Awesome stuff you've just bought (+pics please)

[RaidenViper]

Sound Voltex controller.

[system11]

I asked them for Chaos Engine and Speedball 2. Neither are planned, more people need to namedrop those titles when emailing them. I suppose they were only really popular in Europe hence the low number of requests, both are brilliant games with SB2 being one of the best future sports games of all time.

I'll mention Chaos Engine when I email them then, I'm after that too. Speedball 2 is available as NTSCJ already isn't it? Or is that version inferior to the western ones or something?

Speedball 2 was officially released in Japan and is fully in English. I was staring at my copy last night.

Hey thanks, I couldn't find it when I looked last time!

[SuperSoaker360]

Sound Voltex controller.

Hell yeah man! I'm a little confused with the LED changing interface though. I get the sides but how do you change button LEDs?

EDIT: Unless you can't...? Wtf, did they do the wrong LEDs? I hope to god not.

[RaidenViper]

EDIT: Unless you can't...? Wtf, did they do the wrong LEDs? I hope to god not.

I don't think we are supposed to be able to change the LED color... wtf I think they installed wrong color on yours lol

[Bar81]

Speedball 2 was officially released in Japan and is fully in English. I was staring at my copy last night.

Hey thanks, I couldn't find it when I looked last time!

My pleasure, it's a great game, but I still think the Euro cover art is the best by far.

[system11]

Speedball 2 was officially released in Japan and is fully in English. I was staring at my copy last night.

Hey thanks, I couldn't find it when I looked last time!

My pleasure, it's a great game, but I still think the Euro cover art is the best by far.

Agreed, but it doesnt work on my console I have the PAL one knocking around in the garage storage somewhere, along with Chaos Engine and Turrican and the other stuff I can't play.

[Bar81]

Agreed, but it doesnt work on my console I have the PAL one knocking around in the garage storage somewhere, along with Chaos Engine and Turrican and the other stuff I can't play.

Of course it's your collection, but are you sure you want to spend that much money on a fake/repro when the original is cheaper (in the case of Chaos Engine, much cheaper); not to mention that a JP repro of Chaos Engine might never be made. These days you have good options (convertor carts which work great - to my knowledge a ton of them are in the UK - that's where I bought all of mine from, and everdrive) to play games on your MD which would allow you to keep the Euro copies you have right now for the collection.

Besides, imo, the claims that the Genesis/non-JP MD sleeves are a mess is, upon further reflection, not reflective of reality. I was looking at my MD collection earlier today, and it's just as big of a mess. In fact, the only consistent item is the MD logo and even then, the shades of green for the "D" are all over the place and the logo height is not consistent.

Compare US vs JP:

https://app.box.com/s/t62hsupjb2d79bzcy9i2

In any case, good luck with whatever you decide.

P.S. Just for fun, here's a Cannon Fodder right at home in my Genesis collection:

https://app.box.com/s/8jt9bym0blwzwo2s5luj

[Obiwanshinobi]

The less I play games, the more I seem to buy them. That makes me think of winter...




Billy Hatcher appears to be the Belgian print. I wonder what other countries (if any) saw a release (and whether the minigames, originally playable on GBA, are accessible here).

These GB carts look pristine. Data East!



We'll see if The Sword of Hope keeps savestates...

[Ghegs]

The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers book came from a Kickstarter I pledged to over a year ago. Meaty stuff, that'll take a while to get through. There was even an interview with ZUN there that I read through already, it was pretty interesting.

The three Playstation Underground sets were bought because of the Hover Racing game mentioned by PCEFX!. It really is quite awesome. It even has replay saving and ghosts, awesome for something like this. Other than the graphics I think it easily could've been released as-is early in the system's life.

There's also a one-level demo of Einhänder on one of the discs, but I didn't notice anything different on a quick playthrough. But I haven't played Einhänder seriously, so I might've missed something.

[Skykid]

The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers book came from a Kickstarter I pledged to over a year ago. Meaty stuff, that'll take a while to get through. There was even an interview with ZUN there that I read through already, it was pretty interesting.

Ah it's out is it. Interested to hear your thoughts if possible: content, format, writing ability, relevant info etc.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Speaking of capital U, I'm about to install the first Unreal Tournament (I need to play something good for my eyesight).

[Fudoh]

The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers book

nice, I didn't realize that the book was finally out.

Do you know if there's any difference to the regular version of the book available on Amazon (besides the cover - assuming that the Amazon listing shows the actual cover) ?

[slk486]

Same book, except for the cover.

