Stuff

While the cataloguing of my video game collection in an attractive spreadsheet has stalled on account of real life and other such responsibilities, I did manage to whip-up the following:

(click for full-size)

I didn't draw any of the icons; I actually have a two-slot Neo Geo MVS, not an AES; I also only have a NA Genesis, SEGA CD, 32X, Saturn, and Nomad; and I couldn't find icons for my "Short Rainbow" 2600 Jr., ColecoVision, or CDX.

Heavy, you say?

I thought I was getting a very used "Heavy Sixer" Atari 2600 for $20 off craigslist. Turned out the guy was just kinda clueless. He notified me that it was the "1978" model before we met, but I went along with it anyway, and now have a very used "Light Sixer" Atari 2600 to go along with my "Short Rainbow" Atari 2600 Jr. that I got for free many years ago. The "Light Sixer" cleaned-up nicely though, and I think I'll flip both of them for a small profit. Don't worry, I'll still be able to play my 2600 games on my ColecoVision Expansion Module #1 :)

Moving On

Finally finished Metroid Prime 2. Ugh. It's not that it was too hard, overcomplicated, or took too long... It's just that the last few sections kinda sucked all the fun and wonder out of the game :\ I went from exploring this enormous world to scouring it for invisible treasure based on cryptic clues. No, I didn't mind doing the same thing in the first Metroid Prime game, but in this case, the bigger world and the whole light and dark version of each area just made things so unwieldy. It felt like they got things just right the first time, but pushed them too far this time.

***POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD***

Then there was the big, three-stage, boss encounter. Not bad, but man did it suck having to start the whole battle all over if I failed near the end. Of the maybe four or five times I tried it, only once did I stick around for a second go instead of turning the thing off and walking away. Then, after that fight, with a timer counting down and the save station disabled, they throw the real final boss encounter at you! Fuck! Does that mean that if I fail here, then I have to do both battles all over again!? It does not, thankfully, as I discovered when I neglected to rescan the final boss simply because it had moved to the middle of the screen... Which apparently means that it has taken a new form and requires a whole new attack strategy. I didn't figure this out until I was pretty much dead and wondering what the hell was going on. Maybe it changed colour and I didn't notice or something? Anyway, I died, continued at the end of the previous battle, kicked the final boss' ass in no time at all, and watched an unexciting ending cinematic.

***OKAY I'M DONE WITH THE POSSIBLE SPOILERS***

Anyway, really good game, but I'm glad I'm done with it. I really hope the third one's better. Until then, however, I'm playing Gears Of War 2 and having a blast already :)

1982!

I got a Vectrex! It came with two controllers, Armor..Attack, Clean Sweep, Hyperchase, Mine Storm (built-in), Rip Off, Scramble, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and each game's overlay (except for Scramble), all for $150! So stoked! :)

Traded

I traded my Super Mario World and Super Mario All-Stars SNES cartridges for Return Fire: Maps O' Death for 3DO (complete), as well as X-Men (complete with poster) and X-Men 2 (cartridge only) for Genesis.

I'm getting into Wario Land 3 on my way to and from work, I'm itching to get my hands on either the Jaguar or Windows version of Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure, and I really want to get the last few boss battles out of the way in Metroid Prime 2 so that I can move on to Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness - Episode 2 and then Gears Of War 2.

So much catching-up to do :(

Design Docs

Playing with my SkunkBoard and revisiting my Jaguar games has gotten me thinking about game design.

My initial idea evolved into a sort of mascot title; a 2D sidescroller featuring a jaguar as the main character. The focus would be on animation, and so movement would be a huge part of the gameplay; running, jumping, acrobatics, interacting with the environment... Of course, it wasn't long before I realised that I was essentially describing a version of Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure in which the player controls the first boss instead of Harry Jr. Still not a bad idea, and some iteration of that may come to fruition.

The second idea stemmed from Ruiner Pinball. That game only begins to experiment with what the Jaguar can do, so I'm thinking a solid 2D pinball game with massive levels, generous use of scaling sprites (zooming-out as the ball speeds up, truly dynamic tables, etc...), and fluid animation (especially on the ball itself). Nothing groundbreaking in terms of pinball, but it could be a real showpiece for the system's 2D capablities.

