tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57439189221732922652024-03-14T03:34:52.443-05:00MadPlanet's GameroomArcade games, MAME, PS3, XBOX 360, Wii, Retrogaming - pretty much just pointless blather about whatever I'm playing at the moment.MadPlanethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06725908232972984690noreply@blogger.comBlogger179125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743918922173292265.post-46329107913245077672013-11-24T21:40:00.003-06:002013-11-24T21:40:47.393-06:00Football on the Atari VCSI played some old Atari 2600 games over the weekend and so was inspired to jot down a little post about it. I was once again struck by how much fun this ancient system of my youth can still be when played with an opponent. Yeah the solo play on an old-school Atari is still fun in short bursts too, but two-player head-to-head competition is where it really shines. And a few Founders Centennial IPAs down the gullet certainly didn't hurt any.<br />
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We played several oldies - including Bowling, Surround, Slot Racers, Combat (possibly my all-time favorite Atari game) and one that I recall playing with my little brother - Football.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-NT62l1HPKkHKwsM0syLsCpGn9-IuZ-oMwfrakt3X7DFMk5K26cWCMuVgoeGjSl4MzxuZqiZ6end-ig2SAhLcpbnJXo27KKppFkoGcEtZx2eaGfhablyfx_4VRd6_GNXKqs5mEPex4lk/s1600/AtariVCSFootballBox.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-NT62l1HPKkHKwsM0syLsCpGn9-IuZ-oMwfrakt3X7DFMk5K26cWCMuVgoeGjSl4MzxuZqiZ6end-ig2SAhLcpbnJXo27KKppFkoGcEtZx2eaGfhablyfx_4VRd6_GNXKqs5mEPex4lk/s400/AtariVCSFootballBox.jpg" width="290" /></a>
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Atari Football came out in 1978 and for you youngsters out there (i.e. anyone younger than 40 - God I'm getting old) the graphics will appear quite archaic, but you have to remember that just 1 year earlier when you looked at the screen of the cutting edge football game on the market you saw this:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRWZv2uKV_Vi4Se1IESL0i9DDcJL-NUdf4iJMF9jHZ5TcQ6F5rfJvmholI3gIKfsHiwdM1MS_CyGcc-hZMlTcFFoPdCZgriGd3fdYRASfX_nNO6xGqyrwPk8J1Tct8Xa_N3wI3A34ByEA/s1600/MattelFootb+allScreen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRWZv2uKV_Vi4Se1IESL0i9DDcJL-NUdf4iJMF9jHZ5TcQ6F5rfJvmholI3gIKfsHiwdM1MS_CyGcc-hZMlTcFFoPdCZgriGd3fdYRASfX_nNO6xGqyrwPk8J1Tct8Xa_N3wI3A34ByEA/s400/MattelFootb+allScreen.jpg" width="400" /></a>
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So give it a break already.<br />
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I didn't realize it until I started writing this, but Football for the Atari Video Computer System (pre-2600 days) was designed by Bob Whitehead while he was still with Atari. Whitehead also designed several other personal favorites after co-founding Activision like Chopper Command and Stampede as well as two of my favorite sports games on the Commodore 64 - 4th and Inches and Hardball. So I'm a fan of his work.<br />
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Here is an advertisement for Football from a 1978 games catalog.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMCKWga1NKCFHwzqYbi7nQYlAG9thFXIG5H3NZ_zKU4us0Kj62MJSuuLlBiUN9KAAfaOc7VhGxUuZWQZRGGCFMC9l8sSEuhxpGOAgXHJiTvJrvV7exQclDmutctUqyunC8jlznYEk8tfM/s1600/AtariFootball+GamesCatalogue.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMCKWga1NKCFHwzqYbi7nQYlAG9thFXIG5H3NZ_zKU4us0Kj62MJSuuLlBiUN9KAAfaOc7VhGxUuZWQZRGGCFMC9l8sSEuhxpGOAgXHJiTvJrvV7exQclDmutctUqyunC8jlznYEk8tfM/s1600/AtariFootball+GamesCatalogue.jpg" /></a>
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I can only assume this odd picture represents some sort of play action pass in the making - maybe a fake reverse. This ad came out before the game was actually published so I'll grant them some leeway, but either they were intentionally exaggerating the technical capabilities of the game or else they couldn't quite figure out how to make everything work because some of the bold claims proved to be false. "Bewilder the defense with a razzle-dazzle double-reverse." "Break tackles on your way to a 90-yard open field gallop". "You're up against cunning opponents, time limits, and crazy bounces.". OK let's take these in order. 1) There is no way to actually run a razzle-dazzle double-reverse - or even a single reverse for that matter. You can call a running play if you want and reverse the direction in which you are currently running - that's it. 2) There is no breaking tackles whatsoever. Whitehead DID implement that nifty little feature 8 years later on 4th and Inches on the C64 but not here. In Atari Football once any defender touches even one loose thread of your jersey you collapse to the turf like a Matrixian Sentinel after an EMP burst. 3) There is a time limit, and I suppose you could even call your opponents cunning if you like, but there are absolutely no crazy bounces. If you touch the ball you catch the ball. If you don't you miss it. No fumbles or kickoffs or deflected passes or anything else like that that might constitute a bounce, crazy or otherwise.<br />
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But even with those broken advertising promises - this little game remains a gem.<br />
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There are 3 variations in the game but honestly I don't think I have ever even played any of them except number one. Just like with <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSxJoPJFxOg" target="_blank">cock pushups</a> - one is all you need. Before each snap you move your joystick to call your "play". I put the word in quotation marks because which play you choose is more or less meaningless - just basically tells your 3 lineman which general direction to move, but nevertheless there are 5 different plays on defense and 4 on offense plus the option to punt if it's 4th and long. But your chances of scoring on any given play are so good that I completely ignore the punt option. OK, I forgot about the punt option. But if I'd remembered it I'm certain I would have ignored it. Once you snap the ball you can either run it for a running play or hit the button and throw a pass. You really have to step carefully if you run the ball because one touch drops you immediately. But if you choose to pass - in a delightfully retro thumb in the eye of realism - you can remote control the pass after it leaves your hands. So you are able to move it left and right as needed to thread it between defenders. Yeah!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxJ8IGSk91IQbFqinsLFSWgkGSarXBUgkDwkrtlVQypm9vIvmcRD9EWr5iwfzcOpHKo4_Zm8Sl9RH_AK8GUbVxaz_3hjH28GurIe9BI-B2HtV7eEsKYOIIhimjCA5oV_mRKLl7BoCoFH4/s1600/Atari+Football+Screenshot.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxJ8IGSk91IQbFqinsLFSWgkGSarXBUgkDwkrtlVQypm9vIvmcRD9EWr5iwfzcOpHKo4_Zm8Sl9RH_AK8GUbVxaz_3hjH28GurIe9BI-B2HtV7eEsKYOIIhimjCA5oV_mRKLl7BoCoFH4/s400/Atari+Football+Screenshot.png" width="400" /></a>
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Now admittedly I had played this game as a child much more than my opponent Pungent Onion, so I probably had a bit of an unfair advantage, as evidenced by the final score of 154-35 or so. But even with the lopsided score this old game remained great fun. For me anyway. And Pungent acted like he was enjoying it too I think. And as high-powered as the offense was, it was the defense that really put us over the top. Interception after interception returned for 7 points. A touchdown scores 7 points automatically - there are no extra points or field goals. But you CAN score a safety if you are able to tackle your opponent in his own end zone - alas, I was unable to spread that icing on the football cake. And one more feature - the game indicates the first-down marker with a line across the field - same as television broadcasts do digitally, but first downs are not all that plentiful as more often than not if you make it past the first down marker you are likely well on your way to taking it to the house for 7. But still it is a nice little addition. One thing I wish they had been able to add would be the ability to speed up your players by rapidly tapping the fire button a-la Track & Field. Here everyone runs at exactly the same speed so once you get past the defense it's off to the races.<br />
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The graphics are admittedly weak - your blocky football players look like dumpy versions of the Berzerk robots. And the sound effects are pretty shaky too but you know, the 2600 games weren't exactly known for their kick-ass sound, especially in the early years of the system. Some white noise static for crowd noise, a beep for completions and a simple little bleep bloop song for a score. Geez the more I write and look at the picture I don't feel like I'm doing the game justice. I guess this is just a game you have to play to appreciate. But it is literally unplayable as a 1-player game so you gotta have a friend to play.<br />
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So if you are looking for a completely intuitive almost-as-old-as-it-gets-old-school football game that is perfect for playing while drinking beer and producing minimal brain wave activity then Atari Football is the game for you. Not at the absolute top of my Atari 2600 favorites list, but it's on up there.<br />
<br />MadPlanethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06725908232972984690noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743918922173292265.post-41707882787741021112013-08-19T20:49:00.000-05:002013-08-19T20:49:17.504-05:00Gaming on $2 or Less - Crimson Skies: High Road to RevengeHappy National Aviation Day everyone! That's right, it's a real day, Google it! And seeing how today is Aviation Day and coincidentally I've been watching reruns of the old TV series Wings lately (one of my all-time favorite sitcoms) - I thought it was only fitting that I jot down a few words about the old XBOX game I've also recently discovered - Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge - released in October 2003 by FASA Interactive. I picked this one up CIB on eBay for $1.04 shipped.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsWKktI20TxnDC3_i8rZVncoK-MUv68a9L5l2sQKs4wyL0KUu87F-oRk5EZYiEzc72HB4GmQ8Y6zI4ApLuEfz3Mi8ZMrS-aXHQ3O5MnjHRpwvPfvM4-di-gfHTRHsds-2O9XUr7AvjBA0/s1600/Crimson+Skies+box.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsWKktI20TxnDC3_i8rZVncoK-MUv68a9L5l2sQKs4wyL0KUu87F-oRk5EZYiEzc72HB4GmQ8Y6zI4ApLuEfz3Mi8ZMrS-aXHQ3O5MnjHRpwvPfvM4-di-gfHTRHsds-2O9XUr7AvjBA0/s400/Crimson+Skies+box.jpg" width="280" /></a>
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The game takes place in 1937 in an alternate history North America where the Great Depression, prohibition, and regional fighting have fractured the land into a number of State-Nations that have closed their borders to outsiders. The transcontinental railroad and the new highway system have now become largely useless and this has forced people to embrace an aviation-based lifestyle - and with so much commerce taking place in the air sky piracy is a common occurrence. The speculative leap from post-war depression to sky pirates might seem a little far-fetched, but I remember an episode of the Twilight Zone where a scientist traveled back in time and accidentally stepped on a prehistoric butterfly, which somehow lead to the Nazis conquering the world. So anyway, the takeaway message here is don't try too hard to understand the timestream, just go with the flow, because time can really hit you with some unexpected shit.<br />
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Here's the trailer.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/QDXoz_Gz1us?rel=0" width="420"></iframe>
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And I tracked down a TV spot as well...<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/CeQQg6Z25QA?rel=0" width="420"></iframe><br />
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I was always more of a Sony guy than a Microsoft guy so I'd never heard of this game before I bought it, but apparently it is fairly well-known in Xbox circles. Microsoft maintains a website for the game at <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/games/crimsonskies/default.aspx">http://www.microsoft.com/games/crimsonskies/default.aspx</a> which offers a considerable amount of backstory information including a rather lengthy description of the fictional timeline from 1920-1937 by Prof. Warren Gilmont, Harvard University (1938). Over at <a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3855/crimson-skies" target="_blank">BoardGameGeek</a> I also learned that the game was actually originally released in 1998 as a tabletop RPG game. Later in 2000 it was released as a video game for the PC, and then the improved Xbox version was released in 2003 which is the only version I've personally seen.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrN-ogrLvorXx7-msw-3j3Vfz5VIyiESxNMKx1KI9Jmi20tZeG110mre0nAEa9boYjzWPA63wyFMVtZrY_hhxPfVazv4krO5YRdWXHtuT90OhD-56LsujRai7CtYg7ODXvxkJsJAY9s00/s1600/Crimson+Skies+Board+Game.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="321" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrN-ogrLvorXx7-msw-3j3Vfz5VIyiESxNMKx1KI9Jmi20tZeG110mre0nAEa9boYjzWPA63wyFMVtZrY_hhxPfVazv4krO5YRdWXHtuT90OhD-56LsujRai7CtYg7ODXvxkJsJAY9s00/s400/Crimson+Skies+Board+Game.jpg" width="400" /></a>
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<b>STORY</b><br />
Like I mentioned, this is an alternate history 1939 where experimental planes and zeppelins fill the air and intrigue abounds. You play as Nathan Zachary, the leader of the group of high flying adventurers known as the Fortune Hunters. Nathan is a ladies man, a charmer, a bit of a scoundrel, and a crack pilot. Early on in the game Nathan's friend, Dr. Fassenbiender, is killed by an evil German scientist in an effort to steal the doctor's secret plans to build a wind turbine machine capable of creating storms, but unbeknownst to the villain, doctor Fassenbiender had already given the plans to Nathan for safekeeping. And thus begins Nathan's quest across exotic lands to find the doctor's killer and bring him to justice!<br />
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The story plays out very much like the old pulp serials of the late 30's which I've always enjoyed. And I've always had a soft spot for aviation-based shows in particular. Has anyone ever seen the old TV show Tales of the Golden Monkey? I remember really liking that show back in the early 80's but it only lasted one season so I may have been the only one. I also used to love Baa Baa Black Sheep (still one of my favorite TV intro sequences). I even watched a little Duck Tales cartoon although I was older by the time it came on and it wasn't a huge favorite. Crimson Skies has the same feel to it as those shows. It's kind of like Indiana Jones in the sky - now who wouldn't like that?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8mY_ClCGpLC7v8lxjsLA05fnoGZEes3xRZ8778Sd-u_KnRbg8eG4xs1YohR5z-bCeF123fUP1Jt5R89oieoTCaVk9ZuciB3Ydy0-2jBDCaHThqmgShu18lYfhpDG7BiH6NwHsoWREDBc/s1600/Crimson+Skies+Poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="452" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8mY_ClCGpLC7v8lxjsLA05fnoGZEes3xRZ8778Sd-u_KnRbg8eG4xs1YohR5z-bCeF123fUP1Jt5R89oieoTCaVk9ZuciB3Ydy0-2jBDCaHThqmgShu18lYfhpDG7BiH6NwHsoWREDBc/s640/Crimson+Skies+Poster.jpg" width="640" /></a>
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<b>GAMEPLAY</b><br />
The game is somewhat open-world with primarily flight-based action. There are core missions that drive the linear narrative, but there are various diversionary tasks available too as you fly around and explore the world. Yes, there is no shortage of enemy dogfights, but there are also a number of other sequences such as anti-aircraft set pieces, strafing runs against enemy naval ships, boss battles against zeppelins and giant mechanical caterpillars, air races, hidden trophies you can pick up, etc. - quite a few different twists to keep the main dish of plane-based combat fresh. Plus, there is an RPG element as well in that you can acquire different planes as you go along along with money and upgrade tokens which you can use to upgrade the planes to higher levels of aerial deadliness. I'm a little disappointed in the upgrade mechanic though - it seems like it takes too long for me to be able to upgrade and also it is a simple click of a button to OK you're upgraded. It would have grabbed me more if the upgrades were more frequent (they could be smaller increments) and if it would allow me to spend upgrades on different facets of the plane such as speed, maneuverability, main guns, secondary guns, etc. but still, it is a nice addition.<br />
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The controls are very smooth and familiar if you have ever played any flight-combat games at all. It took me a little while to get the hang of it (because I suck at flying games) but before too long I was flying through those canyons like nobody's business.<br />
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In addition to the one-player campaign you can also play multiplayer which from what I'm told is where this game really shined back in the day. I say shined because you can't play it online via Xbox Live anymore so that part of it is dead. But you can still play someone locally with split screen, and as a guy that used to play the hell out of the dogfight game in Atari's Combat cartridge, I'm quite interested to try out that split screen action. I have a feeling I'm gonna really enjoy it.<br />
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<b>VISUALS</b><br />
Once again the original Xbox surprised me with some great graphics. The sunset hues in the skies, the wispy clouds, the driving rain on the camera, the detailed faces in the cut scenes, the cool working/moving parts on the planes, the fiery and shrapnel-laden explosions. It was very impressive for a last-gen - heck at this point darn near two-generations old system.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjShplsr6SorPps4lKHKak9yX3Skb0Yt0gh6w_t1PtffADJYQU5iijBo6-CS10xL3eANz7ktl48-WOVlCnMKHThfnyy4xJK9NSDyB6nlLTBHYiiVeh5S4xvr4eg0aZzzKlvdTPe6zJPc_g/s1600/Crimson+Skies+explosion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjShplsr6SorPps4lKHKak9yX3Skb0Yt0gh6w_t1PtffADJYQU5iijBo6-CS10xL3eANz7ktl48-WOVlCnMKHThfnyy4xJK9NSDyB6nlLTBHYiiVeh5S4xvr4eg0aZzzKlvdTPe6zJPc_g/s400/Crimson+Skies+explosion.jpg" width="400" /></a>
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<b>SOUND</b><br />
<b></b>Excellent sound. The sounds effects really help immerse you in the game, from the rushing wind, to the rat-a-tat of your machine guns, to the exceptionally strong musical scores to set the moods - wistful and dreamy in the slow and scenic exploration scenes, fast-paced and hectic during the fights. Apparently the music was even released as a soundtrack.The voice acting is decent but not great - kind of cheesy and formulaic, but it feels consistent in with the universe of the game so it fits fine.<br />
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<b>CONCLUSION</b><br />
I've never been very good, or for that matter very interested, in plane-based games, but this one clicked for me. A good part of it is probably the fictional hook of the Crimson Skies universe, but I found the gameplay surprisingly enjoyable. Quite a bit more than I expected it to be for me personally. There is only so much variation one can instill in a fighter plane game before things tend to get somewhat repetitive, but I think Crimson Skies handles it pretty well all things considered. This games ranks near the top of my rather limited Xbox collection. I give it an 8.9.MadPlanethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06725908232972984690noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743918922173292265.post-10649153103587610702013-06-24T15:16:00.000-05:002013-06-24T15:16:09.477-05:00The Last of Us - a Must-Own for the PS3A few days ago I completed the latest and greatest game from Naughty Dog, the PS3-exclusive The Last of Us. It was just released June 14 and I don't talk about brand new games on here very often, but I'd been looking forward to this one for a long time and it was quite an experience so I felt like putting fingertips to keyboard. I'll try to stay away from any spoilers in case you haven't played it yet but plan to (which I highly recommend).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOcAAcw54J3nxzH7lnFJST_UqcbmFViYOmrEWWl3j7bAQiSCnmJBCoVSKNuc-hkI4DAgqYHf41UlV9X5WET-unc7OYSVYSUDu0stM-THiQcrCQKm3dMjNThMU_AtpO9HRPQcT7Qy3bUSY/s1600/Last+of+Us+PS3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOcAAcw54J3nxzH7lnFJST_UqcbmFViYOmrEWWl3j7bAQiSCnmJBCoVSKNuc-hkI4DAgqYHf41UlV9X5WET-unc7OYSVYSUDu0stM-THiQcrCQKm3dMjNThMU_AtpO9HRPQcT7Qy3bUSY/s400/Last+of+Us+PS3.jpg" width="346" /></a>
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STORY:<br />
In The Last of Us, the world has been overrun by a fungus that infects humans via spores which cause the fungus to grow on the human brain, driving the victims insane. The fungus then spreads throughout the host's body, mutating it as the infection progresses through various stages of severity.<br />
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These infected humans then spread the disease in classic zombie fashion by biting non-infected humans. But this is an infection, not the walking dead, so the good news is that if you die you are off the hook. The game starts with Joel and his daughter Sarah in the Texas hill country as the plague is just beginning, but after a small amount of backstory it quickly fast-forwards 20 years to a point when the resulting pandemic has decimated the population and left roving bands of infecteds and merciless humans in their place.<br />
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You play most of the game as Joel, who in the 20 years since the outbreak has been forced into doing some morally questionable things to survive. Joel now lives in a military-controlled quarantine zone in Boston and the rest of the story revolves around Joel's journey across a post-apocalyptic America with a 14-year old girl Ellie to meet up with a resistance group called the Fireflies.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiU_MsfhyphenhyphenQBaM1JZ8JNggWuZAxUt9Mw5C6bhpRdapnm1I5mrsCL-8f9vkP9Jn9vtK1ahyphenhyphenbOxoUXunkjtBvdNgH3I27TvpsbMMU01np-9EusDWEolo8TLVD74Cw_QrbopcN_YabTUWlheg/s1600/Last+of+Us+Joel+looking+toward+the+bridge.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiU_MsfhyphenhyphenQBaM1JZ8JNggWuZAxUt9Mw5C6bhpRdapnm1I5mrsCL-8f9vkP9Jn9vtK1ahyphenhyphenbOxoUXunkjtBvdNgH3I27TvpsbMMU01np-9EusDWEolo8TLVD74Cw_QrbopcN_YabTUWlheg/s640/Last+of+Us+Joel+looking+toward+the+bridge.png" width="640" /></a>
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I hesitate to give any more details than that for fear of spoilers, but suffice it to say that this is probably the best story I have ever experienced in a video game. As you would expect from the game's premise, it isn't really a feel-good tale - the underlying tone is grim and brutal, but it is emotionally moving. The plot itself doesn't hold anything particularly new in the realm of post-apocalyptic fiction (I've read and seen my share for sure!), but of course the true strength of any tale is the characters, and these are believable and lifelike - I actually cared about them and even gasped when shocking things happened to them. On your journey you meet several other people along the way and even though you have much less time to get to know these supporting characters they seem very fleshed out and believable as well - all leave you with the impression that there is a rich backstory there even if you don't have time to hear it during the game. Oh, and the game utilizes the common game device of finding old diaries, tape recorders, notes, etc which fill you in on a lot of the details of what happened to the various people you find, both living and not-so-much. The quality of the story and the depth and interaction of the characters really made me feel like I was watching a good movie as much as playing a good video game.<br />
