T-Pac

22 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Someday the Internet will wake up to your channel and your subscribers will jump exponentially 

I hear there are ways to ... uh ... help the algorithm...

Jokes aside, though - that's what's so great about personal projects. Just finishing a video meets my own standard for success regardless of how much attention it gets.

[T-Pac]

20 hours ago, Khromak said:

I watch every single video the moment YouTube reminds me they exist. S-tier content, I look forward to each video. Love the personality, the script, jokes, and of course the drawings to go along with the games.

Keep it up, I love the videos.

Dude - this literally made my day : )

[T-Pac]

Finished reading Stories by O. Henry, a collection of the author’s short works written between 1900 and 1910.

[T-Pac]
 

22/40 - Nuts & Milk [Nintendo Famicom - 1983]

Finished: 2024/04/27

Caveats: Used save-states.

[T-Pac]

Nuts & Milk [Nintendo Famicom - 1983]

Possibly my favorite new game I've played this year? Hudson Soft rarely disappoints.

[T-Pac]

12 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

Explaining yourself was appreciated, but I'm still dumbfounded that anyone could call this movie "not very memorable."  It's got to have the highest quantity of memorable scenes of any movie ever made in the history of cinema, and easily the most quoted dialog of all time to go with it.

I know you're pretty young relative to the average age of participants on this forum - perhaps you were still a kid when you saw it for the first time, such that much of the humor went flying over your head??? 

V V V

On 4/24/2024 at 6:59 AM, T-Pac said:

I watched this for the first time when I was in college - not because I was genuinely interested, but because I wanted to understand all the references people constantly make to this film.

It wasn't very memorable, but it wasn't bad either. I'm glad I watched it in any case.

[T-Pac]

2 hours ago, mbd39 said:

How can you not remember the famous breaking of the fourth wall at the end of the movie? Or the killer bunny? Did you fall asleep?

The bunny rings a bell now that you mention it.

And I really don't know what to tell you guys... but it feels like you're mis-associating "not memorable" with "not good".
It was a fun movie and I certainly enjoyed watching it - I just didn't retain much for whatever reason. Maybe it's worth noting that this isn't really my type of humor, either. I'm usually into much more subtle, ironic stuff.

[T-Pac]

On 4/24/2024 at 9:49 PM, Sumez said:

No latter how you feel about it, Holy Grail "not being memorable" is one of the craziest claims I've read today for sure

Well I vaguely recall the heckler on the castle wall, a knight in a forest who kept losing limbs, and some kind of volcano place at the end of the movie? (But maybe I'm confusing it with something else).

That's pretty much it. Granted, I've only seen it once and that was at least 5 years ago, so ... I'd say that qualifies as "not very memorable" to me at least.

[T-Pac]

18 hours ago, Brickman said:

I think the NWC is interesting because it’s a piece of video game history. It’s literally something that should be in a video game museum. Although I personally only think Thor’s NWC is worth having because he was the winner. 

Retail games don’t have the same feeling to them. 

That's fair - I can certainly appreciate the historical significance, but I don't think I'll ever understand why people value it so highly, especially relative to other competition and prize games.

I've gotta practice what I preach, though - and just let people enjoy stuff without trying to say they're wrong for valuing things differently than I do haha.

[T-Pac]

7 hours ago, Sumez said:

But Pokémon conversely feels designed not around just being approachable for kids, but pretty much requiring you to be a kid.
...

Pokémon instead hinges entirely of that feeling of compulsion that you get from finding additional creatures to fill out a stupidly large compendium (which can only be filled by giving in to a stupid marketing ploy of crossing multiple simultaneous but nearly identical releases). I could see that being really engaging if I were a kid, but as an adult with plenty of other things to play, I just can't be bothered.

This is a bit of an ironic viewpoint on a forum full of people who compulsively try to fill arbitrary checklists by collecting games from an era where they were primarily designed and marketed for kids haha.

I respect your take, though - even if I don't think you need to be a kid to enjoy Pokemon. It's personal preference, after all.

[T-Pac]

@Reed Rothchild @wongojack @RH @Sumez

Great point about the age thing with regard to Pokemon. I forget that I'm 10+ years younger than most of you, so you might easily see Pokemon the way I see Fortnite haha.

And that definitely skews the "must-play" status of Pokemon in my head - since among my own demographic, having never played a Pokemon game would be like having never eaten a peanutbutter-and-jelly sandwich.

[T-Pac]

22 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

There's some overlap there.  If I chose Panzer Dragoon Saga, it's partially because I want to play it, and as of right now I don't have a lot of confidence that it will ever happen due to rarity and scarcity of being a low print game that seemingly will never be ported or remade.

