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Many a gamer grumbled the world over when the 3DS was first revealed as having only a single, left analog 'circle pad.' Gaming futurists claimed the new system was already dead in the water because of a refusal to get with the times. Even the PSP has been routinely criticized for only having as many control inputs as a Dreamcast, compounded by the Vita's announcement of twice as many touch pads and analog sticks. By the time the 3DS XL came around with the gall to not split its own player base, forums were alight with proclamations of "no 2nd pad, no buy."
As a southpaw gamer, some of my concerns about this are admittedly doomed to a minority. For example, many Vita games are completely inaccessible to me because of a lack of input options, even for a portable with more input methods than ever before. It was extremely frustrating to find that Resistance, Uncharted, Unit 13, and most disappointingly Gravity Rush have no option to use the left stick for the 3D camera. I should know; I suffered terrible nausea trying to play the latter for ten minutes.
While this indelible oversight occurs often on consoles, where some systems have controller-modding options, on a handheld I'm pretty much out of luck. Sadly, it is a curse I've just had to accept about my own limitations meeting a publisher/developer's inconsideration for handicapped gamers (even for an easily correctable solution, such as the ability to swap the stupid analogs). But this element actually plays very little into the fact that I'm much happier that most portables, including the new 3DS models, only have a single analog. That's right; if given the choice, I'd rather every portable only have one analog thumb device, be it a 'nub,' 'stick,' or 'pad.'
Why? It actually has less to do with controls per se, and more to do with game design. What game types do developers make for systems with two analog sticks? As any modern gamer knows (and many an 'old school-er' laments) the genre du jour is first and third person shooters. It is generally agreed that for consoles, the now standard two-stick setup is the most ideal control method for these games, and I wouldn't argue. (Sticking to consoles, as this isn't a mouse-and-keyboard debate.)
But what do developers, who make so much money off of these F/TPS games, do about the portable market? Often, the system design is largely ignored for the sake of shoe-horning a console shooter onto it. And in my opinion, not having another stick is not the biggest problem with this; blocky graphic engines, bad framerates, limited enemy intelligence, scaled down maps, stripped down features, the list goes on. Its not that these game-types are doomed to fail on a portable; there does exist a few examples of excellent portable F/TPS games. But by and large most handheld iterations of anything resembling a Call of Duty or Halo derivative are considered subpar experiences. At best they are used as third tier backups for the 'true' experience, at worst they are practically unplayable experiments in ignoring the benefits of redesigning a game to meet the system where it is.
We naturally expect ports of popular series on our portables, and there is nothing wrong with that. The problem lies in assuming that we are capable of, or even want to, experience the same game on a system that will almost always have lower resolution and horsepower, different programming architecture, and more limited control elements than a home console. Hardware developers can see this as a challenge, trying to produce cutting edge devices (with expenses to match) to solve this 'problem.'
Except it is not a problem, any more than the idea that a Super Nintendo cannot be as entertaining as a PS3 because of inferior hardware. We have different expectations for different hardware, and of course that plays into our preconceived notions of what we will experience. But as many of us here at RFGen can attest, sometimes our modern consoles do not get nearly the playtime as our older systems. And not just because of nostalgia; our blogs here are rife with those who discovered a fifteen year-old game they never played suddenly becoming a new favorite.
If Doom were ever truly ported to the Atari 2600, it would be amusing for inventive programming, not because it was truly competing to rival the actual experience of the original. Unless... it wasn't designed to play like the original but was instead a new creation inspired by it. This leads us to brilliant redesigns like Doom RPG for cell phones. While Doom can be hacked onto a cell phone, playability and other issues would always be a concern, but by taking the original as inspiration and the limitations of the system in mind, a game perfect for the format was developed.
And here is found the solution to the 'problem' of a lack of a second stick on portables; for developers to make games with the system in mind from the beginning of development. The real problem is not one of technical limitations; it is one of design. My favorite, and I would argue the best, games on portable systems are the ones specifically designed with the system in mind. For the DS, classics like Kirby Canvas Curse, the Etrian Odyssey series, Knights in the Nightmare, and of course Scribblenauts were designed with the unique DS hardware in mind, and it shows in awesome game design. Instead of being limited by the technology, the technology was utilized in fun and inventive ways.
