Messages

1996

General / Re: Games you have purchased because of the cover or title?

« on: July 07, 2015, 09:44:02 pm »

Most games. lol

I don't read magazines or IGN, and never really did. I buy based on the name + artwork + screenshots on the back. That's the way it used to go and it's the way game chasing still go. 75% of the time it works every time. But really, I am pretty good a sensing a game that I will enjoy based on those things.

1997

General / Re: VGC's Anonymous/"General" Topic:

« on: July 07, 2015, 09:26:50 pm »

Anyone else just browse their collection on here and marvel at the majesty of it?  That shit is impressive.  Sometimes I look and think, "Holy shit!  I guess I need to quit looking for that.  It's already in my collection."

I'm amazed at how much some collections have grown in only a short period of time. I remember when I had only 30 games or so about 5 years ago; its crazy to see how much stuff I have now that I've gotten into this hobby.

Here is what my "collection" looked like in 2005, since most all of the stuff I grew up on went to my older sibling by default, this is what I was left with. Except for my PS1 and games which I didn't think to picture here.



Remember when everybody had a Dell? Remember when CRTs were a thing?  Notice the PSP setting atop of the TV, this was shortly after first getting one.



Here is what it looked like in 2008.

1998

General / Re: Mario fans, how would you rank all of the main series entries?

« on: July 07, 2015, 04:51:44 pm »

No deep understanding needed why he didn't like Super Mario 64: Super Mario 64 was a big, empty game. A big empty game where you repeated the same levels over and over again.

I understand the technical aspect of it, as it was one of the first 3D platformers with big, open levels to explore. Rather than just rooms, caverns, and canyons, and corridors like others had been. But there just wasn't much there in those big open levels. So much open space.

Personally, that wouldn't be so bad for me if I was able to explore a new area each stage. But instead, you have to play the same level like 5 times over, which is just plain lazy game design. But since it's Mario, nobody ever mentions that it's lazy game design.

And where's all the power-ups?!

I'm also with him when it comes to games like Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, and even Pac-Man World. Those were fun 3D platformers. Granted, many of them didn't have the big open levels of Mario, but they were jam-packed with enemies, items, and secrets and such that kept you going. And you weren't forced to repeat levels.

That argument seems pretty unfair. They repeated the basic formula on Sunshine and Galaxy, except there was more objectives and more enemies. Still, it was open worlds with objective based gameplay. The same argument could be made for anything like GTA. Massive open worlds that are mostly empty and repetitious still the objective based gameplay is fun (to some).

 I think Mario needed a change of pace as many games do. People complain about Sonic trying to change but it needed to change as well. Perhaps the dullest Mario experience for me is the Super Mario 3d World on Wii U. We've repeated that same experience since 2006, and it's just not exciting for me anymore. I want more of the open world objective based games.

 I don't think I'd be as fond of Mario 64 if it had been a Crash Bandicoot type of game. Obviously it couldn't be Hyrule Warriors or Elder Scrolls being a cartridge based game in 1996, but had the potential to be something entirely different from the past games and I'm glad they took that opportunity because I like the style of gameplay.

1999

General / Re: Mario fans, how would you rank all of the main series entries?

« on: July 07, 2015, 10:34:59 am »

Not really counting the old Gameboy games or re-releases of older titles for the handhelds.  I absolutely despise Mario 64 and Galaxy bored me to tears so much I never played Galaxy 2.  Super Mario Sunshine would be my #11.

Blllassspheemmmyyy!!! 

You must hate 3D platformers. 

LOL...I don't hate 3D platformers.  Love stuff like Spyro, Crash, Banjo-Kazooie, etc.  Mario 64 had a horrid camera.  The levels were lifeless.  The precision jumping on Goombas and Koopa Troopers was replaced with haggling with an uncooperative camera and running around looking for stars.  To me, it was the complete anti-Mario style that turned me off. 

Maybe it was a bit of my "PlayStation high" as well.  PlayStation came along and released a system that opened up new game types.  Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid, Castlevania Symphony of the Night, Final Fantasy VII....things just exploded.  Crash, Spyro and Rayman (among others) showed that the platformer could be done and done very well by teams outside of Nintendo.  We had these huge CD-ROM's (for their time) full of data, real music, voices, video, etc. and games stretched across multiple discs. 

So when Nintendo came along with the N64 and I bought it with Mario 64, imagine my disappointment.  Lousy cartridge format.  The most uncomfortable, unwieldy controller I had ever handled.  Chiptune music.  No real voiceovers.  My view of the game's shortcomings (see above).  Every developer under the sun either completely abandoned Nintendo or their output was a fraction of what they were putting on the PlayStation. 

