Timing is everything.

Got my hands on four 2GB sticks of 1333MHz DDR3 RAM, and that quad core system I mentioned last time turned out pretty sweet. Well, at least it did when I only had the first 4GB in there. Upon adding the second 4GB, things got sketchy. I've tried countless combinations of timings (9-9-9-20-1T and slower), voltages (RAM@1.9V and SPP@1.45V and lower), and bus speeds (1333MHz and 1066MHz) with 4x2GB, but lockups and errors are not consistent... Except that they occur regardless of configuration. I have been able to get all four sticks working together at 1066MHz, 9-9-9-20-2T, RAM@1.7V and SPP@1.4V... But this is supposed to be 1333MHz RAM :\

Back to work...

So the Bad Company demo was vaguley interesting. Good presentation and solid gameplay, but nothing really stood out for me. The destructible environments are cool, but it was nothing to write home about. Then again, I hear that multiplayer is where this one really shines, so I guess this one just isn't for me. Too Human felt... Well... I didn't mind the camera or the cinematics, but the game just didn't gel for me. I had too many questions about everything from the plot to the controls, little direction, and minimal satisfaction. Perhaps a quick training level and some more cohesive storytelling would've helped me, but it's just not coming together yet. I think there may be something interesting going on in Too Human (reminds me of Unreal Championship 2, actually), but it's not in the demo.

I got back into some freelance work recently. Salvaged some data from a G5 PowerMac, replaced the bad RAM that was causing hard drive issues, and reinstalled OS X 10.4; cleaned a particularly annoying spyware infection from a home office machine (DON'T OPEN RANDOM E-MAIL ATTACHMENTS!!!); picked up most of the parts for that system I mentioned in my last post:

• Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450
• EVGA 132-CK-NF79-A1
• 512MB BFG GeForce 8800GT OC
• Linksys WMP300N
• Two 74GB Western Digital Raptors (WD740ADFD)
• Two 500GB Seagate Barracudas (ST3500320AS) in a RAID 1 array
• LG GH20NS10 SATA DVD-RW
• Seasonic S12 Energy Plus 650W
• Antec P182 Mid-Tower

I've been trying to secure 8GB of DDR3 (either 1333MHz or 1600MHz), but there seems to be a shortage in this city. Speaking of shortages, I'm pretty sure I found the last 790i Ultra-based motherboard in the area... Anyway the idea is to be able to upgrade to a 1600MHz CPU, 2000MHz DDR3, and a three-way SLi setup down the road; client's idea, not mine. Accommodating that upgrade path didn't raise the price too much though, so it's not a complete waste of money.

Maybe I'm doing it wrong...

Virtual Boy number two started displaying horizontal lines in the left lens. Only an isolated incident so far, but still... :\

I'm at the final battle in Virtual Boy Wario Land (found all the treasures), and finished Wario World last night (found everything but one red crystal and two heart pieces in the final level). I didn't like how the final level in Wario World was considerably more challenging than the previous seven; not because it was too hard, but because it was noticeably inconsistent with the rest of the game. The final battle was kind of a joke, too; the previous two battles were much more challenging and epic. Anyway, Metroid Prime is up next on GameCube, but I need to stop by my brother's place to borrow his copy... I'm excited!

I took some more time with the SEGA Superstars Tennis demo on 360, and concluded that I still don't like it. Top Spin 3 was much more fun, but is definitely gonna take some getting used to. The controls, while certainly a new direction, were not as counter-intuitive as most review sites led me to believe. The Bourne Conspiracy demo was fun, but felt a little dry and repetitive by the end... And that's bad for a three-level demo. Dark Sector was the same. Despite being very pretty and having some interesting new gameplay elements, it felt like a mishmash of Gears Of War, BioShock, and Wolfenstein. Not a bad game, but just not cohesive and polished enough to really grab me. I also didn't appreciate certain unexplained deaths or the boss battle that gave me little indication of whether or not I was doing any actual damage, though perhaps these issues are addressed in the full product. Ninja Gaiden II, however, was very cohesive and super polished. Pretty much what I expected, and more forgiving than the first one, I'll pick it up once I get around to actually playing through the first one. Battlefield: Bad Company, Too Human, and Civilization Revolution are next in line...

Oh, and it looks like I'm building a sweet Photoshop/Lightroom computer for someone! Current specs are as follows:

• Asus P5Q3 Deluxe/WiFi-AP @n
• Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450
• Four 2GB sticks of OCZ DDR3 PC3-12800
• Two 10,000RPM 74GB SATA hard drives
• Two 7,200RPM 500GB SATA2 hard drives
• 512MB Sapphire ATi RADEON HD 3870
• Antec TP3-650

...And a sweet LaCie LCD. We're trying to keep the hardware inside the tower around $2000 while still allowing room to grow. That motherboard supports 1600MHz FSB quad-core CPUs, up to 16GB of 2000MHz DDR3 RAM, and CrossFire support (apparently CS4 will be able to take advantage of GPU power).