As port-heavy as the PSP library is, it is no surprise that my favorites are also ones that ignored the system's console siblings and were developed just for it; Killzone: Liberation, Metal Gear Acid 1 and 2, and R-Type Command are great examples of trying something better suited to the system's unique hardware. The Loco Roco and Patapon series are perhaps the best showpieces of original design catered to both the PSP hardware and its portable nature.
Having another analog should not have the opposite of the intended effect and limit game design, of course. We can also certainly have great F/TPS games on portables, and now with the Vita, no doubt there will be more to come. But where developers look at the Vita and may assume quick ports of modern shooters will make money on the system, I'm thrilled that the relatively underpowered 3DS will, if history serves correct, be host to inventive, creative, unique experiences catering to the portable. Of course, we'll be flooded with 'Party Babyz" style shovelware left and right, but that is the nature of the beast of modern gaming, and unrelated to how many silly inputs a game system has. 
I try not to clog everyone's sidebars with blog posts relating to my other, more personal non-RFGenerations blog... I figure if you're gonna read it, you've already got it bookmarked, and don't need to hear about it here. haha
Still, for this one particular post, I figured I'd bring to your attention. It deals with a subject close to me, which is breast cancer.
I used to run in a NASCAR simulator online league, and made great friends (and fierce competitors) along the way. One of them was my friend Jared, who now races another game online.
He thought it would be a great idea to try and raise funds for the CIBC's Run for the Cure, which benefits the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. He's trying a variety of different methods of raising money, and he asked if I could have a shout-out on my blog for him.
I hesitated at first, not knowing how I'd relate to video games (because, after all, that's what my blog is 100% supposed to be about). Thankfully, I managed to write a lot more than I expected to, and in a round-about way, was still talking about video games!
http://www.controlpadblues.com/?p=1044
Check out the blog if you wish, since it's for a great cause.
Also, if his goal is met, Jared will paint his go-kart pink for the final event of his professional karting season. As someone who used to clash with him on the virtual track on a regular basis, I wouldn't mind seeing this come to fruition. 
Cheers, folks!
Well, this is a bit late, but better late than never right?
August was another solid month for submissions here at RFGeneration. Our wonderful members made a total of 2,962 submissions in August, 866 of those were images and 500 title additions! While it wasn't our best month, its still certainly something to be proud of, there's not many sites out there that get over 800 images in a month during a good month, let alone a slow one. And its all done for you, by you guys, the community.
So who submitted the most this month? That was ApolloBoy with 1074 submissions. Shadow Kisuragi, Techie413, Sirgin, and aeroc all also had over 100 submissions during August.
And of course, we can't forget about our dedicated team of reviewers. The top reviewers in August were Shadow Kisuragi, Paully3433, and NES_Rules, each with over 100 reviews.
Thanks to everyone who helped out in August, now get to submitting even more for September. We're on track for 50,000 submissions this year, but let's see if we can get 60,000!
Dear RFGeneration members, welcome to what I hope to be a series of interviews on homebrew game designers in the VECTREX community. As some of you know, I'm a real proponent of the VECTREX system and it's a large focus of my gaming collection. I vaguely remember the system growing up, but never played one until a few years ago. I was immediately drawn to it, not only because of it's unique look and portability, but because of the vector graphics, which I remember being a huge fan of in the arcades of my youth; Tempest is still one of my all time favorite cabinets.
Though the VECTREX had a very limited amount of original releases, some of which were only playable with the Light Pen and 3-D Imager accessories, the majority of the games are fun and challenging. Due to the small amount of original games, several designers in the homebrew community who have an affection for the VECTREX, have created some great games for the system, some which are originals and others are ports of original vector arcade titles. Kristof Tuts is one of these designers and is the founder of Tutstronix, a company that creates homebrew titles that push the boundaries of the VECTREX console. Kristof currently resides in Belgium and is one of only a handful of designers still creating games for the VECTREX. After ordering a copy of his most recent release, Vector Pilot, I was fortunate enough to get in contact with him for an interview, which I hope you enjoy.
