My rant about blogging

Hey followers, sorry I haven't been able to make many posts lately.  This has to do with many factors, one of which is the MMO game "Rift" which, if you notice my twitter feed on the right is a great game which I have been spending alot of time with.
The other reason is that blogging has become quite a chore for me.  As you get more followers, diminishing returns start to hit you hard.  Making my blogging rounds would take anywhere from 4-5 hours out of my day.  This is sort of ridiculous when you factor in having a job, and a life.  I couldn't even make a post everyday, because of the way the system works, the more people who visit and support you, the more likely you are to get booted off here.  I won't even get into the amount of followers and views I receive per day, relative to how many people actually comment on my posts.  Anyway, TL;DR blogging is alot of work for not much reward.  Most of the people who I enjoyed reading have quit or disappeared suddenly.

I guess it's just me being a whiner though, because when it comes down to it, I do enjoy writing and hopefully making one or two of you laugh a little with my posts, which is why I will try to get back into making regular updates after today.  <3

Why do I have two copies of "Crue Ball" ?

"Crue Ball"

I was going through my game collection today and noticed something strange.  Sometime in my life, between binge drinking, and failing High School, I decided it was important to purchase two copies of the Genesis game "Crue Ball".  "Crue Ball" is a pinball game based off 80's hair metal band Motley Crue.  Yes, Electronic Arts apparently felt that Motley Crue was so badass that they needed a pinball game, because what could be more metal than a...wait for it...PINBALL!

The good news is I'm not the first person to get something that came from Tommy Lee, the bad news is what am I going to do with two copies of "Crue Ball"?  I'm pretty sure putting "Crue Ball" in quotation marks is not even grammatically correct but I sure like doing it.  "Crue Ball".

8-Bit Arnold: The Trilogy

A bit if a belated celebration, but I'd just like to commemorate my former governor and favorite action hero by remembering him in all of his lame, 8-bit glory.  Here's to you Arnold Schwarzenegger, thanks for your years of public service, and  keeping the bar firmly set in in place for a long line of ineffective California governors!

I love the "derp" look on his face here

 

He looks more like Mel Gibson here, minus the anti-Semitic rage

Arnold was the first politician that I ever voted for, mainly because I thought he was going to kick some ass, and take names.  Then take those names, hunt down their families and make a necklace out of their ears.  However, most of his terms were spent being generally handicapped by a horribly liberal state legislature.  Which is hilarious because Arnold is one of the most liberal "Republicans" of all time.  He married a Kennedy for crying out loud.


My favorite part of his term was when he made the tuition fees for community colleges go up about 1000%.  I, like most slackers and underachievers didn't really give a crap about my grades in High school.  So when I turned 21, and decided maybe I should get my act together, I was met by tuition fees that required me to sell a kidney.  Guess I didn't make it to the choppa' :(

Please, don't come back jerk

Alpha Male Games: Super Spy Hunter

Look at this blog.  Back to me. Spy Hunter. Back to me now. 

I think the reason I'm so awesome is because I played alot of Vidya games where the main protagonist was a total badass, with plenty of chicks, cool cars, and amazing hair...I mean swagger.  Just look at how cool the Dude from Spy Hunter is.  I bet he doesn't afraid of anything. 

Offspring of The Fonz and David Hasselhoff?

Between his perfectly conditioned hair, and awesome Ferrari-esque car, I would be proud to let this dude date my sister.  What's funnier though, is that chick looks alot more homely than he does, WTF women?  Random Motorcycle.  Anyway, here's a sweet speed run video of Super Spy Hunter, which is alot more impressive than the Contra one I posted a few days ago.  Next time you're out at a club, drinking your Midori sour alone, and a hot girl makes eye contact with you just think:  WWSH do?  Pwn a freakin' helicopter with his sick ride, that's what he'd do.

Bugs bugging bugs

My uncle has a restored Galaga machine I used to play alot as a kid.  He once showed me this trick that makes all of the bugs stop shooting at you for the entirety of the game(heh).  Of course with the advent of the Internet everyone knows about this so I can't go to arcades and impress chicks with this anymore.  Of course, being an adult now, trying to impress Jr. High school chicks at an arcade in the suburbs is kind of creepy so everything turned out better than expected.  I will say though, that I actually did show a girl this once when I was a kid and she thought I was the coolest guy ever, so the success rate of this pickup move is 100% in my book.  Enjoy your Friday night, fellow bloggers!

