Messages

16

Classic Video Games / Re: Have You Ever Played (Earthbound) ROM or SNES Cartridge?

« on: March 25, 2022, 04:13:12 am »

I’m a huge Earthbound fan as well. I used to rent it fairly often before I bought a copy, it’s hard without the guide.  I purchased it in 1998-ish when a local store had a huge pile of them on clearance for like $30 I think. I used to play it once a year for a long time, but with kids and a fairly demanding job, I haven’t been able to in a while.  Still one of my all time favorites.

Same here  I still have mine, box and all, from when I bought it at Best Buy for $20 around that time. They had stacks of 'em too.

I just recently started playing through it again on Switch and it's still such a fantastically unique RPG.

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Classic Video Games / Re: Do you have a favorite Box art?

« on: November 15, 2021, 04:38:18 pm »

When I first saw the artwork for Super Smash Bros, I almost lost my mind. I HAD to play it!! This was the fighting game we'd fantasize about, but never thought it could be real.

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Classic Video Games / Re: PlayStation3 turns 15 years old.

« on: November 15, 2021, 04:05:49 pm »

The biggest modern downside to the PS3 is that nearly every major title has been remastered and run better on modern systems.

This is true, many of PS3's best games got remastered versions on PS4 and elsewhere. The Switch did the same thing to the Wii U.

I liked the PS3. My favorite games for it were:

• Dark Souls
• Valkyria Chronicles
• Dragon's Crown
• Uncharted
• Way of the Samurai 3
• Street Fighter IV (and it's later versions)

19

Off Topic / Re: Jurassic Park, Back to The Future or Indiana Jones?

« on: August 31, 2021, 02:00:01 pm »

The Indiana Jones movies were my absolute favorites growing up, and still are among the best. I could watch Temple of Doom anytime, there's not a boring scene in the entire movie.

That said though, I think the original Jurassic Park may be the best movie ever made. It did everything perfectly, and seeing it as a kid in theaters was a blast.

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Modern Video Games / Re: Best Metroidvania games ?

« on: February 24, 2021, 03:49:47 pm »

Super Metroid is definitely the big one here. Play it at night in the dark and crank up the volume! The music and atmosphere is amazing.

There's two other really good ones I've played on Switch:

Shantae and the Pirate's Curse
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

21

Off Topic / Re: Culture Memories Of The Past, How Was Life Like 30-40 or 10 Years ago?

« on: January 15, 2021, 05:39:48 pm »

1990's - I was 5 when the decade started. The first movie I remember seeing in theaters was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Summer sleepovers with friends were the best. It was an excuse to have water wars with Super Soakers, Nerf wars, bike around, then go inside to consume as many movies, video games, and pizza slices as possible. Then late at night, act like you were going to sleep, shut everything down, and then secretly turn the Super Nintendo back on! Some friends had draconic parents though. You could always tell by wandering into the kitchen and seeing what type of bread they had. If it was that "healthy" birdseed bread instead of a normal loaf, watch out! They would soon yell "You've been on the Nintendo for 30 minutes, time to shut it off!!"... yeah, those were the nights when I'd have to call my parents to come pick me up, faking an allergy or something.

Also, when a hot new toy was coming out, people would have to use the Yellow Pages to furiously call stores to see if they had any stock, then rush over and wait in line.

When your parents were late to pick you up from school, you had to use the payphone and call collect. They would hear "You have a collect call from 'WHERE ARE YOU? COME GET ME!', do you accept?"

Later in the '90s, people got excited for 56K modems and used AOL Instant Messenger to chat with random strangers online.

22

Classic Video Games / Re: Must-have Atari 2600 games

« on: January 11, 2021, 04:03:47 pm »

My 2600 favorites that still hold up well:

Kaboom!
The secret to what makes this game great is the paddle controller. The game gets faster and faster, and when you learn to keep up with it, it's awesome!

Crossbow
A port of the arcade game with good graphics. Hapless adventurers walk across the screen and you're the crossbow sniper that must move a cursor around to shoot the enemies that attack them.

Plaque Attack
Kind of like a fast-paced, dental version of Space Invaders. Various food items swoop in to attack your teeth, and you blast them with toothpaste.

Crackpots
Bugs attack your building, and your best defense is apparently dropping flower pots on them.

Warlords
Also based on an arcade game. With 1 player it gets a little dull, but with 4 players it comes alive as a competitive version of Breakout.

23

Off Topic / Re: Anyone Played Golf Or Mini Golf In Real Life Before?