 **Kristof with this son, one of his primary game testers**
Continue reading Vectrex Interview Series #1 - Kristof Tuts
While reading old posts on the Dreamcast Junkyard blog, I came across this great Android app called Dream Collection. It's a simple tool for keeping track of your Dreamcast collection. There's not a lot to the program, but it does just what it needs to. You simply check off the games you own, and can note if they're complete or missing parts. Of course you could just as easily use the RFGeneration app as well, though this is nice for tracking just a single collecting goal. Dream Collection only tracks US released games -- and while it includes the Web Browser releases, it does not cover demo discs. Like I said, just simple and straight forward. But if you are going for a complete set of US Dreamcast games, it's definitely worth checking out.
  
Today I mourn the passing of a few close friends. For years they have been with me, through good times and bad, and though at least one of them was responsible for more than one bad time, there were more good than bad, I think. That was confusing. Anyways, I know that all of them could be counted on for at least one reasonably good game.
I discovered their passing this morning as I worked on what I should have "on deck" in my revised gaming room (Room 1, v2). I had finally settled on PS2, NES, SNES, Genesis, T-16, and N64 (Dreamcast and Xbox are stationed in Room 2, v2). After fixing the mass of wire-spaghetti making sure the proper hook-ups were hooked up I discovered the tragedy. My Sega CD, Genesis model 1, and Turbografx CD had passed onto a better place. I did what I could, but in the end there was no saving them. They have gone Home, and I will have to come to terms with this on my own.
The viewing will be scheduled Sunday, September 15th at approximately 11 am EST. As per their last requests, games will be placed in their trays/slot. They will be Sonic CD, Final Zone II, and StarFlight (for the Sega CD, Turbo CD, and Genesis, respectively). The funeral has been scheduled to take place in my basement, where they will be entombed in my console display shelf (since they are inanimate objects) and dusted not less than once a month.
Goodbye, my friends.
[UPDATE] - It seems the Turbo CD isn't totally dead, but is unable to play CD games. It look like the CD drive gear has stripped out, which is the death knell for this particular system. Fortunately I can still play regular Turbo games on it (and through composite), so for now it will stay next to my SNES.
Recently I talked about Frogger 2, a modernization of a golden age arcade game that was surprisingly fun. Sadly, this blog post will not be doing the same.
In late 1999, Atari thought that the classic Centipede needed a modern 3D facelift. And what they came up with was the imaginatively titled game, Centipede. I guess I'll start by saying something nice about this modern piece of crap: it has great music. Really. The soundtrack is very good. It's the kind of soundtrack you could listen to outside the game -- or at least wish was in a better game.
But wait, I'm getting a bit ahead myself. Like usual, let me tell you my background with Centipede (the original game) to give you some perspective. Centipede is one of those games I have fond memories of playing on cocktail cabs in various restaurant waiting areas in my youth. Disclaimer: it's never been a game I was good at. But I've always respected it. Truth be told, as far as shooters of the era go, I'm pretty much a steady-Galaga guy in the sense that I can't find much else to compare. But I do think that Centipede is unique, twitch-enducing and fun at least in small bursts. One might assume that in modernizing such a classic, Atari would bring it into a more current "bullet hell" atmosphere. But no. Instead they threw in various power-ups and incorporated horrible 3D graphics and managed to suck pretty much all the fun out of the game proper.
 
This new take on the Centipede formula turns the game into a free roaming experience. Whereas the original game was obviously inspired by the Space Invaders style vertical view -- meaning you're at the bottom killing stuff at the top -- this game lets you go wherever you want. It even lets you choose your view, including a cumbersome over-the-shoulder viewpoint. This alone pretty much kills the game. Where you would originally see the entire board at once, and move freely within a few "steps" of the bottom of the board, now you can freely traverse the environment. This means that now everything is zoomed in and you're only seeing little bits at a time. This device creates and incredibly cramped feeling and you generally find yourself sticking to small parts of the map which becomes incredibly boring incredibly quickly.
