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Showing results for tags 'Off-Topic Ramblings'.
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NOW THAT KOTAKU.COM has ruined redesigned their website, I'm looking for a different video game news/reviews/opinion site. Something reasonably intelligent, platform agnostic, and comprehensive. Where do you all go for video game news?
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THANKS TO TOMMY I was at the Sounders FC vs. Real Salt Lake MLS match last Saturday. It was a sellout! Something like 30K people at Qwest field, I was kinda surprised. Very loud crowd, a lot of fun. Though the stupid horns were beyond annoying... Sounders won 2-0; the 2nd goal was just pretty. Here are the highlights (1st goal at 0:55, nice save by Sounders keeper Kasey Keller at 1:55, 2nd goal at 3:00): A lot of fun. See, we 'mericans aren't completely hopeless...
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SO...I have a Wii. First time I've had a "modern" console since the N64 in 2001. Kind of weird, really - my brother-in-law gave it to me (!) plus ~5 games. Wasn't really sure what to do at first; I'd already decided that I wasn't buying any more hardware for the foreseeable future - I had/have too many systems and not enough games and not enough time for the ones I have. But anyway, eventually hooked the thing up and I've been having fun with Wii Sports, Super Mario Galaxy. Also realized that it will play GameCube games last night so I can probably put away the GameCube, saving some space. So that's nice. In other video game news, my dad was going to try to fix my broken Snow Bros. cabinet as a birthday present, and he did! Pretty cool, though I haven't seen it in action yet - still at their house. Good times! So that's what's up with me; not a lot of time for programming lately, too many good games to play.
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THE C64 VS A8 thread got me thinking... It would have been really nice if ANTIC could have read color data line-by-line as well as graphics data. Even just for the PMs would have been very neat. Of course, that would use a ton of RAM and probably have made the ANTIC chip more expensive, but...it would have been really cool! As it is, too many A8 games resort to stacking PMs to get multicolored sprites which makes them look like glorified 2600 games.
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HERE'S WHAT I'VE BEEN UP TO LATELY: Josiah Thomas Montgomery.
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AS I'VE MENTIONED a few times before, I am mainly interested in video games as far as I can play them. By this, I mean I am not especially interested in acquiring rare games unless they are fun to play. So, as I apply my limited funds towards classic video games I have been faced with a dilemma: which games are any good? You can read reviews, of course, and I do, but that has limitations. A good review should give you some objective information about the game, but all reviews are subjective to some extent or another. And the best reviews - the ones that are the most enjoyable to read - are often the most subjective. That's part of what makes them fun to read! And, of course, there's the problem of quantity. I have a NES, a Genesis, a Playstation, a 2600, an Xbox, a Gamecube, a Gameboy Color (and a Gameboy), and a 130XE. Between those machines there were probably something like close to, or upwards of, 10,000 games that were commercially released. I do have about 200 games between all those systems, but that leaves a lot of games left over. I don't want to read a review of all 10,000 games in order to decide which game to purchase next, nor could I even if I did want to. So what to do? I can narrow my search down a little, say, by focusing on a particular system, or a particular genre of game. But that only mitigates the problem a little, it doesn't eliminate it. I have about 20 Genesis games; the Genesis has a library of about 700 games (US only, if you include others...). Fortunately, some folks have come up with a solution! www.gamerankings.com, one of my favorite web sites, aggregates reviews for games. What a brilliant idea! I have found that this solves almost all of the issues I mentioned above: Reviewer bias? When you average 20 different reviews you've got to figure that most of the bias is washed out (though you still have to watch out for systematic bias). The sheer number of games? With gamerankings.com I can show the top-ranked games for all systems, a single system, a single genre, or a combination, and then look at an overview. I can see which football game for the Xbox is best, and which is terrible. It's great! Too bad it only covers systems newer than, um, the N64. (Well, technically, it does have Genesis and some other 16-bit games in their database, but the coverage is so spotty and sparse that it is essentially useless as an aggregator.) So there's a void. And, in a burst of free time, I set out to fill that void. It started out as a spreadsheet with games, a simple description, and scores (from various websites) with hyperlinks. This began to become unwieldy, and I knew that my brother is always up for a programming project, so I asked him to build me a web-based database. We expanded it a bunch, I added a bunch more reviews, then spent a ton of time filling in all the data, so that now I can present: Video Game Reviews Hosted on my brother's computer. Right now the main focus is Genesis games; there are a few 32X, 2600, and NES games in there and I am in the process of adding SNES games in earnest, but I am pretty sure that, within one or two games, I have every US release for the Genesis in there, plus a bunch of Europe/Japan games, all with at least one review and most with more than that. Tommy also helpfully added an advanced search/filter function, so you can do some cool things. For example, here are the top ten Genesis games with at least 3 reviews: Sonic The Hedgehog 3 Alien Soldier Sonic The Hedgehog 2 Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master Triple Play 96 Sonic The Hedgehog Strider Sonic and Knuckles Gunstar Heroes NHL 96 And here are the top-ten Genesis scrolling shooters with at least 5 reviews: M.U.S.H.A. Gaiares Thunder Force III Lightening Force: Quest for the Darkstar Forgotten Worlds Fire Shark Granada Wings of Wor Thunder Force II Sagaia And finally - I just love playing with this - here are the top-five Genesis overhead-scrolling, fantasy action adventures (i.e., Zelda clones) with at least 4 reviews: Landstalker: Treasure of King Nole Gauntlet IV Beyond Oasis Crusader of Centy Arcus Odyssey And if you are wondering who those crazy guys are that ranked Forgotten Worlds over Sagaia, you can click on the game and bring up a pop-up (javascript popup, not a separate window) box with more information about the game plus a list of all the scores and links to all the reviews. So, if you are interested, take a look! I just wanted to share.