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And in the fact is stranger than fiction department, I stumbled across these videos about the Ophiocordyceps unilateralis fungus that act very much like those portrayed in the game. My background is in microbiology and environmental chemistry so that probably boosts the interest level for me, but mostly I just thought they were cool because they were so damn creepy. Check 'em out.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/XuKjBIBBAL8" width="560"></iframe><br />
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GAMEPLAY:<br />
I would describe the gameplay as a stealth-based survival horror third person action game. Didn't realize I was going to use that many words before I started that sentence - is that a genre?<br />
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There are four different stages of the disease which lead to four different types of infecteds that would just love to floss their teeth with your neck tendons.<br />
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Runners - Newly infected who have lost most of their reasoning ability and run around frantically, viciously attacking anyone they find.<br />
Stalkers - The infection has spread so that the fungus has begun to sprout from the person's face but has not completely covered it yet. These infecteds tend to flank and sneak up on their victims instead of mindlessly running about until they find one.<br />
Clickers - The fungus has progressed to cover the infected's face which blinds them, but these infecteds have developed extremely sensitive hearing which allows them use a method of echolocation to "see" via audible clicks.<br />
Bloaters - These infecteds have survived long enough that the fungus has completely covered their entire body. They are slow and lumbering but very strong and their fungal layers provide them with an armor plating of sorts which makes them very difficult to kill.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKjrvBgAuIyfi2-fCqj4O4X_QYosnytBDwzfo1MN52JuAq2tiewL1w7OO5uQuJk12pkzfbgWfzQfXMXXMhAXWr2aG9812Ulyjy90SEuGWMtgWwD_FgSV0I3FXdf_FeD8816vuyBcU5qHw/s1600/Infected+attacking+Joel.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKjrvBgAuIyfi2-fCqj4O4X_QYosnytBDwzfo1MN52JuAq2tiewL1w7OO5uQuJk12pkzfbgWfzQfXMXXMhAXWr2aG9812Ulyjy90SEuGWMtgWwD_FgSV0I3FXdf_FeD8816vuyBcU5qHw/s640/Infected+attacking+Joel.png" width="640" /></a>
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In addition to the infecteds, there is no shortage of crazy-ass brutal human survivors who's hobbies include walking in deserted towns and shooting you in the forehead.<br />
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First and foremost I consider the game survival horror almost by definition given the horrific survival scenario in which you find yourself. Supplies and ammo are scarce so you search them out where you can and conserve them as much as possible. And you also search out tools and mechanical parts which allow you to upgrade and craft your own weapons and health kits once you are able to find a workbench on which to work. I've never been a fan of the search for useless coins and treasure in games but making me search for parts I can use to make things I need to survive fools my mind into thinking it is less of a useless exercise. Shades of Resident Evil, Dead Space, and Fallzone 3 here.<br />
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One other thought on the survival horror aspect - I used to play through my games in the most difficult mode for the sake of the challenge, but after some consideration a while back which I discussed <a href="http://madplanetsgameroom.blogspot.com/2011/03/dead-space-2-and-game-difficulty.html" target="_blank">in a previous post</a>, I have switched to typically choosing the "Normal" difficulty level for my more recent games. But here, for this game so keyed on survival and scarcity of resources, I think the "Hard" mode may have been the better choice (there is also the even more difficult "Survivor" mode). I didn't think that Normal was too easy - it played great and believe me I had my fair share of getting my throat ripped out, it's just that I think the tone of the game may have been a bit more enhanced if ammo and supplies were just a little less available. Of course, with all the bullets your enemies are spraying at you the reality is there should have been be even MORE ammo available for you to grab after you take them down, but reality aside, if I had it to do over again I think I might have preferred to play it on Hard. Right now I'm playing through on Survivor mode, but as much as I like the game I doubt I will finish it again - I'm not much of a trophy whore and I almost never complete a game twice.<br />
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Don't get me wrong though, even on Normal ammo is NOT plentiful. If you just shoot everybody you will run out of bullets very quickly, which is where the stealth component comes into play. You try to avoid confrontations where possible and to conserve ammo you can sneak up on enemies and choke them out or shiv them. To assist in this, Joel can focus his listening which allows you to see enemies through walls as long as they are making at least a little noise. This is pretty much exactly like Batman's Detective Mode sight in the Arkham games, except Joel's ability seemed a bit more realistic where as the enemies get quieter or further away they get fainter and disappear altogether if they are totally silent. I really enjoy this mechanic. This ability isn't available at all on Survivor mode which I suppose is more realistic, but not sure if it is more fun. I found the stealth play suspenseful and fun. Perhaps a bit slow to develop at times, but this felt consistent with the tone of the game so it worked. However, I don't expect it to wear quite as well on subsequent playthroughs. My only minor complaint about the stealth encounters is that the AI seemed a bit weak. Enemies didn't seem to notice me when I was pretty sure they were looking right at me. And they NEVER saw Ellie who stumbled and bumbled her way all over the place literally right in front of them. And somehow the gurgling chokes of the guys I snuck up on did not alert their nearby cohorts or even clickers for that matter. That might be a result of playing it on Normal difficulty though - maybe the enemies are more alert on the more difficult levels. Either way not a big deal just a bit inconsistent with the reality in that universe.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9kjGXfVagZNI8894sCV89AhFyGLUKNSYHwfnxodY3wvstW9hZEiIOsrDhVWEccBvPOYXA8saPCvvnEro6bchKF6l7ls08jjUOFMGDMPk1NQCYHB3GhCokifUQ_3YDrPJPc16LDHoFqw8/s1600/Last+of+Us+Joel+Listen+Mode.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9kjGXfVagZNI8894sCV89AhFyGLUKNSYHwfnxodY3wvstW9hZEiIOsrDhVWEccBvPOYXA8saPCvvnEro6bchKF6l7ls08jjUOFMGDMPk1NQCYHB3GhCokifUQ_3YDrPJPc16LDHoFqw8/s640/Last+of+Us+Joel+Listen+Mode.png" width="640" /></a>
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The action component primarily consists of smooth gunplay and slightly less smooth melee combat that feels pretty much exactly like that in Uncharted. These encounters were broken up by a number of setpiece sequences like when you are doing things like sniping infecteds from a perch as they attack your approaching friends, keeping infecteds from invading all sides of a cabin (a-la zombie mode in the COD games), escaping an armored truck that is firing a heavy machine gun at you, riding a horse throught a forest, etc. There was also a small puzzle component where you had to find ladders, planks and other items like that to get from one point to another. Overall I would say the action encounters were somewhat repetitive but they were so well-done and dispersed throughout the game that it never really felt that way to me at the time.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzb0OfOW4yC_-GjWpqDEPcvgfdsyhjIyRYTYBbkt64vROlm5Pr3r_E3HbQfG2Vs4op4wWQ5F8gSUSSxUgUXFXWtlWumIPW1XQt6LMKlF63HjwJ5RT9j81d9C5c6TiuOGfdKRckI863FNE/s1600/Joel%252C+Ellie+and+Tommy+on+horeseback.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzb0OfOW4yC_-GjWpqDEPcvgfdsyhjIyRYTYBbkt64vROlm5Pr3r_E3HbQfG2Vs4op4wWQ5F8gSUSSxUgUXFXWtlWumIPW1XQt6LMKlF63HjwJ5RT9j81d9C5c6TiuOGfdKRckI863FNE/s640/Joel%252C+Ellie+and+Tommy+on+horeseback.png" width="640" /></a>
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VISUALS<br />
Naughty Dog has consistently made some of the most visually stunning games I've played and this is no exception. The detail in both the urban cityscapes and in the natural landscapes across multiple seasons was just beautiful. And I am always a big fan of the palette of rich colors that they use. Proof that you don't have to paint everything dull gray and brown to make it realistic or to set a grim tone.<br />
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And Naughty Dog is a master of camera work on its games. Their signature cinematic cut scenes not only blurred, but virtually erased the lines between video game and movie here. At one point my wife came in the room and said, "I thought you were playing your game." "I am" I responded. She took another look, "oh, it looked like it was a movie for a minute - very realistic."<br />
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The detail on the characters was equally impressive. The subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) changes in their facial expressions and the detailed mannerisms really added up to make the characters more believable and consequently enhanced the immersive experience.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFMWD1aUb_84iXKNPDcGSUck6o5rh1-tjJJc2YhRPnoe0kLQhgq1eucUzvq69STb9FPvwntc6E3GwtagLEMK4DHKe_vsTGVc0wgTsdGRkjAFvYZODR2FePLGWxNkHAyDff4Xbinj-tyy0/s1600/Ellie.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFMWD1aUb_84iXKNPDcGSUck6o5rh1-tjJJc2YhRPnoe0kLQhgq1eucUzvq69STb9FPvwntc6E3GwtagLEMK4DHKe_vsTGVc0wgTsdGRkjAFvYZODR2FePLGWxNkHAyDff4Xbinj-tyy0/s640/Ellie.png" width="640" /></a>
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I did see a few instances of objects in the distance blinking in, one instance where I found an odd pool of static, and one glitchy part where Ellie was on the back of an invisible bad guy who was trying to shake her loose so she basically looked like she was shaking violently in mid-air. So I guess I can't say it was perfect, but damn near.<br />
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SOUND<br />
First off, the music - it was excellent. The tunes playing during some of the trailers had already piqued my musical interest a bit and the rest of the music in the game just confirmed that I loved it. Hauntingly beautiful during the moving scenes, tense during the firefights, suspenseful and spooky during stealth encounters with infecteds - the music perfectly accentuates every situation. The music was the work of Gustavo Santaolalla who I had not actually heard of before but after looking him up I see he has won a ton of awards for his work in the music industry and the movie industry. And probably soon for the videogame industry as well.<br />
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Does voice acting go under the Sound section? Guess so. The voice acting is superb - especially from the main characters but from ancillary characters as well. Just outstanding. Joel was voiced by Troy Baker who also voiced Booker DeWitt in Bioshock Infinite and Two-Face in Batman Arkham City. I'm not familiar with the work of Ashley Johnson, but she did an excellent job of providing the voice of Ellie. Naughty Dog veteran voice Nolan North (Nathan Drake) even made a voice appearance as David - a character you meet maybe 3/4 the way through the game. And on my second playthrough I've discovered quite a bit of rich dialogue taking place between the environmental characters that I didn't even notice the first time. Some of the dialogue from the numerous nameless thugs you encounter is pretty cliche and can get repetitve just like it did in the Uncharted games but I suppose there are only so many different ways one can pre-record "we're gonna fuckin kill you old man!" so that's understandable I suppose.<br />
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And the sound effects are very realistic, even my dog Chico thinks so - when dogs started barking onscreen he started barking back at them. The environmental and combat sounds work extremely well to enhance the realism - especially if you have a surround sound setup.<br />
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CONCLUSION<br />
So as you can tell I thought the Last of Us was a great game. I hesitate to use the word "fun" to describe it given the overall dark tone, but I found it to be a rewarding and entertaining experience. And despite my frequent use of the word "grim" in this review, there were also a number of very touching moments where more positive human feelings like hope, loyalty and love were on display as well, even if they felt more like the seasoning than the primary ingredients. But good or bad, or I guess I should say good AND bad - that's life. Especially after the world has been destroyed and all the trivial distractions of modern life have been stripped away. I think Keates said it best - just kidding, I just realized that I'm starting to annoy myself by drifting to much into the heavy stuff so I'll stop.<br />
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I'm guessing some people might find the ending somewhat controversial, but to me it was consistent with the narrative and characters set up in the previous 15 or so hours so it felt like a natural conclusion. For that matter it was more or less consistent with my own feelings anyway - so I got no beef with it. Wish I could discuss it here but like I said - no spoilers.<br />
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Also, the game is very linear - which for some ridiculous reason seems to often be immediately interpreted by some gamers these days as a bad thing. Like I said, playing this game felt like watching a good movie or reading a good book, and with the possible exception of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_Your_Own_Adventure" target="_blank">Choose Your Own Adventure </a>books those media are of course quite linear. And to me, all things being equal, linear video games are not only not a bad thing, they are a good thing. So I don't consider that a knock. Just mentioning it for those anti-linearity folks out there. All that being said, the world that is available for you to explore didn't really feel confining to me, so most of the time I was left with the impression that it was an open world that I just didn't have the time or interest to explore - and if the developer can achieve that they have succeeded in my book.<br />
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On my personal ratings list I would give it maybe a 9.6, although as always I reserve the right to change that later. I often find that my long-term opinion of a game in the context of certain systems can change a bit as I ruminate on them after completion, so I might decide I like it a little more or less in a couple of weeks, but for now I would say it goes pretty near the top of my PS3 games list. Not AT the top, but near.MadPlanethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06725908232972984690noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743918922173292265.post-34271451926239995002013-06-19T11:07:00.001-05:002013-06-19T11:07:41.897-05:00Gaming on $2 or Less - Dead Space Downfall"This is deep space... weird shit happens."<br />
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Truer words were never spoken.<br />
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My second post for the new Gaming on $2 or Less feature is not actually a game, but a video based on one. A Blu-ray video to be precise - Dead Space Downfall - which I recently purchased <a href="http://www.frys.com/product/7503646?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG" target="_blank">from Fry's</a> for the paltry sum of only $2 (we'll conveniently ignore the sales tax - dang already breaking my own rules).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQecBFuKN6bgnv9EUFeHD4-6zK9GN83wlJcfmqZFoeaR6SDHELX4u9CPf1tI9Q-eUoW37t29IS7luA_fwHgNsOVdoovWjvjzAY0QVW3HevjEjdTO0X1237yfUd92j5zjctRkTlbr8Bie0/s1600/Dead+Space+Downfall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQecBFuKN6bgnv9EUFeHD4-6zK9GN83wlJcfmqZFoeaR6SDHELX4u9CPf1tI9Q-eUoW37t29IS7luA_fwHgNsOVdoovWjvjzAY0QVW3HevjEjdTO0X1237yfUd92j5zjctRkTlbr8Bie0/s400/Dead+Space+Downfall.jpg" width="312" /></a><br />
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I'll admit, I am a sucker for horror science fiction movies. They don't even have to be particularly good for me to enjoy them. Whether they are universally accepted classics like Alien and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, lower tier thrillers like Event Horizon and Pandorum, or B-grade cult favorites like Galaxy of Terror and Life Force - I have been in love with horror sci-fi flicks for a long long time.<br />
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Dead Space Downfall is a prequel to the first Dead Space game. It details the ordeal of the USG Ishimura leading up to, literally, the moment the story begins in Dead Space the game. The events take place at the same time as those occurring planetside as shown in the prequel game Dead Space Extraction. The chief protagonist of the movie is Ishimura's hard-ass Head of Security Alissa Vincent who does her best to figure out what is going on and try to save the ship's crew - spoiler alert - she does not succeed.<br />
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From the back of the case: "For the crew of the USG Ishimura, this is how the horror begins: On a deep space mining mission to a remote planet, an ancient religious relic - thought to be proof of the existence of God - is unearthed and brought aboard. It is worshipped by some, scorned by others. But when the unholy artifact unleashes a long-dormant alien race, its glimpse of Heaven transforms the ship into a living Hell. The chaos is immediate. The carnage is uncontrollable. And an onslaught unlike anything ever witnessed by mankind has now been set free to rip this world apart. Prepare yourself for the disturbing opening chapters of the new EA game that takes adult animation to graphic new levels of bloodshed and terror. This is <i>DEAD SPACE: DOWNFALL</i>."<br />
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That pretty much says it all. And yes, disturbing, graphic, bloodshed and terror are good words to describe this video. There is a lot of gore in this thing. A LOT.<br />
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Here is the trailer:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/DjA5S3HHvNI" width="560"></iframe>
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Special features include the movie trailer (pretty cool), the game trailer (excellent addition but shaky quality), a deleted scene (draft drawn and a little hard to watch), photo gallery (kinda cool behind the scenes art), "isolated" soundtrack (meh), and supposedly cheat codes although I didn't notice those. You also get a separate DVD with the portable digital copy that you can copy over to your portable devices. I've never really used those from DVD/Blu-ray purchases before but a nice addition anyway.<br />
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The trailer for the movie looked good, but inexplicably the game trailer was not in HD and looked grainy. What?! To a trailer-lover like myself it is a sin for a Blu-ray to include a trailer at lower than HD resolution unless the HD source material does not exist, and I know full well the HD version of that trailer is available because I've downloaded it. So that annoyed me a bit.<br />
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Is the movie good enough to stand on its own merits for people that didn't play the game? Well, no probably not - it seems more geared toward fans of the game. Does the loosely woven plot start to fall apart if you pull too many threads? Yeah kind of, but the same is true of the game and I still loved it. Did they make a mistake by showing the security chief's final video transmission at the very beginning that spilled the beans about what was going to happen? Yeah, I didn't really care for that choice but everybody already knows the Ishimura crew is screwed from the get-go so no biggie. Did... OK OK stop asking me so many questions. It's not Star Wars, but like I said, I'm a sucker for this stuff, so even though the video is a little shaky I still thought it was pretty cool.<br />
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So if, like me, you loved the video game then you would probably enjoy watching this video to see the backstory events unfold. If you have no interest in the game whatsoever then it might not be your cup of tea. And if you are offended and put off by the thought of a violent and gore-filled science fiction animated film, well you are the polar opposite of their target demographic for this thing and you should definitely leave it on the shelf, but then again if you are that guy then you probably already made that assessment for yourself from the title and the dismembered arm on the cover. For me personally, it was definitely worth adding to the gaming/Blu-ray collection for only $2. Oh and it is also available for instant streaming on Netflix.MadPlanethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06725908232972984690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743918922173292265.post-12616935536948011972013-06-15T17:09:00.000-05:002013-06-18T16:18:14.665-05:00Gaming on $2 or Less - Crackdown for the Xbox 360I don't mind paying good money for games or hardware that interest me, but there is something particularly satisfying about finding a used game in a bargain bin for $1.50 and discovering that I really like it. There are very few games I won't try for less than $2 and since I like playing all kinds of games it is not all that uncommon for me to find an unexpected personal gem that way - or at the very least a game that gives me more entertainment value than the mere $1-$2 I put into it.<br />
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Recently I bought a copy of Crackdown for the Xbox 360 complete with the case and manual on eBay for $1.46 with free shipping (I always include the shipping on my $2 or less rule). I was completely unfamiliar with the game, but now that I've played it for several hours I have to say I thoroughly enjoy it!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhebsZKxZx_U49YL_KyTwospCLQGs3tn3YmCxHKSgD3nsgyCB7qGDsDtyMDbRVEWXdF3UCNffzqMddCmZxqu623YThP-sUTf7lvGXm0IED5s3K4GTavpmEZCiRfJ-UJ2rln-DvWtig4BMo/s1600/Crackdown+Xbox+360.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhebsZKxZx_U49YL_KyTwospCLQGs3tn3YmCxHKSgD3nsgyCB7qGDsDtyMDbRVEWXdF3UCNffzqMddCmZxqu623YThP-sUTf7lvGXm0IED5s3K4GTavpmEZCiRfJ-UJ2rln-DvWtig4BMo/s640/Crackdown+Xbox+360.jpg" width="455" /></a>
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Crackdown was developed by Realtime Worlds in 2007, conceptualized by company founder David Jones, the British programmer who created the classic Lemmings back in 1991 and the first two Grand Theft Auto games.<br />
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The back of the case has a pretty good synopsis: "All justice. No Restraints. As a genetically enhanced agent of justice, it's your job to rid the city of crime - by any means necessary. You're the extreme solution to an extreme problem, as you attempt to take out 21 gang bosses and restore order to a sprawling metropolis teeming with lawlessness and strife."<br />