Internet killed the Vidya Star: Sonic the Hedgehog

...and the moment John put on his custom made Sonic fursuit, a billion Dad's across the world all cried out at once in disapproval..."YOU ARE NOT MY SON"

You all should be ashamed of yourself.  Why Sonic?  Why not humiliate a less memorable character like Alfred Chicken from that crap SNES game that nobody remembers?  Nope, the bowels of the Internet had to go and desecrate one of the most beloved characters from my childhood.  It's been a gradual thing it seems, over the years I've watched it get worse.  Before, I simply avoided doing searches for Sonic on Deviantart, but now, god help you if you type his name into a standard Google Image search.

Not that I'm constantly searching for pictures of the poor guy, but it's like that uncle who was really cool when you were a kid, then he moved away and you don't see him anymore.  Then you attempt to re-connect by finding his Facebook profile and notice it's filled with pictures of him and his boyfriend on vacation and you just can't stop looking at how tan he is....Yeah.

Oh Chris-Chan ^_^

It seem's I'll never understand the Internet's fascination with drawing one of my fond childhood memories in all manner of despicable acts.  I suspect this whole phenomenon of "Sonic the Hedgehog: WTF?!! MY EYES!!" has a much deeper, perhaps Freudian connection going on.  Trying to analyze(heh) furries and other miscreants though is a futile effort.  They're going to keep drawing bi-curious sonic and Tails "art".  They're going to keep churning out Sonic/Harry-Potter crossover erotic fan fictions and there's NOTHING you or I can do about it.  This the reason I literally haven't played a Sonic Game since like 1998, and I will continue avoiding them.

Yup

I Remember a time when Sonic was cool, he was like the counter-culture to the whole carebear, hand holding lame-parade that was Nintendo.  He had some edginess to him, that a fat plumber simply couldn't match. However, we destroyed him, we let furries, and weirdos take away our cool video game mascot, and in all likelihood drove  a great company out of the hardware business altogether.  On that note, I leave you with a video.  if only the sick, twisted internet dwellers would have simply listened to Sonic, he was sending you all a message!

Contra Speed Run: Epic

Well after having no Internet for like 4 days I return to bring you the most beastly Contra speed run (NES version) I have ever seen.  This guy isn't perfect and probably could have shaved about a minute off his time, but ZERO lives lost throughout, and his mastery of Snow Field and Energy Zone are insane.  Keep in mind before this though the game is pretty much easy-mode, but watching this is almost like artwork to me.  Contra isn't the hardest game to beat without losing a life, (I've done it a few times) but to do it this fast is pretty impressive.

Garfield Games: Why do you exist?

Thankfully, my parents have never "caught me in the act"...and why is he so happy about it?

How many of you as a kid were really into Garfield?  ok...How many of you were into Ninja Turtles, Pokemon, Batman, Power Rangers, Transformers, Disney Stuff, or even Barney?  That's what I thought.  Some characters manage to spawn a franchise title on just about every system, and the Garfield games that have come out over the years continue to baffle me.  Is there really a market for these games?  Do they really sell enough copies to warrant sequel after sequel on each generation of systems?  I know there's a niche market for certain games and characters, but I don't really see any hipsters telling me they were into Garfield before I was and I've probably never heard of him.  No, I've heard of him, and he's frankly, kind of stupid. 


I've put alot of thought into the mindset of software distributors and why they release these types of games(yes, I'm really that bored).  There's loads of articles out there if you're really curious as to why companies continually release what's known in the industry as "shovelware" it's profitable, but most agree it hurts the console or platform in the long run.  I kinda think shovelware is neat to collect, as it's different, quirky, and responsible for my favorite game of all time...

Haters gonna hate

I don't always play DS, but when I do I ride HorseZZZZZZ ya'll.

