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So another trailer was shown at the TGS this week, and while everyone is going on about the gameplay and whatnot, there was one thing that stood out to me more then anything and got me excited for the game:
Yes, this jackass right here. The one and only Dan Hibiki, founder of Saikyo-ryu and the godfather of all gag characters everywhere. The man who made relentless taunting a tactic, mocks SNK with his every move, broke his hand for our amusement in SvC Chaos, and makes these games worth playing just a little bit more.
It goes without saying that he needs to be included in the roster. It just wouldn't be right without his lousy fireballs and super taunts. Besides, I'm good with gag characters anyway. Joe in KoF and Faust in Guilty Gear? Yeah, those are my strong choices. read more
Just another reminder that the biggest and craziest fighting game tournament in the Midwest will once again be unleashed, bringing with it more broken controllers and more colorful smack-talk for the highlight reels. And it's all going down here in Columbus, in MoMo's lounge just outside the Ohio State University.
And holy crap, is it going to be huge. Already nearly 100 competitors have pre-signed for Street Fighter III Third Strike alone. There's also plenty of other games, mystery tournaments, side games, and yeah, I'll be there helping out with Smash Bros.
It goes without saying that I want to know if there's going to be any other D-Toid'ers there. Speak up, even if you're not competing. It's just worth being there.
And now the important stuff:
Date: Saturday, Oct. 18 / Sunday, Oct. 19, 2008
Location:MoMo KTV & Tea Zone 2895 Olentangy River Rd, Columbus, OH 43202
(614) 784-0888
-- Also a Wi-Fi hotspot.
There is a $20 entry fee for the venue.
All tournament games have a $10 entry fee, as well.
Registration begins at 10:30 a.m, doors open then for casuals.
Main Events:
Justin Wong vs. IFCYIPES -- FT10: Once and for All! This epic MvC2 battle has never been seen by the human eye, and will only be seen exclusively in OHIO!)
~ Evo '07 Regional Champion Showdown: Chris Schimdt vs. Sanford Kelly
Tentative:
East Coast vs. West Coast 5-on-5 Team Runback! Original MvC2 clash: 2003. West is up 1-0, but this is the NEW EC.
Can the West invade with a squad to measure up to the Beasts from the East and score another victory ... FIND OUT at SB3)
OFFICIAL SINGLES TOURNAMENTS
Registration begins Sat @ 11am
Saturday Oct 18th~
Tekken 5: DR (PS3, if no T6) 1pm SFIII: 3rd Strike (PS2) 1pm Guilty Gear X2: Accent Core (PS2) 1pm Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii) 1pm Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (DC) 3pm DOA4 (360) 3pm Soul Calibur IV (PS3) 4pm KoF98um (PS2) 4pm
Sunday Oct 19th~
All-Brawl (Wii) Noon Capcom vs. SNK 2 (PS2) Noon Super Street Fighter II Turbo 1pm (DC, if ST:HD not available) Arcana Heart 2 (arcade board) WHP (PS2) 3pm Garou (PS2) 5pm
Sure Seasons Beatings is coming up soon, but I want to see more after that. I have an idea for early December, but I'm not sure you can call it a NARP when you have an actual occasion to celebrate:
That's right, I want to mark Day of the Ninja with a festival of gaming.
I figure it could be held on either the 5th (Friday) or the 6th (Saturday). Plenty of ninja and non-ninja themed gaming can be put in along with video viewings and other screwing around. Hell, throw in some sort of ninja costuming to make it complete.
For a location, I figure I could ask Tom at Yellow Oasis since he's been wanting to hold events at the store. There's also a market around the corner along with a few take-out places nearby as well for food. Not to mention plenty of parking.
Ninjas and gaming are inseparable. Who's up for it? read more
Today I've received confirmation that I will be helping out at the Seasons Beatings tournament on October 18-19 here in Columbus. It's going to be a huge event that will no doubt be utterly insane.
Never heard of Seasons Beatings? Actually, you have. After all, it's where this was filmed:
This was an experiment that I've wanted to attempt for some time. As you may know, back in 1985 Nintendo was attempting to restart the quite dead American game market with a redesigned variation on the popular Family Computer that we all know as the Nintendo Entertainment System. In an attempt to distance it from previous game systems (that American retailers were weary of) along with measures to lock out non-licensed software and to prevent wanton importing of hardware and software, Nintendo gave the NES much different connections then the Famicom.
