Hunyak Blog

Wow.

There was an auction on shopgoodwill that included MANY of the rarer SNES games in original boxes. All the SNES Final Fantasy games, Earthbound, and Chrono trigger still in the original box.





The price?

$637.99

And thats NOT EVEN A DAY of the auction being up.

Retro game collectors are going librarian-shit over this stuff!

Looks like someone couldn't pay that $300.00 offered before.

The NIB Dreamcast is back up!

http://www.shopgoodwill.com/viewItem.asp?ItemID=3489607

I am hesitant to post this on the Dreamcast Junkyard as that might lead to another Kotaku post and yet another swarm of people willing to pay EXTREMELY HIGH prices for video games.

I gonna bid.

I have always heard that it was 33 but I guess I was wrong.

I am glad FOX news is here to tell us the truth...



So yeah. The game is rated M for Mature.

A parent buying this game for an underage kid is the equivalent of buying a R-rated movie for an underage kid. It's their choice. And if they give the money to to the kid and DON'T regulate HOW they spend it then it's the SAME THING.

I NEVER had any money before I turned 16. I just didn't. I don't understand WHY American parents nowadays have to give their kids so much money. It's ruining the economy, not to mention music and media in general. Do you think a loser like Britney Spears would have EVER funded her current drug fueled existance if 35 million teens hadn't spent the money THEIR PARENTS GAVE THEM on her shitty music? Pretty much everything media-wise is aimed at young kids because it's an easy buck for companies. That's pretty much why everything sucks nowadays.

Back to the original point...

The Game "Mass Effect" does NOT have full nudity. You can see worse on basic cable.

If you live in Canada you can see EVERYTHING. I was watching a Canadian cable station the other day and I saw the movie "Gangs of New York". In the whore house scene...Yep. You could see full frontal for at least 5 minutes of the movie. In that five mintues you could see more breasts than in EVERY AMERICAN VIDEO GAME featured in 2007. (Well maybe if you count GoW it would even out I think there were alot of breasts in that game) Plus all the violence in the movie was uncut.

...hmm. Doesn't Canada have less violence and sexual based offenses per person than us?

Maybe that's because Americans think that someone else should be raising their kids for them instead of DOING THE JOB THEMSELVES.

Some guy got beat up for his PSP right outside where I work part time.

http://kotaku.com/gaming/crime/psp-owner-to-assailants-dudes-get-your-own-ow-322875.php

http://blog.syracuse.com/news/2007/11/teens_charged_in_downtown_beat.html

This was INSIDE a huge building with security guards and cameras and stuff.

The petty criminals in Central NY must be trying to compete for the "most violent" and "most ignorant" awards this year.

Though to be fair you don't flash around a $150 gaming device in the middle of downtown.

...at least with my full time job I ain't gotta deal with people at all.

This is the sort of area the Gameboy color is for friends...

I got a smile out of this one.

http://kotaku.com/gaming/gametap/bushnell-defines-pure-unadulterated-trash-gaming-314795.php

"as much as I applaud the beautiful, fantastic production guys of Halo 3, it's really Doom 1 in different clothing."

I personally never bought a copy of any of the Halo games. I played them at friends houss and even beat the first Halo game (it was short an unstatisfying). I found the multiplayer to be inferior to Half Life mods like Team Fortress and Counterstrike.

But come on Nolan! Doom was a MUCH better single player game experience than Halo is.

NPR had an really interesting portion on "Talk of the Nation" the other day. I will post a link soon.

A Vet from Iraq just posted this article about gaming:

http://homefires.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/20/way-beyond-pong/index.html

It was good. However, the real treat was the responses. This was the best one.

"Interesting. Forty years ago, I and my friends would be routinely criticized for playing Avalon Hill boardgames, most of which were wargames. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

— Posted by Geoff "

Nice.

There was also a response that complained about Guitar hero for some reason and that got me thinking on another track. It said it was nothing like playing real guitar and was just about pressing buttons quickly in synch with a program.

I was watching Youtube awhile back before "Guitar Hero" became popular, there was a video of a Japanese video game where the player hit buttons quickly in tune to the music and graphics. There were a ton on comments about how stupid the game was and how it was just another "Japanese Memorization" game. Yet when you get down to it, that EXACTLY what GH is. Just pressing buttons in synch and memorization.

Take away the gimmick controller and change the music and it's pretty much exactly like any other rhythm game.

So how much is the popularity of games based on how popular they are perceived by society in general.

For a very brief time I played MUDs online through telnet and the Internet. In terms of gameplay I believe they were FAR superior to World of Warcraft. Plus back in 1998 they were mostly FREE. It was all text of course, but you were playing with MANY different people in a very complex world.

Now add some pretty graphics to that and add monthly fees and you have Ultima Online and World of Warcraft. And of course the game gets dumbed down. And restricted. There is less freedom. Yet the same sort of people that would turn their noses at the weirdos playing an elf in a text based game eagerly play WoW.

I personally stopped playing MUDs because there seemed to be no point. They were always adding new content and new people were always joining the game. The only way to be really good in the game was to spend ridiculous amounts of hours playing the game and use a shitload of cheap tricks like macros and keystroke programs. There is ALWAYS going to be someone else who has more time on their hands who will ruing these types of games. In any case I never got into them because I couldn't play with other people because of my busy schedule.

