In case you missed it, this is brilliant and hilarious.



I can watch it over and over and laugh myself silly every time. Thank you Adult Swim, Williams Street, and most of all, director Casper Kelly.

Share all your memories of Dreamcast in this thread.

Back in the day, I was a Nintendo-head. I loved N64 with such a loyalty that any competition was met with suspicion. When I heard about the Dreamcast, I didn't like it. N64 was getting its butt kicked by Sony as it was. More competition could only hurt. I remembered the SNES vs. Genesis days with still-fiery acrimony. Why was Sega was always such a dick? "We do, what Nintendon't?" Good sir, remove your hat and coat and let us finish this battle with the fisticuffs.



The most vivid thing I remembered in the early days was the graphics. They were so crisp and smooth, 60fps holy crap. Every time I saw a 3D model move on screen, it was just different than N64. More alive. Sega was always very strong at game design, and they brought us all those lush beautiful games with booming cities and wide open skies of azure. Sonic Adventure, Crazy Taxi, Shenmue, they all seemed so expansive and real.



I was at a kiosk at a GameStop with my friend. "We have GOT to get this system," I told him. But it was only for show. My undying heart would go to Nintendo, I would never betray the kingdom that nurtured my inner-gamer child! But eventually, even I was turned around. September 9th, 1999, here it was.



I loved Sonic Adventure, its ethereal worlds, its booming soundtrack. It brought the same fast-paced eye candy of Genesis. Here was Ecco the Dolphin, I would live my dream of being a marine animal going on adventures with all sorts of creepy underwater creatures. Crazy Taxi kept me occupied for hours, my buddy and I went through all the missions and trials and it was the good old days when you could play a game for hours and never get bored.



I even subscribed to Official Dreamcast Magazine, what a defector! Every month would bring news for games, and even better, a demo cd. Here is how I learned about Jet Set Radio. It's style and sensibility were hip, something Sega was always great at capturing. What an innovative title, you would zip around a city on rocket-skates and tag walls with graffiti. The soundtrack was a mix of j-pop and hip-hop, the perfect background noise for your character's headphones. The game is narrated by Professor K., the DJ of the pirate radio station Jet Set Radio. He tells you like it is and fills you in on the rival gangs. He is perhaps most cartoony of all, large dreadlocks and a prominent nose ring as his puppet jaw flapped around and joked about the city's antics.



Most fascinating of all was it's graphical style: every model had a thick line drawn around its Z axis. It gave the appearance of all its characters being drawn in a comic book come-to-life. You'd have to run from The Man, and got to meet a whole assortment of cool new dudes and dudettes for your spraypainting posse. (Hey, give me a break, I'm trying to capture the late 90s here).



The demo was great, and I bought the title on it's launch date. And it still holds up to this day. Each component – sound, character design, gameplay – blends so well together that you can play it and see how clear a vision its creators must have had. Much kudos to SmileBit for this wonderful game.



I even wrote a review it for my high school paper. I wish I still had it, I would post it here. :D I recall a line of it saying "Those wacky Japanese game devs are at it again!" and someone underlined it with a red marker and wrote down, "Appropriate??" Fair game, phantom editor. Though, it ended up making the cut. I was told later that a token Asian person was present, and asked for counsel. They shrugged and said they weren't personally offended.

Have some songs from the soundtrack!









One game I never played back in the day is Shenmue. Naturally, I ordered it. Today, I got this message...

I assume most if not everyone here reads. Share what you're digging through.

For me, it's the Chroncles of Narnia. It's great writing and appropriate for all ages. I'm not even a big fantasy guy, but I do like Lewis. I read the Screwtape Letters by him a few years ago. That one had great insights into humanity, and you can appreciate it even if you aren't religious. Even just looking through the lens of a religious person is interesting to me.

Chronicles of Narnia are more for entertainment, and it's fun to pick out the religious allegory. Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe was quite overt, yeah yeah, Lion dies for humanity, but the other books don't spell it out as much. Prince Caspian was just OK, but I loved Dawn Treader and Silverchair. I'm working through The Horse and his Boy now, and it's excellent as always.

I wish I had more time to read. I only do it on my lunch breaks now. After Narnia, I want to read Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous by Gabriella Coleman.

Weltall, if you post here, you also have to share what you're writing. ;) Okay, you're working on Thoughtful Maro World now, but if you're too busy to write now, what were you writing before? I gotta read one of your novels. What do you recommend? Which one are you most proud of?

