Month: April 2018

In 2012 Nintendo launched the Wii U. This was Nintendo’s first full HD console, and while it was technically considered a flop it will be remembered fondly for some of the games that it brought and ideas that I brought to the market. Nintendo has been in a weird position where they’ve been releasing their game consoles out of sync with the rest of the industry. But actually if you consider the timeline the Wii U is not a half step or even a mid generation console, it’s Sony and Microsoft who are out of step with Nintendo timeline.

I didn’t want to turn this into a Wii U or Nintendo topic I want to talk about the 3DO. If you consider the three do a half step or a mid generation console it’s worth examining it as such but if you consider it as its own generation that failed to spark direct competition or fail to compete when said competition arrived, in many ways that changes the dynamic.

When it first came out or when I first learned about it I was excited for the 3DO. Not only was it going to be able to play nearly arcade perfect translations of Neo Geo arcade games, as well as other arcade games, but it was also going to bring higher-quality PC style CD-ROM games to the market then the low-grade Sega CD stuff that came before.

One of the problems that 3DO had, besides being extremely expensive, is the best games were only playable if you had an expensive upgrade. It wasn’t even something like the 32x which added more horsepower to the machine it was something as simple as just adding MPEG capabilities to play video CD movies and games that could use MPEG full motion video. You know the kinds of FMV crap that was flooding the Sega CD.

Even though most of its games looked like trash it did have a few games that drew customers to check it out. One of the games that I remember reading about in wanting heavily was Samurai shodown. Even though I had this game on the Sega Genesis I wanted a more faithful arcade Port which is what the 3DO promised. But there was a game that was original to the system, it didn’t stay exclusive, that I really wanted called Gex. I would eventually get to experience Gex on the superior Sony PlayStation, but I never stopped wanting a 3DO back then.

Now I will argue vehemently that the Sega CD is more than just a standalone console that should be judged as a failure. I always contended that the Sega CD was in fact a very successful accessory to the Sega Genesis, which itself was a very successful system. So for me when I look at the Sega CD software Library I see a lot of games a lot of people despise but I still think have some merits including the FMV games. Except the Sega CD games are grainy, low resolution and unplayable. The 3DO versions were supposed to be superior. Of course many of these games were also available on PC in the form of PC CD-ROM but that’s another story we’re talking home consoles here.

As far as the hardware goes things get complicated because the system was not manufactured by a single company it was licensed by the 3DO company to other manufacturers. As far as I can tell there were two models that were released in the United States one that was manufactured by Panasonic and one that was manufactured by Goldstar and then a revised Panasonic model later on. There was a third model by Sanyo released in Japan. Because the system was extremely expensive and had very few compelling games it is considered a commercial failure does it didn’t sell well and is to this day hard to find. In fact in my entire life I’ve only seen 3 different 3DO machines in person.

One of the biggest complaints is the controller port the system has a weird situation where it can only hook up one controller at a time and then you daisy chain the controllers together. This design flaw would be bad enough if it wasn’t complicated by the fact that it was a controller modeled after the Sega 3 button controller, the inferior pad that most Super Nintendo fanboys will diss the Sega for having. So it’s understandable that gamers would snub the system and even die-hard collectors ignore it.

The high price tag coupled with lack of compelling software and a terrible controller plus a high failure rate makes the 3DO an oddity that is more or less better to be forgotten.

When you take into consideration that all of the games on the system that are worth playing can be found elsewhere in superior forms, there’s little incentive for a collector to consider the machine a viable purchase even today.

The question I wanted to ask was does it deserve to be forgotten or should at least be remembered for what it did, good or bad. A part of me who enjoys collecting and studying the history of video games and computers thinks that the three do definitely deserves to be remembered but not as a games console more as a multimedia device whose ties to the failed video CD format make it more interesting than any of its video game ties.

For those of us who vaguely remember reading about the 3DO in our gaming magazines, it will forever be remembered as this great mystery that we only saw pictures of or read articles about. For me once I grew up and did the research I learned that the 3DO was way more hassle than it was worth it had little value outside of a footnote in gaming and multimedia home video history.

However, at the end of the day I still believe that the 3DO is more of a game system then the failed CD-I ever was. I guess at the end of the day the only thing that remembered is its ties to the VD-I and VCD. I’ll save the video CD format discussions for another topic another day.

