Closure...?

While testing out alternate video cards (an AGP GeForce 7800, an AGP GeForce3, and a PCI ATi Mach64) in my Pentium 4 machine, I noticed one bulging capacitor that is normally obscured from view by anything in the AGP slot... I'm going with bad motherboard as the official cause of all of my recent startup problems. I've since mixed 'n matched things around here to end up with the following:

• Athlon XP 3200+
  
• DFI NFII Ultra Infinity
  
• 2GB DDR400 (dual channel)
  
• 512MB Radeon X1950 Pro
  
• 80GB + 320GB SATA
  
• M-Audio FireWire Solo
  
• Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS

So it's a bit of a downgrade from my 3.6GHz Pentium 4 + 865PE setup, but it's solid... And, somewhat surprisingly for older hardware, runs Windows Vista without a hitch! Anyway, I have an old Biostar U8668-D motherboard (533MHz FSB) and a 2.4GHz Pentium 4 lying around here; with a gigabyte of RAM and an old GeForce3 (passive cooling), it should make a solid downloading box.

I hate to see a sweet CPU like my Prescott go to waste, but I just can't bring myself to spend any more money on that generation of parts... Though I did just find a listing for an ASUS P4V8X-MX for $15 on criagslist ;)

And now for something completely different...

I found a copy of the Japanese (and only) Dreamcast release of Capcom Vs. SNK 2 for $20, so I picked that up and set up my official Dreamcast arcade stick... Only to notice that the right-direction switch on the stick wasn't registering light movements. After some disassembly and minor cleaning, and all was well again.

Finally got into a groove with Metroid Prime 2. The game started out slowly and got overwhelming with its lack of direction (I explored every area, scanned every item, and read every log, but I still felt pretty clueless); it wasn't until I spent some quality time in the dark world that things strated to coalesce, and now I've really got a handle on things... I'm not sure if this whole experience is masterful or flawed (or both), but I am ultimately having fun with it.

My Leafs are on a horrible losing skid in NHL 07 on PSP; I went from something like 10-3-0 to 11-11-1. Lots of one-goal losses, many strange penalities (by teammates not under my control), and some really horrible defensive lapses (not unlike the real life Maple Leafs).

I played with my probelmatic Pentium 4 machine some more recently. The issue is not with the SATA controller, and I checked the floppy drive as well. I'm leaning toward video card issues again. I could try reverting to an earlier Catalyst driver, but I'm also looking at tossing in a whole other card and seeing what happens. If it does turn out to be the video card, that'll be awfully frustrating, since this all started within a month of the thing going out of warranty :\

In a slightly different area of technology, I recently picked up an Epiphone Thunderbird and an Ashdown MAG C115-300 EVO II Combo :)

Fuuuck!

Sat down and got settled in so that I could get into Rayman on Jaguar this evening. About 10% of the way through the game, I'd stocked up nine lives. I go to save my progress, and suddenly have zero lives. That doesn't seem right... Especially since it remembered how many lives I had (seven) when I saved earlier.

Cheeky Bastards

So the Sonic Unleashed demo has been out on XBOX Live for a little while now, and I finally got some time to sit down with it last night. The demo only offers one level, and it's a regular Sonic level (the only good part of the full game, according to reviews). First and foremost, Sonic Team's Hedgehog Engine is gorgeous! Seriously, this game looks really good, and the sense of speed is great. The controls ain't bad, and branching paths and various control techniques hint at a lot of replay value. Based on the demo, Unleashed looks the kind of game you can either whip through and enjoy, or memorise and practice to explore and achieve more. Sadly, the demo's apparently not completely indicative of the final product, as these fun levels are broken up by mandatory quest and werehog crap... Grrr; I hate bait-and-switch techniques like that. I'm tempted to just stick with the demo, never play the full game, and fantasise about what could have been... But I suspect I'll buy the full game if I ever find it on the cheap.

In far less disappointing news, I picked up copies of Alien Crush (TG16), Bonk 2 (PC Engine), Skate (360), God Hand (PS2), and The Bouncer (PS2) :)

Showing Promise

New Brutal Legend trailer is out, and it looks rad.