I'm posting this in Tendo City because it's about Tendo City. And because we should have all the forums consolidated into one. It would make the place seem like there's more traffic. What do we have, 5 active threads?



Sorry Falcon, I had to do it. :D I wouldn't have posted this if I didn't think you'd be a good sport.

Hey, it's this smiley again. I'm putting it in here for good measure. Nice going geoboy (was that his name?).

Then do I have a game for you:



...

So this game was clearly made around the time of the Nintendo 64... wait, 2007?! This game was made in 2007?

What is it with racing games lately? It's like all at once every single thing that's awful about bad games crystallized into a constant barrage of terrible racing games. Was Mario Kart just... too awesome? Did the universe have to generate THIS much bad just to balance the cosmic scales?

http://kotaku.com/nintendo-closing-club-...1680579996

They're closing it... That's a shame, but recent Club Nintendo rewards haven't really been all that great. Well, glad I got some nice rewards while the getting was good. Mind, I hit platinum before it went down, so I have to wonder if they're going to provide any rewards for that most recent platinum... You know, something to go out on. Nintendo, I would take a NES cart reprint with Earthbound (Mother 1) on it. Just something easy :D.

There's a lot to digest here, and I like a lot of it.

Firstly, let me get this out of the way. Amiibo are really getting pushed hard with the upcoming games. This is to be expected, but it's starting to go the direction I feared, with Amiibo functionality basically working as $13 DLC. Project S.T.E.A.M. (probably won't add the dots in the future when I type that name) for example uses Fire Emblem amiibos to put the character in the game. It's just an unlock for additional characters. Borrowing them just to unlock isn't even a solution, as you need to scan them in every single level. It's not exactly a good solution for "on the go" gaming... Captain Toad will use the amiibo to unlock a whole treasure hunting sub-game in the game. This sort of use is basically what I don't like about these game compatible toys, they don't really add anything except something to monetize right now. As I've said before, I really wish they'd do this the other way, make games that add things to the TOYS (meaning, better quality toys that actually move around and do stuff).

Okay, that's out of the way. The new 3DS (called the "new 3DS", because apparently Nintendo didn't learn from Apple that ambiguous names just confuse consumers) is coming along next month. Actually, the vast majority of game announcements in this direct are 3DS releases. I am very likely to pick one up. The downsides? Firstly, Nintendo isn't including an AC adapter with this model. It's a cost cutting measure, but I think not a very good one. It's true that, in my case, I can just grab one of my 3 older DSi/3DS adapters (I have a problem) to use with this thing. In fact, that's exactly what I'm going to do. However, those with the original DS, say, that are only just now deciding to upgrade to a 3DS (perhaps they've been waiting for just such an upgrade) won't be able to use those adapters. The Gameboy line didn't include AC adapters either, but then again they weren't exactly needed until the Advance SP, when Nintendo first decided to switch to rechargeable batteries. Japan's 3DS models have already stopped including the adapter, and the US 3DSs no longer include the recharging cradle, so I guess this was inevitable, but it's still a bitter pill to swallow for those just now getting on the 3DS train. The good news is the new model includes a 4 GB SD card. The bad news, for some, is Nintendo decided to commit to microSD rather than the "full size" variety. Frankly, this was a long time coming. Pretty much everyone else is using microSD, and at least from Sandisk, the same capacity and speed costs the same amount either size factor. In fact, for me this is a non-issue. I'm currently using a 64 GB "Ultra Speed" microSD in my current 3DS. Seeing these sitting on a store shelf, noting that the prices were identical, and that ALL of Sandisk's microSD cards come with an adapter for the normal size, I had no reason whatsoever NOT to just go the micro route. Also, better compatibility with other devices (I have "priority levels" for my stuff, so as I get newer microSD cards, I end up shuffling every other one around down to the one I least care about having high capacity (my DSi, for the record, and yes, I always get microSD so I've got enough size adapters lying around to accommodate Wii, Wii U, 3ds, and DSi needs, and one I tossed into my PS3 SD slot because... well otherwise it would have ended up in some drawer, it might as well go somewhere).

