Weekend Play List 9/19/22
StoneColdSpider Sep 18, 2022
Hello everyone...... First I want to say I hope im not stepping on itscalledreality toes....... I just had a lot to say and was really looking forward to this weeks thread........ I also hope that itscalledreality finally got some good luck and is just busy moving into a new appartment and that he is OK...... Im sure we all send him our best wishes.......

It did feel wrong putting in the American date format in the thread title.......

Alright now on with the post.........

G'Day everyone........ Its another misserable Monday here....... This past week has been cold, windy and raining nearly every day........ I think Spring has decided to social distance again this year....... And if your wondering how cold it is........ My dog stole my balnkets!!!!

Had the blankets over my legs while in the office to keep warm....... Took them off to go toilet....... And when I came back the dog had stolen my blankets..... Thats how cold it has been...... Even the fluffy dog is cold!

Good thing with the rain is that I have been able to stay home and watch the NFL....... I should have gone for a walk in the rain tho....... As I sat here and watched my Denver Broncos completley Amber Heard the bed live on Monday Night Football......... I have a feeling it might be another very long season...... Thankfully I can always make them win on Tecmo Super Bowl 2023........

In Aussie sport........ My Parramatta Eels are 1 win away from the NRL (National Rugby League) Grand Final after crushing the Canberra Raiders 40-4 in the 2nd week of the NRL Finals....... Its the first time since 2009 Parramatta has made it to week 3 of the NRL Finals........ They will play the North Queensland Cowboys this Friday night with the winner going to the Grand Final......

In other news my weight loss has been going well....... So well in fact that I was asked out by the cute girl at the chemist who comes out and pats Maggie everyday when we walk past........ I had to respectfully decline tho.... When I asked her if she had kids or wanted to have kids in the future she replied that she loves kids and doesnt have any yet but wants to have 4 or 5 fo them....... As someone who doesnt like kids and never wants to have them I saw more red flags than at a Chinese parade....... And declined the invitation to a date informing her that I dont want kids....... Better to walk away now then string her along for a couple of years and have it all end in tears.......

That was the only day I was able to walk the dog this past week....... I spent the rest of the time inside hibernating like a bear........ Hmmmmm a Spider-Bear....... Now thats a scary thought......

Since I dont want to get a cold cause people are still scared and treat you like a leper if you so much as sniff....... I was not able to get any work done on my car....... Not that its anything major....... I just want to replace the wiper motor since the original one is starting lose a bit of oomph...... I have a spare I took off another car at the wreckers a few years ago ready to go in........ and while I am in that area I also want to get some lube on the fan motor bushings since the fan is starting to get a bit noisy....... And with Summer not far away..... Apparently...... I will probably be using the fan quite a bit.......

I also watched the Super Bomberman R 2 reveal stream from the Tokyo Game Show......... I can confirm it was a show.......... Super Bomberman R 2 was played........ And none of it was in English so I have no idea what was going on....... But im sure Pengling has a 5 page essay written out about the show.......

On the game playing front it was the mostly the usual suspects on RetroArch.......

The games I completed this past week were........

Console

Contra Force (1992 Konami) - Nintendo Entertainment System - Run and gun
Castlevania: Bloodlines (1994 Konami) - Sega Mega Drive - Platformer
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (1992 Nintendo) - Nintendo Game Boy - Platformer
Rambo: First Blood Part II (1986 Sega) - Sega Master System - Run and Gun
Alisia Dragoon (1992 Sega) - Sega Mega Drive - Platformer


Arcade

Metal Slug - Super Vehicle-001 (1996 SNK) - Run and gun - Neo Geo
Nitro Ball (1992 Data East) - Arena Shooter
DJ Boy (1989 Kaneko) - Beat 'em up
Mega Man: The Power Battle (1995 Capcom) - Arcade (Boss Rush)
Violent Storm (1993 Konami) - Beat 'em up


