darkchylde28

Got my list sent in!

For the most part, I've found that the articles trying to roast it for "technical difficulties" have been totally off base or stretching the truth a bit. I installed it on day one and other than stuff loading a little slowly compared to other services I have, the only thing that I could really tell was "glitchy" was that the home screen didn't show anything on my account/setup until the following day. I got a blank gray screen and didn't realize the app had finished loading and logging in the first time until I hit left on my remote and the side menu popped up. From there I was able to search for things to watch or go through curated lists (from the search screen), just nothing on the "home" screen. That corrected itself the following day. I'm guessing that all the "nightmare" reports were just people logging in right when things kicked off, when the service was under its first true strain, and journalists (primarily) not taking that into account. Other than minor missing features (and episodes, in some cases), I haven't experienced any issues with it whatsoever since day 1.

I've largely had a similar experience from day one. The one thing that it's still doing (or, rather, not doing) that bugs me is, unlike every other streaming service that I currently use or have used in the past, it doesn't seem to keep track of what episodes of various shows that I've watched so as to be able to go directly to the next episode when I click play on the series icon itself. Instead, it starts off at episode 1. Ugh. Fingers crossed this will be a feature that's added (or fixed if it's something that was supposed to be included but seems to have been missed).

I finally watched "The Black Hole" for the first time, thanks to Disney+. Not a bad movie at all, especially for its time and age. While I don't hear a lot of disparaging things said about it, I'm honestly kind of shocked that it's not held in more reverence given the look and effects they were able to accomplish in a 95% pre-computer era. (Star Wars had come out two years prior, so I'm going to give a bit of leeway for folks to have started taking advantage of the technology at that point, although things didn't really start to kick in big time until movies like Tron, 3 years later.)

Honestly, it was the game that made my brother and I into "expert" pilots of the day. He bought a FlightStick for us to play with, which was a lot better than the generic PC joysticks we had around the house, but the game was still incredibly tough. So, we went through and completed all of the training missions to work up some skill at the game and get an idea of what was to be expected. Once completing them all (I want to say at top level, but I could be misremembering there being qualifying levels on those), we had a better time of the game itself, but it still wasn't a walk in the park light a lot of flight simulators were. Then, the unimaginable happened. During a particularly hairy mission, one of us (I can't remember who was flying and who was playing R2, lol) got to dodging so erratically that the screen spun. Luckily, the TIE chasing us ended up smashing into something, so the moment of us looking at one another going, "WHAT DID YOU DO?!" didn't harm anything. Even if it had, weighted against the unbridled glee of discovering that the top button on the controller rotated your ship would have drowned it out millions of times over. We'd thought it just wasn't compatible with the game and wasn't mapped when setting everything up, so we went through all of those training missions at OMG unbelievable angles, since, without rotating, there wasn't a lot you could do most of the time regarding which way you were drifting. After the revelation, the game was almost too easy and neither Jester nor Maverick had anything on us.

I know you likely meant menu options, but something that's always stuck by my brother and I since our father first stumbled upon it is seemingly useless skills combined with seemingly useless items which can yield surprising results. The example of this in my mind is the "Toaster Repair" skill from Wasteland. You would occasionally find these broken toasters in random loot bags around the map, after encounters that would drop loot, etc., and would either only be able to get $1 or so for selling them or just have to trash them when you ran out of inventory space. Late in the game, a particular library offers the learnable skill "Toaster Repair," allowing a character to be able to actually fix all of those broken toasters. An appropriate workbench is required (I think there's only one in the whole game), so this seems like it's really unlikely to amount to much. The funny thing is, when you fix them, they're always "jammed" with something relatively useful--an ammo magazine, a small melee weapon, a grenade (yes, seriously), etc. However, if you keep using the skill (or spend points) to level it up, the level of items that you can pop out of a toaster increases, up to the point where my father would roll over a new game (reset the map & inventories but keep the same characters), run to a handful of places that he knew always had broken toasters, then immediately pop out end-game tier armor, weapons, etc. Watching him pop a "meson cannon" (basically a laser gatling gun) out of a toaster had to be the single most hilarious thing my brother and I ever witnessed out of a game, to the point where it still sticks in our memories today.

