Areala

4 hours ago, kitsunebi said:

I have no idea how that could have happened, but I'm currently suffering my 2nd case of COVID, so maybe that had something to do with it.

It's OK, hon. I took care of it. You take care of you.

Also, apparently "John Romero's about to make you his bitch" works in every language. Of course Daikatana is cover-worthy! You would doubt the words of the prophet Romero?! Heresy! Heresy, I say!

The original download link pointed to Issue 21. If you downloaded this before, please re-download to get the proper file.

*huggles*
Areala

Japan craft beer blog when, @kitsunebi?

Some more excellent history coming in the near short term.

I don't know about anybody else, but I'd love to see you blogging about your beer reviews here!

3 hours ago, vmladenov said:

Download link goes to 404 Not Found

It should be fixed now.

<Simpsonsvoice>Stupid, sexy Tech Gian...</SimpsonsVoice>

AWWW YEAH!!

*SQUEAL!* 

13 hours ago, JimJam78 said:

Always unfortunate to have a cover feature on a cancelled game which did not star Lara Croft.

Yes, I agree whole-heartedly. 100%.

Just in case you need a quick refresher.

11 hours ago, kitsunebi said:

Hmm...I can indeed order them from Amazon.jp, but they're imported, so $20 a box or so.  Dunno if nostalgia tastes THAT good.

We've got Koala March, which are cute and delicious, but they're filled with chocolate, so probably not so healthy.

Ouch! Twenty bucks for nostalgia does seem a bit steep. On the other hand, those Koalas are a lot cuter than the current incarnation of the Teddy Grahams...

I don't know if they're currently available in Japan or not, but Teddy Grahams are still around in the US. You can order them off Amazon. I've also seen them in big-box stores like Walmart, Super Target, and Meijer. Man, now I want some. My brother and I went nuts over those things back when they were introduced. 

1 hour ago, kitsunebi said:

Indeed.

I refuse to believe you went on Japanese Google, typed in '雪', and got this back as an image. Admit it: this game is on your PC, probably un-played until an hour or two ago, but even you were unable to resist the lure of its siren call. 

More Snow coverage! People were HYPED for their Snow, I tell ya!

5 hours ago, StrykerOfEnyo said:

Thanks for taking the time to scan and put this huge book together. It must take several hours or even all day to edit something of this size into a small enough file to distribute.

You've no idea.

I'm the only person here lunatic enough to do my scanning on a flatbed, so unlike all those other cool people with their double-sided document feeders and auto-correcting software, I sit here with my music on and hand-place each page, then flip, then next page, then flip, then next page, then flip, until I either go crazy or I finish the task. 

2 hours ago, StrykerOfEnyo said:

This is an amazing find to put on the site for all gamers. I was ALWAYS baffled when other reviews would talk about how this game would actually transport you any time you would use a spiral stairs or on an elevator, I never understood how they knew this stuff, but clearly, they either spent time designing their own levels or they had this book (the chances of them doing both is impossible, so let's not talk about it:) I don't know if the way you design maps is done the same way today or if newer tools exist -- but this still has a TON of great info. You even have 17 tips from Richard "Levelord" Gray himself. Along with ideas from Alen H. Blum III, the two men that have used the Build engine more than anyone else (at the time of this publication). Even if some things have changed, you get step-by-step instructions in this massive 348-page tome. You are taught how to create sectors. How to embellish walls, ceilings and floors. Not to mention panning and scaling it all.

You will be shown how to place sprites and manipulate them, and they go over all the special types of sprites. Aside from the programing language, there is a number of instructions on how to create good levels and deathmatch maps. The included CD-ROM file is a nice extra, not having to track it down separately makes it more enticing. Thank you for preserving this Areala, and making it available to all of us.

Aside from some minor updates to the Build engine for later games like Blood and Shadow Warrior, which added voxel support and other technical upgrades, you could easily use this book to make a level for Duke 3D today. I haven't messed around with making levels in the Build engine for over twenty years, and I'm sure that between the release of the Build source code and the source code for Duke Nukem 3D itself which has allowed for a variety of source ports there is new (and better) map making software that supports the enhancements those ports have provided. Probably most notably is EDuke's implementation of "true room-over-room", which lets you pretty convincingly fake a Quake-style fully 3D environment, something the original Build engine couldn't do. 

