Chrontendo

Goddamn, Serious Sam

2013-06-13T00:42:00.001-07:00

So I picked up the Humble Bundle Serious Sam package. Because, well... it was a fantastic deal. Just a reminder for those who have played Serious Sam, there are moments that are frickin' ridiculous.

This room is like the Battletoads of first person shooters. There are a good 300 enemies that spawn in this one room.

A quick heads up -- this weekend is my wedding anniversary, and I'm headed out to the coast for a few days. I be back on Monday and will update the Chrontendo Tumblr. Maybe I'll also cough up a few vacation pics of sea lions or something.

Stooooouuuuuts!!!

2013-05-25T16:25:00.000-07:00

Stouts! (and one porter)

Hey guys, I hope most of you will be able to take advantage of the three day weekend, at least those of you in the US. I'm in the midst of an office improvement project. Stage one is mostly cleaning all the crap out of my office. But, I am making time for Chrontendo 47 (and photographing recent beer acquisitions.) For non-beer nerds out there -- stouts, especially imperial stouts and chocolate/coffee stouts are very highly prized in the US. Checking out Ratebeer's list of higest rated beers, we see that 13 our of the top 20 are imperial stouts. One particular beer, Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout, caused another bit of a beer freakout when it was released a few weeks ago, with long lines, instant sell-outs, etc.


More Stouts!

Not quite as insane was the run for Firestone Walker's Parabola, which hit the shelves about a week ago. While every decent liquor store ran out immediately, I was able a find a few bottles at Whole Foods (which is actually sort of a great place to buy beer, since the beer geeks tend to overlook it.) Incredibly, I found two bottles of FW's Sucaba at a Bev-Mo the same day.

Last time, I announced the launch of the Chrontendo Twitter. Today I'll mention the Chrontendo Tumblr, which "soft launched" a week ago. There's not much on there yet, but it will consist entirely of screenshots of games from each upcoming episode. This will allow you to preview each new episode if you choose, and sort of monitor the progress.

Underdressed Teenage Girls and Robot Ninjas

2013-05-20T00:17:00.004-07:00

I suppose those two things sum up the Japanese videogame experience quite nicely. Both of them will be on display today. Throw in tokusatsu heroes, golf games, mahjong, manga adaptations, turn-based/action RPGs, and panty shots, and you have summed up Chronturbo Episode 4.

Just like Chrontendo and Chronsega we've moved Chronturbo into a decent sized HD format on Youtube, so you can totally watch it fullscreen on your big-ass monitor and not have it look like shit. The Youtube version is here. As always, I still recommend downloading the 60 frames per second h.264 version from Archive.org. 60 frames per second is the only way to experience the full glory of these things. Find it here.

Chronturbo 3 covered January through March of 1989, and Episode 4 basically takes us through the next three months. We actually reach the first week of July, which was just a little bit before the TurboGrafx-16 was released in the US. But for the moment, let's discuss the CD-ROM² add-on.

At first glance, its another Dragon Quest clone.

Despite being the most important technological innovation we've seen in the entire Chron series, the CD-ROM² hasn't born much fruit yet. There was a port of Street Fighter, which didn't make good use of the medium, and was a terrible game to boot. This was followed by one non-game and one barely-a-game (Bikkuriman Daijikai and No Ri Ko.) In March Hudson gave us a very high quality release with Space Adventure Cobra, but this was mostly a menu-based adventure game. Finally, in June, Hudson produced their attempt at a killer app for the CD-ROM²: Far East of Eden: Ziria, a massive, ambitious Dragon Quest style RPG. Far East of Eden outdid DQ in every department (except originality, I suppose.) Big name voice actors were brought in to record the game's many dialog scenes and its colorful, animated charterers were much more detailed than any found on a Famicom game. Musical legend Ryuichi Sakamoto created some of the in game music.

High res graphics set this apart from Famicom RPGs

Far East of Eden ended up becoming quite successful in Japan. The second game in the series was massively popular, so much so that it ended up at the number 12 spot on that Famitsu readers' poll I discussed earlier. That puts it well above Link to the Past, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI or any Mario game! It's a shame than none of the Far East of Eden RPGs received a US release, or even a fan translation.

He's right behind you!

The other game is a little different, but also quite important. Valis II may be a bit more familiar to you, since it was released in the US, by NEC. While not a great game, it is the first platformer for the CD-ROM², as well as the first third party published title. It helped introduce a popular feature to consoles: the anime-inspired cutscene featuring skimpily dressed young ladies. By the end of its lifespan, the PC Engine was kept afloat by games based around naughty cutscenes. Also, since Valis II was one of the first CD games to be hastily dubbed into English, it started the grand tradition of really awful videogame voice acting. This tradition continues to this very day.

A highly unlikely outfit.

As magnificent as Far East and Valis II are, they stand cold and shivering in the shadow of a far greater game: Gunhed/Blazing Lazers from Compile and Hudson. There is no denying the fact that Blazing Lazers is The Shit. Don't take my word for it. Google "best 10 TurboGrax games" or something, and check out the lists that people have put together. This is one the best games for the system and everyone knows it.