I guess I should also mention...

I got to play a Vectrex for the first time at a party last week! I kinda want one now :) I played Berzerk, Space Wars, Spike, and Star Trek. Spike stood out the most, with it's pseudo-3D graphics and voice synthesis, but it's awfully repetitive. I hear they're going for upwards of $150 on eBay, so I'm in no rush to run out and grab one, but I'll definitely keep an eye out.

I also picked up the first two seasons of the late-'80s/early-'90s cartoon Captain N: The Game Master. It was one of my favourite shows when I was younger, and I remember having a hard time figuring out exactly when it was on... Perhaps it got bounced from one time slot to another here in Canada, or maybe I just had a hard time waking up on Saturday mornings :) Anyway, I'm almost through the first season, and it's pretty terrible; the nostalgia value is great though, so it's still fun.

Finally, I picked up one of these. I'm not exactly sure why... I mean, yeah, it enables me to play a bunch of awesome ports of great Neo Geo and CPS-2 games on my Saturn, but then I could just play them on my Neo Geo or an emulator. Well, I guess there's always Final Fight Revenge... *shudder*

Virtual Boy Mini-Reviews

Galactic Pinball

• It's pinball in space. A solid game with some nifty 3D effects and a slightly awkward perspective (long view of the table), this one doesn't seem to be anything particularly special at first. Once some of the bonus challenges are earned, however, the Virtual Boy really begins to do what it's good at. Where a standard pinball game might reward players with a brief cinematic or a sound clip, Galactic Pinball has full-on minigames; one involves assuming a first-person perspective and fending off invading aliens!

Golf

• Standard golf game with a vaguely unique take on play mechanics. The hideous graphics undermine any 3D effects.

Mario Clash

• Inspired by the classic Mario Bros. but with some new twists; like throwing turtle shells through pipes, as well as into and out of the screen, all while lining up combos. 3D isn't exactly necessary to pull this one off, but it definitely helps.
  

Mario's Tennis

• One of my favourite tennis games on any platform. Despite its simple controls and presentation, difficulty ranges from cakewalk to frustrating, character choice affects gameplay, and the 3D effects really add to the experience.
  

Nester's Funky Bowling

• It's a bowling game featuring Nintendo Power's Nester character. That's it. The 3D effects aren't all that great, and the gameplay is pretty simplistic. Definitely not worth the price to anyone but collectors... And maybe die-hard Nester and/or bowling fans.

Panic Bomber

• A challenging head-to-head puzzle game with great graphics and animation, plus a fun plot to follow. 3D is not necessary (this game is also available on non-3D platforms), but the developers make good aesthetic use of it here.
  

Red Alarm

• Vector graphics, tight controls, and awesome music combine to create a frantic indoor 3D flying shooter. Don't let the wireframe graphics be a turnoff, as there's great fun to be had here in one of the system's best games.
  

Teleroboxer

• It's like this is the game the Virtual Boy's controller was designed for. The great graphics and challenging gameplay (but not too challenging, once you learn your opponents' patterns) gel together to create a truly immersive 3D experience.
  

V-Tetris

• Developed by Bullet-Proof Software, the makers of the original Game Boy classic, V-Tetris is, well, Tetris. While it's disappointing that the music is not up to the high standard set by the Game Boy original, it's still passable. "A" and "B" type games return with some superficial 3D effects, and there is a new "C" type that allows players to rotate the playfield in a quasi-cylindrical manner. While interesting, this new game type doesn't really take advantage of the 3D power the Virtual Boy offers.
  

Vertical Force

• A solid, traditional top-down 2D shoot-'em-up with a 3D twist that allows players to dive down into the screen and back up for multiple playfields.
  

Virtual League Baseball

• Nothing special and nothing horrible, it's a pretty basic baseball game with some lacklustre 3D effects.
  