All the information in here is pretty much freely available online, in numerous FAQs, and other places, but it still makes for great reading if you're curious about how the Build engine worked and achieved effects that hadn't been possible in the Doom engine.

"I see a little silhouette of a Croft
(Lara Croft, Lara Croft, can you do a front handstand?)
Monks and yeti: frightening!
Bartoli's goons are fighting ME!
Oh, Sir Winston?
(Oh, Sir Winston?)
Oh, Sir Winston?
(Oh, Sir Winston?)
Oh, Sir Winston, where'd you go?
Where did you go-oh-oh-oh-oh...?"

-- Only segment of 'Tomb Raider Rhapsody' which survived unscathed after @Areala attempted to perform it at karaoke night and was subsequently thrown out of the bar by large men with no sense of humour.

Today, I learned "Wrath of the Black Manta" was originally called "Ninja Cop Saizou" in its original incarnation!

This appears to be a re-release of a file that was originally uploaded back in January, which explains the huge number of downloads already.

8 hours ago, JimJam78 said:

Oh boy, a laser disc of Akira for only...$353.10 CAD with inflation and conversion!

It's be a good conversation starter at least.

As an avid laserdisc collector, I own this release of Akira, and yeah, I can start a conversation about this bad boy. Laserdisc, in the 80's up until the early 2000's when it was supplanted by DVD, was the cinephile format, especially in Japan. The video and audio quality offered eclipsed any other home media format, and they were often the only way to get anything resembling the original theatrical experience at home in terms of sound design and aspect ratio. If you loved movies, and you had the money, LD was the way.

Laserdiscs used two different ways of encoding video. The first was called CAV, or Constant Angular Velocity. In this process, every frame of the film was encoded around a single 'track' of the disc. This allowed the viewer to pause the film, go frame-by-frame (forward or reverse), and offered a high-quality video signal. CAV-encoded discs allowed for roughly 30 minutes of video per side.

The second method was CLV, or Constant Lineal Velocity. In this process, the video was encoded sequentially across the disc, and frames were not given individual tracks. This results in slightly lower video quality as frames are interpolated together, and it also means you can't pause or go frame-by-frame, since there were multiple frames per 'track'. But the trade off was that each side of a disc could now hold about 60 minutes of video, so you could have two hours per disc instead of just one.

The reason this Akira disc was so expensive is that it's a Criterion release. It came on three discs, in CAV format to allow for the best video quality and frame-by-frame. It included both the original Japanese audio track on the analog sound channel, and the English dubbed version on the digital sound channel. It was mastered from a cinematic reel (you can even see the 'cigarette burn' cue markings for reel changes if you're watching carefully) at its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio, with sound mixed from the original theatrical 3.1 Dolby surround master tapes. It's a masterpiece, with the only downside being there's no subtitles for the original Japanese audio.

In addition to being an incredible audio/visual experience though, the discs are also crammed with special features. There are screen tests, behind-the-scenes footage, pencil sketches of the evolving character designs, storyboards, original production artwork, animation cels, the Japanese and US theatrical trailers, and a storyboard for a planned but never animated sequence where the "Akira Event" sets off World War III. It also includes the first issue of the English-language Akira comic released by Marvel's Epic imprint, both as a work that you can step through using your remote, or experience as a sort of 'video comic', complete with dissolves, wipes, and other basic cinema transitions between the individual panels. These were the sorts of things you simply couldn't do with a VHS tape, and it's nuts how much extra they packed into this release. It was the first animated film to be given the Criterion treatment, and they really went all-out. It's a thing of beauty.

*huggles*
Areala

Well, if there's one thing in the world we could all use, it's more SNOW!

I get the feeling 'Snow' was a game everyone was looking forward to in 2003, given its rather extensive coverage in both this issue and 255.

*huggles*
Areala

11 hours ago, dablais said:

I need to learn Japanese now!

はいそうです！ ^_^