Cool robots = rad

What makes Blazing Lazers so great? Simple: radness. Try it yourself. Turn on the game and ask yourself, "Is there anything happening here that is not rad?" The answer will always be, "Nope. Every single thing on the screen is completely rad." Sure, some of the earlier shoot-em-ups we've seen have been pretty darned cool, such as Xanac, Salamander, R-Type, etc. But here, Compile just dialed up the coolness to extreme levels.

Space bubbles = also rad.

Bad Games:

The PC Engine is not known for its kusoge. There were some awful PC Engine games, and Energy and Jinmu Denshou would qualify as awful games by almost anyone's standards. Yet, there is one thing that redeems them: the music. Many of the main Famicom kusoge such as Athena or Super Monkey Daibouken have these ear-piercing, screechy, tuneless, music tracks. Yet Energy, despite being an ugly, buggy mess, manages to serve up some sick tunes. Jinmu Denshou -- an unpleasant Space Harrier clone which tries to integrate bits of platforming into the shooting action -- also has a pretty well done musical theme.

I have no idea what's going on here.

The RPGs:

Aside from Far East of Eden, we have two lesser RPGs, Makai Hakkenden Shada and Susano-ou Densetsu. Data East's Hakkenden is based on the same classic Japanese novel as SNK's Satomi Hakkenden, which we covered in Chrontendo 41. The unusual thing about this game, is that rather than modeling itself after Dragon Quest, it is instead an extremely blatant rip-off of Falcom's Ys. Of course, the PC Engine version of Ys wouldn't be released until December 1989, making Hakkenden the Missing In Action to Ys's Rambo: First Blood Part II.

It's just like Ys, only terrible.

Susano-ou Densetsu, from Hudson, is a bit more original, though it is based on a Go Nagai manga, and is named after the Shinto deity. In the world of video games, Susano-ou will familiar to Megami Tensei fans. It's a pretty large game, in terms of cartridge space (and price), but was overshadowed by Far East of Eden, which came out shortly afterwards.

This looks a wee bit like Dungeon Explorer.

The Golf Games:

Two golf games this time around: Hudson's Power Golf, which had colorful, dynamic box art (in Japan) and Naxat's Naxat Open, which had boooooring box art, and did not get a US release. I suppose Power Golf is nominally the more interesting of the two, but both are just standard console golf games.

Arcade Ports from Namco:

Namco tends to focus on ports of earlier arcade games when it comes to its PC Engine releases. This time they dig deep into their vaults and pull out a port of Pac-Land, the pioneering game which is not that much fun to play nowadays. But it was the first Pac-man game to break away from the "running around in a maze" genre,. Instead it went on to create many of the conventions of the side-scrolling platformer.

Ghosts flying airplanes?!

Wonder Momo is an odd, single plane beat-em-up with a tokusatsu theme. Like a lot of similar games, such as Sega's My Hero, it focuses heavily on knowing enemy patterns and finding the correct rhythm. It is also one of the most common HuCards in Japan, according to Kevin Gifford.

Yes, part of the game is a guy who tries to take an up-the-skirt photo.

Final Lap Twin - now here's an interesting one. Final Lap was a perfectly typical racing arcade game from 1987. For the console version, Namco decided to add an RPG mode. The results are very much like an improved World Tennis - that weird tennis RPG from Chronturbo 2.

Yes, this is somehow a racing game.

The Rest:

Fire Pro Wrestling Combination Tag - The first Human published game! Having developed numerous games for other publishers, Human finally struck out for themselves with the first game in their long running wrestling series. Several key members of Human worked on Nintendo's Pro Wrestling, and Combination Tag resembles that game more than it does the later Fire Pro games. The high degree of customization that defined the Fire Pro series is not yet in place.

Screenshots of wrestling games often look a little risque.

Cyber Cross - You are a Japanese superhero. You walk from left to right and punch aliens that are walking from right to left.

Not much to see here.

Ninja Warriors - Port of the Taito arcade game that had the big, long screen, like Darius. It's basically Rush N Attack with ninjas minus most of the fun.

Wai Wai Mahjong - A mahjong game with colorful graphics and goofy characters.

There we have it. By my reckoning we'll need three more Chronturbos to finish off 1989. But that'll be a little while. Right now we need to deal with the next Chrontendo, which will feature a long-awaited game from Nintendo. Until then, check out Chronturbo 4 on Youtube and Archive.

Almost Done/Chrontendo Twitter

2013-05-18T00:03:00.001-07:00

Here's your Friday late night post. What I hope is the final cut of Chronturbo Episode 4 is being processed now. Assuming there are no horrible mistakes discovered in the completed video, it should be up on Archive tomorrow, followed by the Youtube version.

Chrontendo 4 is another long one, people. An hour and a half. I really need to keep this shit under control. Why do I need to spend three minutes talking about the most generic, boring, Tose-developed golf game in existence? I dunno man. It must be the beast within.

"Every single one us, a devil inside...." Oh god, the 80s were awesome.

