Usborne Guide To Computer And Video Games

Found this via Game, Set, Watch. Talk about something I hadn't thought about in years, this was my favorite book as a youngster. It's still pretty cool today as a piece of retrofuturism. (Speaking of, I had a dream about Disney's Space Mountain last night, back when RCA was still sponsoring it.)

http://www.pointlessmuseum.com/museum/usbornecomputergamesindex.php

Looking at this book now, the interesting thing to me is all the handheld and tabletop games in it. At the time, I assumed many of these were made up as I'd never seen them. Well, in the time since then, I think I've seen every one of those somewhere.

I also still love the diagram of how a computer works with all the little robots running information around. Way cool.

Obnoxious Day.

Man, I'm really starting to understand why people choose emulation over the real things when it comes to video games.

Longtime readers may recall that a few years ago I built a Supergun so I could play arcade games on the TV at home. Since moving, I hadn't had a chance to set anything up, but having a day off from work, today seemed like a good day to make it happen.

I get everything downstairs to my game room and set up. I plug in my Ibara board, and the sound crackles and goes out. At first I'm thinking I'd just blown the amp on a $300+ board. Great. So I plug in another one, same thing. No way I could have blown two boards.

Long story short, I'm under the hood now, pulling wires, switching speakers, doing everything I can think of. Nothing. No sound.

For some reason, I decide to try yet another board. Not only do I get no sound, the video is completely jacked. Switch back to one of the other boards and the video is fine. Well, just great.

In the end, I spent about two hours messing around. I never did play anything and discovered that something is wrong with my Supergun that I couldn't figure out and that I have a Taito F3 motherboard that is putting out bad video for a reason I can't determine. Everything was working perfectly last time and now everything is messed up.

Plus my Neo Geo is MIA. I know it's here somewhere, but since the move, I haven't the foggiest idea where.

The sad part is, all the while my computer was sitting right next to me. I could have just hopped on it, fired up MAME and played all afternoon. Maybe next time I shoudl do just that.

Akihabara 2, Electric Town Boogaloo

Man, I'm exhausted. Today was the day where several months of wedding planning, a wedding, a 13 hour plane trip, being in a country where you speak very little of the language and being crowd phobic all caught up. Still, I'm hanging tough like New Kids and I still love Japan.

We returned to Akihabara today. If you'd like to read a more videogame-centric recap of day one, I'd encourage you to check out this post I made at 30 Lives. It's on the nerdy side, so approach with caution.

So, let's assume you didn't read that post and have no idea what Akihabara is about. Well, it's nicknamed Electric Town and for good reason. It's like the promised land for anyone into gadgets, toys, videogames or anime. For me the big attraction was looking for all the videogame goodies. And there were pleanty to be had.

Unfortunately, videogame shopping in Akihabara isn't exactly an ideal activity for a non-Japanese speaker. The stores are all so small and narrow that you really can't browse and with most shelves stocked titles out, you really can't tell what the heck you're looking at if you can't read the language. Not to say it's impossible, just saying being a big, sweaty American puts one at a huge dissadvantage.

Oh yeah. Akihabara has it's own weather system. It's humid. Very humid. You realize after a while you're almost swimming in the collected flop sweat of everyone you rub against trying to navigate the stores.

There were two stores in particular I was looking for, Mak Games and G-Front as those were two shops specalizing in arcade boards. Well, I never did find Mak, but I found G-Front. The problem was again, the language barrier. They had more arcade boards than I'd even seen in my life, but I had no clue what I was looking at. Aside from that, I've read their prices aren't so hot, so no harm, no foul.

Some of the stores I did shop in include Sofmap, Traders 2 and a few others I really don't know what the heck they were. It kind of got to be a blur after a while.

A lot of stores here sell used stuff, which is good. The problem for me is there was a ton of Nintendo stuff, and I'm much more of a Sega guy. Granted, I saw lots of Saturn games (no big bargains, sadly) but there was just so much Famicom and Super Famicom, I couldn't believe it. Mostly what I came away with was used PS2 games which were really easy to find.

