posts by jay
jay

Tuesdays (Wednesdays) with Morrie (Andrew)

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My elderly (42) friend Morrie (Andrew) is dying (he is not) of cancer (massive hemorrhoids). Understandably, he (probably) came to me and said, “I cannot imagine the regret of leaving this world without becoming familiar with Sega’s legendary Saturn console.” I pointed out that the shame his family would endure would force them to leave the state because I don’t think he was fully considering the precariousness of his position. 

Luckily for Morrie (Andew), I am a very generous person living with some woman, three children, and an inordinate amount of free time. “Honey, the only time this man plays Saturn, let alone Sega CD Make My Video games, is when I invite him over promising to watch a movie he really wants to see and then forcing him to instead play old console games,” I considered saying. →  Readout 3: Takedown

Wasting time reading old magazines

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The Video Game History Foundation’s online archive of old magazines is now my favorite thing. Instead of spending all day at work refreshing a message board to see if any newly announced games remind me of old games, I just look at coverage of old games. Sure, the site fails to load the magazine you tried to view about 75% of the time If you get to it by searching for a specific game, but I’m not busy. And if you just progress by issues through a specific magazine, the site is mildly usable.

There are other magazine preservation websites and even archive.org keeps some in their archivedotorg. But that goes to show the power of PR. Not good PR because Frank Cifaldi comes across as someone who dislikes old games and people who like old games, but PR nonetheless. →  Readout 3: Takedown

20 Lame Years

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Like A Less Successful, Worse Insert Credit

videolamer is 20 years old. It has only been active for 8 of those years, but if productivity were the criteria for age I would be 11 and not 43. Celebrate with us by playing a round of Chu Chu Rocket and reading the garbage I wrote below.

Since our inception, we have received rave reviews from within and without the video game and industrial cleaning supply industries. Here are just some of the things people have been saying about videolamer:

“One of my top 100 favorite sites right now. [May, 2008]” – Max from gamelemon

“Where are the videos?” – my son

“I can’t read.” – my daughter

“Me pooped.” – a different my son

“The only meaningful thing I’ve ever done.”

 →  Fine, but this article then no more.

Top 10 2002 PS2 Games Starting With D if Your Name is Steven Carlson

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  1. Drakan: The Ancients’ Gates
  2. Dual Hearts
Animals with two hearts don’t usually survive birth.
  1. Dynasty Tactics
  2. Disaster Report
  3. Disney Golf
After being warned by club management for a third time, Donald angrily covers his genitals with a hat.
  1. Dino Stalker
  2. Dynasty Warriors 3: Xtreme Legends
  3. Disney’s Treasure Planet
There is a chance this is an image from Treasure Planet, but no one knows.
  1. Drome Racers
  2. Dark Cloud 2

Switch 2 Technical Review – Shocking frame rates exposed!

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Currently playing: Foretales

I haven’t been following the news for some time because what you don’t know can’t hurt you, like the origin of this blood I’ve been coughing up for three months. If ICE comes to send me back to Africa, where I have on good authority all humanity is from, I can let them know I haven’t been following their activity and they will let me go because clandestine police forces with vague accountability are anything but unreasonable. At least that was my experience during my brief internship for Pinochet.

But news of the Switch Deux did somehow make it past the spoons and forks guarding my cave, and like any caveman, I am wowed by shiny things. Yes, I immediately bought the console after deciding I wasn’t going to buy it and ignoring the preorder period while judging the marks who wanted to buy an expensive piece of hardware sight unseen. →  2 h4rdc0r3 4 U.

To Play or Not to Play Diablo 2

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I have played a lot of Diablo 2 but for unknown reasons, I can’t stop thinking about the rerelease. In an effort to convince myself not to get it I have outlined a list of arguments and then, in completely self-defeating fashion, counter arguments, aka reasons why I should just get the damn game.

Why I shouldn’t play Diablo 2: It’s old

Diablo 3 is a better game and makes its predecessor feel dated and less awesome.

Why that argument doesn’t hold up: I didn’t like 3

Pretending for a minute I don’t routinely enjoy older games, I can entertain this position specifically aimed at Diablo style click-heavy ARPGs. OK, I am done entertaining. I played Diablo 3 close to launch and did not have a great time. →  OutRun 2006: Post to Post

Waiting for Arc the Lad – PlayStation RPG Memories

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Currently playing: The Sexy Brutale

In the early months of 1995 my friends and I poured over every drop of PlayStation information we came across, whether it be a magazine ad with Polygon Man telling us the system was more powerful than god, Sony suggesting we were UR NOT E, or the giant cardboard cutout of whip wielding Sofia at the local Palmer Video that still managed to be half an hour away. The older consoles were looking less appealing by the day (thanks, Vectorman), especially when compared to generation-defining beauty such as the widely advertised Battle Arena Toshinden (Sofia wore leather, you see, which really pops when rendered in cardboard).

By the midpoint of the 90s my friends and I were all 13 and desired a higher caliber of digital entertainment regardless of platform – the RPG. →  NiGHTS into REaDS

The Quest to Make Everything Playable

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I have been on a long, expensive, two pronged quest to (1) make all games playable with original hardware (2) on my modern television. The two huge caveats are that it may all stop working at some point when the HDMI standard is replaced by something good, and “all games” actually means a lot of games, not “all games” as you would reasonably infer by my choice of the words “all games.” I covered some of my journey setting up old consoles for my OLED months back, so it is time to discuss the game portion. I will spoil it for you now – the answer is piracy.

Just joking, obviously I have cartridges and CD/DVDs for anything I have in ROM or ISO form because I deeply respect copyright law. →  But the future refused to change.

Maximum Spoilage: Inscryption Loses its Edge

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Currently playing: Vampire Survivors

The Maximum Spoilage series of writings is focused on discussing aspects of a game that would spoil said game to any normal person. Please continue reading at your own riskryption.

Inscryption is a great game that perhaps begins with more greatness than it ends. If you have any interest in playing, and you should, I would really not read this. Anyway, after being forced to “Continue” a game from the top menu when you start the game for the first time, you realize your character is playing a card-based board game under some duress. The game is legitimately unsettling when it dawns on you that you’re a prisoner and the in-game game you are playing likely has mortal consequences. The Frog Fractions-esque ability to step away from the board game – where you play the in-game board game – and examine your gloomy confines, all while your captor remains invisible sans his eyes, lends the game an ambiance of true horror. →  I got served!

Thoughts on Wasteland 3 from Quarantine

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As I sit here in the few hours of peace I will have today, and maybe this week, I must consider how best to populate this site with content. Some goober in my kids’ day care was diagnosed with COVID last week, and in what I would consider an abundance of caution (and I am generally for more money spent, more masking, more testing, more boosters, more lockdowns, and more bleach drinking) the school has closed for the week. So we have 10 days without day care despite the kids not being sick (after copious testing, at least). Anyway, life sucks at the moment but here are some thoughts on Wasteland 3.

CRPGs

I really like this genre. Why do I play other games between finishing every good PC RPG? →  Article Kombat