koifish

I'm nervous to find out if my Virtual Boy emulator works correctly. I swear that I found an issue with Golf once, maybe I will have to look into it again before trying to join in the fun.

Oh yeah, this is what I forgot. The 360 d-pad was about the worst thing since the painfully chunky dreamcast one that made my thumb sore playing shenmue. Reminds me of an image I saw when Mega Man 9 was announced, that depicted megaman looking at the 360 d-pad and proceeding to weep at the thought of relying on it for anything beyond the most unimportant button prompts.

Not sure what I'd rate this system. We got it because the wii sucked noodles and because my brother or I or somebody wanted to play Rock Band. A year or two later and Lost Planet 2 had come out, but by that point 360 was already useless to me. I had a gaming PC, and Demon's Souls had just come out, so nobody in my friend group wanted a 360 anymore, save for the Halo and CoD kiddies. I think I probably played all of two games on this thing, I have almost no memory of anything released on it, and even after reading this thread, I have no positive feelings to express about any of the games people have named as being big influences for their appreciation. I mean, fallout 3? Seriously? Don't make me laugh. The only thing I would use as a positive for this box is that, as others have pointed out, the 360 sort of gave birth to the indie platform that was needed to keep certain small-time efforts alive. Yet, I cannot give that really as a positive, when the systems like 360 were the reason that many good companies and devteams and game series fell off the face of the earth in the first place. Granted, the PS3 owes a lion's share of the blame for murdering JP devs, which are what I really care about here, but the 360 had its share. Still however, I must accept that what happened to smalltime dev was probably inevitable; The costs have gone up ever since the very beginning. It's not like we were just going to be able to make games on comparatively small budgets forever. It is just hard for me, however, to look beyond how this system really felt like the beginning of the end (along with PS3). I remember thinking that 6th gen was killing off gaming with the popularity of games like Halo and GTA, and how they were affecting other games and their development. I feel like 360 just turned that influence factor on overdrive, and saw a dark cloud fall upon gaming that I'm not sure has ever lifted. I think more than this, however, which admittedly again can be tied to more than just 360, is that I hate the other additions to gaming that sort of came through and were cemented by MS and the Xbox lineage. This was the console series that upended PC gaming and sort of strong-armed PC devs to make console games, and perhaps marked the death of uniquely PC-focused games. This was the company that standardized the garbage bin practice of paid online play, which still to this day I will never pay for or endorse. This is the platform that turned DLC from a horse armor joke into a fact of life, and which invited an entire new level of scummy practices into the industry. Even achievements, I think, are worthy of derision, as I never thought of them as much, other than another way to be annoyed by games being purposely turned into ways to track player engagement, or worse, encourage addictive behavior. I know that it is not 100% responsible for all of these things, and I know that this is something of a trajectory of what gaming was going toward, but with how much the 360 both embodied and relished in these various horsemen of gaming apocalypse, I can't really say that I like it in any measure. Maybe there's some redeeming factors which I have overlooked, and maybe someday I'll enjoy or like it, but we will see. For now, I call it a wreck, a big disappointment in gaming history for me. Then there's the little gripes. The horrible hardware reliability, the pointless HD-DVD add-on, the accursed paid online play, the fact that wi-fi wasn't included and cost 100 dollars, despite even the DS having wifi included free a year earlier, the stupid MS points system where they purposely avoid 1:1 payment amounts to confuse/deceive the consumer about the values of items/cost of items, there is just so much I disliked about this sytem. Seriously, about the only good thing I liked about 360 was that it used AA batteries for the wireless controllers. I hate that dualshock 3s use proprietary batteries that are hard to remove. I love that MS stays committed to simple, standard, removable batteries, and that's the one thing I really hold them up as doing right. The rest of it though? I can't say that I like MS much at all, and the 360 sort of wraps up everything I hate about MS and their gaming contributions, and puts a big green bow on it. Overall I'm not sure what score I'll put on this one, but it's probably not going to be any higher than 2 or 3. Owned it for several years and still have no idea what was worthwhile about it.

I sort of feel where you're coming from, I love Nintendo 8-bit way more and was disappointed by games like Link to the Past or Super Metroid vs. their 8-bit progenitors. I feel like the SNES makes up for it in other places, however, such as in weird one-offs like Sutte Hakkun and Umihara Kawase, or in Nintendo's less obvious hits, like Pilotwings or Mario's Super Picross. It doesn't help that I'm not much for JRPGs, which is one of the genres in which SNES really shines. It's also one of those systems that gets much better if you can read Japanese, which I can only begin to grasp, but when you can, the library gets much wider in terms of great releases. Most of those are RPGs though

Way more if you include Game Boy in the 8-bit family!