Another update, go check this out

Mr. Insanium is giving away some awesome nerdy stuff, like the #1 issue of Alien Vs. Predator, go check his blog out. 

http://crackinstuff.blogspot.com/

Also, if you want me to add your blog to my feed on the right side, leave it's address here, I get alot of traffic so it should help you out <3

Sequels, and why they suck: Snake's Revenge

 Back in action bro's!  Regular updates coming again after this date.  Looks like I am going to start making this blog thing a full time (second) job for me!

I'm a big fan of the Metal Gear series of games, and I love Metal Gear for the NES, and Playstation.  This however is a little known game released for the NES system in 1990.  What alot of people love about the Metal Gear games is designer Hideo Kojima's masterful game play, and storyline.  This However is not that game.  it was developed without his knowledge and oversight, thus resulting in a dumbed down version of the original.  What else can I say so here's a quote lifted directly from the man himself: "Snake's Revenge was a "little crap game."  When the guy responsible for the rest of the games in this amazingly successful franchise says this, you know it sucks.

Early example of "shovelware"

I need ideas for games to review so any suggestions in the comments please!

California Extreme 2011

 Just thought I'd give some publicity to a really cool event I like to attend every year.  It's the California Extreme classic arcade and pinball convention.  It's a huge event in held in Santa Clara that showcases tons of refurbished, and new classic arcade machines, most of which are free to play.  Last time I went I played the arcade version of the "Journey" game which actually had the soundboard installed and played Journey tracks when y9ou beat all the levels.  Very awesome, If you're going to be in or around the Bay Area in July I highly suggest you check it out.  Here's some stuff from their website http://www.caextreme.org/

"Arcades were once a fixture on the American urban landscape, and games were plentiful in rural cities too. The closest heir of today is the so-called "Family Entertainment Center", which is populated with a myriad of devices designed only to take your coins quickly and leave you with a pile of tickets, which you exchange for cheap, trashy toys. This is entertainment? California Extreme was born with a desire to share fun coin op games that are in the hands of private collectors, and to hopefully spread the word that pinball machines were once plentiful, and that videogames were not synonymous with "martial arts" and violence. Buy/sell/trade! The show is a great place to bring games you want to sell, and also a good place to add to your collection, or even start it! Not all games will be for sale; many collectors bring games to show (or show off!) that they would never sell. So .. Can I play the stuff? Yeah .. Everything is on free play. You can play from the moment you arrive until we shut off the power at closing -- Play as many games as you want, in whatever order you want to. There are *HUNDREDS* of games, all set to play for free. This is a your chance to try those older games, or the newer games that you'd never put money into in an arcade. There are also many games that never got produced, and are very hard to find."

It's going to be held July 9-10 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Santa Clara.

Please go out and enjoy your Saturday guys!

Game Store Tips: Volume 1

Ahh the wonderful world of the Game Store.  It's a necessary evil for us gamers to venture out into the wilds and pick up our favorite FPS, RTS, RPG, or STD (Just kidding, you can't get an STD from your hand) at one of the many fine retail establishments at our local malls and suburban shopping centers. Or perhaps Microsoft sold you another overheating piece of garbage that you have to replace every 6 months. Regardless, these can be scary places, and if you're unprepared, your local Game store manager will play you like a cheap Rock Band plastic Drum set.  Spending most of my adult life either working for or frequenting these places, I am offering some useful tips on how to navigate these fuming, cesspools of nerdery.


1. Always have a girl trade in your used games.

Yeah I know, no girls on the Internet, but they do exist IRL, I promise!  This doesn't have to be a girl you're romantically involved with(hahahahahah) or even someone you're friends with.(lol) Find a girl who's willing to sell your old stuff because trust me my friends, they will get more store credit, more cash, more mouth-breathing from the employees, and maybe even some free merchandise in the form of leftover promotional items, and gaming gear.  Don't believe me?  Every time a hot girl would come into my former store, I would flirt with her, be extremely helpful and like I said give away free stuff.  This is similar to those losers who buy girl's drinks at bar in hopes of getting laid, but the difference is, it didn't cost me any money. 

Pro Tip: Ask your attractive and successful brother's (your parent's probably love him more) girlfriend, or your cousin +1 if she even remotely looks Eastern.

2. Don't buy the store Discount card, ask other customers to use theirs.

This saves you 10-15 bucks, and pisses off the employees because it cuts into their commission pay.  Alot of people don't realize that those discount cards they offer for frequent buyers or traders can be used by anyone willing to swipe their card for you.  In your face, Capitalism!