In fairness, Atari tried to make things unique here. They included aforementioned power-ups and all, but none of it feels needed. It's really just a bland take on the already established and refined formula. It's genuinely not something I could recommend anyone looking to expand their Dreamcast collection.
 
The disc does have one small saving grace however. While I lamented that the Frogger 2 release didn't include an emulation of Frogger, this new Centipede does indeed offer the original version of Centipede. This will indeed offer far more enjoyment over the remake. In fact it makes me wish that there had been a trackball accessory released for the Dreamcast as it could have been hell-of-a-lot of fun to play this game again like on that cocktail cab. Sad but true -- if you pick this game up you'll spend far more time playing the 30-year game than this new iteration.
Hey everyone engel762 and I went on a little road trip to Lincoln, NE to hit up a few stores. Long day but we hit up both Gamers, both Game Rooms, and a nice pawn shop. Then on the way home we stopped at my favorite local video game stores and he sure picked up a great lot of things (not just here but also in Lincoln). If you want to check out his purchases check out his blog under Engel762. My brother who isn't into the classic part of the collecting anymore also picked up a few nice Wii items to add to the collection. The road trip was great even though I was exhausted from working overnight Engel and I still had a great time and it was well worth the drive and the loss of sleep in the end. I hope to continue the adventures in game hunting with my friend. So here is a rundown on the items I picked up or TRADED with Engel.
*The Game Room -
-FREE Nintendo Wii 25th Anniversary Edition Mario Red System Box - Soon hopefully I can complete it but if not I hope to someday.
-Terminator: Rampage (Thanks Engel for looking under the table haha) - $3.00
-Rush'n Attack - NES CIB - I found this sitting behind the counter just laying there and asked about it since I have a huge passion for CIB NES Games. Price - $5.00
-Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Coming out of Their Shells Video - $1.00 - I know not a game but it's totally nostalgia.
*Gamers - Nothing big
-Legend of Zelda Minish Cap Strategy Guide - $4.95 - thought I didn't have this one but I do but sadly not up for grabs at this time.
Final but not least the trade with Engel. He wanted my extra copy of Halo: Reach Hardened Edition which is new my brother just opened it to check out the stuff in it. But at our local store I found Mass Effect - Limited Collector's Edition with the Pre-Order Bonus Disc for a whopping $60.00!!! So Engel picked it up for me and we traded Halo:Reach, Mario is Missing! NES, and few other games for it. Thanks again Engel for the drive, the fun time and Mass Effect.
And here are my brother's Best Buy Purchases:
-Wii Wireless Sensor Bar - $20.00
-Action Replay Wii - $20.00
Thursday morning niceguy1283 and I hopped in my car and headed out to Lincoln, Nebraska. Plans were to hit up a a pawn shop, a couple Gamers locations, and the two Game Room stores.
I came across some decent stuff and and splurged a bit at the end of the trip by picking up a XBox 360 S 250GB console for 199.95. Felt like a good deal to me.
I didn't sort out the items by location found when I was taking pictures, but meh.
First up we have Jurassic Park: The Chaos Continues CIB, and Street Fighter II Turbo on the SNES. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: the Arcade Game on NES.
Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Tides of War on XBox,
Neo Contra for the PS2, Championship PRO-AM and Sonic Spinball on Genesis.
Ending with Earthworm Jim 3D on N64.
Next image. Xenosaga 1 for PS2, Final Fantasy Chronicles for PS, Super Paper Mario and Super Mario All Stars 25th Anniversary Edition on Wii, and Gears of War limited collectors edition on XBox 360.
Next couple images are the results of me recently playing Halo and Halo 2 on the original XBox and wanting to see where the rest of the games went story-wise.
Here we have Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary Edition, Halo 3 limited edition, Halo 3: ODST, and Halo: Reach limited edition.
