IN THIS EPISODE:  A further drop down the PC rabbit hole of "old skool" tech and the beginnings of a "habit" with the 3DS.  Plus; collecting is one thing, but do I have enough room in my life to play all the games?





Welcome friends, to another episode of The Observatory.  Not sure if I'm completely in love with this "Episode" business, but for now I'll just stick to it.

There will definitely be an Ultima article this month, as I have putting a disgusting amount of game time into it.  I would be further along now if it hadn't been for twenty hours of Dying Light on Steam and a few hours of demos on the 3DS, but whatever.  I won't talk about Dying Light this month, outside of saying that it is how Dead Island should have been the first time around.  I don't think I can convey properly just how much joy I get from watching a zombie I hit with a brick hammer - modded with a "medium-impact" device on it - pop like a cherry bomb and soar through the air about ten feet in a comic fashion.  Fun.


The title may be a bit of a misnomer, as I have technically already made a plunge into the PC hardware/gaming field, but I wanted to pair it better with a "3DS Plunge" so I thought, what the heck?  I've recently had a few discoveries and revelations with my PC gaming, all the while trying to play and catalog my experience with Ultima V.  It is a little difficult, mainly due to the inherently difficult nature of DOS/early Windows-era gaming (and the length of Ultima V).  To be more specific, this past month I procured a Sound Blaster AWE32 sound card and a Diamond Stealth 64 video card from a scrapped computer at work.  I decided to use these parts to resurrect a formerly "useless" system, a Pentium MMX 166Mhz.  With the thought to turn this into my primary DOS gaming computer,  I went about installing my "new" parts into the afore mentioned PC.

At this time I would like to state that despite my enthusiasm for DOS gaming, I am a relative newcomer and for the most part wholly unfamiliar to the little nuances that running DOS offers up.  I had edited my AUTOEXEC.BAT a couple of times, but certainly not the CONFIG.SYS file.  Heck, I wasn't even aware there was such thing as a CONFIG.SYS file.  My command line experience comes from Linux, man.  Things are just so much cleaner there, I wasn't really prepared for the horror that DOS can present to a potential gamer.

Back to the story.  So I installed the new sound and video card and re-installed the obligatory copies of DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1.  With a little bit off searching on Google I was able to find out how to get the system to see a CD-ROM (not intuitive at all) and then how to properly install the sound card, which was a bit of an effort due to not knowing some cards are PnP (that is, plug and play) and some are not.  Anyway, after an hour or so I managed to get everything running great, and decided to start loading some of my games on it.  First was the MIDI-patched Ultima V, which gives you the MIDI tunes from the Amiga version of the game, but also supports a ridiculous array of sound hardware.  I had a lot of fun discovering how much better the AWE32 sounded over Adlib and Sound Blaster 16, given that DOSbox still cannot emulate that specific hardware (AWE) yet.  After I decided to also install Drakkhen, Ultima VI and the first part of Ultima VII.  That is when the sinking feeling started.  I will just use two words to describe it.  Some of you will no doubt share my prior ignorance of exactly what they mean, but some of you will know, and might even spare me a little nod in empathy.  Or a chuckle.

DOS Memory.

A fun little fact is that while all DOS games require some sort of RAM to run, nearly all of them only use a certain amount of RAM, generally call DOS memory.  It is exactly 640KB, and is needed to run everything from the OS to the mouse and the CD-ROM drive.  It is also needed to run games, which leads to gamers spending ridiculous amounts of time editing their machines AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files to get everything running just right.  This gamer spent more than an hour learning that because I insisted on installing a CD-ROM, mouse, and sound device I no longer had enough DOS memory to run certain games.  And here I was thinking that the 64MB that PC had was enough.  Pffft.  Nope.  Drakkhen, an early example of a 3D open-world RPG game released in 1989, requires just under 600KB of RAM to run in VGA mode.  I found it hilarious that due to the "features" I added to my PC I couldn't even run that game, much less Ultima VII.  In the end I created a system boot disk with a stripped down AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS so that both games (and likely many more) could run properly.  I am told that I will end up creating other boot disks in the future when I attempt to run other games, such as Wing Commander.  Man, DOS is so weird.

That is my little DOS adventure for this month.  I have had other thoughts about how to progress (or perhaps, regress) with my DOS hardware (especially in light of what MetalFRO commented about last month), but that will have to wait for later.



A week ago, on a lark, I decided to ask my son if I could borrow his old 3DS system, which since he got a New 3DS XL has languished somewhere in his bedroom.  He handed it over, offering up some tips.  Still not sure on the thinking that led up to me borrowing the system.  Maybe the free demos.

