Optomon

High School years, for me, the age of abandonment at its pinnacle, and the age of discovering and getting access to many games

On one hand, there is the novelty factor of its post modern premise, looping in the same time period and changing it's outcome over and over again. On the other, the game practically pioneered the idea of fedex quests, and is less about action and more about uncovering space opera subplots.

I remember dumping a lot of time into it back in the day, but remember not figuring out something basic about the ice level and giving up on it. That's on me though.

Never really felt grinding was too annoying with Metroid, I always rationalized it as practice defeating enemies while navigating the levels. Except after maybe dying on mother brain, but I rationalize that too as a well understood punishment by that point in the game, and giving time to regroup, refocus.

That to me was the brutal gamer mentality of the times and people rolled with it knowing it sucked. Anyone who thinks Metroid is boring is not probably cultured with it, not to any fault or credit of their own.

That trap just before the final boss seems impossible to dodge. 

Come on guys it's PRGE right now, Im at booth 531, come over talk video games

I sold most of my games though on Saturday. Sunday I have more time to mosy around and meet people. 

There were lots of familiar faces that took me a while to recognize, I'm pretty sure the guy saying good things about  my copy of Cowlitz Gamers 2 was DefaultGen

In 2009, I once held made the record for speed running Castlevania without the use of holy water, at just over 13 minutes--

--then I lost the video.

Also the biggest fail.

This might be the most "I was saying Boo-urns" thing I've ever said but .. I actually like the SNeS port of race drivin'

Strangely I do enjoy this game, because I played it a lot as a kid, but I can't condone it's torturous level design. Learning how to deal with red devils is half of the game's difficulty.

2/10

16 hours ago, rdrunner said:

 

• Solomon's Key

I've beaten maybe 150 nes games, this I'd say this game was easily the most difficult and gruelling one I've finished. 

This thread is like :

"Mario Lemieux is not great when you compare him Wayne Gretzky" 

6/10

Things about this game are generally well done. It's a little on the short and shallow side though.

The pogo and golf club are neat and unique gimmicks. The aesthetics are good, the soundtrack is exceptional.  The level layouts are fun and there's enough decent enemies, platform elements, puzzles and exploration all around to keep things interesting. 

Hey just wanted you guys to know I do listen to these podcasts and enjoy the in depth discussions and humor. Usually while doing household chores. 

For example I liked in the NEScape episode when you mentioned that it is an especially entertaining game to play with a bunch of people watching who could come up with ideas that the player would not be able to on their own.

Only game where I accomplished this was Demon Sword, and it was not a win.

I like to think gaming as in its own realm of competitive recreation separate than sports. Two different organism kingdoms. 

Yeah you're right about Contra Force being very good. It's a lot like Crisis Force soundtrack with some improvement..

This song is a standout to me:

I think just the fighting games MKII, Primal Rage, etc.

I remember watching a 9 year old kid run over hundreds of people on the sidewalks in GTA III when it was new and thinking it was too disturbing.

I updated the first post with another image, containing most of the Ben carts that my brother sent. Very awesome of him! 

I also organized the games that we have vs the games that we don't, and a slight clue how/when each one disappeared.

Also no luck on Basil. We also no longer have Adventure Island. I suspect that I sold it at a garage sale in 2010 in Camas, Washington with a bunch of other games for charity (one dude just bought them all for 60$).

Seems pretty sophisticated by Ben standards and style. He only used a non sharpie pen once that I know of. Will need to compare it. 

I had an Adam cart once, a copy of Castlevania.

But it might have been marked as Adam K, not Adam W, not quite sure.

But there's only five people in the world, so you just might be one of them.

My brother has confirmed to have 12 "Ben" signed games. I updated the first post with the ones that we collectively have.

I bought Gun-Nac in 2001 for $7 at a local game store, after reading about it online as a follow up to Zanac and Guardian Legend. I looked a long time for it, they had it in some run down cardboard box collecting dust in the back of the store not on the shelves for some reason with a bunch of other seemingly ordinary games.

Woops I wrecked this post... I'll have to say something important later.

EDIT: Ugh. Apparently, Rampage is the only "Ben" cart in my possession, so all the rest are with my brother in California. Going to ask him what he has from the old days. He tends to plaster his name on the bottom front part of the cart, so it was probably a different Ben if it were written on the back. 

Some names on my carts: "Donohue", "Cortez", "Chip", and "Gary". Nothing amazing there unfortunately.

Well my mom bought Adventure Island off Ben, so... it was probably Ben.

1 hour ago, Dr. Morbis said:

If I find any of these "Ben" carts, I'll let you know; in the mean time, if anyone out there ever finds an Adventure Island cart with "Basil" written on the back, it was stolen from me over thirty years ago and I'd like it back...

I'm not sure why, but "Basil" does ring a bell. I might have owned one your carts. Definitely going to look for it. It very well could be Adventure Island.

6 hours ago, Californication said:

Yes, that sounds familiar actually. I think I bought some in San Diego maybe three years back from someone in Chula Vista.

I bought maybe a dozen games and half of them said Ben. Don't remember the whole lot or which ones where signed, but I remember I got Metroid, Kage, Wheel of Fortune, a few Mario Duck Hunts, Batman, Double Dragon, and the rest were slightly better names I think or I wouldn't have drove down.

Ah but were they autographed by the man himself? I'll have to post more examples, though I think my brother has the bulk of them.

Not sure he had any of those games, though I do have a Metroid with his name written on it three times. He had two Duck Hunts, a lot of launch titles. Still making the list, it looks like he had about 40 games that I knew of, and it's theoretically possible he didn't write his name on all of them.

EDIT: I added a list of only 35 of them to the first post. My original estimate might be way off, haha.