Suddenly, the N64 became an oddity I barely used.  I tried to like it.  The Rare games of the day were fantastic exceptions to my distaste for the system and it's library.  Arguably the biggest games for the N64...I hated or felt indifferent to.  Mario 64?  Hated it.  Ocarina of Time?  Hated it.  GoldenEye 007?  Meh.  StarFox 64?  Meh.  Star Wars Shadows of the Empire?  Meh.  Turok?  Meh.  I spent ridiculous amounts of money on games for it, trying to find something I liked.  And again, Rare was pretty much the only developer that made games on the thing I liked.  Hell, I picked up a copy of Rayman 2 for it even though I already owned it on another system just so I had something else to play on the damn thing.

PlayStation changed everything.  I still purchased Gamecube, Wii, Wii U, DS, 3DS, etc. and numerous games for them.  But for me, Nintendo has forever been relegated to a supplemental system for my PlayStation gaming.

Ah, not a fan of the N64. That makes sense. That's understandable, especially if you were coming from a different console like PS1, which I didn't back then. So I didn't miss things like CD quality music, the PS1 controller, diverse selection of games, etc. In that day, I didn't end up getting a ton of games because we just couldn't afford to, so I didn't notice the lack of quantity on the N64, but I did play the heck out of the games I had.

I think many of your criticisms to Mario 64 can be applied to all early games of the genre. Although, Mario 64 did come before Crash or Spyro, so there was more time to refine those. Pretty much every early 3D exploration based game I can think of in 1995 - 1998 had camera issues for sure. I've never played an early 3D platformer that didn't. I can think of several places in Mario 64 where the camera didn't help matters, but never thought that it ruined the game. Level design was rudimentary yes, as with other games. Tomb Raider is another favorite of mine, but the first game sure feels like you're stranded on the moon with a bad camera guy. That's just how it was back then. But I felt Mario 64 had life in it's environment - in the Bob-omb Battlefield you had the Chomp dog hopping around on the leash, the bob-ombs dancing around, Goombas aimlessly shuffling around, canon balls rolling down a mountain side, canon launchers you could use to blast yourself anywhere, and even wings to just fly. It's hard to expect much more from the experience at that time, especially when there wasn't much of any precedent for that type of game. The soundtrack, chiptune or not, I thought sounded good. Some of my favorite Mario tunes, they're so catchy!

If you come off of Spyro and other PS1 games and play N64 I can see how you might not be so impressed. It is what it is, and I think we all have a slight bias towards whatever it is we had or experienced first. I know I had my criticisms of PS1 when I first adopted it, like load times, pop-in, jagged polygons, though in hindsight it was really nothing to complain about.

2000

Classic Video Games / Anyone else enjoy the Runabout series of games?

« on: July 06, 2015, 05:32:00 pm »

Runabout 2 was a game I enjoyed on the PS1 back in the day. For anyone who hasn't played it, it's a driving game where you are given several objectives to accomplish across a city landscape (usually smashing into and blowing stuff up) within a time limit. It's a pretty faced paced game, and has that arcade game feel, it's sort of along the lines of the Crazy Taxi series.

I just recently researched the series, because I only ever played part 2 and found out why that was. Apparently, the first game in the series was re-named for North America and they decided to call it "Felony 11 79". So they gave it probably the worst name in the history of PS1 games when they brought it over here, and the bland cover art is easily overlooked. However, Runabout 2 was brought as Runabout 2. Go figure?

Then apparently, another entry known as Super Runabout came out on the Dreamcast, which I didn't know about until recently. Then part 3 came out on PS2, but only in Europe for some reason. Lastly, there was a 4th Runabout that came out on 3DS and in North America no less, but they decided to call it "Crash City Meyhem" and give another sort of misleading cover art. What's the deal? Why didn't they just localize all of these games as Runabout?

I enjoyed part 2, and I'll be adding the rest to my wishlist in time. Anyone else ever play these games?

2001

General / Re: Mario fans, how would you rank all of the main series entries?

« on: July 06, 2015, 05:20:15 pm »

Not really counting the old Gameboy games or re-releases of older titles for the handhelds.  I absolutely despise Mario 64 and Galaxy bored me to tears so much I never played Galaxy 2.  Super Mario Sunshine would be my #11.

Blllassspheemmmyyy!!! 

You must hate 3D platformers. 

2002

Off Topic / Re: What Are You Listening to Right Now?

