Nostalgic

It's not that there is a hidden game (that I know of, at any rate), it's just that there is a second Druaga machine in that section. From some searching I've done, there is a hidden game in Volume 2, but there instructions were for how to play Bomb Bee starting from Cutie Q. Since Cutie Q isn't in the U.S. version, I would guess Bomb Bee isn't either.

If you wander through the museum portion of Namco Museum Vol 3 for the PS1, you come to some spots that tantalize you into thinking there's a way past them. For Pole Position II, there's a sign stating "staff only beyond this point", or something to that effect. There's something similar for Dig Dug, along with a display that's very high atop a mountain. Are there ways to get past these obstacles or are they only there to tease the explorer into thinking there's something there? (I already know of the little dance needed to get to the hidden Druaga machine. This is another reason why I think there's something more.)

If you're referring to when the shield is going around the outer corner of the wall, I think what you see is a few lines of the diagonal-facing graphic combined with a few lines of the horizontal- or vertical-facing graphic.

I've seen this before. It probably is a bug - rather, an omission. The programmers probably didn't expect that a player would leave the energy capsule alone and face the aliens that flip back and forth. There are two registers, REFP0 and REFP1, that if you write an 8 to them, will cause the corresponding sprite to be horizontally flipped. My guess is that if you choose the side with the aliens, the reflect register gets activated for the entire screen and is not switched back before the E gets displayed. Thus, it flips back and forth along with the aliens.

With previous genre-defining games, we sometimes saw several clones, imitators, or enhancements to the original idea come in big waves. The introduction of Pac-Man brought games like Make Trax, Lock and Chase, and Jawbreaker (for home systems). Tetris spawned hordes of stuff-falling-from-the-sky puzzle games. After Street Fighter II came Virtua Fighter, King of Fighters, Tekken, and so on. What about the rhythm games, like Dance Dance Revolution and its many variants? Every one that I've seen is under the Bemani imprint of Konami - Guitar Freaks, Para Para Paradise, Dance Maniax, etc. Why is it we're not seeing a slew of rhythm games from other companies jumping into this new genre? (Could it be that there are other companies doing it in Japan and the games just haven't reached the U.S.?)

*2 1/2-year bump!* Last I heard, the game was complete or nearly complete, and may just be in need of manual and/or label. Has there been any news recently?

I think the ball is quite literally the ball graphic, so there'd have to be flicker to get multiple balls on the field. I believe the missiles are used for the kings, so there'd again have to be flicker to use those for balls. In addition, writing kernels for paddle games can get pretty tight, since you're reading the paddle on most every scanline to get fine-grain resolution. That reduces some of the time on each line that you can use for other things. However, what I'd really want out of an enhanced Warlords is a better one-player experience. The other computer players, especially the one in the lower-right, don't provide much of a challenge. They all move rather slowly and just follow the ball at a constant speed; if the ball is faster than the paddle, it's likely to get by. They should move faster and/or more like a human player in that they could jump from place to place and possibly be a bit more defensive (like sitting in front of a hole in the wall). An alternate method of scoring could make things interesting. Rather than only the winner getting one point, have each surviving player get one point when the round ends.

RRII works fine on both my six-switch 2600 and my 7800. Is your six-switcher heavy or light? Mine's a light...

I'd say that Warlords fits in this category. While the arcade version may be graphically superior, I think most people's exposure to the game was through the 2600 (I didn't even know there was an arcade version until emulation packages), and having the game be to a certain number of rounds won rather than for points made it even more competitive.

I recently inherited Star Raiders from a friend giving away his collection. I remembered fondly playing it on the 8-bit Atari computers, so I was glad to see this among the batch - complete with the Video Touch Pad. I am amazed at how difficult the 2600 version is by comparison! Even at the lowest skill level (only 10 enemy ships), I have yet to win only once, and only with a rating of Cook 3. It seems to me like the enemy fighters flit around the screen so fast that it's virtually impossible to hit them, and all the while they take enough pot-shots at you to drop your energy very quickly. (The manual says at the lowest skill level that the enemy is not accurate and only light damage should be expected. Ha!) Has anyone else found the 2600 Star Raiders to be rather difficult or am I just inept at protecting the galaxy?

In Video Pinball, the collision detection is sometimes a bit off. In many games, I'll see the ball pass through one of the drop targets or rollovers, especially if the ball is moving quickly. It appears to be pretty common; it's seven mentioned in Scott Stilphen's Easter Egg list. However, while playing today, I saw the ball pass through a wall entirely! It came down from the top of the screen pretty fast, bounced off the top of the diagonal bumper in the lower-right corner, and headed straight to the left fast. It went right through the lower-left diagonal bumper and into - and up! - the left drain. After it came out the top of the left drain, I continued playing normally. This is just weird. Has anybody else seen this?

