Posted this in the 'stuff I got' thread, but because no one reads that, I'll make a thread too. I improved the post and added impressions on the games though, to make it worth posting again. :)
Probably not worth it? Yeah, I'd agree, if it'd been much more expensive... but for such a low price I just couldnt' refuse. One of the local places that sells used games got a 32X recently. It's a place that often sells games for less than other stores. Not always, their NES prices are a little high now ($8 or so for a bunch of games? Too much.), but mostly their stuff is cheap... and this was no exception. So of course it was tempting me. I held out for a little while, but it didn't sell to anyone else and I eventually caved. Even though I definitely didn't need it and it's not that great a system, the price was just too good to resist... and I did kind of want one of course. I mean, I want a new laser for my TGCD more... but that requires online buying, etc. And I did want a 32X, and this one's way cheaper than it'd cost me to get one online, particularly considering shipping costs.
So, I got a Sega 32X. It cost $19 for the whole package. It included the 32X unit, the Genesis 2 to 32X connector cable, a mono AV Genesis cable (the cable doesn't seem to work, sadly, I was looking forward to trying Genesis at something better than RF...), a Genesis 2/32X/GG power supply, and three games: Metal Head, Star Wars Arcade, and Virtua Racing Deluxe. Other than that cable everything works fine.
It did not come with the box or manual, the spacer block for the Genesis 2, the adapter for the connector cable to hook the 32X up to a Genesis 1, the metal pieces you were supposed to use in the cart port when using the system with a Genesis 1, or the weird Sega CD end-plug thing. The spacer would be important, but the Sega CD plug thing is only used if you don't have a Sega CD, which of course I do. As for the metal pieces or Genesis 1 adapter, I don't have a working Genesis 1, so oh well.
Very nice price for all that... again it is too bad that it didn't come with the spacer, I really want one because otherwise over time the 32X will damage the Genesis 2 (because that carts in the Genesis 1 cart slot sat deeper in, there's a gap between the top of the 32X and the Genesis 2... so all the pressure goes into the cart port. Over time this can damage it unless you use the plastic spacer between the 32X and the Genesis 2.), and a working AV cable would be great, preferably stereo, but other than that it's nice. I'm dealing with the damage issue by only putting the 32X in the system when I'm actually using it, and not the rest of the time; for Genesis games I'll just rehook the RF out to the Genesis instead of the 32X and use that. The system looks a little odd with a 32X on it anyway, it kind of ruins the flat, sleek look of the Genesis 2 + Sega CD 2 system... oh well. I'll get used to it.
I mean, it's a bad system for sure, with few games (only 40), but even though it really should never have existed for Sega's sake, it does, and with it my Genesis is now a bit more complete. Also, even if there aren't many games on it, there are enough decent games for it to make it worth having for the Sega or Genesis fan, for sure, at least. The three games it came with bare all pretty good too, or at least are above average.
I also can finally play my two CD32X games now, though that's not such a plus, given how unbelievably horrible Supreme Warrior is (just trying to play it scars the mind...) and how Fahrenheit just isn't that fun (better than Supreme Warrior though for sure! It's just kind of confusing...). But oh well... I don't expect much from FMV games anyway. At least they do look a lot nicer than standard Sega CD games thanks to all of the additional colors on screen! It really is a nice improvement. Too bad it was only used for FMV games.
As for the three games I have... (remember, I have all of the 32X games in emulation, and have played most of the good ones at least a little, so I have some experience with them.)
Virtua Racing Deluxe -- This is an awesome game with one crippling flaw that makes the US/EU versions of the game nearly useless. But first for the good points. Virtua Racing Deluxe is a great racing game. The graphics are pretty good, with a very nice flat-shaded polygon look. There are three cars, five tracks, and one or two player modes, a nice improvement over the one car and three tracks in the arcade and Genesis versions of the game (though the Genesis version does also have 2 player splitscreen, nicely). There's a very noticeable graphical improvement between the Genesis SVP version and this 32X version. The sound is good, too. It's challenging, the three cars each handle quite differently, and beating all of the tracks with each car will take quite a bit of practice. The game supports the 6-button controller, but just uses it to put each of the four camera views on its own button, so it's not that important.
However, two things really are wrong with the game. First, there's no championship mode, series, campaign, whatever -- just 1p single race, 1p time trial, or 2p single race. This started a trend of Sega racing games not having real single player modes that continued through all three Saturn versions of Daytona USA, Sonic R on the Saturn, and more. It's very disappointing in every case, and definitely makes all of these games feel a lot shorter than they could be. Sega Rally for Saturn has a "championship" mode... but the default is to do only one lap on each of the three tracks (four if you finish first at the end of the first three, which is very hard), so it's still just three laps long, for a total playtime of maybe five minutes...