I also played

NFL Blitz (1998 Midway) - Nintendo 64 - Sports (Football)
Tecmo Super Bowl 2023 (2022 TecmoBowl.org) - Nintendo Entertainment System - Sports (Football)

The two best games I played this past week were............ Castlevania: Bloodlines (1994 Konami)......... Im gonna get a lot of hate for this......... But this is my favourite Castlevania game I have played so far....... The animations are so smooth......... The game is soooooo much........ The controlls feel sooooooooo smooth......... Makes the other Castlevania games feel so stiff...... The music is great as well as per usual from Konami....... Its a fantastic game and I much prefered it over the other games........
The other was............ Metal Slug - Super Vehicle-001 (1996 SNK)......... The first Metal Slug game and also my favourite........ Its a fantastic run and gun and is always a blast to load up and play through...... The graphics still amaze me even after all these years........ And the music is still wonderfull...... The first level music is just so nostalgic!.....

The two worst games I play this past week were........ And in an easy first place one of the worst games I have ever played is....... Contra Force (1992 Konami) And what a massive piece of shit it is....... After playing that crap I looked it up and its not even a Contra game....... Its another game called Arc Hound that was meant to be released in Japan but that got cancelled and instead of wasting the money....... Konami just slapped the Contra name on it and shipped it to the US........The gameplay is soooooooooo bad........ I changed my NES core in RetroArch earlier that day....... And the slowdown was so bad that I thought the new core was broken........ I went and look on youtube and nope...... The slowdown is there on real hardware....... ONE SINGLE ENEMY causes slowdown......... Its insane....... So much slowdown and sprite flicker........ They never even came close to optimizing that game...... It was such a bad experiance...... That straight away after I finished playing that piece of shit....... I loaded up the arcade version of Metal Slug just to play a good Run and gun game...... Police need to start forcing suspects to play Contra Force unless they get a confession........ I would confess to anything just to not play that game again.........
The other one was................. DJ Boy (1989 Kaneko)......... Not a terrible like Contra Force......... But the stiff controls and lack of any ending or any sembelence of story telling was really jarring........ When you fight the final boss you dont even know its the final boss........ Its just two fat black women who have a fart as one of their attacks....... Yes I did just stay that....... No I did not make it up....... And when you beat them it just rolls credits.......

A quick shoutout to Rambo: First Blood Part II (1986 Sega)........ This is the first time I have ever played a Sega Master System game........ And its not a bad one...... Its a top-down run and gun....... But its plays much better than Ikari Warriors on the NES........

Since the weather has been so bad here I have had a lot of spare time....... So I decided to run a little experiment....... I could have just gone on YouTube and watched 100 different videos about this subject...... But what is the fun of that???........ I wanted to comapre all the main versions of NBA Jam Tournament Edition (Minus the hand held versions)......... And in doing so I played my very first Atari Jaguar game....... I had never played an Atari Jaguar game before this.......

This also ended up being a bit of a failure as the 32X core in RetroArch doesnt like NBA Jam Tournament Edition...... It has major frame rate issues which is mentioned on the RetroArch website...... I gave it a go anyway and yeah its just to broken to be enjoyable.......

The versions I played (Or attempted to play atleast) were......

NBA Jam: Tournament Edition (1994 Midway) - Arcade - Sports (Baskbetball)
NBA Jam Tournament Edition (1995 Acclaim) - Atari Jaguar - Sports (Basketball)
NBA Jam Tournament Edition (1995 Acclaim) - Sega 32X - Sports (Basketball)
NBA Jam Tournament Edition (1995 Acclaim) - Sega Mega Drive - Sports (Basketball)
NBA Jam Tournament Edition (1995 Acclaim) - Sega Saturn - Sports (Basketball)
NBA Jam Tournament Edition (1995 Acclaim) - Sony Playstation - Sports (Basketball)
NBA Jam Tournament Edition (1995 Acclaim) - Super Nintendo Entertainment System - Sports (Basketball)

First they are all really damn good games....... I could easily play any of them and have a good time...... Talking only about the console versions....... If you care about graphics then the PlayStation version I found to be the best....... The colours pop more in that game with the Saturn having the same slightly dull look as the Mega Drive........ But the loading times....... Ugh........ Loadng times also kill the Saturn for me......