File this under more exciting news: Chrontendo is finally on Twitter! Yes, somehow one of the most long-winded dudes is now being forced to adhere to a 140 character limit. What will you find on the Chrontendo Twitter? Mostly stupid bullshit, just like every other Twitter account. But you will also find updates on Chrontendo progress. So for those who wonder, "Is Dr. Sparkle working on the new episode or not?", and "If Dr. Sparkle is not working on Chrontendo, then what is he doing?" -- well, then I guess the Twitter has the answers for you.

Anyway.... @chrontendo. Check it out. Delve into the psyche of Dr. Sparkle. There's even a link on the right hand side of this page. What's next? A Chrontendo Tumblr is in the works. And then? Chrontendo Pinterest? Chrontendo Chat Roulette? Who knows?

No, I'm Not Dead...

2013-05-03T22:34:00.001-07:00

...I've just been quiet lately. While some parts of the country might be still be getting snow and rain, around here we've been hit with summer-like heat. It's reached the high 90s this week, which is a little scary for late April/early May. Thus, I've been hit with both a major case of the lazies, and an epidemic of weeds in my back yard. Chrontendo has been moved to the back burner for a moment.

In the time since I last posted, we've experienced a series of national disasters and high-profile deaths. Obviously, we've been hit with the non-stop media coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings over the last couple weeks, as well as the inevitable epidemic of ridiculous conspiracy theories. For those who are smart enough to avoid such nonsense, the three main threads seem to be this:

President Obama is secretly behind the bombings. Somehow, actual elected officials have touted this theory, including a New Hampshire state legislator. Alternately, some folks claim that a random student of Saudi descent who was injured in the bombings is the real perpetrator. This is Glen Beck's theory. And, of course, numerous asshats in the media have revealed their complete ignorance of the US legal system, in particular, a defendant's 5th Amendment rights. Apparently, these people interpret a federal judge following federal law in a criminal case as "Obama/US Justice Department is secretly in league with terrorists."

As a person whose been around for a few years, I can assure you: the American media was not always as crazy as it is today. I blame the internet.

"It's my happening...."

The most notable celebrity death in April was that of Roger Ebert. I've always had mixed feelings about Ebert. At the time of his death, he was the most famous film critic alive; in fact, he was probably the only film critic well known to the general populace. Towards the end of his life, he was respected, almost revered, as the dean of American film criticism. Those of you with longer memories, however, might remember that Ebert was once the poster boy for the death of film criticism.
The '50s and '60s begat a golden age of American movie critics. Stanley Kauffmann, Pauline Kael, Manny Farber, and perhaps the greatest of all, Andrew Sarris, all reached large audiences at a time when movie criticism could be taken very seriously. A review from a high-profile writer like Sarris or Kael could make or break a film's reputation and even effect its box-office success (as amazing as that sounds today.) These guys were all "serious," intellectual critics and often delved into the philosophical and aesthetic qualities of movie-making. Ebert, while a very good writer, tended to review movies based on his own personal taste, rather than offering a deep analysis of the films he was writing about. In the 1970s, he and Gene Siskel were accused of dumbing down film criticism by reducing it to a simple "thumbs up, thumbs down" formula. I can see the anti-Ebert crowd's point: can you imagine, say, art critics adapting such a system?

Of course, Ebert (and Siskel) also helped popularize the very notion of a film critic. Probably every younger film critic working today were inspired by "At the Movies/Sneak Previews." Compared to the idiot writing reviews in your local newspaper/alt weekly mag, Ebert was a goddamned modern-day Montaigne. His writing was always fun to read, and part of that fun was just how infuriatingly wrong he could be times. In his later years, he became bizarrely fond of terrible films; you might recall his 3 1/2 star review of Revenge of the Sith, or picking crap like Crash and frickin' Juno as the best films of their respective years.

Regardless of his supposed crimes against film criticism, I would give Ebert a lifetime pass for two things: writing the scripts for Russ Meyer movies such as Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, and his wonderful, classic reply to Rob Schneider in response to Schneider's attack on Patrick Goldstein. (I might also add Ebert's classic burn on Vincent Gallo after Gallo called him fat.)

Pwned!

In more death news, two talented local music legends died recently. If there are any metalheads out there, you have probably heard that Chi Cheng, bassist for the Deftones, finally succumbed from complications resulting from his 2008 car crash. He'd spent most of the last five years in a coma, though he was briefly released from the hospital last year. A lot of folks around here always held on the hope that Cheng would some day, somehow, get better. His death is a huge fucking tragedy for the Sacramento music world, ranking right up there with the 1986 killing of another local music god, Victor Wong (who was also Asian, but I suppose that's a story for another day.)

Truth be told, it's been many years since I've seen the Deftones perform - it was sometime back in the '90s. They had the luck (misfortune?) to hit it big just as many other, much worse "nu-metal" bands were becoming popular. Somehow, they got lumped in with such musical shitfests as Korn and Limp Bizkit, despite pre-dating those bands by several years. As much as I hate the music of Korn, etc, I must admit many of those bands stood by Chi after his accident and raised funds for his family's medical expenses. So, I'll openly admit the dudes from Korn, Hatebreed, Slipknot, Sevendust, etc, etc, must be wonderful human beings, regardless of the music they make.