I don’t generally like to discount somebody’s childhood memories so if you had a 3DO when you were a kid I’m sure you remember it more fondly than anyone else will. I still think that at the end of the day the system is really not worth remembering fondly. And I still maintain that only die-hard collectors and those who had one when they were a kid should bother collecting them today. I tried to give the system the benefit of the doubt. But the more I look at it, and the more I think about it, the more I realize I’ve probably given it way more thought than it deserves, so I guess there is that.

In the process of moving across country from Texas to Idaho I made the mistake of leaving town a little too early. I hadn’t properly prepared for the move, as a result I ended up leaving many items behind I now regret leaving behind. I tried, unsuccessfully for two weeks to get my sister to go over and help me gather up some of the stuff I left, but she ended up having kids, work, and life issues get in the way. She was finally able to get over there and as it turns out, she wasn’t able to save as many of the items I had wanted.

What I ended up losing was all of my single issue comics. All she was able to save was a few of the graphic novels and trade paperbacks. I don’t even know if she was able to save all of them.  basically told her save the Transformers, X-Men and Batman stuff, I just hope she is smart enough to discern which ones are included in those families that might not have the exact titles in them. Only time will tell what was actually saved and what was lost.

This isn’t the first time I left a ton of important things behind in order to move across country. Typically, however, the way it works is either I end up selling the excess stuff or I arrange for someone to store things for me in the short term. I wasn’t able to do that this time due to the nature of the situation coming up rather abruptly.

In the next week or so when my box arrives I will be able to assess what was saved and will write a new updated article cataloging what turns up. It’s kind of disheartening a little since I was just barely getting back into rebuilding my comic book collection after having sold them all off the last two times. At the very least I made sure to bring my X-Men Age of Apocalypse hardback trade just in case nothing else got saved. I hope she at least gets me the most important stuff if nothing else. I knew my comics were going to be the last thing I packed and as such I figured they wouldn’t be making the trip with me in my car. I had to prioritize and this time I put my foot down and made sure I brought all of my DVD’s and the few video games I knew I couldn’t live without.

I don’t even want to think about how many total comics I am going to end up losing over this deal. I am also not going to even begin collecting again for quite some time. Every time I end up moving I leave stuff behind. Each move leaves me with less stuff than before. I still haven’t even begun to replace my Transformers action figures so I know the comic books are a long ways down the priority list.

The worst thing about it all is knowing how many great issues and titles I will have to get over not having. I guess the silver lining is I can prioritize my collecting when I do get back into it. maybe this next time I will be more focused and just get the actual stuff I like. I guess at the end of the day it’s not so bad as a good chunk of them were just Free Comic Book Day giveaways. Oh well life goes on.

Retro video games have become big business these days. With products like all these mini consoles such as the NES and SNES classics, the Atari Flash Backs and the various collections of retro games, it’s become clear that a large segment of the gaming consumer base has an affinity for products that remind them of the glory days. But have you ever noticed that most of these retro products are either made by Nintendo, or done in the same style as Nintendo products? Even the wave of “retro inspired” games many come in the form of pixelated 8-bit graphics. This desire to recapture our youth has expanded beyond the generation who grew up with Nintendo. More and more young people who never owned an NES are getting into “retro” collecting or retro gaming.

Okay so the question is does Nintendo have a monopoly on retro? I don’t mean they are the only company making products that fall under the retro umbrella, rather my observation is their products, new and old, are the central focus of all things retro related. I never considered playing big box PC games or classic computer games as retro gaming. Part of this is PC’s are inherently backwards compatible by their natures. This is coupled with the fact the majority of the well known PC games retro gamers might collect are typically re-released on modern consoles in an near endless manner anyways.

A few years ago I purchased a PS4 because, for me, the original PS1 was starting to get nostalgic and I was really missing those old franchises. The fact FF7 HD was promised early in its life was a major contributing factor. But despite feeling nostalgia for the Playstation brand, I never considered it retro. For me, maybe I am missing the mark, but I even consider new or modern Nintendo games are retro games. Even thought it just released a few weeks ago, Kirby Star Allies could easily fit right in with my Kirby Super Star on SNES. Aside from the HD graphics and the modern look, it really doesn’t feel like a modern AAA title at all. In fact in all honesty, I rarely think any Nintendo game falls into that camp. I am not one of those who think of this as a bad thing, for me part of the appeal for Nintendo is how they aren’t Sony and how they don’t change with the times. Even if you pick up a new console with a nee fangled controller scheme, at the end of the day the games still always feel like the same old classic Nintendo games I have grown to love.

