Time Machine
This is one of my “accidental” scores off of eBay. Won it for 99 cents. And let me tell you it was worth all 99 of them.
I never owned this game, but I remember playing it. I don’t recall whether it was renting it, borrowing it, or playing it at a friend’s house. One thing is certian though. I haven’t played NES Pinball for at LEAST 20 years.
I cleaned up the cartridge a bit. It was pretty obvious this cart led a tougher life than most of mine that are still in my collection. It had grease and gunk all over it. And some sticker residue from a garage sale or bargain bin somewhere. It cleaned up okay, but I definitely wouldn’t call it “Like New” as the eBay listing explicitly stated. Oh well. Not going to make a big deal over a really common game that only cost $1.00.
My NES hasn’t seen much use lately. Really who’s has? But it took a minute or two of blowing in the cart and massaging the position of the cart just right into the system. First several attempts the sound was great, but the screen was gobbly gook. Ironiclly, it brought back a lot of memories of the old NES days and all the little tricks you had to do to get a game to play right. Seems like everybody had their own method. Mine is to push the cart in only BARELY as far as you need to to push the game down. Works most of the time.
But anywho, after getting the game to work, I started playing and it’s quite to contrast to the games I’ve been playing, like Skyward Sword with the motion controls, or the 3D screen of the 3DS. This is one of the more straight foward games, even by NES standards. It is what it is. Pinball. And it plays remarkably well. There’s “Game A” which is kinda like easy mode, where the ball moves a bit slower. What you want to play is “Game B” where the ball moves a lot faster, and feels a lot more like real pinball. It’s a simple game, so there’s not much to say about the gameplay other than, it’s very polished.
I like it just because it’s so basic. Like if you took today’s games and stripped them down of all the graphics and technology, and got to the core of what made them fun, you end up with games like this. With simple ideas and polished gameplay. This game is fun to just sit and try to beat high scores. No achievements. And heck, your high scores even disappear the moment you turn off the game. But it’s games like this that just take me back to when I was 7 years old and stuff like this was brand damn new and awesome.
Definitely as close as it gets to a real life time machine.
Through the years
Here’s my gaming setup through the years. Luke has so much catching up to do!
1987ish?
This setup started around 1997 and this picture taken in 2002. Including the gaming systems, I still have a few pieces in use today.
2004 saw a significant upgrade in the sound system.
2006
2008, new TV!
2011, the most recent incarnation.
I’m Still Just a Kid
Well one of the things I was worried about was that after Luke got here, I wouldn’t have time for “the old me”. You know the geeky, obsessed nerd that I am. That’s entirely not true. If anything I’ve learned that if I’m going to sit down and do something, just make sure I’m easily interrupt-able. Running GW missions with friends probably isn’t the best idea anymore since nobody wants to stand around in Yak’s Bend waiting for me to finish changing a dirty diaper. But playing some N64 is super easy, because you can just pause it whenever.
Been playing a lot of Nintendo 64 lately.
I’ve actually been playing a lot of N64 over the past few days. I ordered a replacement thumbstick for my worn out green controller. While not exactly as advertised, it’s a very nice replacement. More like the GameCube version on an N64 controller. It was only $8, so I’ve been putting it through a Mario Kart torture test over the past two days. It works well enough, I’ve been able to tie one of my old records, and now have a mild case of Nintendo Thumb. So far it’s holding up pretty well.
I can’t wait to introduce Luke to a bunch of this stuff. Although I know that when he’s older, all the games are going to be so much cooler, that his interest in this old stuff probably won’t be that great. Though the nephews were over last weekend and had a blast playing the old N64.
I’ve spent a lot of time on eBay lately looking at cheap stuff to fill in my collection. I’ve got this hairbrained idea that I know enough about this stuff to be able to find good deals and could buy low and sell high. Not enough to make a ton of money, but enough to support my gaming habit. Haha! Andrea’s not too enthusiastic about the idea though. I guess that’s understandable.
I just see a lot of cool stuff on there. Like brand new original N64 controllers (which are regularly going for $100 a piece now! Geeze). I definitely couldn’t justify taking hard earned money to buy one, but if I had play money from selling crap on eBay might make it easier to pull the trigger. I realize most folks have a LONG list of stuff they’d rather spend a Benjamin on but that’s the stuff I get a kick out of.
