Holy Busy!

Latest acquisitions: Gate Of Thunder for TurboGrafx CD (Bonk's Adventure, Bonk's Revenge, and Bomberman are also included on the CD). I also have Final Soldier, Lords Of Thunder, Super Star Soldier, and Violent Soldier on hold. I picked-up Command & Conquer: Renegade and Diablo: Hellfire on Windows, and they're still great fun after all those years :)

I've also gotten back into Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines on PSP. Playing through Assassin's Creed II and seeing some of the flashbacks really tied the PSP game's storyline into the overall mythos of the series, and I'm feeling much more connected to what's happening. Yes, the graphics and voice acting are a step down from the main entries in the series; and yes the areas are smaller, the population is less dense, and the assassinations are less complex; but it's still pretty impressive to see, given the hardware. Without the story integration, it'd ultimately be a mundane exercise, but alongside the revelations of Assassin's Creed II, it really draws you in quite effectively.

Speaking of Assassin's Creed, I purchased Sequence 13: Bonfire Of The Vanities from XBOX Live after seeing the ad for it on the welcome screen. Unfortunately, it wasn't until after I'd purchased that content that I checked-out the XBL marketplace and saw the Bonfire Of The Vanities & Secret Locations option. Having already purchased the advertised version that didn't include the secret locations, there was no way for me to get those secret locations without buying the more complete package (essentially re-buying Sequence 13). I felt misled, so I called Microsoft's customer support. Long story short, the third person to whom I was connected ended-up deflecting my questions with circular logic, telling me they'd really like to help me and that they could, but that they weren't going to. Then they wished me a great day! I assured them that I would not have one. Sequence 13 was fine, and totally worth $4, by the way.

Finally, I'd like to bitch about Epson's nozzle cleaning process on my Stylus Photo R300 printer. Because two of the six ink cartridges (cyan and magenta) were low on ink, Epson's software would not allow me to perform a nozzle cleaning. I had to replace the two low-running cartridges (even though they were not empty, and I was only trying to print in black) just to clean the black nozzle. That's not cool, Epson.

Beyond

I finished Beyond Oasis on Genesis last night, and it was still great after all those years! I'd made it pretty far in the game when I was younger, but can't remember completing it. I wrapped things up pretty quickly (about four-and-a-half hours), at a relatively low rank (48) with only a little over 1000 kills, and 32 of 60 gems... So I guess I have some treasure-hunting to do. The game was enjoyable throughout, if a bit easy, but definitely an original take on a genre dominated by Zelda and full of copycats.

I've since started The Legend Of Oasis on Saturn, and I'm having mixed reactions... The graphics are gorgeous at a higher resolution than the original, there are more frames of animation, a much bigger colour palette, the addition of scaling sprites, and a new CD audio soundtrack. Consider some new key characters and core gameplay elements (like a much less forgiving save system and a revamped weapons configuration), and one might think that this game is a solid evolution of the winning original formula... But the writing is just awful, and the combat is neutered. Sure, it's a similar basic story and many of the same attacks return from the first game, but it all just feels so phoned-in. There's no character or cohesion, and it's glaringly apparent in the lack of any fluidity in combat. Another major change that I'm not too fond of is the lack of any real inventory, so health- and magic-replenishing items are used when touched rather than manually picked-up and managed in anticipation of more difficult areas. You can also only carry either one health or magic potion at a time; meaning you can have either your health or magic refill automatically upon depletion... But because the new system no longer allows you to pick things up, if you have a health potion and accidentally touch a magic potion, your health potion is lost forever. Then there're the tutorial obelisks scattered throughout the land; it would be nice if they didn't wait until the second dungeon to explain fundamental game mechanics that have been changed since the original, especially when those concepts are key to unlocking other new fundamental game mechanics that were only available in the first dungeon. Spending time backtracking in a game with a limited save system is something I only barely tolerate from the Metroid series... I don't like it here either. Perhaps these new design choices will make sense down the road, but I'm just not having the same fun I had with the first game.

On the computer front, I'm inching ever closer to purchasing a Core i7 920-based system; especially with the recent release of Bioshock 2. The novelty of owning a top-of-the-line QuickSilver 2002 Mac as kinda worn-off, but it did allow me to spend some quality time with Mac OS X... So now I'm thinking that a vanilla Mac mini (2.26GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB of RAM, 160GB HDD) alongside my forthcoming Windows 7 machine might be a solid idea.

Better Than Expected

In addition to Turbo Sub and Xybots for Lynx, Splatterhouse 2 for Genesis, and The King Of Fighters: Dream Match 1999 for Dreamcast, I also snagged Robo-Squash for Lynx, Skullmonkeys for PlayStation, OutRun 2006 Coast 2 Coast for XBOX, Starfox Assault for GameCube, and an XBOX 360 Chatpad.

I also set-up a free, centralised, web content filtering system using OpenDNS, Freeproxy, and custom GPOs... That was pretty cool :)

An Oasis

The Adventure of Link is incredibly frustrating and Majora's Mask is particularly confusing, so I re-started Beyond Oasis last night and got about half-way through... I love it; I should've done this ages ago!

Also, I'm gonna pick-up Turbo Sub and Xybots for Lynx, Splatterhouse 2 for Genesis, and The King Of Fighters: Dream Match 1999 for Dreamcast after work today.

Feline Naming Conventions

I bought an Atari Lynx II, an official Atari power adapter, Blue Lightning, Chip's Challenge, and Gauntlet: The Third Encounter.

I'd been hoping to pick-up RoadBlasters, Slime World, and Toki, but the place I'd seen them before had sold them since... I'm considering Battle Wheels, Hydra, Robo-Squash, Turbo Sub, and Xybots.

Radical

ODST was rad. $70 rad? No, but then I'm not really into the multiplayer aspect of it all, and ODST surely offers a wealth of multiplayer value for the Halo 3 experience. It is, however, a very enjoyable single-player campaign that shows us some new versatility within the Halo universe; would be nice as a $20~$30 product for those of us not particularly interested in multiplayer, or those of us who have already purchased much of the multiplayer content included. The save system still sucks, but re-playing the first few levels wasn't the end of the world.

I think I've given-up on my current attempt at completing Majora's Mask... I'm tempted to restart the game on Wii (The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition) with a walkthrough for heart pieces and the Bomber's Notebook stuff. I've already re-started The Adventure Of Link on NES.

Expansions

The new Assassin's Creed II downloadable content, Battle of Forli, was pretty cool. Nothing special, pretty short, and it didn't really add to the story (some barely-developed characters show-up and manage to outsmart the group of assassins that just saved the world!?); but $4 for an hour's worth of new content and some added replayablity ain't bad. I was a little upset that my character didn't continue with the sword I had at the end of the game (or any sword for that matter), but I managed. It was also weird that Ezio's facial hair seemed to come and go... Whoops ;) Regardless of its faults, I lok forward to the next installment of DLC.

Halo 3 ODST is really good though. Instead of being a supreme badass following an epic story arc, you get to be relatively insignificant in a much more humble setting, all while feeling lost and lonely in a very real way; that's some impressive storytelling. I do not appreciate, however, the fact that after finishing about half of the game and choosing to save and quit from the hub level, my progress was not saved. Sure, I could revisit the missions I'd unlocked, but I couldn't continue my progress... Which meant that I had to re-play one of the previous missions and then manually choose the next one from the hub map. What's even better is that I'll have to re-play the other three missions in order to actually finish the game! Yeah, that's just amazing; I'm so stoked for that. Ugh.

Aw, nuts...

Oh, Google Chrome version 4.0.249.78, I'd love to use you as my default web browser on my Windows 7 workstation, but you keep randomly overlapping the taskbar (it remains inaccessible even if I "restore down" your window!) and seem to have issues with various Facebook pages when other browsers don't :( I would've gone back to Internet Explorer 8, but Firefox 3.6's speed increase kinda made the decision for me.

But wait, there's more!

Traded my NFR copy of Gex for 3DO, along with Metroid Prime 1 and 2 for GameCube, and Sonic Heroes and Sonic Mega Collection Plus (both "Platinum Family Hits") for XBOX toward complete copies of Gex and Out Of This World for 3DO, as well as Fight For Life for Jaguar, and Axelay and Michael Jordan: Chaos In The Windy City for SNES.

...But I didn't stop there.

No, I went ahead and bought an Hori EX2 arcade stick (PC-compatible) and Fracture for my XBOX 360, as well as Star Fox Adventures for GameCube and NHL Stanley Cup for SNES - that last one was only $2.

Anyway, I've been thinking about how much I'd like an updated NHL game for PSP. As much fun as I'm having with NHL 07 after installing and tweaking fan-made roster updates and settings to make it more realistic, it'd be really nice to see a more streamlined menu system, better AI, and some bug-fixes.

Aside from being slow and unresponsive, is it really necessary to ask me if I want to use the autosave system every time, then warn me that i'm using the autosave system every time, then load the intro movie every time, then select game modes, leagues, loading options, a game file, and then confirm that it has loaded... EVERY TIME!? That's no less than eight painfully sluggish button presses before I can even look at the actual game menu! Why not just let me set the autosave options once, then have the system remember them? Why not have a load option on the main menu? Seems so obvious... The sluggish menu also makes tweaking rosters and lines unduly arduous, though that may be intentional to keep people buying yearly official updates... Except there haven't been any official updates in four years.