I hope nobody tried to follow my directions... There's no such street as Island Drive. What I meant was Maiden Lane, though there is an Island Drive apartment complex off of Maidlen Lane - thus my confusion. Yesterday I drove by the very spot that I described. I saw no evidence of a thrift store being there anymore. All I can suggest is checking the local phone book (or www.smartpages.com, SBC's online directory service)...

Hmm... I hadn't thought of trying to blend the vocals and music so closely as an artistic choice. I'll have to keep that in mind the next time I listen... Thanks for the offer of the lyrics. I'll send an e-mail soon.

*sigh* Well, considering the Playstation is probably the least-played console that I have, and my saves (except FF1) were just high scores and configuration settings, I guess it's not too much lost. At least the PS itself doesn't appear to be fried. Though losing a 50-60% complete game of FF1 doesn't make me happy... Oh well. Thanks for the suggestions, everyone!

I received my copy of Cabana EP+ (and a red Climber 5 ) on Wednesday. I've given the CD a couple of listens, once in my car and once on my computer at work. I do rather like it so far. My only complaint is in the mix - Lauren's voice seems to get swallowed by all the instruments; it's hard to make out what she's saying. All the same, this is quite an achievement. Congrats to Paul, Lauren, and all else who made it happen.

Hmm... I do remember that Andrew was working on a 2600 emulator for the GBA... which means he's a GBA programmer... Maybe someone hired him to do a GBA version of Qb, but stipulated that the 2600 version had to be taken off the market... (Disclaimer: this is pure speculation. I've heard nothing of the sort, and if I am right, it is an absolute blind coincidence.)

I thought there was a thrift store over where Plymouth and Broadway meet, a bit east of Island Drive on the north side of town. I never went in, but I saw the back side of it driving down Plymouth Road several times.

I didn't have any Zippo fluid handy, so I tried some Goo Gone instead. (If it's a bad card, what harm can this do? ) It had no effect. I'm thinking that the card may have been corrupted. The game directory seems to be off. My Next Tetris and Puzzle Fighter blocks are missing and Namco Museum 2 takes up two blocks when it needs only one. There might also be the equivalent of lost clusters within some of the games. That could be why the PS1 with no game can get a directory of the card, but none of the games I tried can actually read the data. If I can find some Zippo fluid, I'll give that a try, but I fear that my card's data has been corrupted, and my scores and FF1 game lost.

Welcome to the area! (I'm a Northvillain but I work in A^2.) Make sure to stop in at Pinball Pete's downtown for an arcade game fix. As for a 2600, I don't have a spare, but I think Greenmead Historical Village in Livonia is having a flea market this upcoming Sunday. (Don't quote me on it, though, but I remember seeing street signs advertising the flea market nearby.) I went to this about three or four years ago. I did find one seller had a 2600 and a few games.

I gave the card a little shot with some canned air, in hopes of eliminating some dust. It didn't seem to help. What do you recommend that I use for cleaning? Do I clean just the cards, or do I shoot a little something through the memory card door into the PS1 itself?

The third-party card (made by Nuby) worked very well for a long time. It was only one game in which it seemed to have trouble. The Sony card seemed to work consistently. I'm also extremely careful about not pulling out the card during a save. In fact, up until yesterday, I never even pulled a card out while the power was on.

My PS1 has been occasionally erratic in reading memory cards, but it seemed to be only with one game (Super Puzzle Figher II Turbo), and was not very often, so I thought nothing of it. I attributed it to possibly the use of an off-brand memory card. Today I fired up my PS1 to continue a game of FF1, only to find that FF1 insisted that I didn't have a game saved. After several tries, I started up the PS1 with no CD so that I could use the memory card maintenance screen. It showed my memory card to be blank! I took the card out and put it back in several times. It recognized the fact that I had use blocks on it only once or twice - among them, a saved FF1 game. I pulled out another card - an actual Sony-brand card - and put it in. It took several attempts to have the PS1 recognize there were blocks on it. Thinking the off-brand card might have gone bad, I copied its data to the Sony card. Now neither FF1 nor Namco Museum 2 recognize the saved games on either card. Do you think this is a case of two bad memory cards? (What's the life expectancy of those things anyway?) Could it be that my PS1 has gone bad and won't read anything?

Sorry to see Qb take a final bow... it's a very enjoyable game and shows well what an imaginative person can do with 4 KB and some creativity and dedication. Whatever the reason for it going away, I'm glad to have had the chance to play and own the game. Thanks for sharing it with us, Andrew!

You also have health points (rather, a shield level) that ticks away slowly when you're not drawing a line. In essence, you have a time limit. The level drops away fast if one of the "Weak Enemies" (that's what they're called) hits the line that you are drawing. What's nice is that the game is only $9.99 - at least it was at a local Media Play.

Wow... not only is it impressive from a technical standpoint, but the music's pretty darn good too, at least the two samples on the web site. I'll be picking this one up for sure. Congrats to Paul and Lauren for the release!