So I decided to focus on what I DO have instead. Which is a pretty nice collection as it is! I stumbled on a new website, called Backloggery.com it’s similar to IGN’s old collection feature, but it helps you keep track of not only what is in your collection, but the games you’ve beaten and the ones you haven’t. It’s very retro themed, and a fun way to organize my games. So far 105 games owned, 35 unbeaten, and 35 on my wishlist.
Since I’ve been so recently entrenched in my gaming vice I decided it was time to go ahead and finally unpack a bunch of my Nintendo stuff from when we moved it. I set it up all nice and neat in the basement.
Nintendo and Friends. We're both crazy.
Ready for multi-player action, but all my friends grew up. Haha.
So I’m definitely enjoying the holiday weekend. Tomorrow I’ll be outside getting the Oldses shined up since it’s going to be another nice day. Maybe after that my Nintendo Thumb will have recovered to the point I can lay down some times again! Haha.
A Look Back: World Driver Championship
By now I have been hopelessly consumed by gaming, and specifically the N64 for almost three years. I was also full swing into the internet and considered myself “well informed” on all things gaming, and an aficionado on all things Nintendo. Yup, that’s right, I was a Nintendo fanboy in every sense of the term. I mention this because at the time (as a fan of racing games) the best racing game was Gran Turismo. Unfortunately for me Gran Turismo was exclusive to the PlayStation gaming console.
Could I have bought a PlayStation? … let me re-phrase that. Could I have afforded a PlayStation? Sure I had a part time job, I could have saved up the money in a month or two. But could I have bought a PlayStation? Resoundingly NO! As dedicated to Nintendo as I was at the time, the thought of giving Sony a single dollar was almost repulsive. My allegiance to “the Big N” was unwaivering. Even Nintendo’s slogan for the late 90′s was “Get ‘N’ or get out!” And if I couldn’t have Gran Turismo, fine, I’ll just spend my time playing stellar triple-A titles like Ocarina of Time, GoldenEye, Mario Kart… and I would be JUST fine.
However… as a fan I the racing genre I followed the devopment and release of this game probably closer than most would. It has it’s similarities to Gran Turismo: realistic physics, great graphics, detailed environments, etc. It didn’t have the licensed cars though, so what was obviously a Mustang in the game was named a “Stallion”. No sweat though. It was a driving game coming from Boss Studios. I had complete faith in the final product.
While at times my favorite developers don’t live up to expectations, Boss Studios truly came through for me with World Driver Championship. As you (probably don’t) remember, they released another favorite game of mine: Top Gear Rally. This game was every bit as fun, while still being a completely different kind of driving game.
I’ve looked forward to this re-review for a while as I loved the game so much back when it was new. I picked it up recently to discover that the game has actually aged fairly well compared to some of these titles that just are painful to look at. Fun to play and bearable to look at. Looks to be a fun game to re-experience indeed.
In all honestly the graphics are pretty darn good. Certainly pushing the limits of the N64. To up the ante even a bit further there is the normal full screen mode, but also a Hi-Res Letterbox mode that you could select. This offers a sharper picture at the expense of the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. There’s no other performance hit that I could tell so I prefer the hi-res mode.
The game has a very loose character progression, in that you win more races, move up in the ranking and get offered better jobs. For the most part you could end up driving whatever you want as you move on, but there’s a few moments in the game that if you choose to drive for a certain team, you’ll block off a path for ever driving for that team’s arch rival. It’s a nice subtle change from just moving from one car to the next faster car mindlessly.
But what makes all good driving games? Good driving! I use the term “driving game” because really it is more that than racing. The computer cars do offer a nice challenge, but for the most part they are just part of a glorified time trial. The don’t really race against you as much as they run around the track at a certain pace. Still on the tougher courses they can be breathing down your neck, or be the difference between gold or silver.
The cars felt like real cars. They felt heavy and carried some momentum, not only around corners but over hills as well. What looks like a small bend on the map can actually be a tricky corner if set over the crest of a hill. The upwards momentum of your car can kill your downforce for a moment, long enough to slide you off the track if you’re not careful. The more you play the tracks, the better you get at knowing how to react to the environment.