Looking back I can honestly say I don’t get this vibe with Playstation or even PC games. One of the reasons I diverged from the Playstation and stuck with GameCube instead of PS2 is because the PS2 felt so different from PS1, whereas Nintendo GameCube felt like a new and improved N64. When I looked back at the Wii I overcame my dislike of motion controls and developed a strong affinity for the platform based on all of the retro goodness it brought to the world.

I don’t even get excited for “modern AAA” games coming to the Nintendo Switch. Part of  that is I own both a gaming PC and a PS4 already, but also, the appeal of a Nintendo console is the Nintendo style games. My question remains then, do Nintendo games automatically qualify as retro games by default? If so, does that inherently give them an unabridged monopoly on the genre?

Nearly 20 years ago I started getting back into collecting action figures. What got me back into it was a combination of the Robots in Disguise Transformers toy line and the Star Wars Prequels toys getting released. I mostly started buying new toys in those two lines while also going back to retro G1 and G2 Transformers.

One of the things I told myself to justify collecting toys was layers of lies. For the G1 Transformers I convinced myself they were “cool” because they were made with metal parts. I also thought they were acceptable because they turned into semi-realistic classic cars. I even would use the line, these will be worth even more money in the future.

However, at the end of the day I really just wanted to own the toys for the very childish purpose of actually playing with them. I know, if you collect action figures, or other toys, the accepted norm is to keep them sealed or at the very least displayed on a shelf as “collectibles” but if you actually enjoy using them as intended suddenly you become extra weird.

This is where I got to thinking, what if you are that weird? I mean it’s easy to just make the case that anyone who collects toys or action figures already has some sort of problem to begin with. I don’t know if I accept the notion it’s automatically OCD, if kind of sounds like an excuse when people blame their “OCD” on something when most of them in reality don’t actually have clinical OCD. Oh well, that’s a story for another day.

I guess I just wonder if a person has to make all of these excuses to enjoy pursuing a particular hobby, does it mean there is something wrong with the way that person feels about their hobby? Sometimes, I wonder if it really just means there is something with the hobby itself. I am not sure if that line of thinking is particularly productive. Then again, who am I to determine what is healthy behavior when I sit here typing away on a blog talking about whether or not I want to collect Transformers toys as a hobby or just for the fun of transforming them?

I guess, for me personally, the reason I always had a problem with buying, and keeping, sealed collectibles of any kind, is it limits your actual enjoyment of the product. As an example in the interest of hoping something would gain value if I kept it sealed instead of just enjoying it as intended, I still to this day have an unopened tin of flavorless mint candies in one of those NES shaped collectible tins. I will never be able to get to a point where I trust the candies contained within to open and eat it them, so they remain sealed until the end of time.

Back when I first got back into collecting Star Wars figures I was beginning with a combination of the then-current Star Wars prequels as well as picking up the various Power of the Force and other lines featuring classic figures. Even at that time I was still opening them up. I told myself I could justify it by keeping them on the shelf being properly displayed. This never worked, once opened and “played with” they didn’t just lose their resale value, the reality was I always lost the little accessories that came with them. At even tried keeping them in plastic baggies at one time, but even that proved to be too cumbersome when the reality was I preferred tossing them into a shoe box where it would be easier to just grab the figures I wanted at that moment.

All of this meant I eventually ended up with a bunch of loose, incomplete and well worn figures with absolutely zero resale value. Thus, I either ended up donating them to thrift stores, or giving them away to my sisters’ various kids at different points in time for different reasons, usually as birthday or Christmas presents when I was too broke to get them something new. In the end I learned that I was not a toy collectible at all, not even a little bit. Really I was just a big kid at heart who never wanted to give up the things from his childhood. Whichever method you prefer just remember the whole point of any hobby is to get personal fulfillment, not as some sort of misguided investment.