« on: July 04, 2015, 12:27:21 am »

Old school Goo Goo Dolls is actually really solid. I'm not sure how many people know they used to be like a punk band back in the day and cranked out some pretty rockin' tunes. Nowadays though... yikes.

2003

General / Re: July 2015- Summertime Blues (Recently Added/Purchased Thread)

« on: July 03, 2015, 11:07:34 pm »

My B2G1 picks.

2004

General / Re: Price hike on Super Mario Bros?

« on: July 03, 2015, 12:50:03 pm »

It sucks when game stores do that.  I was in Florida for vacation up until two days ago and made it a point in our down-time to look up and hit the local game shops.  I found a few games here & there that were reasonably priced IMO.  All for the OG PlayStation, I picked up a mint copy of Final Doom for $14, a near-mint copy of Dino Crisis with RE3 demo for $13 and Fear Effect Retro Helix in decent, complete condition for $20.  I also picked up several cheap games that were $5 or less.

But it pissed me off when one store in St. Petersburg was hoarding copies of Legend of Dragoon in a case, asking $30 for even a beat-up ass copy of the greatest hits version.  They had several other games including the Final Fantasy PS1 games for high dollar prices.  If your $hit was immaculate...I might see charging $30 for Dragoon.  I looked at it and handed it back to him.  He looked confused and said "So...you don't want it?"  I politely informed him that I can get a NM complete black label copy for less than that shipped.  Which is exactly what I did when I got back home.  I also saw a copy of MediEvil II for sale which is a game I really, really want in my collection.  It was in ok shape.  The booklet showed it had been read several times and the disc had some light scratches on it.  They wanted $36 for it.  My wife asked why I didn't buy it and I told her that if I am going to spend that much on an old title, it will be in better shape than that.  I found one on eBay that I bought shipped for $32 that is immaculate.

But more on point of the OP, shops think they can charge a premium on Nintendo-brand games.  I've seen stores asking $60 for used copies of Zelda Wii titles.  Some in the original packaging, some not.  Several copies of each game sitting on a shelf with a ridiculous premium price attached to it.  I dunno...maybe if you decided $30 for a complete game was more reasonable...they would actually sell?

The funny thing is this place started out more than reasonable with everything, you could always do better there than going to eBay. Now it's like I don't even know where they're getting these numbers from. It has slowly become what I call an "eBay plus some" kind of store. The -important- game shelf is busting at the seems with the same titles, all with the same prices. So stock doesn't matter, condition also doesn't matter. From what I understand that's common now, if the label is entirely gone it's the same price as a perfect copy. What are they thinking?!

2005

General / Re: July 2015- Summertime Blues (Recently Added/Purchased Thread)

« on: July 03, 2015, 01:08:58 am »

If you can't tell, I'm in a Dreamcast mood lately. It's been so long since I played Toy Commander, it's great to have it back. Oh, and Castlevania III Dracula's Curse. I finally have it. 

2006

General / Price hike on Super Mario Bros?

« on: July 02, 2015, 10:36:39 pm »

Not the ultra common Super Mario Bros / Duck Hunt combo cartridge, but the lone Super Mario Bros cart. While there is evidence of it's value increasing online, I found it strange that a local store has just started pricing them at $26. Last week when I went they had about 5 copies, several were about $8 and a few were $26 which surprised me. I go back this week and all of them have been relegated to the "important game" shelf and now all of them at $26?

Doesn't make sense checking it against online prices, yeah there's a price increase, but not that much. Did I miss something? Was there some sort of hype going around the net about this version lately?

2007

General / Will there ever be a "Retron" for portables?

« on: July 02, 2015, 12:56:24 pm »

That would be a machine I would actually buy. It would be so cool if they came out with a console that let you play classic portable games on your TV screen. GameBoy, GameBoy Color, Game Gear, Atari Lynx, Neo Geo Pocket, WonderSwan, etc. Image a console that could accept any of those carts and play them at home on the big screen.

I'd love just to be able to play my Game Gear games on something other than a half-broken Game Gear. 

2008

General / Re: You can play original Game Boy carts on the smartphone.

« on: July 02, 2015, 12:46:59 pm »

Or you could just use a GBA SP, or Super Game Boy if at home.

Game Gear is the platform that desperately needs more options.

2009

Off Topic / Re: Recently Added to Other Collections

« on: July 01, 2015, 10:46:42 pm »

Some good CD finds today from the clearance bin.

2010

General / Re: VGC's Anonymous/"General" Topic:

« on: July 01, 2015, 04:00:01 pm »

Legend of Kay Wii U pushed back a month for the second time! Grr. I wish GS would alert you to delays.