More low profile was the death of Scott Miller, of Game Theory and Loud Family. Game Theory was one part of the thriving Davis musical scene of the '80's, and were somewhat connected to the whole "Paisley Underground" scene of that era (related acts: Thin White Rope, True West, Dream Syndicate.) Among a certain set of aficionados, Game Theory's 1986 album Lolita Nation is one of the finest underground records of the 1980s. Good luck finding a copy for a reasonable amount of money nowadays. Full disclosure: Dr. Sparkle went to school in Davis, and is somewhat predisposed towards Davis-related stuff.

Finally, here's the part of the post you really care about:

Chronturbo 4 is almost done. It's mostly recorded and edited. I don't have an exact date, but I hope to get some work done this weekend (assuming I am not overwhelmed by yard work.)

RIP, Jess Franco (1930-2013)

2013-04-02T18:26:00.003-07:00

If Spanish film maker Jesus "Jess" Franco Manera had no imitators, it was simply because no one could imitate his style. Regardless of what kind of film it was: horror, exploitation, arthouse trash, or unrepentant smut, every film he made was unmistakably a Franco film.

While many would say his movies were "bad," it was Franco, more than anyone else, who demonstrated that the distinction between good films and bad films was often irrelevant. Franco directed somewhere close to 200 movies (some sources say "over 200"). The embodiment of an obsessive film maker, he was always making a film or planning his next one. His final movie premiered on March 22nd, a mere 11 days before his death.

Introducing - The Chrontendo Kickstarter

2013-04-01T14:18:00.003-07:00

I am extremely excited to announce a thrilling new era of possibility for Chrontendo. As you are all aware, one of the biggest scams of this decade involves a little thing called "Kickstarter." This is where a business (who are in theory already making money), instead of simply selling you their product, asks you to just donate money to them. Often they will give you some worthless trinket in exchange for your donation, but it's essentially a form on online panhandling. And here's the amazing part: panhandling is illegal in most municipalities, and doing so usually results in the police asking you move along or face arrest. However, via Kickstarter, this is not only COMPLETELY LEGAL, but when you make money this way, the online press tells you that you're a genius! Instead of being a leech on society, you are lauded for your brilliant understanding of crowdsourcing and social media and "Web 2.0."

Listen folks: Dr. Sparkle didn't get to where he is today by avoiding ethically questionable actions. He got here by ripping off ideas from people who tried something and were successful at it. Thus I would be foolish to not get in on this whole Kickstarter racket. Thus, I present to you the Chrontendo Kickstarter. Now, this isn't a total ripoff. I do intend to greatly improve the frequency of new episodes, and the rewards for the ~~suckers~~ pledges are pretty cool. This isn't the typical "I'll follow you on Twitter for $1000 bullshit."

The Kickstarter page has not gone live yet. Apparently it is "under review" whatever that means. I'll give you the link when it's up, so you can start emptying your pockets. Here's a screencap of the project page, so you can start planning the allocation of your funds. Click on the image to see it at full size.

Thank you in advance for your generosity.

Best of 2012

2013-03-28T19:25:00.002-07:00

(Hey guys, sorry for the excessive length of this post, which grew much longer than I intended. This is what happens when I get an opportunity to express my opinions. To make matters worse the whole thing is bloated with annoying embedded vidoes in case you want to check out the actually music referenced. Also, some of those videos are NSFW due to bad language, and at least two contain naked boobs. Also: butt shot preview below. Thanks for humoring me.)

You know what I've never done before? Compile a best-of-the-year list. Everyone does those nowadays, right? The web is flooded with these things. Even your mom posted a Youtube countdown of the best ten guys she picked up behind the bowling alley this year.

I didn't blow any guys in bowling alley parking lots in 2012, so my options for best-of lists are a bit more limited. Best videogames? Well... what did I play last year? Most of my game time has been taken up by Skyrim, which is a really fantastic game. But those lying bastards on Wikipedia claim it came out in 2011. Before that I was playing Kirby's Epic Yarn, which is fun, but it was released in 2010. This was the year that I finally got around to playing Braid, which is even older. I did receive a free copy of Far Cry 3, a game that made numerous end of the year lists. However, Skyrim continues to dominate my non-Chrontendo gaming time; thus FC 3 remains unplayed. I also want to play Dishonored, but this won't be happening anytime too soon.

The situation might not be so bleak for 2013. Excited by the voluminous and near-universal praise heaped on Bioshock Infinite, I've got a copy on order.

The film situation is just as bad. I've heard about all these cool sounding movies: Holy Motors, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Zero Dark Thirty. But I'm so behind of my movies right now, I'm still trying to catch up with 2011. I haven't even seen the fucking Dark Knight Rises yet.

Supposedly very good, but how would I know?

