USD

Behind the names of our favorite companies and consoles

by

Gamers speak the names of companies and systems on a daily basis, but many of us don’t know what these words actually mean nor their origin. And so here is a list of many of the biggest companies and consoles and what information is openly known about their names. I speak absolutely no Japanese and have no new information to add to this planet, but I have not seen all this info neatly compiled in one spot before. Thanks to Japanmanship and others who had already done much research on the topic.

Companies


Microsoft – Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems created the microcomputer Altair 8800 and Bill Gates offered to implement BASIC on their system. Micro is either from the Micro in the MITS company name or the micro in microcomputer, or both. Either way, it’s not terribly exciting.


SONY – Despite ads that say otherwise, SONY does not stand for So New York. The name actually derives from the proud language of South America – Latin. →  Monster Reader 4

Geometry Wars (PC) Thoughts

by

Earlier this week, the premier downloadable-content service, Steam, released Bizarre Creations’ Xbox Live Arcade darling, Geometry Wars for all of its PC users. If you’ve never had the chance to play this old-school romp, then I suggest you go now and click the Buy button. For $2.50 (until Friday), you can’t afford NOT to buy it.

Being a fan of the Xbox 360 original, I wanted to give my short impressions. Basically, you get what’s already on the 360 platform. An extremely hard old-school shooter that has an amazing style. Just make sure to bring your extra large balls to this affair, my dear readers. Geo Wars is not for the faint of heart.

But I wanted to focus on something else for this post. In the PC version, the online Leaderboards are not included. Although this is a cool feature that many people will probably miss, I find that I love not having them around.

Basically, it helps me stay away from reality. →  Please sir, can I have some more?

Face it: Gears of War sucked

by

I’m sorry my fellow videolamerians, but I’m gonna be the first one to say that Gears of War was a big disappointment. After going through the game twice, I can safely say I will never play that game ever again. I traded it in, got $20 for it, and picked up Condemned: Criminal Origins with my winnings. And amazing as this may sound, I’m having a far more enjoyable time with C:CO than I ever did with Gears.

I know, it sounds like complete blasphemy what I just said. But let me explain my heresy before you stick that spike up my pooper.

Gears of War seemed to cater to the more hardcore shooter fans, and while I do like those kinds of games, I was hoping to see a little more innovation.

And by that I mean presentation. That game was so full of holes in terms of story and presentation that it made it hard for me to get involved with the universe. →  You fool. Don’t you understand? No one wishes to read on…

Retail Woes

by

In this post, I must air some grievances I have with certain retail companies. Someone call me a waaaaambulance, because I might need it.

– Why does Blockbuster suck so much when it comes to game rentals? Every store I’ve encountered always seems to be cleaned out of its new, and even 2-3 month old releases. It took me a good month or more to find God of War 2, and at a trip to my brother’s home, we couldn’t find any Wii games aside from the absolute dregs of the licensed pit. We couldn’t even try Chicken Little out if we wanted to.

The reason I find their game shortages so odd is that I can always find the same games without trouble at Hollywood Video, and for a few dollars cheaper on the rental. Why one store has such issues when another doesn’t just baffles me (unless Blockbuster has real strong customer loyalty). Normally this means I frequent Hollywood whenever I can, but I still often check at Blockbuster for one important trade off. →  Beyond Read & Evil

Is your ego satisfied?

by

I played DDR this weekend. My first DDR’ing in almost two years. My brother wanted to see me “in action”, the way I was in a darker part of my life, and I had to oblige.

The version was Supernova. New to me, but it all worked the same. Same Playstation-esque graphics. Same annoying announcer. Same high quality pad that still feels kind of innacurate at times.

And an absolute truckload of songs. A few I’ve seen before, many I haven’t. With just three songs at my disposal and an embarrassingly quiet arcade around me, I couldn’t cycle through them all. I don’t think I would have if I had the chance. It is one thing to have a lot of content. It is another to have content you may never actually get around to enjoying. Supernova seemed bloated, massive, and yet hardly different from the very first DDR games.

I got B’s on all the songs, on Medium. We left the arcade and shopped for clothes. →  Just read it.

How the UMD could have won

by

Last week Gamestop had a Memorial Day weekend sale where they sold all their UMD movies for the awesome price of $4.99. And seeing as how I actually own a PSP, I jumped on that one like….well, something that jumps really fast.

