shmups.system11.org

Well, this is huge. For the longest time did I crave a PSX arcade stick that is any good (to play the Baraduke port with it first and foremost, but then countless appropriate games on devices I've got trusty adapters for), but an operational PSX arcade stick in this day and age is going to be second-hand, obviously, and a second-hand arcade stick... Long story short, third time's the charm. First game I happened to play with it was Hydorah 1.1 and, ho boy, what a fun way to play that was it. I haven't been this hooked on a shmup for years. Next candidate is either Gradius V, Raiden III or... Psyvariar - Complete Edition -? You get the picture.



Look, does this windshield of Master Chief's refllects the same, orange-brown sky all the time? Why could that be, story-wise? Don't asnwer in detail, I'm just curious if there's any explanation given by the canon writings.
This is my eating humble pie for talking shit about this game (PC port in particular) in my younger, angrier days. Not awful by any means, it's at least serviceable, the port is anyways.



Another haul of supermarket chain store's bargain bin cheap CD finds.



Did both bands alwas have GLAMOROUS album covers. Did you know it was also a girl of a model on Avalon's, under that helmet?

I have that stick. I like it quite a bit. Microswitched too. I made the mistake of trying to use it with Ghouls 'N Ghosts, though. Diagonals make Arthur stop in his tracks. Too bad the game doesn't have an option to turn diagonals off like with the MD port (controls fine with pad, though).

Finally got around to buying these:



Enjoying the games so far. Had to change the locale to JP temporarily to properly install them, but I was able to install all three. ESD was the most stubborn one, though it runs fine with a frame limiter turned off on the comp with G-Sync on a Freesync monitor (actually, it seemed to be running at 60, but detects 143 Hz with V-Sync off). On the laptop with its 144Hz monitor, it initially ran at 1000FPS, but a DX8 to DX9 file did the trick. Nvidia settings didn't seem to have any effect on the game.

I also went a bit Touhou crazy. Bought most of the steam games (so far, out of the steam ones, enjoying Mountain of Faith, Double Spoiler, and Fairy Wars the most) and Phantasmagoria of Flower View off Amazon, as well.

My old Saturn is lost somewhere in Japan and I may never see it again. So I bit the bullet and jumped back in with a new HST-0001, feels good to be back. Ordered two copies of Macross by accident:




More on the way.

Great appreciation of those SMT PS2 games, hella bouncy, maps & dungeons-wise.

That is the craziest PSX arcade stick I've seen

Sega Dreamcast - Mode

I decided to give the TerraOnion Mode a shot in my Dreamcast - the dreamcast on a system I like very much but have always thought it was really noisy . Its nice to play games without hearing all the noisy laser sound . All in all I am happy with it . Its a quick swap to put the working laser back in the system .

Just SMB 1,2J, ball, and a clock (but no alarm), but the d-pad is excellent and game response feels dead on. Buttons are pretty much G&W rubber buttons, which work well and feel true to the original handhelds. Some nice bells and whistles, as well. It also adds the ability to choose from hard and normal modes after beating SMB1.

Looks pretty cute.

I just got Raiden Fighters Aces on the Xbox 360, & it's a great compilation of the Raiden Fighters games. Raiden Fighters 2 was my childhood!! The case was
damaged a bit though, but who cares. I also got Paul Oakenfold's Tranceport and Enigma's The Fall of a Rebel Angel, and both of them are awesome albums.

Black Friday haul:



My friend's a huge SW fan and said Squadrons is good(and has fleet battles!). I only got Spidey for Black Cat action, and Persona 2 is pretty okay I guess.

Picked this up on release day last week. It's good!

The pother day I decided to get some EOS. I believe that in the long run it will bring good profit.

I've bought quite a few kickass 1st press '80s metal vinyls in the last 2 months (maybe I'll list them in another post).

But I gotta say, I damn near had a heart attack when I found this locally for cheap.

Magician Lord OST from Wayo Records.

One of my all-time favorite VGMs!