I’d forgotten most of these tracks in general, but as I played more and more I started to remember which corners you had to take it easy on, and which ones you could hammer on through and the cars would stick despite feeling like you’re going a bit too fast. I guess that’s one of the things that made the experience so enjoyable. You really felt like you had to push the cars to their limits to achieve the fastest times.
The game is plenty long too. I didn’t get as deep into it as I once had, but deep enough to be able to appreciate some of the “remixes” of the tracks. Every track had at least two variations. They were the same for the most part, but one alignment might take you through a forest chicane, while another version lead you through 90 degree turns through a small village. Track memorization is still key, but changes enough that you aren’t a mindless zombie after just a few hours with the game.
As realistic racers go, this was the cream of the crop on the N64. And in my opinion STILL one of the better ones today. I had no problem getting into this game again and enjoying it all over again. In fact this re-review has lead me to appreciate some of its qualities even more and hope I don’t hesitate another 5 years to pick it up and do it all again!
Morning Person
You know, for as long as I’ve been a night owl, I’m surly starting to appreciate the mornings. Here it is, Sunday 6AM and I actually set my alarm to get up this early. I let the dog out and sat on the back steps for a while, just enjoying what is bound to be the coolest air we’ll see today, and just listened to the birds and the crickets. Here on the main drag in Great Bend it just doesn’t get this quiet that often.
I noticed that all those things I swore would never happen to me as I got older just kinda happen. When I was a kid there’s no way I would have gotten up this early on purpose unless I had a very specific and necessary reason to do so. Nor would I look at the clock and think of 9:00 as “getting late”.
But we still have some youthful fun. Andrea hauled her desktop computer out to the living room yesterday and hooked it up to the HDTV to enjoy her new video card. We had to run network cords, power cords, audio/video cords all over the house to make it happen. It reminded me of the old LAN parties we used to have. Things like that I think you shouldn’t have to outgrow.
Web Nostalgia of the Day: excite.com
Current excite.com homepage.
Back when Internet Explorer and Netscape were duking it out, so were search sites like Excite, Lycos, and Altavista. I remember much debate over which search site was the best. Of course I always preferred the one that ranked my Helen Hunt website the highest at the time. Ha ha!
Search sites were truly awful back then. If you don’t believe me, head over to the current Excite.com website and search for anything you might search for today. Excite has updated their search algorithms as much as they’ve updated their homepage in the last 10 years is seems.
1999 Excite homepage from archive.org.
Of course in addition to searching, Excite was a mish-mash of all sorts of information and services. I used to have an Excite e-mail address, custom Excite homepage, and even used good old Excite Chat, also known as Virtual Places (VP).
VP was basically just a chat program that used webpages as the chat rooms. They had a bunch of specific Excite Super Chat pages with themed backgrounds for whatever your interest happened to be (though any URL on the internet could be a chatroom). And upon entering any of these rooms you were thrown into the jungle of random immaturity, heated arguments, and suggestive (or sometimes just plain explicit) chatting. I suppose the internet hasn’t changed much in that regard.
The part that makes it memorable for me though are all the little avatars folks would use. Tiny little images there were about half the size of a postage stamp that you could create and little speech bubbles would pop out of them as you chatted. You could move them around the screen. Usually to harass other users as you changed your avatar to something like “LOSER” with an arrow pointing at the avatar next to you. Then watch as they try to move away from you.
Of course Excite.com was a casualty of the “Dot Com Bust”. And once Google picked up steam, I know I for one left those old search engines behind and never looked back. But it’s interesting to look back and see how the online landscape has changed in such a short amount of time. Then we all pretty much consumed content that was created and placed in front of us. And now-a-days it’s all about user generated stuff like YouTube and Facebook. Stuff like the dancing baby and fart soundboards are relegated to e-mail forwards and internet obscurity.
But don’t forget those simpler times. When sites like Excite had EVERYTHING you’d EVER need!
The IGN Boards update…
I seriously have no one to share this with that I actually know… you know… in real life. But after being on the IGN boards for eight years… this is honestly one of the funniest things I’ve seen in MONTHS!
I know no one gets it. I wish I knew someone that did so we could laugh together. I seriously had to wipe the tears from my eyes.
Behind the Scenes: Old Junk
Here’s the “new” radio in action. I re-soldered the connections on the repaired capacitors, and cleaned up controls a little bit. Below are the results. I just love the tubes in these old radios, and even the sound of the power selector. The volume isn’t “volume”, it’s “LOUDNESS” Check it out!
