Atarinvader

I'd suggest buying the book High Score! The Illustrated History of Electronic Games. Also, here is an article I wrote for a the student rag at University: The History of Digital Entertainment Sat in a dusty corner of The Computer History Museum in California is a room that houses an old computer. It looks a little like something from the movie Wargames; tape reels whirl inside huge metal cupboards, concertina paper spews from the mouth of a dot matrix printer, and there's a little monochrome screen flashing away. A note sits in front of the beast that announces the machine as the PDP-1. It wouldn't be of much interest to anyone, expect for the fact that it once ran the first ever videogame. Noland Bushnell first stumbled in to a game of SpaceWar! in the mid-60's. Instantly smitten with the game he went on to form Atari, the company who dominated the whole industry throughout the 70's, and first part of the 80's. In the early-80's bad executive decisions saw him ousted from the company, and the industry begin to crumble; retailers refused to sell Videogames, companies folded and dreams faded. It wasn't until a little Japanese company, most famous for printing trading cards, entered the market with the FamiCom in 1983 that hope was restored. Nintendo didn't bring their brand of mushroom bashing to The West until several years later, re-branding the machine the Nintendo Entertainment System. Meanwhile, arcade machine vendor Service Games merged with Rosen Enterprises to create a new company known simply as Sega. Sega had their eyes firmly set on launching a new console in to the market to go head-to-head with Nintendo's ever more popular new machine. The Master System was born. Whilst the NES went on to enjoy huge success, the Master System fell pretty much by the wayside everywhere except Europe. Both companies went on to release more consoles over the years, whilst devout Fanboys waged war on one-another from their respective camps. Ultimately Sega withdrew from the hardware market in 2002 with the demise of the Dreamcast, whilst Nintendo were left grasping at the little slice of the market that was still theirs. If you said that Atari was videogaming's infancy, the Sega and Nintendo years it's adolescence, then the mid-90's was definitely when it moved out and got it's own flat. The Playstation actually started off its life as a CD add-on for Nintendo's SNES system, but Nintendo jumped ship on the project to work with Phillips on the ill-fated CD-i system. Going it alone Sony released the console, as we know it today, in 1995. Sony's revolutionary new image for gaming drew interest beyond the normal realm of the videogame geek; adverts in lad’s mags, clubs and TV called to the disposable cash of the 20-somethings. The electronic giant moved to take the whole living room with their new Digital Entertainment machine that not only did games, but DVD and CD too. PS2 built on what its little brother had started, but drew itself against an unexpected enemy from America that took the form of a giant plastic X branded with the Microsoft logo. And there we go, the X-Box brings us back to the here and now. Browsing over the release lists and spotting massive titles like Half Life 2, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Halo 2 you can see that they sure don’t make them like they used to - they make them better!

If you're using an NTSC 2600 machine to play PAL games it will still output NTSC, only at 50hz with a skewed colour pallet. The answer is to have a PAL machine for use with PAL carts, and a monitor that is dual-standard.

Great subject Kepone, GTA has been so influential in videogames. It seems that so many games are attempting to imitate it, or at least emulate the 'controversy = units' PR model. I have to disagree that GTA has influenced 'pop culture'. I see GTA as an encapsulation of a culture that already exists; something that started with the New York gangs that spans as far back as the 50s, both the mobsters and the post-war ghetto gangs. Hip Hop culture aspired out of the ghettos as something credible without commercial awareness, it wasn't something coined by the GTA series. In fact I can't think of a single example where GTA has influenced a medium outside the industry. It was Grandmaster Flash, Sugar Hill Gang and Africa Bambatta that made Ghetto Life cool, and that was the late seventies. It's concepts, visually and literally at least, come from gangster movies and pulp fiction crime novels. With its open ended gameplay harking back as far as the Elite series, coming through the JRPG era and it's renaissance in Shenmue. I personally think that GTA is more influential internally, to the industry, than to the wider population of the world. It's art imitating art imitating life. Perhaps.

Just finished the Shenmue series on my Dreamcast, third time for the first, second for the second. Just started Crimson Skies, which I'm pretty impressed with. In fact, I'm going to play it now.

I'd only say that Steel Battalion, Yager and maybe Crimson Skies would be collectable. The PS2 has much more collectable titles I'd say. Worth getting are promo copies, you can pick them up off of eBay much cheaper than the original versions, and they're much rarer. I have a few from my Journo days.

Good god, you people aren't happy when they do make sequels and when they don't.

If you put all the content aside, the modern GTA games play crap. The controls are awfully twitchy, death in a mission is arbitrary (it makes more sense to reload the game from your last save point than build up your money and weapons again), gameplay follows the lines of go-kill-return and lacks variety and navigating the cities are difficult due to the awful HUDs. I really don't think society is 'going to hell in a hand basket' because of violent videogames. All this violence and depravity could be found just as bad in books, even the bible (which preaches the importance of revenge), yet nobody is trying to shut down libraries. Violence has a great aesthetic; look Tarrintino's movies for proof. And that is all that it is, visually good. As far as I'm aware nobody who's played GTA ever has committed a crime because of it, people with a violent disposition will always have a violent disposition - regardless of what they consume. The only feasible question, as far as I can see, is does it blur the lines of morality? But that's the same as saying: 'Does GTA advocate the murder of prostitutes?'. The answer to that is a most resounding 'no', I'm sure you'll agree. That only holds true for adult consumers: My fear is people purchasing the games for children, they definitely shouldn't be exposed to the images contained with the game, or the bible for that matter. Another thing to consider with GTA, which differs from NARC, is that the protagonist is always on the right side of morality (albeit the verge), that he is committing these crimes either as vengeance or in order to remove himself from his violent lifestyle. The ability to shag and kill prostitutes is in the game as part of the open ended reality the game is trying to portray, it is not an integral part of the game and the player makes the decision as to if or not they want to partake. The murder of the 'innocent' is never forced upon the player, although the ability is there as is the consequences (the Police).