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The narrator puts it even more succinctly to begin the game: "It's all gone to shit!" as back story pictures pan by comic-book style - which fits because this game definitely feels like a comic book. Grittier than Superman or even Batman though. This is an indie comic where you're a juiced-up Judge Dredd type of law keeper and your job is to kill all the bad guys by stomping them to death, throwing them off rooftops, shooting them in the face, running over them in cars, etc. - good wholesome violence like that. And every once in a while the voice of HQ comes on and shows you some video intel on the latest evil-doer you need to hit. It basically feels like a modern-day sandbox version of one my old arcade favorites from Williams - NARC. In fact I wouldn't be surprised to stumble across a crazy clown or some dude flinging giant hypodermic syringes at me. But unlike in NARC, arresting the bad guys is not an option - you just put them in a grave.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEUNBjPHCk4Vuyf59XFlsVxiwscNkEdLG3T4xApGDn5FnVljYO4qnJkJZBj-mcSlMrMJW-gQqG6BtVq2lU3pPdKJq9nzmQlEzu_H4E9ZfIQ0soQkeTOWaA3a16xNbGJyDtc00KNUX9nKA/s1600/Narc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEUNBjPHCk4Vuyf59XFlsVxiwscNkEdLG3T4xApGDn5FnVljYO4qnJkJZBj-mcSlMrMJW-gQqG6BtVq2lU3pPdKJq9nzmQlEzu_H4E9ZfIQ0soQkeTOWaA3a16xNbGJyDtc00KNUX9nKA/s640/Narc.jpg" width="640" /></a>
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The game begins in the garage of the Agency Keep. You go pick out which vehicle you want to take out into the crime-ridden city - a sporty supercar that drives under other cars and scoops them out of the way, a larger Hummer all-terrain vehicle that drives over cars and obstacles, or a big Mac truck that just piles through them. Once you get out into the city you can also jump into any other vehicle you see out there and if you return it to the agency garage it adds it to your inventory of usable vehicles when you respawn.<br />
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In addition to tons of vehicles you can also use all kinds of weapons, including those you pry from the cold dead hands of the criminals. And like the cars, if you check in captured weapons at one of various supply points throughout the city it adds them to you usable inventory. You have to reclaim the supply points from the gang members first but after that they provide a port in the city where you can refit with different weapons and reload all your ammo. You can jump all over the place, climb up everything, lift and throw everything (assuming you've built up enough strength), shoot, stomp, kick, grenade, swim - it is basically the fun open-world experience that I expected from Grand Theft Auto IV before I played that and found it utterly boring. There are also lots of little add-on challenges like races, stunts, and collecting orbs. The game actually reminded me quite a bit of the PS3 game Infamous which I played a couple of years back, but then I realized that even though I played Infamous first, it was actually released a couple of years after Crackdown. So it seems like several of the things I liked about Infamous may have actually been inspired by Crackdown.<br />
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Graphics are bright and stylized - look almost Dreamcastish to me - which I like. This game is a big comic book and isn't going for realism so hyper realistic COD graphics would have been out of place.<br />
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The auto-aim on the shooting is intuitive and easy to use, although the melee combat is less so - several times I stood there doing roundhouse kicks in the air 2 feet in front of a guy while he sprayed me with both bullets and profanity.<br />
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The trailer shows off a few of your moves as clean the scum off the streets of Pacific City.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6f8f7GGftoQ" width="560"></iframe>
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There is an RPG component as well as your skill ratings are tracked on-screen for 5 abilities - Agility, Driving, Explosives, Strength and Firearms. You get points for using each of these skills and when you attain enough points you level up for that particular skill. So the more heavy stuff you pick up, the heavier stuff you CAN pick up, etc. And there is something particularly satisfying about picking up up a big car with a couple of thugs in it and hurling it over a bridge into the water. Or just punching a car into a metal pulp a-la Street Fighter 2 for that matter.<br />
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As far as the story goes, Crackdown is not going to make you think and feel and empathize with the characters or any of that mushy stuff. It is pretty much just one long cliche-filled series of explosions. So if you are looking for an emotionally-moving tale well, move on to something else. But if you, like me, just finished a game with a more complex narrative and character development and were looking for some nice cheap fun to swish around and cleanse the palate before the next big game well for me this was it.<br />
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The primary gameplay is pretty repetitive so it does start to get a little old after a while. So I can't say that I see myself actually hanging in there long enough to kill off all the gangs and kingpins to complete the game, but I found the gameplay, even repetitive as it is, so addictive that every time I turn it on I still quite enjoy it. Also co-op play and a few other options are available to extend replay value as well. I'm not sure how many hours I've put into this so far, but I've definitely gotten my money's worth. Rating-wise - for me I think I'd give Crackdown like an 8.4 or so. Not bad for a game I had assumed would be closer to a 7 when I bought it. Hell I liked it so much I might have to go check out Crackdown 2 now. I know one thing - if I find Crackdown 2 for $2 or less like I did the first one I'm definitely getting it.MadPlanethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06725908232972984690noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743918922173292265.post-65469178873176891972013-06-07T16:05:00.002-05:002013-06-07T16:05:42.401-05:00Excavation of Buried Atari E.T. Cartridges in New Mexico ApprovedAny retrogamer worth his salt, or just older gamer in general (like me) for that matter, has heard the tale of how Atari, dismayed at the tremendous amount of E.T. games that were returned for a refund, sent truckloads of them into a New Mexico desert to be dumped and buried in a landfill back in 1983. Many people have alluded to this event when discussing this historically bad game that supposedly had such a pivotal role in the so-called video game crash of 1983. Well, I think the impact of that game's failure on spiraling console game sales at the time has been significantly exaggerated over the years, but it sure as hell didn't help matters. And I'd like to be the contrarian who says that E.T. was actually an underrated game, but I played it back then and even still own my original cart today and I gotta say - it's a shit game just like everybody says.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG3B3adn9uv8mZ6aJzozW4-KFlIjG6cEuavpfaN16CK-Cvzy_3YkkTZYKCyFxsf9IVCjjzBjb-bNiSnDFycO1ExwL5AuX8a7FHXw5WflobNiLSirv_T4x8IB_6suad9khrZj9x8oof8IE/s1600/Atari+2600+E.T..jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG3B3adn9uv8mZ6aJzozW4-KFlIjG6cEuavpfaN16CK-Cvzy_3YkkTZYKCyFxsf9IVCjjzBjb-bNiSnDFycO1ExwL5AuX8a7FHXw5WflobNiLSirv_T4x8IB_6suad9khrZj9x8oof8IE/s400/Atari+2600+E.T..jpg" width="290" /></a>
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Anyway, I bring it up because I just read that the City Commission of Alamogordo, New Mexico has recently approved an excavation at the municipal landfill where this mass video game burial supposedly took place. The excavation is reportedly going to be filmed and featured in a Canadian documentary.<br />
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I have to say, based on what I've read it appears that this mass dumping of games, assuming it did indeed take place, did not focus exclusively, or perhaps not even primarily, on the horrible E.T. game. It was reportedly a dumping of various returned and surplus hardware and games of all sorts that Atari had stored at its former game manufacturing plant in El Paso, Texas that was being converted into a scrap recycling center at the time. Given the huge numbers of E.T. carts that were returned for a refund it seems likely that E.T. would have constituted at least a significant portion of the dumped items but who knows. Regardless, the interest behind this story for me has nothing to do with how many E.T. games were actually put in the ground, it is the counter-intuitive notion that video game sales - which were booming just a couple of years earlier - were so dismal by 1983 that somehow the most financially sound solution for moving this merchandise was to load it up into 9-10 semi trucks, drive them to the middle of a New Mexico desert, and dump them in a giant hole and pour concrete on top of them. That's crazy! So if this documentary ever airs I'm going to try to track it down and check it out.<br />
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Local news station <a href="http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/southeast/alamogordo-approves-atari-excavation" target="_blank">KRQE </a>did a brief piece on the upcoming excavation below:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/nm74NOaOL64" width="560"></iframe>MadPlanethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06725908232972984690noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743918922173292265.post-3730057854393021682013-05-31T12:24:00.000-05:002013-06-28T12:58:56.785-05:00My "New" TRS-80 Model 4DIn addition to old video game consoles, I'm also interested in old computers. I don't exactly collect them per se, but if I come across a particularly great deal I rarely pass it up. Last Friday I came across one such deal and have now added a TRS-80 Model 4D to my collection.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFw_26RR3xQEE3FspaKoB8zHKoyYcd4Q08cRVwvUd1F6JCfyKRilNUkdqJwTDpproof2V4e4lAzmB1xZX9ZmjKFpD2x0oO2TAvOWsq484nPU7M2v3jOCz06YaomHFINY0uLJH1Q5WiKcI/s1600/TRS-80+Model+4D.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFw_26RR3xQEE3FspaKoB8zHKoyYcd4Q08cRVwvUd1F6JCfyKRilNUkdqJwTDpproof2V4e4lAzmB1xZX9ZmjKFpD2x0oO2TAvOWsq484nPU7M2v3jOCz06YaomHFINY0uLJH1Q5WiKcI/s640/TRS-80+Model+4D.JPG" width="640" /></a>
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First, a very brief background on the TRS-80 line.<br />
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Tandy entered the personal computer market in August 1977 when they produced one of the first commercial home computers in the TRS-80 Micro Computer System (Model 1) which they sold through their Radio Shack stores at a retail cost of $599 - about half the price of its direct competitors the Apple II and the Commodore PET. The name itself was a shortened representation of the manufacturer and the processor - "TRS" referred to Tandy-Radio Shack and "-80" referred to the Zilog Z80 CPU which ran the computer at a blistering speed of 1.77 MHz - faster than the 1MHz chips used by the PET and Apple II. Arguably the first <i>affordable </i>commercial home computer, the TRS-80 went on to become extremely successful for several years.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoqUSKrmnSiKa0zh754aGgHib8OIDHbk-Ghe63RSLv6Ku1jC_6a0WuYjseOBJoY0dlKtDmsEE6BCdM1Cv3Zxr0YUm_dIdxQSboItxGFdFvJLUcIqH29cRTDQ7wmfaCJF1LITFmjJQf_wg/s1600/Tandy+TRS-80+Model+4D.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoqUSKrmnSiKa0zh754aGgHib8OIDHbk-Ghe63RSLv6Ku1jC_6a0WuYjseOBJoY0dlKtDmsEE6BCdM1Cv3Zxr0YUm_dIdxQSboItxGFdFvJLUcIqH29cRTDQ7wmfaCJF1LITFmjJQf_wg/s640/Tandy+TRS-80+Model+4D.JPG" width="640" /></a>
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Fast-forward 6 years (I'm skipping over the Model 2, Model 3 and Color Computers) to April 1983 when Tandy released the TRS-80 Model 4 at a basic retail price of $1,990. The system was a true all-in-one unit with a built in monochrome monitor, keyboard and two on-board 5 1/4" floppy disk drives. It ran off an upgraded Z80A CPU at a speed of 4 MHz and came standard with 64K RAM.<br />
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Then in late 1985 they released mine - the "Tandy TRS-80 Model 4D Microcomputer System" - as the final model in the TRS-80 line at a retail price of $1199. Might sound a little pricey, but it was $800 cheaper than the basic Model 4 just two years earlier. Plus it came bundled with DeskMate! By the mid-80's there was a lot more competition in the home computer market so the TRS-80 line died out with the 4D.<br />
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I found the ad below in the January 1987 edition of <i>80 Micro the #1 magazine for Tandy users</i>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ61_-zPMwbiCRE0moJN52nvsmPOhP282yeZvzk4Dx51VL7IVsqDtMXSmpJk8DvhgIJEfrLuSYy3IgfyoIXm7MSY31L3s14oQX_RJgRbIXw55L8XOF_ReDZd7-2O8gRlK0bEBxcoLaKXk/s1600/TRS-80+Model+4D+ad.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ61_-zPMwbiCRE0moJN52nvsmPOhP282yeZvzk4Dx51VL7IVsqDtMXSmpJk8DvhgIJEfrLuSYy3IgfyoIXm7MSY31L3s14oQX_RJgRbIXw55L8XOF_ReDZd7-2O8gRlK0bEBxcoLaKXk/s640/TRS-80+Model+4D+ad.png" width="640" /></a>
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I don't really know the going price on these things these days, but I noticed someone on eBay is trying to sell one for just under the original retail price at $999.99. I bought mine from a local Houstonian for the bargain basement price of only $10. It's in great shape and seems to work just fine.<br />
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I couldn't find any old video of the Model 4D, but here is an old Radio Shack commercial I found for the Model 4 which is pretty close to the same thing.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="473" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/DdQoJqbbxL4" width="630"></iframe><br />
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The Model 4D is backwards-compatible with Model 1 and 3 software (don't ask about the Model 2) and actually even has a built-in Model 3 mode where it boots up from an internal Model 3 ROM and the CPU operates at half-speed at 2MHz to accurately run any Model 3 software.<br />
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As far I can tell, the main hardware difference in the Model 4D versus the original Model 4 was that the two disk drives were double-sided (thus the "D" designation presumably?) instead of single-sided and the monitor was a cool green-phosphor display instead of the boring white phosphor of the original Model 4 (later Model 4's also had the green display).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfskSGwf7JfDORCl8jHChdjiplBbDF-0uY9InFIb-wEO_KKr_gdK6kizlAxsCbaOKF0_cZ9w1aVf-YK8PmLs5QKHAfaQyJHCf0Oigc8whSQUTbOLSNeslEbshqDqe3hrZJNZ5HLvo4cv4/s1600/Matrix.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="510" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfskSGwf7JfDORCl8jHChdjiplBbDF-0uY9InFIb-wEO_KKr_gdK6kizlAxsCbaOKF0_cZ9w1aVf-YK8PmLs5QKHAfaQyJHCf0Oigc8whSQUTbOLSNeslEbshqDqe3hrZJNZ5HLvo4cv4/s640/Matrix.png" width="640" /></a>
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I just love the way this thing looks - like it was plucked out of an old science-fiction movie or a cold-war missile silo just waiting for launch codes. I was entertained by just goofing around with it for a while but ultimately my interest always turns to games. The 4D has the brain power to run some nice arcade games but unfortunately didn't come stock with much in the way of graphical power and sound as it targeted the more serious business user and was never really intended to be a gaming computer. But with the compact all-in-one footprint, the great retro clicky feel of the keyboard, and that wonderful bright green text it seemed a perfect gaming platform to satisfy my love of old text adventure games.Unfortunately it appears these old TRS-80 adventure games are apparently pretty rare and the ones I found on eBay were fairly expensive with prices starting at over $50 and several in the hundreds. One extreme example was a rare complete boxed edition of the original Zork, which debuted on personal computers in 1980 on the TRS-80 Model 1 - that recently sold on eBay for a whopping $1,500!! Definitely too rich for my blood, but cool Zorkian artwork with the warrior with the glowing sword, the white house with the mailbox, the forest and the mountains. I'll never own it, but I like it.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgww9Ij-HE_PWyfM0QiMyC2vhOhyphenhyphenzS-gcAXSSe-X3RyNvncmA6JX-xoHtRs4MJ3Mwh4-KvjpOHjKXHP8P9beRgs3bk-8XCzCrwZAO9o98q4LdnuSow9RDIwvybEXcSNZfLgDJx-WDz9iGs/s1600/Zork+TRS-80.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgww9Ij-HE_PWyfM0QiMyC2vhOhyphenhyphenzS-gcAXSSe-X3RyNvncmA6JX-xoHtRs4MJ3Mwh4-KvjpOHjKXHP8P9beRgs3bk-8XCzCrwZAO9o98q4LdnuSow9RDIwvybEXcSNZfLgDJx-WDz9iGs/s1600/Zork+TRS-80.jpg" /></a>
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There is still a loose disk of the <a href="http://www.ebay.com/itm/Zork-I-TRS-80-Infocom-See-Photos-Details-/200921908398?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2ec7e104ae" target="_blank">TRS-80 Zork on eBay</a> now for $150.<br />
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OK, I won't be buying the TRS-80 Zork anytime soon, but I am now officially on the lookout for some other text adventures that are actually affordable or some other cheap TRS-80 games to try out, or even better to start with, a big box of backup disks. If anyone out there happens to have played any TRS-80 games I'd be happy to hear some recommendations. But for now although it looks really cool, until I get a game or two I'm only able to play DeskMate, and that game is kind of boring.MadPlanethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06725908232972984690noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743918922173292265.post-72559062790040490742013-05-21T16:02:00.000-05:002013-05-21T16:02:22.840-05:00Create Your Own Atari 2600 Cartridge LabelEveryone would love to create their own Atari 2600 cartridge labels, but it's such a hassle. Well not anymore! Now you can make your very own custom labels with Label Maker 2600!<br />
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Just go to <a href="http://www.labelmaker2600.com/">www.labelmaker2600.com</a>, upload a picture you want to use, pick the controller type, text color, and a few other options and hit a button and wa-la you have your Atari 2600 cartridge labels (both front and end) that you can then print onto an adhesive paper and apply directly to your forehead and chin. Or, you know, a homebrew Atari cart or whatever.<br />
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Here's my quickie example - still working on the code:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixBAc1FozlyGxE4NfY8FAZU3dobSQhR3YZfV07Vs57tlMjbFhpWygZfNXhqlVosJFkXdZV1g_jCO-jur_yuP1hOL1zaZhMV6_cFZYc0HFhyepb0W_-xm1OH-xrh-aYIeS_FSFvoDvkZPo/s1600/Spreadsheet+Samurai+Front.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixBAc1FozlyGxE4NfY8FAZU3dobSQhR3YZfV07Vs57tlMjbFhpWygZfNXhqlVosJFkXdZV1g_jCO-jur_yuP1hOL1zaZhMV6_cFZYc0HFhyepb0W_-xm1OH-xrh-aYIeS_FSFvoDvkZPo/s1600/Spreadsheet+Samurai+Front.jpg" /></a>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcGvpileDQSJKBoaAH0dQq1R2dT7xJK031v63KsTYloXH_hi-qUn9M40z8ulgsJTL669LhAHswTXi7LVHgYMq1MozKYx93MDjAk2dnZ3GKfcT12bpzJpEfkYonYALVkST41MPruBaQHMU/s1600/Spreadsheet+Samurai+Edge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcGvpileDQSJKBoaAH0dQq1R2dT7xJK031v63KsTYloXH_hi-qUn9M40z8ulgsJTL669LhAHswTXi7LVHgYMq1MozKYx93MDjAk2dnZ3GKfcT12bpzJpEfkYonYALVkST41MPruBaQHMU/s1600/Spreadsheet+Samurai+Edge.jpg" /></a>
MadPlanethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06725908232972984690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743918922173292265.post-38524584533564553582013-05-16T12:09:00.001-05:002013-05-26T01:20:01.809-05:00Bioshock InfiniteGrrr - I accidentally hit Publish instead of Save a bit earlier today so if you read that version on a feed it was just the first few draft paragraphs. Oh and since I'm editorializing here - the snapshots below are all pilfered from the internet - not my own. One of these days I'm gonna set my screen/video capture stuff back up. But not today! And since this is a newer game I'll try to keep it spoiler-free, although that does handcuff me on a few things...<br />
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I just finished playing Bioshock Infinite on the PS3 and it was a fun game with a good story. Do I consider it worthy of the lofty 9.5-10 ratings that many critics are giving it? Well no, not quite that high for me personally - so if you're a huge rabid fan of the game you might think my minor criticisms are heresy. But hey just because I don't think it's a 10 doesn't mean I'm trashing it. Since when did an 8.4 rating for a well-received game become a bad thing?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlvrDtTJ8mdrvImGYrKDhWOE5kzTfyVK4KM5mT_ljRow69JPfn4u-vN8AI2T9cqOdRYwONmqyPB8nn-uS3FhYliGGX-exJNMq8yc4a23UnXiDdp2hfEsmubdwzzYRDmYrzRr_7UKu4_HQ/s1600/Bioshock+Infinite+PS3.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlvrDtTJ8mdrvImGYrKDhWOE5kzTfyVK4KM5mT_ljRow69JPfn4u-vN8AI2T9cqOdRYwONmqyPB8nn-uS3FhYliGGX-exJNMq8yc4a23UnXiDdp2hfEsmubdwzzYRDmYrzRr_7UKu4_HQ/s640/Bioshock+Infinite+PS3.jpeg" width="505" /></a>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">SYNOPSIS</span></b><br />
The game takes place in the early 1900's and you are Booker Dewitt, a Pinkerton detective who has apparently done some shameful things and fallen on hard times. Booker has built up a large gambling debt to some bad people and at the beginning of the game you are directed to "bring us the girl, and wipe away the debt" - an imperative that is repeated throughout the game. So you are off to bring back (rescue? kidnap?) a girl named Elizabeth who you quickly learn is being held in a city called Columbia which floats in the sky. The girl turns out to have the power to open "tears" in the fabric of the universe and not only see into alternate timelines but also bring things over from them or pass through the tear itself to visit the alternate universe. The rest of the game deals with your efforts to take this girl out of Columbia while hordes of steampunkian loons are trying to kill you. And between firefights you struggle to piece together bits and pieces of this mysterious narrative as you go along.<br />
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Everyone knows I'm a sucker for game trailers so here is the TV spot that first grabbed my attention. None of this is actually in-game footage, but it actually does a great job of capturing the general feel of the game. I kinda like the song too - although I've never heard the whole thing.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/31-NAkq8YEY" width="560"></iframe>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">GAMEPLAY</span></b><br />
The gameplay is virtually identical to what you experienced in the first Bioshock, so if you liked that one you should definitely like this one as well. If you never played the original Bioshock - well it's considered a classic and lucky for you it is included in the PS3 version of the game so you can play both of them for the price of one! Anyway, Infinite has the exact same kind of smooth FPS gunplay and same kind of genetic powers although this time they are derived from "vigors and salts" instead of "plasmids and eve" (six of one half-dozen of the other).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhODGT9xuUjzJ6zD0_CDwM1ZF11CDlt0VsgO8vc3XHnyHQ0o9TZhxsw0U6KV_ImGQy7bbMhdUD9pXr2OFMUnxYg18yr2xx-BRDKvHnGjPy1auj4Ve_TYe5rWrEYEhNuuFHtVZ2ZQCnLKMA/s1600/Bioshock+Infinite+Patriot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhODGT9xuUjzJ6zD0_CDwM1ZF11CDlt0VsgO8vc3XHnyHQ0o9TZhxsw0U6KV_ImGQy7bbMhdUD9pXr2OFMUnxYg18yr2xx-BRDKvHnGjPy1auj4Ve_TYe5rWrEYEhNuuFHtVZ2ZQCnLKMA/s640/Bioshock+Infinite+Patriot.jpg" width="640" /></a>
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This makes for some pretty cool fights against large groups of baddies, but it does tend to get repetitive after a while as did the original Bioshock - one of my all-time favorites on the XBox 360 by the way. But of course you can level that criticism at most games, the key is whether or not the game can keep you from thinking "ok this is starting to get a little repetitive" and I did find myself saying that a few times here. Not a lot, as the story keeps things progressing pretty well, but a few times. There weren't any real boss-battles to speak of - mostly just hordes of small to medium-sized baddies. I think one or two bosses or maybe a cinematic set piece here and there would have helped break it up.<br />
