What did I just watch? Was any of that necessary? Really? It's a cartoon! He got hit in the head! A screaming narrator does NOT need to explain that to us, it doesn't need to be in slow motion, it's just dumb. This is "entertainment" for the reality show generation, just taking stuff that's fully capable of standing on it's own and ruining it by shoving a narrator down it's throat and baking it for half an hour.
The first "chapter" of this fan sequel has been released. Honestly I hadn't been paying much attention because I was afraid it was going to play like bad fan fiction (I had a few issues with the vampire friendly story changes they made in the KQ2 remake for example, though that was a different group). However, one thing changes that. Apparently Roberta Williams played it and thinks it's great. As a result, I'm certainly willing to give it a try.
The important thing is Activision decided to let them continue the project. It didn't end up like that awesome looking 3D remake of Chrono Trigger did.
Yep, MS finally is attempting to fix their biggest flaw, that d-pad.
Most people seem to be skipping over one big reason they didn't just use a Nintendo d-pad before. Nintendo patented that thing decades ago. That's also why they aren't using it this time either. This "transforming" d-pad design seems to be a way to get around that. Since it's a development FROM that old design, one with it's own "advantages" (if you call being able to switch to "garbage mode" an advantage), it can be patented itself, meaning they no longer owe Nintendo anything (in patents, a derivative work is allowed so long as it is a clear, non-obvious upgrade from a previous design, which is meant to allow for innovation, though in this case it's more of a work-around).
The other big change seems to be removing the color from the buttons. How dull... how boring... How, hard to make out what button does what for newcomers playing, say, Fable 2 (which identifies the buttons purely on color). Nintendo took the color out of their buttons too of course, but I thought that was a mistake too. Face buttons SHOULD be colorful. It makes it easier to identify them, and it makes things a little nicer to look at. I argued for simplicity when splashes of annoying color were the norm, and I'm arguing for more noise now that boring and flat are the norm. Yeah, I'm aware of it, I'm just contrary I suppose, but in this case I think it's justified. I like my red, blue, green, and yellow. I guess it's just the ol' Super Nintendo/Famicom logo there speaking up (I used an Ascii pad back in dem days, so that's the pattern I'm used to, and it matched up so well with the SNES "logo" used very rarely like in Mario World's "Special Zone".
Anyway, assuming this really DOES make the d-pad nice to use, they should just start packing it with the remodeled 360 from here on out.
Awesome news for Golden Sun 3 for the DS, along with Etrian Odyssey 3 that's one of the only DS games coming this year that I want... the first game was pretty good, and I actually beat it. I never did finish Golden Sun 2, I got bored and stuck partway through and kept quitting, until I finally did for good. Maybe I'll go back and try to finish it, I don't like it quite as much as the first game but it is still pretty good.
As for the DSi and DSi XL price drops, it's $20 down for each of them, to $150 for the DSi and $170 for the XL. Speculation (on GAF) now is that the 3DS will be out in the US in December, hopefully for $200... we'll see if we're that lucky, but this price drop does make that price feasible, at least. Something like $230 wouldn't surprise me, but $200 sure would be nice.
As I said these pictures aren't exactly great, but it's all I have at the moment, remembering that I do not own a scanner or digital camera.
Also remember, I've moved so this isn't my current setup. Not just the location has changed -- I don't have the TV on top of that dresser anymore, for instance.
Upper left: My computer, the circa-2007 Vista one. I love the green case, it's so awesome looking... :) (Green is, remember, my favorite color) The Saitek P990 gamepad (to the left of the Xbox) is plugged into the front side USB.
For the consoles, on the left that's an Xbox with Dreamcast on top of it on the left. The controller plugged into the Xbox can't be seen, but it's an original-style controller of course, I like them much better than the S. Three DC controllers are needed for the VMUs/4X memory cards (that blue one is third party). The Genesis with Sega CD attached is behind them and invisible (part of a few cartridges can be seen, but that's not the system). The 32X is probably sitting, unattached, behind the Genesis.