Better AI and bug-fixes would just make the whole experience a lot more fun; no more players who run away from a loose puck in the open, goalies who don't cover the short side with reasonable consistency, disappearing players, lightspeed passes flying around the rink, checks that literally send players soaring across the ice, and the list goes on... I'm not asking for a lot, am I? Even a port of the latest PS2 update with some tweaks to make it play a little more like the 360/PS3 version would do.

Oh Yeah!

Totally forgot to mention that I played through a whole bunch of XBOX 360 demos!

Dante's Inferno was kinda meh. Solid graphics, silly exposition, derivative gameplay... Nothing really wrong with it, I guess.

Dark Void was pretty cool... Until I wasn't using my jetpack anymore. I did appreciate that I was allowed to use my jetpack in a cramped hallway, promptly fly into a wall, and die upon impact. Maybe once it hits the bargain bin...

And I finally dipped into the indie game pool and checked-out I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1. It was fun for a few minutes, and then it got very weird. Arkedo Series - 03 PIXEL! was very interesting; I love the aesthetic, but the gameplay was a little dry. Leave Home was just plain cool.

I don't know what came over me...

I stumbled across a new copy of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, so I bought it. I also bought Saints Row 2 (new for 360, $25) and de Blob (new, $19), and I'm looking for OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast... I didn't get around to buying it after seeing it everywhere for years, and now it's suddenly nowhere to be found! Regardless, I've now officially spent too much money on games this month :(

What have I done!?

I bought Night Trap for SEGA CD 32X today.

I'm not sure what I should be more ashamed of; that I bought a copy of Night Trap on any system, or that I now have all five SEGA CD 32X games.

Discontinued

I bought Metroid Prime Trilogy for Wii because it started disappearing around town once Nintendo announced they'd stopped making it. I also noticed copies of New Super Mario Bros. Wii in white cases while I was out, and mistakenly assumed that's what the new shipment looked like; turns out they were just display copies, but I had already informed some friends in the retail end of things that new shipments were in white plastic... Oops.

I also snagged complete copies of Afro Samurai and Halo 3 ODST for 360 together for $50. Considering that ODST is still going for $65 used in most places, I think I did alright.

Life's getting busy again, and I wish I at least had the time to finish-up Wario Land: Shake It!... I also wish I could choose between Intel's Core i7 860 and 920. The 5-series platform (860) seems to be heading more so toward the mainstream market while the X-series platform (920) seems to be heading toward an increasingly multi-core market... I just can't decide.

Alternatives

New acquisitions: Golvellius for Master System (way better looking than the NES Zelda games, much more ecclectic in terms of gameplay, and fricking hard!) and Street Fighter II' Champion Edition for PC Engine (just because it's amazing to see such a great port that no one thought possible). Still looking for Golden Axe Warrior and considering Zillion II for Master System.

Different

Things I don't like about my QuickSilver 2002 Power Mac G4:

• Can't play HD Flash video.
• I don't like Finder as much as Windows' Start Menu.
• Mac OS X's default keyboard shortcuts mostly suck.
• There still isn't a maximise button, is there?

Things I do like about my QuickSilver 2002 PowerMac G4:

• Everything else.

So I guess I could become a full-fledged Mac user with a Windows PC for specific tasks (gaming and Windows service, mostly); all I'd really have to do is adust to the Mac OS X workflow and buy a more powerful machine... Except I haven't really cared all that much for any Mac case designs since the iMac G4s and the QuickSilvers.

Ergh

Eternal Darkness gets better, and restarting actually made the first third of the game much more enjoyable, as I had a better idea of what the hell I was doing... Though this phenomenon casts an unflattering light on how the game establishes itself. Essentially, we have a unique game with an interesting presentation that leaves you hanging when it comes to gameplay and story. Once you slog through the first few chapters, things don't make much more sense, but they do get more manageable and thus far more entertaining. I've got three chapters to go, and I'm coming to the conclusion that I'm playing a disjointed but clever Resident Evil clone with super powerful melee weapons. None of these obseravtions sound particularly flattering, but I'm actually having fun and I can see why so many people felt this game was underappreciated in its day.

I also sat down with Majora's Mask last night and got to the boss of Great Bay Temple... Only to realise that I was woefully unprepared to defeat him. Thanks to the timed nature of the game, it looks like I'll have to redo the entire dungeon after hunting-down masks, jars, fairies, and heart pieces elsewhere in the game. I really hate wasting time like that.

And finally, a local video game shop is relocating, so I stopped by their old place over the weekend and came away with Pitall II for 2600 and Berzerk (w/overlay) for Vectrex. They'd just recieved a Jaguar CD, but it was suppoesdly already spoken for :\

Brilliant.

Eternal Darkness has no checkpoints or auto-save feature, and doesn't bother to prompt you to save your progress. I was just about finished the fourth chapter (about a third of the way through the game) when I was killed unexpectedly and forced to start the entire game over... That's not fun. I think I'm gonna go play something else instead.

Mano-a-mano

I finished Assassin's Creed II with most of the achievements, and it was great! Right up there with Brütal Legend as a serious game-of-the-year contender, as far as I'm concerned. I have a few complaints, but don't let them dissuade you from checking this game out. First, teaching the player a relatively tricky new technique during a timed mission that cannot be restarted while surrounded by numerous platforms that are likely to interfere with that technique is bad design; thankfully, that mission is optional. Second (and this one contains some big spoilers), whoever wrote the dialogue for the scenes surrounding your fistfight with the Pope (yes, a fistfight with the Pope!) should be fired. We went from intriguing and beautiful science fiction/history/conspiracy story to big dumb action movie for one of this epic game's pivotal scenes, and it just felt so very wrong; it didn't completely ruin the experience for me, but it certainly was disappointing.

I've started playing Eternal Darkness, and after the first two chapters, I'm wondering what all of the hype is about. The dialogue is painful, the story is barely cohesive so far, and combat is pretty frustrating... Maybe it gets better later.

I've been on a bit of a Klonoa binge lately. Since picking-up the Wii remake of the original PlayStation game, I've tracked-down the PS2 sequel, as well as the two Game Boy Advance releases. These are beautiful games, and reminiscent of Ristar in terms of gameplay.

Ooh, and I got to play with a PSX DVR the other day! A local shop got one in, but wants $500 for it :(

I'd love to see something like Broadcom's Crystal HD chip as an add-in card for older computers (especially my Power Mac G4). The ability to play HD Flash videos would make just about every computer from 2000 on capable of functioning as a solid day-to-day workstation.

Speaking of old computers, I got Soul Reaver running on Windows 7, but it stutters so badly that it's pretty much unplayable. Now I'm debating whether I should shell-out for the Dreamcast version instead of having to hook-up my Windows 98 SE machine to play it...

Gadetry

Windows 7 Gadgets (and possibly Windows Vista Gadgets as well) are broken. I like to put the default analogue clock, calendar, weather, and CPU meter (and somtimes a newsfeed) on there, but they're nothing I can't do without. While the only issues I ever had in Vista were with online feeds not synching, the weather gadget in 7 stopped working, and so all gadgets stopped working. When I tried to open the gadget menu to remove the weather gadget, it tried to open the gadgets first, which, since they weren't working, would cause the entire gadget engine to crash. I had to remove the wetaher gadget's folder from the Program Files folder to even access the gadget setup menu, so I just turned them all off and left it at that... Until today, when the weather gadget was suddently back, all by itself. Rather than bring them all back, I've opted to keep them all off.

My little brother surprised me with Assassin's Creed II and Modern Warfare 2 for XBOX 360 for Chirstmas, and so all else (including sleep) has been put on hold while I plough through Assassin's Creed II. Three gaming sessions in, and the end is in sight; I'm about two thirds through the story proper, and I've finished the majority of the side missions and collectible treasure hunts. The storytelling in this sequel is still a little off in terms of pacing and dialogue, but the gameplay is much more streamlined than it was in the first game. All of the repetitive missions that a lot of people complained about in Assassin's Creed are now completely optional, and the story progresses much more cohesively. If you're like me and enjoyed completing every last (seemingly meaningless) mission in the first game, don't worry; you can still do that here, and then some... Yeah, the amount of stuff to do is overwhelming, to say the least. Hunting down treasure chests, eagle feathers, statuettes, codex pages, and glyphs, solving brain-teasers, buying art, designing our outfit, reading about the places you've visited, checking out vistas, or just bombing around... You often don't need to go anywhere near the main story for hours. I'm loving the game so far, and I think just about anyone can find something fun to do in there.

Ooh, and I bought the Eidos Collector Pack (Batman: Arkham Asylum, Deus Ex 1 and 2, Hitman 1 to 3, Just Cause, Kane And Lynch, Mini Ninjas, Thief: Deadly Shadows, Tomb Raider: Legend and Underworld, and eight more Eidos games) and the Telltale Everything Pack (every Bone, Sam & Max, Strong Bad, Tales Of Monkey Island, and Wallace & Gromit game by Telltale) on Steam for $100... Individually, all of those games would cost over $450... I love holiday sales :)

Can't remember...

...I know I picked something else up since my last post, but I can't remeber what it is.

Wait, I did find Tiger Woods '10 for Wii (sans MotionPlus) for $29, and that was pretty sweet; there was something else though... I'll hafta get back to you on that.

Anyway, I finished Shadow Complex, and it was really good. The game was a little on the easy side and the dialogue was horrible (though the actors struggle through it admirably), but everything else was top-shelf stuff. Gorgeous graphics, visceral gameplay, plenty to explore, room for creative problem-solving, and compelling reasons to go back and find what you may have missed.