Virtual Boy Wario Land

• One of the best Wario Land games and one of the best Virtual Boy games... Simple as that. Great graphics, huge sprites, catchy music, ingenious bosses, and effective use of 3D that not only accentuates the gameplay but creates a wonderful level of immersion in what is essentially a 2D game. This game is reason enough to track down a Virtual Boy.
  

craigslist part two

Until I get a proper game bit screwdriver, my store bought Virtual Boy will remain out of the oven and out of commission. Luckily, I happened across a pretty good deal on a Virtual Boy on craigslist last week! I got a perfectly working system with four games and a carrying case. I already had two of the games (Red Alarm and Vertical Force) and the other two are kinda weak (Galactic Pinball and Golf), but I was able to haggle the price down to something in line with what a similar bundle goes for on eBay. It would've been nice if he'd mentioned that it was originally a Blockbuster rental unit (man, did that neoprene shade stink! Luckily a wash in hot water remedied that) that still had gunky security stickers on every part (some lighter fluid made short work of that mess), but I suspected as much from the carrying case in the photo he posted. It also would've been nice if he'd mentioned that the stand is being held together by electrical tape, but that's a common weak spot of the system, so again, no real surpise. The fun part was when I met the seller; he's a nice old guy who was never really into video games but really likes 3D :)

So I now have two Virtual Boys, a custom carrying case, two AC adapters, one battery adapter, ten of the 14 games released in North America (still need 3D Tetris, Jack Bros., Nester's Funky Bowling, and Waterworld), and I may be picking up the Japanese-only release of V-Tetris later today (an entirely different game from 3D Tetris).

Just about all of the time I've spent playing games lately has been with Wario. Virtual Boy Wario Land really is fantastic, but a little short so I'm trying pace myself with it. It has reminded me of what the original Wario gameplay is like though, and I'm seeing that Wario World, while still a simplistic side-scrolling brawler with hints of exploration and puzzle solving, is much closer to the series' roots than I originally thought. The transition to 3D and the greater focus on combat feel like changes for the worse, but it's still fun and captures a lot of what Wario is all about.

I've been fighting with a Xerox WorkCentre 5675 at work for the past little while. It suddenly started hanging on print jobs without giving any specific errors, so I went through the settings and tried a few different combinations with little luck. Next was a driver update which didn't do much better, so I blew everything up and let Xerox's automated installer do everything (new TCP/IP port, drivers, settings, etc...). I got it to the point where things were working most of the time and I was able to clear the queue remotely if it did run into a problem, but that wasn't good enough. I called a Xerox technician in to give things a look, and he upgraded the firmware and wiped a few parts down. Everything was still wonky when I came back the next day. So I've now changed the machine's IP and it's name on the network while reverting back to the drivers it was using when this all started, all manually, and it seems to be holding up. If things are screwy again tomorrow, I'm wiping my hands of it and letting Xerox take over.

Just my luck...

Upon firing up the Virtual Boy after work today, I couldn't help but notice that the right lens is now displaying glitches as well! Turning up the brightness helps, which seems to support the loose connection theory. I guess it's time to look into opening the thing up and pre-heating the oven :\

At Long Last!!!

Remembered seeing Bug Too! for Saturn at a local shop for relatively cheap a while back, and decided to go pick it up yesterday. Snapped up Ecco The Dolphin and Ooga Booga for Dreamcast while I was there, and then saw ReBoot for PSX, so I picked that up (after reading this)... AND THEN I SAW VIRTUAL BOY WARIO LAND!!! FINALLY!!! Seriously, you don't understand how excited I got! So I bought that, and you know what was underneath it? Mario Clash! My Virtual Boy was immediately dusted off when I got home, and despite my crossed fingers, it was still suffering from what appears to be a loose connection to the left lens (I don't get horizontal lines, but I do get glitches). It's a pretty common issue, resulting from a design flaw with the system (let's use glue to connect a ribbon cable to a moving part in a closed environment that may get hot!), and not too hard to fix. Luckily, the longer I left the system on, the better it got (yay heat!), so I've been thoroughly enjoying both new acquisitions. Virtual Boy Wario Land is as wonderful as I remember, and Mario Clash is a lot more fun that I expected it to be. I really wish that system had taken off, or at least hung in there a while longer... So much potential.

I guess I should also note that Wario World is kinda growing on me (especially the pause music!), that I'm at the final battle of Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters, and that I'm getting back into the last few levels of Crush. Oh, and I spent some quality time with Team Fortress 2 earlier in the week... Good times.

Also, that Diablo III teaser mystery on the Blizzard's splash page was fun... I noticed the runes and uncovered the pieces of the penguin drawing in the CSS, but didn't bother looking into what any of it meant :)

Anyway, there was a surprise waiting for me when I got to work yesterday: The server had crashed! I'd had it running for like months without a hitch! What the hell!? Turns out some dude installing additional security cameras was doing some work over the server, didn't bother covering it (so it was littered with bits of copper wire when I got there), and left his magnetized tools up against the tower! Yeah, hey, kids, just so you know, magnets and tiny pieces of conductive metal are bad for computers! Gah!