So those two downsides aside, I'm hearing a lot of praise for the remodel. Everyone is talking about how wonderful the eye-tracking 3D is. It's great and all, but I have one nagging fear. I have no idea what light conditions or contrast I need for the eye tracking to work. I tend to do a lot of playing at night, with my room's lights out, in my bed. Is this thing set up so that it can track with nothing but the glare of the screen reflecting off my eyes? If not, well that could be a problem. The new "nub-as-C" design is a little odd as well. I still wish a full fledged circle pad had been put in, but all reports say it works well enough. The extra shoulder buttons are sure to help a lot though. I actually like their positioning, using one index finger to press both of either side's shoulder buttons works very well, as I can attest from the original Wii classic controller (non-pro). A few extremely recent 3DS games actually take a good long while to "load". Even more odd, when these "long startup" 3DS games are closed, it goes through load times with a black screen just to reload the system OS again. My instincts tell me it's likely due to newer 3DS games using some sort of programming trick to free up extra RAM (very likely, it's removing large chunks of the base OS stored in the system's RAM and loading that up with game related data, then when someone quits, it has to remove chunks of the game data and reload those sections of the OS, explaining the "unload times"). The system is a must if only for the exclusives that require that extra horsepower, but mainly I would recommend this as the one to get for those who haven't already picked one up yet.

Alongside this system, well games. Majora's Mask 3D seems to be a more extensive overhaul than OOT 3D was. Ocarina of Time had very slight graphical updates, while the gameplay (other than new interface options that I still haven't really gotten used to) was essentially identical, block for block, backflipping trick to backflipping trick (on top of Dodongo's Cave) to the N64 original. Majora's Mask is not only a bit more extensive on the graphical updates (only a bit more, still not exactly a full graphical redo), but they've been working on a lot of other features. From what I've seen, aside from the UI changes (the bomber's notebook is a bit easier to navigate with a touch screen, although most reporting sites are describing it as though it didn't even exist in the original), they're relocating a lot of things, like NPCs, and changing some maps up. The save statues are now expanded, with no "auto delete on continue" mechanic. One can still save anywhere using the song of time, if they wish. They've also added some new gameplay features like a fishing mini-game straight from OOT. This thing is getting it's own special edition new 3DS (sadly, they dropped the ball here, as the special edition Majora's Mask 3DS does NOT come with Majora's Mask). As of now, every place everywhere forever is sold out of the special editions of both the game and the 3DS itself. Good luck finding it NEVER!

(Preorder Project STEAM and you'll get a Majora's Mask pin. That's... a little weird. Why not give us a clockwork stovepipe hat?)

Monster Hunter 4 is coming out too, with it's own special edition 3DS. This 3DS DOES include the game it is based on. Consistency Nintendo, look it up! Also, this 3DS (but not the Majora's Mask one) is a gamestop exclusive. So, yay? I think these weird Gamestop exclusive deals are how Nintendo managed to quell Gamestop's requests for "preorder exclusive DLC" (which Nintendo has so far not engaged in, thankfully).

I think I really want that squid style paintgun game a lot now. Like, a bunch of a lot. Nintendo managed to Nintendo themselves up a replacement shooter franchise after the loss of Rare (Rare, subsequently lost to everyone ELSE in the world as every interesting person at that company left).

Mario has been in puzzle games (Dr. Mario, Yoshi, Yoshi's Cookie), and he's been in RPGs (Super Mario RPG, Paper, & Luigi), but hey, here's a Mario puzzle RPG! It's Bejeweled, no wait it's Puzzle Quest, but I still just must play it. It looks very addicting.

Yet another Lemmings style Mario vs Donkey Kong game... Why won't this series try something different? No, turning "Upvotes" into currency doesn't count. At least it'll be an interesting experiment in getting creators more interested in the opinions of other players.

Hmm, so Nintendo ripped off Candy Crush, but with Pokemon? I gotta say, if they put this on a cel phone I'd call this a brilliant move. As it stands, I don't think it'll take off very well. In fact, I really hope it fails. I don't want Nintendo to learn that "microtransactions" work. I want them to try it, fail with this game to get ANYONE to "buy" retries, and never try microtransactions again. Seriously, this is probably the most worrying of Nintendo's newly announced games, in that if it actually succeeds, we're all in trouble.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/22/technolo...ood-robot/

It seems a job that provides a major source of income for a huge number of Americans (in fact, most of the people I know work in fast food or other similar service jobs, sad as that may be). It is already starting to happen. The nearby grocery stores have already started rolling out "do it yourself" shopping lanes, where the customer scans in everything themselves (the implementation is still a little wonky though, as I have to have everything on a scale for some sort of badly thought out security reason, see if you can find the problem with such a way to prevent theft). I can easily envision not just a future where ALL the checkout lanes are replaced in this manner, but one wherein the entire way stores function is changed, so that everyone just lines up in a front "lobby", punches in their orders on one of several touch screens, and the rest of store, basically converted into a giant vending machine, delivers everything to the front area while you wait. Basically, it'd have almost no human employees.

