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Messages - dharmajones93

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1
General / Re: What happened to this site?
« on: July 19, 2022, 11:44:14 am »
I joined around 2016/2017 and do feel like it was more happening then. I only ever sort of dip in and out; I recognize all the folks here, but doubt you all would recognize me  ;D

I think I feel a lot of what others have said, but primarily the negativity. There were some trolls and negativity I just don't vibe with. I come back here when I get depressed with Reddit. I also just find it hard to check in, though I enjoy reading the threads from the primary group here. Y'all have some great collections and neat things to show off.

I'm glad your all still here!

2
General / Re: Will you be sad when Gamestop goes out of business?
« on: February 18, 2022, 02:30:16 pm »
The idea for this thread came to me after I went to pick up a preorder today from one of my local Gamestop's and surprise, surprise, they didn't get the game in even though it came out today (the game is KOF XV in case anyone is curious). While I'm aware that this likely had to do with delays in delivery and also supply chain issues, the truth is that this has been happening to me for several years now, and it seems to happen on every other preorder I make. But anyhow, it got me thinking about how I'll feel when Gamestop finally goes out of business, most likely in the near future. I thought it would be interesting to get everyone's take on Gamestop's demise and whether you'll even feel a tiny bit sad once they're gone. Or maybe you love Gamestop and you're sorely miss it after your last local store closes. We all know it's only a matter of time before the ever changing landscape of the video game industry catches up with Gamestop and it starts shuttering all of its remaining stores across the globe. So I don't think we should be discussing "if" they go out of business, but rather "when." Discuss...

This has happened to me twice in the last year with Gamestop. The most recent was Metroid Dread! I live in a fairly busy area too, so it's not like we're out in the sticks. The whole reason I pre-order at all is to ensure I get a physical copy/don't have to deal with scalpers or mark up later. I almost exclusively pre-order from Best Buy now.

Anyway, I think I'm most sad that the idea of Gamestop will soon not exist. This place had so much potential to be a place where gamers could actually hand out and enjoy the hobby and community. GameStop never actually came close to fulfilling that ideal, but its still sad to see the last potential place go (I'm talking as if it's already happening; though as bikingjahuty put it, for some of us it already has). Alas, the state of gaming and the retail video game economy aren't such that it was meant to be. I hope at least it will open a void for local game shops to take Gamestop's place with more curated gaming items, game selections, etc.

3
General / Re: Personal method for storing loose handheld cartridge games
« on: February 16, 2022, 02:41:54 pm »
I use Cigar Boxes. The local Grocery store sells cigars, and they toss out the old boxes (they stack them by the register for people to take) so I usually grab a few whenever I'm there. you can take lids of and the stickers. I usually put random stickers I acquire on them, so they look a little more video-gamie. They're small and usually not really high so the carts usually pop up over the top so you can see some of the label. I leave them a little loose so you can thumb through them like a rolodex. This is what I do for GB, GBC, and GBA. DS and 3DS get put in cases.

4
Classic Video Games / Re: I got a N64! Woot!
« on: January 16, 2022, 03:31:19 pm »
It's sadly no longer my favorite console, and doesn't get much play time these days. But, it probably has the single most hours of overall play time. My gosh, we would spend entire weekends grinding Gauntlet Legends, playing Turok Rage Wars, and Mario Kart 64. It really didn't get dethroned until Halo on the Xbox.

Such a great console, enjoy!

5
Classic Video Games / Re: Your Thoughts On Modding And Pirated Software
« on: December 01, 2021, 12:09:37 pm »
I have zero issues with either.


As someone who does a lot of console modding I feel like mods help enhance and preserve consoles beyond what they were originally designed to do. For example, one of my favorite mods to both install and use are ODE mods which replace a console's disc drive in place of an SD card where you can load games. Not only does this replace disc drives which are failing more and more over time, but also helps games load faster than a laser seeking data off a disc. It also bypasses the disc rot boogey man that many collectors fear and dread. And the best part is that none of it is emulation; you are playing the game on original hardware, you're just tricky the console into playing the game off a SD card rather than a disc drive.