They all try to make up for it by being hard and taking a long time to master, but still, they feel unfinished. Virtua Racing (Genesis) and Virtua Racing Deluxe (US/EU 32X versions) compound this by not even saving your best times -- that's right, no save feature in the cart. Sort of like in Outrun 2019 on Genesis, there's a "Records" mode, which lists your top 20 times with each car on each track, but none of it is saved. However, the Japanese version of the game actually DOES have a save chip in the cart, and will save all of the Records mode data. Unfortunately the game is region-locked, so you won't be able to play it in a US Genesis without using a Japanese system or region-modding your Genesis, which is disappointing, but perhaps worth it to be able to play the much better version of this great game... it'd feel a lot more like there's actually a point to playing if my times were being saved! As it is all you can do is try to win in each track and make up your own championships in your head or something... it's a great game, but where's the reason to keep playing beyond just "it is good"?
Metal Head -- This game's a 3d polygonal first-person mech action game. It uses textured polygons, unlike virtually all of the few polygonal 32X games, so it has a distinctive and quite good look. In 1995 this would have looked great... as for the actual gameplay though, it's solid but not amazing. It's quite slow paced at the normal speed, and even though you can run it still feels a little sluggish. You can't rotate your mech unfortunately (to fire in one direction while walking in another, as you should be able to do), so it basically just plays like an FPS with a really big vehicle. You have two weapons, the standard one on the right and a special weapon on the left. You can buy better weapons with the points you get at times, but these weapons only last for the stage, so if you spend all your points on stuff in one stage you'll have none on the next one and you'll be back to the basic stuff. That's annoying, why can't you keep weapons you bought? Also, the game has six levels I believe, each made up of three stages, and is slow paced, so it's kind of long for a game with no saving and limited continues. As a result of that this game definitely isn't easy to beat...
It does have some neat options though, like choosing between photographs of people or cartoon-style drawings for the art of the heads of the various people who talk to you. There are also difficulty levels. Oh, as a note, the controls are a lot better with the 6-button controller, it uses the extra buttons well.
Star Wars Arcade -- The game that sold many people 32Xes, leaving them very angry at Sega just a year later when the system was discontinued. And it's a pretty good game, too. I can easily see why people thought this looked great. It's fun, has great 3d graphics, and is very challenging. The game has both one and two player modes. In two player mode, one person flies while the other shoots, making the game a bit easier if you can work together at all -- I'd love to try this sometime, with a game this hard it'd be nice to see! There are two modes, Arcade mode, which goes through the four stages of the original arcade game, and 32X mode, which goes through eight stages, some taken from the original game and some added. One of the original four levels was removed from 32X mode I believe, and five added, so it's not just 'the same levels plus more', making both modes worth trying. 32X mode is also a bit harder than Arcade mode, even beyond just that it is twice as long. You only get a couple of continues in either mode though, so good luck, you'll need a lot of it!
So far, I can't beat the second stage in Arcade mode, the Super Star Destroyer level, or the fourth stage in 32X mode, the first stage on the surface of the Death Star. The first level in Arcade mode and the first three in 32X mode aren't too hard, but then suddenly the difficulty level spikes massively... in the SSD level I keep dying at almost exactly the same place after taking many seemingly unavoidable hits. It looks awesome, with a fully polygonal trench/tunnel and everything, but yeah, it's annoying. On the 32X Death Star first level you have to killI TIEs, but have a tight time limit and a lot of ships to shoot down, and you kind of have to rely on luck a lot, because you just have to hope that ships appear... sometimes long periods of time seem to go by without any enemies appearing and you lose. There are plenty of gun turrets and stuff to shoot at, but they give you nothing except points, which don't matter anyway in a game which doesn't save.
Also, while you have good control of your ship, you can only move up or down about 20 degrees or so, and when flying up or down you do so extremely slowly and at a shallow upwards/downwards angle. You cannot fly straight up or down, fly loops, or anything like that, while the enemies fly circles around you. Basically the strategy is to fly around until they're behind you, speed up, and then slow down. Wait for them to pass you and then shoot them. Rinse and repeat. You do also have Proton Torpedoes, which regenerate with time so you can't use them all up, but they only hit targets if you can keep the targeting box on the enemy ship all the way until the missile hits it -- if the enemy flies off the screen before the missile hits, it escapes. Makes hitting enemies with missiles frustrating at times. Still, it's better than nothing.