Reading up on the new Wolfenstein game, I've noticed that it seems to incorporate aspects of Soul Reaver, Undying, and Return To Castle Wolfenstein... It's like 2001 all over again :)

Awesome

Minotaur China Shop

Great minds...

While certainly more developed than my little recounting of my time with Crisis Core, The Escapist has just published a really good article that visits some of the same issues I brought up. The author explores some very interesting aspects of the series while using Final Fantasy IV and XIII as touchstones... Definitely worth your time ;)

shahir29

I'd like to draw your attention to shahir29, an active member of the GameFAQs community, and architect of some very nice roster updates for NHL 07 on PSP; you can find his work here, and I must say that I'm pretty impressed with it so far. My current lines on the Leafs are as follows: Ponikarovsky-Stajan-Antropov, Blake-Moore-Stempniak, Hagman-Mitchell-Mayers, Kulemuin-Grabovski-Hollweg, Kaberle-Kubina, Van Ryn-Schenn, and Frogren-White... I've got to do some shuffling with the second and fourth forward lines, but it's nice to be away from the likes of Allison, O'Neil, and Lindros ;) The time it takes to navigate the start-up screens and menus is still painful and half of the soundtrack just plain sucks, but this'll tide me over for a while yet.

Moving on, I traded-in my second copy of PaRappa The Rapper for PSX (at a profit), Jak II for PS2 (Greatest Hits edition), as well as Mercenaries and NHL 2K7 for XBOX, and got Gunstar Heroes for Genesis (complete with case and manual; all in great condition).

Now then, I remember wanting to talk more about Crisis Core, but since the dust has settled, I realise that I've already said just about all there is to say. It is worth noting, however, that the grinding in this game goes far beyond reason. Well before I was halfway through the story, I was nearing the halfway mark of the side missions; that means that my item and materia selections were pretty impressive, and thus the results of my materia fusion experiments were powerful, to say the least. By the time I was halfway through the main plot, my basic attacks were inflicting close to 9999 damage points, and boss fights were over after just a few button presses... The thing is, I didn't spend inordinate amounts of time grinding through the side missions; I'd just play though all the ones I could handle at my level and then move on with the plot when things got too tough. While it was kinda nice to be all-powerful for the second half of the game, it definitely took something away from the experience. The really scary thing is that there was still a whole lot more to acheive and unlock! I guess that's good for replay value, or completists, or MMO players who want to grind on the go... But I think I'm done. So it's a gorgeous game with a silly plot (could've been really good, but cultural differences got in the way and things got convoluted), some balance issues, and plenty to do... Definitely worth your time.

Demonstrative

XBOX 360 demo impressions:

• Banjo Kazooie: Nuts 'n Bolts was pretty and fun to toy around with, but ultimately kinda boring. I never did get into the previous games in the series, so as an essentially new experience, this one didn't hold my attention. The vehicle construction bits were cool, but the tutorials were frustratingly not-helpful and I didn't have the patience to see just how deep they went. It's cheaper than most new releases, and the reviews are generally posuitiove though, so it's likely worth checking out if vehicle construction and world exploration are what you're into.
  
• Mirror's Edge is very pretty, and a lot of fun once you get the hang of the controls and the levels. It's all about practicing until you find a way to flow through the level, which is once of the things I loved about Crackdown and Assassin's Creed... Unfortunately, the full game is supposedly pretty underdeveloped in terms of both extending gameplay and fleshing out a cohesive plot. Hopefully the upcoming downloadable content will solidify things without adding too much mor cost to what already seems to be an overpriced game.
  
• Dead Space sure does feel like Resident Evil 4 in space. I didn't like Resident Evil 4, but everyone else seemed to, so you draw your own conclusions for this one.
• Mercenaries 2, like Mercenaries, is a good Grand Theft Auto clone that has been. transplanted into a warzone. I didn't much care for either, though they didn't seem to do anything poorly.
• Fracture was surprisingly enjoyable. Much like TimeShift, it seemed like a generic sci-fi FPS with an impotent gimmick, but a solid game nevertheless; I might actually be tempted to pick this one up, should I find it on the cheap.