There are so many other great mods out there like HDMI mods, RGB amps, high def screen mods for handhelds, region free mods, and countless others that really enhance and expand people's ability to enjoy their consoles in the modern age. If it allows these consoles to be more accessible and enjoyable I'm all for it! I'm also heavily into the preservation end of things and love taking a non-working or barely working console, deep cleaning the board, recapping it, and retrobriting the shell and watching it look and work just as good as the day it was bought brand new from the store. I've brought back dozens of consoles from death and all have found new homes where people are enjoying and loving them now. I know this falls more into the repair/restoration realm than modding, but sometimes mods are a part of these restorations to make these consoles even more enjoyable for people to play.


As for pirating older games I also have no issue with this. Most video games, both back in the day and now made 90% of all the money they were ever going to make within the first year they were released. This applies to official rereleases to these games as well. On top of that, there are thousands of games that will never ever see another release for the rest of time meaning that no money will ever be made from them again no matter what. So what's the harm in pirating them? It's not hurting the original developers or publishers that had their pay day sometimes decades ago when the game first came out, and also it's not harming the current rights owner who is just sitting on the IP either as part of their investment portfolio or to sell it someday for more than what they paid. It's a victimless crime as this point when it comes to older games and I don't bat an eye when someone says they downloaded the entire Dreamcast or NES library from a torrent site.

I might sound ignorant but why would someone do this over just playing the old games on PC with the same SD trick or even emulation? I thought the point of phyiscal on original hardware was to keep it as original as possible? I don't mod or have never heard of these tricks so I am just curious. Is it solely having the hardware present and functional that matters over the actual feel of playing off disc? Thanks for any clearing up :)


In a console the only purpose of a disc drive is to read the data on the disc, send it to the CPU and from there the combinations of ram, gpus, and various other chips is what translates that data to what you see on your TV. Essentially the disc drive is only there as a messenger to read whats on the disc and send it to the rest of the console. The same is true of ODE mods that replace the disc drive for an SD card reader; the SD card reader is doing the exact same thing as the disc drive except its reading the data from an SD card rather than a CD. The SD card, the SD card reader, and the rest of the ODE mod have nothing to do with processing of the games data, that's all handled exactly the same way by the console's hardware as it would when having data read from a disc.


This translates into your gaming experience being exactly the same if not better due to the the faster read speed of the SD card, which means faster loading times. Assuming the ISO rip of the original game data is good and uncorrupted it should play, look, and sound identical to what you'd be playing if you were using an original disc drive and disc.


Emulation on the other hand is attempting to clone the original hardware of a console all in software. Especially with older consoles, emulation has come a long, long way and in most cases plays, looks, and sounds virtually identical to playing the game on original hardware. However, no matter how good the emulation is, it'll never be 100% accurate since its approximating the hardware in software to play on a PC. I'd say consoles like the SNES, Genesis, or TG16 are 99.7% the same as original hardware at this point, console like the Dreamcast, PS2, or Gamecube, vary between 90% and 98% depending on the emulator and game. However, modding a console with an ODE is 100% accurate since the game is still running off original hardware, unless of course you want to argue that the faster loading times create an inaccurate experience.


Sorry for the long winded explanation, but that is the difference between the two and why many opt for modding a console rather than just firing up their PC. At least for me I feel way more motivated to play games on the original hardware hooked up to my TV rather than on a PC with a USB controller. It really captures the experience of playing old games on a console even though they're being read off an SD card that also contains every PS1 or Saturn game ever made. You'll have no idea though once you're actually playing a game :)

This is pretty much where I'm at. My Original Xbox DVD drive just failed. I tried to hard mod it myself and bricked it lol. I had a few others laying around so I'm soft modding (which I should have done in the first place...) another to read games from the hard drive. I don't have backups of my xbox games, so the only way to get games from my collection to the hard drive is grab rips from the "Seas." I was completely against this, more just on principle than anything, but I'm quickly trying to mod as much as I can while the tools needed to do so are readily available. ODE's for all my disc based consoles are up next. I've grabbed a Mega Everdrive Pro (FPGA sega CD) and I'm stocking up on PC disc drives as I forsee PC emulation being important moving forward as the original hardware begins to fail.

