socrates63

My SNES library has grown 1,300% from one game to now thirteen total. I thought the old guys were the ones who corrupted the youth of the city, but in the I/O it's the youth corrupting the old. Even a week ago, I didn't think I'd add more games beyond NBA Jam TE to my little SNES collection. Man, the labels on these huge cartridges are just too small. Here's the list of games: Actraiser 1 and 2 Donkey Kong Country 1, 2, 3 F-Zero Illusion of Gaia Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past Super Mario World Super Metroid Super Punch Out Zombies Ate My Neighbors

Nice!

Loved the video @CrossBow -- your voice, delivery, tone, pace, and the music... so good. I thought I was watching a PBS show. I really appreciate the fact that folks like you are out there keeping the hobby alive and accessible for many of us who'd probably burn a hole in the mainboard if we had a soldering iron in hand and can't tell the difference between capacitors and resistors and all the other electronic doodads. 👏👏👍 But that ending there... of course you'd test the Colecovision with Donkey Kong. Why wouldn't you test the system with the game that put it on the map? For me as a kid, Donkey Kong on a home console was a sore spot. Call it envy. My mind was blown the first time I saw the TV ad for Colecovision and Donkey Kong -- it really looked and sounded like the arcade version, and my 2600 games looked nothing like that.

Yes, living life! I’m at my parents’ place for lunch. Gaming and my other hobbies have always taken a backseat to family, work, and church. Totally nothing sad about skipping consoles from the third generation and beyond. I had an incredible time learning BASIC programming and playing games on Atari computers and later on the PC. I wouldn’t trade that for anything as those experiences led to lifelong love for computers and video games. Besides, if I had an NES myself, I couldn’t have crushed on my friends who were blowing on their cartridges. I was like, “What you fools doing?!?” Now, I’m filling in some of those gaps. TBH, I had no intentions of getting into SNES, but conversations here have nudged me enough. Heck, I’m even thinking about getting an Intellivision and Genesis now.

That is correct — I’ve never played any NES, SNES (outside NBA Jam), GC, Wii (except Sports), WiiU, nor Switch games. I have all the consoles except NES though — just haven’t played anything. I have played a few GB games (mostly Tetris and Mario Tennis) and a couple 3DS games (Mario Tennis and a bit of Nano Assault). I have GBC, DS Lite, 3DS and New 3DS in the house.

I guess Atari never learned and doomed itself by repeating the same failure with the XEGS. That’s one that I ignored back in the day because I thought it was just an 8-bit computer marketed as a gaming console and an extremely ugly one... those pastel color buttons (I wasn’t a fan of the 130XE either although I had one). The 5200 I skipped as a kid because of money and then I got into the 800.

Totally — I hope this isn’t just gossip and hearsay and development retrospectives are always entertaining and insightful. I found out this morning that Ken Williams is also publishing his own Sierra behind the scenes book. It’ll be interesting to compare the narratives. As far as retro PC gaming goes, I purchased books by Bitmap Books in UK — one on CRPGs and another on adventure games. I also got their Atari book.

Exactly! It’s an Atari ❤️ Time hasn’t been kind in what sense? Hardware reliability?

Out of all the Nintendo consoles, SNES is the one that I have some nostalgia for. It’s the reason got it over the Genesis (the calibration cartridge available for both SNES and Genesis). While I love Mario and all the Nintendo characters, I never played any of the games. The only Nintendo console games I’ve played are NBA Jam on SNES and Wii Sports. I hope Super Metroid makes a fan out of me for Metroidvania type games.

I voted for Crystal Castle to take advantage of the markdown. The other game I’d recommend on your list is Missile Command. I haven’t played any others except Demon to Diamonds.

A few weeks ago, a local gamer made a pick-up post on Facebook, and he showed this book. He backed it on Kickstarter. I asked him where I could get a copy and promptly ordered it. The book arrived today. I haven't read it yet, and these are just first impressions of the physical book. First, I did a double-take because I thought it was a literary book when I first glanced at the cover. I thought I ordered the wrong book and double checked the receipt. It had been a few weeks since I ordered it, and I forgot what the book looked like. The cover design is very uninspiring and dry which is in stark contrast to the Kickstarter campaign and the website for the book that prominently feature the colorful graphics of the company's games. Second, this is a thick book -- a 9" x 6" book packing around 350 pages. Third, there are no photos or illustrations, not a single one. I know this book is about the history of the company, but I still expected to see photos of the people involved in the narrative and the company buildings/offices and illustrations/screen captures of the many Sierra games. Had I known before I ordered the hardcover that it was text only, I would have ordered the ebook edition and saved some money. Yes, my first impressions are a bit of a downer, but I won't let that dampen my initial enthusiasm that spurred the purchase. I got the book to learn about the behind the scenes of a video game company that was a prominent part of my video gaming experience during my younger days. I hope the narrative will make up for what's missing graphically, an irony given that Sierra On-line made a splash in the industry by making graphic adventures during a time when text adventures ruled. I hope additional stories are written about the video game companies that played prominent roles during the 80s and 90s. I recently found a link to Polygon's article about Electronic Arts and Trip Hawkins and read with great interest. I had always wondered what had happened to that promising innovative company 🟥🔴🔺 which produced unique and wonderful games like M.U.L.E, Archon, and Seven Cities of Gold (my three favorite EA games). I'd love to learn about Infocom, Synapse, Br0derbund, Epyx, and Strategic Simulations Inc. among others. Perhaps the stories are already out there, and I just don't know about them. If you have links, please share them.

@HDN a sale? I don't think there's anything going on in particular with Pink Gorilla and local retailers although PG posts photos of interesting stuff that comes in. A few days ago, the store got a huge stack of Saturn games. A couple of guys in the local retro gamer FB group did run an online sale yesterday. I was going to surprise you but since your curious, I'll have you know that I'm almost done with your homework. I will be picking up a stack of SNES games on Monday. I think I should get extra credit for alphabetizing the list 🙂 ✏️ Actraiser 1, 2 Donkey Kong Country 1, 2, 3 Illusion of Gaia Super Mario World Super Metroid Super Punch Out Zelda Link to the Past Zombies Ate My Neighbors I'm setting aside Zombies Ate My Neighbors to play it during Halloween next month.

The volcanoes and the "big one" earthquake that's supposed to hit 😮 Now for some better news 🙂 after couple days of rain, the air quality is back to "good" in Seattle. I can finally open the windows.

I played 5200 Space Invaders tonight -- very trippy game! The alien designs are quite unique and they switch poses as they traverse the field. 👍

It erupted a couple of months before my 11th birthday. I remember watching the news in Seattle and the ash was blown eastward. I also remember the ash being sold in those coin machines that you usually get little prizes or gumball from.