The Halo: Reach limited edition I picked up in a trade with niceguy1283, as well as the items in the image below. Doom 32X, Mario is Missing NES, Super Mario Bros/Duckhunt with manual.
You might be asking yourself, "Why didn't he have this common freaking game?!" I didn't have this. When I originally got my NES back in 1985 it was bundled only with Super Mario Bros.
Last but not least, Pocket Bomberman on GBC.
We came across a Mass Effect Limited Edition at our last stop of the day for the low price of 59.99, he wanted it, and I wanted his Halo: Reach.
Sure, the Mass Effect is more than likely worth more than the Halo, but I have all the Mass Effect games on PC and don't care enough to get them on console now. So to me it was an even trade.
I picked up some PS3 games, but somehow managed to forget to take a picture. Guess that doesn't really matter, they're newer and they're like belly buttons. Everyone's got 'em.
Uncharted, and Uncharted 2 GOTY, as well as Metal Gear Solid 4.
Bought a later model Genesis control pad also. Hopefully it's one with the redesigned D-Pad mechanism, my original "red letter" pad is feeling a bit mushy.
All in all, it felt like a good day of hunting. I probably spent more than I should have at the end of the trip, but at least I'm all caught up to the current generation of consoles!
As the title says, CD Tradepost was having a 42% off sale in honor of their owners 42nd birthday. So I decided to raid a couple of the stores they have in my area and see what I could find. Nothing overly exciting, but a few games I was wanting or that just caught my eye.
First, a few XBox games. My XBox collection is lacking, I bought the console pretty much at the end of it's life and only had four or five games since then. Figured it was about time to add some more to the pile.
Doom 3, Castlevania: Curse of Darkness, Halo: Combat Evolved, Red Dead Revolver, Capcom Classics Collection vol 1, Ninja Gaiden, Mechassault, and Midway Arcade Treasures 1,2, and 3.
For the Genesis; Sonic the Hedgehog. On the PS2; Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy, Mega Man Anniversary Collection. Nightmare Creatures for the Playstation, and SoulCalibur for Dreamcast.
Episode 6 discussion thread: http://www.rfgeneration.c...rum/index.php?topic=10347
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Crabby and Duke decide to allow Wildbil back on, since his awesome score streak has dried up and he's no longer competition. We sit down to discuss methods for keeping track of your gaming inventory. You may be able to guess our current favorite, but we talk about the options, our history with different methods, and the deeper meaning behind documenting items.
You folks may regret all the praise you gave us for the last episode, as we've gone on to produce another three hours of content. Don't blame us, you had the chance to complain at the last one 
Show notes:
Music: Metroid (FDS)
22:01 Small Scores
1:34:09 Main Topic: Inventorying
2:58:04 Closing
Sites mentioned in the show:
http://www.rfgeneration.com
http://www.ign.com
http://www.nintendoage.com
http://www.segaage.com
http://www.collectorz.com
http://www.cheapassgamer.com
In 1982, the "fad" known as video games had reached an impossible high. Arcades were popping up everywhere. Beloved video game characters were being turned into toys, breakfast cereals and Saturday Morning cartoons. Pac-Man was suddenly as recognizable as Mickey Mouse. I was only six at the time but I was mesmerized by these endless digital wonderlands being presented. I knew what I wanted for Christmas that year: an Atari 2600.
But my parents, always better at researching their purchases than chomping ghosts, knew that there was a new product on the horizon. One that was supposed to put Atari and Mattel's offerings to shame. They decided a Colecovision was the best use of their holiday budget. How could you blame them after seeing this ad?
<![CDATA[<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ikn7hVm4Dt8&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/Ikn7hVm4Dt8&rel=0</a>]]>
That Christmas morning my older sister and I were greeted with a new Colecovision, complete with Donkey Kong cartridge, and a second game - Mouse Trap. I distinctly remember being shocked I had to actually control Mario instead of him doing fancy stuff on his own. Again, I was only six. That being said, I learned fairly quickly.