I'm backing up everything else I can while I can. It's scary, but I'm confident we'll at least still have access to our collections going forward, just maybe not on original hardware, or at least not with the original drives from the original media.

6
Classic Video Games / Re: FMV Games (90's)
« on: June 16, 2021, 01:47:22 pm »
The only FMV-centric games I think I enjoyed were the Sherlock Holmes Consulting detective games, and even then it's really only because I like the detective aspects of it. I think the point-and-click genre has this covered and the FMVs were just sort of gravy. 

7
Classic Video Games / Re: Limited Run E3: 2021
« on: June 16, 2021, 01:39:19 pm »

Konami products were the best, but I am reading too many people mentioning that they still have on hold pre-ordered stuff from a year ago, so... I think I pass and I will wait the product to actually exist and get it on ebay.


I've not personally experienced this with Limited Run (Strictly Limited is a whole other story), but what I can say is waiting for them to hit Ebay is the WORST idea. They mark them up 300-400%, and you still would only get them when everybody else gets them, so it wouldn't help you get them any faster. If you think you want it you better pre order. If later on you don't want it or something then you can put it up on ebay and bank that extra money. If they're big releases you can hold out and wait for Best Buy to get a few. I've had some luck with that before.

The longest I've ever waited was 8 months, and that was for a partner release (the GRIS 2nd print). The best advice is make each pre order a separate order. If you get a standard release for one game and a special edition of another game in the same order, the standard will come out in 3 months and the special edition will come out in 5-8 months, but you won't get either until the last item on your order becomes available. But it you make them separate orders you'll get them each as they become available.

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Classic Video Games / Re: Limited Run E3: 2021
« on: June 15, 2021, 08:54:55 pm »
LRG won E3 2021. There wasn't even a close second place. Zombies Ate My Neighbors/Ghoul Potrol, Dusk physical release, Contra Collection, Castlevania SotN + Rondo, I mean holy shit! I haven't been this happy to throw my money at something in a long time! And their conference was hilarious and what an E3 conference should be.

Omg! Dusk!!! I hadn't heard anything about the Switch release in ages and when I saw it and knew it was actually happening, my brain melted. I'm definitely going for the Rondo (Turbo CD), Dusk, and Zombies Ate My Neighbors. I was kind of upset the Huntdown release was only a special edition, not a standard. Not that into that game, but still would have liked a cart, but oh well.

9
Classic Video Games / Re: Limited Run E3: 2021
« on: June 15, 2021, 01:10:31 pm »
Turbo Duo only or are will other platforms be available?

The PS4 version with CSotN is getting a disc also, but the original is Turbo only. It's strange, but the disc can be read by Ootake or RetroArch if you don't have a Turbo CD/Duo/PCE CD laying around still.

10
Classic Video Games / Limited Run E3: 2021
« on: June 15, 2021, 09:14:53 am »
I'm always excited this time of year, but this year I found one thing that felt like it was put in to E3 just for me: Limited Run is doing a release of Castlevania, Dracula X: Rondo of Blood, in English, officially licensed by Konami for the Turbo Duo.

There have been unofficial reproductions in the past, but this is an official Western release, something like 30 years later. With how many of these Rondos you find on Ebay being fake, for someone like me this is the perfect compromise. I will absolutely be picking this up.

The other notable release for folks here might be the Zombies Ate My Neighbors release for Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis.   

11
@Oldgamerz:

Like you mentioned, except for the Nintendo Switch, and maybe the Vita, physical games have been dead since 2014. They died with the PS3/360/WiiU and handhelds. Since the Xbone/PS4 they've been nothing more than license keys. Of the probably 30-40 Xbox One games I have probably 3-4 actually contain the whole game, or are at least playable without the day one patch.