However Nintendo needed games before they started printing NES format boards, perhaps they wanted to play it safe in case the system bombed. So to save time they simply placed Famicom boards with converters attached in the cartridges, and now you know why NES carts are so disproportionally large compared to the circuit boards inside.
The important part here is that some first-wave NES carts (Gyromite and Stack-Up for the most part) have Famicom to NES converters inside them.
Now I figure that this really isn't news to most of you, but that's not the main point of this post. I've know about the converters for some time, but what I really wanted to know if this would work on a NES clone. Today I decided to put it to the test.
Here are the items for the experment: A Yobo NES clone, a multitool, a Famicom cart of the original Dragonball game, and a NES cart of Gyromite.
We begin by screwing open the copy of Gyromite. As you can see, the Famicom board and the converter are quite visible. The components are then removed and separated.
The Gyromite board is placed to the side and we will attempt to place the coupler on the Dragonball cart.
The coupler however is slightly too long to fit inside the cart. It is then decided to file down the sides of the coupler until the length will allow it to fit.
The converter board is reattached and the unit is ready to be inserted into the system.
The unit fits and the system is ready to powered on.
Let's flip the cart around.
Playable, but not quite right. Let's clean the connections.
Success! The converter works perfectly on a clone system.
I'd like to thank Yellow Oasis Games and their large selection of import titles for allowing me to carry out this test. If you're in the Columbus area, give them a look. read more
On this blog I've brought up looking through various closeout stores like Big Lots in the search for massive deals for PC games. Well, while the local stores have dried up in recent months I have found that there is another place to look.
Discount book stores.
Around here is a chain of stores called Half-Price Books, they mostly deal in used books and the like, buying massive stacks for cash and then throwing them on their shelves. However, they also stack their shelves with closeout product, which along with books includes CDs and yes, software. Still new in the box, and less then ten dollars. For instance, finding two of the old Sierra adventure game collections. Not Kings Quest, fuck that shit. I mean Leisure Suit Larry, the old games with Al Lowe. And Space Quest, a series I never had a chance to play back in the old days.
No, that's not for the puzzles. That's for the archaic copy protection schemes with all the codes in a damned PDF. Easy to see how these got unsold the first time around. Anyway, I picked them up since anyone who played these games back in the day can tell you that the most fun you can have with them is figuring out all the ways to screw up since they provided plenty of ways to do so. Hell, in the first Larry game you can die within 1.4 seconds just by walking into the street.
Anyway, one of the nice things about Half-Price Books is that they always keep their software section stocked with games still sealed. It's a crap shoot, that's for sure, but you know there's going to be something worthwhile in there.
That's not to say that you can't give up on the other places. Just this afternoon I stopped by Big Lots to grab some soap and garbage bags (and to resolve the lack of a lava lamp for my setup, as pointed out by Planet Quake six years ago) when I saw their game rack had been filled with a few older titles all priced at six dollars.
I'm sure you can guess which one was the good deal, and which of the others were at an acceptable price.
So keep an eye out for those out-of-the-way deals on sealed games. The good deals are out there. read more
Hey kids, I'm going to be at the Origins game convention this weekend. I was going to be working with the OGO, but I quit since, well, it's run by a fuckwit.
It's 1991, and Nintendo Power is spending month after month hyping the shit out of the game that we would all later come to curse. Even then, all the "attitude" that surrounded the game came off to me as trite and condescending. However, thinking back to those days, there was something that stuck in my 13-year-old mind:
The Dark Queen was really hot.
Now, I didn't develop some kind of obsession with the character or the like, hell even then I felt embarrassed about it. I ended up moving on to other things. Never even owned the damn game.
But let's be honest, if you were boy (or one out of ten of the girls) who was the right age at the time, you were thinking the same thing. read more
It would be nice if I could browse a video game form without seeing any spoilers for MGS4 spammed all over the place. It would also be nice if there were assurances that the spoilers being posted were fake. Anyone else running into this problem? read more
An aging hand at all of this, from the Golden Age of the 2600 to the networked crap of today. Been there, done that, wants more.
Inane Facts:
* Once had aspirations of becoming an Apple // software pirate (What? Like you were never 14...).
* Has attended at least two conventions a year since 1995.
* While working at Micro Center's distribution warehouse in the summer of 2000, witnessed over 200 copies of Daikatana set to be shipped to one store and one store alone.
* Was once paid in parts while working at a small computer repair shop.
* Co-Accepted the Origins Game of the Year Award for Hackmaster.
* Perhaps the first man in North America to cosplay a character from Cave Story (the Doctor).