Radio innards.
Well I got the new radio the other day and I figured I’d take a look inside and see if I could make any improvements. The source selector/power switch is kinda finicky and causes the right hand speaker to cut out at times. And the FM reception could be a bit better. If you’ve never seen inside of one of these old things, check this out.
Pressboard covering removed from the back.
It looks like the amplifier has been repaired at one point. It looks like whoever fixed it knew what they were doing, but didn’t repair it very well. They replaced some capacitors, but there is no labeling of wires, and the capacitors are simply taped together and then tied to the bottom with some thin wire. Because they aren’t secure, they’ve wobbled around and some of the wires are starting to break free of their connections.
Amplifier
Previous repair.
Tuner
Score of the day!
Well since I took my old radio to my office at work, people had been commenting on it. So everybody pretty much figured out I “like that kind of stuff.” Well today one of the gals up front said somebody was selling an old radio phonograph that supposedly worked and they were only asking $20. That’s all I knew about it, but I figured I’d take a look. I mean it’s not like I buy something old and cheap all the time, even if I don’t need it. Oh wait.
Well here it is. Not too bad for $20 I guess. And the basement needed better tunes that the little boombox I had.
Fold down phonograph.
The tone arm is bent, but I think it's fixable.
FM, baby. Welcome to the friggin' future!
All in all it works pretty well. The turn table does spin, but the tone arm needs fixed. The tuner works, but the volume and balance controls are a little scratchy. But it works!
Purely for nostalgia.
Well I’ve been wanting to build a nostalgia machine for a while. I don’t really have all the pieces I need, so I created a virtual install of Windows 98. (I wanted to install Windows 95, but I couldn’t find an install disc anywhere!) It’s not QUITE the same. I mean with the LCD monitor and the laser mouse and all. Nothing really is ever going to bring back the experience of chatting in ICQ or the Excite chat rooms. Or seeing “This site is best viewed in Internet Explorer 4. 600×800 resolution.” Those days are long lost, left only to my somewhat blurry memory.
The Wayback Machine has been helpful to some extent, but I wish there was a way to route all traffic through archived sites. That sounds like more work than I’m willing to put forth.
Sweet! I can get 40 free hours of AOL!
It has been fairly nostalgic though flipping through all the old built in wallpaper patterns. Enjoying the retro screen savers like 3-D maze, and 3-D pipes. If it was 3-D it was friggin’ awesome! I might have to install my copy of Unreal Tournament to really relive the experience. Software rendering FTW!
Thanks, Belinda!
Now this is cool. I always talked about having one, but never really thought I’d have a chance to buy one other than eBay. These are big, old, and quite fragile! I spotted this at Andrea’s mom’s house a few months ago and fell in love with it. It’s a 1920 Victrola. I’m still not sure what she was thinking… but she just gave it to us. It’s now definitely the oldest thing I own (except maybe the rocks from Oregon beach, hehe).
Waiting for a good table to rest on.
It's 90 years old! What do you expect?
It’s not incredibly valuable and it does need a little freshening up. The motor squeaks a bit and doesn’t quite last a whole play, the turntable is a little wobbly but after all these years, it’s pretty amazing that it still works! I recorded a sound clip HERE that you can listen if you want. If that doesn’t make you feel like you’re in a different era, nothing will!
I’m going to see if I can clean it up mechanically, but I don’t have the tools or the skills to restore the cabinet like it should be. I’d just end up doing more harm than good. But I’ll clean it up nice and it should make for quite the conversation piece. I just think it’s too darn cool.
A look back: Top Gear Overdrive
There was certainly no shortage of racing games on the Nintendo 64. While this one probably seemed just like one of many to everyone else, I had actually been anticipating it for quite some time. As a big fan of its predecessor Top Gear Rally, I was anxious for an update. In reality Top Gear Overdrive turned out to be a completely different name, sharing very little with the one that came before it. It was a mixed bag, but a decent game in its own right.