Aaaaaand also done today is Game & Watch Gallery, or at least enough of it to satisfy the requirements posted. I finished all four modern games with over 1000 points on hard, except manhole, which I did on easy. I got a credits sequence in which mario and luigi launch bob-omb fireworks into the air, that announce the "actors" of each game (so the characters that appear). I found it funny that DK Jr in Manhole was called "Chubby". Here's a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4XSjD_ALJ8 At the end, it says "To Be Continued", which makes me wonder if there isn't a superlative credits that you get for the venerable masterwork that is getting 1000 points on each of the 16 game mode/difficulty combinations. The game select screen shows you, after your first four 1k points achievements, how many stars you've earned on each mode. I'm pretty far away from getting 1k on every game, it would probably take the passing around game to work that one out. @Floating Platforms I gave Roger Clemens a look. That's a pretty fun baseball game. Much harder than the other games, but still speaks to me of a higher overall quality than the other baseball games I've played on GB. I really like the multiple perspectives in fielding, even if it is throwing me off since fielders throw the ball toward base directions based on their perspective instead of being consistently down=home, up=2nd, etc. Still, looking forward to it. What I'm not necessarily looking forward to, is studying hyper lode runner. I brought a lot of projects onto my plate this month, and so I don't know that I'll finish any more GB games this year. We'll see though.

I was just thinking of doing that idea. The sisterhood of the traveling carts would finally put that one to bed. Anyway, Extra Bases is finished. The game never really got difficult; I found that I could game the hits to get good base hits pretty easily, and I could also tire the pitchers out easily. Also, the game won't switch out pitchers until an inning ends; So long as you keep going when the pitcher becomes tired (the starter seems to tire out by the 3rd inning if you keep him throwing), you can run the bases pretty easily. The rest of the game is pretty easy; The CPU never poses much of a threat on offense or defense. You can really get them good if you swing super early or super late; If it doesn't fly foul then you can send it right down the foul ball line, and easily proceed to victory. I think that also I ironed out the mercy rule; If you are ahead by 10 runs or more, then the CPU team has to narrow that gap to the single-digits, or else it is a mercy win. Truth be told though, I didn't experiment to see if that's true. I just determined that 10 runs seems to be the number. It might even be lower, I just haven't tried it. There might be a lower number yet and I just didn't see it. Might even be in the manual. Also, a pitching trick; Go from the two extremes: throw a straight that breaks inward, then throw a straight that breaks outward. Go back and forth between the far edges of the strike zones. Throw pitches that curve just barely out of reach at the end, or that break hard into the batter about halfway through the pitch. With practice you'll get a feel for what I mean. Unfortunately it's not as cut and dry as some other tricks I've found. You just have to get a feel for it, and have faith that you can stop them from hitting anything good. I can't say on the running game tricks; I seemed to find some exploits at some points, only to find them not working the next game. I'm not too worried about it though. As stated, it's not too difficult of a baseball game. You have piqued my interest, however, in Roger Clemens. I'm curious to find out just how tough it really is. Given the lateness of the season, however, I'm putting that one on the 2021 list.

I think they are the same series (Namco licensed famista to several different names and systems IIRC) but I haven't seen much to exploit beyond the weird treatment of baserunners. The AI is so scared of anyone on 3rd advancing to home that it will never stop the runner on 1st from advancing unchallenged to 2nd. Otherwise I'd just say this game has much easier batting and much less god-like opponents (vs. Bases Loaded, where it took forever to get good enough to beat the opponents). I keep getting screwed up on oil panic by my desire to get easy fast points with pro strats, only to screw up. Someday I'm going to beat this and then I'll have four games over 1000 and over half the gallery unlocked. Biggest fear for 100% gallery (if that is indeed the goal at some point) is either manhole or octopus on classic. I find their rhythms difficult to follow, and I can't quite get into the groove. One groove that I really like, however, is classic Fire as the difficulty climbs. The rhythm of the falling people starts to really get good. I should record it for a rhythm part on a song or something.

Found out last night that there's a mercy rule in Extra Bases, they ended the game after 3 innings when I had them at 13-1. I think I only have a few more games left.

I have figured out how to beat the next level of hyper lode runner, but haven't been able to do it yet. Extra Bases is starting to get more difficult, but I'm still going through. I have 8 of the 16 gallery stars in game and watch gallery. I haven't gotten 1000 across 4 games yet though, only 3. I am terrible at several classic series games, and keep trying to be overzealous in modern oil panic. If this isn't enough overwork, maybe I will also pick up NBA Jam again. We're gonna see what happens.