Anyway, I'm now spending my portable time with Killzone: Liberation (very enjoyable), NHL 07 (looking into getting roster updates), and Wario Land II (on the second last chapter). Othwerise, I'm getting into Rayman on Jaguar and I've pretty much given up on Jak 3 on PS2;  I'm near the end of Act II, defending Jinx while he destroys the eco grid (or something like that), and I can't help but feel sad about how fun the first game in the series was and how tedious this one is.

Moving on, I found a copy of Gungrave on the cheap, so I picked that up. It's pretty cool, but it keeps bringing up the pause menu mid-gameplay, even though my thumbs are nowhere near the Start button...

HOLY CRAP!

SO GOOD!!!

Oh, and I bought Street Fighter Collection for Saturn, as well as Kirby's Dream Land (I recently found Kirby's Dream Land 2 for $10) and Battletoads (had it when I was a kid, but sold it) for Game Boy.

Trading Post

Traded the GameCube, accessories, and four games (no books) for a Nintendo 64, accessories, and RAM expansion... Why? So that I could give it back to the friend who gave me the GameCube. I had no use for a GameCube, and she'd mentioned wanting an N64 not too long ago, so it seemed like a nice thing to do. I threw in Donkey Kong 64 (she wanted it, I hate it) and Super Mario 64 (got it from another friend who thought it was broken; fixed it. I already have two copies). She's happy.

Traded the seven remaining SEGA CD games for Burnout Paradise and 1400 XBOX Live points (which promptly went toward the purchase of Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix). SSF2THDR quickly reminded me that I suck at SSF2T... But I'm getting better! I've unlocked the super finish, 15 second win, and beat arcade mode achievements, and I'm refining combos and strategies while tackling higher difficulty levels. I'm sticking with Ken for the time being, but I think I should rekindle my interest in Dee Jay some day.

Just as Raiden on Jaguar got me back into shoot 'em ups, SSF2THDR got me excited about XBOX Live Aracde and 2D fighting games again. I've recently spent some more time with Braid, Castle Crashers, Bionic Commando: Rearmed, Prince Of Persia, and Pac-Man C.E. on XBLA (and I'm considering purchasing Space Giraffe), and I picked up a copy of Capcom Vs. SNK 2 EO for XBOX, while also getting back into Street Figher Anniversary Collection on XBOX and Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 on Dreamcast. Oh, and I'm also prolly gonna pick up a copy of Street Fighter Collection for Saturn (SSF2, SSF2T, and Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold).

At work, I've recently created a SysPrep-modified image for the Dell Dimension 2400s we have all over the building... Formatting computers just got a lot easier around here :)

Panic!

...Our second (older, from long before my time there) server died. It's a 733MHz Pentium III-based Compaq ProLiant ML330 running Windows 2000 Server. My boss informed me that there was no backup, which was bad because that server apparently handled all of our financial data (taxes, payroll, donations). We don't exactly have the equipment to handle that particular kind of failure ready in the building, so they almost sent me home with the hard drives (since I do happen to have the necessary equipment ready there). While it was tempting to go home and take the rest of the day (and potentially all night) doing work that they really don't pay me enough for, I went to the bathroom instead... Upon my return, I went through a six-hour process involving screwdrivers, ancient SCSI drivers on floppy disks, Windows password hacking, various hard drive recovery techniques (ended up getting things workable with "chkdsk /r" in the recovery console), convoluted network data transfers, and a hell of a lot of dust bunnies; my boss was shitting bricks the whole time. In the end, I recovered everything and decommissioned the old server. The data is now on a RAID 1 array and is currently being backed-up to a separate physical drive; tomorrow, I will make an archival copy on tape. The funny thing is that I'd been bugging them to let me do that months ago.