Fantastic idea! I hated limiting myself to 15 games, so I added an "honorable mentions" area to the bottom of mine. I don't have the time to go into the depth and soul searching that your original post did, but I can always come back and edit this later to flesh it out a bit. Here's mine, laid out by year. The List: 1982 - Odyssey2 - Pickaxe Pete - The first game that kept me coming back to keep trying for a higher score and level. 1985 - 2600 - Pigs In Space - The first game that my friends and I really competed in, playing it near daily for years. High scorer got to go first in other games or pick what we played. 1987 - PC - Pirates! - A fantastic, "realistic" simulation that still occasionally drags me back in, even today. I played hooky from my job once due to playing the Xbox version too long. 1987 - NES - Contra - My first platforming shooter and another that my friends and I played near daily. Most days weren't complete without a full playthrough! 1988 - PC - Wasteland - The first RPG that I paid any attention to and another game I still come back to today. My dad played this consistently for more than 20 years. 1989 - PC - Space Quest III - The first adventure game that I played own my own, by myself, versus watching family play. I love all the Sierra games, but had to put this one on top! 1989 - Arcade - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - My first beat 'em up, likely where most of what could have been a college fund went based on the number of quarters my dad gave me! 1991 - PC - Civilization - The first strategy game I got caught up in, and the first to feature multiple end scenarios which weren't just "kill everybody else." 1993 - PC - X-Wing - The first flight simulator that I ever loved. Played this, its addons, and sequels for years until I could no longer connect my old school joysticks to a system. 1994 - PC - Doom ][ - The first addictive FPS for me, primarily because of the polished multiplayer. We commonly had 4-10 people local deathmatches using serial connections! 2000 - PC - Diablo - A step up for dungeon crawlers and the first to capitalize on random loot grinding. Too many hours spent grinding through dungeons hoping for matching set pieces. 2001 - PS2 - GTA III - I'd heard about it, but was hooked from the moment I snagged a car and began barrelling down a sidewalk (uncontrollably giggling maniacally). 2008 - 360 - Fallout 3 - My first FPS RPG experience, and one that I kept coming back to, at least until I finished the plot. 2012 - 360 - Minecraft - Solo, I didn't get it, but with friends? Still playing to this day! 2016 - PS4 - 7 Days to Die - While not perfect, one of the first survival horror games to do it right. Open world + crafting + zombies = fun! Honorable Mentions: *1985 - 2600 - Seaquest - Played daily by nearly all members of my family, together or separately. The first game to require a plate for the joystick to be stuck to. *1990 - PC - Pool of Radiance Series - The first RPG series that I played and the first to allow you to keep using the same party time and again, keeping their stats and traits. *1991 - SNES - SimCity - The only thing for the SNES that really interested or impressed me after it launched. I got a console only SNES bundle and this the Christmas after launch. *1992 - PC - Dune II - The second RTS game ever released, which established most of the "rules" used by those that followed. *1993 - SNES - Mortal Kombat - I wasn't much of a SFII fan but got caught up in the MK hype and had a ton of fun with friends. *2001 - PS2 - Frequency - One of my group's go-to party games and the first music/rhythm game that hooked me. Still got rotation even after its sequel (Amplitude) came out! *2011 - PS3 - Skyrim - Open world, first person, and an RPG? Sign me up! It literally took years from launch before I actually went up the mountain and started the plot.

On NA, nothing crazy, but I was happy with the CIB copy of Cheetahmen II I snagged right before price and demand seemed to spike (as I ended up with a bunch of PMs about it despite not being in the market to sell). In the wild, nothing for years, but at the time, paying $15 for a CIB Action 52 had me weak in the knees; from that same era, but taking modern pricing/demand into account, picking up M/NM loose copies of Panic Restaurant and Zombie Nation for $2-3 each from random flea market booths who specialized in bulk-stock NES games ranks up there. For eBay, I'd have to say snaking a $100 Dino Peak after the price shot up to/above $1000 was pretty sweet; the wording in the auction made it seem like he was selling an SNES game but the photos were of the NES version, so I took the shot, figuring eBay would side with me should it be the SNES version, and I won out. For a bonus, the best Software Etc. pickup I ever had (this was just before or after GameStop bought them but before every store was rebranded) was an absolutely mint, completely CIB (including the original store receipt tucked into the manual) copy of Chrono Trigger. I worked at the pizza place next door and was frequently in there buying up whatever NES titles I didn't already have or whatever else struck my fancy and one day one of the assistant managers comes into the store and tells me the Software Etc. manager needs to see me in their back room ASAP. I took a break, headed over, and was greeted with, "I figured you'd want this, so I held it back here before we did any stickering or let anybody else handle it" and Jeff holding the beauty in his hands. I think I paid something like $35 for it and was happy for the privilege. I'd still have it to this day, but as fun as it was, a good friend was collecting every Square game in as complete a condition as they came and had been pestering me to sell it to him from the day I picked it up. I ended up selling it to him for $100 (his initial offer) after never playing all the way through it and ending up with the Playstation version when it came out. Kind of wish that I still had it, but happier that my buddy still has it as a gem in his collection.

I started to, after breaking the app in with Gummi Bears for my wife and I (and the kids), but got disappointed that there are episodes missing. If you look at the episode list for season 1 (of the old school series, anyway), episodes 2, 3, and 4 are just not there. I'm not sure if those were the original pilot broken up into episodes (which, if it's not, is also missing) or what, but that stopped me in my tracks right there until I can find some answers. Overall thrilled with the experience and the availability, but got hit with some real disappointment at some of my childhood favorites being incomplete at launch with no explanation provided.