We keep talking about physical media as if it's still around, but it's been dead for awhile now. We've just been buying physical license keys.

After this generation I will be completely digital; meaning I'll be focusing solely on collecting vintage software and hardware.

The prices have put  halt on my retro collecting, but my modern collecting has seen a boon (especially Xbox, got a series X and I can't help myself). There's so many last gen games that are in the teens. I made out like a king with the latest memorial day Gamestop sale (between the sale and my points from doing surveys I don't know how that place makes any money at all... though I guess they're not...).

With Retro/vintage stuff I have most of the low hanging fruit I've wanted, everything now are whales and grails (so to speak). Saving for the MUSHA and TurboGrafx library, Sega CD/32X. Its all stuff that's been ridiculously expensive for a awhile, so there's no rush.

12
It's okay, I hear you. Though, I did say I've been reading Cyberpunk and Lovecraftian literature (which would be a genre/subgenera of literature, but not necessarily video games: e.g. FPS, Platformer, RPG, racing). I didn't mean to imply they were themes; I only included them to demonstrate the context. The distinction didn't need to be made,  because it's just a light hearted forum post intentionally open to allow the most people to reply in a way that's meaningful to them. You're right though, those themes are great at describing what I'm after!

I don't know, mentioning going by "themes" then in the following sentence using a genre as an example, whether literary or from film, kind of beats the premise of the topic you're trying to discuss. That's at least how I see it; but then again, I'm just your avarage denizen, metaphorically inserting its two cents into the machine, so, really, who cares - your topic, your rules.

I have a tendency to be pedantic, but on the internet it doesn't tend to go well. Sort of how you feel the need to be apologetic for making the comment (I'm assuming you're not apologizing for being Aspergian!) [...]

My intention was more in line with being respectful rather than being apologetic, but tomayto, tomahto. With that said, paying atention to what others say or think, especially on the Internet, has never been a thing that concerns me - putting too much importance on whether your posts land or not I feel is an exercise in futility; it's quite frankly an otiose cry for approval. If your posts are an honest representation of yourself, then the rest should fall into place.

And no, I don't have Asperger's (as far as I know); I was mainly using the word as a verb.

Anyway...

[...] Then, to your understanding, what "themes" have, if at all, influenced your collecting?

Hard to pin the tail on that one, as I'm all over the place. In the end, though, genre remains a deciding factor for anything that could potentially pique my interest...that, and gameplay. Like you, visual novels don't do anything for me, as I'd much rather pick up a book; and likewise, simulators are just straight up banal and trite. Similarly, I used to be averse to point-and-click games, but I've learned to ignore my bias from time to time.

So, you said something you knew was going to be poorly received, apologizing before you even started, then hid behind a disability you don't have (incredibly disrespectful, despite your retroactively inserted intention).

You could, rather, think about how other people feel about themselves when you say things on the internet (though it's obvious your internet interactions are an exercise in solipsism), especially disabled people; apparently your understanding is I can say and do whatever I want regardless of how it's perceived by others because I can always just say I'm disabled and people will let it slide. Never mind that this paints Aspergians as internet trolls and jerks, which I suppose I don't need to point out is absolutely rude.

You know, you could have just apologized and answered the question however you wanted that, you know, adds constructively to the conversation; and the rest of us, being empathetic and not lacking in common decency would have simply taken it as an earnest attempt to engage in conversation. But again, despite your stated intention it seems your reply is more about how others perceive your "I don't care what you think about me attitude" and misuse of $10 words.

But, yeah, Tomayto/Tomahto er whatever. Keep paying ATTENTION to your AVERAGE self and your otiose (lol) cries for approval.