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JUST NOTICED THAT the 2005 Minigame Multicart is #10 on the bestsellers list. :)Kinda cool.
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TOOK THEM 18 YEARS, but they did it: they solved checkers. Thought Zach, especially, would be interested in this.
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THIS IS COMPLETELY unrelated to Atari. Just so you know. Last night I played in the 8th game (of 10) of the winter season of my soccer league. We play weekly, year round, and I've been playing with this team, Mayhem, for about five years. Last season we pretty much dominated, going 7-1-2 before the debacle of the championship game (which involved a sh***y ref, a red card, and losing ). This season, despite having mostly the same players, hasn't been so rosy. Before last night's game we were 3-3-1, had lost two in a row, and hadn't won since the 3rd game of the season. So it seemed like more of the same when, by about the midpoint of the first half of last night's game, we were down 0-3. What made matters worse, immediately after the third goal our keeper was ejected from the game for yelling and cursing at the ref. Our keeper thought that the opposing scorer had scored off of a handball and was understandably incensed. Pretty stupid to cuss out the ref and get kicked off the field, though. Fortunately, our backup keeper is actually a better keeper (he just isn't willing to play as keeper all the time). A brief digression about the league: it is a co-ed league; all teams are required to have no more than six men and no more than six women on the field at all times. For safety reasons, no slide-tackling is allowed, you can't attack from behind, and you generally have to play under control - if what you are doing might hurt someone you will more than likely be whistled for a foul. We play in the Seattle area on various surfaces; last night's game was on a crappy dirt field. So the ref was kind and didn't give our keeper a red card, just two yellows, so we were allowed to continue play with eleven players. It seems the combination of circumstances fired up our team, and we began playing harder than before, determined to stop the losses. And stop them we did! Our 2nd-best player scored twice before the end of the first half, and so at half-time we were down 2-3. But we didn't let up! We dominated the 2nd half, scoring twice while preventing any further goals with some excellent defensive stands against their very fast, very good forwards. End result? We won 4-3! Damn that felt good.
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FINALLY got my post-Christmas order from AA. Thanks, Al! Received: Crazy Balloon Lady Bug Toyshop Trouble Atari Arcade Classics (for my PC) I was hoping to receive BLiP Football; I wasn't sure whether or not Al was going to comp me a free one. But David, you definitely promised me one (waaaaaaaay back when) so cough it up! Anyway, had a little fun playing those, though not a lot of time. Manuel, what's the status on the Helium Heroes patches? Have they all been claimed? Did they ever get made? If they are still up for grabs I'm going to make a real effort to get one. Wasn't expecting the PC game collection; I can't remember - did Al say he was going to send those to folks, or was he just feeling nice when he filled my order? Either way, pretty cool. Though most of the games use a Trackball/Roller, so the emulation is a little lackluster. But very cool to have anyway. New top priorities on my homebrew wishlist: Seawolf, Fall Down, and SOGD.