3. Learn to Powergame

Polwergaming is essentially beating a game as quickly, and efficiently as possible, abusing exploits, and conquering all foes in a matter of days or hours. All Game Store's have a return policy, usually any game you buy can be returned within 7 days for a full refund.  Use this to your advantage and stop enjoying video games and start OWNING them.  You are better than that RPG sitting over there next to the pile of Coke cans, so why let it beat you? This can save you a ton of money in the long run if you don't care about actually owning a game long-term.(Realistically, 99% of games progressively go down in value the moment you take the shrink wrap off, I don't care how cool that $120.00 dollar "Collectors Edition" looks)  there's no use in letting a game sit around for a month after you beat it and only get 15% of what you payed for it when you can get the full value by simply staying up until 5am for a few nights(Social life be darned) and embracing the philosophy of Forever Alone.

More tips when I feel like it, Enjoy your Friday night
SAR577JWHN96

Pointless but cool: Panasonic Gamecube

Just something neat that I've always wanted to get my hands on.  This is a Panasonic Gamecube, or basically a Gamecube that could play regular DVD's.  IMO, this is something that should have came standard with all GC's, but unfortunately was never released in the US, only Japan as far as I know.  I love obscure hardware, and this is one of the coolest looking, even though I'm not a fan of Nintendo products in general.  Note the awesome digital display screen, and blue LED lights.  It puzzles me that something like this wasn't made available to the US market, perhaps to preserve Nintendo's carebear kiddy image, or maybe they didn't want to up the price on the system because I remember one of Nintendo's selling points is always that thier stuff(crap usually) is cheaper than Microsoft and Sony.  What I like about this system so much is it looks less like a toy, and more like a Gaming machine that could turn into a Transformer and kick your ass.  Anyway, if anyone is lucky enough to own one of these, feel free to share your opinions on it.

Things you might not know

Hello followers, apologies about my absence for the past couple days, but I had to concentrate on things other than blogging, I notice I have an amazing 276 followers now, so I just want to say thank you so much for supporting me and this blog.  I mainly made this thing to show off my huge collection of classic, and obscure retro games, so It's cool to see so many people interested in my passion as well.

Since I believe talking about  common, or popular games is boring(honestly, what could I write that you haven't already heard or experienced about Mario?) I'm going to share some knowledge I've picked about about retro stuff that you probably didn't know or haven't heard before.

lol Goku?

I know many of my followrs are probably(or openly) Anime fans and one of the things that has always bothered me about retro games is how anime titles are often butchered, or completely changed for their American version releases.  Anime titles usually had the titles changed, and some of the graphics completely redone.(many of you might be familiar with the NES game "Dragon Power" basically being a much dumber version(heh) of the Dragonball series)

Another such titles which personally pisses me off even more than Dragon Failure is the game "Last Battle" for the Sega Genesis.  This game is actually a dumbed down version of the ultra cool anime "Fist of the Northstar" Which I fondly remember watching on Cinemax at 4am when I was a kid.  I was blown away by how ultra violent and cool this movie was so imagine my glee when I found out there was a video game based off of it.  Then my hopes sunk when I picked up a copy and found a douchebag who looked like David Hasselhoff on the cover and all of the great things about the movie were taken out in favor of some lame karate fighting and badly translated dialogue. 

Anyway that's my little rant, Opinions about this?  I'll be catching up with all my followers today so comments are appreciated :)

Durrrrr

Retro Gaming for cheap: The FC Twin

Hot Pac-on-Pac action

My first hardware review, gonna make this a regular Saturday ordeal.  Have you ever tried to pick up an original NES system, signed over your house as collateral for the price, then got home only to find out the stupid thing doesn't work half the time unless you blow on the cartridges or hit it with a blunt object?  Here's your answer right here ladies, the FC Twin system.