As time went on, my library increased. I don't remember there being any particular clunkers in my collection. We'd spend an entire afternoon trying to figure out how to get past the force field in Zaxxon. We'd play Smurf Rescue in Gargamel's Castle until the score rolled over to zero. We'd take turns using the steering wheel (Expansion Module #2) to get as far as possible in Turbo, cursing the dreaded "icy road" part. We'd spend evenings playing Ken Uston's Blackjack/Poker pretending we were big shots at the casino (while simultaneously mocking the dealer's weird facial expressions when busting our virtual bankrolls.)
It's funny how blissfully unaware we were of the Colecovision's weak points we've only realized years later. The controller was a horrible, fragile little monster. The 12-second delay on the first party games seemed excessive. The power supply had it's own zip code. Didn't matter. The Colecovision had what seemed to be an endless supply of entertainment. Even in my young mind, I knew that this was going to be the console of the future.
Except that future would never happen because of two rather nasty events that were arrows piercing straight into the heart of the beloved Connecticut Leather Company.
First, there was that nasty Video Game Crash of 1983. Like most young gamers, I was complete oblivious to the business problems going on at the time. I never thought twice as to why my parents were able to pick up more games as gifts not realizing they were in clearance bins and purchased for next to nothing.
Secondly, while Coleco could have been a contender in the burgeoning home computer market with their Adam add-on, it had a serious fatal flaw. Due to a design oversight, the computer's magnetic field would thoughtfully erase your software when booting it up. Combine that with a price tag unable to compete with the wildly popular Commodore 64 and the company was suddenly on life-support with only Cabbage Patch Dolls to keep it breathing.
I ended up with one of those Commodore 64 computers a year later, my parents again wisely seeing that the Adam computer I asked for was destined for paperweight status. The Colecovision, slightly hobbled by a broken joystick port and seemingly outdated, sat collecting dust. It saw only very little action when I wanted to play Mr. Do! or Time Pilot. But mostly it was hard to go back. Why play a five minute game when I could boot up the likes of Impossible Mission or Zork I and have my entire gaming evening laid out for me?
Years went by and I moved onto the newer consoles. During the peak of the Nintendo Entertainment System's popularity, the family and I took an expedition into New York City. I gather up some of my allowance money to see if I couldn't find a new NES cartridge for the venerable console. The stores weren't selling anything different than my local Toys R Us. But then I saw, on the shelf of some tiny electronics shop, something really awesome: a completely new-in-box Colecovision. I remembered the time I spent years earlier and how the one I currently had that busted controller port. I decided to use my hard-earned allowance money and relive the "recent" past.
That evening, instead of playing some throw-away third party NES game, I played every single old cartridge I had, suddenly remembering why I had so much fun. Sure the games weren't as complex as Super Mario Bros., Zelda or Contra but they had an undeniable charm to them I couldn't ignore.
Admittedly, the Colecovision went back to the corner soon thereafter. It was the age of titles like Ninja Gaiden and Mike Tyson's Punch Out!, with new, exciting releases around every imaginable corner. But I kept it around for those little gaming fixes I needed every now and again. A quick round of Q*Bert beats Milon's Secret Castle any day of the week.
There is a good chance you may not know of 'conflict diamonds,' and the politics surrounding them. There may be a slightly better chance you know of Jason Rohrer. Both are things best to have awareness of, which brings us to Diamond Trust of London.
Perhaps the most famous aspect of this game is not its setting or even its notable creator; Diamond Trust is the first DS game launched from Kickstarter.
(http://www.kickstarter.co...6/diamond-trust-of-london)
It took several years, and according to Rohrer, many a fortunate situation, but the game is now available, though only through the website: http://diamondtrustgame.com/buy.php
It comes with a typical DS case and manual, and everything included is very professional and pretty much the same as buying any new DS game from retail. As for the creator:
If Jason Rohrer's name just sounds to you like Scooby Doo trying to warn you of Friday the 13th, I highly recommend looking the man up. For a coder/programmer/engineer/musician, the guy practices 'simple living' with a family of four coming under 15k a year, has a number of interesting political and sociological theories (as his lifestyle suggests) and his games are mostly free experiments. I can't say I'd agree with the guy on everything, though I respect him for standing in his beliefs (see if you can catch his somewhat veiled criticism of circumcision from his personal website, or his interesting defenses of natural habitats.)