But otherwise, yeah, I'm on the same page for NWCs and Competition carts and what not.  I'm in this hobby to play the games.

Yeah - there's a middleground for me, too. Recca might make my list because it has gameplay value AND collectable value to me. But it could just as easily be ousted by a dirt-common game that I want - because with only a limited number of slots to fill, "collectability" doesn't hold as much weight.

And I guess it makes more of a difference for me personally because, since I don't pirate games, if I don't own a title I'll likely never get to play it.

[T-Pac]

22 hours ago, RH said:

If I have 5 left to get, it's going to be rarer stuff that I find to be really cool for a purpose.  It's not so much about acquiring "value" but there's a reason why NWC carts are valuable and it's not just because it's rare.  It's because the NWC was probably the coolest gaming "thing" to ever have and owning one of the related carts is about the awesomest thing you could collect, other than maybe a verified original NES and/or PVM they used in the competition.  Even with something like that, though, it's not as immediately recognizable for what it was.

"Cool for a purpose" is the operative phrase that I 100% agree with, but get confused about how it applies to certain high-end stuff like NWC. Sure, plenty of people genuinely think it's cool, but just as many only see it as the "must have" game because other people have convinced them to think that way (when they wouldn't have otherwise). I mean, if you actually participated in the competition back in 1990, an NWC cart would be the best thing ever. But otherwise it's basically some 90s kid's video-game equivalent of a little-league participation trophy...

I'll admit to some hypocrisy on that point, though. I'd love to have a genuine prototype in my collection, even though I have no involvement in the game's development. But I would only want a proto of a game that I love (hence the personal value over hype value argument), and I don't see a proto making my "only 5" list when there are so many games I'd rather own AND play.

[T-Pac]

3 minutes ago, RH said:

Interesting call out.  Had I asked this question just 2-3 years ago, I too would have been in the "never played a Pokemon game" camp too.

I gave it a try a little while ago (and posted about it in one thread) and I just couldn't see the appeal.

For sure. I don't really enjoy playing Pokemon, either - but it's interesting to hear that there are avid video game fans who've never even touched it before.

Although - maybe I'm misinterpreting the question... In my mind, if you've so much as pressed a single input on a game, you've "played" it. But I think some people are only considering games they've spent a significant amount of time with, "played". And that really changes the dynamic of the question and introduces taste over exposure.

[T-Pac]

I watched this for the first time when I was in college - not because I was genuinely interested, but because I wanted to understand all the references people constantly make to this film.

It wasn't very memorable, but it wasn't bad either. I'm glad I watched it in any case.

[T-Pac]

On 4/22/2024 at 6:21 AM, AirVillain said:

Are we ALLOWED to say NWC Gold?  That's kinda a cop out I think.

Why is that a cop-out? Maybe I'm weird, but I could think of 1000 games I'd want in my collection more than an NWC gold.

I'm honestly surprised how many people are just listing rare and expensive stuff if they only had 5 spaces left to fill. Like - wouldn't you want to fill those slots with something you care about and want to play, instead of a hype game? One of the titles on my own list was Star Parodier since it's my favorite cute-em-up and I've never had a physical copy - not crazy expensive and not crazy rare, but I couldn't imagine feeling like my collection was "complete" without it. (So I bought it when I posted this topic haha.)

[T-Pac]

On 4/17/2024 at 10:30 AM, cj_robot said:

I've never played a single Pokemon game.

On 4/18/2024 at 1:20 AM, ikk said:

The first I thought of are SMB3

On 4/18/2024 at 8:50 AM, GPX said:

Mario 3

These are the two most surprising responses to me so far!
Pokemon and Super Mario Bros 3 seem like games most people stumble into playing for at least a few minutes once in their life haha!

[T-Pac]

23 hours ago, wongojack said:

I also recently played this as part of a high score club.  I didn't use any save states and looked nothing up.  I think I made it to the castle walls a few times and enjoyed my time with the game.

Wow - I can't imagine even getting past the river stage without saves haha!

[T-Pac]

23 hours ago, wongojack said:

I hear that finding the scrolls is basically impossible without a guide.

Well that was certainly my experience. Who would think to just go stand in front of random trees when you've got all these ninja swarming you?

[T-Pac]

21/40 - The Ninja [Sega Master System - 1986]

Finished: 2024/04/20

Caveats: Used save-states and an online guide to find the secret scrolls.

[T-Pac]

The Ninja [Sega Master System - 1986]

I have a soft-spot for Ninja games, and this is a good one.

[T-Pac]

20/40 - Rockman 1 [Nintendo Entertainment System - 1987]

Finished: 2024/04/15

Caveats: Used the pause-trick on the Yellow Devil boss.