Yeah, I should have said too that I'm conflicted about my feelings, because while it sometimes just feels like scumming is the only way through (I rationalize it as replaying levels of super mario bros until you can beat it, except you're in the 2nd person and watching someone else try to do it), I really like how it puts you in a world and tells you to find a solution. You rarely feel like there isn't a path through. I think my problem might have just been less expansive thinking about what you can do in this game. There were tasks I wanted to do in-game that I died attempting, because I was a poor level 1 with no money. Playing as a thief character who struggled against any encounter seemed to imply that I should steal from people to get armor, so that I could do the things I wanted to do, but there wasn't much of anybody I could steal from that wasn't either 1) broke, or 2) well-armed. From my perspective, it wasn't really a tenable situation. That said, some other posts here seem to shed light on ideas I hadn't even thought of, so like I said in the first post, it could be my newness or ignorance that fueled my frustration. @arch_8ngel I understand it's a tabletop adaptation, and I appreciate and even like that there are unwinnable scenarios you can get yourself into. I was simply expressing disdain for what seemed like a pointless time wasting element when taken into a computer system. I do have to ask though, that if a guard is watching the door, then why does it reason that blowing up said door with dynamite would not immediately draw their attention? Maybe that's just one of those funny things in this game, like how I once got an NPC to start blasting at me because I bumped into him twice, which then brought upon 10 turns of "walk 10 spaces toward exit grid and wait" followed by me returning and his forgetting I ever existed. @darkchylde28 Can't tell you anything about how old or new RPGs differ on that kind of thing. In this case I'm a new player of RPGs, and only picked up fallout because I was sick and didn't feel up to playing action games. Before having an RPG-fueled existential crisis, please reconsider my first post; I know why dice rolls are used, but at least in tabletop it seems to make a difference what you roll. Where's the thief check where the guy doesn't blow your head off instantly on a slight failure? At least in the lockpick situation I know now that there's more options, so I'll take that one on the nose. Sometimes I think parts of this game are just there because of tradition, and that they work better with a human that can think on the fly than with a computer game which locks in certain results for necessity of simplification. I guess I don't really see the difference on #1, if you're a thief char and you successfully steal about 40% of the time, and the result of failure is "reload your last save" then what does it really matter? It's not like you're reloading a hundred times so that a character with garbage steal score can manage a successful steal anyway. Feels like the only difference is how much time you think is okay to waste on reloads. Granted, I am expressing this as an ignorant new player, who doesn't know every in and out of fallout yet, and doesn't always know the next step. At the particular point I was scumming, I just didn't know any other path, and didn't want to start the game over so long as something still seemed doable. #2 was me being ill-prepared, and perhaps not knowing, but again, if it seemed like an answer and the only cost was a few reloads, then was it really that different from reloading an even earlier save and figuring out new solutions? I guess it is, thinking as I type, but it comes off as annoying more than interesting. But then, I guess sometimes immersion means being annoying and not enjoyable, and doing it on purpose. Though that feeling may also stem from the feeling that the "world" you immerse in here is mostly one-line character dialog spam mixed with people whose only value to the player is to give them another leg-up in finishing the game. Perhaps my "clear the game" mentality is too pragmatic and callous to appreciate CRPGs and I should go back to dungeon crawls.

That was a rough release, given it was an '84 famicom RPG that waited four long years in console RPG history before hitting the west. You could probably beat it now, but you might be better off checking out one of the original versions. For me, it's a game that I only recently played as part of the annual Game Boy game clearing contest. I picked up and beat Castlevania Adventure for the first time. That was a game that made me hate it over and over as I tried and failed to finish the levels, keep my whip, etc. I think it's true Stockholm Syndrome though, because once I knew how to beat it, it actually got pretty fun, and now I like it okay. The second one is still more "fun" though I'd say, aside from that BS boss fight. You know the one.

I think that game streaming and eSports have convinced too many people that they can get famous by playing video games. Still I think it's pretty gentle these days. I watch old griefing vids sometimes and am surprised by the things people would say to random strangers in games.