[SuperSoaker360]

I don't think we are supposed to be able to change the LED color... wtf I think they installed wrong color on yours lol

A few emails with Dao later, a complimentary blue LED replacement is on its way. Cheers!

[RaidenViper]

I don't think we are supposed to be able to change the LED color... wtf I think they installed wrong color on yours lol

A few emails with Dao later, a complimentary blue LED replacement is on its way. Cheers!

That's great! funny how they installed wrong color. makes me wonder if they even tested the unit before shipping. For something this expensive, they really should.
I had a few problems on my own too. One of the volume knobs was missing a screw... new one is on its way...

[Skykid]

Same book, except for the cover.

Why is the cover on Amazon so awful compared to Ghegs' book?

[Ghegs]

Because I pledged for the Gold Edition which comes with a different cover (there's also a nice back cover illustration).

Do you know if there's any difference to the regular version of the book available on Amazon (besides the cover - assuming that the Amazon listing shows the actual cover) ?

I believe the content is exactly the same, only the covers differ between some Kickstarter-exclusive ones and the retail one.

Right, the book itself. I haven't read nearly all of the 500+ pages yet, maybe 70 pages or so, and I'm not reading the book in order, but I think I got a general gist of the quality.

It does have a lot of interesting information, anecdotes, tidbits, stories, talk of utterly obscure and unreleased games. In a few cases the developers even explain these games and show the original design documents, which is quite cool. I was surprised to learn that Strider, the name of the game, comes from Lord of the Rings. I learned that Taito actually expressed interest to releasing a Touhou arcade game. There was an interview with a game player who represented a "high scoreler" type of gamer, one who plays games with the sole aim of getting the highest score in a game. I learned of a Japanese TV drama called No Con Kid which is related to such activites, might of interest to anyone here. (I also found English subtitles for that...)

The interviews are presented in a VERY informal way at times, and in the DVD he flat-out admits that he's doing pure gonzo journalism. Fairly often he talks about or translates inconsequential things - like about hot water the group received in a restaurant, prefacing the interview telling how he got wet in the rain and burned his fingers on a stove and other things that happened to him during the trip that have nothing to do with games or the developers, though I'm sure they're fun personal memories to him. So it come across as a personal, a bit amateurish thing rather than a strictly professional book. Not necessarily a bad thing in itself, but something to be aware.

Despite keeping that approach in mind, I do have some problems with the content. Sometimes the interviews come across very disjointed. In the interview with ZUN he starts by talking about his early programming days, and how he used the PC-98, and what he thought of Windows at the time. The questions then go to other topics for a long while. Then, almost at the very end of the interview, there's the question "What kind of challenges did you encounter when shifting from PC-98 to Windows"? Why is it here? Did he just list the questions and answers in order they were asked without any regard to what's around it? It would've made much more sense in the beginning. Yet in some other interviews he acknowledges that the order of the questions has been shifted around, that some interviews were conducted partly in person and partly over e-mails and have been edited together.

Another thing was that many times it's simply stated that words were redacted, and the author even includes himself saying to the interviewee that he'll keep it off the record. I can understand the need to omit some information at the interviewee's request, but why tease the readers this way? Just don't mention it at all.

Third thing...he asked many interviewees to sketch the office layouts of their respective companies, where the rooms were and where specific people were sitting, things like that, and the sketches are included as pictures in the book. For the life of me I can't figure out why somebody would care about 10-30 year old seating arrangements, even if the developer and the company themselves are of interest. Surely the space could've been used for something else in the book? There was a lot left out too, he's planning on releasing a second volume somewhere down the road that has all the interviews that were cut out from this one. And there's a lot of them, after almost every interview there's a page with the pictures of a few more developers who will appear in a later volume.

The pictures are all black 'n white and sometimes it's a bit difficult to see what there is in a picture, especially with screenshots. But I do understand that a full-color release would have been much more expensive to do, probably prohibitively so to something like this. I've only spotted few typos so far, one interviewee was listed as having born in 1872 and Tolkien came out as "Tolkein". My gripes aren't huge deals so I'd definitely say the good outweighs the bad, the book just could have used a tad more editing. And personally I would've enjoyed a more professional approach to it, but your mileage may wary.

Let's end this with a quote from ZUN: "I believe that the play style of danmaku games has a feminine aspect to it."

[chempop]

Let's end this with a quote from ZUN: "I believe that the play style of danmaku games has a feminine aspect to it."

I think vic viper would disagree.

[nasty_wolverine]

Let's end this with a quote from ZUN: "I believe that the play style of danmaku games has a feminine aspect to it."