The only category I'm even remotely qualified to create a list for is music. As a reminder: Dr. Sparkle used to work for a large online music retailer. I used to read music magazines, subscribe to email lists from hipster music stores, go to tons and tons of shows... all that crap. Nowadays, I'm sort of out of the scene. Certain genres, like classical music or jazz, I haven't been following (believe it or not, in the 2000s I would tear through classical review mags like Fanfare as they came out.) I've also lost touch a bit with the avant-garde music scene. So my familiarity with the music of 2012 is somewhat limited.

The very idea of a "best music of 2012" list is pretty ridiculous. With all the music released that year, how can we choose the best? Who's listened to anywhere near enough music to decide what "the best" music of 2012 is? Have you listened to enough albums to make an education decision? How many great albums from 2012 will you discover in 2013, 2018, or 2023? The great British improvisational guitar player Derek Bailey put it best: when asked to put together a list of music from the previous year, he replied to the effect of "2003? I'm still trying to figure out 1963!"

There are quite a few albums from bands I love that I haven't had a chance to explore yet. The new albums from Swans, Thee Oh Sees and Godspeed You Black Emperor! are supposedly terrific, but I've haven't heard enough of them yet. That said, here's my list of best/favorite/whatever music of 2012.

I'd be traitor to my hometown if I didn't mention Death Grips' The Money Store. The bizarre rise of Death Grips is the most unlikely story in the music world in 2012. Formed by longtime Sacramento legend Zach Hill (of Hella/Team Sleep/a hundred other projects) and a neighbor of his, Stefan Burnett, Death Grips released a mixtape of noisy, skronky "rap rock" in 2011. Last year they: were suddenly signed by Epic Records; personally received by L.A. Reid, who told them that Death Grips reminded him of Mariah Carey (?!) They then released their debut album, which somehow got reviewed by the likes of the BBC and Robert Christgau; booked an international tour; announced they were canceling the tour on their Facebook page; recorded a second album; remixed songs for Bjork; created a cover for their new album which consisted of a photograph of an erect penis with the title written on it with a Sharpie. They then released this album online themselves, which angered Epic. The band then leaked the angry emails from Epic, which resulted in them being dropped by the label.

The Money Store made various critics' "best-of" lists last year. The music is certainly not for everyone, but the fact that Death Grips had an album released and promoted by a major label is pretty baffling. It just shows you how insane the music biz really is.

Onto my own personal favorites for 2012. Two albums really stood out for me:

The Dirty Projectors - Swing Lo Magellan

Of all this year's albums, Swing Lo Magellan is the one that has grown the most on me. At first it seemed too mellow, too acoustic, and less weird than their previous records. Yet every time I listened to it, I liked it a little bit more. The basic Dirty Projectors template of Africanized guitars and bleated background harmonies is still present, though their music now sounds less archly eccentric and more warm and humanistic.

Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music

Hip-hop might be dead, but that doesn't mean great rap albums don't come out from time to time. R.A.P. Music dispenses with the references to jewelry, cars and expensive champagne, and features almost no guest vocalists. It sounds nothing like typical top-40 rap music, thanks the chilly, minimalistic production from El-P. This is hip-hop music at its purest, without relying on a fake "old school" sound. It's just wall to wall lyrical technique.

Other Cool Stuff I liked:

Frank Ocean - Channel Orange

I thought for sure Frank Ocean was going to sweep the Grammys this year. Frank Ocean was the dude everyone was talking about in 2012. The record was the critical darling of the year; it topped the R&B charts, and it received tons of Grammy nominations. I thought there was literally no other serious contenders for Best New Artist, Best Album, etc. Yet every year, the Grammys prove that they are somehow even worse that you thought they were.

(Oddly, Frank Ocean's shut-out was only the 2nd biggest WTF Grammy moment this year. The weirdest moment came with the nomination of in the Dance category of a song by an artist that absolutely no one had ever heard of, Al Walser. The fact that Walser's song was an amateurish Rebecca Black type number that had been released only a week before the nominations were announced deepened the mystery. It turned out that Walser was a member of the Recording Academy who schmoozed his fellow members into voting for him. [The funny thing is, this happened the year prior as well, when a complete unknown named Linda Chorney scored a nomination by personally entreating lots of voters.])

Anyway, I sort of hate Frank Ocean, as he made me love a song that features John-fucking-Mayer.

Gojira - L'Enfant Sauvage

The French have an undeserved reputation of not knowing how to rock. They are the nation that produced Metal Urbain and Magma, so their rock credentials are in perfect order. More proof: this new record from French metal dudes Gojira. Fantastic drumming on this record.

Wolves in the Throne Room - Celestial Lineage

"Cheater! This album came out in late 2011!" I don't care. I guess my taste in metal leans towards the weird-o end of the spectrum. Stuff like this, or Blud Aus Nord or Nachtmystium, whose Silencing Machine should also be on this list. WITTR might be called "pastoral metal," perhaps? It also has about the best looking packaging/cover/interior photos I've seen lately.

Bat for Lashes - The Haunted Man

2010's Two Suns is one of my absolute favorite albums of this decade, so far. The Haunted Man is not as good, and is not nearly as wild, mysterious or baroque as Two Suns. But it is pretty damned nice. This album actually landed in the top 10 in the UK, which proves the British are really weird.