I then took some time to get into Muramasa, and quickly realised just how similar it is to Odin Sphere... But with a far less overwhelming inventory/forge/whatever, and with an amazingly fluid combat system. After the Bayonetta demo (which, like Devil May Cry, was very pretty but played very much not to my liking), Muramasa was a nice reminder that the hack-'n-slash/beat-'em-up genre hasn't completely left me behind in the '90s ;)

Before I got too far into Muramasa, I set aside an evening to finish LostWinds 2. I cannot stress enough just how amazing this series is. These two games, at only $10 each, are reason enough to get a Wii; they employ the Wii's controllers in a way so intuitive that I almost never paused to marvel at how well it worked; the graphics are beautiful; the music is hypnotic and suitably mysterious; the gameplay offers a challenging, but not overwhelming mix of puzzle-solving and platforming; and everything is bursting with character, from the animations and lighting to the musical cues and journal entries. The second game adds a great selection of new obstacles along with new tools to overcome them, and really feels like a new game instead of just another episode in the series. My only complaint is with the time between releases, and that's more of a compliment than anything else.

More Stuff

I bought two original NES controllers, Mario Pinball Land (GBA), Phantasy Star Online III (GC), and GRID (360) today for $27.

I also picked-up Jet Grind Radio (GBA) and Soul Reaver (PC) the other day, but forgot how old Soul Reaver was... It won't run on anything newer than Windows 9x :( There're unofficial patches to get it running on XP, but they're pre-SP3 and IE8, and don't seem to work. I've read that it works on Vista, so that or Windows 7 may be worth a try.

...Menacing?

I was buying a DVD the other day, and saw a new copy of Deadly Creatures for Wii for $20... And then a new copy of Elebits for $15... And then the cashier told me that it was buy-two-get-one-free, so I picked-up SEGA Rally Revo for XBOX 360. Now then, if only I could find the time to play them :( Still chipping away at Shadow Complex, then the priorities are LostWinds 2, Muramasa, Eternal Darkness, Wario Land: Shake It!... And it just doesn't stop.

I also bought a complete copy of Terminator 2: The Arcade Game for Genesis and dusted off my Menacer... That was fun :)

Splurge

Teddy Boy and Zillion for SMS; Mike Tyson's Punch-Out and Journey to Silius for NES; Chakan and Panic On Funkotron for Genesis; Jurassic Park, Killer Instinct, Super Punch-Out, and Tetris & Dr. Mario for SNES; as well as NBA Showtime, the "Sonic bundle" pack-in of Sonic Adventure with the Sonic Adventure 2 demo, and a second copy of Soul Calibur for Dreamcast.

Bullets

Recent Purchases:

• Samurai Shodown Anthology (Wii) (No SSVS!? Boo!)
• Sonic Gems Collection (GC) (It was $5)
• Gauntlet Legends (DC) (It was cheap, and I had credit to spend)
• Space Channel 5 (DC) (My copy was in a sorry state; traded it in)

Current Windows 7 dilemma:

• Ardour (Linux; FireWire Solo relegated to acting as a pre-amp)
• Cubase (Industry standard, good personal experience so far)
• Sonar (Supposedly great product and hardware support; 64-bit)
• Pro Tools (...But 8 still doesn't officially support Windows 7)

Cleaning-up.

I finally sold the second Power Mac G4. I ended-up dropping the price to $100 from $125, but that ain't too bad; essentially, this means that I got my dual 1GHz Power Mac for $25 :)

I ragequit NHL 07 again... This time I was up 2-1 with just minutes left in the game when the same passing issue showed-up. My player was in the neutral zone, and instead of passing to the forward at the opposing blue line, he made another backward pass, this time to an opposing player who scored on the ensuing rush.

Anyway, I recently picked-up Draconus and Zombie Revenge for Dreamcast, Mr. Bones for Saturn, and Thunder Force III for Genesis. I plan to get Darius Gaiden for Saturn this evening.

7

The new workstation at work only came with the 32-bit version of Windows 7 Professional, but my 64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate disc arrived the other day, so I tried to install the latter using the product key from the former... No dice; SKUs don't match :(

I did get Windows 7 Ultimate installed on my trusty old Athlon XP 3200+ machine though, and it runs wonderfully :) There were only two issues, one was easily solved (had to manually set the WLAN service to "automatic"), and the other involves patience (Pro Tools 7.4 doesn't work with Windows 7). Because of the Pro Tools issue, I'm strongly considering going back to Vista for the time being.

My time with Windows 7, on the whole, has been swell. In terms of superficial everyday use, it's Vista with a streamlined taskbar (sporting some nifty new features) and a few different settings windows, and that's just fine with me.

Ragequit

I've gotten back into NHL 07 on PSP (with the latest roster update), and my Leafs are kicking ass; something like 15-2-0. That record and the player stats aren't out of line with some of the other teams though (e.g. Pittsburgh is 9-2-1), so I don't feel too bad about how well things have gone so far. I did, however, quit toward the end of the third period of a recent game against Buffalo. I was down 3-1, and the game had been so one-sided that it was ridiculous. Buffalo players we're literally diving to create penalties (the replays didn't help their case), and the refs were falling for it. Until mid-way through the third period, PIMs were something like five to one in their favour, and all three of their goals came on the powerplay. The last straw was when one of my players passed the puck slightly backward to his left, at my goalie, who promptly spun around and put the puck in his own net... The problem was that I was trying to pass to a player at the blue line. Not cool.

Not bad, not bad...

New workstation at work: Dell Vostro 220s

• Core 2 Duo E7500 (2.93GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 3MB L2 Cache) CPU
• 3GB 800MHz DDR2 RAM
• Intel G45 Chipset
• Intel GMA X4500 HD GPU
• Dell E2010H (20" widescreen) LCD
• Windows 7 Professional 32-Bit

...Definitely an upgrade from what I had before :)

Points

Got me some XBOX Live points and grabbed Shadow Complex along with a bunch of Foo Fighters and Nirvana songs for Rock Band. Shadow Complex is a sweet Metroid clone, but I fear it may be a little short; one solid afternoon of play, and it looks like I'm already half-way done.

I finished The Darkness the other day; my opinions of the game have not changed since my last post.

Next is prolly gonna be LostWinds: Winter Of the Melodias, or Wario Land: Shake It!

Oh, and my copy of Windows 7 Ultimate is in the mail :)

News

Nintendo sent me a whole new Wii with a new one-year warranty. They paid for the service and shipping, and covered the taxes. That was a very nice gesture from them, especially considering that the Wii malfunctioned a month or so after its original warranty had expired. I didn't ask them for anything; just sent an e-mail indicating that I was an unhappy customer. They assured me that the issue was not the result of a design defect, but I won't be leaving the thing on standby anymore, just in case it melts again. It was funny that the replacement system came with an insert that told me to re-synchronise my controllers and mentioned that they had updated the system software for my convenience... Except that they hadn't updated my system software ;)

Anyway, I sold my 867MHz Power Mac, and am close to selling the 800MHz one as well. If all goes well, I'll have made my $300 investment back, which ain't bad when you consider that $300 got me three Power Macs and I'll get to keep the best one. Speaking of the best one, a friend came through with two 512MB sticks of PC133 RAM, so my dual 1GHz G4 is now maxed-out at 1.5GB of RAM :)

I want to write more about Brütal Legend, but I've yet to collect my thoughts on the subject. Rest assured that it is a spectacular original game and well worth anyone's time. I've completed 100% of the single-player game since my last post, and have been participating at the Double Fine forums, so expect more here on the subject in the coming week.

Upon finishing Brütal Legend, I popped Psychonauts into my 360 and was promptly sucked right back into that world for the better part of an afternoon; there's a reason it's one of my favourite games of all time. There is an annoying bug with the 360's backwards compatibility with the game though; when you pause, the main character's texture colour scheme gets all messed-up, and the only way to fix it is to quit to the game's menu and load your last checkpoint. Not a game-breaker, but definitely annoying. I wonder if the "XBOX Originals" version on XBOX Live does the same...

Playing Psychonauts got me all nostalgic, so I dug up my copies of Beyond Good & Evil (Windows, XBOX, GameCube) and did some research in hopes of figuring out which is the penultimate version. Apparently the GC port is rarest, and missing some language options and concept art, but was supposedly the lead platform during development. The XBOX version has shorter loading times and the best graphics of any console, whereas the Windows port can be even quicker and smoother, but may have some annoying bugs and DRM... So which do I keep?

Finally, I'm almost finished The Darkness on XBOX 360, and I'm pretty disappointed. This game has solid source material, a well-written script performed by quality voice actors, and some truly unique gameplay mechanics... But it's all so disjointed that the experience ultimately falls flat. Much of the music is horribly out of place (some of sounds more like something from a fantasy game than an FPS featuring a violent anti-hero prowling the streets of modern-day New York), the Darkness powers are poorly managed (why can't I use them all at once? The colour scheme suggests that this may have been the case at some point in development), the free-roaming aspect and side-missions are unambitious and ultimately unnecessary (effectively breaking any narrative flow), and major plot points are either poorly-explained or glossed-over completely... Seriously, the fact that the protagonist has creepy, bloodthirsty monsters protruding from his body is really only noticed by one other main character, and even then, only in passing; the big transformation scene when the Darkness first manifests itself just kinda happens and is promptly forgotten; key scenes in your character's internal struggle are left to chance instead of logic (wander around until you find something you can interact with)... I could go on, but you get the idea. The Darkness isn't a broken game, and it's pretty enjoyable at times, but I just can't get over the fact that it could've been so much better... Ditch the free-roaming aspect and tell me a good story.