[T-Pac]

Rockman 1 [Nintendo Famicom - 1987]

Finally played the first Mega Man game, and I liked it way more than I thought I would. Hoping to tackle the full 8-bit series over the next few years.

[T-Pac]

On 4/19/2024 at 1:08 AM, Brickman said:

I think I am going to hang up my controller (well Analogue Pocket) on Star Soldier. I don't like to give up on games but I know when to admit defeat (I also don't have enough time in my life to grind a very average game out).

Star Soldier was released a few years after the release of the Famicom and was a pretty big success in Japan. It was released later on the NES and didn't do so well. I can see why. 

Star Soldier looks pretty dated now and even for a NES game it didn't really look that amazing compared to the likes of Gradius or Salamander. The levels feel repetitive and look similar. 

The main hook or "killer feature" was that your ship could go under some of the terrain. Sounds interesting in theory but in practice it is a nightmare and just adds to the difficulty. It is hard to tell what terrain you can and can't go under so you could be blasting some enemies only to find yourself now under terrain then you reappear near more enemies. You also can't shoot when you're under terrain. It just ends up being a mess and confusing.

This game is notorious for being difficult. I don't know where this ranks on the NES difficulty scale but I can only imagine it is up there. You get three lives and can earn a few more with points but there's no continues. Added to the difficulty is the fact that your starting weapon sucks, if you die past where the upgrades are you're essentially stuck with your starter weapon for the rest of the level and if you don't beat the boss in a certain time you go back to the start. 

There are a few hidden items through the game which would be fun if they also didn't come attached with annoying conditions like having the digit in the 1000's place and the 100's place being the same number. 

With that said. I didn't absolutely loathe my time with this game. It was ok. I managed to consistently get to level 5 and felt done with the game. I don't really think it is a game worth playing with all the amazing options out there, but there's worse games out there that you could be wasting your time with.

4.5/10

Aw man, I love Star Soldier! I think the most important criteria for enjoying it, though, is recognizing that it isn't really the same category of shoot-em-up as Gradius or Salamander. It's almost more like Galaga in some ways.

That being said, I've never made it very far in the game, either. And I ALWAYS play with turbo haha. Does your Analogue Pocket support auto-fire?

[T-Pac]

If it came out after 1995 and isn't Wii Sports ... I probably haven't played it.

[T-Pac]

17 hours ago, G-type said:

I've had a number of perfect days. One that comes to mind is  Friday, January 31, 1997

It was Senior year. A nice sunny day. At the end of the school day, my group of friends met up in the locker bay and headed out to parking lot where we piled into Ryan's 1988 Cadilac, blasting Firestarter by Prodigy at a deafening volume as we sang along. He drove us back to his house (the usual "hangout" house) and played MarioKart 64 while his mom got dinner ready. Pork roast, peas, mashed potatoes and gravy. After dinner, we headed for Multiplex Cinemas... (it was torn down in 2009 to build an upscale shopping district and luxury condos)

we had tickets for Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope - Special Edition. Seeing it in the theatre for the first time with all my friends was a magical experience.

Heck yeah! This is exactly the kind of stuff I wanted to hear about - and I'd agree that sounds like a pretty perfect day, too.

[T-Pac]

On 4/15/2024 at 9:25 AM, wongojack said:

At the time of writing this, I'm the one who voted Never played it, but you're interested.

I should have really liked the NES Mario games, and I can see they are good games, but I've just never really enjoyed them.  I was the wrong age to like playing a game with a cartoon plumber who jumps on turtles, and the core gameplay just feels like something I've seen over and over again. A SNES sequel was definitely not a draw for me.

I have made myself play many a Mario game and enjoyed my time with some.  I'll probably play Super Mario World at some point but would much rather play all of the modern games listed in the Next week's poll section.  I've actually quit playing two of those games and would look forward to playing either of them before SMW.

Whoa - I wouldn't be surprised if you're the only person on this entire forum who hasn't ever played Super Mario World!

On one hand, I'd say it's worth trying even if the NES Mario games aren't your thing. But on the other hand, it's impressive that you've held off for so long, and that's kinda neat haha.

[T-Pac]

22 hours ago, 3rdStrongestMole said:

I have all the cords running from the TVs, behind the shelves, and underneath the desktop. I labeled them all, so all I have to do is grab the console and plug it in without the hassle of messing with the TVs, inputs, etc.

So I can have 3 consoles going simultaneously (which I've had to do before when my nephews visited ) without getting tangled up.

I still want to get some of those clear plastic holders for the controllers so they stand upright as well.

Aesthetically-pleasing AND functional? This is the way...

[T-Pac]