I agree. The amount of polish on the system that's come to light is representative of a "beta" or "release candidate" product, seeing as the hardware was already nailed down to a point where it was fully functional, the plastics were completely molded, etc. For true prototypes, you normally see a lot of bodge wires, stuff done on project boards (fixes implemented during R&D if not the whole unit), "mock up" cases which are either just project boxes with some art applied by hand or something that's been hand-made (molded in clay, carved out of foam, etc.) that wouldn't actually hold a system. With the board inside being as polished as it was, everything fitting together well, the cases being molded and not showing any issues, this most likely was part of a small test run done to get final approval from all the bigwigs, after which they'd have made more on the line they'd already set up and started pushing them out to a slightly wider audience to do more internal stress testing, bug checking, etc., before putting them in boxes and shipping them out the door to the public. Honestly, the only things that are missing at this point are the mock up box art/designs which most likely existed and an example of any disc based software (or combo cart + disc based software) that might have existed.

Finally noticed this thread and hopped on to say this. New Leaf was literally the system seller for my wife and I (we each ended up with a system and a copy of the game), as well as a bunch of our friends, so I would honestly put forth that it qualifies as one of the best solely for that reason. Most of my friends and family who played it together didn't get a whole lot more for the system (my wife and I got Pokemon X & Y and a couple of copies of Mariokart 7 gifted to us by a friend who wanted to play together, I bought her the Chibi Robo game since she'd enjoyed the Game Cube game so much, and we ended up with all of the Skylanders games save the last one due to being huge fans of that series up to a point). To date, my wife and I really haven't seen anything that's driven us to buy any further titles for the system, leaving both to sit for long spells until we get the itch to tinker around with Animal Crossing again, hand out excuses to our villagers regarding where we were, then once again get distracted by life and abandon our responsibilities as mayor once more.

I didn't take the time to dig up the video, but you're right, he did totally, finally, repair the optical drive. Here's an article that talks briefly about it, but also mentions something I recall from the video--that Ben Heck tested one or two homebrews people had put together quickly based on the specs released for the CD part of the system, which worked without issue. IIRC, he ended up taking parts from a similar CD player or CD-ROM that Sony had made about the same time and was able to get it fully functional by swapping out parts from a working donor drive/player into the prototype. With that said, I've honestly always thought the story behind this was a little fishy. The guy just happened to find it, in all places, amidst a bunch of random dishes that he thought was all he was bidding on? In this interview he discusses packing the boxes himself and knowing what was in them all, so honestly, to me, it sounds like he packed it up and put it among the lot of dishes so that nobody else would know what it was and he'd be able to get it for little to nothing, then milk it for as much as possible. It's a neat piece of history, but based on the crowd funding attempts for a coffee table book about it, etc., it's clear that the guy who found it and his son were really only focused on what fame and money the thing could bring to them versus any real concern for the community, the real history behind it, etc.

Frequency on PS2. I could whip all of my friends and all newcomers who happened to wander into any of our group game nights. That all changed the moment I got a PS2 broadband adapter and the online disc for Frequency...never have I been so shamed at a game that I'm actually good at in single or multiplayer!

Probably the original SSI Gold box Trilogy (Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades) which ended up as a quadrilogy later on (+Pools of Darkness) or Wasteland + Fallout + Fallout 2/3.

I hear that! Prior to my son being born, we spent every Christmas at my mother in law's house, so we never put up a tree. Once my son was born, I convinced my wife that we should finally get and put one up. My son got so excited at seeing it, we started a tradition of setting it up in his room. Needless to say, it's gotten tougher and tougher to manage to sneak in and drop off Santa presents each year! The year before last, he actually woke up while I was in the process of setting up one of his big gifts and I quickly convinced him that he'd almost caught Santa and needed to go back to sleep ASAP if he wanted him to come back and finish leaving him presents. Not sure how well I'm gonna manage this year with two kids in the room!

Way to spoil the secret! Wasn't half the fun trying to guess who Santa was every year?

I was too and can't wait to take my kids out and see what we get! My only disappointment regarding what was offered is that I wish they'd offered at least one of the Halloween costume McNuggets, as those are the ones that stand out most strongly in my mind from the era that these came from. It's fantastic to see any of them at all, just wish they'd put out one or more of the ones that appeared in the now-classic commercial that got replayed for years and years ("Scared Silly," if I recall the name right).