Most relevant here, Jason Rohrer is an award winning game designer, and his takes on game design are often cited when referencing video games as a medium to be used beyond typical base entertainment value. Works like Passage and Sleep is Death are designed to push our buttons as much as we push buttons on a controller.
Much more 'typical' a game is Diamond Trust. Though the setting is political and contemporary, it never moves past the background to become preachy (if you have no idea what the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme is, Rohrer is not about to use a game to tell you.) The design is an almost standard board game, and the strict two-player limit (an AI opponent is available, though the game's own manual desires the player to seek out someone else to play as soon as possible) keeps the focus razor sharp. This is a game about bluffing, bribing, resource management, and second/third/fourth guessing your rival.
If you normally read board games as 'bored games,' know that Diamond Trust is a tighter, faster paced, meaner version of the games you fell asleep to during family reunions or the backup entertainment for those college nights when the power went out and so did the LAN party. Simpler than Monopoly, darker than Catan, and far cheaper to acquire than Dark Tower, if you have another human whose wit you want to match, I can think of fewer alternates as fun.
Only one copy of the game is required, (you send a download copy to another DS) and the DL copy only looses the nifty chiptune music during play. My beloved and I sat down with it the night it arrived and we didn't want to stop playing. Considering the kids were in bed already, giving us some precious alone time, and this is what we wanted to do with it, I can't think of a better way to recommend Diamond Trust of London.
As I continue to work my way through my Dreamcast collection, it starts to get more interesting. You see I'm forcing myself to play games I probably wouldn't under normal circumstances, and Quake III Arena is a perfect example. I'm not a big FPS fan to begin with. And the whole idea of an arena-style FPS is completely alien to me. But before I delve into the game itself, let me first talk a bit about controls. As many of you far more versed in first person shooters are probably well aware, there is a certain... shall we say snobbery regarding control methods within the genre. There's a group of purists whom claim that keyboard-and-mouse is the only way to play -- a residual effect of the genre growing up on PC's I assume. And let me just say that my first experiences with the genre as a whole were indeed on PC. I logged many hours into the shareware versions of both Wolfenstein 3D and Doom using the old kb/m setup. But nowadays, I have no idea how that younger version of myself did such a thing. It just makes no sense to me.
And as the genre matured, so too did its control scheme. Later games would start to include aiming on the vertical plane as a thing which only confused me further when a keyboard and mouse were thrown into the mix. Though I grew up dabbling in PC gaming, it was consoles and their controllers that I was at home with. In recent years I've attempted some console FPS games wondering if maybe I could feel more comfortable with a controller. A good example is Borderlands. I mean wow, what a great looking game. I spent several hours flailing my ass around Borderlands never to beat the first boss. It's all kind of embarrassing really. But it's true. My brain has serious trouble understanding how one analog stick is movement and another is aiming. Generally, I can only concentrate one or the other which often resulted in me standing still when I should be running or fumbling awkwardly with the camera to aim at something. Quite the mess.
But recently I decided to try the leaked Dreamcast port of Half-Life because I had found the Prima guide for it. Here was an FPS game not only put on a console with the limitations of its controller, but of course the Dreamcast is lacking that second analog stick. Instead of the left stick being movement and right being aim, we had the left stick for aim and four face buttons for movement. For some strange reason this made a lot more sense to me. Four flat buttons (IE: Up, Down, Left, Right) just clicked in my brain rather than trying to make sense of the four directions in a 3D-space because of an analog stick. When I brought this subject up on the Racketboy forums a member there suggested that perhaps the southpaw control scheme would work better for me when playing FPS games. I was intrigued. You see, I'm a right-hander, baby. Far from sinister. But perhaps in some weird way, my gaming brain is a lefty? Either way I find it appropriate at this point to plug a wonderful blog post by slackur on the plight of the left-handed gamer: http://www.rfgeneration.c...the-SouthpawClaw-1463.php
And now on to Quake III Arena...