I know it’s been out for a few months and I just got around to watching it last night. Full disclosure, I haven’t seen the second Thor movie yet.

I am starting to think that either I have aged out of the Marvel super hero movies, or I was never that into them in the first place. I loved the first Thor movie as with most of the solo Marvel movies. In fact of all the Marvel movies I have seen the only two I didn’t care for were the first Punisher movie from the last go round and Daredevil. I know those aren’t Marvel Studios movies but I am talking any movie featuring Marvel Comics characters. So how did I find myself watching Thor 3 and not enjoying the movie?

I felt the movies have not gotten to a point where they are all basically just mini-Avengers films now instead of stand-alone superhero pictures. This has become a bit of a chore trying to keep up with all of the movies, but even beyond that it’s starting to introduce unnecessary clutter into the film. I get these are Marvel Cinematic Universe films, but I kind of miss the days when you could watch a solo movie and the only connection to the other films were throw away references or end-credit scenes. Now it’s gotten to the point where if you miss one or two you could go into a stand alone sequel and be totally lost. I am not even sure if it is entirely possible to just watch the three Thor movies as JUST Thor movies. I haven’t seen Thor 2 but I can already tell if you missed Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, Doctor Strange and Civil War, among who knows how many others, you could go into this movie totally lost.

How about the movie by itself then? Screw it, I honestly cannot take this movie on its own, there was just too much going on that I know I missed by not watching certain other movies. I know who Doctor Strange is, sort of, from the comic books, but I am getting older I haven’t ready any comics since I was much younger, so I shouldn’t have to watch a throw away side movie in this grand shared universe just to make sense of the third movie in what should have been a stand alone series with just connections to the larger Avengers movies. Okay, so now it’s gotten to the point where you can’t just keep up with the main line you have to follow all the side movies. I remember the days when reading those epic cross overs that it would be cumbersome trying to track down all the different issues from the off books that weren’t in my regular reading list. X-Men were among the worst when it came to cross overs. For all the love the Marvel Movies get, I prefer how the X-Men films do it where each movie does loosely references each other but could each stand alone as they often ignore one another.

Okay enough rambling now what did I actually think of the movie? I guess if I had seen these other films it wouldn’t feel overwhelming because there were just a lot of things going on that didn’t make sense within the context of this individual film. That in itself made it harder for me to enjoy the film. Yes, the action was good, the characters were true to their previous portrayals and the over all plot was largely convoluted to the point where it felt like all they were doing was using this as either a filler movie to get to the next chapter of The Avengers or just using it as a cash in to keep the wheels going.

As far as this film being a commercial for the movies I haven’t seen goes, yeah well it would be easier if there wasn’t one of these films coming out a month for 12 months out of the year.

Gaming on a laptop has always been one of those iffy tasks that doesn’t always go as planned. The biggest deal to over come is not having a strong enough video card, fast enough CPU or enough RAM as a desktop gaming computer.Another issue that often arises when gaming on a laptop is a lack of USB ports.

Of course, sometimes a gamer has little to no choice. As of right now the PS4 is my dedicated gaming rig. Unfortunately I haven’t landed on my feet following my move across country so I am stuck using my laptop. Sure, I do have a Nintendo Switch but even in portable mode, it requires being docked for charging and I haven’t had a chance to dig out the dock just yet. That leaves me with two choices, gaming on my phone or gaming on my laptop. (Yeah realistically not gaming at all is not an option).

The first thing I decided to do was dig out some of my USB gaming pads to see which emulators I would be able to run. I realized that having moved across the country leaving so many of my gaming items in the heat of my car, I hadn’t considered the possibility of any of them becoming damaged.

I have long been accustomed to playing my Sega Genesis roms using my USB SNES controllers. Okay well truth be told they are real SNES controllers I hook up using a USB adapter. Also, remember I still purchase all of these ROMS via the eshop on my Wii and Wii U so this is just what I consider an emergency back up when I don’t have any other option.

Now what happened is the reversal. For the first time I wasn’t able to locate my SNES controllers so I ended up having to use Sega Genesis 6-button pads for playing SNES games. The issue with this is, it’s missing a button so mapping the controls has to be done on a game by game basis. In the end, it became too much of a frustration to even bother so I called it quits. I also dug out my PS3 controller and my N64 USB controller but those didn’t go over well either. The N64 controller didn’t work out so well because the D-pad wasn’t responsive. I wasn’t sure how to get the PS3 controller working with my laptop so I might have to try again some other time.