This was another of many games that I was at the store early to pick up on day one. The pre-release impressions of the game on IGN64.com were favorable. Excellent graphics, unlockables, and a much anticipated “hi-res” mode. Cars were more detailed than any other game on the N64 up to that point. They featured a “glossy” look to them. While the reflections on the paint and glass weren’t true reflections of the surroundings, they worked well enough to really make the cars seem a bit more realistic. The tracks were as well designed, even a bit more detailed than Top Gear Rally’s.
Infact at the time, the game’s only real shortcoming was its length. I remember bringing the game home and a friend of mine, Bef, came over. We sat down and had a blast with the game. But in the course of that very night we had already beaten the entire game and unlocked everything save for the “hidden” cars. It was a bit disappointing that $70 didn’t provide more than a few hours of gameplay. There wasn’t even a time trials mode to sink time into. Just rinse and repeat the entire experience to earn some hidden cars. Not my idea of “replay value”.
I have to be honest though, when I plugged this back in today, I was far from impressed. This game really highlights how far video game technology has come in the past 10 years. The sound is horrible. Music tracks are actual recordings from a band named “Grindstone”. Screaming guitars, that sort of thing. But due to the space constraints of the N64 cartridge, they were so compressed they sounded absolutely awful. You probably wouldn’t notice it through a three inch paper speaker on your TV, but through any kind of sound system, it really grates on the ears. MIDI tracks would have been a better choice, and that’s saying something. Like most of these games, the graphics take a little time to adjust to and all in all, they haven’t aged well. I had high hopes for the “High Res” mode, but to be honest. I couldn’t even tell a difference between the two.
The most annoying part of this game for me now, is the controls. The cars feel like they weigh just a scoop heavier than two bags of dog food. The slightest twitch of the control stick can send your car careening into the wall. Investing some money in “handling” serves to make the controls even more sensitive. Unfortunately as you progress through the game, the speeds become so insane, you need insane cornering ability just to get through the track. If you do happen to twitch at the wrong time, you’re likely to either go literally FLYING off the course and burst into a ball of…orange fuzz. Or just smack a wall and do the same. It’s a very frustrating task unless you’ve memorized the tracks. Which sadly, I have forgotten.
I tried to give the game a chance, but after about 45 minutes I’d had enough. Really expected to have more fun with the game, but it wasn’t in the cards. There are so many better racing games even just on the N64. At the time, all the game really had going for it was some fairly impressive eye candy. Now that I’ve been spoiled by today’s games that doesn’t leave much left to appreciate on this one.
A Look Back: Cruis’n World
Cruisin’ World really was a mixed bag for me. Against popular opinion, I was a big fan of the first game: Cruisin’ USA. Dated it was, but it was plain, simple, fun. My first and most impressionable experience with this game was in its arcade form. I remember they had a full arcade cabinet in the Dodge City mall movie theater. Any time we happened to end up there I pumped that thing full of quarters. Something about it was just too fun. Maybe it was the way the wheel jumped around and pushed back against you in the corners, or double tapping the gas pedal to do some sweet jumps.
Wouldn't mind having one of those in my basement!
My anticipation for the N64 version was long and drawn out. I enjoyed the game at the mall, but longed for my own copy I could pick up and play whenever I wanted. Putting Cruis’n World on a cartridge seemed like a no brainer to me, but business executives must have seen it differently. I couldn’t tell you how long it was, but it seemed like years from when I first sat in that hard plastic chair in the arcade, to the day I read Cruisin’ World was to be released on the N64.
Unfortunately the long wait for the game had somewhat diluted my fanaticism for the game. I’d already played it quite thoroughly. That didn’t stop me though from being at the store the day it was released to pick it up. Rather than delirious excitement, I felt more relieved that it was finally out, and I finally had it. The kind of relief you get when you loan a game to a friend and finally get it back after asking for it for months.
When I plugged this one back into the Nintendo 64 today, all the cheezy 20 second loops of music came back like it’d been a couple days since I last played. At least the music was of much better quality than Cruis’n USA in just about every way music can be quantified. The car models (which weren’t too impressive, even at the time) are reminiscent of the kinds of cars you cut out of the side of a Happy Meal box and fold together. Given the “not serious at all” attitude of the game though, they’re easily dismissed. The learning curve is very gentle. Maybe two races in, I was pulling off all the turboslides and jumps without much difficulty. I’d forgotten a lot, but it’s all so close to the surface, it doesn’t take long to discover it again. Considering the nature of the game was to be played maybe 5 minutes a day in an arcade, it’s not too surprising that there isn’t much depth here.