Anyway, I bought a SEGA CD game lot through craigslist on Sunday. I really only wanted Panic!, but the seller wouldn't break up the lot... So, for $50, I got Cobra Command (looks cool, but gameplay's annoying), Dragon's Lair (looks bad, gameplay's annoying), Heart Of The Alien (looks like its predecessor, but the gameplay's way more annoying), NBA Jam (CD music is great, but just about everything else is straight from the Genesis version), Panic! (love it!), Racing Aces (this may just be the worst game I've ever played), Silpheed (great twist on the shoot-'em-up genre), Sol-Feace (another sweet shoot-'em-up), Sonic CD (already had it), Space Ace (looks and plays much better than Dragon's Lair), and Wing Commander (it's Wing Commander), all complete and in great condition except for Cobra Command (just the CD) and Panic! (some damage to the manual). I'll be keeping Heart Of The Alien, Panic!, Silpheed, and Sol-Feace; giving Sonic CD to a friend; and trading the rest toward... Something else? I dunno, we'll see what I can find.

I finally got around to downloading and installing the New XBOX Experience today. It's pretty. The avatars are fine, I guess. Wheee.

I finished Crisis Core; expect a review. I'm trying to decide between Final Fantasy Tactics and Killzone Liberation for my next PSP endeavour.

I scored an official Dreamcast Arcade Stick for $40 over the weekend, and a free GameCube (with four games and a memory card) last night. The arcade stick overwrote my Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 saved data and the start button didn't work, but it was an easy fix (removed the bottom panel, repositioned the switches) and all works well now. I plan on trading-in the GameCube stuff on account of the Wii's backwards compatibilty, but it's still a pretty sweet deal :) I also happened across both parts of the PC Engine version of R-Type (the North American and European versions have all eight levels on one card, but the Japanese release is split over two), but they were each in two different bundles at two different stores that didn't want to sell them individually... I've got a word in with each shop owner and I should hear back from them this evening.

Moving on, did you know that BlackBerrys apparently delete things like old calendar data, text messages, etc... if they're running low on space? Did you know that Windows XP SP3 breaks Microsoft's own Remote Web Workplace, and if you've installed Windows with a disc that has SP3 slipstreamed into it, the usual workarounds don't work? How about the fact that if your VPN server and client both use the same IP address range for internal addresses (e.g. 192.158.1.x) that the VPN will effectively be broken? These are all things that I've learned over the past few days. I'd tell you more, but one of our servers' hard drives just died and it's not part of a RAID array.

To be continued...

I'm lazy

Rather than try to get more cash by selling them myself, I ended up trading in Bloody Wolf, Dungeon Explorer, Legendary Axe, Wonder Boy In Monster Land, and the North American TurboPad (which worked, but was kinda beat-up) for Ninja Spirit and Final Blaster for PC Engine.

1987!

So I did end up buying R-Type for TurboGrafx 16... And Shinobi for PC Engine. I looked into Japan-to-North America converters, and it seems to be much cheaper to just get a PCE. Most of the PCEs I could find, however, were starting around $80! Off to craigslist, where I found a nice little PCE lot for $75 even. I got the console, an AV Booster, power adapter, a/v cables, two controllers, and seven games (Bloody Wolf, Dungeon Explorer, Legendary Axe, Mr. Heli, PC Genjin, Ultimate Heli, and Wonder Boy In Monster Land). All told, similar bundles go for over $250 on eBay! It wasn't an official NEC power adapter and both of the controllers were TurboGrafx 16 TurboPads, unfortunately, but one of the TurboPads has a PC Engine controller plug on the end... Weird.

Anyway, Shinobi on PCE is great, and a few of the games I got are pretty sweet (specifically, Mr. Heli and Ultimate Heli); none are bad, either, which is swell because there're so many horrible PCE games :)

Oh, and I finally found out what the "Vol.xx" numbers on Japanese PCE games mean! Someone told me they were greatest hits re-releases, but I've since uncovered that they're actually release order numbers specific to different publishers and that not all publishers used them.

One last thing: My friend insisted on lending me his PCE game collection as well as his PC Engine CD-ROM², CD-ROM² interface, and all of his CD-ROM games. He has some cool stuff like Fighting Street, Red Alert, Y's I&II, and a few more, but most of them are better on other systems or unplayably Japanese. I'll be giving it back to him shortly ;)

Decisions, decisions...