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Classic Video Games / Re: I heard retro game prices have peaked
« on: May 20, 2021, 01:43:15 pm »
The r/gamecollecting subreddit is a good place to get a feel for what's happening now anyway, even if you're not there for the drama. Every other post is "What should I collect for next" and "I'm 12 years old, how am I doing?"

This tells me there is a surplus of people who just started collecting in the last year and have no actual investment in the hobby other than "bored at home with disposable cash" and "my parents handed down their collection to me so now I'm a collector" (read: My parents aren't in to it anymore, and my collection will be sold when I go to college/move out and have to pay my own rent in a few years).

I think this bubble will burst soon when all these temporary collectors get out of the game, especially when the youtubers all burn out and stop making retro collecting vids.

I'd wager most of us here have been in this hobby for years, if not decades (I started "collecting" as early as 1991). We're in it for the long run, and are (to the best of our abilities) patient. But the new comers just want to grab the expensive stuff/heavy hitters, post their "hauls on the instatwits", and are willing to pay too much for the stuff we grabbed at launch or in bulk in discount bins. They won't stick around and in 5-10 years all that inventory is going to flood ebay again. I don't know what that will do for prices, especially for the heavy hitters, but at least we'll have more choice.

Anecdotally I've seen more availability on ebay lately, but haven't been to a shop in a long time. Next month I plan to blow my budget at a few local places; which I'm surprised actually survived to be honest, I know some local places didn't.

14

I personally only collect for Genre and Franchise, I can't think of what classifies as a game as only one theme, for example a lot of the games I play have multiple themes within the same exact game, like some games have certain levels with Dinosaurs, or Jarrassic theme, other games on a different level could have a lava world or a greek or roman theme :-\

Dinosaurs, lava level, greek mythology... sounds like Altered Beast! Just kidding! Turtles in time was a close second, but I don't think there's Greek/Roman in there (though on reflection that was a missed opportunity there).

I think I get hooked on a single theme and collect games that include that theme; i.e. it doesn't have to have just that theme I'm interested in, it can have more. Sometimes more is better! For instance, I just started playing Shadowman on N64. It has some lite cosmic horror vibes, but it also has voodoo and magic themes, comic book super hero vibes, plus some zombies (still voodoo I guess in a way) and other stuff; but it fits the bill.

Hmm. I just finished Call of Cthulu on Xbone, which was pretty good despite some clunky moments. It's available on PS4 as well. Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and Bloodborne are overflowing with atmosphere. Ghost of Tsushima is a fun game but I think it's too pretty if you're looking for something more haunting. Nioh/Nioh 2 are more that speed.

Getting more niche, the first Shadow Hearts on PS2 has a lot of locations that are unnerving. The two Death end;re Quests on PS4 (they might be on Steam/Switch) are also pretty great. If visual novels are your thing, then I recommend Collar X Malice.

I really like Call of Cthulhu (the newer one). I'm kinda itching to play through it again to see if I can get a different ending. I mentioned the Ghost of Tsushima and Nioh I think because you mentioned some Japanese culture, but hey, if it fits both bills even better!

15
I'm definitely a genre or franchise collector

Collecting on themes doesn't work for me each theme will have titles wich I'm not interested in not to mention that if where talking just game themes that the playstyles will usually be wildly different per game if I where to go collecting for games surrounding a certain theme.

Military themes have tons of boring fps games
Japanese culture has tons of dating sim games
Monsters has survival horror a genre wich I gave a shot plenty of times but just don't enjoy to much.
Scifi has tons of subpar adventure games or really subpar 2d fighting games to name some examples

I could go on for days

I will say that it is a very interesting way to approach in how one collects I'll give it that.

I definitely agree. This has been the biggest challenge, especially with cosmic horror/Lovecraftian games; they always tend to be survival horror. I like them, but sometimes the obtuse nature of them and skill ceiling are a little high for me. It's take me something like 20 years to finally beat the first resident evil!

Likewise, the Cyberpunk style games always tend to be visual novels that I'm just not interested in. Point and click adventure I'm good with, but visual novels are just not my style.

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