So, let's have a look at some games, shall we?



Gunner's Heaven. I found this in a cheapie pile. Looks like a Metal Slug type thing. At least, I hope it is.



Psyvariar and Sonic Wings Special from the first trip to Akihabara.



Cheap Jogcon and Disney DDR for Kristen. (That sucker goes for stupid money in the US.)



Treasure Box Sega Ages collection and the bizarre button pushing game Switch (aka Panic on the Sega CD.) I'd only found out this existed for PS2 this week and lo and behold a cheap copy found it's way to me. Read more about this one here.



XII Stag and Trizeal.



Random picture of some cosplay girls handing out flyers.

We also bought soundtracks:



Some game soundtrack CDs. That's Atari Music 1 & 2, Shoting Game Sound Omnibus 1 & 2 and Space Invaders Anniversary.



Bunch of DDR soundtracks. (These are Kristen's.)

And Gamera?



Part 2 of the Gamera box set with yet another Gamera figure.

But the best thing I bought today was probably this:



It's a 1998(?) set of vinyl figures of all the critters from the classic Gamera films.



RARRRRRRHHHHHH!!!! Giant monsters attacking Tokyo!!!!

That was a bargain at about $28.

There's more, but I'm too tired to get into it.

Behind the Brown Door

Konichiwa! There's some of that fine Mary Tyler Moore font I promised you. Yeah, that's our door. We didn't see much of the room today as we spent most of the day getting rained on in Akihabara. Thanks weather. Anyway, two geeks in the electric capitol of the world were probably need more than a little rain to slow us down.

There's Kristen just after we got of the train. You can start to see a little of the insanity in the back ground. The only way I can describe it is if you've seen Blade Runner, it's pretty much like that, without the artificial animal shops.

That was just a random street corner. Nothing really special, but just a typical image from the street. We hit it at about 10:30 and didn't leave until 6. Stores were packed solid with people and electronics. Of course, everywhere I went, I was wishing I'd paid a little more attention in those ten hours of Japanese I took at IUPUI as it is a little tough to look for the stuff I was really after (such as videogames.)

Konchiwa Sanders-san! Am I the only one who thinks some Japanese men start looking like Colonel Sanders as they age? Kind of like US guys looking like Kenny Rogers. Hmm...they both had chicken restaurants. Coincidence?

So most of the stores don't allow photographs, ironically enough. I had to sneak a few, like here, look who is thinking differently:

Sadly he wasn't for sale. (Gamera is humping an old iMac, in case you couldn't tell.)

One of the fun things I dig even at home are capsule machines. In Japan, they really know how to do them right.


Kristen is getting ready to drop some yen in the wall of machines we found in one store.


This Namco machine was my favorite. We tried in vain to collect 'em all. Collect what? you ask:

Alright, you can't really tell from the picture, but they're keychain fobs that make noise when you press the button. So the Pac-Man one does the wacka-wacka thing, Dig Dug makes the pumping sound, etc. I still need a Xevious...grrr.

That same store had tons of toys and I picked up a few:

Look! It's Gamera, Jet Jaguar and Godzilla in his '68 comeback flavor! w00t! I was wishing I was more into Ultraman, because this store had so much Ultraman crap, I just wanted to start buying stuff even though I had know idea what it was.

I won't bore you with everything we bought, but here's a highlight:

This is the Space Invaders Anniversary set for PS2. I'd seen this before, but become it came out so long ago, it was off my radar. You get a PS2 game with all the Space Invaders games and this cool little controller thing:


You stick a dual shock in there and play it like an old Space Invaders cabinet. Totally silly, but I had to have it and got it cheap used (750 yen!)

As you can see, I'm putting it to use immediately to broker a peace accord between Gamera and Godzilla. Rather than trashing Tokyo, they're settling their differences over a game of Space Invaders. Jet Jaguar has a quarter up, though no one really takes him seriously.