« on: February 24, 2020, 01:32:30 pm »

One time, I tried out for my high school's golf team...

I was told "you need to play golf outside of Nintendo".

Apparently they didn't like me using a putter to smash a ball 50 yards to the green, instead of using a "proper" 9 iron. Or maybe it was because I didn't own a real golf bag and used a gym duffle bag to awkwardly carry a hodgepodge of thrift store clubs.

I was the only one who was cut. 

24

Video Game Database Discussion / Re: "Grey" or "Gray"? - Poll for Style Guide

« on: December 02, 2019, 06:03:52 pm »

"Gray" = American English
"Grey" = British English

American English preserves a lot of the older spellings for words, whereas British English picked up a lot of French in its spelling in the 1800's.

Grey, colour, standardise... all from French influence.

Is British more proper because it's the native land, or is American correct for retaining original spellings?

Think hard enough and you'll realize the answer...

25

Classic Video Games / Re: Super Nintendo/Super Famicom Games Discussion and Favorites

« on: November 13, 2019, 01:38:02 am »

My parents used to take us to Big Bear (a mountain town in California) when I was a kid. It was cold and snowy outside, and the living room had a central heater that blasted warm air near where the TV was. At that time, there was NOTHING better than waking up early around 6am, a couple hours before anyone else in the house, sitting in that warm heater spot, and playing Final Fantasy III (FF6) on the SNES. It was the absolute best.

There are a TON of awesome games on that system.

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General / Re: What 10 games would you show to someone who had never played video games before?

« on: October 07, 2019, 02:20:05 pm »

My dad, a generally gruff mechanic with no game experience outside of Legend of Zelda on NES, is addicted to Angry Birds 2. 

As for the question, the #1 video game for people who have never played games is an easy choice: Bust-A-Move, aka Puzzle Bobble. Over the years I've brought my Neo Geo setup to various parties, and Bust-A-Move is always a hit with everyone.

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General / Re: How does everyone feel about Terry in Smash?

« on: September 06, 2019, 02:36:09 pm »

I was excited when I saw the Neo Geo intro. I was hoping they'd pull a surprise and pick Geese or Mai, but relieved that it didn't go to boring old Kyo. Terry has personality at least. And he's been on the Switch already in SNK Heroines (albeit in a slightly different body  )

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Classic Video Games / Re: Ducktales Remastered Is being taken off Digital Stores!

« on: August 07, 2019, 04:43:25 pm »

Regardless, nonsense like this is what turns me off to the idea of an all digital future for gaming. 

Things like this can happen when a company loses licensing rights. The same thing happened to one of WayForward's other games, Wonder Momo: Typhoon Booster, a sequel based on the old Namco game. That game was only released digitally, and was de-listed everywhere a few years ago. Now it's essentially non-existent.

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Video Game Database Discussion / Re: Category/Platform Requests 2.0

« on: July 29, 2019, 05:53:34 pm »

All of the existing sub-cats have Apple name first.

True, for the existing Apple sub-categories, those products actually had the word Apple in the name (except the Pippin). The Apple II computer, was actually called the "Apple II", and so on.

Having a "Mac" sub-category in the Apple Computers section makes the most sense to me, since that term essentially covers all eras of Macintosh releases. Still, "Apple Macintosh" is not technically wrong.

In the end, I appreciate your attention to the topic, so I'll defer to whatever you decide is best.

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Video Game Database Discussion / Re: Category/Platform Requests 2.0

« on: July 26, 2019, 01:47:38 pm »

See first post for my thought process on it, pending actions. Might as well keep all the Apple stuff together. Once that cat gets renamed, I can make the new categories (or I can make them now and then rename the cat later) and then move the entries from the Mac section into the appropriate one. Then we can request removal of the Mac category.

Moving the Mac sub-categories over into the Apple Computers category is a good move.

Minor grievance: Calling the new Mac sub-categories "Apple Macintosh" seems sort of antiquated, since Apple hasn't used the full "Macintosh" name in 20 years, shortening it to "Mac" even before OS X came out. But then, nobody ever called it "Apple Mac" either. It's kinda like how Game Boy was never called the "Nintendo Game Boy", or the Neo Geo was never the "SNK Neo Geo".

I'd be more in favor of just calling the Mac categories "Mac", since it has the implication of both Classic Mac OS and OS X platforms, whereas "Apple Macintosh" has a more distinct flavor of the 1984-1997 era of computers.