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So the basic program is something like this.<br />
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10 LEARN SOME BACKSTORY<br />
20 FIREFIGHT<br />
30 SEARCH CORPSES AND TAKE MONEY/FOOD/AMMO<br />
40 ASK ELIZABETH TO PICK LOCK<br />
50 SEARCH CRATES/DESKS AND TAKE MONEY/FOOD/AMMO<br />
60 GOTO 10<br />
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A common criticism I have about these kinds of games is that even though you have a large variety of weapons and powers to use, there is often no real reason to vary your use of them. You could pretty much just grab a machine gun and use nothing else for the entire game. No real need for different guns, melee, vigors, etc. You don't even really need to use your vigors at all, a fact the game designers were apparently aware of as on multiple occasions when I'm mowing down enemies the message flashes on the screen "Don't forget to use your vigors!". The game should not have to tell me to not forget to use something I don't need to use - the game should find a way to make me need to use it. There were a few exceptions, but generally speaking I would've liked to have seen a little more situational need for a particular gun or power to mix it up a bit. I assume if I ratcheted up the difficulty the need for strategic use of weapons and vigors would increase, but even then is there any major reason to use "charge" instead of "devil's kiss" instead of "possession"? I pretty much just started using the vigors randomly so I could see what they all do.<br />
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Once you break her out of her prison, Elizabeth is at your side for almost the entire game. But you aren't forced to protect her - in fact she never even takes any damage whatsoever during fights. She pretty much just takes cover and throws you health, salts and ammo as you need them which is very useful. She can also open tears and bring things through like gun turrets that will fire at your enemies or cover you can hide behind - VERY useful! Unfortunately she can only open one tear at a time. And she continually finds money and other things lying around when you are just exploring and throws those to you as well if you want them (and why exactly would you turn down free money?). So she keeps you pretty well stocked in the essentials. And of course she also helps feed you bits of the narrative as you go along which is the key driving force in the game - even though she doesn't know the full story herself until the very end.<br />
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One cool gimmick is the system of roller-coaster like "skylines" set up around the city that allow you to ride them with a grappling hook that you obtain early in the game. This makes for some fun action during some of the fights, but unfortunately in most cases the skylines are isolated loops around particular buildings or small areas so again you can't really use them to explore the city you just loop around one small area during that part of the linear story. I think it would have been more fun if you could explore the whole city on them like you could on the trains of Infamous for example.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtaHfhu3AHfs_PlKj_9DEMJjMgn_OgAuXOh8oOjYAN1CA0RARvFzszqScrBQ9h6oQiAQgEAJPSXSiKIwsxznaOWCTaxzqVzOS7Y8PUbH92tPiZS9vtbj0js9n4aK2sbX6uYwIdU70DPkk/s1600/Skyline.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtaHfhu3AHfs_PlKj_9DEMJjMgn_OgAuXOh8oOjYAN1CA0RARvFzszqScrBQ9h6oQiAQgEAJPSXSiKIwsxznaOWCTaxzqVzOS7Y8PUbH92tPiZS9vtbj0js9n4aK2sbX6uYwIdU70DPkk/s640/Skyline.jpg" width="640" /></a>
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They completely did away with the hacking puzzle minigame that was used in the original Bioshock - and I kind of missed it. I've seen this kind of mini-game tactic employed in several games and I thought the original Bioshock implemented it extremely well. But in Infinite you "hacked" a mechanized gun by shooting it with the "possession" vigor and you opened locks by asking Elizabeth to pick the lock. The lockpicks are scattered everywhere so you never run out of them and thus that little mechanic felt like an unnecessary inclusion. I can only assume that the lockpicks are more sparsely available if you play through on a higher difficulty.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">SETTING AND STORY</span></b><br />
The story is both the strength of the game and also where I think it is most overrated. So forgive me if I sound a bit snarky here in places as I really did quite enjoy the tale but feel the need to take the unfettered universal praise down just a notch here.<br />
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The setting for the great majority of the game is Columbia, an impressive early 20th century American city that floats in the sky and is ruled by "The Prophet", who has some pretty rigid ideas about religion, patriotism, and race. There are some that are not down with his views so in addition to the native elite you also have to deal with the revolutionaries - but any moral distinction between the two factions is lost as it appears that they are all nutjobs and would very much enjoy killing you.<br />
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Columbia is populated with all sorts of technologically anachronistic devices. One of my favorite moments of the game is a small part at the very beginning when a jet-powered barge flies alongside you during a carnival and a barbershop quartet starts singing the Beach Boys' <i>God Only Knows</i> - not a big Beach Boys guy, but I've always been a sucker for harmony.<br />
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There are several different floating pieces to the city that make for cool environmental eye candy but you aren't really allowed to explore many of them so even though the setting has an open-world veneer it is in actuality quite linear. Which is OK by me as I usually find most so-called "open-world" games somewhat boring as they tend to lean far too much on meaningless tangential exploration to the detriment of the core story. Still, I found it a little disappointing at the beginning when I hurdled over a fenced edge into the sky to what should have been a fairly easy drop to a slightly lower floating building only to suddenly reappear back where I had jumped.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYIWJvs3xu2nKvWxSQSKkhCayDXKlIUY6K8_xOrv4Fy3wsvHOJwGCw2Bhqo2HIEP13n6BHMxhBAl6T4Mvdn5z4q3lZIn56UeljiishkR0OFnuMG6Tu9uD87IWvRig4JNlKEwhzDPkQn_k/s1600/Columbia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYIWJvs3xu2nKvWxSQSKkhCayDXKlIUY6K8_xOrv4Fy3wsvHOJwGCw2Bhqo2HIEP13n6BHMxhBAl6T4Mvdn5z4q3lZIn56UeljiishkR0OFnuMG6Tu9uD87IWvRig4JNlKEwhzDPkQn_k/s1600/Columbia.jpg" /></a>
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A minor thing that bugged me was that the vigors never really seemed to fit in for me in the context of this universe like they did in Rapture. In Rapture everyone was preoccupied with improving themselves to some sort of perfection through chemistry and technology so the practice of monkeying around with one's own DNA to gain bizarre powers seemed a sensible fit. But it just didn't seem to flow in Columbia. First of all, the vigors and salts and vending machines to strengthen them are located EVERYWHERE for the taking, but you rarely come across very many people other than you that use them. I suppose a bunch of racial supremecists would inherently believe their DNA is already superior and thus be hesitant to tinker with it, but it is made widely available and even happily given out for free with no apparent stigma at the carnival at the beginning of the game so that doesn't make sense. And wouldn't a lot of the downtrodden revolutionaries start juicing to kick some vigor ass themselves? It almost felt like the vigors were forced into use simply because Irrational Games knew they were a solid proven fighting mechanic for the franchise. Yeah I know - that's exactly why they are in there. And yeah they're pretty cool so fine, I'll accept the shaky vigors premise.<br />
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With Elizabeth's ability to open "tears" into other realities, a large part of the game deals with alternate universes. I'm a sucker for alternate reality/parallel universe stories. Always have been. A Marvel comic book called What If was one of my favorite comic books back in the day. It would chronicle a well-known comic book tale with one small difference, usually at a critical juncture in the timeline, which would inevitably spin the entire tale off into some completely different conclusion - usually with rather dire results. It was one of the few comic books of the time that often had a dark or hopeless ending instead of a feel-good one. Somehow that appealed to me.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi018ZTz84UToYT5sbhH-IIdG9mEEXGN4Ysw8ot0f9BT5vwYFPi0fUWzTrEK_qxBBs9Ctr79o5JuVdJaTGdRxP1mfsWa5s56Q71-30YJ8QQO3evRfz7lngyX-sAZGnSSZZTP995thfoJZc/s1600/What+If.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi018ZTz84UToYT5sbhH-IIdG9mEEXGN4Ysw8ot0f9BT5vwYFPi0fUWzTrEK_qxBBs9Ctr79o5JuVdJaTGdRxP1mfsWa5s56Q71-30YJ8QQO3evRfz7lngyX-sAZGnSSZZTP995thfoJZc/s640/What+If.jpg" width="416" /></a>
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Also one of my all-time favorite science fiction novels - well series of novels actually - is the Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny. In it the royal family has the power to alter the reality they are in, not by entering a tear, but by taking a walk and mentally changing small details of their world as they go until they are in an entirely different world. Just a few weeks ago I watched Men In Black 3 - which featured an alien who could open tears of his own into alternate timelines very reminiscent of Elizabeth. The movie involves Agent J being caught in a villainous time-travel scheme and being forced to go back in time to stop it and save his partner Agent K from dying before they met. And even just last night I saw Looper, an alternate timeline-oriented movie which also has a number of parallels with the game. God help me I even enjoyed the Butterfly Effect with Ashton Kutcher - officially the only movie I will ever watch that features him.<br />
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So why am I mentioning all this? One - to point out one reason I really enjoyed Bioshock Infinite - I love that kind of stuff. And two - to point out that time travel, alternate universes and time paradoxes have been the core of countless numbers of fanciful tales for a long time and so I feel like Infinite gets a little too much credit on its handling of that front. Still, the wheels may be well-worn but the ride is still exciting and smooth. The ending was particularly good. It was thought-provoking, and even emotion-provoking, rather than your typical final boss-battle. When it flicked to black I sat there quietly just watching the screen for a while absorbing what I had just seen. It was so good that it brought the entire story that led up to it together and bouyed it up to a considerably higher point than it had been for the duration of the game up to that point. Even if I did pretty much see it coming...<br />
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And the floating city thing? Well you can go all the way back to Gulliver's Travels for that one. And there have been several other SF/fantasy stories that have used that setting since then. So anyway, I'm not saying the game is cliche - in fact it might be LESS cliche than all the other FPS titles out there - I'm just saying that the fanciful aspect of it is not particularly groundbreaking in its creativity and I would assume that others that have read and seen the same kinds of books and movies that I have might feel similarly.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9-ElQKM8-uruBYtwttIqR0cNFUAW4_csVslrPGwlvB6UM1R6a-Rc9XdvvrbX9bVJTMS1LDl_SoIofaLkG6qU1Mf-HeCiKUXggoBROON6CEum_JAwOtlKcx01IQSOmRiN6_lsa_yl8pEQ/s1600/Laputa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9-ElQKM8-uruBYtwttIqR0cNFUAW4_csVslrPGwlvB6UM1R6a-Rc9XdvvrbX9bVJTMS1LDl_SoIofaLkG6qU1Mf-HeCiKUXggoBROON6CEum_JAwOtlKcx01IQSOmRiN6_lsa_yl8pEQ/s640/Laputa.jpg" width="439" /></a>
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Finally, the game deals with some weighty themes like racism, revolution, fanaticism, religion and redemption. The conflicting juxtaposition of this seemingly idyllic Rockwellian community in the sky and the rampant racism and violence you soon encounter gives the tale a certain social gravitas that does add to its telling, but in my opinion also leads some reviewers to give it a little more credit than it deserves. To me the story handled those topics in such an over the top caricaturish manner that it seemed a bit amateurish - kind of reminded me of the juvenile sci-fi novels I used to get from RIF at school versus the more mature sci-fi novels intended for adults. The RIF books were a fun read, but the non-juvenile ones handled the storytelling in a more subtle and sophisticated manner. That kind of stuff has been the meat and potatoes for good science fiction for over a century - pick up some Huxley, Wells, Orwell, Heinlein. It brings to mind an episode of Frasier where Frasier and Niles had such fond childhood memories of a fine Shakespearean actor but when they met him again as adults and enticed him to act in a production of theirs they soon realized that his acting was overly exaggerated and melodramatic and they had simply not realized it in their youth. So to some degree I think Bioshock Infinite is that melodramatic Shakespearean actor and the gushing reviewers holding up 10's are the prepubescent Frasier and Niles.<br />
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So all that being said, yes it was a very good thought-provoking tale, but the reality is that the story itself, which is being praised as a brilliant masterpiece by most reviewers, would not be rated anywhere nearly as high if it had been presented in the more aged medium of film, and even less so in the grand elder media of a book. The bottom line is it is a good story<i> for a video game. </i> I enjoyed Infinite very much, but with the notable exception of the last hour or so I believe I still enjoyed the original Bioshock.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">SUMMARY THOUGHTS:</span></b><br />
Graphics = Very good. Not muddy COD realism but more stylistic and colorful which is fine by me.<br />
Sound = Excellent. Great music and sound effects. Some of the tunes during fights felt ripped from Wizard of Oz which fit the setting perfectly. The voice acting was also very strong.<br />
Gameplay = Very good if you like Bioshock FPS play, although can get a little repetitive.<br />
Story = Excellent. Although not as enthralling as some overly emotional reviewers have asserted.<br />
My overall rating = 8.4MadPlanethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06725908232972984690noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743918922173292265.post-54796401726836713612013-05-13T21:05:00.000-05:002013-05-13T21:05:21.117-05:00A Long Hard Look at Scramble<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij2VKMdVvAt6PnKQD-dMtkz45_-UNk4RhxmZS27ZMkos43x4lOn60GyBxQ3kd7BL5kQMCMrZ959Ya4XroqlFLbNxXjngo7QtekpJd-4blVTva01gp0lwUzNILCQxSUXvLXXde5mSC4XYU/s1600/Scramble+marquee.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij2VKMdVvAt6PnKQD-dMtkz45_-UNk4RhxmZS27ZMkos43x4lOn60GyBxQ3kd7BL5kQMCMrZ959Ya4XroqlFLbNxXjngo7QtekpJd-4blVTva01gp0lwUzNILCQxSUXvLXXde5mSC4XYU/s1600/Scramble+marquee.JPG" /></a><br />
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Well it has been a LONG time since I wrote a real proper post about a real proper arcade game and this one has literally been in my draft box at around 90% complete for about a year, so now that I'm in a posting mood again I thought I'd put some finishing touches on it, take a quick vid, and hit the ol' publish button.<br />
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The game room has been growing by leaps and dare I say bounds in the last year but I'm so far behind in posts that the only appropriate place to begin is with my very first arcade game, an often overlooked classic called Scramble. <i>(Curtain rises. Lights Dim).</i><br />
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The MAME cab is great, but for some time I'd dreamed of building a collection of real arcade games. If money and space were no object then one could build this collection relatively easily, but both are definitely objects with which I must contend - very dense objects - so somewhere along the line I got the idea that I would only buy an arcade game if I could find one below $100. That way I wouldn't spend all that much and my buying opportunities would be rare enough to allow my limited space to last a while. Many months later I came to realize just how rare those opportunities are, with virtually all ~$100 games being restricted to non-working fixer-uppers which was not optimal given my lack of repair knowledge. Several times I offered potential sellers on Craigslist $100 only to be met with either indignant refusal or more often simply the ether-chirps of no response at all.<br />
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That all finally changed in March 2012 when I placed a $54 bid on an eBay auction for a 1981 Stern Scramble arcade game and watched as the seconds ticked away leaving me as the winner! Hit refresh to make sure - yep still me! My very own classic arcade game for less than the price of a new PS3 game! My wife was sitting next to me on the couch at the time, so I calmly gathered my thoughts and turned to her, "I just bought an arcade game". Her response - "you what?". Ultimately she succumbed to the logic that this was in fact an offer I could not refuse.<br />
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Of course, shipping charges on these beasts can run like $300-$400 so that would have completely blown my $100 limit, but this Scramble was more or less local (about 30 miles away from my house) so I jumped in my brother-in-law's truck and we headed out to snag it. I had never actually moved a real arcade game before so I had some logistical concerns like should we try to stand it up or lay it down, how should we best handle it to avoid damaging it, should we tie it down and cover it up, etc - but turns out it was quite easy. We just stuck it on a dolly, wheeled it up to the truck, leaned it over onto some cardboard we put down in the bed to help it slide and protect it a bit, and shoved it on up and in. No problem! <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrVTXkc9RFMbNUohYlVIjZ7SqpeSIgNMBYRjb5UgjMFFnEULlxPUR1GJWaxt1vL0aRZ1SafvjTTt6P4RSdFLUc1vLl5JWDjveAA_0wziaJt-r4wzMGu2TE27A3QD7pJeioy7Zi6jVxEzs/s1600/Scramble+in+a+pickup+truck.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrVTXkc9RFMbNUohYlVIjZ7SqpeSIgNMBYRjb5UgjMFFnEULlxPUR1GJWaxt1vL0aRZ1SafvjTTt6P4RSdFLUc1vLl5JWDjveAA_0wziaJt-r4wzMGu2TE27A3QD7pJeioy7Zi6jVxEzs/s640/Scramble+in+a+pickup+truck.JPG" width="640" /></a><br />
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We brought a tarp (OK a shower curtain) to put over it, but the skies looked pretty clear and it was more or less protected from the wind so I didn't bother covering it. But by the time we were about halfway home dark clouds started rolling in which had me a bit concerned. Then my brother-in-law secretly sprayed the windshield wiper fluid and pretended like it was raining which admittedly freaked me out for a second or two before I realized just what the hell he was laughing at. Verrrry funny you bastid...<br />
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We wheeled it into the game room - a space formerly referred to by my wife as her kitchen - and into the corner right next to the Spidey pinball. Gorgeous! I just stood there and gazed at it. Lost in the realization of a child's dream of owning his own arcade game. Then I shuddered as a chill ran up my back. My excitement was suddenly tempered by the faint recognition of an icy stare boring into my shoulder blades. My instincts screamed at me to spin around to confront the threat, but fear of being stricken to stone prompted me to instead take a deep breath and glance at the reflection in the Scramble monitor. And there she was. My wife. Shaking her head in disbelief at this additional garish intrusion into her kitchen. But that was to be expected. I had planned for that. Contingencies were in place. The critical question was - was she smiling? I strained to get a better look at the dim reflection. Yes, I decided. She was smiling - sort of. Not much. But enough. Success!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvCrqdHaSQ6dOj75ptdfFJvZxbjpV41g12arDTKtjju0TdccNVOMFQC9Uts2p8nRjONtG-v5DnwUvXsJmxRafrTHOEIaFpT6LDxt1mNR1AO60gR_F8lFrkd34Lm5byHTen7dSENRRYRuk/s1600/Scramble+Arcade+Game.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvCrqdHaSQ6dOj75ptdfFJvZxbjpV41g12arDTKtjju0TdccNVOMFQC9Uts2p8nRjONtG-v5DnwUvXsJmxRafrTHOEIaFpT6LDxt1mNR1AO60gR_F8lFrkd34Lm5byHTen7dSENRRYRuk/s640/Scramble+Arcade+Game.JPG" width="480" /></a> <br />
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Stern made two styles of cabinet side art for Scramble - mine (shown above) which has the company name along the side and the other version (shown below) with some spaceman artwork. I would have preferred to have the less generic spaceman artwork on it but hey for $54 I can't complain. Online I found that <a href="http://www.thisoldgame.com/products/scramble-stencil-set" target="_blank">This Old Game</a> sells a stencil of the artwork that I might have considered buying to repaint the cabinet, but the set cost $100 which was way too much for me. Besides, then it wouldn't be the genuine original artwork so I wasn't completely sold on the idea anyway.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-IkCVIIQKIJP8kRPOqorUrjb1h1-ZjUCj9Q-5I0JXRGnt4BqI_ZV-dkkmAMKD5STWn5fO0cymndPGQ-3uER7nuyew6siJscNzRbDq6XC3xhWQ_5sd8r-Xdph9fSZBhkWMoKZClTECLnA/s1600/Scramble+alternate+side+art.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-IkCVIIQKIJP8kRPOqorUrjb1h1-ZjUCj9Q-5I0JXRGnt4BqI_ZV-dkkmAMKD5STWn5fO0cymndPGQ-3uER7nuyew6siJscNzRbDq6XC3xhWQ_5sd8r-Xdph9fSZBhkWMoKZClTECLnA/s1600/Scramble+alternate+side+art.jpg" /></a> <br />
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The cabinet is in decent shape but has a little wood damage on the left side side, some missing T-molding on the top right, and the glass bezel is flaking off in several places. I think I can repair the wood damage with wood hardener and Bondo and I can replace the T-molding simple enough and the bezel too if I can ever find a better one that doesn't cost too much, but for now anyway I'm just leaving everything as-is and am quite happy with it! It plays great, the control panel and marquee look virtually perfect, and the monitor is bright and clear with very little burn-in. At first I didn't notice any burn-in at all but I noticed one day while the screen was off that you could just make out the outlines of a maze and a game logo - Mr. Do! So apparently the monitor was at one time or another used for a Mr. Do! machine. But it isn't noticeable at all during gameplay and kind of adds to the real arcade history of the machine overall so no biggie.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6oVRiXsvQdV6yfzs4lYk_vMIvlXBD4ARqnNLBLcMYPUqCMR8QftM48a4pRUj2qqotFl7UbFeRhzeKol9RTa4Bh7Zs-2aIH4YqW7UdSMlBRsKcNARj2HS0VDbmzD38ImZzISsoQOoVOcQ/s1600/Scramble.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="479" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6oVRiXsvQdV6yfzs4lYk_vMIvlXBD4ARqnNLBLcMYPUqCMR8QftM48a4pRUj2qqotFl7UbFeRhzeKol9RTa4Bh7Zs-2aIH4YqW7UdSMlBRsKcNARj2HS0VDbmzD38ImZzISsoQOoVOcQ/s640/Scramble.JPG" width="640" /></a><br />
