Count_Zero

I finally... finally beat Final Fantasy I. What gave me that final push to beat it was my reviews on my blog. I'd hit Nintendo Power's either 3rd or 4th year, where they were alternating standard issues with strategy guide special issues. So, I was reviewing the featured games in the strategy guides, and I'd hit the Final Fantasy strategy guide. Thus, I knuckled down and in the course of 2 days, finally beat the game (I was almost done anyway, but I didn't know how close I was to the ending.)

The Console turn-based country-management Turn-Based Strategic games (instead of Turn Based Tactical*) game, like Pacific Theater of Operations, Gemfire, Caesar, and so on. Note, by Turn Based Tactical, I'm referring to stuff like Disgaea & Final Fantasy Tactics, which are usually lumped into (Turn Based Strategy), where you're using a small number of units in a a turn-based enviroment and trying to defeat all the enemy or complete an objective. Turn Based Stategic* games would entail managing an entire theater of operations, handling (to a certain degree) supply lines, base building, etc. Thus far, the only games in this "field" would be the Civ: Rev, and the Romance of the 3 Kingdoms games. For the record: I'm not deriding the tactical level games or anything. I love those games. It's just that going by the formal definitions used by wargamers and military brass (which is where the wargamers get the terminology from) - Tactical goes by the unit by unit scale of the battle, while Strategic goes basically at the near-logistic scale. Occasionally one game or another will cover both, like Romance of the 3 Kingdoms and Nobunaga's Ambition, where you can control the actual tactics of the battle, or on the PC, the Total War games, as well as Paradox Interactive's games (Hearts of Iron, Victoria, Europa Universalis, etc.) Civ just handles combat on the logistical scale, with out going into the nitty gritty of tactical troop movements, which is fine, there's enough stuff in those games to keep track of already that adding battle tactics would probably cause people's heads to explode.

Atari 2600 (though I had an Atari 800 before that that I used almost exclusively for games), followed by a NES.

My Retro game console collection isn't what it used to be. I've still got an old Brick model Game Boy, and a NES and a Genesis which I can't hook up to my TV because I don't have the right cables. I'm strongly considering getting the NES/SNES combo unit that's on ThinkGeek - as that one's got Composite and S-Video hookups.

I don't know if it counts, but Rey Mysterio Jr. entrance music (Booyaka 619 by P.O.D.) name-drops Space Invaders (I think).

Thank you!

So, as part of my thing on my blog, as a companion to reviewing issues of Nintendo Power, I've also been reviewing games from old issues of Nintendo Power (selecting one game per issue) and determining if the game was worth buying or not (my Quality Control columns, for those reading the blog) - I've been branching out to video with audio commentary of those, but I digress. Anyway, I'd like to expand to Sega Genesis games for my column once my Nintendo Power coverage starts running into the Genesis era (I'm getting there, but I'm not quite there yet. So, were there any "Official" Sega Genesis magazines out there. Not just stuff like Mega Play, or other magazines that exclusively covered the Genesis, but ones that were officially sanctioned by Sega or anything like that. Any answers would be greatly appreciated.

Oh, by the way, the reason the games in Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection looks fuzzy is probably because scaling is turned on. You turn that of and it will look all vibrant and colorful again.

It would be http://steamcommunity.com/id/(username) For example, my profile page would be http://steamcommunity.com/id/countzeroor

Any plans to add Steam in the future?

Tengen Tetris, hands down. It's superior to the Nintendo version of Tetris in every single respect.