I picked up Boogerman and Cyborg Justice (Genesis), Shinobi Legions (Saturn), and a Game Gear battery pack last week. The battery pack wouldn't hold a charge (damned NiCad batteries), which sucks because I'd really like to be able to take my Nomad on the subway with me. Finding a proper NiMH battery pack would be ideal, but is proving to be a challenge. I'm able to return the battery pack though, so I'm thinking of putting that credit toward the PC Engine version of Shinobi... But then I'd need a PC Engine. Maybe I'll just grab R-Type for TurboGrafx 16 instead.

I'm hesitant to spend the $25 on that PCI SATA controller I menioned a few posts back, so I'm gonna go with an IDE hard drive first. If that works, then perhaps I'll just stick with IDE. If the problem still exists, however, then it's back to Windows XP. If that doesn't do it, then the Athlon XP comes back.

Oh, and I've successfully migrated our e-mail server at work from an external POP3 connector over our DSL connection into a full-fledged internal SMTP server on its own T1 line, which is totally sweet ;) Now I'm looking into setting up a "catchall" account for non-existant addresses on our domain, but that's looking like it'll involve a bunch of VBScript work and I hate coding... Which is weird because I'm not all that bad at it.

What to do...

Neither the motherboard's integrated USB controller nor the CMOS battery were the culprit...

Gah!

I was sooo close to getting a Jaguar, a Jaguar CD, two controllers, and a hanfdul of games for $100 off craigslist yesterday! I repsonded within a day of the posting, but the guy said it was sold almost immediately :\

Freeing up the seond PCI slot didn't help matters in my problematic computer, so I've since installed a PCI USB controller and disabled the motherboard's integrated controller. Next step is to buy and install a fresh CMOS battery, followed by a PCI SATA controller, and if that doesn't work, then I'll install Windows XP. If that fails to solve the problem, then it's time to bring back the Athlon XP.

Damnit!

I just found out that there's a boxed version of World Of Goo! I'll always go boxed over digital if I have the choice...

Insecurity

I played around a little more with the new router, the range extender, and a D-Link wireless bridge I have hooked up to my XBOX 360, and finally got everything working reasonably well, but had to stop using WPA... So it's back to MAC filters and not broadcasting my SSID until I figure out something more secure that still offers a reliable connection.

I haven't really touched Spore, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky, PAA:OTRSPOD-Ep2, or anything other than Crisis Core recently... Until I fired up World Of Goo. What a fantastic game! Phenomenal artistic direction that's reminiscent of Dr. Seuss, Tim Burton, and LocoRoco, while still managing to establish itself as something that is ultimately unique. Oh, and the gameplay is top-notch as well! I studied civil engineering for a while at university, and always thought it was interesting, but not really for me... Now I'm kinda wishing I had World Of Goo all those years ago to spark my interest, or at least that I'd studied harder in my static physics classes so that I could get better scores in the game ;) Seriously, World Of Goo is super-addictive and even offers aptly-named "OCD" goals for each level. Get it.

Now then, back to my computer that doesn't like starting-up properly. After reading all the Nehalem press releases this morning and the subsequent speculations regarding Shanghai, I'm reconsidering even the remote possibility of investing any significant amount of money in a new PC until those technologies start to trickle down into the mainstream. No point in putting down ~$1000 when we're on the cusp of a big step forward, so I'm back to coming up with theories. While the overclocked CPU and video card in the µATX case seem as though they'd be likely culprits, they seem to pass the test well enough. Now I'm thinking it's either the motherboard or the hard drives.  Since the hard drives are relatively new and have been in other computers without issue, they're less likely than the motherboard, especially if the earlier USB issue was with the controller on the motherboard and not the ports on the case. Factor-in that it's an older board with an early SATA controller running Windows Vista, and we may be getting somewhere. A basic PCI SATA controller goes for around $20, so that might be a solid bet to avoid rebuilding. I may also have the FireWire card in the PCI slot that shares an IRQ with the integrated ethernet controller, so that's the first thing to check. If all else fails, I'm prepared to repurpose the Athlon XP 3200+ (swap RAM, video card, hard drives) for the time being...