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A look inside the game revealed the coin counter - apparently this machine made almost $5,000 in its day.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9PKNfNKOi5kfp5QCX3eakJ_7tPLF9pS_RLuJ262KyORGQKspXveKwQlunRNZYJs7j-DIICTHxsxTUGP61JIA73jy7gqNQLVJIY5rXuUtSjH6nMANVihMm6TEvghd8JsgVO6SNQoKhd68/s1600/Scramble+Coin+Counter.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="476" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9PKNfNKOi5kfp5QCX3eakJ_7tPLF9pS_RLuJ262KyORGQKspXveKwQlunRNZYJs7j-DIICTHxsxTUGP61JIA73jy7gqNQLVJIY5rXuUtSjH6nMANVihMm6TEvghd8JsgVO6SNQoKhd68/s640/Scramble+Coin+Counter.JPG" width="640" /></a>
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Now a little about the game itself - Scramble is a horizontal-scrolling shoot 'em up developed by Konami in 1981 and licensed to Stern for manufacture and distribution in North America. Defender had introduced - or at the very least popularized - the horizontal scrolling shooter a little earlier the same year, but Scramble was the first side-scrolling shooter to feature multiple distinct levels and also the first to feature forced-scrolling - both of which became widely adopted standards in the genre. According to some sources I read Scramble was also the first shooter to feature a fuel gauge and refueling as part of the game play - if it was not the first it was at a minimum a very early example. So even though it doesn't have the same name-recognition as Defender, it is still a respected piece of arcade history. In fact, it was one of seven games featured on custom-made tokens created for use in the Video Expo arcade at the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee, with the other six being Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Qix, Gorf and Donkey Kong. I picked up one of the tokens dirt cheap on eBay.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8xGRob8ITpfOzkRqbGB5QvV0OEYvFxT_857zm4trPZKAOQEv8K9UaXWs5hGAOy8RtxAIhY1nF_c7YY-Ew7rw8jRrckAW8mobMUtahZ_Gf1adiZiPcCjTpaD1PzOmCcz0U1e9ghwi0lu0/s1600/Scramble+World's+Fair+token+front.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8xGRob8ITpfOzkRqbGB5QvV0OEYvFxT_857zm4trPZKAOQEv8K9UaXWs5hGAOy8RtxAIhY1nF_c7YY-Ew7rw8jRrckAW8mobMUtahZ_Gf1adiZiPcCjTpaD1PzOmCcz0U1e9ghwi0lu0/s400/Scramble+World's+Fair+token+front.JPG" width="400" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsg003NOpI2LrCqI9yMfo2d3185_8HUk_65k1M5V6bVFv5dEDFFeRfzhjVRn0G09UUsa6CNgY2hvOgmTftz2Ny-ApWjmqLVTX-9bjcenc2pNyd7UfyXuiNOh5jrm67zcLg2Xp90XN0elI/s1600/Scramble+World's+Fair+token+back.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsg003NOpI2LrCqI9yMfo2d3185_8HUk_65k1M5V6bVFv5dEDFFeRfzhjVRn0G09UUsa6CNgY2hvOgmTftz2Ny-ApWjmqLVTX-9bjcenc2pNyd7UfyXuiNOh5jrm67zcLg2Xp90XN0elI/s400/Scramble+World's+Fair+token+back.JPG" width="400" /></a>
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In Scramble you pilot an aircraft with an 8-way joystick and are armed with lasers for destroying things directly ahead of you and bombs for destroying things below you (2 fire buttons). Like a number of the earlier arcade games, the joystick is positioned in the middle with identical sets of buttons on both sides to accommodate both left-handed and right-handed players.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilalNfyUzvdi4Hf5NoTJPmyPoQ-9Nu6tNODx41cf_GbaoxAlpDOxIK-w30qfwE15qfI845CASa_UKKFjkSLAzCcWEqJESyzlwWwEUSzeFr93jRYaZXXB_8A1NIvdPC1T_MWulnk99xKfU/s1600/Scramble+Control+Panel.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilalNfyUzvdi4Hf5NoTJPmyPoQ-9Nu6tNODx41cf_GbaoxAlpDOxIK-w30qfwE15qfI845CASa_UKKFjkSLAzCcWEqJESyzlwWwEUSzeFr93jRYaZXXB_8A1NIvdPC1T_MWulnk99xKfU/s640/Scramble+Control+Panel.JPG" width="640" /></a> <br />
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And again, like a lot of these classic old-school games the directions are printed right on the bezel:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTNuZTj82CAeE6l2P0Pn6PJy_ZUIAtmBiZr123fQB2SzUcIz1xuQxbXVVGLbW4_QU0npn7RR9jFFzw2Ybhl-h_AqucJ_E9LNwLYksApWGFCXj3sHOV3I_NuIQjBPAcvUYkJfIqhbqK4_I/s1600/Scramble+Instructions.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTNuZTj82CAeE6l2P0Pn6PJy_ZUIAtmBiZr123fQB2SzUcIz1xuQxbXVVGLbW4_QU0npn7RR9jFFzw2Ybhl-h_AqucJ_E9LNwLYksApWGFCXj3sHOV3I_NuIQjBPAcvUYkJfIqhbqK4_I/s1600/Scramble+Instructions.JPG" /></a><br />
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To summarize even more succinctly - don't run into anything and shoot everything.<br />
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The "five Scramble defense systems" start with a mountainous surface, then a cavern filled with hovering UFOs (looks like Vanguard borrowed from this level in particular), then a hilly surface where you have to weave your way through a meteor shower, then flying above a long wall that restricts you mostly to the upper part of the screen, then a maze that requires precision flying to avoid slamming into the walls, and finally a city where you must destroy THE BASE. Your progress through the 6 different stages is displayed by a rather unnecessary meter at the top of the screen. Once you destroy the base, in true arcade fashion, the levels start over from level 1 but with increased difficulty as your fuel is consumed more quickly.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivTdHrAqAG5__MuHo9nGbj2VW17E6EApaG0KyrJzMEEE80NpicjKmavdGRm1Z2OSXyOHKNtyQXjZqvOyjm5gNKZ9_wWl9AP41iPUMwhu2AQ0pM2CNCmtWdPJ0Hpebr51SaowH_1JYrPc8/s1600/Stage+1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivTdHrAqAG5__MuHo9nGbj2VW17E6EApaG0KyrJzMEEE80NpicjKmavdGRm1Z2OSXyOHKNtyQXjZqvOyjm5gNKZ9_wWl9AP41iPUMwhu2AQ0pM2CNCmtWdPJ0Hpebr51SaowH_1JYrPc8/s400/Stage+1.png" width="303" /></a>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXkfliTjEtWvQIDjpWZBW50XwHA4xog0wdH201h7TgpmovxB5yJBTK1pgedJOcQc5mSoPAzEHjn1Co4PxzIlAhyLmj24y8pva-Q_QSim7IWWjBIdJ2j9RVKhLZGuS2gxogo1Gr06l_aNw/s1600/Stage+2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXkfliTjEtWvQIDjpWZBW50XwHA4xog0wdH201h7TgpmovxB5yJBTK1pgedJOcQc5mSoPAzEHjn1Co4PxzIlAhyLmj24y8pva-Q_QSim7IWWjBIdJ2j9RVKhLZGuS2gxogo1Gr06l_aNw/s400/Stage+2.png" width="305" /></a>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ3KrU8mtacoARKNtPUjAvRQadiXacEMCVVIlkfy98DMVlEidNBrykGcsYxM2LUOT-jOs7cxybtUgEf64R8seUft6OknSfYKdfKocUJcC48ljM_lfLp1I2EaK-WILTaoCvasJNE2FDK7k/s1600/Stage+3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ3KrU8mtacoARKNtPUjAvRQadiXacEMCVVIlkfy98DMVlEidNBrykGcsYxM2LUOT-jOs7cxybtUgEf64R8seUft6OknSfYKdfKocUJcC48ljM_lfLp1I2EaK-WILTaoCvasJNE2FDK7k/s400/Stage+3.png" width="305" /></a>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOw3Up-UDwdbesVfJw0G_QVlEGcAs6cTlkfl3bccE0qRjhl1DSQAvOIfpklTb3rETt-UQuKchichqES6QUPqeyJ-HvZVcuVev-D6tIw4wDTXuFWy6pXDe4OAj4iUg4fdi5PQ0URNi9hoY/s1600/Stage+4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOw3Up-UDwdbesVfJw0G_QVlEGcAs6cTlkfl3bccE0qRjhl1DSQAvOIfpklTb3rETt-UQuKchichqES6QUPqeyJ-HvZVcuVev-D6tIw4wDTXuFWy6pXDe4OAj4iUg4fdi5PQ0URNi9hoY/s400/Stage+4.png" width="305" /></a>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXJh6VVMB0Td8PuLWa21nRG-XLQaTHcvNhUStgzb1PrDkFnCQbAvDFH2CYqdA2oNS8Trmd4P9k4UQwphfoOTeYtq5wVoEvgQrO7OAJ7RPQ-wyI0c0ChObXgsAU_X0m3LgvxSxC-dA2wRA/s1600/Stage+5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXJh6VVMB0Td8PuLWa21nRG-XLQaTHcvNhUStgzb1PrDkFnCQbAvDFH2CYqdA2oNS8Trmd4P9k4UQwphfoOTeYtq5wVoEvgQrO7OAJ7RPQ-wyI0c0ChObXgsAU_X0m3LgvxSxC-dA2wRA/s400/Stage+5.png" width="305" /></a>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXScKDuI_hlrNhaL9utXpk8hZ5SGz77sOhHQayb48ndHiS9t6P0OY2B3rCOzy8WogtkwuufrgtYcK-tXmSY4dGEgtUZbtdWKwmoHo0cEOCCe9izbWtgOg8LVsRLwZw2-ys8HU4-ch6mlQ/s1600/Stage+6.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXScKDuI_hlrNhaL9utXpk8hZ5SGz77sOhHQayb48ndHiS9t6P0OY2B3rCOzy8WogtkwuufrgtYcK-tXmSY4dGEgtUZbtdWKwmoHo0cEOCCe9izbWtgOg8LVsRLwZw2-ys8HU4-ch6mlQ/s400/Stage+6.png" width="305" /></a><br />
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In addition to the special enemies seen in a couple of the levels (meteors and enemy UFOs) each level contains lots and lots of rockets that launch from below without any warning to try and collide with and destroy you so you spend a lot of time either avoiding the missiles or trying to shoot them down. And all the while your fuel is constantly depleting which is indicated by the fuel gauge at the bottom of the screen, so you have to regularly replenish your fuel by destroying the fuel tanks located throughout the levels. Not sure how you recover usable fuel from a fuel tank explosion but them's the rules! It's a rather alarming feeling when you are up to your eyes in rockets with no fuel tank in sight and the siren starts blaring to alert you that you are almost out of fuel. If you run out of fuel - you guessed it - you crash.<br />
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Oh and speaking of the siren, I enjoy the sound effects on Scramble. They are pretty simplistic, as one would expect given its age, but they are loud and clear with enough variation to keep it from getting on your nerves like some old arcade games can do after a while.<br />
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You get points for everything you destroy of course and also for each second that you continue flying. I guess it's kind of like a horizontal space version of Atari 2600's River Raid - just DON'T run directly into the fuel tanks on this one...<br />
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Here's a little video of the gameplay on my machine:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/GSwjky6X4bI?list=UUOSrsoxDxeD0GnUQNSAT6Ag" width="560"></iframe>
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And if you still aren't convinced that you need to find and play this game just glance down at the lower right corner of the bezel to see what else Scramble offers you... Space Porn!!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsp_Jt6KCXOV7NArFIVUx2u83fH_6kTMgL9g5rkka7Amu6CRbGjI8G_jf8rTxqyiuHJsyJscXHsCVlNqHCEa26if-bxzYwf3kHnMt7HAwKWSAiJ_AwRy0f4Y6Crz63QWjuTOU7_IK4Fk0/s1600/Scramble+Porn.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsp_Jt6KCXOV7NArFIVUx2u83fH_6kTMgL9g5rkka7Amu6CRbGjI8G_jf8rTxqyiuHJsyJscXHsCVlNqHCEa26if-bxzYwf3kHnMt7HAwKWSAiJ_AwRy0f4Y6Crz63QWjuTOU7_IK4Fk0/s640/Scramble+Porn.JPG" width="640" /></a> <br />
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Konami didn't bother putting any copy protection in place on the Scramble hardware so apparently it was a simple matter for arcade owners to convert the hardware to run most other games that ran on a Z80 processor when Scramble started getting old. That's why in MAME there are several games that list a clone as running on "(Scramble Hardware)". Stern themselves used the exact same hardware for Scramble's sequel Super Cobra and the games Lost Tomb and The End. There were also clone ripoffs of Scramble itself called Explorer and Strafe Bomb.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Scramble on Other Platforms</span></b><br />
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In the introductory sequence on the Game Boy Advance game Gradius Galaxies, Scramble is shown as the first game in the Gradius series; however, Konami issued the Gradius Portable guidebook a few years later which listed Scramble separately from the Gradius games. So it's official position in that lineage is uncertain, but it was certainly at least a strong influence on the game. Scramble was ported to the Vectrex and apparently to the Commodore 64 as well along with a few dedicated tabletop systems. In more recent years it has also been included in some Konami arcade collections.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcY4-1rnKKCEOFfZqi-JzWxk2THoI1KE3R7qA3r04zWN25AweFuGnuXgJZH_teva_JHrZ7sNEnEcuvxD-Km1d6IXbH-1e8gg01MdN4oJ0BOnrknu66KBeNNJEF5N26N6j6GrqIDabgwGY/s1600/Vectrex+Scramble.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcY4-1rnKKCEOFfZqi-JzWxk2THoI1KE3R7qA3r04zWN25AweFuGnuXgJZH_teva_JHrZ7sNEnEcuvxD-Km1d6IXbH-1e8gg01MdN4oJ0BOnrknu66KBeNNJEF5N26N6j6GrqIDabgwGY/s1600/Vectrex+Scramble.png" /></a> <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkMP1AmaFNrGzmRt3rnA_gtSXRIWw_mXSksCW9v3hhlmFZo6Gyot_J9DkH221UThyxZFEf6OyhfUTL61-DHbDyBh29xoZg2Y6ne0305weIEo90HUVwd6RzoqRQ8ha3qhN-9cvDN7lnl_o/s1600/Grandstand+Scramble.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkMP1AmaFNrGzmRt3rnA_gtSXRIWw_mXSksCW9v3hhlmFZo6Gyot_J9DkH221UThyxZFEf6OyhfUTL61-DHbDyBh29xoZg2Y6ne0305weIEo90HUVwd6RzoqRQ8ha3qhN-9cvDN7lnl_o/s1600/Grandstand+Scramble.jpg" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYlJSsjS1U4wrplnWhc-23gajbqT54QuZ8RHpIRAKa5QgtMtxIfNGnJYyCVFiq7OBlxquQKoXVsu9rUl90Dg5phPWPKFN6_buzRg-B2lHv4Rk2ImCFl-owMlfFclSmF8J97KjhcoYt0zo/s1600/Tomytronic+Scramble.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYlJSsjS1U4wrplnWhc-23gajbqT54QuZ8RHpIRAKa5QgtMtxIfNGnJYyCVFiq7OBlxquQKoXVsu9rUl90Dg5phPWPKFN6_buzRg-B2lHv4Rk2ImCFl-owMlfFclSmF8J97KjhcoYt0zo/s400/Tomytronic+Scramble.jpg" width="400" /></a> <br />
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Scramble was not widely ported to home video game and computer systems, but it did inspire quite a few clones. A quick search online shows the following list. I was going to include some screenshots but there are just so many of them I opted not to, but if one of your favorite systems is listed below then you might want to check out one of the associated clones. I played a few of them on emulators to check them out and some of them are quite good.<br />
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Air Strike (Atari 8-bit computer)<br />
Air Strike II (Atari 8-bit computer)<br />
Alien Attack (Tomy Tabletop arcade)<br />
Astro Blaster (Tomytronic tabletop arcade in UK)<br />
Cave Fighter (Dragon 32/64 computer)<br />
Cavern Fighter (ZX Spectrum, VIC-20)<br />
Caverns (Amstrad PCW 8256)<br />
Deathstrike (Sinclair QL)<br />
Fire Galaxy (VIC-20)<br />
Martian Raider (VIC-20)<br />
Moon Raider (Acorn Electron)<br />
Penetrator (ZX Spectrum)<br />
PixelShips<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>2000<span style="white-space: pre;"> (</span>Windows)<br />
PixelShips Retro (Windows)<br />
Raid on Isram (VIC-20)<br />
Rambler (Tomy Tabletop arcade in Germany)<br />
Rocket Raid (BBC Micro)<br />
Scram-20 (VIC-20)<br />
Scramble (Tomytronic tabletop arcade in US)<br />
Scramble (ZX Spectrum)<br />
Skramble (Dragon 32/64, TRS-80 CoCo, Commodore 64, MSX, VIC-20)<br />
Skramble! (C64, VIC-20, MSX)<br />
Striker <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;">(</span>DOS)<br />
Super Skramble! (Commodore 64)<br />
Tube Way Army (Dragon 32-64 computer)<br />
VIC Scramble (VIC-20)<br />
Whirlybird Run (CoCo) (Actually might be a clone of Super Cobra because it is a helicopter)<br />
Zeroth Zone (PC DOS)<br />
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So in closing I'll say that I do vaguely remember playing Scramble a time or two back in the day, but I don't recall thinking it was all that great. However, now that I've had a chance to revisit the game and explore it more fully, I have come to appreciate it as an underrated classic that deserves a respected place in arcade history. Which for me, to my wife's chagrin, is in the kitchen... er... game room. Uh-oh - there's that chill up my spine again...MadPlanethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06725908232972984690noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743918922173292265.post-32398472896515497472013-05-02T14:35:00.000-05:002013-05-02T14:35:24.922-05:00Texas Pinball Festival News VideoPungent Onion and I made the annual pilgrimage (2 years in a row anyway) to Dallas for the Texas Pinball Festival in March and though I have been too busy to prepare a proper post about it, a local news station did air a short piece on the event and the resurgence that pinball is experiencing the last few years. So check it out below - from "J.B.'s Journal" on KYTX in Dallas. Thanks to Edward VanderVeen with the Dallas Fort Worth Pinball & Arcade Club for pointing it out.<br />
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<script src="http://KYTX.images.worldnow.com/interface/js/WNVideo.js?rnd=274759;hostDomain=www.cbs19.tv;playerWidth=630;playerHeight=385;isShowIcon=true;clipId=8815457;flvUri=;partnerclipid=;adTag=News;advertisingZone=;enableAds=true;landingPage=;islandingPageoverride=false;playerType=STANDARD_EMBEDDEDscript;controlsType=fixed" type="text/javascript"></script><a href="http://www.cbs19.tv/" title="KYTX CBS 19 Tyler Longview News Weather Sports">KYTX CBS 19 Tyler Longview News Weather Sports</a>MadPlanethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06725908232972984690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743918922173292265.post-57075668744176528372013-05-01T11:35:00.001-05:002013-05-01T11:35:48.209-05:00Increase Speed, Drop Down, and Reverse Direction!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDNlDZ2mjuVt5v1jA-inwPClUMPlT7K4GsxGT4PV8_4WH5g4c5NU8XOg0ymjWpMo8SdmzBeR1HahcjAf2PNZmJnzu5OGs6FlVu3Ec7vgYaobScr3BupopqF0k3I7-s3HIAKTMTQyzkupo/s1600/lrrr+(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDNlDZ2mjuVt5v1jA-inwPClUMPlT7K4GsxGT4PV8_4WH5g4c5NU8XOg0ymjWpMo8SdmzBeR1HahcjAf2PNZmJnzu5OGs6FlVu3Ec7vgYaobScr3BupopqF0k3I7-s3HIAKTMTQyzkupo/s400/lrrr+(1).jpg" width="400" /></a>
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My previous post about the <a href="http://madplanetsgameroom.blogspot.com/2013/04/space-invaders-drink-markers.html" target="_blank">Space Invaders drink markers </a>reminded me of the excellent episode of Futurama where the space invaders from the planet Nintendu 64 were attacking earth. The segment, entitled "Raiders of the Lost Arcade", had numerous comical references to classic arcade games. By my count they referenced 17 classic video games:<br />
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Asteroids<br />
Donkey Kong<br />
Super Mario 64 (or at least a talking Mario in general and I think SM64 was the first one with that)<br />
Battlezone<br />
Missile Command<br />
Defender<br />
Moon Patrol<br />
Doom<br />
Pac-Man<br />
Centipede<br />
Space Invaders<br />
Ms. Pac-Man<br />
Berzerk<br />
Robotron 2084 (maybe not, but not sure what else the big brain guy might be from. Thought for a minute maybe Space Fury but SF's big brain guy only has one eye)<br />
Zero Wing (All your base are belong to us)<br />
BurgerTime<br />
Q-Bert<br />
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I'm guessing that most folks who might be reading this have already seen this Futurama before, but if you haven't then you need to rectify that situation post-haste. Check out the video below - it's only about 6 minutes long.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.liveleak.com/ll_embed?f=535_1189897817" width="640"></iframe>
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And furthermore, while looking for this video I discovered a freeware game that a game developer named Shinobi had created based on the Space Invaders sequence in the episode. It has apparently been around since 2009 but I'd never seen it before, so I downloaded it and checked it out and I actually thought it was quite good. The graphics are nice and clean with some nifty parallax action and the gameplay includes some extras like double-shot and shield power ups and alien bomb hazards. Supposedly has some more surprises too but I don't think I played long enough into it to see everything. And the tie-in to the episode is done very well - Fry rolls in with his Rush tape blaring and the other characters make cameo appearances with clips from the show from time to time depending on the situation. So if you are a Futurama fan or a Space Invaders fan it is worth the download. You can grab it here: <a href="http://www.shinobis-place.de/Page_neu/index.html">http://www.shinobis-place.de/Page_neu/index.html</a>. He also created several others I haven't tried yet - Moon Patrol, Asteroids, 2nd Encounter, Kung Fu Master 3D, Snake and Fish, and Run or Die.<br />
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Or if you'd prefer to just check out the gameplay on video instead here ya go:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="473" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/LtUkphb_Pbg" width="630"></iframe>
MadPlanethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06725908232972984690noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743918922173292265.post-44914059936354504322013-04-29T16:05:00.002-05:002013-04-29T16:05:44.072-05:00Space Invaders Drink MarkersA quickie post today - a shot, if you will, as opposed to a beer.<br />
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From time to time my loving wife comes home with some little surprise treat that she bought for me out of the blue. Sometimes it is something simple like a bag of skittles. Other times it is more complex like my Spider-Man cuckoo clock. Occasionally, the treats don't quite hit the mark, such as when she came home with a new copy of Black Ops 2 complete with Season Pass, even though my brief love affair with the Call of Duty franchise came to an end quite some time ago (but I'll get around to playing it one of these days). Other times she hits it out of the park, like when she brought me a big box completely full of old science fiction digest books and magazines that she bought at a thrift shop for $5.<br />
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Whatever it is, I usually have two requirements before my mind feels free to enjoy it. First, it should not be very large (space concerns) and second, it should not be very expensive (money concerns). She checked both of these boxes with her latest dollar-store find - Space Invaders drink markers!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1bX66VXU14yMAF2ST5BfxzmIaltzkMYU_22k5xjyJcJ3vcRt12FdC3w8gLR4oNgbSAZ4meiL-4_5Yj77kc5J1J8B6b0v5gUovkC10G_cDGlefhhiWZ2mng37IZkj6DiL7d4fV742kQWg/s1600/Space+Invaders+drink+markers..JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1bX66VXU14yMAF2ST5BfxzmIaltzkMYU_22k5xjyJcJ3vcRt12FdC3w8gLR4oNgbSAZ4meiL-4_5Yj77kc5J1J8B6b0v5gUovkC10G_cDGlefhhiWZ2mng37IZkj6DiL7d4fV742kQWg/s640/Space+Invaders+drink+markers..JPG" width="640" /></a>
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Have you ever been to a party and you put your drink down on a table to chat it up with some hot young lady and then when you go to pick it back up there are 4 other drinks sitting there and you aren't sure which one is yours? Oh man, if I only had a nickel for every time! OK - I don't often find myself in that exact situation, but I'm middle-aged, married and not particularly comfortable with crowds so I'm not really a good example. Anyway, I've heard it's definitely a thing. So how to avoid that potentially awkward social situation? Why, silicone Space Invaders of course! Just peel off one of these 6 different invaders and slap it on your glass, bottle, can, whatever, and you will be able to spot your drink a mile away.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieF9ssojy5EY4_ws3HU8wY7-nfPWM4DaN8aXwbj7OwIjCPvpcWF2BMIMHBtILkxrRV2bh5H8Qu4h4FhP0O3T_L63_sOtUVNYS_4WHmXwyGZl7t3hUjRTPKVsFZMHkSOjuVCoxBO59McIk/s1600/Space+Invaders+drink+markers+on+a+can.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieF9ssojy5EY4_ws3HU8wY7-nfPWM4DaN8aXwbj7OwIjCPvpcWF2BMIMHBtILkxrRV2bh5H8Qu4h4FhP0O3T_L63_sOtUVNYS_4WHmXwyGZl7t3hUjRTPKVsFZMHkSOjuVCoxBO59McIk/s640/Space+Invaders+drink+markers+on+a+can.JPG" width="480" /></a>
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Plus you will be announcing for the entire room of onlookers that you are proud to be a supporter of retro coin-operated games whose popularity in Japan resulted in a yen shortage. Believe me, the ladies appreciate that sort of thing.<br />
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All that for only $1! Hell I've already used them a couple of times myself just for fun even though the only other bottles and cans on the table were my own empties. So go to your local dollar-store, slap 100 yen down on the counter and get your very own set!<br />
<br />MadPlanethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06725908232972984690noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743918922173292265.post-12211336193923822832013-04-23T15:29:00.000-05:002013-04-23T15:29:07.631-05:00Let Them Eat FoosballI was perusing Craigslist yesterday and I noticed a guy in Pasadena was selling an "antique foosball table" for $50. Now, I never really had any interest in foosball back in the day and frankly don't have much interest in it now either, but Pasadena is right around the corner from me so I clicked over to check it out.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBmCno0FUdGaGoetgoBq2_f0GuN3Mbd2VqPFRJZT6vktpMDnsegRHjeXOZcz6YoOnHwVYOmeAZQ-Ce5BcUbnI4YbG0GhUkd4y_fWLWS-B9uBzh66B7kdD__6RyRAoSKShLDDHJ_LOSwwA/s1600/Foosball+for+fitty.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBmCno0FUdGaGoetgoBq2_f0GuN3Mbd2VqPFRJZT6vktpMDnsegRHjeXOZcz6YoOnHwVYOmeAZQ-Ce5BcUbnI4YbG0GhUkd4y_fWLWS-B9uBzh66B7kdD__6RyRAoSKShLDDHJ_LOSwwA/s400/Foosball+for+fitty.jpg" width="400" /></a>