Bedtime

Brütal Legend was fantastic. I'll write more when it isn't 6:00am :)

Trades

I traded Panzer Dragoon, Sonic 3D Blast, Sonic CD, Sonic R, Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Virtua Fighter 2, and Virtual On (all for PC), as well as Crash Bandicoot (PSX "Greatest Hits") and Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (XBOX) toward Super Pitfall (NES), SonSon II (PC Engine), Crash Bandicoot (PSX, not "Greatest Hits"), Pitfall 3D: Beyond The Jungle (PSX), Fable The Lost Chapters (XBOX, not "Best Of Platinum Hits"), Pitfall: The Lost Expedition (XBOX), Klonoa (Wii), Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (Wii), Muramasa: the Demon Blade (Wii), Fable II Limited Collector's Edition (360), and King Of Fighters XII (360).

Oh, and I may be getting somewhere with Nintendo on this overheating Wii issue... Stay tuned.

Brütally Honest

Brütal Legend kicks ass. I love the story, the acting, the graphics, the cameos, the controls, the varied gameplay, the exploration... It feels like the natural evolution of Tim Schafer's work; from cutting-edge point-and-click adventure games; to Grim Fandango, which incorporated a more action-oriented control scheme into the adventure genre; to Psychonauts, which masterfully meshed the adventure and action genres together like no other before it; to Brütal Legend, which further expands upon adventure/action hybrid ideas with an open strategy element akin to games like Sacrifice and Overlord.

The major gripes I've heard so far have had to do with pop-in and inconsistent frame rates, navigation ('I need a mini-map', 'the waypoints may lead me into an obstacle'), and genre confusion ('you got your half-assed RTS effort in my adventure game')... But any pop-in or stuttering I've run into so far has been negligible and in no way makes anything unplayable, navigation is pretty straightforward (if you get lost, the map screen is very helpful; but like Psychonauts, exploration is a huge part of the fun to be had here), and the RTS elements are an intriguing addition to what is still primarily an action game. It seems to me like a lot of people were caught off-guard (myself included) by the heavy RTS infusion to the single-player game, as previews would have us believe that such aspects were more of a multiplayer thing... The resulting backlash seems to be one of confused criticism.

I do have some legitimate complaints though. Scene transitions can be abrupt, and trivial yet funny voice clips can get cut-off, never to be heard again. Certain aspects of the game (minor plot points, new skills, new types of enemies, stuff like that) are not fully explained, though their uses and meanings aren't exactly esoteric, so it's not the end of the world. Finally, things seem a bit easy... For example, I lost all of my men to an unexpected and unexplained environmental effect during a battle and was killed shortly thereafter, but not before reaching a checkpoint. When I respawned, I was at the checkpoint with a full complement of men; men who most certainly did not survive to reach that checkpoint with me... Regardless, Brütal Legend seems like a game worth spending some quality time with in order to savour its unique nuances and creative ideas; the rewards far outweigh any issues you may run into along the way.

So, Need For Speed ProStreet on PSP, eh? Yeah, good times. Great graphics, genuinely fun sim gameplay, lots to do, plenty of replay value... And asshole AI that has no qualms about sending you into a spin, as well as a broken garage system that doesn't let you sell old cars or get money back for downgrading... Unless I'm missing something there? Still one of the best racers on the platform, no question about it. I wonder why it seems to have been so overlooked by the press...

Finally, the e-mail server at work went down over night, and now I'm fixing it and developing a new storage strategy to better utilise our limited storage resources... Wheee!

$2!

I tracked down a copy of Brütal Legend after work yesterday (the used record store had two copies left; everywhere else in the area was sold out), but didn't get a chance to play it until this morning... Since I had to go into work, I've only played through the intro and have yet to hit the RTS aspect of the game that supposedly throws the quality of the whole experience into question...

I also noticed copies of Shining Force II (Genesis) and Super Off Road (SNES) ~$2 each at that same used record store, so I grabbed them as well. Super Off Road needed a cleaning, but I didn't notice that until I'd already tested it and popped ActRaiser back in... At which point ActRaiser wouldn't start properly, and then erased my saved progress. I only had like two more levels to go! D'ah well, I guess that just clears my schedule up a bit for Brütal Legend :)

I finally got around to sitting down with Gran Turismo and MotorStorm: Arctic Edge on PSP, and was promptly confused. Just about everyone's been talking about how pretty Gran Turismo is and how ugly MotorStorm is, and I think they got it backwards. GT runs at an amazingly high frame rate, but it ain't the prettiest game on the platform; Need For Speed: ProStreet looks way better. MotorStorm looks pretty great too, so I'm just kinda scratching my head here... Anyway, GT's a hardcore sim that takes a lot of practice to master. MotorStorm is big, dumb, visceral fun that's great in short bursts, but gets kinda repetitive if you try to do it all at once. ProStreet (quickly becoming one of my favourite racers on the PSP) is somewhere in the middle, but definitely more toward the sim side of the spectrum.

The Saga Continues

I got the other G4s cleaned-up and ready for sale, but I'm not gonna post them 'til I max-out the RAM in the dual 1GHz machine and redistribute the leftovers. I found two new low-density 512MB sticks on craigslist for $40, but they don't seem to like Macs, or at least QuickSilvers :\ I'm gonna see about swapping at one of the local surplus stores...

On a happier note, I'm pretty comfortable with the following selection of Mac software:

• Connect360
• Flip4Mac WMV
• NTFS-3G
• Perian
• Rember
• Safari
• StuffIt Expander
• Toast
• Transmission

...I think that pretty much covers my needs.

Anyway, I read a post on a message board about an old Sonic clone from Data East on the Genesis called High Seas Havoc. I don't think I'd ever heard of it before then, but it looked promising, so I checked out a nearby shop and they had a loose copy for cheap. Good times :)

My ship has come in!

I got the dual-1GHz QuickSilver 2002! $160 on craigslist! The case is a little banged-up, but otherwise, it's been great so far! I'm gonna see about selling the other two, and maybe swapping the case from one...

Anyway, on to the better news! I received the following in the mail today:

• BC Racers (32X)
• Blackthorne (32X)
• Primal Rage (32X)
• Star Trek Starfleet Academy (32X)
• T-Mek (32X)
• Toughman Contest (32X)
• Pitfall (Jaguar)
• White Men Can't Jump (Jaguar)
• Cool Cool Jam (NGPC)
• Gals Fighters (NGPC)
• Puzzle Link 2 (NGPC)
• Actraiser 2 (SNES)
• Blitz w/overlay (Vectrex)
• Cosmic Chasm w/overlay (Vectrex)
• Solar Quest (Vectrex)
• Starhawk w/overlay (Vectrex)

Can't wait to sit down with all of it... And now I only need Night Trap, Spider-Man: Web Of Fire, World Series Baseball, and WWF Wrestlemania to complete my domestic 32X collection... Such a nerd :)

Jinx

If all goes well, I'll have a dual-1GHz QuickSilver 2002, with 1GB of RAM, a GeForce4 MX, an 80GB HDD, a Super Drive, and an original Apple mouse and keyboard by the end of the day... I had been considering an upgrade card from Newer Technology or Sonnet (1.6GHz~2.0GHz, single or dual G4 CPUs starting at $200 US), but this will do just fine.

While I'm here, I guess I'll mention that I'm almost done ActRaiser, and I picked up NHL 09 and NBA Street: Homecourt for 360 (less than $20 for the pair), as well as PO'ed for 3DO... Good times :) Oh, and I enjoyed the Wet demo. Not enough to make me drop $60~$70 on the game, but enough to keep an eye out for it in the bargain bins.

So very, very stoked...

I sat down with the Brütal Legend, Forza Motorsport 3, and NHL 10 demos last night, and oh man...

NHL 10 seems pretty swell, but I think I need to spend a good few hours with it before I'm really comfortable with all of the control options. I didn't notice anything particularly game-changing over previous iterations though, and the Leafs haven't convinced to spend $60 this season... Yet :) I hear NHL 2K10 is is a much more comparable product this year, so I'll be giving that a shot as well.

Forza 3 is gorgeous, and it felt totally intuitive. I'm really tempted to pick this one up, even though I still have plenty left to do in Forza 2.

Brütal Legend though, oh man... It sucked me in immediately. The writing is the key, and it was spot-on hilarious right from the beginning. The graphics are better than I expected, and the gameplay, while a little too God Of War-esque for my liking, was varied enough to keep me riveted. I will buy this game upon its release next week.

Is there really a need?

I've been trying to figure out which PSP Need For Speed game is the best...

Underground: Rivals is a pure arcade racer; Most Wanted: 5-1-0 adds police; Carbon: Own The City adds a really lame narrative, teammates, and an open city to drive through; ProStreet throws everything previous out the window and makes a really impressive sim that is particularly challenging and looks gorgeous; Undercover is an hideous atrocity; Shift is like Rivals except that it doesn't occur exclusively at night and has some decent weather effects that significantly affect the gameplay.