For only $50, I got 10, count ’em 10, UMD movies, and all of them are actually worthing of being watched. I’m talking Snatch, The Fifth Element, and one of my all-time personal favorites, Ghostbusters. Now my train rides won’t consist of me reading a book. Phht, like books are ever gonna catch on…

So after having a full week of watching movies on my PSP, I have to say that it’s actually pretty damn cool. The quality of the video, as well as being formatted in a widescreen ratio, makes watching movies on my handheld a very enjoyable experience. I started wondering why I never got into them before.

And then I remembered: the price. These suckers used to retail for almost $30 when they were new, which is $10 more than a standard DVD. →  Contains 10% more consonants than comparable articles.

MMOs: Grinding away my patience

by

Lately, I have been playing Eve Online. For those of you who don’t follow my every move on this website (and for those two of you who do, you’re awesome!), Eve Online is a space based MMO. Unlike other games, the skill training system is based on real-time training, which continues when off-line. Therefore actions in the game: killing spaceships, trading, etc, do not yield experience. So while I have been only tepidly interested in the game, and not playing, my character has been training, basically at the same rate as an active player.

As a result of having a nearly six month old character, I can fly all sorts of awesome ships, which makes the game fun. However, because I haven’t been playing–just training, I have no money–money is only earned from those activities in the game itself. Being a huge hypocrite, I went and bought some in-game money to afford the awesome ship of my choosing and the sweet equipment to pimp my space-ride. →  PaReader the Reader

It’s only fun if I pay for it

by

This holiday I spent some time with my old friend Commodore. Not the patriarch himself, but the sixty third child to bear his name. We did some catching up and despite looking like hell, Commodore is still a lot of fun. But then theres a problem with emulating your friends; they feel cheap.

When I was younger I had to spend my parents hard earned money to buy every single game I owned. Now with the advent of emulation, I download dozens of designers entire careers in a matter of hours. McGruff may be upset that I have turned to a life of crime, but there is a deeper issue than ethics at work here.

I can’t convince myself to spend a significant amount of time with any one emulated game. As soon as I come up against resistance, I do a hard reset and load a new ROM. The reasons for this are obvious yet intimately related: I own practically every C64 game ever made and every C64 game I own cost me the effort of clicking download and enduring the stupid anime porn flashing graphic on the ROM site I use. →  It’s not you, it’s me.

namageM: AB

by

AB2

Christian’s extremely informative review of the Metal Slug Anthology reminds us that sometimes anthologies can wrap in their splendor those thorns that might serve to sully and distort our otherwise wonderful memories of a franchise.

Though Metal Slug Anthology’s load issues, weird menus and interesting controller choices may serve to take the edge off of an otherwise perfect arcade port, there are some cases, indeed some entire franchises, where these issues are not merely — as those that would use the word ‘niggle’ might say — a niggle.

I purchased the Mega Man (Megaman, Rockman, Blue Bomber, etc) 20yr Anniversary Collection for the GC with, literally, a big toothy grin. I have tiny little teeth, and this sort of thing is hard for me — but I did it. Though I had obliterated each and every one of these games on each and every (three, actually) platform, I was absolutely ready to take them all, 1-8, out behind the work shed and show them what’s for. →  Ba da bam ba baa I’m readin’ it.

Review – Metal Slug Anthology

by

Old games don’t stop aging, and when they get old enough anniversaries are certain to pop up. These are great opportunities for everyone in gaming. Publishers get a fantastic excuse for re-releasing old games from dead platforms, and despite what message board all-stars will tell you, gamers can also benefit from these “franchise-milking opportunities”. They give some a chance to play a classic they missed out on, or for an old fan to have an entire series on one neat little disc. Good times all around.

Except it is rarely the case where things work out so squeaky clean. Sometimes a company will take it too far, such as Nintendo’s audacity to charge twenty dollars a pop for NES games that had a 50% chance of being tucked away somewhere in Animal Crossing. Other times you will get a complete surprise; Tekken 5 was a 10th anniversary game, so it happens that the standard disc contains 66% of the franchise’s history on it. →  Hey, hey, hey, it’s time to make some crazy reading!