Not too long ago I watched an episode of the sitcom, The  Big Bang Theory, where Sheldon was playing some N64 emulator using his laptop. He was having a less than ideal experience during the episode. Now truthfully he was trying to make a point by using the keyboard as the primary controller. I was never able to get any enjoyment out of playing roms using the keyboard, heck I don’t even play PC games that are meant to be played with a keyboard, if I can’t use a joystick or game pad I don’t even bother.

My first indication there was going to be an issue as when I hooked up my very expensive arcade stick. I couldn’t get the emulator to recognize any of the inputs. This was depressing but predictable considering how I had it tossed in the trunk. I knew there was a risk it wouldn’t work but I held out hope, in my experience most controllers tend to be a lot more durable people often assume anyways. Once I realized it wasn’t working I switched over to the Sega Genesis 6-button pad. The first one I tried, the Pro Pad 6, didn’t work. It let me record the inputs in the INI file but whenever I loaded up the emulator, for  some reason it lost the inputs or the controller just went dead, I couldn’t figure it out.

Finally I was able to get the standard 6-button pad to work so I mapped the keys, booted up Super Mario World and died at the first jump, three lives in a row. It was frustrating because the layout of the Sega pad just wasn’t compatible with the SNES layout, my reflexes weren’t able to adjust. I then had to spend the next few minutes playing around with custom button mapping configurations until I found one that was comfortable enough for me to be able to play the game. Now, it was at this time I realized I was going to have to do with with each and every game I played. I figured as much, playing Genesis games with an SNES pad always required creative button mapping, hence the reason why I have the Sega pads and the USB adapter to make use of them in the first place. In my opinion if you are going to use emulators in place of real hardware, for whatever reason, at the very least try to use authentic controllers with USB adapters to augment the experience.

In the end the experience wasn’t worth the time and effort wasted trying to re-play a  nearly 30-year-old game I have played countless times. I guess it might be in my best interest to find the Switch dock and get that thing charged up. Either that or see if I can get fresh batteries in one of my Game Boy units. Ah, the perils of being a gamer without access to his gaming consoles. Welcome to 2018.

Hometown is kind of a strange term for me. I was one of those people who comes from a family that ended up moving around quite a bit when we were growing up. The concept of a hometown is truly foreign to me, to be honest. The closet we ever came to having a place we could call home was this town in Kansas. We didn’t even live there long enough to call it our hometown, we just lived around there enough it was the closet we had. That changed when we moved to Nevada.

I have mixed feelings about moving away from a town I despised, going to college, starting a career and then returning years later. On the on hand, it’s been nice rubbing my success into the noses of those still here living their lives, on the other hand, it’s been kind of miserable coming back. Not to mention, I was mostly kidding about the noses thing. Honestly really it’s more like just pointing out to those who either never believed I would amount to anything, that I did, or showing those who always believed in me they were right to do so.

The hardest part was leaving behind what was the best job I have ever had. Knowing that I came back with the hope of getting into a better job, the sinking feelings in the pit of my stomach reminds me the chance I made a terrible mistake. Still, there is something to leaving a place as a young adult and returning an adult. The most difficult part has been discovering how my of my former friends have left. This is equally frightening for me, being here mostly alone, but also comforting knowing they had the good sense to move on and stay away.

Fortunately for me, this is only temporary. I only moved here while I am looking for a job in the city nearby where I want to work. I didn’t just up and quite my job as I had done in the past. I have already been told that basically I am the ideal candidate and they said they have multiple openings I would be qualified for. Because the position is in the media business, I understand the process it takes getting hired on. As of right now I can at least take small comfort in knowing two local papers have agreed to afford me the opportunity to ell them stories as a freelancer in the interim. It keeps me working in the field while I await the job I moved here for to get through the red tape it takes to hire someone in our business. Between background checks, credit checks, calling references, pouring through writing samples, videos, etc., it can take a while.