So which is the best? I dunno. Aside from Undercover, they're all pretty solid. ProStreet is the most impressive of the bunch, but is it worth our time now that Gran Turismo is available? Rivals and Shift offer a lot of fun, but with games like Ridge Racer and MotorStorm out there, do they offer anything unique aside from the tuning aspect? It seems like 5-1-0 and Carbon are the two that really carve a solid niche for themselves, but even then, they have a lot in common with the PSP Burnout games.

Personally, I've had the most fun with ProStreet, with Shift/Rivals and 5-1-0/Carbon taking second or third, depending on whether I want to race mindlessly or race mindlessly with the police.

Moving on, I now have Leopard installed on my Mac, and while it feels a little sluggish compared to Tiger in the visual effects department, it's running really well. I can't wait 'til I find more RAM and a better video card for this thing; the best I can find right now for a reasonable price is a 64MB GeForce4 MX...

Son Of FrankenMac

I got the leftovers pieced together, and now my unexpected second Power Mac G4 is in business... Albeit with a noisy CPU fan and a damaged speaker. Anyway, it's running Mac OS X 10.4.11 on an 800MHz G4 (no L3 cache) with 320MB of RAM, a 16MB AGP ATi Rage 128 Pro, a 30GB Maxtor HDD, and a CD-RW drive. Not sure what to do with this one yet...

FrankenMac

Upon returning to my office with the QuickSilver 2002 in tow on Thusday, a coworker of mine noted that he had "one of those" too... And then asked me if I wanted it. I picked it up last night :) His is an older model QuickSilver, but was a little more full-featured than what I'd picked up. So far, I've taken the CPU, RAM, and video card from his Mac and added it all to mine (newer motherboard). I would've taken his Super Drive as well, but it doesn't seem to be working.

As it stands, my QuickSilver 2002 is now running Mac OS X 10.4.11 on an 867MHz G4 (2MB L3 cache) with 640MB of RAM, a 32MB AGP GeForce2 MX, a 40GB Seagate HDD, an NEC 3550A DVD+/-RW, and a USB 2.0 PCI card. I'll be adding more RAM (1.5GB max) as I find it, and possibly upgrading to OS X 10.5... Tracking down a dual-1GHz CPU card would be nice too :) 

The only thing that troubles me with this rig is how much trouble it has running Flash videos. It can do 480p MPEG videos fullscreen without a hitch, but YouTube often looks like a slide show :\

Hindsight

I was in a surplus store yesterday, looking for a specific kind of SCSI enclosure... Without any luck. I did, however, pick-up a pristine Lian Li case for $30, as well as a QuickSilver 2002 Power Mac G4 for $125. Not the greatest deal on the Mac, but I love the design. It was low-end (single 800MHz CPU, no L3 cache) and stripped of all but the bare necessities (256MB of RAM, 40GB HDD, and downgraded to a 16MB ATi Rage 128 Pro video card), but I figured I have RAM and hard drives at home, I could always keep an eye out for a better video card, and maybe I'll stumble across a dual-1GHz CPU upgrade some day. Mostly I just really like the case though ;) Unfortunately, upon returning home, I discovered that I'd given away all of my PC133 RAM! I used to have stacks of the stuff! Damnit! It's gonna cost me in the neighbourhood of $100 to max the thing out if I go new :( I did get Mac OS X 10.4 installed though, and it actually runs pretty well at 1280x1024, so I'm not that upset.

I also picked-up ActRaiser for SNES, and it promptly sucked me in. If not for the free episode of Tales Of Monkey Island that was released on International Talk Like A Pirate Day, ActRaiser would be all I've been playing at home these days. On the PSP front, Dissidia lost my interest with its lame stories and incessant grinding, and Marvel Trading Card Game had my head spinning before I was finished the tutorials.

WiiMelt

My Wii has overheated while in standby mode. There are now visual artifacts on the display whenever it is turned on. I always used to turn it off when I was done for the day, but the idea of having news and weather updates waiting for me before I played was kind of cool. I also liked how the system's light would pulse when new updates were available... I don't like it so much anymore, now that it apparently comes at a ridiculous cost.

Searching the web has revealed that this isn't exactly an uncommon occurrence, so I'll be in touch with Nintendo's service department... Though really, I'd just like to get a new one.

$30 Good?

Trine is good. People keep comparing it to The Lost Vikings, but there're some pretty big fundamental differences between the two games... Then again, I understand the need for some kind of touchstone in journalism, adding historical weight to something new. Anyway, yeah, Trine is good. $30 good? Maybe; depends on whether you really like that kind of game or not. $20 good? Definitely. There's nothing wrong with Trine, but the concept does get kind of old before long, and the game is definitely lacking polish. The menus and loading screens, the way the models animate and interact with the environments, and even the character development in terms of narrative... They all just seem decidedly low-budget. Not bad, mind you; they're perfectly passable. It's just that when I play games like World Of Goo, 'splosion Man, and even Penny Arcade Adventures and see just how slick they are, it gets a little bit harder to swallow the price premium for Trine. I still recommend grabbing the demo and deciding for yourself though.

Picked-up Guitar Hero Unplugged and Dissidia: Final Fantasy for PSP. The former is fun, but then I was never a big fan of Frequency or Amplitude... Dissisdia, like Crisis Core, had me thoroughly confused at first; Super Smash Bros. gameplay and these weird boardgame maps between battles... The tutorials didn't really help either. After settling into the actual game though, things started to make more sense. I like the strategy, but I foresee plenty of grinding in this one. I found the grind acceptable in Crisis Core on account of the storyline and other available activities, and while a lot of that is present here, it feels much less cohesive... Let's see if it drags me in.

Heh, why not...

PS3 Slim Size Comparison

Holy Crap!

3D Dot Game Heroes

Also, I picked-up a copy of ToeJam & Earl for Genesis, and I finished Sonic Adavce 2.

Seriously, it's a Sonic game!

I finished Mirror's Edge (without using any guns). It was really good. I'm not sure what everyone was complaining about when it came out though... Yeah, the cutscenes felt rough when juxtaposed with the super slick game engine, and the main campaign is kinda short, but there's a huge amount of replay value in there. Mirror's Edge really is like a Sonic The Hedgehog game; you can finish it in no time, but if you want to get the most out of it, you practice your routes, scour levels for secrets, and strive for achievements that actually mean something... And it becomes a whole new game. I definitely had to repeat a few sections ad nauseam, but it was usually because I was trying to neutralise every enemy without firing a shot when I should've been running like hell. My only real complaints are the out-of-place cutscenes, some trite dialogue, and the odd environment element that didn't turn red when it should've (that's how the game helps you find a route through the level); otherwise, it was well worth my time, and I'm definitely looking forward to the sequel.

Oh, and I finally tracked-down a copy of Ristar for Genesis!

Summer of...

Everything you've read about XBOX Live's Summer of Arcade titles is true. 'splosion Man is great fun, with its fast-paced mix of platform and puzzle action. Trials HD is gorgeous in its simplicity (and graphics), resulting in an delightfully addictive experience. Turtles In time Re-Shelled is alright, but ultimately disappointing, Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 is Marvel Vs. Capcom 2.

Moving on, the final battle in Sonic Advance 2 wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have to fight the boss that can randomly kill you with one hit and spends two thirds of the battle off-screen... Again! He was annoying enough the first time at the end of Sky Canyon, and now they're making me fight him again? Fuck.

In other news, I picked-up an Epson R300 complete with ink on the cheap off craigslist in order to print on CDs. Ooh, and then I ran into an issue with a computer I was asked to repair in a rush. First diagnosis was bad RAM after failed tests. I got it running properly the same day, but with only one stick. The guy came back wanting to buy more RAM, and so I took it again and looked into things further before spending any money... It should've hit me as soon as I saw the purple PCB of the motherboard; yup, yet another failing ECS product. I swapped-in a BioStar U8668-D v7.1 (had an extra one lying around that I'd saved from the trash), but he had a 2.4GHz "Prescott" Pentium 4 in that ECS board... v7.1 of the BioStar board doesn't support "Prescott" CPUs. So I've donated my P4 2.8Bto the cause and put an old P4 2.4B in my workhorse. I now have two 2.4GHz "Prescott" CPUs (at least one of which overclocks to a stable 3.6GHz on stock cooling) just lying around.

Wax Nostlagic.

I have a soft spot for SEGA's 32X, probably because it was the first contemporary video game system (not counting PCs) that my parents ever bought for me. I'd rescued a ColecoVision from a garbage can, acquired an Atari 2600 in a trade with a friend, and my grandparents had given me a Game Boy when it was first released, but the 32X was when my parents finally broke down ;) They got me a model 2 Genesis with Sonic 2 and a Menacer, as well as a 32X with Virtua Racing Deluxe... I don't think you understand just what a momentous occasion that was in my family.

As I reflect on fiddling with the electromagnetic shields to fit them into the Genesis' cartridge slot, and then suffering my mother's comment of "Don't games on the computer look better than that?" upon seeing Virtua Racing Deluxe, I can't help but feel that it was somewhat of a bittersweet experience. Then again, I got to play an excellent port of Virtua Fighter at home without shelling-out for a Saturn, and at the time, that was more than enough for me. The fact that I also got to enjoy the entire Genesis library as well as sweet 32X games like After Burner Complete, Knuckles' Chaotix, Kolibri, Mortal Kombat II, Tempo, Shadow Squadron, Space Harrier, Star Wars Arcade, Virtua Racing Deluxe, and Zaxxon's Motherbase 2000 ain't so bad either... And I'm sure I learned a lesson in there somewhere, making-do with what I had.