Overall, the game's a great game, and a must-have for the 32X. It's also the system's best selling and most common game, so it's comparatively easy to find. The same team did make a semi-sequel to the game, which is called Shadow Squadron (Stellar Assault in Japan), and was also released on 32X. That game's a fantastic game, improved over Star Wars Arcade in almost every way. It doesn't have the Star Wars license, but it's a great game anyway. YOu have full control of the ship and can actually fly in all directions now, there's still a 2 player mode, there are two ships to choose from, you fight capital ships which deform as you blow apart each part of the ship, and more... awesome stuff. I want that game badly. :) (There was actually a second game in the series, Stellar Assault SS for the Saturn. Unfortunately it was a Japan only release and is quite pricey.)
Other than Shadow Squadron, other 32X games on the list of games I want include Space Harrier, After Burner Complete, Tempo, Kolibri, Zaxxon's Motherbase 2000, Blackthorne, and some more.
This basically shows why I STILL want to keep stuff I own locally. Cloud computing is great for some things, but the reality is you can't depend on those backups being there forever. It's the same reason you would want to buy your own copy of a book even if your library has plenty of fresh copies.
Quote:We’ve known for a while that severely limiting your dietary intake, while somehow still managing to get all your necessary nutrients, can extend lifespan dramatically. Caloric Restriction (CR) can increase a mouse’s lifespan by about 50%. Of course, no one wants to eat less so scientists have been pursuing other avenues to achieve CR benefits. We’ve told you about one such possible route: the use of resveratrol, which may (or may not) work. A recently published article in Science discusses another. Dominic Withers from the University College of London extended the lifespan of female mice by 20% using a technique to disable one of their genes. Not only did these mice live longer, they showed greatly improved health at middle age. Withers and his associates may have discovered a genetic fountain of youth.
Life extension has a lot of advocates, notably the Methuselah Foundation and Aubrey de Grey whom we discussed earlier. Most would agree that we need two types of approaches to achieving longevity: a technique that could be applied to people who are already old, and a technique that could be applied from birth or earlier. Withers’ genetic manipulation would be one of the latter. With a single genetic tweak, humans conceivably could be modified in vitro to live longer and healthier. Furthermore, that tweak could become germline (that is, passed on to offspring) so that all future generations of humans had the same longevity. Withers’ work could be the start of a new era of humanity.
There are several competing theories of why CR works, but most focus on interactions between key proteins and cell metabolism. One such protein, mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin) acts to determine levels of nutrients in the body and helps regulate the body’s response. A study published this July in Nature showed that CR benefits could be generated in mice by dosing them with the drug rapamycin (for which mTOR is named). That’s really exciting. Think about it, life extension just by taking a pill. However, rapamycin causes suppression of the immune system in humans - it is used during organ transplants - and would be unsuitable for use in extending your life.
Don’t worry, we’re not done yet. By studying mTOR’s chemical pathways scientists found another protein, S6K1, and its related gene. It was this gene that was targeted in Wither’s research. He and his colleagues ‘knocked out’ the gene from a group of mice. Essentially that gene was disrupted so that it would not be expressed. The knockout mice displayed some amazing health at 600 days (middle age for a mouse). They had stronger bones, better insulin sensitivity, healthier immune cells, and improved coordination in cognitive tests. Essentially, they had the skills of younger mice. Female knockout mice lived 20% longer.
Unfortunately, the male knockout mice did not. While they displayed the same benefits at middle age, the S6K1 disruption did not grant them longevity. The research team doesn’t know why. However, they have identified other genes and proteins that could be explored to see if more CR benefits could be achieved through genetic manipulation. One protein, AMPK, might yield CR results and it already has a prescription drug associated with it: metformin (used to treat type 2 diabetes).
It is unclear if or when we will start genetically manipulating humans in vitro, but with research like this, that day is more certain to come. A single tweak that could extend life by 20% and let middle aged people feel like teenagers? Parents would be clamoring for the treatment. Longevity in general, whether it comes from a pill, a genetic treatment, or an improved lifestyle, is likely to interest humanity more and more as our population continues to age.
There had been rumors about this, but it's very, very awesome to see them come true... Rocket Knight Adventures (Genesis), Sparkster (SNES), and Sparkster (Genesis, completely different game from the SNES one) are great classic platform-action games, and really are highly under-appreciated classics. They're very hard, but really fun... I have the first one, great game.
Anyway, somebody at Konami was a fan too... and using Bionic Commando Rearmed as their inspiration, we have, in 2.5d, upcoming for the PS3 (PSN), X360 (XBLA), and PC (Steam), Rocket Knight. It's being developed by Climax Entertainment, the developers of LandStalker among other games. Awesome!
![[Image: scream.gif]](http://www.tcforums.com/forums/ubb/scream.gif)
