Control Issues

I still have my VCR hooked up, but haven't watched a video on it about a year. The video I watched was a freestyle bmx video, where they're doing lots of tricks on ramps and flatland. It was made by a bmx bike company called Homeless Bikes that used to be in Austin Tx. It's from around 93 or so. My wife is in the video and that's why we have it. (She wasn't riding a bike... she was actually watching a burning TV or something...) I've been thinking about copying that video into digital form and posting it on YouTube, but I'm not sure if I'd get into any kind of copyright issues. Other than that, I have only a few VHS cassettes. Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Slap Shot, Star Wars Trilogy (episodes 4, 5, and 6), and a couple Young Ones videos. Edit: Might not bother with digitizing the bmx video. Looks like it's already out there at least in some capacity. I found the video with my wife in it. She's at the beginning. (Looks a lot different 30 years later, though. lol She was probably around 19 here.)

Did you get it yet? How is it? Out of the two, I'd probably get the XBox, but I'm not really in the market for either right now.

I didn't get my first fully working PS3 until earlier this year. All PS3 systems will play PS1 games, but not all will play PS2 games. Yours might, but I can't tell from the photos which one exactly you have. If the part to the left of the disc drive opens up, then I think it will. If not, then it won't. But I'm not 100% sure about that. You may want to reset it to factory settings, because the previous owner will have made a profile and things. You can reset it and make it "yours" then. If you get it online, you can use the Playstation Store to download lots of games. (You'll have to create an account and stuff...) Some of them may be great deals depending on the price of the physical disc (Suikoden 2 for example), but some may not be. If you want to save money, check around first. For PS3 games I'd recommend, yeah, the Arkham Batman games are fun. If you like RPGs, Ni No Kuni is great. I haven't played a lot of PS3 games, yet, but the system does have a lot of exclusives to try out. Don't be intimidated. Have fun!

You can also kinda see how some of the quality of the videos has gotten better as I've messed around with the thumbnail and video editing stuff... Also, some swearing.

So, I recently started a little series of streams on Twitch I've been calling my "UNTIL I DIE" streams. I will pretty much just load up a lot of games in an emulator and play them for one life. Most of them I've never played before and some go very quickly. But as soon as I die the first time, I move on to the next game. I go through quite a few games in one stream, sometimes around 50, 60 or 70 of them depending on how long I stream that day and how terrible I do at the games. Anyway, I started putting "highlight" reels of my deaths on YouTube. (I also do some reviews on novelty and/or relatively uncommon sodas, so some of those are sprinkled in there, too.) Anyway, enjoy my incompetence!

Okay, lots of things have happened... release dates being pushed back because of Coronavirus/COVID-19, people buying through Amazon Japan, complaints about audio lag, and now it looks like they are out of them? Amazon no longer is offering them from Konami at the original $100 asking price. They only have them available through 3rd party sellers at twice original MSRP. So, if you don't already have one, you're gonna pay more now. Which sucks. Mainly because... I still don't have one. I really need to learn to pull the trigger faster on something that I'm interested/excited in. lol

People ask me, "How did you get into classic gaming?" I tell them, "Well, I played these games back then... and never stopped. Eventually they became "classic"". lol But seriously... A lot of classic gaming for me is reliving nostalgia for the games I played and getting the chance to experience the games I didn't play back then. Of course, when I was younger, there was no "classic gaming"... For a while, I played older games because we couldn't afford to get newer consoles or games. I got an NES when I was in middle school around 87 or so. The 2600 that I'd had before that was lost in a house fire. I got a TurboGrafx when I was in high school (89? 90?) and sold my NES and games in a garage sale. I had the intention of selling the system, accessories, a couple years worth of Nintendo Power and games for around $150 or so... everything was in great shape. Wanted to use the money for a new TurboGrafx game. But my step-mom thought I was asking too much and sold it for $40. That was when I decided I would never sell another system. And thus, when I started having and playing "old" systems. I feel like, for a while, there wasn't "classic gaming". It was just looked down on as playing "old" games. Didn't seem like the hobby that it has become. There were some people who were still into the older games, but not many. They were kinda "fringe" I think. I remember back a little after high school going to a store called The Atari Shop in my little town. Ran by some crazy Atari enthusiast, this place had stacks and stacks of 2600 games and consoles. There was a little of everything there. I remember seeing new Jaguar systems and games there and playing a bit of Alien vs Predator. But what I really remember more than anything was the owner playing Barnyard Blaster on an Atari XEGS and saying it was so much better than Duck Hunt. I didn't play it, but thought he was a bit nutty. (I bought my copy of Adventure from there for a dollar or something.) I kept just getting the new systems for a while and didn't really look into getting those old systems until around the early 2000s. That was when I discovered Ebay and started finding more stuff in local shops and pawn shops. I think things were still pretty cheap for older stuff then, for example, my then-wife bought my Jaguar on Ebay around then. System, two controllers, and about six games or so. I don't think she paid more than around $50 for it. Of course Jaguar stuff has gone up so much since then... It seems, to me, that classic gaming as a hobby has really exploded since the 2000s. A lot of people say that it's because it's when people who played NES as a kid started getting old enough to have jobs and buy old games. And that stuff is kind of cycling through the systems like that. NES games will go up, and then drop off... then SNES will go up, and then drop off, and then Playstation games... as each generation has the people who played it as kids get to a certain age where they want to relive those days and have the jobs that give them the expendable income where they can pay for it. Of course, some things don't really drop back down in price.. and some things have been expensive even before the rest went up. TurboGrafx and Saturn used to be pretty cheap, but then ballooned in price. I think they'll be riding a high price wave for a while yet before they start coming back down. It's been about six years since I bought a game for either system. A little later in the 2000s is when I think emulation started really becoming more viable as a way to play old games, too. I remember playing NES emulators around 2001. They seemed okay, but a little clunky. But they've progressed quite a ways. And then, along a similar front, Everdrives and similar devices started coming into their own. I would have expected this to lessen demand for the actual games and systems, but it doesn't seem to have affected them much. Maybe some people are saying, "Why buy when I can just download this" but that may be offset by people saying, "Man, I can't believe I don't have this game/system... I need to go buy this!" And now they're coming out with all these mini systems (some better than others). So we'll see how that affects things. It seems to me that in the 2010s is when YouTube and streaming platforms like Twitch have really grown in prominence in the retro/classic gaming scene. There's a pretty active "Retro" category on Twitch with many streamers and viewers. A lot of it is speed runners, which get a pretty good amount of viewers, but there's also some that just like to play old games and interact with the viewers (I'm in this camp lol). I feel a lot of people are living vicariously through these streamers and YouTubers. Seeing games that they never played or can't afford to play or whatever. Some might be inspired to seek out games they've seen for the first time or whatever. I had someone in my chat one time tell me that I had inspired them to start looking for a Sega Saturn after playing through the Saturn version of Tomb Raider. Regardless of whether it has any effect on game prices or demand, I think the rise of these platforms have really contributed to the retro and classic gaming scene.