The Atari Jaguar had the weirdest music of the lot....... Very very weird choice of music....... I dont know what High Voltage was thinking when they did the music.......

As weird as the music is at least it has music during gameplay unlike the SNES version...... Which really just makes the gameplay seem slow and lifeless..... Another really odd choice.......

My favourite console edition tho is still the Mega Drive edition....... Its great fun..... Fast...... Good music........ No loading........ Sure it doesnt look as nice of the PlayStation/Saturn it also doesnt have all the loading times........ I think if the 32X version worked properly it would have been my favourite as that has much better graphics and all the other pluses of the Mega Drive version...... But alas.........

Of course the best version of all is the Arcade........ Its got the high quality voice and music......... better graphics and no loading times........ Only thing is that its an arcade game so its really hard so I need to git gud........ which I very much am not right now.......

But I thought that was a fun little experiment to run during a cold windy raining week being stuck at home........ While the dog steals my blankets.......... OHHHHHHH BOOM SHAKALAKA!!!!!!

As for this week in gaming..... On the consoles I will be continuing to kill Dracula this time in Castlevania: Dracula X (1995 Konami) - Super Nintendo Entertainment System - Platformer......... The penultimate stop on the Mario Train is next with Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (1995 Nintendo) - Super Nintendo Entertainment System - Platformer............ And I will be going back to the shooting range and trying out Operation C (1991 Konami) - Nintendo Game Boy - Run and gun.......

On the arcade front........ I think I will continue with the Metal Slug series and play Metal Slug 2 - Super Vehicle-001/II (1998 SNK) - Run and gun........ I also plan on playing Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters (1996 Capcom) - Arcade (Boss Rush)....... And if I get time I might even play the sequel to DJ Boy (1989 Kaneko) which is B.Rap Boys (1992 Kaneko) - Beat 'em up.........

On with the non gaming stuff...... I plan to do the work to my car I mentioned above if the weather improves..... Also plan on taking the dog on more walks....... And I will keep pounding that treadmill..... Seems to be working really well.....

I hope you all have a good week and that you all play awesome games.......

And itscalledreality your more than welcome to take back the reins next weekend........

Until next time.......... In 1932........ Sir George Pearce, Major G. P. W. Meredith and the Royal Australian Artillery lost a war against 20,000 Emus...... Dubbed the Great Emu War.......
Pengling Sep 18, 2022
Quoting: StoneColdSpiderHello everyone...... First I want to say I hope im not stepping on itscalledreality toes....... I just had a lot to say and was really looking forward to this weeks thread........ I also hope that itscalledreality finally got some good luck and is just busy moving into a new appartment and that he is OK...... Im sure we all send him our best wishes.......
Yes! I hope that all's well over there and that your apartment-hunting has finally taken a turn for the better, itscalledreality!

Thanks for making a surrogate thread, Spider.

Quoting: StoneColdSpiderG'Day everyone........ Its another misserable Monday here....... This past week has been cold, windy and raining nearly every day........ I think Spring has decided to social distance again this year....... And if your wondering how cold it is........ My dog stole my balnkets!!!!

Had the blankets over my legs while in the office to keep warm....... Took them off to go toilet....... And when I came back the dog had stolen my blankets..... Thats how cold it has been...... Even the fluffy dog is cold!
AWW!

Quoting: StoneColdSpiderI also watched the Super Bomberman R 2 reveal stream from the Tokyo Game Show......... I can confirm it was a show.......... Super Bomberman R 2 was played........ And none of it was in English so I have no idea what was going on....... But im sure Pengling has a 5 page essay written out about the show.......
Haha, c'mon, I'm not that bad!