The FC Twin is what's called a "Famiclone", It's a clone of the original NES/Famicom system that was made in Japan (bet you think you're smart now).  The backstory is basically Nintendo's licensing has expired on these older system's hardware, so anyone can make them now.  The benefit to you, the consumer is a much better, and cheaper piece of equipment that's easilly available to be ordered online, go here.  I've purchased from The manufacturers Yobo Gameware before and they're cool guys, I'd recommend them over the other Famiclones circulating around.  The FC Twin is a great system, Is compatible with MOST NES and SNES games(sorry no Battletoads lol) and even Famicom games without a mod. Sounds like a winrar to me.

Now that you've saved all that money by not buying an old SNES and NES separately, you can spend it on this bad boy:

Oh yeah

Forever Stallone

Since I did probably the best Movie-to-game adaptation yesterday It's time to talk about one of the worst ones!(although generally when a movie to game adaptation comes out, being good is the exception not the rule)

 

You know what?  It's Friday, and I really don't want to talk about Cliffhanger: The Game (you lost it). I can describe why you should never play this game in one sentence, If you stand still for too long you freeze and it's Game Over.  Enjoy your Friday night guys, unless of course the post title describes you :(

Check out my Dubz: 007 Goldeneye

So I was inspired by alot of the bloggers here who are so knowledgeable about one particular subject.  Two that immediately come to mind are The Watch dude, and This guy and his Scotch.  When I think of cool watches, and high class liqueur, only one guy comes to mind, James F***ing Bond ya'll!  So today I will be talking about the best iteration of the Bond Franchise, Goldeneye 007, for the Nintendo 64.

B*tches don't know about my Q watch

This game is significant in many ways.  Say what you want about Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda and any one of Nintendo's rehashed flagship series, but Goldeneye put the N64 on the map, and offered a legitimate reason  to buy the system for anyone who was older than 12.  This game does everything right, a long, fun and challenging single player campaign full of immersion, outstanding control system(Many thought the N64 couldn't handle an FPS because of the controller setup)The graphics were superb for the time too, and really made 3 dimensional games viable.

But let's be cereal for a sec, nobody played this for the single player, you played it to own your friends in the phenomenal multiplayer experience.  For me personally, this game defined what multiplayer could, and is continuing to be on the console platform.  It wasn't particularly innovating anything, just streamlining and improving on a formula that had been successful on the PC for a generation.  For years, PC games enjoyed a monopoly on fun deathmatch style multiplayer games, but when 007 came along, he turned on that British charm, and seduced us all with his unique, and stylish game.  I'd hit it.

Yes, I own a yellow controller, and I like women, don't hate

Some shoutouts today!

I thought I'd return the favor after being featured on some great blogs lately, so do these guys a favor and check their stuff out, you won't be disappointed, unless you're one of those people who are easily disappointed.  If you're one of those people then here's a blurry picture of Mutant League Football, enjoy.

http://blahcoocooblah.blogspot.com/ - This girl is pretty funny, and has creative uses for lulzy pictures

http://jesseacohen.blogspot.com/ - I've been his "blog of the Day" a few times, he had a story about swallowing chew spit, so do yourself a favor and head on over there.

http://cmipigeon.blogspot.com/ - Has a blog called "Entertainment Placebo", creative title, and funny articles check it out

http://fromheftytohappy.blogspot.com/ - She's just starting out, so check her stuff out, she wants YOU to lose weight, yup she cares that much about each and every one of you.

A Cheater is you!

I'd like to talk about something that's been bugging me for a while, cheating.  First, check out this article courtesy of http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com:  Cheaters

It talks all about how Generation Y is using technology to beat the school system, and forgo studying for tests.  This got me thinking, how many of you fellow generation Y people had one of the following items as kid

How about a nice cup of RAAAAGE

It's not hard to see why our generation is acceptable with cheating.  Think about How high the Divorce rate is in the country, and the recent Baseball-Steroids scandals.  We grew up spoiled and stupid and we needed help just to get through a hard level on a video game.  For shame on you Generation Y! What's your personal opinion on cheating/hacking in games right now, or in the past?

Ninja Gaiden Trilogy: Are you kidding me?

Bet you wish you had held onto this one huh?  If you're looking for a great remake of the original Ninja Gaiden games on the SNES with updated graphics, be prepared to take on a second job.Suggestions for recession proof jobs please?  Also, If you're following me and I'm not following you please leave a link in my comments and I'll check your blog out :)