But... didn't the Atari 5200 originally come with 4 joystick ports? I mean, it had other issues, but the N64 wasn't the first console with 4 ports... (and the 5200 might not even be the first, but I know it's earlier than the N64...)

The Greatest American Hero... I still remember the episode shown in the intro where he just appears in the car. See, if you haven't seen it, the lead character is a history teacher who is given a super suit by aliens. But he loses the instructions, so he never knows exactly how it works. One of the running gags was that he figured out how to fly, but not how to land. So every landing was a crash landing. Anyway, in that episode, he discovered that he could become invisible with the suit, but he didn't know how to turn it on or off. So the whole episode has him randomly popping in and out. With, of course, him trying to sneak around while invisible and hoping he doesn't suddenly become visible...

An older thread, but so what. lol Here's a pic of my first three vehicles. My first was the 1973 Datsun pickup. This was after I wrecked it (damage to front... not really shown in pic). I didn't have the camper shell on there when I drove it. We put it on to sell with it to the guy who was going to use it for parts or something. Man I wish I still had that truck. My dad bought it from my uncle for $300 and it came with a riding lawnmower in the back. I still say my dad actually bought the lawnmower and my uncle threw the truck in for free. It had a good bit of electrical issues and the brakes sometimes went out (had to adjust them regularly), but the engine ran perfect. Second was the 86(?) Nissan 200SX. My first (and only ever) actual car. Everything else has been trucks or SUVs. This was a pretty fun car. I felt sporty and fast in it, even though I wasn't particularly. And it had POP UP HEADLIGHTS! lol It was still in good running condition when I got my third vehicle, but my step-brother started using it and trashed it. And yeah, that's me standing next to it... no idea how old I was there... Third was the 95 Nissan Hardbody truck. I wish I still had this one, too. Extended cab and my first standard transmission. (Yep, the 73 Datsun was actually an automatic!) This one was the fist one I bought myself. Bought it used from it's original owner. Lasted me for quite a while. Then the front right wheel seized up... don't know if it was a bearing or the brakes or what... anyway, it looked like it was going to cost more to fix it than it was worth, so we "sold" it to the insurance company and bought another vehicle.

I've lived in Texas my whole life. My childhood was in "East Texas"... if you look at a map of Texas, I was about half way between Dallas and Shreveport, LA. Anyway... The grocery stores I remember... In our little town, there was an independent grocery store called Food Fair. My best friend's first job was there. Also, during the grand opening, my dad won a door prize of a new Atari 2600 and some games. We already had a 2600 so he just let me pick one of the games to keep. I chose Yars Revenge. In the next closest town, I remember two different ones we went to... Piggly Wiggly and Safeway. I remember my mom and grandmother having those green stamps... C&H I think they were... they would collect them in little books and turn them in at the Piggly Wiggly for... something... discounts? Free stuff? I don't know what they were for. lol And at Safeway, I remember playing some of my first arcade games. They had Pac Man and Popeye.

Before this, 3 was the only one I had beaten. It's the only one I have the Genesis cart for. I've only been through it once, but may do it next on Twitch. Real Life needs to settle down some more so I can get back to streaming regularly, though.

Beat Phantasy Star II on stream recently...

Made it past the first boss... and died soon after. lol 12400 so far...

Nice! I've got a front loader NES with similar interference patterns... one day I'll do something with it. Until then, I'm okay with the top loader with jailbars. lol...