What's with the sudden bout of nostalgia? Well, new developements regarding two particular unreleased 32X games have been brought to my attention:

1. A prototype of Virtua Hamster has been dumped! Yes, Virtua Hamster... Seriously, check it out. I always wondered exactly what this game was gonna be like, and now I have a much better idea. There're videos on YouTube if you don't feel like tracking down the dump and an emulator.
2. Videos have surfaced of the 32X-exclusive X-MEN game!!! I remember drooling over screenshots of this thing back in the day, and I recall the alpha/prototype/promo/whatever copy selling on eBay for like $1000 not too long ago... Videos here, and more info here! The ROM has been dumped, but does not currently run on any emulators.
   

In other news, don't pay me to fix your computer, only to remove all of the anti-virus and ant-spyware measures I installed, install your own shitty anti-virus software, get duped by fake anti-virus software that isn't what you installed, and then ask me to fix it again. Ugh.

Should've made the connection sooner...

Mirror's Edge is Sonic The Hedgehog in 3D. It's easy to muddle your way through each game, but the real experience lies in the challenge of mastering a fluid path through each level without losing momentum.

Speaking of Sonic The Hedgehog, I'm on the final battle of Sonic Advance 2.

Speaking of portables, I picked up a copy of Puzzle Link for Neo Geo Pocket Color today.

Speaking of what I picked up today, I also bought a copy of X-Perts for Genesis today. Yes, it's kind of awful (though the gameplay design is pretty interesting), but I don't think I'd ever actually seen a copy of it before and it was under $10.

Oh, and I've finished On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness - Episode 2. It was fantastic; a slick mix of adventure gaming and RPGs, less repetitive than its predecessor, and hilariously entertaining. Man, I hope Episode Three gets made. I've since installed Planescape: Torment... Looks like Majora's Mask is gonna hafta wait a little longer.

Might As Well

Used the trade-in value from what I didn't keep of that PC Engine lot toward GunHed for PC Engine, The House Of The Dead: Overkill and MadWorld for Wii, and Ninja Gaiden II for XBOX 360.

Finally got past Sky Canyon in Sonic Advance 2, and Techno Base is proving to be less frustrating. I appreciate the familiarisation required to really master the game, but it does make it far less accessible... I would've preferred fewer ramps that throw the player into bottomless pits during simple playthroughs of the levels ;)

Progress

I finished the single-player campaign of Gears Of War 2. It was great, though the ending did feel a little rushed; still one of the most viscerally entertaining games out there though. So now I've jumped into On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness - Episode Two, and it's just as delightfully hilarious and fun as the first one. I think Mirror's Edge will be next.

The Sky Canyon boss fight in Sonic Advance 2 is still frustrating me, as is the final battle in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga.

Happy Birthday!

Yes it is my birthday today, and on a potentially cosmically-related note, I purchased something from craigslist last night. I though I was getting a PC Engine, two controllers, Be Ball (Chew-Man-Fu), Berabo Man (Bravo Man), Darius Plus, Obocchama-Kun, and Yokai Dochuki for $80 CDN. What I actually got was a PC Engine CoreGrafx, complete in its original packaging with two matching controllers, a Battle Tap, and all five of those games complete and in immaculate condition!

Realistic average eBay prices are as follows:

• CoreGrafx (boxed): ~$100
• Second controller: ~$40
• Battle Tap: ~$25
• Be Ball: ~$20
• Berabo Man: ~$35
• Darius Plus: ~$40
• Obocchama-Kun: ~$50
• Yokai Dochuki: ~$15

...So a ~$325 lot for $80? Not bad. I'll flip the system, the Battle Tap, and most of the games. I think I'll keep the second controller, Darius Plus, and Be Ball.

My Wishlist

I'd like to get the following Atari Jaguar games:

• I-War
• Iron Solider 2
• Missile Command 3D
• Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure
• Power Drive Rally
• Protector SE
• Ruiner Pinball
• Skyhammer
• Zero 5

...And I guess a copy of BattleSphere Gold would be nice ;) Unfortunately, even without BattleSphere, that's all gonna cost more that I've already put into my entire Jaguar collection. Boo to that.

In other news, I got $25 for the ten remaining PSX games from that lot I mentioned in my last post :)

12 for $20

Found an interesting listing on craigslist; a bunch of PSX games for $20. I got Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout (disc only) NBA Live 99 (no booklet), Rayman (Greatest Hits, no booklet), Spyro The Dragon (Greatest Hits), Tekken 2 (disc only), Toy Story 2, (no booklet) Twisted Metal III (Greatest Hits, no booklet), WWF Attitude (no booklet), WWF SmackDown! 2 (Greatest Hits), and WWF War Zone (Greatest Hits, with booklet, no case).

Oh, and Bushido Blade 2 and Jumping Flash 2!!! Not bad for $20 :) I'm gonna flip the rest, but I've been looking for those last two for a while now... Still need to find the original Jumping Flash though.

Slick Stick

I bought a Dempa Shinbunsha XE-1 PRO HE arcade stick for my Duo-R for $45 CDN. It's a pretty slick stick, feels great, is impressively customisable, sports a built-in five-port multitap, and seems to be going (new) for $55 US + shipping from Japan on eBay. You can read-up on it here.

I've still got a few more interesting acquisitions in the works, so don't go too far...

Follow-Up

Swapped Dracula X discs at the shop (the other case was a little faded and worn) and dropped off the Duo-R pad with them. They said they'd see if they could fix it, or try to find a replacement for me... In the mean time, they've given me an Avenue Pad 6; the PC Engine controller designed specifically for Street Fighter II': Champion Edition. My ire has been assuaged.

Not Fun.

Sonic Advance 2 is reminding me why I loathe bottomless pits. To be more specific, I've discovered parts of the Sky Canyon zone, in both acts, that consistently launch the player at bottomless pits. Both seem like sloppy level design, as one apparently offers no alternative path or means of retreat once you approach it, and the other could've been resolved if a platform had been moved just a few pixels to the right. Not fun, especially considering that you only get three lives to complete both acts and the boss encounter.

Also not fun is noticing that my copy of Dracula X for my PCE CD appears to have been resurfaced. The shop has another copy, and is allowing me to swap for it. Even worse is discovering that the controller for my PCE Duo-R is malfunctioning! Upon closer inspection, something had been spilled on it, it has been opened but not fully cleaned, and two of the screw wells were stripped in the process! Again, the shop has offered to swap it for anther, but they only have PCE, Core Grafx, Duo, and Avenue Pad 6 controllers in stock... No Duo-R controllers! That's whack!

Still Catching-Up

Finished Sonic Advance, and on to Sonic Advance 2. Anyone who's been missing Sonic's 2D glory days on the Genesis needs to play the Advance series if they haven't already. Almost done Gunstar Super Heroes (last boss). Haven't had a chance to sit down with Gears Of War 2 or Majora's Mask recently... Been building-up my PCE/TG16 CD experience though:

• Bomberman: Awesome version of the classic game.
• Bonk III CD: Still awesome, CD audio is a nice upgrade.
• Beyond Shadowgate: This was a surprise; a solid adventure game! Controls take some getting used to, but there's some good stuff here.
• Castlevania: Dracula X: Best game on the system. Possibly the best game on any system... Ever.
• Forgotten Worlds: Great version of a great shoot-'em-up.
• Gate Of Thunder: Another awesome shoot-'em-up.
• Last Alert: Sweet top-down action game with notably gory gameplay and unintentionally funny voice acting.
• Lords Of Thunder: Yet another great shoot-'em-up, but with a medieval/norse theme.
• Fighting Street: Awful game, barely playable, only significant historically.
• Shadow Of The Beast: Some weird kind of action/adventure game with sweet graphics and awful gameplay.
• Shape Shifter: Unique action/RPG, solid gameplay, high production values for its time.
• Super Air Zonk: Yet another great shoot-'em-up, but with particularly weird cartoon graphics.
• Super Raiden: Great port of the seminal shoot-'em-up, with sweet CD audio.
• Valis II: Bad control, boring gameplay.
• Valis III: Huge improvement over Valis II, I specifically like the playable/in-engine cutscenes.
• Ys Boook I & II: Haven't played it yet.
• Ys III: Haven't played this one yet either.

More R!

Loving my PCE Duo-R... There're so many games I guess I just missed my first time around! I've revisited Castlevania: Dracula X (still one of the best games ever), Fighting Street (still awful), Last Alert, Valis 2 and 3, and Ys 1 & 2 and 3, but now I'm also getting into Beyond Shadowgate, Bomberman, Bonk 1, 2, and 3 (I didn't even realise there were CD versions!), Gate Of Thunder, Lords Of Thunder, Shape Shifter, and Super Air Zonk! There's some really impressive and unique stuff on this system... Just way more crap than most to sift through, it seems.

Finished Wario Land 4. Fantastic game with gorgeous graphics, great action, clever twists on the ever-evolving Wario Land gameplay, and a great selection of optional puzzle-solving and mini-game aspects. Can't wait to really dig into Shake It! now :) Gonna keep going on my GBA with Gunstar Super Heroes and the Sonic Advance series before I start looking through my PSP and NGPC collection for something to do on the subway.

Shinobi

Totally forgot to mention that I also picked-up a copy of The Cyber Shinobi for Master System yesterday!