There are series 1 and 2 of the actual robots, plus a series of dinosaurs that the food items changed into. The above pic is pretty dino heavy from what I can tell, with all three hotcakes, the happy meal box, and the middle box of large fries being part of that series. I want to say the drink is too, but it's been so long since I've had my set of series 1-2 robots in-hand that I couldn't tell you from just a glance. Edit: Following the blog links from the Wikipedia link below, I can say that the shake cup in the photo is one of the dinos based on the cutouts on top. There definitely was a hotcakes robot, but I can't recall which series it was in. There were paint variations of a couple of the robots--large fries for sure, and I want to say the Big Mac? Here's a link to the Wikipedia article about them all. Apparently they were called "Changeables," with the first two series being the robots, then the dinos rounding them out at the end. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changeables Edit 2: Here's a good link to photos of all 3 series, since the series 1 & 2 links from Wikipedia are now broken. https://dinosaurdracula.com/blog/mcdonalds-changeables/

Supposedly, I was the first person that Nintendo Power was aware of that beat Castlevania III. I got it for Christmas the year it came out in the US, sat down to play it as soon as gifts were done and beat it either late that night or early the next morning. Took a snapshot, mailed it off with a note to Nintendo Power and ended up getting back what now seems like a pseduo form latter congratulating me on my achievement, telling me that I was the first to report beating the game and that the photo I'd provided plus my name would appear in a subsequent issue. That never happened, so I assume I either received that notice in error or everybody who sent in screenshots ended up with a similar message. I've long since lost the paperwork (kept it in the box for the game which ended up being destroyed by water in my parents' basement), but it's a neat memory, even if the achievement likely wasn't real.

Loaning anything out to "friends." As a kid everything was either bought new and kept complete or bought complete off of friends when they were done. The boxes were kept separately, but all manuals, maps, etc., were kept in the sleeve with the game. One old/former friend borrowed my copies of Metal Gear and Shadowgate and then ended up moving away over the summer with his parents without ever letting me know or returning my games; I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt since it was such an abrupt move, but still annoyed as I've not managed to pick up either of those games in as nice a condition as mine or as complete since. A definite former friend ended up borrowing a bunch of in demand titles from me late in our high school years, as both he and his mom were avid gamers and she wanted to play some of the games I'd newly picked up from the flea market (Zelda 1 & 2, Dragon Warrior 2, Contra) as well as one I'd had for a few years (Star Wars). I'd never owned the games I'd picked up at the flea market before (picked up somewhat "expensively" in those days, at $5 each versus 2 for $5, 3 for $10, etc.), so I was initially hesitant, but ended up loaning them out anyway, as we regularly played D&D at his house and I figured I'd be over again soon enough to pick them up. We were, but when I asked about my games a few weeks later, the guy acted like I was just making stuff up, that he'd never borrowed, let alone asked to borrow, any of the games I'd mentioned, etc. That pretty much ended that gaming group, as I abruptly left at that point when it was clear I wasn't getting my games back, only to be followed out a few moments later by the rest of the gaming group. I never talked to that guy again, nor have I loaned out any of my games again past that point.

Honestly, I don't know if the last part's going to happen given his last reaction to folks being excited about the new place while NA was still NA (not the trolling, but people legitimately being excited about VGS). It would be great to have him over here, but it's hard to say whether that would become a reality or not given a lot of hard feelings that seemed to crop up in the last few days that the old NA was online.

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE! ...ahem... Anyway...do you know if he's having to do it all by hand or if he's managed to put together some sort of AGI/SCI converter/interpreter? I'd guess the former, but it would be fantastic if he figured out a way to do the latter. I suppose the latter is less likely, though, as that might put him into hot water versus doing a look-alike. Excited, regardless of how it's executed!

Thanks guys! I've gotten one PM so far, fingers crossed I can make a deal and finally get to check this out! Fingers really crossed the KHan decides to port over some of the other Sierra classics, as I'd be over the moon to play some Space Quest, King's Quest, etc. on the NES!

Mine is variations on the South Park version of me that my then-girlfriend-now-wife did probably 15-16 years ago, when the first South Park character generators first started popping up online. I haven't added the standard one on here just yet, but will eventually get back to that after I've rotated through the holiday season variations.

For me, it's been that a lot of the "dour feeling" is (and has continued to be) totally absent from the new place. People are actually being civil with one another when having involved discussions where they disagree, there's no tongue-in-cheek back-handed comments, etc., creating a much better, breath-of-fresh-air atmosphere. Being perfectly honest, coming into NA a bit under 4 years ago, the feel of the place was kind of like walking into a nursing home where "most everyone" (a not insignificant amount of the active community) were in a constant state of being PO'd. I'm not saying that's how it was, as after officially signing up and continuing to lurk for a while, I found that wasn't always the case, but from an outside observer's or newb's point of view, the bad comments stick out and stick to you more than the normal or neutral ones do. I'm very thankful for VGS. Not only for giving everybody a place to continue the community after the impending shutdown of NA occurred, but also wiping away most, if not all of, the bad things that seemed to have cropped up and taken root after so many years and being vigilant about ensuring they don't crop back up as "the norm" again.