Alcest - Les Voyages de L'ame

These guys are also French?! Somehow two French bands ended up on this list! As uber-hispter SF music store Aquarius Records states: Alcest is not a Black Metal band, yet Black Metal fans love them. Their stuff is like chill-out music for metal fans. They might remind you of Opeth's more gentle moments.

Ty Segall - Twins

Scuzzy psyche-rock is a genre that will never die. The current king of this type of music seems to be Ty Segall. Twins is exactly what it should be: primo scuzzy psyche-rock.

High on Fire - De Vermis Mysteriis

Dr. Sparkle has a weakness for Sleep spin-off bands. I've been lucky to see both High and Fire and Om live (and both seriously rocked, in very different ways.) I haven't heard the new Om record, but De Vermis Mysteriis is awesome. They're pretty damned high on the doom/stoner rock totem pole. Also, Sleep's Jerusalem/Dopesmoker album was reissued again this year, in what is supposedly, its final, perfect form. If you've never heard Dopesmoker, grab a copy and some drugs to go along with it, and get busy.

Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Blood Lust

More groovy stoner rock. I guess I really like drug-related music.

El-P - Cancer 4 Cure

Sort of the companion album to R.A.P. Music. El-P produced the Killer Mike record, and Mike appears on Cancer 4 Cure. I don't think anything in El-P's solo career will ever reach the heights of what he did on Company Flow's Funcrusher Plus, one of the best hip-hop records ever made. Cancer 4 Cure is still the best stuff he's done in years, however.

I've had a hard time following hip-hop lately. I haven't included any mix-tapes in this list, but it seems that mix-tapes and free online releases are becoming the preferred distribution method for the genre. Here's a disturbing pattern I've been noticing: a rapper releases mix-tapes online, makes a name for themselves, and starts making lots of guest appearances on others' songs. Everyone says this artist is super wonderful and awesome. Once the hype has reached a fever pitch, the official major label debut album appears. But that official album turns out to be pretty lame, and then said artist is suddenly over-exposed and everyone hates them. This has happened over and over again in the last few years. I'll tell you what: this phenomenon has become so common it needs a name. And, as a favor to the music world, I'll give it a name right now: "Nicki Minaj Syndrome." She's the most obvious and high-profile example I can think of, and perfectly embodies the underground=loved > mainstream = hated career arc. To any music journalists out there: I hereby authorize you to refer to this as Nicki Minaj Syndrome.

One such victim this year was Mr. Muthafukin' eXquire, who followed up his awesome mixtape Lost In Translation with a rather lame major label debut called Power and Passion. At least we still have his insanely great "The Last Huzzah" video, which features a who's who of contemporary rappers, including El-P and Killer Mike, standing in the background. I love the way El-P seems to be transforming into Ron Swanson as he gets older. Once again, this came out in late 2011, but I'm calling it for 2012.

There were have it. Please feel free to tell me how absolutely full of shit I am. With any luck, the next post will be announcing Chronturbo 4.

St Paddy's Day Mini Post

2013-03-17T22:28:00.001-07:00

Seeing as St. Patrick's Day falls on a Sunday this year, there will be no wild debauchery for me tonight. If any of you are also staying in tonight, please celebrate by listening to the greatest Irish song ever recorded, as sung by the greatest Irish band.

Many a modern day hipster would fall to the ground weeping if they gazed upon those beards. What's the second best Irish song ever? According to my calculations, it must be Thin Lizzy's "Whiskey in the Jar." After that? I dunno.... maybe "If I Should Fall From Grace of God" by the Pogues? Does "Gloria" count as an Irish song?

If you have some free time to read up on old arcade game manufacturers, I strongly suggest you check out this exhaustive, 12-part history of Cinematronics on the Golden Age Arcade Historian website. Cinematronics were formed in 1975 by two players in the San Diego Chargers and became a specialist in vector graphics arcade games. Their most famous vector title was Star Castle, which they followed up with a series of flops. After flirting with insolvency for a few years, they ended up with another massive hit: the laser disc game Dragon's Lair. Then Cinematronics had another fallow period, and were eventually bought by Tradewest in 1987. The series is meticulously researched and illustrated, though there are some weird formatting issues like changes in fonts sizes. Also, there are no tags or indexes that allow you to pull up all the entries, so you'll need to pick them out of the archives listing. The final entry was posted in February. The Golden Age Arcade Historian is a really great and informative site, so check it out if you're not already familiar with it. Some serious research goes into this guy's posts.

Star Castle. This probably looks familiar.

Also, please don't call it Saint "Patty's" Day.

Beer and Loathing

2013-03-13T22:07:00.000-07:00

My Goodness! I'm sincerely sorry for the long delay between updates. I've been a little preoccupied lately with various things, and I've also been just a little lazy. To make up for it, here's a mega-post.

Last week was "Beer Week" in my hometown, and as wonderful as that sounds in principal (for the most part it is quite wonderful) in reality, Beer Week can be quite frustrating. The explosion of interest in beer that has occurred over the last couple years means that beer-related events are now drawing huge crowds. While it used to be possible during Beer Week to walk into a place, sit down, have a bite to eat, and drink some quality beers, this year it was common to people lining up to get through the door. It takes a bit of the fun out of Beer Week when you are packed into a bar like sardines at all times.