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IN VARIOUS threads folks have written that such and such system has a poor library of games and it got me a bit curious. So, using various sources (most AtariAge and Digital Press) I tried to compile a count of games for each system. Here it is (US releases only). First, most to least (I last updated the current consoles a week ago) PS1 1401 PS2 1262 NES 772 SNES 722 Genesis 706 2600 653 XBox 600 GC 528 N64 298 Dreamcast 252 Saturn 250 Colecovision 145 3DO 141 Intellivision 125 SMS 114 TG-16 94 Neo-Geo 90 5200 71 Jaguar 69 7800 59 Odyssey 2 49 Astrocade 40 XEGS* 32 Vectrex 28 Channel F 27 Arcadia 2001 22 Virtual Boy 14 RCA Studio 2 12 Same list, organized roughly by "generation": PS1 1401 PS2 1262 NES 772 SNES 722 Genesis 706 2600 653 XBox 600 GC 528 N64 298 Dreamcast 252 Saturn 250 Colecovision 145 3DO 141 Intellivision 125 SMS 114 TG-16 94 Neo-Geo 90 5200 71 Jaguar 69 7800 59 Odyssey 2 49 Astrocade 40 XEGS* 32 Vectrex 28 Channel F 27 Arcadia 2001 22 Virtual Boy 14 RCA Studio 2 12 Same list, organized roughly by "generation": 2600 653 Intellivision 125 Odyssey 2 49 Astrocade 40 Channel F 27 RCA Studio 2 12 Colecovision 145 5200 71 Vectrex 28 Arcadia 2001 22 NES 772 SMS 114 7800 59 XEGS* 32 SNES 722 Genesis 706 TG-16 94 Neo-Geo 90 PS1 1401 N64 298 Saturn 250 3DO 141 Jaguar 69 Virtual Boy 14 PS2 1262 XBox 600 GC 528 Dreamcast 252 A few notes/comments: -First, I counted only XEGS-specific releases for that machine, though every XL/XE and most 400/800 carts would also run on it, and similarly with the disk games if you bought a disk drive. -Interestingly, the only generation without a clear, overwhelming leader was the 16-bit generation, with the SNES and the Genesis essentially playing to a tie. -Later consoles have their numbers inflated somewhat (compared to earlier consoles) by sports games that are released every year. -Obviously, my numbers may be wrong. Please point out any errors. -It looks to me like ~600 games is the break even point for a console to have a "large" library. This is based just on things I've read - I frequently hear the N64, Dreamcast, Gamecube, Saturn, Intellivision, Colecovision, SMS referred to as having "small" or "narrow" libraries, while rarely (if ever) do I hear the same thing about the 2600/NES/PS1/PS2/SNES/Genesis. The Xbox is right on the borderline w/ 600 games, which seems to conform to folks' thoughts about it: sometimes it is condemned/lamented for its small/narrow library, sometimes it is praised for its large/wide game selection.
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ON A COMPLETELY different note, I felt like compiling a list of which computers and consoles use what processors. Classic machines, specifically. Please correct where I am in error and fill in the blanks in my knowledge. 6502 2600 5200 7800 Atari 400, 800, 800XL, etc. XEGS NES C64, C128, etc. Apple II, IIe, IIc Z80 SMS Colecovision ZX Spectrum MSX Aquarius CP1610 Intellivision 8048 Odyssey2 68A09 Vectrex 68000 Genesis Atari ST Amiga Neo-Geo Macintosh 65c816 SNES Apple IIgs HuC6280 Turbografx16 F8 Channel F 8088 and x86 IBM compatible PCs
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WANT TO GET 'em all! I am trying to pick which homebrews to pick up from the AA store... Here's my long list: A8 Beef Drop 2600 Venture Thrust+ Synthcart Fall Down Oystron FlapPing Jammed Marble Craze Power Off! Hunchy II Crazy Balloon Star Fire Strat-O-Gems Dark Mage Dreamcast: Feet of Fury Tunes: Cabana EP+ Unfortunately, funds aren't unlimited. So I've got to narrow it down. So, shorter list: Beef Drop Venture Thrust+ Cabana EP+ Power Off! Oystron -----$87.95 (sale prices and using $10-off code ) I think around $100 is my upper limit, so I can squeeze one more in there. I'd like to get one of Manuel's games, but I can't decide between Crazy Balloon and Star Fire. Any opinions? EDIT: Okay, after some comments and a recent development, my new short list is: Beef Drop Venture Thrust+ Cabana EP+ Oystron Qb -----$87.95 And leaning towards Star Fire...
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SO HOOKED UP MY 130XE a couple of weeks ago and I have been enjoying Donkey Kong, Frogger, and Defender.But the disks! The disks! So many games...And my 1050 sits next to the 130XE, so close but yet so far apart. I don't have an SIO cable! The ones we used to have are lost, somewhere.Can anybody help me out, and tell me where it is possible to pick these up*?*Besides ebay. Ebay is my last resort.
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AFTER MANUEL'S AWARD-WINNING performance in 2005, I thought I'd get off to a quick start in 2006: Mercy Elizabeth Montgomery January 11, 2006;) Ain't she purty? EDIT: Oh, and: I won't be working quite as fast as I might like on various extra-curricular activities for the next few weeks. But, David, I do hope to get the Copland done ASAP. I'm on the job!
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THANKSGIVING MEANS ATARI at our house. Well, kinda. Anyway, thought some of you, especially Chris, might appreciate this: The bearded one is me, the two small guys are Danny and Mikey (my boys), and my brother, Tommy (aka HeckYesIDid), is the scruffy looking guy sitting closest to the camera.This is at my folks' place on Thanksgiving.Good times.
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BLOG BLOG A-BLOGGYWell, I had a blog, once. Still have it, I guess, though I've only updated it twice in the past year or so. So I resisted creating yet another blog. Yet here I am, blogging. Why?Well, I've had so much fun and learned a bunch reading others' blogs* here on AA that I thought maybe I would start one as well, mostly documenting the work I do on various 2600 projects, and maybe other people will enjoy it as well.We'll see how it goes. *Specifically, the game-development blogs of cd-w, Cybergoth, and others, though I have also enjoyed the other blogs I've read.
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