In the center the Turbografx with base unit is in front. The CD drive needs a new laser, so it's not attached, but the base unit gets me AV output and saving. I'm not certain what game that is, but the case is Dungeon Explorer. Behind that is the N64, only visible because of the controllers (two visible, but it has four attached) and Lode Runner 3D cartridge.
On the right, the Saturn is in front. Behind that is the NES with Ikari Warriors II in it, and behind that the PS2, largely invisible, with the SNES and Wii both on top of it. The Wii blends in with that black game case (full of GC games) sitting on top of it, but it's there.
Bookshelf and table, with some stuff already packed up for moving. The books are almost all history, sci-fi, or fantasy, of course. You can see the Gamecube and Saturn Mission Stick joystick on the floor. On the table, that Sub Terrania poster (on the table) is awesome... good game, cool poster. :) The little notebook above it is the one I write all my game passwords in. It's a great way to keep track of them, much better than random scraps of paper for every game or something, when I have so many games with password save... The game box next to it is NES Adventure of Link, by the way.
The official Sega (published by Agetec in the US) Dreamcast arcade stick is on the bookshelf. To its left is the box for the Akuma-version Playstation Street Fighter Anniversary Edition controller, which is awesome and the only good gamepad for digital-control PSX games that I have used. The small Wipeout 64 poster on top of the blue box with some game cases and guides and such in it came with the game, I think it's kind of cool looking.
I kept my SNES games stacked under the table, in six large piles, and NES too, in two piles.
TV - 19" CRT from the mid '00s. Desk on left had computer on it. Awful thing, gotten rid of it now that I have something better (like almost anything). Akuma SF controller box is shiny. VCR is next to the TV, for VHS movies and a few more AV plugins. Piles of VHS tapes are on top of the VCR, a few of which are visible.
On the ground, the systems and controllers are mostly out of view, but a bit is visible. Note in the back the SNES Mouse mousepad is there, next to a few VHS tapes. In front of that is a big pile of extra controllers and accessories that are too hard to make out individually in the dim light. The SNES Jim Power box is on top of that stuff, and a pile of PS2 games is in front, with Disgaea being the only visible one. One of my CD binders is in the center -- I have one for PSX games, one for PS2, one for Dreamcast (used to be DC and Sega CD, I've put the Sega CD games in cases now), and one for Gamecube. Extra PS2, PS1, and GC games are in their own cases, as their binders are full. The GC binder is in one of the other pics, and I think this is the PS1 one...
Oh, and yes, oddly enough I do have a cloth bag with the "ABF" initials on it. No, I didn't have that done or something, it's just a coincidence. Kind of amusing, though. :)
Oh yeah, the dresser doesn't have clothes in it. The top drawer is just desk stuff (because the computer desk didn't have drawers). The second has the Turbo CD drive, and had Wii games and some game boxes and stuff. Mostly empty. The third drawer has my N64 cartridges in it, all of them. They're organized in columns by whether they save to the cartridge or require a memory card, and the memory card columnts are further separated into groups for each card. Makes remembering which one to use a little easier. The bottom drawer has my Genesis, SMS, 32X, and TG16 carts, and had my Saturn games too, in jewelcases, papersleeves, etc, not those giant jewelcases of course, for space reasons. :) Since I now have more space I've moved the Saturn stuff out and put most of them in their cases, but the rest of that stuff is still in that drawer. The Genesis games are organized by genre.
I just came across this simple hack. Im posting in full WYSIWYG in Chrome right now!
Step 1: Close down any copies of Chrome running Step 2: Open up the shortcut for Chrome by right clicking on the shortcut and selecting properties. Step 3: Under target: Insert a space after the end of the text. Step 4: After the space copy the following:[indent][CODE]--user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; ru; rv:1.9.2b5) Gecko/20091204 Firefox/3.6b5"[/CODE]
[/indent]Finally restart Chrome using the shortcut.
Now your browsers awesome!
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