The third idea would be some sort of adventure game, or at least something story-driven. I figure that since I can't draw worth a damn and my coding skills are supremely rusty, I could try another approach altogether, of a kind the Jaguar hasn't seen much, and see where that takes me :)

Jaguar

Got a chance to play a bunch of Atari Jaguar games I'd been hoping to try...

• Atari Karts: Pretty good! Lacking the charm of Mario Kart, but it's still a fun racer.
  
• Defender 2000: Seems like a safe update to Defender, though it's still frickin' hard, and I can't help but feel that the sprite for the player's ship is too big.
  
• Fight For Life: The makings of a good fighting game are in there somewhere, beneath the ugly textures, silly animations, and misguided camera angles.
  
• Hyper Force: Big sprites, decent art, slow but solid gameplay... So what's wrong here? No character. The animation is so stiff that the game just feels kinda cheap.
  
• I-War: Straightforward 3D vehicle shooter. Decent graphics, bearable slowdown, engaging gameplay, albeit in smallish arenas. Nothing mind-blowing, but there's fun to be had here.
  
• Missile Command 3D: Sweet update to the classic with some really interesting variations on the gameplay. Definitely worth checking out.
  
• NBA Jam TE: Great arcade port.
  
• Phase Zero: Very pretty for its time, shows what can be done with voxels on the Jaguar hardware. I'd love to see a complete game on that engine.
  
• Pinball Fantasies: Standard pinball game; nothing special.
  
• Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure: I've always liked this game, and the Jaguar seems to have one of the best ports of it.
  
• Power Drive Rally: Not quite as much fun as Neo Drift Out, but still a really good top-down racing game.
  
• Ruiner Pinball: Some pretty interesting dynamics here (double tables, sprite scaling), but they're woefully underused and in the end it's not much more than just another decent pinball game.
  
• White Men Can't Jump: Kinda slow, bad camera angle... But there's potential here, as it's reminiscent of Street Hoop on Neo Geo.
  
• Zero 5: Fun, fast, frenetic, and frustrating as hell. This new twist on the shoot-'em-up genre is a gorgeous game; a real showpiece for the Jaguar.

When will it end!?

Holy crap, Wario Land II just keeps going!!! I finished 100% of the levels (all five endings) with 100% of the treasure, and 100% of the picture pieces... And now there's a new mini-game, a new final level, and blinking icons on a bunch of the levels I've already beaten... Talk about getting your money's worth, this game is huge! I'm honestly getting kinda sick of it now ;) Definitely gonna play something else before I tackle Wario Land 3.

I'm almost finished Metroid Prime 2, with just a couple of boss battles left.

I've also gotten back into Majora's Mask and made some progress getting into the Great Bay Temple.

Suhweeet Dawggie!

Finally got a copy of Earthworm Jim Special Edition for SEGA CD!

Credit

Traded:

• Two Street Fighter Anniversary Controllers for XBOX (complete; Akuma, Bison)
• Street Fighter Anniversary Collection for XBOX
• Shinobi Legions for Saturn (disc only)
• Virtua Fighter for Saturn (NFR, disc only)
• Goldstar 3DO (poor cosmetic condition) + third-party controller
• Samurai Shodown for 3D0 (complete, worn)
• Guardian War for 3D0 (jewel case)
• Crash 'n Burn for 3D0 (jewel case)
• Shock Wave for 3DO (NFR, disc only)
• Sample This! for 3DO
• Eternal Champions for SEGA CD (missing booklet)
• Boogerman for Genesis (cartridge only, worn)
• Jurassic Park for Game Gear

Received:

• Space Channel 5 Special Edition for PS2 (complete)
• Shock Wave 2 for 3DO (complete)
• Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World (cartridge only)
• $80 CDN

Not the greatest deal, but then I did pretty much get back what I paid for all of it and I got to support one of my local shops :) Plus I'll get some more back when I trade-in my old Mario All-Stars and and Mario World carts.

I also picked up a D-Link DWA-556 PCIe 802.11n card so that I could stop using that range extender; the connection is now more reliable, but the latency sucks. I'm gonna try putting a switch in the room with the two wired computers and moving the wireless router to a more central location.

Finally, I bought a 32GB OCZ ATV USB 2.0 flash drive 'cause it came with a $40 mail-in rebate... Imagine my surprise when I found out I had to sign-up for a prepaid MasterCard in order to claim that $40 :\