Optomon

Just for fun and curiosity, this can be thoroughly ignored if needed... Does anyone happen to have any NES carts with "Ben" written on it in this manner below? Ben was a kid next door where I grew up in California. He owned probably a hundred (ok so maybe 50) games and wrote his name on pretty much every cart. My mom bought a ton of his games at his garage sale in '95 for super cheap, like a buck a piece once he had 16/32 bit consoles. My brother and I have about a dozen or so of these still, but over the years they've disappeared or were sold, given away etc. Most of these are likely in Southern California, or possibly in the Pacific Northwest. Here's a list of what games we got from him, recalled from memory. These were some of them, but there are likely others. There are two lists, the first of what is believed to exist somewhere in the world and the second are ones that we have: At large: Adventure Island -- (likely sold in Portland Area in 2010s) Back to the Future -- (Unsure if it was his, but very likely) Baseball Black Bass -- (likely sold in Portland Area in 2010s) Donkey Kong Jr. -- (Borrowed by a neighbor and never returned in '96, Southern California) Duck Hunt -- (a second copy exists somewhere) Ducktales -- (likely sold in Portland Area in 2010s) Golf Goonies II Gyromite -- (likely sold in Portland Area in 2010s) Hydlide -- (Unsure if it was his) Iron Tank -- (Disappeared in the mid-late 1990s, Southern California) Kung Fu Mario Bros. -- (This is largely speculative, it would have disappeared in the mid-late 1990s, Southern California) MegaMan 6 -- (possibly sold in Portland Area in 2010s; we likely have a different copy that I bought at a swap meet in 2009) Ninja Kid Popeye -- (Disappeared in the mid-late 1990s, Southern California) Raid 2020 -- (likely sold in Portland Area in 2010s) Rainbow Islands -- (Disappeared in the mid-late 1990s, Southern California) Solomon's Key -- (Unsure if it was his, our copy doesn't have his name on it, we may have re-bought it, still figuring it out) Street Cop -- (Disappeared in the mid-late 1990s, Southern California) Super Mario Bros. Super Mario Bros. 3 Toobin -- (Borrowed by a neighbor and never returned in '96, Southern California) Wrecking Crew -- (Disappeared in the mid-late 1990s, Southern California) What we have: Balloon Fight* Bionic Commando* Blades of Steel* Breakthru* Double Dragon III* Duck Hunt* Ghosts N Goblins* Lolo 3* MegaMan 3* Metroid* Mickey Mousecapade* Mystery Quest* Pinball* Rampage* Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles* Wild Gunman* We're still trying to verify some of these on our carts, they could have washed off naturally somehow or are hard to find on the cart. On the Duck Hunt and Mystery Quest carts below, he wrote his name on the actual image of the game and is faint. But almost always, it's just a conspicuous "Ben" hastily written straight across the bottom.

The NES is too invincible, immortal, and desirable for the human race to unexist. It can't die any more than alcohol, cigarettes, jazz music, cars or cookies can't die. Cheaply sold things with no ability to bring pleasure and artistic merit, like clone machines and pirated games, die. They just die and come back the way insects do.

Is that the "let's make a megaman 2 song" channel? Cause I actually wanted to try doing that with the actual Mega Man 2 engine. If I ever bothered to stream random things live and got the time.

Gun smoke has diverse set of themed, catchy songs. Above average soundtrack for sure but not elite. Quality is similar to Mega Man 1, perhaps a notch higher, but one or two below DuckTales or Bionic Commando. I do want to study chord progressions and the art of it eventually. And I know what you mean with common progressions in a lot of Castlevania and Mega Man. Metal Man theme for example is nearly straight up i - VI - VII, but there's so much going on in that piece melodically and harmonically outside of it with pertinent counterpoints and perfect texturing that make it epic.

I gave this a 6. What's good: - Combat is engaging. Challenging variety of enemies and interesting boss fights. - Fun and rewarding experience system. Points are actually worth something. - Exploration is great. Hints are helpful, and discovery is fun. A huge points bag or red potion or key could appear in a hard to reach area and it helps make navigating huge areas have a purpose. Towns are fun and relieving to visit. Game mostly justifies its epic length. - Spells/magic are have interesting effects and encourage strategies. I feel like this aspect of the game gets overlooked. - Combination of world map and side-scrolling that works well. - Huge variety of things to earn and collect. The items in palaces mostly serve as keys to get from one place to another, but the power glove, upstab, and downstab are impactful additions that are constantly tied to gameplay. - Gets more difficult as game progresses for the most part, not too imbalanced. - Can save progress easily (though it can get erased sometimes). - The music, graphics, story, environment and mood, etc. are competent. What's bad: - No checkpoints-- this is the game's chief flaw, especially earlier in the game when the player has to go through the same caves and fields over and over again. Having to get all the way back to the hammer caves, and Palaces 2 and 4 are particularly tedious. They should have had checkpoints at the towns maybe, or at least an easier way to earn more lives. But they at least made the hammer, raft, flute etc. bypass these areas later in the game to get the player back (relatively) quickly to where they were. - Brutal difficulty at times. Some enemies are tough to learn how to fight effectively. Platforming jumps can be frustrating and cause easy deaths. Cheap floor traps, but these are kind of rare, only in the last 2 palaces I think? - Game can feel tedious and repetitive in some parts. - Experience system can sometimes encourage monotonous grinding when the player feels stuck.

