Jedah Domah comes through with the long awaited (as least for me) SNK episode of Substance TV. Sporting a new facelift and moving the show in a more professional direction, Substance TV is turning out to be a good imformative video review show. [Something that Tenno and I are seriously considering doing] Substance TV is a fairly comprehensive review show that tackles many non mainstream games and sheds some light on some of the long forgotten niche games of last generation. Think of it as the “Check this game out if you never had the chance to play it” kind of a show.
One the one hand we have the original caveman platformer which is the first Sega Master System game to be released on the Virtual Console and the other hand an incredibly generic racer for the N-64. Oh the difficult choices. Why can’t we get the good games like Japan? I’m almost tempted to import a Japanese Wii for the better pricing and games.
Standing at my register at work today, bored out of my skull, I decided to give GameCrazy (of all places) a call, since I had seen that they had started getting their allotments of the MGS4 pre-order DVDs in. Granted, I already have my pre-order placed at the GameStop near my work, but they have yet to get their shipments of the bonus discs in. Getting the GC employee on the other line, he confirmed that they did have them in and that I could come down and pick one up with a pre-order. Needless to say, I promptly hauled ass down there and did just that.
Upon arriving, I questioned him as to whether I might be able to obtain two with two pre-orders. Judging by this picture:
That would be a resounding yes.
The packaging itself fits in with the design used for the previous Metal Gear Saga disc that was given out for pre-ordering MGS3: Subsistence. So, kudos to Konami and Kojima Pro for that. The disc itself is a DVD consisting of clips going over the series and its various characters. The big part about getting these, though, is the fact that they let you download and participate in the Metal Gear Online beta test that starts in the latter half of April. The codes are only being given out with these discs, so if you are interested in giving MGO a shot, plunk some ducketts down on a pre-order.
If anything, you can do what I’m going to do with the $10 I put down to get my bonus discs and just get your money back. Now to just wait on the disc I should be getting from Gamestop to show up, as one of the two I have now will be used to play the beta and the other will stay sealed. In the end, I’ll keep one sealed copy and figure out what to do with the other sealed one…
-AncientFlounder (Sorry for the pic quality. All I have is my iPhone to take pics with.)
I would like to pretend that I am a pretentious video gamer and that I don’t need video game reviews to help sway my buying decisions, but that is simply not true. I, like most gamers, do not have the luxury to spend hours playing a game before they buy it. There are always going to be games where I don’t need a review to help me buy it, like Super Smash Brothers: Brawl, but for the less popular games, reviews help me decide wether or not I should shell out $60 for a game or not. I was listening to the latest podcast episode of 1-Up’s Retronauts, where they were talking about Final Fantasy: Crisis Core where I heard Jeremy Perish give the game a rating of B+.
Ahh, pinball. One of my great joys, as they are fun to play, plus provides a good challenge every time you plunk some quarters into them. I wouldn’t consider myself a fantastic player, but I do have my moments and some machines treat me better than others. That’s why it’s fun to find a good player to watch and learn some new skills to take into account and progress to becoming a better player.With this in mind, when I found out the Pinball Hall of Fame was hosting the IFPA 5 tournament this weekend, I was kind of stoked, it should no doubt be filled to the brim with lots of great players and should be a lot of fun. Right?
Unfortunately, that wasn’t really the case when we went in there today. Probably the only good experience that came out of it was a respect for playing machines on tournament mode, since they are a true test of skill. A lot of features are locked out or changed when switched to this form, making high scores a sometimes-impossible task. Machines that normally have replay scores in the hundreds of millions, mainly because getting points isn’t hard on normal play, become much lower due to any shot giving you practically nothing. But, oddly enough, it makes getting scores that much more gratifying since you really did earn them through playing well. Read the rest of this entry »
Continuing my ongoing quest to make replacing batteries on your retro consoles a tab bit more informative, here is my next attempt: How to Replace the Game Saving Battery to a Sega Genesis Cartridge. I found my second attempt to be much quicker than my first. The battery swap only took me about 5 minutes from start to finish and with a little patience and some minor soldering skills; you should have no problem swapping out the battery.
Reminder: You will lose your saves when you replace the save battery. There is no real easy way to avoid this problem. Yes there are complicated methods like adding a slave battery but I just find this method to be cumbersome and not worth the extra risk.
My belief is that the only proper way of replacing a battery is to unsolder the old battery and resolder a new one. This is how the game was assembled from factory and I feel this is how the battery should be replaced. You will need to have some basic soldering skills to complete this task. This walk-through can be applied to any gaming cart that requires a small button 3V battery (with 2 pin leads), but because I can’t be sure of your soldering abilities and there is a potential risk since you are applying heat to a battery, I cannot be held responsible if you damage your game or hurt yourself.
I repeat:I will not be held reliable for any bodily damage or damage that is done to your property.Read the rest of this entry »
I saw this funny pic on Kotaku and after doing some investigative sleuthing, I found out that this was created by Deviant Artist: Elidath who was inspired by the Something Awful, “Dick&Jane” theme projects.
Not totally original, I know. It was a little thing I threw together a few months ago when Something Awful threw together a Dick & Jane theme for their Photoshop Phriday. I felt inspired, so I snatched one of the Dick & Jane scans and did my own page of it.
Sinistar is one of those classic 80’s arcade cabs that had one of the most horrific end boss that still to this day scares the living shit out of me. I’ve been playing Sinistar forever and I always get freaked out by his voice and when I finally came face to face with him, my heart races and panic and my ass was consumed by Sinistar. (ohm nom nom)
Probably still one of the fastest shooters with some of the best squirrelyist controls, Sinistar is probably one of top 10 favorites 80’s arcade machines that I would not actually mind owning. If you have never played Sinister, try a find a copy of Midway’s Greatest Arcade Hits for the Gameboy Advance or perhaps Midway Arcade Treasures for the PS2. If you need to school yourself in the almighty Sinistar then read here for a healthy dose of hilarity.
Just a quick heads up for those few of you who care, but my beloved 360 is currently on its way to sunny Texas where, presumably, it’ll either be fixed or fed the very finest in vein clogging steak and rancheros.
Some highlights!
The guy at UPS recognized the box, the label, the destination in like, 2 seconds flat. His opening line to me was, “These things overheat!” Dare i say I offered him a gentlemans wink? I dare.
I snapped some photos and finally got my intial videos I made so I’ll post those tonite, even though the second take is HORRIBLE because I was leaning back and its all fucking double chin up in thar. I get it, I get it. I cut my hair, I need to lose weight. Lol.
Cussing!
And in five (hopefully) weeks I’ll be sadly looking at the tremendous fucking backlog of stuff I want that will be freaking expensive… or maybe cheap, I dunno, can’t predict that future folks.