Speaking of Gamera...should I feel shame for dropping some serious coin on the first four Gamera movies? Why do I love them so? Why are the crummy pan & scan "public domain" versions we have at home not good enough? Further more, why am I now determined to track down the remaining three discs I need to finish this set. *sigh*



Here's my CD haul for today. I love Japanese reissues, as they tend to do them right. The mini-LP covers are the bomb and I'm noticing what started out as just a jazz thing is moving to all kinds of music as well. However, it's just the jazz I'm after. Highlights of this include Dave Pike and Les De Merle discs I've never seen and, though it pains me to rebuy anything, I finally have another copy of 1969Miles, which is my favorite Miles CD ever. I'm not letting this one out of my sight, as my first copy walked. Kristen bought some good CDs too but I'm sure she'll talk about that over on her blog.

Rob G. out. I got a monster game night to referee.

Godfather: The Game PS2 Review

Officially the first game I've finished in 2007. Whoo hoo.

Yes, I know I'm late to the party on this one. After hearing about the upcoming PS3 and Wii ports, I almost wish I'd waited a little longer still, but I managed to find the Limited Edition cheap and a friend had just been raving about it, so whatever.

Anyway, when I'd heard EA was making a Godfather game, I was skeptical but interested. Movie games have a well deserved bad reputation and this isn't just the latest Vin Diesel vehicle we're talking about here. This is one of the greatest American films of all time. As details were revealed that showed the game as another in the long line Grand Theft Auto clones, it didn't do much to make me feel any better.

I'm pleased to say, Godfather is better than the average GTA knock off, but, at least in it's PS2 incarnation, it falls short of being a truly great game. While the game is free roaming, you are still tied to the story arc to advance. The story follows the movie with you as a rising member of the family. Some events are rewritten so you are involved, other things you learn about through cut scenes.

One quirk is a few major events in the Godfather's story line are mentioned by NPCs almost in passing. Like Vito's death, for instance. It's going to help if you're familiar with the movie first, because it's almost like they assume you know the story going into this game.

Aside from the story parts, you get to extort businesses and perform hits. Extorting businesses is pretty fun. Each shop owner has a level you can push them to where they will turn over protection money and if you push them farther, they'll fight back. Finding that balance is fun, but as you level up it becomes less and less of a chalange so by the end businesses just fold when you walk in.

The hits are kind of fun too as they always have a condition for bonus points and "respect". (Your respect meter is what allows you to level up.) For instance, you might have to kill a guy but you have to shoot him in the kneecap, shoulder and chin, in that order.

Other than that, you have to take over the rival family's warehouses, distribution hubs and compounds. Frankly, these missions get a little repetitious and are not helped at all by the fact that there's only a handful of building layouts. Once you get in a place, you know pretty much where everything is as you've seen it before.

And that's the Godfather's biggest flaw. Not only are the graphics kind of bland, there's not much variety in what you see. There's only five different vehicles, maybe a dozen (probably less) different buildings you go in, a lot of NPCs that look and sound the same, etc., etc. It just feels like this game needs a little more polish as these things feel a little rushed.

I also got really tired of driving everywhere. There's a lot of "meet X way up north, then go all the way over east, then down south" kind of stuff. It gets a little annoying after a while that you spend so much time in a car when the driving itself is rather boring.

Now, I'd say if you are a fan of the movie, it's worth playing, but I'd probably wait for a next-gen rev. Already the Xbox360 has more missions and (I think) the ability to recruit people to fight with you and supposedly has more of the polish the PS2 version needs. Additionally, the Wii and PS3 versions are supposed to use the motion sensing capacities of those system's controllers for the hand-to-hand combat (which I didn't mention but is kind of fun, even though it's not too far removed from button mashing.)

While Godfather the Game on PS2 isn't a total wash, it's hard not to think a movie this classic deserved a game equally so and this, unfortunately, isn't it. While it's going to be a fun diversion for fans of the movie and people wanting to play something until GTA 4 drops, unless the upcoming ports are amazing, this is an offer you can refuse*.





*(And I promised myself I wouldn't use that line...I am so ashamed.)