That means I now have the following Shinobi games:

• Shinobi (SMS - 1988)
• Shinobi (PCE - 1989)
• The Revenge Of Shinobi (Genesis - 1989)
• Shadow Dancer (Genesis - 1990)
• Alex Kidd In Shinobi World (SMS - 1990)
• The Cyber Shinobi (SMS - 1990)
• Shinobi (GG - 1991)
• Shinobi II: The Silent Fury (GG - 1992)
• Shinobi III: Return Of The Ninja Master (Genesis - 1993)
• Shinobi Legions (Saturn - 1995)
• Shinobi (PS2 - 2002)

I'm not too worried about collecting the arcade original, all of the console ports of the original, or that werid GBA game... But I am still on the lookout for Nightshade for PS2.

R!

Picked-up Corpse Killer, Slam City, and Supreme Warrior for 32X CD. Now I only need B.C. Racers, BlackThorne, Night Trap, Primal Rage, Spider-Man: Web Of Fire, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, T-Mek, Toughman Contest, World Series Baseball, and WWF Wrestlemania to complete my collection... And Darxide, FIFA '96, and Sangokushi IV, if we're counting imports.

I also snagged Manx TT Superbike, Scorcher, and Three Dirty Dwarves for Saturn.

Then I traded-in my PC Engine + AV Booster, model II SEGA CD, "Light Sixer" and "Short Rainbow" Atari 2600s, second ColecoVision, and three games (my second copy of Missile Command for the 2600, Star Trek: 25th Anniversary for Game Boy, and Doom Troopers for Genesis) for a PC Engine Duo-R... Now I just need to get Dracula X and Fighting Street :)

Wario Land 4 is gorgeous.

Wario Land 4 is gorgeous.

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 :\

Shitty Game

I got a Japanese (or possibly European) copy of Tails' Adventure for Game Gear from a friend, and swapped it for a North American copy at a local shop. That may have been a bad deal for me, but the game kinda sucks anyway and my collection looks more consistent this way ;)

Anyway, I also finally got around to checking out yet another local game shop, and came away with complete copies of ChuChu Rocket! for Dreamcast, AMOK for Saturn, Shockwave: Operation Jumpgate for 3DO, Fahrenheit for 32X CD, and Eternal Champions for SEGA CD. Still haven't found Ristar for Genesis or Nightshade for PS2, but I do have a copy of The Cyber Shinobi for Master System on its way.

I've made it past the fifth level in Wario Land 3, but decided to find every ending in Wario Land II before I go any further in the sequel.

Finally, just 'cause I'm feeling saucy, how does this look:

• Intel Core i7 920
• 12GB of 1600MHz DDR3 (triple channel)
• Asus P6T
• 1GB Sapphire Radeon HD 4890
• Antec TruePower Trio 650W

Funny thing: That all works out to $1337 before taxes ;)

I guess I should probably look into a new case and monitor, as well as a hard drive upgrade... But those can wait.

Still Busy

Why does Internet Explorer 8 in the 32-bit version of Windows Vista break Pro Tools 7.4? :( Perhaps I'll just upgrade to Pro Tools 8 whenever I get around to building a quad-core system with 6GB of RAM and the 64-bit version of Vista.

I finished the main story of Wario Land II, only to discover that I'd only completed 50% of the game! There're some serious secret areas! I'll check them out eventually, but in the meantime, I started up Wario Land 3... And I'm stuck about five levels in. This one's a pretty distinct change from its predecessors in terms of gameplay, focusing more on treasure hunting via backtracking after acquiring new abilities. I like it... But I also think that Virtual Boy Wario Land is still the way to go.

My SkunkBoard arrived, but I haven't had a chance to do much with it yet. I also learned of a new, more permanent way to repair Virtual Boys that involves NaOH and soldering. I've got a few more things to take care of before I bursh-up on my soldering skills and start researching how to program effective 2D game engines on exotic hardware though :\

Catching Up

Finished the Story mode in Card Fighter's Clash 2. I have ~170 cards, and I'm wondering what to do next... That Marvel Trading Card Game on PSP looks interesting.

Speaking of PSP, I tried Hammerin' Hero (pretty sweet, really hard), Resistance: Retribution (very pretty, weak dialogue, shallow gameplay so far), Phantasy Star Portable (prolly a really good grind RPG, but it didn't hold my attention for long), and Tenchu: Shadow Assassins (pretty good from what I played). Back to LocoRoco 2 it is.

Oh, and how the hell did I miss CPS3 emulation becoming so spot-on!? Holy crap! Street Fighter III, JoJo's *Ventures, and Red Earth in all their arcade glory! Model 2 emulation is apparently pretty kickass now too!? I am so behind :(

Anyway, I picked up a Panasonic 3DO FZ-1 with Star Control II (just the disc and the cover of the manual), Samurai Shodown (complete, I think, but worn), Shock Wave (complete), Crash 'n Burn and Guardian War (both in jewel cases with manuals), and two sampler discs... For $60!!!

Oh, and I also picked up boxed copies of Super Burnout and Club Drive on Jaguar; they're alright.

Been stupidbusy...

Haven't had too much time for games, but here're a few things from the past week:

I think I'm coming up on the last bit of Metroid Prime 2 (six more Sky Temple keys to go), so that'll be nice to get out of the way. It really is a great game, but I'm definitely going with overwhelming on this one. I'm not sure what it is, but it just feels bigger and less streamlined than the first one; I'm gonna blame the light and dark world dynamic... I never did care much for those.

Card Fighter's Clash 2 has been fun, but I think I like the first one better. The sequel has a much more linear and cohesive story to it (drama, character development, plot twists), but I preferred the openness of the first game. What's really killing me about the second game are the reaction cards. Those things can frustrate to no end and draw battles out to the point of tedium. It's a clever evolution for the series and it adds all kinds of new strategy, but I don't think it's for me.

...And I broke down and bought a complete copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga for Saturn. $250 CDN.

Rapture

Honestly, between this and this, I'm pretty stoked :)

I'm not sure if this is an upgrade or not...

I put Windows XP back on the work laptop and gave it to a new employee who will actually need to be mobile, so now I'm on a Dell Dimension 3100. It's a 3GHz Hyper-Threading Pentium 4 with EMT64, but only 512MB of RAM... And we don't have any extra DDR2 floating around the building, so it's back to the old 32-bit Windows XP for me too.

Time To Say Goodbe?

Six coins, over 200 cards, over 100 wins, and over 20 hours later, I think it may be time to move on to Card Figher's Clash 2. Yeah, there're still plenty of cards to collect, but that would involve incessant grinding and gambling, as well as finding another NGPC and a copy of the SNK version of the game to trade with... I'll pass, thanks.

Oh man, was that fun though :) Easily one of my favourite games in recent memory, if not ever!

Big Day

Earlier today, I stopped by some of the game places I'd been neglecting lately and came up pretty big! I got a Dreamcast 4x Memory Card; Eternal Champions: Challenge From The Dark Side for SEGA CD; Castlevania: Bloodlines, Gunstar Heroes, and MUSHA for Genesis; Ninja Gaiden for Game Gear; and Metal Storm for NES. I also found a copy of Jack Bros. for Virtual Boy... Kinda. I saw the manual in a shop, and asked the clerk if they had the actual game. He couldn't find it, but the owner said he had it somewhere. I left my name and number, and hope to hear back within the week.

Oh, and I got a working 64-bit Vista disc, and all installed on the Dell laptop flawlessly! That 40GB hard drive only has about 13GB free after all is said and done though :(

Exchanges

I found copies of Ninja Gaiden Black and Super Mario All-Stars for $13 and $5, respectively.

I then exchanged that Shin Samurai Spirits MVS cartridge, and traded-in my second Puzzle Bobble MVS cartridge, my old copy of Ninja Gaiden Black (no manual, rental stickers), and my "Greatest Hits" copy of Crash Bandicoot 2 for Enemy Zero, Sacrifice, and a non-"Greatest Hits" copy of Crash Bandicoot 2.

And it looks like that 64-bit Vista disc I was using on the laptop at work was bad, so I'm trying to track down a working copy.

Keeping busy...

In an effort to have one of each model of workstation in the organisation imaged and ready to deploy in case of failure, I gave up my pretty-sweet-for-an-office-computer Dell Vostro 200 (Core 2 Due E4500, 2GB of RAM, 320GB HDD) and adopted an odd-man-out Dell Latitude 131L (Turion 64 X2 TL-50, 1GB RAM, 40GB HDD). Hoping to make the most out of this downgrade (plus I hate laptops), I decided to install the 64-bit edition of Windows Vista... No dice though; couldn't get past the "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD" screen. Decided to give Windows XP x64 a go, but it didn't seem to like the SATA controller. I downloaded the ATi drivers and manually extracted what seemed to be the SB600 64-bit Windows drivers, but then it turns out my only options are to slipstream them onto a Windows disc or find a USB floppy drive. Right, so I ended up testing how the 32-bit edition of Vista behaves on our domain. Aside from some issues with our antivirus software, all seems well.

I bought what I thought was an original Japanese Samurai Spirits Neo Geo MVS cartridge yesterday, but it turned out to be an original (and seemingly repaired) Japanese Shin Samurai Spirits Neo Geo MVS cartridge... I already have the North American release though :(

I also picked up a complete copy of Super Wing Commander for 3D0; haven't tried it yet.

Wondering what to do with my remaining 1000 Wii points, I looked into newer WiiWare releases. I narrowed it down to Bit.Trip: Beat, LIT, and Alein Crush Returns, but in the end, decided to go with none... I may just hang on to my points until LostWinds 2 :)

Making a little more progress with that last Virtual Boy I was trying to repair, but I may also have two more from the shop from which to draw parts... I'll keep you posted.