Then came brief interlude with Half Life and it's MANY online game modes like Team Fortress. I got so good at online multiplayer "Action Half Life" I would ALWAYS get the number one slot for kills and points scored. Yet I eventually walked away from that too. I had a decent Internet connection in college and I played a lot. Those were the only reasons I was good at the game.

In fact MOST multiplayer games are like that. "Skill" in the game just means you have enough free time to play it alot. That's when I got more into the single player PC and console games. Looking for a good, fun experience in a game is what matters. It's supposed to be a brief BREAK from work. Not work itself.

Now most gamers are coming to the same conclusions as I did about 6 years ago. It's stupid to spend time and money on games that you can ONLY excel in if you happen to have plently of free time.

This all comes back to the original comment on that Iraq Vet story. 40 years ago people were having the same arguement. Everything changes, yet everything stays the same.

You must look toward the future and make sure that EVERYTHING in your life, INCLUDING games have some sort of real value and are not just the result of society telling you what you should or should not experience and enjoy.

...Wow...I always post the best stuff when I have had an 18 hour day working and only get 4.5 hours sleep...

Yeah so they stop carrying retro games, the staff become increasing asshole-ish then they dick around with selling back or trading in of old games.

Now Gamestop has stopped pretending. They are going to stop catering to the real gamers and concentrate on the younger crowd and people who don't play many video games...

...you know because the whole "Casual Game Player" thing is really gonna last and shit. The NES, Genesis and PC games created a whole generation of real players out of casual people. After that the market stopped caring about Casual gamers because there were none left.

Same thing is gonna happen now Gamestop. You are gonna stop catering to the majority as soon as these casual gamers loose interest or become real gamers.

And the thing about casual gamers? You only make a profit ONCE. Then they never come back.

Hardcore gamers made you Gamestop. We allowed you to make INSANSE profits.

But hey, I have hated Gamestop ever since they stopped carrying Dreamcast stuff after the takeover of EB Games. So it's not like my opinions have changed much.

This is the official announcement of the Dreamcast Summer Games for the 2007 season!

This will be an open web challenge for the first week in July. You will have to try to complete whatever challenge you want to the best of your ability in that week and email your results to me within that time period as well. Hopefully Dreamcast fans that want to compete will have at least one of the games the challenges will be based on.

Basically these challenges will be on the Dreamcast console ONLY. NO PC EMULATORS.

They will be based on certain games under certain rules...

For example :

For first of the House of the Dead 2 challenges you play a normal mode game and only chose 3 health and no continues in the options. At the screen of your death (or if you win the game -good luck with that-). You will see your total time and score. Write that down as well as where and how you got your game ended. Remember no continues. No second player. No pauses. No dual lightguns.

You must also write down your name, country, age and hardware that you used to play the game. i.e.

Caleb
25
USA
NTSC Dreamcast - no mods.
Madcatz standard lightgun.
-no VMU
-rumble pack
Killed by a "Chainsaw Zombie" in the XXXX area.
XX minutes XX seconds
xxxx Score

Please note that heavily hardware modded dreamcasts, such as a dreamcast that is overclocked, cannot be entered into competition. Custom controllers and rare controllers will be under consideration.

This challenge will reply HEAVILY on the honor system. This contest is for fun with no prizes so players should have NO REASON to lie about or make up scores. Please note you might have to rely on pictures or video of gameplay if your entry into the contest is under question. Everyone has a good idea what is possible and what is unlikely in most Dreamcast games. Don't be lame.

You may have multiple attempts (up to three) on one challenge but again the honor system IS IN PLACE. If you spend hours trying to get a better score that is considered cheating.

Players may choose as many or as few challenges as they want.

I have a number of challenges to throw out there, but please add your suggestions to the comments of this blog.

Thank you and good luck in July.

Yes I don't know how many of you read this blog but this is public service message.

You see when I was in college I was poor. I had my beloved dreamcast but pretty much nothing else. Not even a computer that was good enough to play video CDs. Not even a VCR. (Of course not a DVD player)

If I would have known what I know now I could have been doing alot better. I could have been playing video ON MY DREAMCAST!

Thats right. It's easier than you can imagine.

Remember this site:

http://www.dcevolution.net/

And this, Dream Selection Vol. 1.

With this nifty, FREE, program you can listen to .mp3s on a tracklist, play some cool games (including the most messed up version of minesweeper you will ever find...) and WATCH VIDEOS ON DREAMCAST!

Just get the .cdi file and burn it using Alcohol120 or the free program Bootdreams.

Here is an easy lesson on how to use Bootdreams.

http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=21626

Let me tell you. This little program would have saved my brain from exploding when my crap computer couldn't play the video cds that I had.

Just burn the .avi files you want to watch on a CD and swap the CD's after starting the DCDivX program. Same thing with the included .mp3 player with tracklist. Just start up the program and swap a cd burned with all the media you want.

There is also a pretty cool collection of demos and full games on the Sandman disk as well an excellent shareware version of Quake 1 with 300 frag maps. (think quake 3) In addition you can find CDIs collections of almost EVERY version of Beats of Rage, including Hatchet Ninjaz. Just look at the difference catagories on the left hand side.

Overall it's a pretty damn cool site and I wanted to let people who can't use torrent or sharing services like me know that you can still find cool downloads for your dreamcast.

On another note I found out that Memorex Lightscribe CD-Rs seem to work really well in my dreamcast. Consider it if you have a lightscribe recorder or find some disks on clearance.

Well shit man. I have tried to get pictures of the games I bought and tried to get a blog up but it has been hard as hell.