FujiSkunk

Have you thought about a professional recovery service? It'll cost money, of course, but it might be worth it depending on how badly you want your data back.

The Yars' Revenge Easter Egg is very easy to hit, to the point where you have to make an effort not to hit it. Like Lord Helmet, I've had many good games ruined by tripping over this little feature.

PM sent.

It wasn't an ad in a magazine, but when I was a teenager (can't remember the exact year, brain's getting fuzzy), I wrote Atari Corp., asking where I might find certain games, since by then the games were getting hard to find in some places. They actually wrote back, sending me a personal response (at least it looked like a personal response), and also a 1-page catalog of games I could order from them through the mail. I spent many a day looking longingly at that list, wishing for every game on it to be mine. I never did actually order anything from them; nonetheless, I think that day has come. I also got responses to letters I wrote to Parker Brothers and Coleco. Unfortunately, by then they were out of the video game market, and their letters stated as much. I should have kept those letters. Oh well.

Easy on the accusations there, buddy. 854160[/snapback] Sorry there buddy. If you agree with the statement that a person has no reason to fire up the PS1 unless they like FPS and you honestly think that a person that would say this has had any experience with the system, well so be it....but I'd have to say your opinions weight around true gamers after that would be like non-existant. Sure, I might agree with that statement, though I would also put the original comment in its proper context, as coming from someone who looked at the console, saw the huge glut of first-person shooters for it, and figured that was all anybody ever bought it for. That's not correct, of course, but it's easy to see why somebody would think that. However, I probably wouldn't suggest that this person had never "played a video game in your life."

You didn't originally say "one hundred releases," you originally said "several hundred." There are plenty of systems without "several hundred" commercially released games, including every system Atari put out after the 2600.

Easy on the accusations there, buddy.

Got a PM notification today, all nice and dated. It's working!

I picked up Atari: 80 Classic Games in One new for $7, when it was still retailing for $20. I don't know if Game Stop mistagged it or were told to close it out, but every time I've seen it at a Game Stop since, it's marked $20. I was happy.

Two are Combat, one with a text label, one with a picture label. The third is E.T.. The fourth is a mystery; it doesn't seem to have an end label.

I wouldn't necessarily say that. There are some early 3D games from the arcades (Ridge Racer, STUN Runner, the Virtua Fighter series) and on computers (the Descent series) that I go back to quite often, and while the graphics are certainly more simplistic, they don't scream of shoddy quality. The problem to me is that the PlayStation doesn't seem to really do 3D all that well. The polygons often don't line up properly, there is no smoothness to the textures, and everything jitters. Whether this is the result of console limitations or bad programming, I don't know, but I see these problems in just about every 3D game on the console, even the ones I keep playing anyway (Croc, Ridger Racer again). Also, for some reason, the video scan lines are very distracting to me when playing PlayStation games. I can't say for certain why that is, since every console before then also had obvious scan lines, but they seem to especially stand out on the PlayStation. Perhaps it's because of the attempt at greater detail compared to older consoles that makes the limitations of low resolution more obvious, especially when I'm trying to make out something "off in the distance" while playing a 3-D game.

Combat, E.T.... Okay, she's forgiven.

Reporting him, you mean? Start with the "Policies" link at the bottom of the auction page. From there you can navigate your way to the rules concerning off-site sales, where there is a link for reporting an off-site sales. On the surface it appears to be for sellers who were approached by potential buyers, but it looks like you can use the form to complain about any off-site sale (so it seems to me, anyway; IANAEE [i am not an eBay employee]). Hosting an auction and then pulling it to make a side deal is definitely against the rules, and I would imagine pulling any part of an auction lot for a side deal is also frowned upon. Whether this is worth pursuing is your call.

Somebody actually asked if the cereal is still good?? Mmm-kay....

You could report this guy if you wanted.

It was a joke, son.

The game is not supposed to lock up during the explosion sequence, no. It is normal to see the black Yar (the instruction manual calls it the "Ghost of Yars") during the explosion (technically it's just the player graphic with a different color; I assume changing the color takes less code than redefining or blanking the graphic). There is also an Easter Egg that can be tripped over during the explosion sequence; when that happens the game will freeze, but not until the explosion sequence finishes. A hardware glitch of some kind, perhaps in the cartridge, or the console, or in the contacts between, is the only cause I can think of that would make the game freeze on the explosion screen.

Anything I find, I might hang on to, but it's not something I pursue. Right now the only video game memorabilies I have is from Sonic the Hedgehog, and even that's only a few plushies and action figures, plus a couple of those McDonald's LCD games. I did have a Pac-Man jigsaw puzzle that I picked up at a thrift store, but I later sold it. I hope the UK buyer is still happy with it. He certainly paid enough for the shipping!

Thank you, Cousin Eddie's kid.

My list: Croc - It's little more than a Sonic rip-off, but hey, it's got great tunes and challenging levels, and I kind of like the little guy. Ridge Racer - It's got the speed, it's got the tunes, and thankfully the narrator is only annoying about half the time. Even with Burnout 3 and Gran Turismo 4 in my library, I still have to pop this one in now and again. Mortal Kombat Trilogy - Also known as Mortal Kombat 3: We Got It Right This Time, Trust Us!. Well, no they didn't, but this came the closest, and it's still a good fighter in its own right. Namco Museum, Vol. 1-5 - These collections continue to be shining examples of how to do emulation right. Newer collections may offer cute graphical tweaks and (arguably) better emulation, but nothing comes close to the raw control this series offers (except MAME, of course). The ability to play games like Pac-Man and Dig-Dug on a vertical monitor is a definite plus. There are other good PlayStation games, and there are other games I like that also have PlayStation ports, but these are the ones that make me happy I own a PlayStation.

Par for the course with red-label games. In fact, I don't think Atari Corp. produced any full color manuals for the 2600. The red tones for the red-label games were as far away from black and white as they got.

Oh yeah, forgot about that one. That would be on my list as well. Checkered Flag is the only Jaguar game (so far) that I've sold out of my collection. The frame rate just kills it.

Two Apple IIe computers. One Apple DuoDisk drive. One Atari 800XL computer. One Atari 1040ST computer. Two Commodore VIC-20 computers. Two Commodore 64 computers. Three Commodore Amiga 500 computers (two in their original boxes). Five Commodore 1541 disk drives. One Commodore 1541-II disk drive. One Commodore 1571 disk drive. A collection of various accessories and printers (precious few power supplies and zero monitors, unfortunately). Total: A shade over $81 after tax. THIS is why I go thrifting!

I was getting messages without a "Date" and was really was planning on mentioning it Real Soon Now. Really. Anyway, next time I get a private message, I'll mention whether or not it has a date. For those about to say "I've never seen a message without a date," some servers and email programs are smart enough to add "Date" headers to messages that don't have them. /former email sysadmin

Movie geek here, sorry. It's actually: "ARE YOU TOO GOOD FOR YOUR HOME!?!"