Where's the "I might play it occasionally even if it's cheap and unfair" option? I voted it a 4. There are many poor things about this game, the main put off for me being the inane and punishing difficulty, and maybe also the item that was steals your power away, the other issues not so much. On the other hand I love the fast pacing and platforming mechanics of the game. It's got an addictive gameplay scheme that works in spite of it's flaws. The physics and controls might feel slippery, and the backgrounds and levels feel repetitive, long and dry at times, but somehow I don't care to put the game down too quickly. The stunts over obstacles and enemies, as well as the power ups, feel gratifying. The game was a significant influence on Rollie in these respects, especially the bit where the power ups land according to the speed and direction of the player.

Blaster Master ending was not something I expected to put on the list, and it still has me wondering. It does a lot of things that I feel are novel and emotional even though it seems like it should be a generic song. A lot of people mention Ninja Gaiden music. My biggest issue for me is that the songs tend to be unwaveringly repetitive, too brief, or even feel cliche. Nonetheless, the music is very above average, and I rated the Ninja Gaiden II Introduction highest. But even with its great build up and emotional intensity, the repetition and typical feeling chord progression was a difference maker for me, and I narrowly cut it. Other examples of songs that were very close to being on this list that do absolutely amazing things: Gauntlet --- Song A Batman --- Labratory Ruins Magic Johnson's Fast Break --- High Score New Ghostbusters II --- Peter's Apartment Dragon Warrior IV --- Battle Theme Castle of Dragon --- End Credits Kiwi Kraze --- Stage Theme

Are furbies and beanie babies still worth anything?

Not bad at all. Getting licenced and trained is something you have to work hard at and take seriously. First several months are kind of nerve wracking getting used to the driving. But after that it's pretty chill once you are used to it, especially once they let you drive the same thing every day with the same people.

School bus driver. I was an SDET, but around here driving pays decently enough with fewer/better hours and is generally low stress with no deadlines. Having the middle of the day being open is good for projects when brain functionality is optimal, but nowadays I've been mostly using it for taking care of my kids, which also saves money and is useful during the pandemic. Also I tend to code like a dinosaur which isn't amazing for modern tech.

I suppose Castlevania is also notable for having a second updated version released to fix it's bug crashing problems. https://tcrf.net/Bugs:Castlevania_(NES) Always rom dumps of them as PRG 0 and PRG 1. But there is nothing too apparent to the player there. Any versions of different software releases of games that are notably rare?

Is there ever a cases where a commercially (non-prototype) released game has basically the same packaging, but contains minor software differences in game? There is an obvious example of NES Zelda with different game over screens, but maybe something less obvious that could be uncommon. I seem to remember a version of SNES Rock n' Roll racing where the extra NPC racer in two player mode is Shred instead of Rip. I don't know if this was a setting or something that actually happens in game. It was the first time I saw the game when it was new and some kid brought it over to our house to play.

I wouldn't call it genius. It's just a cowardly and despicable machination to cling to power that works. Sinfully easy card to play once you have power.

I always thought the electoral college existed to protect the voice of states from majority rule, an overlooked principle of democracy. Much like senate representation. Maybe I need a bit of a refresher on why it's theoretically flawed in modern times. Maybe small states don't seem to reflect minorities who need rights anymore? Minority rights are more than a geographical problem? Oh the things I don't know.

Man GA is looking like 2000 Florida right now just way less vital

That is a heck of a red mirage on the so called blue wall. Looks like the 3 states that narrowly cost Clinton the election will narrowly cost Trump this election. The only other big surprise is that insurance tally for Biden in Arizona. Amazing that Trump could win FL and PA still lose.

Thanks for posting this. I've been impressed with the positive attitude, professionalism, and support from the NES homebrew community and its enthusiasts. It has made Rollie and many other new NES games possible.

Thanks for reading. I wrestled with about 100 or so serious candidates, and decided that I could have reasonably gotten away with putting any of those songs on the list (the aforementioned Double Dragon song was one of them). I started putting many other songs up and down the list for a while to see if it made sense to me. I pretty much leaned toward anything that I felt represented an original idea and executed it really well. I also tried to avoid songs that were similar to one another, and went with the ones that I felt did it best. For example, I at first put up 4 Mega Man 2 songs, but cut it down to 2.

I appreciate the credit here, thanks. I remember vaguely explaining this to you. Being able to use the background tile sheet for sprite tiles is a very underrated advantage. On a side note, it was weird having worked in 8x16 mode for a long time with the CV hacks, then making Rollie in 8x8 (which was an ABSOLUTE necessity, due to the pattern table cramming and recycling of 8x8 tiles).

While I am not a fan of Neil Baldwin's music, I have a lot of respect for what it accomplishes. Magician soundtrack seems to be the epitome of his style, and he has diverse ways of demonstrating hypnotic ambience. I think I could have have gotten away with picking any song from that soundtrack.

Many people disagree with the choices but I'm cool with that at this point, I mainly went with what I felt was original and sophisticated. Regarding the #1, I'm surprised the song isn't more known or widely regarded, I think it's amazingly written for something that is epic in scale. I had never heard of it before I started making this list.

http://optovania.com/top50 I made this "50 quintessential songs list" for the NES earlier this summer, then revised it several times since. I'm done playing around with it though, and I'm moving on with life. It is a list of 50 NES era songs, each accompanied by a player and a description why I felt the piece was good and describe the piece, trying to be neither too technical nor too simple. It is all crammed onto one webpage. I tried to represent as many different styles as possible while also representing what I feel are among the most sensibly written and highest quality pieces on the NES.

@JamesRobot You are welcome. I think yours was the only one with a written note like that, everyone else I wrote it on the box, as I started packaging them differently. In case anyone is wondering, there are 40 numbered LE's of Rollie in total, with 10 given to people who helped with the game.