Anyway, yes, there was a livestream showcase for the upcoming Super Bomberman R 2 early on September 17th, throughout which Spider joined me for viewing + chat - it was great fun to watch and we had a good laugh with it! It was mainly a showcase of the multi-player content, including a new mode that's debuting in this game. I only know a very teeny-tiny bit of Japanese, but that plus context cues were enough to infer what was going on.

We couldn't help but notice that Konami appeared to be using the Steam version of the game for the showcase and for the screenshots in the promotional slides that were shown after it was over (the players were using PlayStation-style controllers with Xbox-style buttons, and all hardware was kept out of sight barring some comically-oversized webcams that were being used as face-cams for the players, and the promo-slides showed keyboard glyphs instead of gamepad ones, so it was all obviously done on PCs and it looked fantastic). Per tradition, I would have expected a big Japanese studio to have gone with one of the big Japanese consoles for an event like this (in this case, the Nintendo Switch or Sony PlayStation 5), rather than a foreign platform like Steam. It seems quite unusual that they didn't.

If this means that the "lead" version of the game is perhaps the Steam one (in my experience the lead version is typically what gets used for trade-shows, public events, and promotional materials, so there is a chance of this), then I'm now feeling more hopeful about day-one Steam Deck/Linux support when the game is released next year. Here's hoping! This would definitely only be via Proton (indeed, Spider let me know that the game's now been listed on Steam and the page only mentions a Windows version), but I wouldn't ask for more than that from a company located in Japan at this time, since Linux uptake in Japan apparently isn't super-high, unfortunately. Still, hopefully Valve is offering some support to the devs, here - Bomberman's famed local multiplayer modes would clearly be a boon for the Steam Deck Dock after all (indeed, this was exactly why Nintendo approached Konami about having the first Super Bomberman R on the Switch at its launch), so the benefits of having this supporting Linux/Steam Deck early on are clear.

I am super-super-excited for this one, and that's only going to grow going forward!

Quoting: StoneColdSpiderAnd if I get time I might even play the sequel to DJ Boy (1989 Kaneko) which is B.Rap Boys (1992 Kaneko) - Beat 'em up.........
Careful - it might end up being "C.Rap Boys", instead!

Anyway, these were my weekend games;


That's a novel way of cooking a roast dinner!

My first pick for this week was Bomberman World ( https://bomberman.fandom.com/wiki/Bomberman_World_(Arcade) ), which is the sequel to the first Bomberman arcade game and not to be confused with the later Bomberman World for the PlayStation, which is completely unrelated. The arcade Bomberman World holds the distinction of being the first game where Bomberman's family was referred to as the "Bomberman Brothers"/"Bomberman Bros.", which persists to this day (as an aside, there are as many siblings as there are letters in "Bomberman" ). This one still has the weird cornering of the game that came before it, but it also ramps up the wacky-factor further, giving it an oddball personality all its own that isn't usually reflected in the usual home entries in the series. Being an arcade game it's a bit meaner than the regular games since it was designed to make quick money, so as with its predecessor there are sometimes situations where you're forced to burn a life to get through it, but overall it was still a fun game to quickly blast through.


A dreamy scene...

My second pick was the surreal indie classic Yume Nikki ("Dream Diary"), which is an RPG Maker game from Japan that's done the rounds online for many years, first getting an unofficial English fan-translation shortly after its initial release in 2004, an official translation in 2012, and eventually being released on Steam also with the official translation in 2018 (this runs perfectly under Proton, and unexpectedly led to some official merchandise. This game won't be everyone's cup of tea, since there really isn't a whole ton of gameplay to it - you accompany a girl called Madotsuki (Japanese for "Windowed") as she does a lot of walking and exploring within her dreams and nightmares, and the point is to see what you can see and interpret it as you will, whilst collecting 24 different "Effects" (basically abilities - some useful, some not, all fun) in order to see the ending, which is also left open to interpretation. Those who enjoy speculating about video game lore (which is something that I enjoy myself) will probably like this game, because the lore side makes up the bulk of the content - this is more the point than reaching the end is. I've been chipping away at this one here and there for months, and finally got to see the ending over the weekend. It's not at all the sort of thing that I'd usually play, but I'm really glad that I put the time into it because I really enjoyed the (often very weird) experience.