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Well, it was an actual coin-op table which I always like, but beyond that it didn't appeal to me, especially given my space demands and lukewarm interest to begin with, so I passed.<br />
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But out of curiosity I googled "antique foosball table" to see what else was out there and a really pretty one pops up.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQwI5K3K84-nNZH97DlkGdwaRQ_eS3kvXWdBjLSqZ58vyFSVwZ31ert5fUN8fucYCeRqupjW_unR6jFCs8n4VYxvalLy7JhL5zcyM8y0ngEHolo4P2v8UlaY8toydqVJOT2B3GWQ1VEFQ/s1600/Maitland-Smith-3130-160-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="448" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQwI5K3K84-nNZH97DlkGdwaRQ_eS3kvXWdBjLSqZ58vyFSVwZ31ert5fUN8fucYCeRqupjW_unR6jFCs8n4VYxvalLy7JhL5zcyM8y0ngEHolo4P2v8UlaY8toydqVJOT2B3GWQ1VEFQ/s640/Maitland-Smith-3130-160-2.jpg" width="640" /></a>
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Even if you didn't see the fine furniture pic, the description is so chock-full of pricey words you just know it's gonna cost a boatload - "Maitland Smith 3130-160 Napoleon Brown and Antique Aubergine Finished Foosball Table, Monkey & Lion Players". Oh man, they got monkeys AND lions, they talk about the finish, and they say "Aubergine" which is so far beyond the purview of my fanciness I don't even know what the heck it means! Add cryptic numbers to that and that Napoleonic reference alone doubles the retail price right there. All for the low low price of $8,736! But wait, there is an online store that has it on sale now for only $4,435.50 - you save $4,300.60! PM me for the link if you wish to buy.<br />
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So I dig a little deeper to see if there are pricier foosball tables out there and sure enough - there are. Foosball for the rich and famous. GRO Design developed a deluxe model for the discriminating table football enthusiast which they elegantly titled "11 - the Beautiful Game". It doesn't look like any foosball table I've ever seen. It's sleek. It's futuristic. It's the foosball of Logan's Run. Trailer? Trailer.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="450" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/21032246" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="600"></iframe><br />
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Note the dramatic lighting and camera angles - they really play this table up like it is a true piece of art. Well that is by design I would think because it is priced like a Rembrandt! Pricing STARTS from 48,500 euros. Did they mean pesos? No man - euros. That's over $63,000 U.S. dollars for this bad boy. And that is just for the classic black and white version - if you want something special done well that's extra. Honestly I prefer the wood myself, but if you are insanely rich and richly insane - you can buy your ultimate foosball table at <a href="http://www.11thegame.com/">www.11thegame.com</a>.<br />
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P.S. I learned that foosball has a LOT of different names around the world. My personal favorite - "fla-flu" from a region in Brazil. Close second - "baby foot" in Quebec.<br />
<br />MadPlanethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06725908232972984690noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743918922173292265.post-80802556774028141672013-04-20T15:09:00.001-05:002013-04-20T15:09:56.240-05:008-Bit Pale Ale Video GameMy friend Twiggamortis knows I'm into old video games so a while back he handed me a beer can with some 8-bit artwork on it - a copyright-friendly Pac-Man and a "Hop Rocket". It was called <a href="http://www.tallgrassbeer.com/beers/8-bit" target="_blank">"8-Bit Pale Ale" from the Tallgrass Brewing Company in Manhattan, Kansas</a>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnHL-KC6CETmDcTgEW88xWodrfujf6APwZvn-NAS4WVtbusHAlGi-mzs9wSFI7nr-lPRblTmG2QcoiyTKDBEMIZKdA3EMFRabFGIuuT58yLwU6zZgf5n0flXBdJKaxS7RyiyLnRXNsDRw/s1600/8Bit_4Pack.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnHL-KC6CETmDcTgEW88xWodrfujf6APwZvn-NAS4WVtbusHAlGi-mzs9wSFI7nr-lPRblTmG2QcoiyTKDBEMIZKdA3EMFRabFGIuuT58yLwU6zZgf5n0flXBdJKaxS7RyiyLnRXNsDRw/s640/8Bit_4Pack.jpg" width="532" /></a><br />
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It was certainly a unique theme for a beer - craft beers have all sorts of crazy themes on their cans and bottles, but I'd never seen a video game beer before. I guess the Tallgrass folks must have played a good amount of NES back in the day. The can piqued my curiosity but alas was disturbingly empty, and the beer was not sold in Texas.<br />
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Well, I'm always on the lookout for local brews on my road trips and during my recent trip to Arkansas I found a 4-pack of this pale ale so I picked it up. I thought the beer was good, but when I googled it and found this video the brewery made of the retro "8-Bit Pale Ale Video Game" I liked it even better. I thought it was cool little video and I think you'll like too.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/scmKAS_DRJg" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<br />MadPlanethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06725908232972984690noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743918922173292265.post-36613878657928356452013-04-14T23:26:00.002-05:002013-04-14T23:26:29.072-05:00Arkadia Retrocade in Fayetteville, ArkansasI just got home from an unexpected trip to the northern Arkansas area (the reason for which is an upcoming post of its own), and while I was up there I intended to make the extra 2.5 hour drive into Springfield, Missouri to revisit a great classic arcade called 1984, but some quick online research revealed another new classic (is that an oxymoron?) arcade in Fayetteville that had just opened its doors in October 2012 called Arkadia Retrocade. It was a lot closer than Springfield AND I had never been there so I crossed 1984 off the itinerary and switched it to Arkadia Retrocade instead - and I wasn't disappointed. Here, have a seat on this comfy bean bag chair and let me tell you about it.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv94ye-LR2uwFQYEPQlxuY0Vtod03Tj1hbWWlo44HpkUg5BP88zjJThVatEuJTxLvruGy-RsAhq1LbT1ATgqOYPAHIWBnEH3hYVkr7gDAPqVj3VIzYL52u1eWfgs1mOlESHZi38QjnbJQ/s1600/out+front.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv94ye-LR2uwFQYEPQlxuY0Vtod03Tj1hbWWlo44HpkUg5BP88zjJThVatEuJTxLvruGy-RsAhq1LbT1ATgqOYPAHIWBnEH3hYVkr7gDAPqVj3VIzYL52u1eWfgs1mOlESHZi38QjnbJQ/s640/out+front.jpg" width="480" /></a>
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The entrance fee is only $5 and once in all the games are set on free-play. The games that don't have a free play setting have been retrofitted with a small red button in the front by the coin slots that you push to insert a virtual quarter. The owner Shea Mathis actually took my $5 himself so we chatted a bit before I started hitting the games. Shea is a very friendly Fayetteville local and was happy to talk about his still-young arcade. I didn't take any video inside but here is a short piece that the local news station ran a while back.<br />
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<script height="365px" src="http://player.ooyala.com/iframe.js#pbid=e32b1952e526440e8cfb2c72937dad7e&ec=VuYXdhOTr7EblDvS0chC7AvdHRg1YKUC" width="650px"></script>
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The arcade is very clean and there are interesting 80's decorative touches throughout - all sorts of magazine covers and posters on the wall at the entrance, Space Invaders and Berzerk robots painted on the walls, the exposed duct work is painted green so it looks like a Mario warp pipe, and actual arcade sides placed into the walls - not just side art decals, but the actual wood sides of cabs that Shea came across that were irreparable and would probably have otherwise been headed to the dump.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf3zMtan5lpXq1sHm8P4l5zlZG14r8uDeLb4hsHI0_xQYiz_QXl9E08X6gg9BVIU0GfvEBywjN5-B1Z4D_iVI3o1_vi2-SEpKwJauLepkXUltnk_wmJvVwSLArbqIYGrO9U_p0n9-_kMs/s1600/Side+art.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf3zMtan5lpXq1sHm8P4l5zlZG14r8uDeLb4hsHI0_xQYiz_QXl9E08X6gg9BVIU0GfvEBywjN5-B1Z4D_iVI3o1_vi2-SEpKwJauLepkXUltnk_wmJvVwSLArbqIYGrO9U_p0n9-_kMs/s640/Side+art.JPG" width="640" /></a>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifO1fuquo2BptVgTWj0nATU6rnKfg4MUnzZ4SMBBFIfYBjBp9o99ufKmUFUhLvSnxn04bW_QXkqIMOuLrU7VzU__rl43D79oZvOhzc5mjzAgyBU8i6EjRG8eKXq7XdibAicroNomYEjhM/s1600/Snacks.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifO1fuquo2BptVgTWj0nATU6rnKfg4MUnzZ4SMBBFIfYBjBp9o99ufKmUFUhLvSnxn04bW_QXkqIMOuLrU7VzU__rl43D79oZvOhzc5mjzAgyBU8i6EjRG8eKXq7XdibAicroNomYEjhM/s640/Snacks.JPG" width="640" /></a>
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Right off the bat one of the first games I see is the cockpit Sega Turbo. I really enjoy this old racing game that pre-dates Atari's more well-known Pole Position. Turbo was the first 3rd person racing game and has a great bassy surround sound in the mostly-enclosed cabinet. I actually like this game so much when I got a chance to buy one about a year ago I did. And not all that long after I bought it, it went down - and for various reasons I still have yet to get it up and running again. So any time I come across a cockpit Sega Turbo in a classic arcade I get an earfull from my wife about how I need to hurry up and fix it. Fortunately for me it is very rare to find them in the wild these days, but even so this is the second time this has happened to me in the last year - I've GOT to get my Turbo running again to avoid this indignity!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR8WWIVo5iMQXpUpYuB-JA9nrCeXm8oYdMjcPEEOMTdImuChlxPmxk_7St8B65iA3p7DlzFiZ5cPgZ-v7rn8A4I2vNOEArlURocp1SXG2e8SbylI5vwT2NAilgj7RbspeNcj01G5obgbY/s1600/Sega+Turbo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR8WWIVo5iMQXpUpYuB-JA9nrCeXm8oYdMjcPEEOMTdImuChlxPmxk_7St8B65iA3p7DlzFiZ5cPgZ-v7rn8A4I2vNOEArlURocp1SXG2e8SbylI5vwT2NAilgj7RbspeNcj01G5obgbY/s640/Sega+Turbo.jpg" width="480" /></a>
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Arkadia has around 60 arcade games (I lost count on the exact number) including a lot of the staples that everyone remembers like Space Invaders, Asteroids, Donkey Kong, Pac-Man, Dig Dug, Stargate, Galaga and Centipede, but they also have a number of lesser-known gems that you are less likely to find even in a classic retro arcade setting like Silk Worm, Toobin, Jungle King, Pengo, Gondomania, Donkey Kong 3, Karate Champ and Sunset Riders. Unfortunately several of the games were down or experiencing technical difficulties including Gorf which was one of my favorites back in the day, but they have a technician who maintains/repairs them so it likely won't be long before those are back up and running. I've learned firsthand that keeping 30-year old machines in running condition at all times can be a challenge. In the meantime there were plenty that played just fine to keep me busy.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDyQxoLY-F6ZfNa3Yt7zIeYQdhAFGxsqlcutndDkbsiaenDP4g5uANdVEpYG8jqDe29hUDDktYmW9SPbl61LhapybEXTl0Ex7KUEtvnALPsvBNNN6ihWU_P8ry_oVTzRINsTgY1qpTx8Y/s1600/Arcades.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDyQxoLY-F6ZfNa3Yt7zIeYQdhAFGxsqlcutndDkbsiaenDP4g5uANdVEpYG8jqDe29hUDDktYmW9SPbl61LhapybEXTl0Ex7KUEtvnALPsvBNNN6ihWU_P8ry_oVTzRINsTgY1qpTx8Y/s640/Arcades.jpg" width="640" /></a>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBNoZh4dyfyiQBrMW4J1kWmcvCMrDBZn9kWdBpkhZc9f1qlT5muRyo76-k0UNQVh2gH2WFU_ygWRhrAGVeB06fLAHY7-Riq3tupCz_drbEPXgZtCSKZwkUFn7xDnsqtw3Anf6TglEwHEM/s1600/MISC3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBNoZh4dyfyiQBrMW4J1kWmcvCMrDBZn9kWdBpkhZc9f1qlT5muRyo76-k0UNQVh2gH2WFU_ygWRhrAGVeB06fLAHY7-Riq3tupCz_drbEPXgZtCSKZwkUFn7xDnsqtw3Anf6TglEwHEM/s640/MISC3.jpg" width="640" /></a>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1uU3kiAbkNKUy3GfKFmSpDaZCTjETqqYVPT2nKyCrHMpfGGUYQWPKOd5ZU-_OCEidv0jOqb088Wlf3IYbPtQTww0CJKMUFbRTjOeTFCuhOCfYWSUpvaZSrKVDMD6u2BSpmrXacNHm9rM/s1600/DK3a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1uU3kiAbkNKUy3GfKFmSpDaZCTjETqqYVPT2nKyCrHMpfGGUYQWPKOd5ZU-_OCEidv0jOqb088Wlf3IYbPtQTww0CJKMUFbRTjOeTFCuhOCfYWSUpvaZSrKVDMD6u2BSpmrXacNHm9rM/s640/DK3a.jpg" width="456" /></a>
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A little later Mrs. MP made the scene and by that time Shea's friend Larry had taken over the admission fee duties so I got a chance to meet him as well. Like Shea, Larry was obviously passionate about what they were doing at the arcade and was eager to talk about it with like-minded individuals so the three of us chatted a while. Super-nice guy.<br />
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I was pleased to see that they had Silk Worm which is a lesser known game that I quite enjoy but very rarely come across. Silk Worm is a 1988 horizontal shoot 'em up by Tecmo that plays best when you have a partner to play with - one of you drives a jeep and one of you flies an attack helicopter and you, you know, shoot everything in sight. The jeep can also jump so there is a little Moon Patrol vibe too. If you like shooters and you've never played it you should check it out. I was playing a little Silk Worm solo as the jeep when Larry walks up and joins in as the helicopter. A prime example of the kind of gaming camaraderie that can spontaneously occur in an old-school arcade environment. You just don't get that same sort of positive experience with strangers on Xbox Live.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP8NbfYxl3vBw-Qquh1G3Lx6aTkZsGcwS8rLO2AeaVOxQu5XNO_VFfe__ZfZ3jT1bFMCmiTXFYk_rE0fQXr-5-D5FHZX7tRYgPsYV3g3qFdnheEXiRpnbpioQRis8Bvv1v_jrqKlQ8qm0/s1600/Silk+Worm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP8NbfYxl3vBw-Qquh1G3Lx6aTkZsGcwS8rLO2AeaVOxQu5XNO_VFfe__ZfZ3jT1bFMCmiTXFYk_rE0fQXr-5-D5FHZX7tRYgPsYV3g3qFdnheEXiRpnbpioQRis8Bvv1v_jrqKlQ8qm0/s640/Silk+Worm.jpg" width="480" /></a>
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In the central area there was a raised deck with several sit-down cocktail games on it along with a couple of tables where you could relax and play old board games if you like.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTs-Judigh_9KMnglQD3P9l0pgcoSLN6mWqevlWlpbRXGinnV96LnFw8RMukQ7jmblVz53UMNc5hvvmb6ve5zo7OTFra43V1hq6sJ5t5YCC8mVVMzjUPOQySchb0lJbNMfBXyPw4hpeSQ/s1600/Cocktails.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTs-Judigh_9KMnglQD3P9l0pgcoSLN6mWqevlWlpbRXGinnV96LnFw8RMukQ7jmblVz53UMNc5hvvmb6ve5zo7OTFra43V1hq6sJ5t5YCC8mVVMzjUPOQySchb0lJbNMfBXyPw4hpeSQ/s640/Cocktails.jpg" width="640" /></a>
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They also have a really nice setup where you can relax on a couch and play some Atari 2600 on an old TV. I played a little Vanguard and Mrs. MP played a little Freeway. The best games to play on the old Atari though are the 2-player head to head games if you have a worthy opponent handy - Combat, Slot Racers, Video Olympics - those kinds of games are still great fun even today. There is a similar setup in the back for the Nintendo 64.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxZBkc-nQCpLnzK0c2TMbi97XV6Mbaxmx1CteOcrGMwnkCFSQWzIJatKomREjIkva97BP5racSTnjF2EJQPE-epBcUQY1nOrYo-OA1Vd8Ym-H_wJRY1eSbHEECmawvs0vQYVPbgzeG8tg/s1600/Couch-Atari.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxZBkc-nQCpLnzK0c2TMbi97XV6Mbaxmx1CteOcrGMwnkCFSQWzIJatKomREjIkva97BP5racSTnjF2EJQPE-epBcUQY1nOrYo-OA1Vd8Ym-H_wJRY1eSbHEECmawvs0vQYVPbgzeG8tg/s640/Couch-Atari.jpg" width="640" /></a>
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And if all the arcade games and the two console stations weren't enough, they also have air hockey, foosball, board games, old electronic games, old magazines and books scattered about, 80's cartoons playing on the TV, just lots of retro goodness to relax and enjoy if you like that sort of thing, which, as I have repeatedly stated on here, I do. There is also a small snack bar in the back that sells things sodas, water, chips, cookies and candy. Oh - I read that they had recently added coffee to the list as well so if you start dozing off you can pump in some caffeine.<br />
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Before I knew it 10:30 PM had come and gone and the lights started turning off which was our signal to leave. Shea and Larry actually encouraged us to play a few more games but they were trying to get to some sort of gaming tournament they had going on in the back with the locals so we went ahead and started heading for the door. But before we left Larry put something down on the cabinet and said "Now don't chew the gum, it might kill you" - I look down to see what he had given me and it was an unopened pack of Donkey Kong cards from 1982! I'd seen these cards on the internet but never actually had any myself. Thanks Larry! If you're curious what the contents of a 31-year old pack of Donkey Kong cards looks like - see below. There were 3 cards with DK-related stickers, 3 cards with a scratch-off game where you try to make your way to the top of the girders like in the game, and a shattered piece of presumably inedible gum. I remember that card pack gum from my other cards (Star Wars, Six Million Dollar Man, Battlestar Galactica etc.) and it was pretty bad even when it was new, so chewing it over 30 years later may have indeed, as Larry warned, led to my death. I elected not to chew it.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3btQr-4oEyBZkH_nX3ZFrGVOm7NEA3d1TL3eO3Et2MaYPqpxlMvfrnMn7_LzlbORSBuU_oLXL3S3dDzSsyLT6d70v7Gb43yR_GC_7eOjpMH1y35If9QUq22NL5W0Kfbwc7jGbykJxaWI/s1600/DK+Cards.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3btQr-4oEyBZkH_nX3ZFrGVOm7NEA3d1TL3eO3Et2MaYPqpxlMvfrnMn7_LzlbORSBuU_oLXL3S3dDzSsyLT6d70v7Gb43yR_GC_7eOjpMH1y35If9QUq22NL5W0Kfbwc7jGbykJxaWI/s640/DK+Cards.jpg" width="480" /></a>
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So if you find yourself in the Northwest Arkansas area, or if you're like me and just enjoy driving all over the country, definitely stop in at Arkadia Retrocade and check it out. A good selection of games, extremely friendly proprietors, cheap admission fee - what's not to like?<br />
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<b>Arkadia Retrocade</b><br />
1478 N. College Avenue<br />
Fayetteville, AR 72703<br />
Phone: (479) 445-7844<br />
Website: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Arkadia-Retrocade/293619130743490">https://www.facebook.com/pages/Arkadia-Retrocade/293619130743490</a><br />
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Hours:<br />
Tuesday-Friday: 2:30 PM - 10:30 PM<br />
Saturday: 12:00 PM - 12:00 AM<br />
Sunday: 12:00 PM - 6:00 PM<br />
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Oh, and on a non-gaming note, if you are looking for a nice meal in the area I heartily recommend <a href="http://www.joesitaliangrill.com/" target="_blank">Joe's Italian Grill</a> just down the road in Springdale. I had the Chicken Parm Cremera and Mrs. MP had the Seafood Combo and they were both delicious. The meal took a little long to get to the table (although honestly I didn't mind as I was sipping my wine and relaxing) and the owner came out and told us he was giving us free desserts for the long wait so we took a cannoli and a tiramisu to go and ate them back at the hotel - they were both great!<br />
<br />MadPlanethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06725908232972984690noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743918922173292265.post-49236772206763833612013-02-15T18:33:00.001-06:002013-02-15T18:33:25.571-06:00Beercade - The Last Barfighter<div>
I just had to share this. I'm actually still at work but I JUST saw this over at <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/14/beercade-the-last-barfighter/" target="_blank">Engadget </a>- a game i.e. marketing ploy that combines two of the loves of my life - arcade games and beer. </div>
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Sure I've combined them myself plenty of times the DIY way and have been to a few Barcade joints that try to do it manually with waitresses or bartenders (savages!) but this nifty tech was actually engineered by top drunk scientists from around the globe to pour the winner a tall cold one right at the cab! What? </div>
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Admittedly the game itself looks pretty simplistic but hey string a few victories together and the game just keeps looking better and better. By the end of the evening, assuming you continue your winning ways, you will swear it is the greatest fighting game - nay the greatest video game - that you have ever played.</div>
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Apparently you have to be somewhere in the vicinity of North Carolina to try it out (damn!) since it looks like right now it is the exclusive marketing tool of the <a href="http://bigbossbrewing.com/" target="_blank">Big Boss Brewing Company of Raleigh, NC,</a> but even if you, like me, are nowhere near there, you should at least give the video a looksee. See ya!</div>
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<br />MadPlanethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06725908232972984690noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743918922173292265.post-20287701833318462892012-12-25T20:38:00.001-06:002012-12-25T20:38:35.763-06:00Merry Christmas to All!Hello? (tap, tap) Is this thing on?<br />
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Well, since I haven't posted a single thing on here in 10 long months I realize there is an excellent chance that I'm talking to myself here, but regardless I wanted to tell all you wonderful folks (listening or not) merry Christmas and a happy new year!<br />
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The game room has grown quite a bit this year and I've had several ideas for posts, even have one in the draft holster at 99% complete for the last several months, but work and life obligations combined with my chronically lethargic demeanor to inadvertently put the blog on hold. I'd like to think I will post again, as I do quite enjoy it, but calendars don't lie. And I can't risk my previous post potentially being the final one with that big goofy picture of me in front of the Canyon Bomber. So in the event that I continue my non-posting ways I wanted to take this opportunity to tell everyone thanks for taking the time to read over my little blog every now and then (back when I updated it on a semi-regular basis). I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Merry Christmas and good night.<br />
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<br />MadPlanethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06725908232972984690noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743918922173292265.post-9857512672430947212012-02-21T14:27:00.000-06:002012-02-21T14:27:44.867-06:00Arcade Games of the 70's: Canyon BomberOver the last couple of weekends, local friends and occasional blog-readers Pungent Onion and Twiggamortis made the trek down to the game room proper to check out the new Spider-Man pinball, and although pinball was the main attraction, the ol' MAME cab got some play as well. One of the oldies-but-goodies that got the most play this time was Atari's Canyon Bomber - and since I haven't thrown around any blather about that one on here, well I figured it was time.<br />