Beautiful sleeve illustration! That's the best depiction I've seen of Elta, his in-game pic doesn't quite get the insouciant warrior mage thing.

Yeah, the new ML artwork is basically the "I've been practicing this game for two weeks straight" Elta.

While classic ML art is more like the "after ten tries I still can't figure out the stage 1 skeleton pattern derpdy derp" Elta.

I have seen that before I think..

What's it do again?

Multi-console/computer FPGA hardware simulator. Wide range of systems from c64 to NeoGeo. TG-16/PC Engine core FTW! Some cores are better than others, though. Was disappointed that the Centipede core has incorrect colors and doesn't support mouse/trackball. I also like how the system has 1000Hz polling for wired controllers.

Very cool. Enjoy it.

New mouse acquired! Last time I bought a new mouse that wasn't just a small cheap one for a laptop/netbook was in Japan, summer of 2007. Now I finally have a scroll wheel that works again and a left mouse button that isn't super fucky.

Cuisinart Digital Airfryer (Christmas Gift):



Airfryer is marketing speak for convection oven, and I've been wanting a convection oven for years because for many items it's that missing difference between restaurant-quality and home-oven-quality.

I just took it through an un-glamorous maiden voyage with a box of Annie's pizza rolls on the frozen food setting. Night and day difference from the oven, they didn't come out limp and moist, they were crisp, the flavor was superior, and it took way less time.

Damn, that thing looks perfect for soldering SMD components.

Picked up one of those single-player Pandora Box things. Actually pleasantly surprised, I'd heard a bunch of horror stories, but the stick and buttons are actually really nice (certainly on par with the Neo ASP I own), and although the game list is filled with a bunch of duplicates, there's still a good 1000+ titles. Handy for test-driving any future AA releases.

My Astro City mini also landed, though I'm somewhat bummed to find out it only works with the dedicated pad. The on-controls are actually decent-ish, but for huge hands like mine it's still pretty cramped. Death Adder seems nice though.

Not entirely accurate, it also works with the Megadrive Mini controller IF it's the six-button one. Some Youtube video said it worked with their JP Mini's controller, and I just tested my Asian-version Mini's controller which also works.

Now that we're on topic, one thing I really appreciate about the Astro City Mini was that the devs had the foresight to map autofire on one of the extra buttons on the controller, on the games where it makes sense with the button that makes sense. Good stuff. I'm still going through the games and just messing around to see which ones I want to dedicate more time to.

Ah, my MD is the UK version, tried it just in case but no go. Shame. Gonne be an expensive toy by the time I pick up the pad, but I need Rad Mobile and Death Adder on the TV.

My old phone was acting up, so I got a Moto G8 Power. Nothing super high-end, but very good for the price.

It is lovely. I can't get enough of these job site radios & boomboxes yet. Been doing some serious boomboxin' with them on Saturdays & nightshifts at work lately.



Couldn't be bothered unboxing it for nearly two months, and since unboxed, I've used it almost exclusively as a portable radio. Watched an anime opening on YouTube earlier on using it for the sake of trying it out, and that was my deal's worth of smartphonisation so far. The very idea of taking internet with me everywhere I go - freakin' bizarre, to me. Internet as I know it is not THAT interesting anymore.










This is the first time I find CDs released in a cardboard sleeve scratched (very mildly, I have to admit, but for a fully priced item - it is a disappointment). It seems A.D. 2001 they still had yet to discover the optimal shape of those sleeves, or had yet to instruct their workforce how to handle them properly (I can do better, so the sleeve stays as a container in my collection). I can't overstate how much safer buys cardboard-packaged optical disks typically are, these days.

I like how you can pause a gaming session of SMB1 or SMB2 & power it down for the night. Upon powering it back up, you can resume where you last off. How cool is that? Plus if you don't touch the controls for a specified time, the G&W handheld will turn itself off to conserve the internal 3.7v lipo battery. Pretty slick piece of portable gaming handheld tech indeed.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~