Over 50% of the cards found, and I'm still enraptured by Card Fighter's Clash... Can't wait to get going on the fan-translated NGPC sequel on my PSP ;)

Hrm...

...182.08 works.

Damnit!

I decided to re-install Windows XP on my workhorse PC, and swap-in a 256MB AGP GeForce 7800 GS (which was just lying around for the past few months or so) for the 64MB AGP GeForce3 Ti 200 that was in there. Everything went well except for two things:

1) I decided to install Windows XP SP3 from a redistributable package. Running it from my external drive extracted the temporary files to my external drive. Running it from the D: drive extracted the temporary files to my extrenal drive. Unplugging my external drive and running the package from the D: drive extracted the temporary files to the C: drive... Would've been nice if it just did something sensical like extract the temporary files to the drive it's running from. Weird, but no big deal.

2) The new video card couldn't start with the latest NVIDIA drivers (182.50). I checked the AGP aperture setting, but that was fine. After a few tweaks and driver un-/re-installations with no success, I went with the Windows Update NVIDIA drivers (178.13) and all is well... Grrr.

Catching Up

I downloaded the following XBOX 360 demos overnight and played them today:

Dishwasher: Dead Samurai was surprisingly good! I'd heard it was a hardcore 2D beat-'em-up, and the videos looked pretty cool, but playing it made a huge difference. Aside from the somewhat sparse animation, I don't really have much to complain about (and I do have lots to enjoy) here.

Flock was really slick, but didn't seem like something I'd put a whole lot of time into. It plays like a good game, but not my cup of tea.

Ninja Blade was almost really cool. Easier than Ninja Gaiden, but the quick-time-events? Man, were 90% of them completely useless! Maybe if I see it in on sale...

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena was pretty much what I remembered from The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay on the PC, and I really liked the original.

Wanted seemed like a waste of a demo. It comes across as a Gears Of War-esque action game, but with worse graphics and a much less epic feel to it. I suspect they may have just chosen a bad scene to present in the demo, but much like the movie, it ended up feeling like a great concept with too many important details glossed-over.

Wheelman was fun, but pretty mindless, and thus very easy. Something I'd definitely consider on the cheap, but probably wouldn't give too much thought at full price.

Oh, and my new Universe BIOS 3.0 EPROM came! Thanks Razoola! :)

Sale!

I stopped by a GameStop today, and noticed they were having a sale (up to 50% off new games; $5 off selected used games; two for $8, two for $20, and two for $30 used game deals), so I came away with Mirror's Edge (new), Too Human (new), Tony Hawk's Proving Ground (apparently used, but it was still in the plastic), Project Gotham Racing 4 (used), Condemned 2: Bloodshot (used), and Dead Or Alive 4 (used), all in original cases (not Platinum Hits), all for XBOX 360, for ~$90 total. Not the greatest deal ever, but not too shabby by my estimations. I also considered picking up The BIGS and The Club, but decided to cut myself off ;)

Finally!

BenHeck has done it again!

Also, those copies of Final Fantasy Adventure and Final Fantasy Legend III that I picked up were the Sunsoft re-releases. Has anyone seen the original Square releases anywhere? I haven't seen them since they first came out... Very strange.

Oh, and I decided to give building my own deck in a go in Card Fighter's Clash... Worked out pretty well until I got a bad shuffle and ended up with no SP and a hand full of ACs :(

He's back...

I bought The Terminator for SEGA CD and Devil's Crush for TurboGrafx 16 today. The former is a surprisingly good platformer! I knew nothing of the game until I saw it in a shop and read-up on it afterward. Dave Perry and Tommy Tallarico worked on it? That caught me off guard, but their influences on the gameplay and music are instantly recognisable to anyone who has enjoyed their work before. The latter game is an absolutely amazing pinball title, especially for 1990. It's one of the marquee titles for the TurboGrafx 16, and still holds up as a great game today.

I've been using "Tetris" for, like, ever.

I went through the first 125 pages of the most used iGoogle themes and came up with the following (in alphabetical order) as my favourites:

Tory Burch

JR

Todd Oldham

Tetris

The rest were mostly a mix of bad art, bad layout, and bad palettes, with a relative few solid designs that just didn't really appeal to me.

Honestly, an epoxy?

I have four Virtual Boys at my place at the moment; I'm working on the fourth one (a Japanese model) for a local game shop. One display is glitchy, but the other is dim... I don't think any amount of baking and re-affixing ribbon cables is gonna fix that. The good news is that the problem only seems to be with the display, and those are pretty easy to replace if the shop can find a spare one (they have a few failing Virtual Boys).

I finally got around to checking out this game shop in the west end of downtown Toronto. They've apparently been there for eight years, but I only heard fo them a few months ago. They're not bad; a good selection with many systems represented, but the staff wasn't the most knowledgable (she tried to convince me that a stained cartridge with a peeling label and scratches was in "mint condition"), and the prices were a little high (about $10~$20 more than the really goos places). I did pick up Final Fantasy Adventure and Kid Icarus for Game Boy though.

Ooh, and I just ordered a Universe BIOS 3.0 EPROM! I have a 2.1 EPROM already (came with my MVS), but I'm gonna keep that one as a back up... And find an EPROM burner to play with :)

Finally, I now have five coins in Card Fighter's Clash, and I'm still having a blast. I don't really care about finding every card or arranging the perfect deck though. I'm just loving the strategy involved in the battles, as I've had some pretty epic matches so far.

Host Master

I bought final Fantasy Legend III for Game Boy yesterday. I've had the first two games in the series since they came out, so I figured I might as well complete the collection... I have no idea when I'll get around to playing it though. I also picked up Sonic Advance 2 for Game Boy Advance (my brother can't find his copy, though I'm sure he had one) from a GameStop... Once I got the four price tags off the cartridge, I noticed some kid's initials written on the back in marker. Then I noticed that the game doesn't work. I was able to get to a briefly animated blue screen once instead of a white screen that chirps, but otherwise, no go. Thanks for covering up cosmetic damage and not testing your games, GameStop!

Oh, and I just finished this. I know that it has been out for a little while now, but it's still good fun :)

Whooo?

New Jak and Daxter, though unfortunately not from Naughty Dog or Ready at Dawn. It's actually from High Impact Games, who made the solid but not-exactly-awesome PSP Ratchet & Clank games... But still, it could be good...

Anyway, SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighter's Clash is awesome, and is the only game I've been playing the past few weeks. I've got ~25% of 300 cards and two coins so far, and I'm just getting started.

Oh, and I answered a craigslist ad selling a "Puzzle Bobble 4 Neo Geo cartridge" (which I'm pretty sure doesn't exist) for $10, which turned out to be a bootleg Puzzle Bobble 1 MVS cart. Regardless, for $10, it's nice to have a back-up for my legitimate MVS cart :)

Portable Gaming and Bad Decisions

I picked up copies of SNK Gals' Fighters (Japanese), Pac-Man, and Pocket Tennis Color for Neo Geo Pocket Color, and then I broke down and bought boxed copies of Supercross 3D and Val D'Isere Skiing and Snowboarding for Jaguar... The two Jaguar games are actually better than I thought they'd be, but if they weren't unique to the platform, I wouldn't've touched them.

Third time's a charm?

I bought my third Virtual Boy the other day.

My first one was bought new, for $30 CDN when Toys "R" Us was clearing them out; it has since begun to display symptoms of bad display connections. I'd fix it, but one of the screw heads is stripped; so now I either have to break, saw, or drill the thing, and I'm in no rush to do any of that. My second one was purchased last year over craigslist, and turned out to be a former rental unit. The eyeshade stunk (so I washed it), the display connections were bad (so I repaired them), and the stand was broken (someone had taped it together, so I left it), but it works great now. The third one was acquired via craigslist as well, but from its original owner. It's in great condition and is showing no signs of bad display connections.

So I'm keeping the first one for sentimental value, as well as the battery pack that came with it and the AC adapter I bought later (which I'll use with the third one). I'm keeping the rental shop's custom travel case from the second one, and possibly the AC adapter that came with it, but I may give the unit (along with a second copy of Mario's Tennis that I have) to a friend.

Home

GNOME was too slow and Xfce was too unreliable with WiFi, so I settled on Windows 2000 for the trip. Had to suffer a 266MHz Celeron running Windows 98 in Prague. Transferring photos from my Canon SD700 IS over Windows 2000 was a bitch. Watching movies on my PSP was rad.

Picked-up a copy of the Capcom Edition of SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighter's Clash for Neo Geo Pocket Color when I got back,

Oh yeah, and MORE FEZ!!!

Just keeping busy.

I picked up long-cased copies of Daytona USA, Virtua Cop, and Virtua Fighter 2 for Saturn, and traded-in my "Not For Resale" three pack of those titles as well as my NFR Stunner pack-in jewel case of Virtua Cop. I also stumbled across a copy of Tokyo Xtreme Racer 2 for Dreamcast and picked that up as well.

Anyway, I'm installing Debian 5.0.0 "stable" with Xfce (previously installed it with GNOME) on my laptop, and then heading off to wander around Europe for a few weeks; should be fun... I've left the guys at work with a bootable 16GB USB flash drive that has Ghost 11.5 and SysPrepped images of every model of workstation in the organisation on it :)