My greatest disappointment, however, involved one legendary beer: Pliny the Younger. Here's the back story behind the beer: I've discussed its sibling, Pliny the Elder, before. It's sort of difficult to find in bottles, but, at least in my town, it's readily available on tap. The Elder is considered to be one of the best beers in the world, but its cousin, Pliny the Younger is an even more rarefied beast. The Younger is brewed in extremely small quantities only once a year, in early February, and is not available in bottles. On Beer Advocate, it was once the highest rated beer in the world, and currently sits at the number two spot. The brewer, Russian River, serves it in their brewpub and a few kegs are shipped out to small number of lucky bars and pubs around the country. When it goes on sale, things tend to look like this.

Dr. Sparkle is visible in this photo. I suppose that if you can pick me out I should offer some sort of prize?

I've had first hand reports that the lines at Russian River got out of control this year, with waits up to eight hours. I've always wanted to go to Russian River during Pliny the Younger season, but decided it might be saner to find it locally. Here in town, anyone who gets a keg will tap it during Beer Week, though the where and when will always be kept secret until the last moment. On Saturday, a local faux-British pub announced they would be selling it that evening. This was bad timing: I was having my car worked on that day, and needed to available to pick it before the shop closed. Then, on Sunday, a local beer and burgers place I frequent was going to tap a keg. We arrived about an hour early, and while a line was already forming, it didn't seem to be outrageously long. Ironically, I was standing next to a lady who said she lived a block or so from the brewery, but couldn't deal with the lines at Russian River. By the time they opened the keg and started pouring glasses, the line had stretched around the corner, and as we moved forward, we were pretty confident that we would be drinking some Pliny the Younger soon. So everyone was quite shocked when, as we were about halfway to the door, a staff member informed the crowd that the Pliny was sold out. We ended up eating lunch there anyway, since the place still had an astonishing line-up of rare beers on tap that day. This will mean nothing to folks who aren't beer fanatics, but: Firestone Walker Double DBA, Black Butte Porter XXIV, Flying Dog Barrel Aged Gonzo, Dogfish Head Burton Baton, Ballast Victory at Sea, Sierra Nevada Ovila Double Barrel Aged, and several others. It was the sort of line up of beers you rarely experience and I wish I could have had one of each. As a bonus, while leaving, the owner grabbed me and we discussed the Pliny situation. He explained the "keg" of Pliny they received was extremely small, and as a consolation, he dragged me back in and poured me samples of the Black Butte and Double DBA. Both were frickin' delicious, and since I am currently cellaring bottles of both, I was quite pleased to know how great they were. (Its also worth noting that while many places charge $5.00 or $6.00 for a glass of the Pliny the Younger, or even bundle it into expensive beer flights, this place was practically giving it away at either $2.00 or $3.00.)

In summary, this is both a wonderful and frustrating time to be a beer fanatic in this country. So many wonderful beers are made, but they are getting harder and harder to find. Certain limited beers hit the shops and sell out the same day. A fellow beer drinker, Dan S, mentioned "the chase" in the comments a while back. You will read about certain beers but you never find a bottle. You haunt the beer stores, scanning the shelves for anything new. Frequently, you'll see guys in the aisles, talking on their phones: "They just got in four or five boxes..." A few years ago, I never had problems getting certain once-a-year beers like Deschutes' The Abyss. In 2012, I never saw a bottle. Just too many people getting into beer nowadays....

(Just a reminder, this is video game blog, not a beer blog.)

A couple weeks ago I was complaining about the future of videogames, when, as if on command, we got the clusterfuck known as Sim City. EA releases a highly anticipated game, but requires players be continuously logged in to the EA servers. The next thing we know, the servers are overloaded and people can't play the game, even in single player mode. EA tries to alleviate things by removing some features from Sim City. Maxis claimed that the online only requirement could not be dropped, since the core features of the game required connection to the servers in order to function. Then, it turned out this was simply not true. The final result: everyone hates Maxis and EA just a little bit more than they already did. User reviews are currently averaging one star on Amazon and 1.5 out 10 on Metacritic. Perhaps after Diablo 3 and this, publishers will finally get the hint?

On a positive note, the long awaited, long delayed first episode of Anita Sarkeesian's Tropes vs Women in Video Games has been released. You might recall there was a bit of an online dust up over this a while back. Sarkeesian announced a Kickstarter to fund a series of videos about sex stereotypes and the role of women in videogames. The troglodyte set of the internet proceeded to freak out at this idea, and began a pretty concerted, vicious attack on her. The low point of all this was probably a flash game someone created which simulated disfiguring Sarkeesian by punching her in the face.

This will launch around 100 fuck-tons of online butt hurt.