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Canyon Bomber is another of those games that I played on a home console as a kid (Atari 2600) but was never even aware that it was an arcade port until I discovered it on MAME, and then finally got the opportunity to play the real machine in person when I made the pilgrimage to the <a href="http://www.classicarcademuseum.org/">American Classic Arcade Museum</a> back in 2010.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQzWHTm_H202HlrbLBHWB_xIcAHGytSoJ3Lwv_ZiW76_pRaVE-KDCEME6DMVBkz2ep3YSonTnwxiD4QS720zLASZ2UScC3JyJLSuMEADnxNDYZPhOZQRVlLr0MvtwiS_qCmiO1oxia5ic/s1600/Canyon+Bomber+in+Person.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQzWHTm_H202HlrbLBHWB_xIcAHGytSoJ3Lwv_ZiW76_pRaVE-KDCEME6DMVBkz2ep3YSonTnwxiD4QS720zLASZ2UScC3JyJLSuMEADnxNDYZPhOZQRVlLr0MvtwiS_qCmiO1oxia5ic/s400/Canyon+Bomber+in+Person.png" width="300" /></a><br />
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Back in 1977 Atari was a serious player in the arcade scene. They had released Breakout the year before which was a huge hit and spawned numerous clones so they were on the lookout for their next big game. Their research staff combed the streets compiling opinion surveys which all pointed to one simple conclusion - the public demanded blimp and biplane bombing action. In response to this public outcry, Atari elected <a href="http://www.rawbw.com/~delman/index.html">Howard Delman</a>, who had just completed his first arcade game for them called Super Bug, to design both the hardware and the software for this new bombing game.<br />
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Rather than creating new hardware entirely from scratch, Delman took the existing board for Atari's Sprint 2 and made some clever modifications to enable it to produce an entirely different game. With the hardware in place he proceeded to write the software, and after many grueling hours (OK I don't really know - he may have banged it out in a day) he finished up the code for the game and turned it in to his supervisor at a mere 3KB in size - roughly the same as an early Atari 2600 game. His boss's response - "3K?! What do you think, ROMs grow on trees?! Jesus Christ Tolstoy, think you could shave a few chapters off that tome?!" (I paraphrase). Delman recounted the scene in the <a href="http://www.rawbw.com/~delman/pdf/GameRoom_jun_08.pdf">June 2008 issue of GameRoom Magazine</a>:<br />
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<i>“In those days, memory chips held 2K bytes of code, and compared to other electronic components, were considered ‘expensive.’ Thus, a program that was just one byte over 2K required a second pricey component. There certainly were games at the time that used more than 2K of ROM. Super Bug was 6K. But my supervisor, Steve Calfee, always liked to challenge people. So when my code came in at around 3K, he said, ‘I bet you could get it down to 2K, and save the cost of the second memory chip.’ Never one to back off from a challenge, I went back to work. With judicious scrutiny of every routine, I was able to finally shrink it to 2K. In fact, it was exactly 2K. There is not a single extra byte in the ROM."</i><br />
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And so, weighing in at a sleek and sexy 2KB, Canyon Bomber was released by Atari in November 1977 with the bold promise of "exciting new blimp and bi-plane bombing action".<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5XL8s2ntG2I0dh3uIA5J229q6dkiZm4pc81KRTyS56wEIfYkHAvA2DcuazoiiuvykehGWP7r8J3uvOk-WuEj1LA94DTqWT03-umqC2P6ji7hT8CsxIqMOen-Q97tIIp-pE-n0gkq8zHM/s1600/Canyon+Bomber+Flyer.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5XL8s2ntG2I0dh3uIA5J229q6dkiZm4pc81KRTyS56wEIfYkHAvA2DcuazoiiuvykehGWP7r8J3uvOk-WuEj1LA94DTqWT03-umqC2P6ji7hT8CsxIqMOen-Q97tIIp-pE-n0gkq8zHM/s640/Canyon+Bomber+Flyer.png" width="495" /></a><br />
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At its core, Canyon Bomber didn't stray too far away from the ball-breaking-through-the-wall formula of Breakout, but it flipped it upside down, added gravity and took away the bounce. It also added a few other twists that turned it into a game all its own. In Canyon Bomber you pilot a blimp and a biplane high above a canyon that is filled with boulders - the manual calls them "bubbles", but that doesn't make any sense so I'm going with boulders. Your job is to clear out those boulders, all of which are marked with a point value from 1-4, by dropping bombs on them. Every time you destroy a boulder, its corresponding number is added to your score, so obviously it's preferable to hit the boulders with the higher number. I must say that after playing pinball where millions of points are thrown around like beads on Mardi Gras it was kind of refreshing to play an old-school game where a hard-fought victory is won by a score of 409-401.<br />
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When the game starts both players are piloting blimps which fly slowly and higher in the sky. After half the boulders have been destroyed the players switch to biplanes which fly faster and lower. This helps speed the game up when there are fewer bombing opportunities and also offers a slightly different aiming challenge. At the beginning of each bombing run your aircraft appears at either the left or right side of the screen and steadily flies in a straight line over the canyon until it disappears off the opposite side of the screen. Your task during each of these trans-raster flights is to drop at least 1 bomb on a boulder. If your bomb doesn't hit a boulder or if you fail to release a bomb, that is counted as a miss - and after 3 misses your game is over.<br />
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You can only drop one bomb at a time but after that bomb has detonated you can drop another one and you can drop as many as you want to during each bombing run - just don't get overeager with the rapid-fire and miss. As you bomb the boulders they disintegrate and any boulders that are located directly above them tumble down to fill the crevice you just created so it gets harder and harder to hit a boulder with each progressive bombing run.<br />
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And to make things a little more difficult - the opposing player (human or computer) is flying their aircraft at exactly the same time with the exact same mission so not only do the boulders get more scarce the longer you play, but when there are only a few left you are both gunning - er, bombing - for the same boulders. So you have to balance your timing and aim with strategic thinking to avoid your opponent stealing your boulder out from under you. Whoever has the most points when both players have used up their 3 misses is the winner.<br />
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It sounds pretty simple, but it gets difficult fairly quickly as the number of easy target boulders rapidly diminishes. If you are able to destroy all the boulders on the screen the screen refills with a fresh new supply of boulders flown in from a nearby canyon for your continued gaming pleasure. I'm told that this refilling occurs twice, but I don't think I've ever cleared an entire canyon more than once so I don't know.<br />
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The graphics, as one would expect from a 1977 game, are fairly simplistic, but they are colored with all three monochromatic shades of the rainbow - black, white and gray. Electronically the canyon is expressed as a featureless black silhouette. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQP9V5Y9moa69S5idG-iiATVlIp9PgrdZiWl8gXnrING9tei1PwUU1EvtlZvaRkppTYqo8IEDOyFrAusvTWKwp6JBkRkfRCM-1SHHuZr7J3Kx8f53Vcd7blglG4aBGJEsvh4UeM8lmwdw/s1600/Canyon+Bomber+Screenshot.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="375" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQP9V5Y9moa69S5idG-iiATVlIp9PgrdZiWl8gXnrING9tei1PwUU1EvtlZvaRkppTYqo8IEDOyFrAusvTWKwp6JBkRkfRCM-1SHHuZr7J3Kx8f53Vcd7blglG4aBGJEsvh4UeM8lmwdw/s400/Canyon+Bomber+Screenshot.png" width="400" /></a><br />
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But this display is nicely spruced up by the overlying artwork on the monitor bezel which combines with the canyon silhouette on the screen to actually provide a bit of a 3D effect to the scene. And in addition to making the canyon look much nicer, the bezel artwork also adds another dimension to the difficulty as it partially masks some of the boulders along the edges of the canyon.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdZ1jmkUYOXl9NF03s38JRXnK07aj4Wq4u72Fmou01PHEkdGjnf3SZKjpKlhHcCRQBLDOf0J4ap85rf14DREl-cXQm9svfDp_7BDcaKtc0H1-7HigiHww3IJP_yXf31ExnCKoMUtZ_c9M/s1600/Canyon+Bomber+Artwork+Preview.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="618" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdZ1jmkUYOXl9NF03s38JRXnK07aj4Wq4u72Fmou01PHEkdGjnf3SZKjpKlhHcCRQBLDOf0J4ap85rf14DREl-cXQm9svfDp_7BDcaKtc0H1-7HigiHww3IJP_yXf31ExnCKoMUtZ_c9M/s640/Canyon+Bomber+Artwork+Preview.png" width="640" /></a><br />
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Note that the ONLY thing you can control is the timing of your bomb release. Selection of the aircraft, altitude, speed, direction - all those details are controlled by the computer. The player's only control is a single button. 1 BUTTON! Not too many games can make that claim, so I think I can safely say this is my favorite 1-button arcade game. In fact the one-button action played an important role in the selection of Canyon Bomber during Twiggamortis' trip down as he introduced me to a little game he calls Edward 40-Hands which entails duct-taping a 40oz beer (Old English in this case) to your hand. Apparently the proper rules require you to tape one to each hand but that sounded like a sure way to get beer spilled all over the machine so we went with 1. By the way - Golden Tee was the other 40-Hands game for the evening. But I digress.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPyGiwDiBFAO2iUnTDSVRjAiPqJvyb3jvS7-vWly5NBryB4OzwOPdhiCAwTjieWg3LJ7ZjVmXG1foqqIvQwi2nfyfywkOsLlgCNH4e8xGFDS3oPQk8GxN-jpI6Ygj_JkZasjDlNGUu-4Y/s1600/Edward+40-Hands_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPyGiwDiBFAO2iUnTDSVRjAiPqJvyb3jvS7-vWly5NBryB4OzwOPdhiCAwTjieWg3LJ7ZjVmXG1foqqIvQwi2nfyfywkOsLlgCNH4e8xGFDS3oPQk8GxN-jpI6Ygj_JkZasjDlNGUu-4Y/s400/Edward+40-Hands_2.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
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In addition to the 1-button controller, Atari also added a High Score Reset Button to the control panel. Back in those days saving a high score was still a pretty novel concept for video games and they were erased every time the machine was turned off anyway so I guess the inclusion of the reset button isn't all that peculiar, but still it seems to defeat the purpose of saving high scores a little if any knucklehead can just hit the button and wipe it clean. I guess maybe gamers in those days were more concerned with tracking their high score achieved in each individual sitting as opposed to all-time.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhERiQXbqy2WjxwcYmdS5oGBnAer4vR24IErCTPuRxUN-1ncW4YEI5BN1c7odZn5VG65ZuxYWvS1zy9ebKHUI0RN6Nm-_qlqTiMaJK38TUHSrcZqkIJCUguIIf8_CuG8dM0karTFNuYltk/s1600/Canyon+Bomber+Control+Panel.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhERiQXbqy2WjxwcYmdS5oGBnAer4vR24IErCTPuRxUN-1ncW4YEI5BN1c7odZn5VG65ZuxYWvS1zy9ebKHUI0RN6Nm-_qlqTiMaJK38TUHSrcZqkIJCUguIIf8_CuG8dM0karTFNuYltk/s640/Canyon+Bomber+Control+Panel.png" width="640" /></a><br />
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I will say that the 1-player game gets dull fairly quickly, so I don't play it much by myself. The computer player just basically holds the fire button down and fires indiscriminately so once the boulders start getting thin he (she? it?) is no competition whatsoever. But if you have a friend to take the stick of the opposing plane then this simple little game can be a lot of fun.<br />
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I read that David Nelson of Manchester, New Hampshire holds the official record for Canyon Bomber of 1,399 points set on November 17, 2007. Finally, a high-score record that doesn't seem THAT much higher than my high score! (1,021).<br />
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To experience the arcade game properly you'll have to either track down a real cabinet (ACAM in New Hampshire is the only location I've seen) or boot up the ROM in MAME because like most of the simplistic arcade games of the 70's it never received an arcade-perfect port since by the time consoles were truly up to the task everyone had lost interest in the game. That being said, in 1978 Atari did a halfway decent job of porting Canyon Bomber to their new console the Atari VCS - known later of course as the Atari 2600 - which is where I was introduced to the game.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT0hKYEQsiBeU5nQkpHSGAcrr4xK2jZpP9KP44aNhIv6-FjUHQ2j4H-NQB4kDr05ONgZxUQlg3luOIF84sdNHSd4n78eKnXxDT2fjmk8zvFR7XEAyRwNC_TOyT5YmDsJ9ijDoAMNtKJxE/s1600/Canyon+Bomber+Box.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT0hKYEQsiBeU5nQkpHSGAcrr4xK2jZpP9KP44aNhIv6-FjUHQ2j4H-NQB4kDr05ONgZxUQlg3luOIF84sdNHSd4n78eKnXxDT2fjmk8zvFR7XEAyRwNC_TOyT5YmDsJ9ijDoAMNtKJxE/s640/Canyon+Bomber+Box.jpg" width="468" /></a><br />
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I suppose they captured the gameplay well enough on the 2600 port, but I only vaguely recall playing it when I was a kid and never considered it to be on my list of favorite Atari 2600 games so it didn't make much of an impression on me. And although I consider the arcade game to be marginally playable as a 1-player game, I can't say the same for the Atari 2600 port at least in this day and age. You pretty much HAVE to have a second human present for that one to keep your interest for very long at all. The cartridge contained 8-variations of the game, including for some reason the completely unrelated "Sea Bomber" which smacks more of a recycled but less fun version of <a href="http://www.atariage.com/software_page.html?SoftwareID=808">Air-Sea Battle</a> (which IS one of my favorite Atari 2600 games). And for some reason Atari elected to forego the blimps and biplanes altogether and went instead with horribly drawn helicopters and jets. Atari, did anyone ever ask you for helicopter and jet bombing action? No. I believe the original request was for blimp and biplane bombing action. Stick with what got ya here will ya?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJWtX5F_-0eLsKSyM2AKnlRilTDFnuBktEKn0KV_804Bv3dfwbnbSNWnMuLcUkhBYrNTrUselILkZCgyf_kHT2oKoREIdcDaZKvV91HFcYJcy1_A6y81_kD5gN3jfAQlrPD_2ktOlrIqE/s1600/Canyon+Bomber+Atari+2600+Screenshot.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJWtX5F_-0eLsKSyM2AKnlRilTDFnuBktEKn0KV_804Bv3dfwbnbSNWnMuLcUkhBYrNTrUselILkZCgyf_kHT2oKoREIdcDaZKvV91HFcYJcy1_A6y81_kD5gN3jfAQlrPD_2ktOlrIqE/s400/Canyon+Bomber+Atari+2600+Screenshot.png" width="400" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOkm8ICXKjRemCOxU9q3vXJK1v5tgCwTNgGESXMYhBKfwAVEhLMetiVfX9Nf-64kb7P_Iph0gqOCtn7DySuTaORccs2QOxBLzmrm7W4ZxBOS804-S3kxDb8EDpVnqfpur-aEnJC5vAaOE/s1600/Canyon+Bomber-Sea+Bomber+Atari+2600+Screenshot.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOkm8ICXKjRemCOxU9q3vXJK1v5tgCwTNgGESXMYhBKfwAVEhLMetiVfX9Nf-64kb7P_Iph0gqOCtn7DySuTaORccs2QOxBLzmrm7W4ZxBOS804-S3kxDb8EDpVnqfpur-aEnJC5vAaOE/s400/Canyon+Bomber-Sea+Bomber+Atari+2600+Screenshot.png" width="400" /></a><br />
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If you'd like to try the Atari 2600 port of Canyon Bomber and you don't have <a href="http://stella.sourceforge.net/">Stella </a>up and running you can play it on Vizzed <a href="http://www.vizzed.com/playonlinegames/play2.php?id=3929&emulator=JStella%20Java%20Emulator">HERE</a>.<br />
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Although the arcade version of Canyon Bomber never got its due respect, the Atari 2600 port has been included in a few different retro Atari collections including <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Anthology">Atari Anthology</a> </i>on PS2 and XBOX, <a href="http://www.wiki4games.com/Atari_-_The_80_Classic_Games_in_One!"><i>Atari - 80 Classic Games in One</i> </a>on PC, and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Flashback">Atari Flashback Classic Game Console</a> which plugs directly into your TV. <br />
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So in a nutshell, Canyon Bomber is at least worth a look if you're playing solo, but like I usually find myself saying on these really old video games, it really shines as a 2-player game. So grab your 40, boot it up in MAME and check it out - just be sure to download the artwork file too so you have the canyon overlay. Bombs away!MadPlanethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06725908232972984690noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743918922173292265.post-35900399347653083662012-02-09T13:39:00.000-06:002012-02-09T13:39:22.578-06:00New Fort Co-Op Adventure DLC for Uncharted 3My fellow PS3-owners may have already seen this, but Eric Monacelli, Community Strategist for Naughty Dog, posted on the PlayStation blog Tuesday about new co-op adventure DLC for Uncharted 3 wherein you actually play as the bad guys!<br />
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<i>By now you’re hopefully well versed in the long gun nuances, co-op narrative and all the hanging-by-your-fingers-on-edge-of-a-cliff action found in Uncharted 3 multiplayer. Today we’re firing a heavy salvo of Uncharted 3 DLC information your way featuring new content to download individually, or as part of the Fortune Hunter’s Club program. Downloading this fresh content will blow out the co-op storyline and expand the UNCHARTED series in ways that have never been done before.<br />
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<i>Coming in today’s PlayStation Store update to Uncharted 3 is the Fort Co-Op adventure DLC. Did some of you guess that from our screenshot hint? Fort Co-Op Adventure will mark the first time in the series you’ll be able to play co-op as the UNCHARTED villains with Zoran Lazarević, Eddy Raja, Harry Flynn joining forces in a tale that further explores the mystery behind the Janus head statue from the on-disc co-op adventure. Check out a preview of that adventure here:</i><br />
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The new DLC costs $5.99. Not too bad for a new twist on things I suppose. What do you guys think? Worth a purchase?<br />
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They also released a whole bunch of new skins for purchase but I've never personally had much use for the various skins even if they are dirt cheap. So a big fat meh to that.<br />
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One other DLC item of note, on February 21 Naughty Dog is releasing the "Flashback Map Pack 2" for $9.99 in which they update 4 competitive maps from Uncharted 2 - Plaza, Temple, Train Wreck and Village - with "all-new dynamic lighting effects, cutting-edge particle effects and a bevy of other fresh technical polish". I fished in this pond the last time, but I think I'll skip it this time around. Recycled U2 maps for $10 seems a little steep to me, especially when I can still crack open my copy of U2 and play them on there - sans fresh technical polish of course. Also, I'm uncomfortable with their use of the word bevy. Thoughts?MadPlanethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06725908232972984690noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743918922173292265.post-3124458914966278242012-02-06T13:19:00.000-06:002012-02-06T13:19:30.407-06:00Stern's New AC/DC PinballYep - another pinball post.<br />
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<i><a href="http://www.pinballnews.com/">Pinball News</a></i> has posted the first part of a two-part in-depth review of the new Stern pinball machine AC/DC - a pin I am looking forward to playing at the <a href="http://madplanetsgameroom.blogspot.com/2012/01/texas-pinball-festival-right-around.html">Texas Pinball Festival</a> next month. And when I say in-depth I really mean in-depth. I only recently discovered these guys and I really like their pinball reviews. In Part 1 of their reviews they typically focus on the artwork, hardware and playfield features and in Part 2 they focus on the rules, gameplay, and general thoughts/ratings. They also include lots of really nice closeup photographs and some cool details and insights. You do have to be at least a bit of a pinhead to appreciate it - but if you are so inclined check it out <a href="http://www.pinballnews.com/games/acdc/index7a.html">here</a>:<br />
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And seeing as how I'm a guy who just loves game trailers. Well...<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/cNyVL8XErQA" width="560"></iframe>MadPlanethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06725908232972984690noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743918922173292265.post-18561969161629852012-02-05T01:42:00.000-06:002012-02-05T01:42:49.246-06:00Pinball Hall of Fame on BBCI wasn't going to do another pinball post (4th in a row!), but this is such a little one. This short video came out a few days ago on BBC New Technology where they spoke with Tim Arnold, owner of the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas. That's the one place I regret not visiting when I was in Vegas about three years ago. Oh well, hopefully I'll eventually make it out there.<br />
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My usual gaming habit is to wildly bounce between consoles, computers, arcade, retro, current-gen, etc. with no real rhyme or reason, but lately I've been hitting the <a href="http://madplanetsgameroom.blogspot.com/2012/01/my-very-first-pinball-machine.html">Spider-Man pinball</a> pretty much exclusively so forgive me if my posts are a bit pin-centric for a while. Along those lines I'd like to point out to you fine folks that the 2012 installment of the <a href="http://www.texaspinball.com/">Texas Pinball Festival</a> is rapidly approaching - March 23-25 - a mere two months away!<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/34471793?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="400"></iframe><br />
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The Festival is being held at the Hilton DFW Lakes Executive Conference Center in Grapevine, Texas which is on the north side of the Dallas-Fort Worth area. That's like a 5-hour drive for me so... not exactly right around the corner, but I've been considering making a road trip to this thing ever since I discovered it a few years back and since for me personally 2012 is the Year of the Pinball, well, I do believe I'm finally gonna make it happen this year! Gnome and Mik - can I expect to see you guys there? What? Atlantic shmatlantic c'mon, hop on a plane and you'll be there before you know it. Fallguy, you only have to cross the Red River so that's completely doable - I'm putting you down as an attendee right now. And Onion and Twiggamortis, you guys are no farther away than I am so I'm marking you down as well.<br />
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With two months to go the <a href="http://texaspinball.com/tpf/game-line-up/">games line-up</a> is still preliminary, but it's already shaping up quite nicely with tons of great pinball machines (surprise!) including a premium and four limited edition models of Stern's soon-to-be-released <a href="http://www.sternpinball.com/Games/acdc-pro.aspx">AC/DC pin</a>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZxZc0SHkmsJVK1tIFyMj6C8wivRpINf9QBCNvaD3F6dgNtqX_YA1CnlQJgw7IJnGrUj6hNxHc1SSzbouL8GA00ua9tka6rfBUlkje-Hbo9oUj5oT9cwZDr_x-ibskUEj3LUUMPEpbXF8/s1600/Stern+AC-DC+Pinball.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZxZc0SHkmsJVK1tIFyMj6C8wivRpINf9QBCNvaD3F6dgNtqX_YA1CnlQJgw7IJnGrUj6hNxHc1SSzbouL8GA00ua9tka6rfBUlkje-Hbo9oUj5oT9cwZDr_x-ibskUEj3LUUMPEpbXF8/s400/Stern+AC-DC+Pinball.jpg" width="305" /></a><br />
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Steve Ritchie, the designer behind Stern's Spider-Man, also designed AC/DC so I'm guessing I might like it. There will also be a lesser, but still decent, selection of video games which will include some rarities like Quantum (1982), Lunar Lander (1979) and Gun Fight (1975). Over 250 games on free play all weekend!<br />
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Speaking of Steve Ritchie, he is going to be making an appearance and will be signing autographs, so I think I might bring my Spidey translite and get him to autograph it. I'm wondering if I need to bring my own pen for something like that or if they will set him up?<br />