Spoiler, click me


One plays with bombs, and the other plays with knives - video games are a totally great influence, and I'm sure that it's perfectly fine to let them hang out together!

I was also reminiscing about the BBC Micro educational classic Granny's Garden at one point (amusing/bizarre article and video here, but I won't be revisiting that one - I did so a few years ago, and once you've braved the hellish game-design of the baby dragons and the Land of Mystery a couple of times in your life, you'd be forgiven for not wanting to do so again. The mere mention of it has surely already set off the nostalgia in plenty of GOL's Brits of a certain age, though!

Last but not least, an update to the PlayStation emulator that I use in desktop-RetroPie fixed the problem that prevented me from playing Metal Gear Solid a couple of weeks ago, so I've now been able to resume from where I left off before the issue arose. Since the game requires more of a time-investment than my usual fare, MGS will surely show up as one of my picks next weekend!

Last edited by Pengling on 18 September 2022 at 11:12 pm UTC
StoneColdSpider Sep 20, 2022
Quoting: PenglingHaha, c'mon, I'm not that bad!
We both know thats a lie

Quoting: PenglingAnyway, yes, there was a livestream showcase for the upcoming Super Bomberman R 2 early on September 17th, throughout which Spider joined me for viewing + chat - it was great fun to watch and we had a good laugh with it!
Well the chat most consisted of me telling a stupid 1 liner joke and you pretending the laugh

Quoting: PenglingCareful - it might end up being "C.Rap Boys", instead!
Dont you dare jinx me!

Quoting: Pengling
One plays with bombs, and the other plays with knives - video games are a totally great influence, and I'm sure that it's perfectly fine to let them hang out together!
Why does Dora the Explorer have a knife????

Quoting: PenglingI was also reminiscing about the BBC Micro educational classic Granny's Garden at one point (amusing/bizarre article and video here
The YouTube video in that article....... OH COCK....... Sock and Cock........... Who knew Chokablock would be programmed to make masturbation jokes...... And how the hell did that make it on national TV?

Quoting: PenglingLast but not least, an update to the PlayStation emulator that I use in desktop-RetroPie fixed the problem that prevented me from playing Metal Gear Solid a couple of weeks ago, so I've now been able to resume from where I left off before the issue arose. Since the game requires more of a time-investment than my usual fare, MGS will surely show up as one of my picks next weekend!
Im have a feeling it will show up as a pick for few weeks......

Also I dont think I ever want you cooking roast chicken for me.....
Mezron Sep 20, 2022
One of my cousins owns all of the DC Deckbuilder series but we never played DC Deck-Building Game: Forever Evil til recently and I'm liking it. So far I love DC Deck-Building Game: Teen Titans but since it's not a stand alone game and I don't like clutter, I will be content to playing it when I'm visiting.

I tried some PS2 games recently but nothing was hitting. I did recently enjoy some PSP games via PPSSPP on my laptop and phone. I ended The Lord of the Rings: Aragorn's Quest. The reviews were not kind and the game was not HARD but I really liked all of the aspects of it. The simple parry system and the challenges really brought it home to me and I love how the story was told in between the levels. I won't spoil it but I found it touching. It's a short game. The challenges will take longer to complete for those into that.

Maybe because it's Halloween but I'm also liking Hellboy - The Science of Evil for PSP. It's had the art work and atmosphere of the comic vs the movies which I dig. I'm exploring a bunch of other games but right now Dungeons and Dragons - Tactics seems like a blast.

My wife is looking through the PSP library and we plan on getting something running via multiplayer. If those of you who know the system better would like to help us, we are looking for something cooperative that is not a port of anything from Atari (classic), SNK or Capcom we burn through those libraries elsewhere. The cuter the better but we are open to all types of aesthetics.

This weekend I'm looking forward to Magic: The Gathering meetup with some family and some new ppl this Saturday night.
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