Just completed the third disc on Shenmue II for the second time, and have just found some revelation in the plot line. Xuiying tells Ryo that her brother went to seek revenge on the Chiyoumen for their father's death, and left her, but he then turned to an unrighteous path. Yuanda Zhu later tells Ryo that Lan Di, or Cang Long (similar surname to Xuiying Hong), sought to seek revenge for the death of his father, Zhao Sunming, hence him killing Iwao Hazuki, Ryo's father. Iwao and Zhao both trained together at Guilin, the place where the mirrors allegedly come from, and were friends. Is it then possible that Iwao killed Zhao, leaving two children - Lan Di and Xuiying? Could Lan Di have then sought revenge against the Chiyoumen, whom Iwao was part of, but instead ended up joining them and killing Iwao? I personally think it's more likely that Zhao was in the Chiyoumen and was seeking to destroy Iwao, but failed. Xuiying never mentioned her brothers name, or exactly what happened to him. In fact Ryo says to her 'He must be alive, somewhere', and she fails to reply but instead gives Ryo a part of the Yin Yang stones her brother had given her before he leaves to find Lan Di in Guilin. That, surely, must have some importance! Edit: Complete speculation: As we never find out who Ryo's mother is, there's no mention of her (Iana-san was just the house keeper), is it not possible Zhao's wife / girlfriend and Lan Di / Xuiying's mother was also Iwao mistress and gave birth to Ryo. Zhao then killed her and Iwao took revenge? Therefor Ryo is Lan Di's brother, they look mighty similar, but also Xuiying's? Bit of Star Wars shit going down, but it seems perfectly plausible especially as in the videos for Shenmue Online Ryo is seen giving the Phoenix mirror to Lan Di! Edit 2: Just found this over at GameFAQs: http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmessag...&topic=20969016

Get her the Harry Potter games. My ex used to love them.

Bishi Bashi Special hasn't been mentioned yet, has it? Kula World, Street Fighter Collection, Ray Crisis and Micro Machines V3 all belong on the list too.

You need to be really careful here, tying up consoles in this fashion isn't the way to go. The problem is that the impedance on the video output across several outputs will bring down the colour and picture quality, drastically! I've tried it several times before and you really need to be switching between sources, unfortunately. DC has a different connector to the Saturn. The DC is a custom flat style connector, whilst the Saturn's is a mini-DIN type. Sorry to be pedantic, but I've just spent the last two months working out a good setup!

I've posted some pictures in my blog for my current setup. I currently have four systems, PS2, Cube, Xbox and Dreamcast, going in to a strange Intec PS2 DVD-remote-multitap-AV-switcher-stand: It works really well, saves the need for a DVD player and is remote controllable. There is room for another 'guest' console on the switcher, and the output can be routed either to my TV or my DLP projector. Setting up all this stuff is a nightmare, but once your through it it's great!

I assumed that PA was out there. Having a Mac (and incompatible burner), could anyone out there send me a copy? I'd also like to play Half Life. Oh, I did play a Galleon beta at Confounding Factor that wasn't DC code, but wasn't far off. AFAIR there was a slightly different control method, but little else changed in the Xbox release. No Cliché's Agatha looked pretty tasted for the DC also. I wonder what ever happened to that?

Thanks, I put a lot of thought in to it. I was certain that I didn't want a room that was filled with matching furniture, decor and the rest. Instead I decided to go with the most basic and neutral colour, white. The intention being that it wouldn't detract from or clash with whatever I decided to put in there, very much in a way a gallery would use white. However I really wanted to bring some depth in to the room so as it didn't look like a big white cube, which is why I chose the dark laminate. Which I think works pretty well. I'm really looking forward to getting it all finished!

Propeller Arena on Dreamcast and Shenmue on Saturn.

I can't see the problem here. They did include Radiant Silvergun, Gunstar Heroes and Shenmue II in the top 50, and that's ballsy considering IGN. Of course those games would be in my top 10.

Isn't that Tombi? *Googles* US name change....

Each Shenmue disc has a different recording on it from four of the characters in the game. The first is Ryo, but I can't remember the rest...

That is what I was wondering...

I've got a PII 400Mhz machine with 128MB and a TV-out that is running 98SE and is booting in to MAME32 as a dedicated machine. It's running this lovely, but I'd like it to also play all the other ROMs I have sitting on a partition i.e. NES, SMS, MD, N64 etc. I want it to boot straight in to a screen that I can use to select the games using a joystick. MESS runs too slowly (and I'm not very keen on it) and Gamelauncher won't run with MAME32 (other MAMEs are too fussy on 98SE or won't check ROMs with Gamelauncher). Any suggestions?

The nickname actually comes from the fact that, apparently, he smells of eggs. I should imagine rotten eggs rather than the odorless fresh variety. I wonder how many of the early 'in-jokes' were translated out of the comics and animation?

I've been posting on these board since before phpBB, when you guys were using a CGI script forum (can't remember the name), and every time you upgrade I wonder why and then find out. Really loving these new forums, especially the blog (which I've switched full-time to from my Xanga). Great work Al.

The first Western Sonic game to call Dr. Robotnic Eggman was Sonic Adventure on the DC. Nobody is really sure why Sega decided to rebrand him here, perhaps just for continuity, I personally prefer his old handle.

I've got over a hundred Dreamcast games and I reckon you only need forty to have all you need. I don't bother even looking at the DC sections of games stores now, I'm in a similar state with my Mega Drive and Master System collections.