It seems easier to compare Cruis’n World and USA more objectively now. World is far and away a better game in just about every aspect. Better graphics, sound, and controls. But a few of the things that were definitive to the series I noticed were missing. Namely extremely low resolution scantly clad women. No bikini waving flag girls. No double D breasted small t-shirt wearing ladies. Not that those five frame animated females do anything for me, but it’s just one of those over the top cheezy touches that really completes the Cruis’n experience.
As much as my anticipation had waned over the months of waiting, I could tell by the data still saved on the cartridge, that I still put a relevant amount of time into this game. All the cars were unlocked and some reasonably impressive times were posted. I can’t imagine now spending much more than a good 30 minutes with this game…but looking at the release dates for the time, Cruisin’ World came out during a pretty good gaming drought. From Top Gear Rally in October 1997 until Zelda over a year later, there wasn’t much new worth playing. For lack of anything better to play, I must have poured a decent amount of free time into this. While it was fun to sit down and cruise the world…I don’t see myself seriously picking up this game for quite some time again.
A look back: Yoshi’s Story
This installment will be a bit different in that I’m unable to go back and play this game. Yoshi’s Story for the Nintendo 64 holds a place of distinction as the only game I’ve ever had that I brought myself to sell out of my collection. It’s not that I didn’t give the game a chance, I most certainly did. My disappointment simply left me with no attachment to the game.
By 1998 I was becoming deeply entrenched in my gaming hobby. I looked forward to my monthly Tips & Tricks magazine, and drooled over the previews and screenshots. My Nintendo promotional stuff continued to arrive in the mail. Lately all the buzz was about the new Yoshi’s Story. I soaked up every bit of information I could before the game was out. And come release day I was on my way to the store to pick up my copy.
To understand my disappointment with the game you should understand its heritage. Yoshi’s Story is a direct sequel to Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island which as implied in the title, is a direct sequel to Super Mario World itself. With roots so deep in the Mario series like that, you would expect to see all the fun and challenge you’d get from a traditional 2-D Mario game. While succeeding in being cute and artistic, it falls short of being a truly memorable experience. I should have known the instant I heard the annoying title screen music…
In all honesty I put a considerable amount of time into this game. I never beat the game, but progressed far enough to obtain, most (if not all) the different colored Yoshi’s. So many previews predicted a grand resurgence of 2-d platforming, now with the hardware muscle to make ANYTHING possible. It was actually being touted ad 2 1/2-D! I tried everything I could to force myself to like this game. It felt like an obligation to enjoy it because so much had been promised. But no matter what, it just wasn’t compelling. Nothing hooked you in and made you wonder what’s around the next corner. It was a well polished game lacking challenge and innovation. Much ado was made amongst nerds like myself about Mario creator Shiguru Miyamoto’s lack of involvement in the title.
One day I put the game on the shelf, and never picked it up again. Until a younger kid down the street came over. He was about 10 years old or so, and saw the game as he was sifting through my collection and asked if he could play it. I told him sure, and he sat down and genuinely was having a good time. He wanted to know if he could borrow it…and I said, “For $20 you can borrow it forever!” Like a good kid he ran home to ask his mom. A while later he came back with a $20 bill and that’s the last I ever saw of Yoshi’s Story.
A look back: GoldenEye 007
Much has been written and said about this one. It wasn’t just an influential game for me, for millions of people (8 million to be more precise) this game revolutionized shooting games and the multiplayer experience. For the industry, it shaped every game in the genre that would come after it. For me, it was just as…if not more significant than Mario Kart 64.
Like many others, to me this game began as a mystery. Through the same channel I’d received my Star Fox promotional VHS tape, I also got a manila folder gussied up to look like an MI6 intelligence dossier. Inside were various screenshots of the game, lists of all the weapons, and all sorts of stuff to whet the appetite. At the time most of my Bond experiences were flipping through channels and seeing sweet car chases. I liked James Bond movies, but certianly not the kind of fan people think of me as today. (more…)
Three Things
Things I want:
- Ladder
- Wii Componet Cables
- Sunshine
Things I remember:
- Kauai
- GoldenEye Fests
- Super Circuit Hotlap Thread
