamecube I prefer that system. More reliable, slightly better hardware and less clunky IMO.

It's a turn-based strategy war game with RPG type elements. Your characters gain experience and you can buy them weapons and such. There's a lot of variety of who's strong against who, movement speed over different terrain, etc. I liked it, but playing just 1 battle in that game took me forever.