Alright, here is my list - titles already in the archive are in italics GamePro Magazines 2000 and Earlier #91 - April 1996 (Resident Evil ) #98 - November 1996 (Turok: Dinosaur Hunter) #100 - January 1997 (Re-Loaded) #103 - April 1997 (Soul Edge) #104 - May 1997 (Jurassic Park II: The Lost World) #106 - July 1997 (Starfox 64) #107 - August 1997 (Mortal Kombat 4 & Mythologies) #111 - December 1997 (Star Wars: Masters of Teras Kasi) #113 - February 1998 (Resident Evil 2) #114 - March 1998 (Duke Nukem: Time to Kill) #118 - July 1998 (Mortal Kombat 4, Tekken 3, Banjo Kazooie) (One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other) #127 - April 1999 (Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver) #132 - September 1999 (Dino Crisis) #134 - November 1999 (Resident Evil 3) #143 - August 2000 (Dino Crisis 2, Metal of Honor: Underground) Post-2000 170 - November 2002 (Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4) 169 - October 2002 (Shinobi) 182 - November 2003 (Rachet & Clank: Going Commando) 183 - December 2003 (Final Fantasy X-2) 184 - January 2004 (Max Payne 2) 188 - May 2004 (Gran Turismo 4) 192 - September 2004 (Metal Gear Solid 3) 195 - December 2004 (Tekken 5) 197 - February 2005 (Final Fantasy XII) 201 - June 2005 (Movie Games) 205 - October 2005 (The Matrix: Path of Neo) 206 - November 2006 (Saints' Row) 208 - January 2006 (Dead or Alive 4) 209 - February 2006 (Metroid & Zelda) 210 - March 2006 (Sonic The Hedgehog) 211 - April 2006 (Naruto) 212 - May 2006 (Family Guy) 213 - June 2006 (New Super Mario Bros) 214 - July 2006 (Dragonball Z) 217 - October 2006 (Call of Duty 3) Other Magazines Gamers' Republic - V2 Issue 8, January 2000 (MDK 2) PC Gamer - V8 #1, January 2001 (Ultimate Strategy Guide) 2 copies PC Gamer - V10, #1, January 2003 (Star Wars Galaxies) Official US Playstation Magazine - #60 - September 2002 (SOCOM: US Navy Seals). I was planning on selling the issues in lots, priced so it was basically $1 or $.50 an issue. I was also planning on selling the issues from 2000 and earlier in one lot, and the issues from later in another lot. Being that I've taken advantage of the site's archive for the posts on my blog, I'd like to offer these to users of the site first. (I'd donate the 2000-and-earlier set, but again, I'm unemployed right now.) My preference would be that the 2000-and-earlier set go to someone who is able to scan the issues for the site, as I'm not particularly able to scan them at the moment as well.

I have a moderatly big chunk of GamePro Magazines I was planning on selling or donating to the site (probably selling would be better for me at the moment, as I'm currently between jobs.) I'm going to get a list togeather, and I'll once that's done I'll put the list up on this thread (as well as marking what issues the archive doesn't have yet.)

So, in the course of the recaps on my blog (see my sig), I've encountered multiple reviews from various sources of the Dragon Warrior/Quest games. In both EGM, and in GamePro, the Dragon Quest series generally gets compared with the Ultima series. Now, while the Dragon Quest series was released on consoles in Japan before Ultima was released on Consoles, Ultima was released on PCs before the Dragon Warrior Games, with the first 3 games being released for the MSX, as well as being re-released for the FM Townes. So, what I'd like to know is this - how popular was the Ultima Series in Japan? I know that most western RPGs didn't do as well in Japan, either due to poor story or characterization, but there were some exceptions, particularly the Wizardry series. I'm wondering if the Ultima series was successful as well.

As someone who generally likes the whole SmartHome idea (and would turn my house into a SmartHome if I had the cash) the Wii Controlled Smart Home is my favorite.

I'm definitely going to be picking up Lunar and Persona. I don't know about the fighting games. I may pick up Little Big Planet for the PSP.