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George Gomez will be their special guest speaker on March 24 - he is behind some great pins like Monster Bash, Corvette, Revenge from Mars, Lord of the Rings, Batman and the new one from 2011 that I just played recently for the first time - Transformers. There will also be pinball technicians, hobbyists and vendors giving seminars and/or selling their wares as well.<br />
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Speaking of Transformers - there will be several pinball tournaments going on throughout the event and one of the tournament machines will be a brand new Transformers Pro and after the tournament is complete it will be raffled off with proceeds to benefit the American Red Cross.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRJctPq0j90-tdxQ3G4Aov7OaMuj3NkyNvzCkLrAmwhIzbqaOODoazqmPMXZjsI74HHlzGz-k5IGcce1IQqznrJAPkRz6NlEf0sLx4utHf75XynY1yAXBRPO86F1CsQrfZfsei_tfrm9M/s1600/Transformers+Pro+Raffle.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRJctPq0j90-tdxQ3G4Aov7OaMuj3NkyNvzCkLrAmwhIzbqaOODoazqmPMXZjsI74HHlzGz-k5IGcce1IQqznrJAPkRz6NlEf0sLx4utHf75XynY1yAXBRPO86F1CsQrfZfsei_tfrm9M/s320/Transformers+Pro+Raffle.gif" width="221" /></a><br />
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I'm normally not a big buyer of raffle tickets, but I'm getting one (or quite possibly three) of these. And even if you don't win the Transformers the raffle tickets qualify you for many other drawings throughout the weekend for prizes like translites, t-shirts, pinball DVDs, magazines, flyers, etc. <br />
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There is also going to be a swap meet on March 24 starting at 8:00 AM. I might swap some of my time at that for another hour or two of sleep, but it goes through noon so I'll check it out.<br />
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Should be fun so I'll see you there!<br />
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Festival Hours<br />
Friday, March 23: 5pm-1am<br />
Saturday, March 24: 10am-1am (swap meet from 8:00am-Noon)<br />
Sunday, March 25: 9am-2:30pm<br />
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Hilton DFW Lakes Executive Conference Center (in the Texas Grand Ballroom)<br />
1800 Highway 26 East<br />
Grapevine, Texas, 76051<br />
Reservations: 1-800-984-1344MadPlanethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06725908232972984690noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743918922173292265.post-19703905084216478782012-01-23T01:40:00.000-06:002012-01-23T01:40:47.390-06:00My Very First Pinball Machine!I didn't mention it at the time, but my previous post about <a href="http://madplanetsgameroom.blogspot.com/2012/01/spideys-got-such-supple-wrist.html">Marvel Pinball</a> was a bit of foreshadowing as not quite two weeks ago a couple of gentlemen delivered my new 250 pound member of the family - the <a href="http://www.sternpinball.com/">Stern </a>Pinball Machine Spider-Man!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr8uBgKaxKUqbn3zq-u9mP9X4Trvn5qLFEbeJm-Mh8grGKqrOicaxiMjEHSaoOUjijzFO-Z3j7mbs0I7owJ2xncPKHHARXkL17-XF_hzPZSXWUcEG1LHyJIqpg3S5sXZrl4DGWnCHeYE8/s1600/Spiderman+Pinball+Table.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr8uBgKaxKUqbn3zq-u9mP9X4Trvn5qLFEbeJm-Mh8grGKqrOicaxiMjEHSaoOUjijzFO-Z3j7mbs0I7owJ2xncPKHHARXkL17-XF_hzPZSXWUcEG1LHyJIqpg3S5sXZrl4DGWnCHeYE8/s640/Spiderman+Pinball+Table.JPG" width="479" /></a><br />
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I've always wanted to own my own pinball machine and now, following an arguably foolhardy expenditure of funds to a gentleman in Georgia, that dream has become a reality. I was going to make my own gameplay video, but as you know I'm a sucker for game trailers and Stern made one of their own for the machine when it came out in June 2007 (to coincide with the theatrical release of Spider-Man 3) so I decided to go with that instead:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/bo-KzClvbjA" width="420"></iframe><br />
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The machine was designed by Steve Ritchie and programmed by pinball champion Lyman Sheats. I'm not exactly a pinball industry expert so I admit that I hadn't heard of either of these two guys until I happened to catch the pinball documentary <a href="http://www.specialwhenlitmovie.com/">Special When Lit</a> a while back in which they were both featured so I was surprised when I discovered later that they were responsible for Spider-Man.<br />
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Kevin O'Conner did the artwork for the cabinet and the first thing that grabs your attention on the machine is his great looking backglass:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaKimYBEnHtPKBWPg149ERqQojE64mfHtDc6mfMwQyQRl7SMMnUMIbEH92DS5zC4d9Ax8L8Uj4Cu0fxisxXBrxNefI2RRcK9ASfZ_m0Pee9QPglYCIZrCX68txcwHyh-hJY2X0Wkr5pw8/s1600/Spiderman+Backglass+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaKimYBEnHtPKBWPg149ERqQojE64mfHtDc6mfMwQyQRl7SMMnUMIbEH92DS5zC4d9Ax8L8Uj4Cu0fxisxXBrxNefI2RRcK9ASfZ_m0Pee9QPglYCIZrCX68txcwHyh-hJY2X0Wkr5pw8/s640/Spiderman+Backglass+1.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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I might have positioned the super villains so that they were facing Spidey in attack mode instead of radiating out from the center, but debatable nitpicking aside I really like it. Check out that foreshortening and dynamic action! I bet Kevin read "How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way" when he was younger. I still have my copy. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6UH3Gjj6QIwRDkZmTwLDKIkYj_UUXgIkf6EmexX9ow9vTOww9Fj5Q019uANKQczst3uMj9zW__-zOfDud8WY27W8O2nlh4v_4sXlkPw2t38ePctsJb36CWIhVJZM90I7QmfVh5pgnHS8/s1600/How+To+Draw+Comics+the+Marvel+Way+-+cover.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6UH3Gjj6QIwRDkZmTwLDKIkYj_UUXgIkf6EmexX9ow9vTOww9Fj5Q019uANKQczst3uMj9zW__-zOfDud8WY27W8O2nlh4v_4sXlkPw2t38ePctsJb36CWIhVJZM90I7QmfVh5pgnHS8/s400/How+To+Draw+Comics+the+Marvel+Way+-+cover.JPG" width="300" /></a><br />
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If only I'd stuck with art maybe I could be creating artwork on pinball machines too! But I digress... <br />
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The Spider-Man pinball is based on the movie franchise and combines pieces from all three movies, most importantly the four super villains that Spidey fights in them - the Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, Sandman and Venom. Each of the villains has his own scoring area and strategy shots on the playfield and you must defeat all of them to wage "Battle Royale".<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxyD3FMCRUrPlBJuPjppZXRRI-1WWdSJJjevQDjFdVD8dcWvYQynDa4Ppc1C8ket7WlSaeJR0Y13WT66wAtn1JLtrMY0p4XpbY9zB3NgqKHy5-hn97mx1Vd7BzKcrhSo7lHz8OcCyDW7U/s1600/Spiderman+Pinball+Villains+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxyD3FMCRUrPlBJuPjppZXRRI-1WWdSJJjevQDjFdVD8dcWvYQynDa4Ppc1C8ket7WlSaeJR0Y13WT66wAtn1JLtrMY0p4XpbY9zB3NgqKHy5-hn97mx1Vd7BzKcrhSo7lHz8OcCyDW7U/s640/Spiderman+Pinball+Villains+1.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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There are a ton of different modes and scoring opportunities in the game, but I don't think it would be too interesting for me to document all of them in detail here. I will just talk briefly about the four super villains to allow me to include a photo of these nicely detailed toys.<br />
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In the upper-middle part of the playfield is the Sandman. He stands behind a motorized bank of three targets and you must hit all three to cause his protective wall to drop and start the first Sandman Stage - "Slammer Time". Now you can hit Sandman himself or his "whirlwind of targets" and every time you do the yellow flasher lamps light up, big punch sounds and Sandman dialogue pump through the speakers and some digitized footage from the movie shows on the display. After you've hit him enough times Sandman raises up off the playfield to reveal the hole he was guarding. When you sink the ball into the hole you complete "Slammer Time". Sandman then lowers down to again protect the hole, the 3-bank wall of targets rises back up and the ball is launched straight up and over an arch called a web-slinger back onto the playfield for play to continue. This also sets up the next and progressively more difficult Sandman stages - "Subway Storm" and then "Dunes of Doom".<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1SzX8evSTJEOfBA51m6hd0b5QGHb1fOhDkG4pNLJkAaO9nKSDg0OM4L9cGdlaa32tWeTZhVsVyuihkDVbWARGHUBhxoE1WDpEGdwsCLSapTfV6lQPZ8BlttQgwQ5b9rLNDv9dDU1yYCI/s1600/Sandman+Toy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1SzX8evSTJEOfBA51m6hd0b5QGHb1fOhDkG4pNLJkAaO9nKSDg0OM4L9cGdlaa32tWeTZhVsVyuihkDVbWARGHUBhxoE1WDpEGdwsCLSapTfV6lQPZ8BlttQgwQ5b9rLNDv9dDU1yYCI/s640/Sandman+Toy.jpg" width="480" /></a><br />
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In the middle right part of the playfield is my favorite villain/shot on the machine - Doctor Octopus. Doc Ock starts in a raised position over a hole and when you sink a ball in it to start "Fusion Malfunction" he lowers to block it and a red flashing lamp glows as the movie scene plays - "Ladies and gentlemen, fasten your seatbelts" then the ball launches straight up and over a webslinger back onto the playfield. When you hit Doc Ock the next time the ball bounces off him and a magnet below the playfield stops it cold in the middle of a picture of the sun, all the lights go off, the red flasher glows and you hear "the power of the sun, in the palm of my hand" then the lights come back on and the magnet flings the ball back at Doc Ock and then towards you as a 2-ball multiball ensues. This is one of my all-time favorite pinball sequences - just so cool. The other two Doc Ock stages, "Bank Bust" and "Armed at the Dock", introduce a few new twists.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGXraD9yiLriPJbQQfNyoSoMMwc9fVs8WGb3lMfsutS0Z2_3sA6FNh4Fvm8yBubag3gOXBmxYFKXaXQzjwi_zzD7oi6WWJ519cP1TqryYTXt0S9K4sKO2bvG3j_iHrcyH0JEEBH5xbt5k/s1600/Doc+Ock+Toy.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGXraD9yiLriPJbQQfNyoSoMMwc9fVs8WGb3lMfsutS0Z2_3sA6FNh4Fvm8yBubag3gOXBmxYFKXaXQzjwi_zzD7oi6WWJ519cP1TqryYTXt0S9K4sKO2bvG3j_iHrcyH0JEEBH5xbt5k/s640/Doc+Ock+Toy.JPG" width="480" /></a><br />
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Venom is in the back left corner of the table and to reach him you have to make a somewhat challenging cross-field ramp shot with the upper right flipper. When you are able to hit it solidly enough to hit Venom's target his blue flasher glows brightly and Venom screams out to start the "Goo On You" stage where you have to hit Venom's ramp several times to complete it as a timer and your bonus points for the stage quickly run down. Venom's two other stages are "Brock's New Suit" and "You Ooze You Lose" (spelled 'Loose' on the sign).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW8cWFiVR0SHyBVwWg5QLBlF3oxol6g5S4B6TqPo1TV4mg78tNXaJzIa88K5RsLIyqVGlQ4Zw5_k4wQHOHxJ5TQatstAmW7OjD45uEZhKJIfIrwDEAD1EXhwD2mLWdpB98l7vu8mVbrKo/s1600/Venom+Toy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW8cWFiVR0SHyBVwWg5QLBlF3oxol6g5S4B6TqPo1TV4mg78tNXaJzIa88K5RsLIyqVGlQ4Zw5_k4wQHOHxJ5TQatstAmW7OjD45uEZhKJIfIrwDEAD1EXhwD2mLWdpB98l7vu8mVbrKo/s640/Venom+Toy.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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The final villain, the Green Goblin, is on the lower left side of the playfield. He is hovering on his goblin glider over five pumpkin bomb targets. Once you have hit all five targets "Unity Day Festival" begins. You have to hit the targets six more times to complete the stage, with the Goblin shaking in pain after each hit. The other two Green Goblin stages "Suffer the Children" and "Godspeed Spider-Man" introduce other twists such as moving lit targets that you have to hit.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjks9YDx8S4-o935z5yarray5yaPmd0YAOHVusIVvUcDoMPEIXGH5nKx6yZXBazg_c5SV8UEn6XbKIsTsbPQM9UugJafzs4hNTvDEf9srFF2IGt426Z6nr4TIyQZ9vdG95jHLUz1dnfq94/s1600/Green+Goblin+Toy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjks9YDx8S4-o935z5yarray5yaPmd0YAOHVusIVvUcDoMPEIXGH5nKx6yZXBazg_c5SV8UEn6XbKIsTsbPQM9UugJafzs4hNTvDEf9srFF2IGt426Z6nr4TIyQZ9vdG95jHLUz1dnfq94/s640/Green+Goblin+Toy.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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The sound for the machine is outstanding. Hard pumping tunes for the various stages that really seem to flow well with the playfield action. Great sounding movie dialogue is also seamlessly sewn in at just the right times. Stern also hired J.K. Simmons, the actor who played J.Jonah Jameson in the movies, to record a wide variety of pinball-specific dialogue in-character so they all have that J.Jonah Jameson edge to them - "Extra ball is lit! What are you waiting for?!", "Who do you think you are? Spider-Man?", etc. works perfectly.<br />
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And in my opinion the machine is gorgeous - the artwork, the lights, the cool movie scenes that play on the dot matrix video display. A real spectacle. Mix all that with my old comic book loyalties to the subject matter and the fact that it is a really fun pinball machine to play and it goes at or near the top of my all-time favorite pinball machines list - along with the likes of Medieval Madness, Scared Stiff, Monster Bash and Lord of the Rings. Suffice it to say I love it! I also recently learned that <a href="http://pinside.com/pinball/top-100">Pinside </a>members rank Spider-Man as the 10th best pinball of all-time (just a hair below Scared Stiff) on their weekly updated list of top 100 pinballs. So it's somewhat reassuring to hear that my high regard for the machine is not inconsistent with the views of pinball insiders. <br />
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So anyway, if you happen to be in a movie theater or somewhere and see this pinball in the corner you ought to go pump a few quarters into it and give it a go. It's a lot of fun!<br />
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Oh - as I was putting this post together I stumbled across a nice interview with the designer Steve Ritchie in the June 2007 edition of the dearly departed GameRoom Magazine. <a href="http://popbumper.com/">Popbumper.com</a> has the interview posted online <a href="http://www.popbumper.com/articles/GR/2007-06%20SR%20Spiderman%20Interview.pdf">here</a> if you care to check it out. See ya!MadPlanethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06725908232972984690noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743918922173292265.post-20680248986073498922012-01-06T08:45:00.000-06:002012-01-06T08:45:47.069-06:00Spidey's Got Such a Supple Wrist!It's no secret that I like arcades. Historically I have spent most of my arcade time on video games and just a passing amount of attention to their older brother the pinball machine. But in recent years I have refocused a good deal of my attention to these wonderful machines. I think a big part of the reason for this is that I have visited more and more retro arcades and started getting my fill of a lot of the more commonly recurring classics like Asteroids, Ms. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Galaga, etc. Don't get me wrong I still love those games but at this point I've seen them enough that I'd rather trade some of my time on them for some time with the silver ball. Also, one of my friends greatly prefers pinball over video games and is very knowledgeable about them and after quite a few pinball matches I'm guessing some of that interest probably rubbed off on me as well.<br />
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Thanks to the unfortunate demise of my beloved 60GB backwards-compatible PS3 and my subsequent purchase of a 320GB Uncharted 3 Bundle PS3 (that was on sale) I am currently a member of Sony's PlayStation Plus. One of the benefits of membership is that you get to download a free PS3 game each month and the game of the month in December was <a href="http://marvelpinball.com/">Marvel Pinball</a>. I haven't paid much attention to console video pinball games in a long time so I didn't even have it on my radar before I got it as a freebie but I must say I am quite enjoying it and would heartily recommend it to anyone who enjoys pinball, arcade style video games, or Marvel comics - and especially to those individuals like myself who are a fan of all three!<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uqKP-41NO4c/TwVcX-GUilI/AAAAAAAAAnI/OoF9u2CmKmk/s1600/Marvel+Pinball.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="91" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uqKP-41NO4c/TwVcX-GUilI/AAAAAAAAAnI/OoF9u2CmKmk/s640/Marvel+Pinball.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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Playing it reminds of my first experience with a video-oriented pinball game which was Video Pinball on my trusty Atari 2600 (cue wavy curtain flashback effect). Much like driving games, video pinball technology has come quite a ways in 30 years but the general gameplay mechanic remains more or less the same.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GKa81Cs0Iss/TwVh3QB_fsI/AAAAAAAAAng/zk8Z3lNHphs/s1600/Atari+2600+Videp+Pinball.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="241" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GKa81Cs0Iss/TwVh3QB_fsI/AAAAAAAAAng/zk8Z3lNHphs/s400/Atari+2600+Videp+Pinball.png" width="400" /></a><br />
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Hey, she may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts kid! I guess I liked it so much that I asked my parents for it twice because I have 2 copies of the cartridge at home.<br />
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And speaking of pinball from my childhood, I was recently over at my mom's house and I brought back a box of old goodies (I always leave my mom's house with a box of old stuff) which included a Viewmaster, an 8-track tape player and carousel, a Star Wars jigsaw puzzle, and Wildfire Pinball - a handheld pinball game released by Parker Brothers in 1979. Did anyone else have this thing?<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YbHiFsf4ZkU/TwVgzwddHSI/AAAAAAAAAnU/OGSNu3QHlbs/s1600/Parker+Brothers+Wildfire.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YbHiFsf4ZkU/TwVgzwddHSI/AAAAAAAAAnU/OGSNu3QHlbs/s640/Parker+Brothers+Wildfire.jpg" width="416" /></a><br />
I think it was actually my brother's so I didn't play it nearly as much as I did Video Pinball, but I figured it would fit nicely in the game room on the shelf next to the Merlin and the Game Boy.<br />
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Fast forward to maybe 8-9 years ago or so when I discovered <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Pinball">Visual Pinball</a>, a freeware pinball simulation program. When coupled with <a href="http://www.pinmame.com/">PinMAME </a>(which emulates the pinball ROMs) it allows you play pretty much any real pinball machine you can think of right on your computer - basically the pinball version of MAME. If you are interested in pinball and have never tried Visual Pinball you ought to check it because it is cool! (and free!). The tables that this community of pinball enthusiasts have developed are very impressive. Be forewarned though that it is even less user-friendly and documented for the novice to set up than MAME. Here is a video with some very brief glimpses of a bunch of Visual Pinball tables in action:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/44WfGT0ElVk" width="420"></iframe><br />
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And finally this brings me back full circle to Marvel Pinball - released late 2010 by <a href="http://www.zenstudios.com/">Zen Studios</a> and finally checked out by me just last month. It is like Visual Pinball on steroids. Here is the trailer:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/bO4BlGOUH1M" width="560"></iframe><br />
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It has the same authentic-feeling pinball play and great realistic physics of Visual Pinball combined with some really cool animated 3D action by the super villain set pieces that of course wouldn't be possible on a real pinball machine. The art/graphics are gorgeous and the sound is very good. The game comes with 4 tables installed - Spider-Man, Iron Man, Blade and Wolverine. They're all good but my favorite so far is definitely Spider-Man. Least favorite is probably Iron Man. That mirrors reality because I love the real Stern Spider-Man pinball but have never really cared a whole lot for the Iron Man.<br />
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The gameplay, if you enjoy pinball at all, is very addictive. Like real pinball it is simple to play but challenging to master. You basically only use 3 buttons - the left and right shoulder buttons for the flippers and the X button for the launch which you can vary to try and get skill shot points. As a pinball fan I can definitely say this game feels like the real thing with the added bonus of the realistic interaction with the various villains on each table who are bent on bringing you down. For instance on the Spider-Man table that includes Mysterio hitting you with hallucinogenic gas which reverses your flipper controls, the Green Goblin flying around and throwing exploding pumpkin bombs/pinballs on the table and Doctor Octopus grabbing your pinballs with his mechanical arms. Each villain attack feels like something you might see on a real pinball table even though the action is too complex for it to actually be mechanically possible outside the video world. Other features include online multiplayer play and several different camera angles you can choose. You can also nudge the table with the motion detection of the controller, although I found that particular control to be somewhat difficult to use and mostly just distracting so I pretty much ignore it.<br />
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I already liked this game quite a bit when I first started playing it last month despite a slight lag on the flippers which annoyed me, but then I remembered my TV has a "game" setting so I turned it on and that fixed the lag - so now the game went from really good to great! If you aren't in PlayStation Plus the main game with 4 tables only costs $10 and in my opinion well worth the money.<br />
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They also offer a Fantastic Four and Captain America table as downloadable content for $2.99 each with one for the Hulk in the wings. I just love these little video trailers so here are those.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/TtkgP0gnHz4" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/TOx32P1-DdM" width="560"></iframe><br />
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Finally, in mid-December they released a DLC 4-pack of tables called Vengeance and Virtue that features Ghost Rider, Moon Knight, Thor and the X-Men which costs $10. I collected Ghost Rider, Moon Knight and X-Men comics back in the day so I'm particularly curious about those. Here is a look at the Vengeance and Virtue pack - I might just have to get it at some point.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/GjxQU0HZqFU" width="560"></iframe><br />
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So obviously I think this game is pretty darn good. One of the things I like about PS+ is that it basically forces me to try out games that I most likely wouldn't have ever gotten around to trying out otherwise. This has introduced me to a few stinkers, but has also allowed me to find a few gems as well, of which this is one. If you think pinball is boring and repetitive then you should definitely stay away from it as it wouldn't be for you, but if you like pinball like I do then this game is definitely worth buying.MadPlanethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06725908232972984690noreply@blogger.com4