Remaining optimistic in the face of being unemployed in a town I left behind has been nothing but a challenge. At the end of the day, things don’t always go as planned. All things considered, I really can’t complain too much, after all I did get to do a music video with a world-famous professional wrestler recently. Sometimes you just have to balance optimism with realism, something I think every journalist has to learn at some point in their career.

This past Friday was April 20, known in some circles as 4-20 or Four-Twenty. It’s not like it’s a true special day or anything but for Nintendo fans this year it’s going to be known as Nintendo Labo Day.

A couple of months ago Nintendo revealed their latest experiment, Labo, a series of new “toys” that are basically do-it-yourself crafts, made entirely out of cardboard. Right around the time this new product was unveiled, many Nintendo fans began cracking jokes immediately about the new venture. I even made a video that included my own lame joke.

Now that Nintendo Lab day has arrived the internet is crawling with a whole new assortment of videos reviewing the products. I didn’t want to get into the actual product line itself or even discuss the reviews. Instead I just wanted to contemplate the deeper meaning behind it’s existence and what it means for the future of Nintendo.

It’s not much of a secret to most Nintendo fans that the company started out as a maker of playing cards. What might be lesser known is Nintendo previously created card board toys back in the 1970’s. Even I didn’t know that but I did my share of research once Labo was announced. For me, however, I actually connected it back to the days of the Nintendo GameCube. During that period Nintendo had a product on the market known as the e-reader. This item combined trading cards with the Nintendo GameCube and Game Boy Advance. This was the time when Nintendo really began working towards combining their home console and handheld markets. The e-reader worked with the GBA and the GC using GBA connectivity. Mostly this was done via the Game Boy Player.

What does any of this have to do with Nintendo Labo? If you take a look at Nintendo’s product cycles they tend to repeat themselves. There are certain patterns a person can see to get ideas into the insight of the future products Nintendo might be considering. One of the ways you can do this is look at their toys from pre-NES/Famicom lines. To this day Nintendo has made a concerted effort to create modern, digital versions of many of their previous entertainment products.

When the GameCube was announced Nintendo was in a low point where Sony was dominating them. The company responded by doubling down development of their more profitable hand held division, relying heavily on their lucrative joint-venture with The Pokemon Company. For all of their talk about keeping their video game consoles limited to playing games only, Nintendo released some videos on the GBA.

Around this time Nintendo began making strides into combining their two units. The connectivity was one product that was obvious. Eventually they continued combining the products until the Switch. While the Wii was a curve ball it also wasn’t entirely out of left field if you knew where to look. For starters, Nintendo invested heavily in VR in the 1990’s, they were the ONLY major video game company from the time to actually bring a VR product to market. If you look at the design of the Project Reality, it was clear they were contemplating making it a VR based system. Once it was obvious the technology wasn’t right yet, with the failure of he Virtual Boy, Nintendo distanced themselves from VR. However, they continued to make strides in making games more interactive and immersive. One thing they did was use features from the VB controller into the design of the GameCube controller. This was followed by the company re-introducing motion controls with the Wii, a control scheme they have incorporated into every home console they have brought to market since.

Again what does this have to do with Labo? If you think about it, Nintendo continues making strides into trying to make video games continually more immersive and interactive. What this leads me to believe is that combined with the continued success of the Switch and the strides Sony is making in VR and with the rise of Augmented Reality, I see Nintendo Labo as Nintendo’s next step towards realizing a truly interactive VR/AR hybrid that will make the company’s products even more unique. I can’t begin to imagine how this will play out, I do think it’s a hint at where they will be going next. Based on the time line, it makes me assume we won’t see the realization of this future tech they are clearly working on behind the scenes, until after the next generation. We saw them using cardboard (e-reader) with the GameCube, itself an extension of Virtual Boy, which was before the N64. Now we are starting to see the return to them using this technology to interact with a product that combines touch, portability, card board, motion controls and VR/AR concepts all in one. The reason Labo even works in the first place is their new HD Rumble and 3D sensors that are built into the Joy-Cons.

What we know from Nintendo’s history is they rarely abandon old tech, they just find new ways to adapt it to their next product line. I am anticipating the console that follows the Switch’s successor will probably incorporate all of the things we have seen attempted in the last few years. Again, I won’t try to predict what Nintendo will do, but I can safely assume the features we are seeing with Joy-Cons, Switch and Labo are here to stay, in one way or another.