Well, after a week of downloading and playing free stuff from the Nintendo eShop I can report that I am not only enjoying myself, but have actually mentally picked out a few titles for future purchase.  This is something that I honestly didn't think would happen again, as I kind of soured a bit on the Nintendo DS a number of years ago.  Not for lack of games, mind you, but the original system itself.  At first I had a lot of fun, but as time moved the size and quality of the screen really wore on my nerves, and the stiff buttons and d-pad wore on my thumbs.  True, there were newer iterations of the platform to consider, but since the games I was interested in could be counted on two hands (at the time), it seemed I would be really paying to make my current game library look better.  Couple that with my purchasing of a PSP, which screen-wise was where I wanted to be at on a handheld system, and that was pretty much the end of the DS console for me.

Fast forward to now and I am really enjoying the 3DS.  The 3D thing is kind of cool, but for me the real upgrade is the much sharper screen and that analog slider.  Wish I would have held onto Super Mario 64 DS, as I can't imagine how much better that game plays on a 3DS versus the original DS.  The first time I tried controlling Mario with that goofy little plastic thumb piece on the end of the original DS lanyard I was ready to throw the towel in.  I'd actually love to try all my old DS favorites again, just to see and play on a better system.  Most probably wouldn't offer the same improvements as Super Mario 64 DS, but I'm still a bit curious.  And the 3DS games themselves...  I've noticed the ratio of bad to good games first started on the original GameBoy still holds true (around ~10-to-1), but actual good games seem better, with an up and coming game had me do the first non-PC related fist pump in a good long while, that being Dragon Quest VII, even without a definitive release date.  And I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire and Yo-Kai Watch demos.

Despite my earlier enthusiasm, I do have one complaint:  My hands really hurt!  No joke, after twenty minutes of playing through the [ii]Bravely Default[/i] demo my hands managed to freeze into some sort of turkey claw-shape.  It was quite painful.  I'm not sure if it was due to my not having played a handheld system in a while or the size/button layout of the 3DS, but it certainly hurt.    Anyone think an upgrade to a 3DS XL would fix this?  I considered attempting a trade for a regular 3DS XL, but seeing as the New 3DS XL is pretty close in price at the moment (and future VC SNES games being exclusive to the new platform) I might just get the New 3DS XL instead.  This likely won't happen this year, as I'm funneling any extra money (as it were) into a super secret family vacation, but any feedback on the subject is appreciated.

LAST SECOND UPDATE: The day I was editing this whist on my lunch a work friend of mine gave me his old DS Lite and the game that was in it (Civilization Revolution).  This was a nice surprise, mostly because it finally allows me to get a gander at what all the hubbub was about. I really wanted one when it was released, but the price ($170, was it?), drove me away.  And you know what?  I really like the system.  The buttons and d-pad are slightly raised over the original DS and feel so much better to boot, that if I had sprung for it at the time I doubt I would have been disappointed.


All The Games?

First, I think some context is in order.  My public speaking professor in college was a huge film buff, and once during a rather candid conversation involving some classic Val Lewton films and the merits of , he said something that has really stuck with me over the years:

"You can't watch all the movies.  There are just too many.  You should just try and watch the good ones."

While I still disagree with this bit of wisdom is relation to movies, as of late I've found it applying to my gaming life.  While it is a far more practical approach from a financial angle, recently I find myself not as willing to really devote time to the "bad" games as I once did.  Let me tell you, this is quite a change.  For as long as I can remember I've just wanted to play everything.  During those summers at the game store I managed, my favorite days were in the summer, when in the absence of customers I would task myself to play literally every game in stock.  And this was in 1998, when one could find games from the 8-bit era rubbing elbows with brand new PSX titles.  I never managed to get through all of them (I think I got bogged down in the mass of PSX games), and I think because of that I've always had a fascination with just playing everything, which slowly developed into a "mini" obsession as I bought more consoles and computers.  The addition of the Commodore 64 and the DOS computers to my collection were the peak, I think.  Back when I was actively looking for a PAL television solution so I could import a ZX Spectrum.

So how did this happen?  I think whilst playing demos in the 3DS store.  As I began the slow process of downloading games one at a time (small SD card), I began to see a pattern - I wasn't having any fun with the majority of the games.  It started out fine, with Monster Hunter 4, Pokemon Omega Ruby, and Yokai Watch, but quickly deteriorated with Magic Hammer, Legend of Legacy, and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow.  There are some "meh" games (like Resident Evil Revelations), but the overwhelming majority I'm just not digging.  And Etrian Odyssey, a game I thought would be a shoe-in, I was bored with in mere moments.  And the prices - the 3DS is clearly a system where the good games hold their value.  You certainly don't hear anything like this on other platforms, where massive best sellers that see widespread release somehow manage to hold their value over the years (and decades).

But at the end of the day (and the middle of this month) I am tired and quickly approaching burn-out.  I've spent more time gaming for March articles than any six months total last year, and I think, at least for now, I don't need to play all the games.  Maybe just the good ones.

I think that might be it, gentle readers.  Just between you and me, I might make Ultima V my last Ultima for a while.  I love the game, but my poor hand needs a serious break.  I swear this is the last game where I will take notes in a actual notebook.

Thanks for reading! 

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