The specifics are all that's new, this trend has been going on since before we were born. Ever been to a full-service gas station? (Shut up, weird animal person from Austin riding an old-time bicycle, we're talking about real people here.) At a certain point, gas stations all decided that fueling a car had become so easy that there was no point hiring someone just to put gas in the car, and thus the dangerous midnight "I'm just going to put the pump in and hurriedly dash back into the relative safety of my car" gas run was born. Entire careers have disappeared numerous times ever since they started "bringing in computers to improve productivity". Of course, there are many cases where an "automated" approach has done nothing but hurt the consumer as well as the employee. Automated help lines have risen quite a bit, but how many people have ever actually had their unique issue handled by the automated help line? At this point, I speak in garbled nonsense until the computer just gives up on me and connects me to an actual human being.

I've gone more left than the supposed "left" party in America, but on this issue I think I disagree with the general consensus. On the one hand, I can certainly appreciate the total loss of one of the few reliable jobs someone who's down and out can get. As these low level positions vanish, a significant margin of Americans will have no skill set they can fall back on, and even if they did, the pool of available skillset requiring jobs is too small to accommodate everyone. It's a grim future that threatens to completely overturn the extremely recent reduction in joblessness in America (and the world over, once others start adopting these practices). This can't be ignored. Allow me to ignore it for a moment to talk about something else now.

I'm more or less deaf to the idea that companies should be allowed to pursue profit for it's own sake without any ear towards human suffering it causes, so let's get that out of the way. No, my issues with taking the "protect the jobs from innovation" run a bit deeper, a bit more conceptual.

Basically, the biggest problem with keeping human employees around to do a job that can be done better and cheaper by a machine is just how that must make that employee feel. At any point that employee ever screws up, a boss has the perfect "you're only here out of CHARITY" argument, a constant degredation of their worth as a person and a constant reminder that the ONLY reason they are there is out of a sense of pity, that literally everything they are doing in their work shift is utterly meaningless and useless by ANY metric you can come up with, because it ALL can be done by machine. It's the sort of degradation one might feel being forced to break rocks in an old timey prison, or being made to clean a floor using only a tooth brush in some army movie. You know, pointless "busy work" just so the person can say that they are technically "working". That, to me, is the worst possible fate, the kind Greeks made legends about. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyphus Now hear me out on this, I'm not saying it's better for these people to starve to death on the streets than doing mindnumbing and pointless labor. I'm all for charity, and government sponsored charity at that. I'm just saying let's just go all-out on the charity thing because this half-way point only gives the illusion of providing workers a secure job, and worse, it deprives most of these workers of the time and energy they could devote towards a real skill-based job. (As to why I keep sounding like I think people are too good for this sort of work, well, I do, because ALL MY PARENTS AND TEACHERS growing up kept ramming the warning of "You don't want to be stuck in a dead end job flipping burgers, do you?" at me, so yeah, thanks previous generation, now my generation really DOES think this job is terrible and beneath our dignity, because you TOLD us it was, so don't go crying on fox news about it when it's your fault we think that!) What I'm suggesting is that if technology progresses to the point that entire service industry jobs are outright replaced, this isn't a bad thing IF we are the kind of society that decides that being jobless is a condition that SOCIETY should help fix. I'm saying that Obama's recent initiative to have state sponsered 2 year collage is a good start, and providing homes for people until they can provide for themselves is even better.

More fundamentally, if the service industry goes entirely self-automated, and the food production industry follows, we're at stage one of reaching a post-scarcity economy, and that's a good thing. What's better than the charity I suggested above? Producing technology capable of providing for everyone's needs so they don't NEED to worry about starvation, and are thus free to pursue career paths that'll actually provide them some real job satisfaction. I'm suggesting that artificially limiting this progress is just keeping everyone a slave to money, and I'm all for a technological future where money itself dies because it no longer serves it's purpose (trade isn't needed if everyone can have everything).