Sorry for replying to myself, but Triverse PM'd me to expand on this, and being someone who is always willing to find an excuse to write more, unless it's too hot to have the computer turned on, I'm happy to oblige. In ComicRack, you can change the info for each issue in your library (comic book, magazine, whatever). This can be for video game magazines, issues of Amazing Spider-Man, or issues of Heavy Metal. Let's go with the first and last example. Let's say I'm going through an issue of EGM for a recap for my blog. What I do is when I open the issue, the first thing I do is go to the Info Screen (there's a button in the top-left corner, and it's also accessible through right-clicking on the open page), and set the title of the magazine (EGM, Amazing Spider-Man, Heavy Metal, whatever), the month and year the issue was published, and the issue number and (if necessary), volume number. I will also set an issue specific title, usually related to the content of the issue, or a storyline title, or in the case of an anthology book a notable story (Mortal Kombat Issue, title of the Spider Man story, first installment of Den, in the case of my 3 examples, respectively). Once I get to the staff pages, I'll then fill out the necessary information for the creative portion of the comic. In the case of video game magazines, the EIC and head Editor go in the editorial category, and the rest of the associate editors and writers go in the writers category, and if there's a cover artist, he or she will go in the cover artist category. Standard comic books like Amazing Spider-Man are a little easier, because that's what ComicRack is designed to deal with. Stuff like Heavy Metal, I just try to put in the writers and artist for each story in order of appearance (and I also try to make sure to put the character names in the relevant tab, so I can find all the Den stories quickly later). Everything else (age rating, publisher, format) is pretty straightforward, though I did type in a "magazine" format for Video Game magazines, as well as tagging them "Video Game Magazine". I'd do screen shots, but I wanted to address this before I turned my computer off for a bit (it's been on all day, temperatures were above 80, and I didn't have the AC on, so I wanted to cut the fans some slack.)

As far as the PC reading format goes, I use ComicRack myself. It uses a bit more memory resources, but it allows me to index my issues (of various magazines and comics), as well as allowing me to use the database information to keep track of some of the information, for further indexing goodness (which issues of EGM had Sushi-X on the writing staff, which issues of Heavy Metal had stories by Mobius, etc.)

Yay! I was looking forward to that EGM issue to fill one of my review gaps. Thank you very much.

I voted to stick with the US art - not particularly due to disliking the Ash Crimson character design, as much as wanting to give some of the long-running supporting characters some cover-time, in addition to Kyo and Iori.

Yeah, I've been going over it in my recaps of various magazines on my blog, and even I was suprised. For example, did you know in the Rocketeer movie game, they changed the bad guys to generic terrorists from the Nazis (who were the bad guys in the movie. They even changed the giant swastika on the dirigible on the last stage (and from the end of the movie) to some lightning bolts (which are specifically angled so to not be the SS logo either).

Thank you very much!

So, I've been blogging about various retro magazines - and thus far everything I've covered has been console focused - EGM, GamePro, and GameFan once I get up to 1993, as well as Nintendo Power. As I've gone through the various issues of the magazines, I've started seeing ports of various PC games coming out on the consoles. After recapping magazines with several of these games I've come to realize that if I'm going to achieve my semi-unstated goal of charting the evolution of gaming, the gaming industry, and gaming journalism, I'm going to need to cover the PC side of the equation. So, I'm looking for suggestions for PC gaming magazines, particularly ones that were active during the late 80s into the 90s. If they were active up to Retromags cutoff date, even better.

Just to let you know - using The Code at Facebook gives you lens flare when you type or when you scroll the page. Using The Code at Gamespot takes you to the cheat codes for Contra. I couldn't get it to work at GiantBomb (I'm running Firefox) so if someone could post what it does there, I'd appreciate it. J-Query gives you a kind of quick-n-dirty Guitar Hero clone in Javascript that uses the keyboard - and is always on hard). Mint gets you a stamp in the lower right hand corner of the window, which fades away eventually). Zeno.name gets you the message "Konami Code is Geek"

Most of the points they raise are pretty much accurate, except for one little thing - the number of bits the console has (the "Bit Wars", as AVGN put it) - despite what Kevin and AVGN says, actually does matter. The number of Bits on the console's processor determines how much memory the console can work with, in terms of running the game (and thus can effect the clock speed). (There's a lot more to it than that, but for the moment I'm just trying to boil things down to a paragraph worth of stuff). Now, Bits alone don't make one great - you still have to develop for the system, and there are multitude of other things in the system that, even if you have a 64-bit system, can cause system bottlenecks that lower performance, but being able to use a lot of memory in the first place gives you a bit of head start over systems with a lower bit-rate.