Honestly, I'd rather see actual game and watch games. Not only do I have zero interest in the NES game and watch machines (why would you get a small dedicated device for a tiny handful of NES games?), but more importantly, game and watch games are expensive, and some of them don't have any official re-release or remaster. I would line up to buy some kind of game and watch multi-unit that could play multiple games of its format, say, Zelda/Gold Cliff/Donkey Kong, or DK 3/DK Hockey, or even better, a collection of the colorized tabletop game and watch games. Throw in a headphone jack, volume control, pause function, even sleep mode that lets me preserve battery and my current game status, and I'll throw money at it (assuming they aren't just games that have already gotten releases on GB/GBC/GBA/DS). IMO it's pointless nonsense to waste good plastic on yet another gimmicky way to play super mario bros. I like that game a lot, but seriously? Get a GBA, get a switch, get a DS and run emulators, get a GBC and play SMB Deluxe. There's options, far better ones than this plastic crap.

To be honest, I forgot what most of the GC games were when reading the thread topic. Looking back, I had this system for a large bulk of my late childhood/teenage years. I did not have a PS2, as I didn't have much for internet access and thought it was just GTA, Madden, and Movie games like FF and MGS. Nor did I have an Xbox, though I did play it at other people's houses. PS2 and Xbox don't stand out much to me at all, but neither does gamecube, and I owned it for almost its entire active lifespan, and aside from games like RE and Eternal Darkness, I basically bought and played all the titles people speak well of, and even ones no one remembers (cubivore was entertaining at least). Yes, if pressed, I could name 10 games for 'cube that I like and care about, but it mostly just reminds me of massively disappointing mario and zelda games, mario being shoved into everything, and huge game droughts where you're waiting and waiting for something that doesn't feel like a bone being thrown to you. It has an up side, but not in its favor; I spent so much time using it to play NES games in animal crossing that I ended up just outright buying an NES, which incidentally started my favorite part of my gaming youth. So, aside from introducing me to black box NES and to the first Zelda, I don't have much to say for gamecube. 3, maybe 4 out of 10. Basically invalidated by Wii, and I don't care if it's emulation, the Wii emus work better than GB Player anyway.

Wow! That's really cool. I would love something like that, but I'd probably go for one that was a solar charger for rechargeable AAs. I just got some eneloop pros (arriving this weekend) and I'm looking forward to flexing their muscles on my DMG lifespan. Given that model's power consumption, I should get a lot of life out of those.

That would bug the crap outta me. Why do they do this to completion addicts, give them reasons to succumb to their disease, when they know it just means they would be playing something they don't like? I was a huge fan of the manuals included in 3DS games, it meant you could read the manual even when you were out on the go. I guess most games today just build in a tutorial since that's better for con attendants and impatient youngsters. I was one of those people. I also remember when mirror's edge was called a short game at 8 hours. Ironically, I don't think people have changed their opinions at all. The thing that changed is that games now use tons of open-world, stat-building, etc. It isn't just a style choice, it makes the game much longer, through what we'd call before "padding". The game isn't made better by that added playtime, it is just made longer. If games were like the old days, they would be 10 hours but they would be meaningful hours. Or alternatively, just go back to making games that are an hour to beat and 10 hours to get good. The 3ds talk reminds me of what I hate a lot, which is forced, unskippable cutscene or tutorials. The biggest offender in my memory is shinobi for 3ds. I really like that game and want to beat it on master ninja difficulty, but I cannot stand that even on this ultimate difficulty, where you have 3 lives and no continues, that the game STILL forces you to mash through how the buttons work, and makes you watch a brief, unskippable in-engine cutscene. Is it minor? Sure, it's maybe 15 seconds. But hell if it doesn't drive me NUTS!! I would do a lot to get a version which removes that requirement entirely. Can I get a witness and a romhacker for Christmas?