I think vic viper would disagree.

I think all the manly shmups till the advent of touhou would disagree

edit: even the female pilots in old shmups were manly still were hot though

[Limbrooke]

Because I pledged for the Gold Edition which comes with a different cover (there's also a nice back cover illustration).

Do you know if there's any difference to the regular version of the book available on Amazon (besides the cover - assuming that the Amazon listing shows the actual cover) ?

I believe the content is exactly the same, only the covers differ between some Kickstarter-exclusive ones and the retail one.
[...]

I got my backed copy a week ago and can agree with Ghegs on every major point having read through 1/2 the book thus far.

Code: Select all

- there is interesting content regarding early Japanese computer game development
- the interviews are disjointed and have poor flow, seems to lack any editing for continuity in order to preserve verbatim dialogue
- no clue why sketches of the offices were a prime question, personally "why did you get into computers/games" to me would seem far more appropriate
- agreed on highlighting redacted content, again assuming it's left in the book to maintain "nothing was altered or left out"
- a few typos

Having established that I too agree with Ghegs there is perhaps more good (information) than the bad (formatting) however, the price for this backing, the Silver edition, cost $50 which I'm not too happy with considering my impressions thus far. In hindsight I would not have backed or bought this. Given the cover and not the content is the only thing that changes, I would suggest anyone looking to read/buy this perhaps wait for price drops or get an ebook version. I'm certainly going to adopt the wait and see approach for Vol. 2 since that looks to be a far more interesting set of interviewees. I will voice my thoughts with the author in the hope his next book is improved. I think had the interviews been more organized and edited more articles could have been in this book and still may have been shorter.

[Skykid]

^ Guys, thank you for your feedback. It's as I suspected.

I can't say much but I received pre-release DVD and had to cover it. The article has been held back for 5 weeks due to a VIP journalist having to produce an article that can't conflict in the publishing schedules. It's... Complicated.

However my general feelings about the DVD production sound mostly mirrored in your comments.

[Stealthlurker]

Got some new nobori flag poles that fit much better and a NeoGeo pocket banner flag











The horribly ugly cover from Amazon... wish I did the KS version

[Damocles]

For some reason, those Mario dolls remind me of Chuckie. I think it's the smile.

[RealPlumpBox]

I got a few things recently.

Went to PAX Prime when I got out of work Friday afternoon. Got the CAH Bigger Blacker Box and expansions 3, 4, and 5. Picked up N2O, and Fighters Megamix for 5$ each while at the show. The JP version of Mind= Zero was a fuck up on my part. I got it on Ebay for BIN of 15$ was super ecstatic it was so cheep. Got it in the mail and didn't realize I bought the JP version, NOT the NA one. Oh well I read its pretty linear so I will see what I can do it was only 15$ anyway. (and no the seller said no returns)



Next I had the CAH creators sign my box. Also they were making custom cards for people. They just asked me so questions and ended up with what you see there. They were O.K. but they were doing thousands a day and had to be quick so they cant sit there thinking of really funny and good stuff. I will not add it to the game as its a one of a kind. (not sure why they thought it was a secret. I own all her CDs and her Movie. Maybe its because I am covered in tattoos, have piercings, and am a big dude?)

[Kiken]

Snagged a new DVR unit (a Toshiba DVR620KU). The old Memorex unit had started acting funny (weird encoding errors and not being able to properly display some stuff) so I figured it was worth getting a brand new system. Plus, this is a DVR/VCR combo... so no need for a dedicated VCR anymore (not that we have many videotapes left).

Also, XCOM Enemy Within on PS3.. fantastic expansion to an awesome restructuring of a classic game that happens to be a crappy port... seriously, the PS3 rev runs horribly.. lengthy load times, plenty of frame hiccups, audio issues... an no option to install to harddrive (none that I could find, at any rate). I should have stuck with 360 (I have EU on 360 and it runs beautifully) but I wanted to pad my tiny PS3 library some.

[shmuppyLove]

Backabro sofa bed from the as-is section at Ikea for the new apartment in Ottawa:



It's firm, but comfortable. And now someone can crash at our place if they visit

[drunkninja24]

A few new Saturn pickups

[Astraea FGA Mk. I]

Happy birthday to me.

[Stompp]

Nice little glass with Colone Schwarlitz Longhena Not sure when or where it was available. Would be cool to know if anyone can enlighten me.

[SuperGrafx]

Got some new nobori flag poles that fit much better and a NeoGeo pocket banner flag

"I'm Not Boy"

LOL