 
I should start by pointing out that my knowledge of the Quake series is small. And I'm guessing that this particular game does little to change that. Quake III Arena is of course meant as a multiplayer game. It's all deathmatch and capture-the-flag, etc. with no room for a single player campaign. Again, this is quite foreign to me. But finding the controls so similar to the intended Half-Life release, I was able to jump right in and have myself a pretty good time.
The game itself runs great on the Dreamcast hardware. It looks fantastic and has a silky-smooth frame rate. It's fast-paced and has lots of weapon upgrades to keep it interesting. And yet, I'm not sure I could put myself through the entire single player experience. Since really I know all I'm doing is running around killing computer-controller enemies, it kind of loses its luster after a while. And honestly, I'd kind of prefer to just be experience the original Quake on DC instead.
 
Oh but there's something I forgot to mention! There are actually still a handful of Dreamcast games that still have some level of online support. And Quake III Arena is one of them. Although the official server has been shut down for some time, Q3 actually has various private servers still supporting the Dreamcast port. And as it happens, I have my Dreamcast hooked up to a phone line, and configured to work with Juno as a free ISP (remember Juno? It's still around!). But sadly my efforts to play Q3 online have so far been a wash. I've checked into various online communities (like the excellent Dreamcast-Talk or OnlineConsoles) and written down a slew of IP addresses of private servers. Yet every time I take Arena online and input the server addresses... absolutely nothing happens.
I still have some reasonably high hopes for this game. I feel like if I could get connected to a server somewhere then it could be a blast to play against human opponents. But until that happens, I'm sadly stuck with a pretty cool multiplayer game and no multi-players to play it with.
Well, the summer here in the good ol' U.S. is almost at an end. As I type this a cool breeze is drifting in through my dining room window for the first time in months, and while it has not officially ended (per se), summer knows that it's annual time is drawing to a close. While there may be more high temperature days left (at least in Michigan), it is assured that the nights will be cool and crisp.
I've turned 35. I own a house, lease a car, and have a full-time job. I'm married to a beautiful woman and have two smart and adorable children (one who is demanding cheese and "pink" milk at my leg now). I am still a gamer. Those four sentences felt good to write together. I am a gamer. Not was, but am. This morning I fired up, much to my distaste, Total Recall on NES. Fifteen minutes later I rode down a bunch of fools on my warhorse wielding a flanged mace in Mount & Blade on PC. I am a gamer.
Originally I wrote a short article after I finished Ironsword, but neglected to post it. This procrastination bit me in the behind, as I lost the photos when my phone took a crap on me last week. Disappointing yes, but at least I finished it. I will be deleting the original article, but for the record I did enjoy Ironsword, but I ended up missing the Spectrum-colored ( or coloured, if you please) mess with minimalistic backgrounds that was the first game. C'est la vie.
With that I now call a close to my Summer Game Challenge. While it was a failure in the end I feel that I accomplished more in finishing NES games than I have done in years. I plan on finishing Ultimate Stuntman this weekend (I've pre-played this one and am calling it an early finish), but the others I'll call a draw for now. I think next time I'll try for more variety instead of picking just a few games from two different platforms.
On another note, I've almost finished revamping my game room. While it still lacks the aesthetics of many of yours, it does have quite a more functionality than it did previously. I now have a "main" gaming area with a couch (another "Basement Find") and "SD" consoles hooked up to a 40" CRT, and a "gaiden" gaming area for "HD" consoles (Dreamcast, GC, and original Xbox) hooked up to a fairly powerful 22" LCD monitor. I still need to consolidate the wiring into something more reasonable (utilizing my college-trained wiring skillz), but everything is functional.
Adieu, everyone. I plan on putting something together for a very early Halloween, but I won't call it until it happens, I think.
Conquest of the Crystal Palace
Ironsword
Dr. Chaos
Total Recall
Ultimate Stuntman
Tombs and Treasures
Swords and Serpents
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine
Driver: San Francisco
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