I've been playing Fallout recently (no spoilers please, I just started!) and I'm not sure I understand why the game uses roll checks for much of anything beyond combat results. I understand, tabletop RPGs have used roll checks for skills since the dawn of the genre. I'm certain that the Interplay devs followed in that great tradition when making Fallout, since it was ultimately an adaptation of a tabletop game to the computer (a true CRPG). That said, I have noticed a trend in my playing of Fallout. Maybe I am just too new and ignorant, but in my experience, the places where I see skill checks are rather meaningless checks, because there is not a wide range of possibilities, but instead a binary set of results. Let me give some examples to illustrate what I mean: 1. I am a thief character. I attempt to steal from someone. If I succeed, I walk away and get their loot. If I fail, they shoot me and I die. 2. I am captured in a locked room. If I attempt to pick the lock and fail, I suffer no penalty, so I just pick it over and over again until I succeed. If I roll a critical failure and the lock is jammed, then I will never be able to escape this room, and the game is effectively over as nothing else seems to change the situation. In case 1, what is the purpose of this event using a roll check for result? I know that in the tabletop world, there is no other system. What I'm saying is that the difference is that a DM can possibly create nuance on the fly between a bad steal roll and an "almost" steal roll. In Fallout, it pretty much boils down to two situations: steal and be fine, or fail and die almost immediately. There's basically no middle ground unless you find the seemingly rare target who has no weapon but also valuable goods to steal. But then it gets worse to me, because the manual recommends that the player save very often whenever they are about to go somewhere new or dangerous, or do something risky. If you are basically told to save before attempting risky or dangerous things, and stealing has the risk of death, then the message seems to be "Save and then Steal" with the result of "if you die, just reload until you live". At that point, why even bother rolling at all? Just say whether or not you can steal from them and save everyone the trouble. Is it maybe more realistic or sim-ish to say that you need to try and find out? I suppose so, but is it more immersion-breaking to say that you can steal or not, or is it more immersion-breaking to save and reload over and over until you get the perfect result? In case 2, I was in a locked cell. I waited around a bit and nothing else happened. I resolved to pick the lock, and I tried it a few times. After several tries, I was able to do it. A few times, however, I jammed the lock, at which point I assume that due to my low lockpick skill, it would be impossible to fix (in hindsight, maybe fixing the lock is a repair check). Either way, let's assume I was wrong and that it's a repair check to unjam the lock. What is the value to the end user of making them try over and over to pick the lock and/or try over and over to repair the lock, given that there isn't actually any fallout from failure here beyond the same as in case 1, which was "oops, reload your save!"? If the entire result is that you reload and waste time, then what does this experience offer to the player? I mean, maybe in that situation, the message is "remember when you did X? Yeah, that was a mistake, don't do that." I have been coming around to the idea that some RPG routes and choices should just be "you screwed up, bad ending, try again". I think it's just a struggle for me to see why things that have blatant black or white results need to be decided by luck, especially when one result is inherently necessary for success or even just continuing the game, or when one result just means reloading and trying the exact same thing again until you succeed. If you made it through my long post, then I'd appreciate you sharing your own experience with CRPGs and maybe help me to understand this design element of the genre. Maybe I'm just missing the point here, so I'm open to your ideas or explanations. Thanks for reading and I look forward to your responses.

I have seen a sticker on more than one Game Boy (DMG) and I don't know the origin. I can't find a pic now as I don't know the name, but it looks like a very "90s" decal, and it goes onto the entire front of the system. I remember it being yellow, grey, and red/white checkered in various places. I also remember it having colorful shapes printed on it in various places. Does anybody know what I'm talking about that could graciously save me from ignorance and give me info on what that decal is and where it came from?

Never knew there was a solar-power pack like that, happen to remember the model or other identifying info?

I used to own a light boy, that was a trooper. Got rid of it at some point, I think the wiring or bulbs had gone and I didn't know any better at the time. After that I mostly switched to worm lights. I actually still use my nyko sometimes. More often now, however, I use an ear-mounted book light that I got somewhere long in the past. It's almost too bright, but it gets the job done for sure. Still, nothing beats playing game boy in the bright light of a sunny day. I even enjoy the pea soup glow, though maybe that's just nostalgia talking. I cut my teeth on that brick, so even if I did get a GB Pocket a few years later (I suspect entirely so that my folks could stop buying so many AAs), I feel a lot of personal appreciation for it. Also, its aesthetics are pleasing to me. I think it's a nicely designed portable.

Playing it in bright sunlight is probably its best lighting conditions. Otherwise, it's just sort of that thing you put up with. I wouldn't say that people will readily go for it, but it gets the job done. Some games are better than others, though. Surely you can see with its level of blur why puzzle and RPGs were dominant on the GB up until super game boy and gb pocket were around. Still, I played various games for the GB contest this year on DMG. Gave me the requisite warm fuzzies coming back to my first portable. Also, the body of the DMG is very comfortable for adult hands, and the four AAs means you get a ton of battery life. But yeah, good luck beating super RC pro-am on it. Now that makes me curious though, so I'll go back to using DMG on this thread just for you XD. Also, to see if certain games were even playable on it. Just gotta figure out where all my batteries went lately.

@GlovesIt appears you are right. I sent a new message, looks like it arrived without issue.

@Secret Santa Sorry if this is a blatant sign of my inability to navigate VGS vs NA, but did you get the message I sent you earlier today with my Secret Santa info? I feel like I sent it, but I can't remember, and moreover I can't find the message outbox, just the inbox.

Well, I won't attempt to influence the chances of creepy child delivery, but perhaps I will demonstrate if indeed I am the "lucky winner".