A year later, and the first video is finally up. It's a reasonably well made look at the "damsel in distress" motif in classic gaming, copiously illustrated with clips from many games. There's nothing too deep here; it will be obvious to anyone who played games at all back in the 80s that one of the most common plot elements was "girl kidnapped/rescued by hero." This figured heavily into many Nintendo games of the era and just about every 8-bit/16-bit beat-em-up. Sarkeesian provides numerous examples of this as well as several counter-examples in which male characters "rescue" themselves, without outside help. Connoisseurs of internet drama will want to keep an eye out on Youtube for future video critiques, responses and "rebuttals" of this video, a good number of which will be virgins-with-rage yelling at her for saying Shigeru Miyamoto is sexist or something.

My main complaint with the video (other than some questionable handling of the damsel in distress motif in the pre-videogame era) is the excessive repetition of the word "trope" in its contemporary, internet-y sense.

I don't have an exact release date for Chronturbo 4, but quite a bit of progress has been made. I actually finished editing Valis II right before posting this! In the mean time, I'll leave you with my current favorite German 70s progressive Jazz-Rock video, "Uranus" by Klaus Doldinger's Passport. German TV technicians of the era were pretty creative, and here they spice up the performance by splicing together footage from different pefermormances using split screen, so it looks as if the Doldigner is duetting with himself. It's pretty ridiculous and awesome.

Good News, Bad News

2013-02-23T16:47:00.000-08:00

By now, most of you will have absorbed at least some of the non-stop coverage of Sony's announcement of the PS4. We can't really call it an "unveiling" or a "revealing" or anything of sort, since Sony somehow managed to spend 3 hours talking about their new console without showing it, dropping a release date, or giving the slightest hint as to pricing. Instead, there was tons of typically silly sounding biz-speak like, "The living room is no longer the center of the PlayStation ecosystem. The player is." (I assume what this means is that Sony doesn't want you to think of the PS4 as a physical box that sits your living room, but as a more general brand that exists as some sort of Platonic Ideal, and can manifest itself it a variety of forms, such as, uh... the Vita?)

I have no idea exactly how well the PS4 is going to work for Sony. Every new game hardware system released in the last few years has performed under expectations. The Wii U and 3DS both sold less than Nintendo hoped for, and the Vita is basically a huge flop. I assume this is due to a mass exodus of casual gamers from dedicated hardware to smart phones and tablets. I can't help but wonder if we are experiencing the first stages of the decline of the game console right now. Regardless, my favorite piece of post-PS4 analysis has been this one from Gameological Society. It's a marvelously bitchy takedown of Sony's contention that the PS4's faster processor is going to save the game industry from its current malaise. Also, the fact that Sony has confirmed that your existing PSN games will not be transferable/playable on the PS4 is bound to piss off many gamers.

The Dreamcast sold over 4 million systems in the US in a year and a half. The Vita? Last month it moved 35,000 units.

And the good news I mentioned? If there's a silver lining here, it's that Sony seems to be hinting that the PS4 will not block used games, though they haven't come right out and explicitly said this will never happen. As connoisseurs of old games, we will all agree that a console that can't play used games has very limited appeal. It's sad to think that we've gone from eagerly anticipating rumored new features on upcoming consoles to dreading them.

As for the the bad news? Well, it came as no surprise, but Ziff Davis has shut down 1UP.com. This is a huge, huge shame, as 1UP was one of the few corporate-type game sites I actually liked. The quality of writing was always a few steps above most big game sites; they had a solid coverage of niche genres, such as retro games and RPGs; and they always seemed a bit more mature than the likes of Gamespot or IGN. The amount of content on 1UP has been slowly waning over the last couple years, in quantity, though not in quality. Lately they focused more on what the journalism world used to call "think pieces" instead of news and reviews. But the site has definitely felt somewhat empty and effete for a while now.

Some of the staff will be moving on to IGN; for example, Jeremy Parish already has some content up. Maybe there will a Retronauts revival at IGN! Many others, such as Bob Mackey, are being laid off, and my heart certainly goes out to them. For their sake I hope ZD has instituted some sort of decent severance package for them. God knows that takes some of the sting off unemployment.

I've been laid off twice myself, once from a company I was fanatically devoted to; the other time from a corporate entity I had no attachment to. The feelings ranged from anger/disbelief/bitterness to relief and something almost like euphoria. The constant worry that you experience when you think you are going to be laid off is terrible. There's a miasma of dread that hangs in the air when everyone in the office is expecting the worst. These things just eat away at you. Once the inevitable finally happens, you feel hugely relieved. In today's business world, there is no longer such a thing as job security. I was laid off from a hugely profitable Fortune 500 company which was actually hiring people at the same time my office was shuttered. The reason I lost my job was not due to lack of business -- it was because the lease on our building was up. It was more profitable to hire new people in other locations than it would have been to renew the lease or find a new building. It's a cruel world out there today.

Any way: 1UP, I'll miss you guys. Good luck on your future endeavors.

"An Eternal Loop of Horror and Death"

2013-01-27T20:48:00.000-08:00

Your patience will be rewarded today with a new episode of Chrontendo. Yes, Episode 46 is finally ready.

As always, a high quality h.264 60 frames/sec version may be found on Archive.org here. (or rather, it will be in about a day.) And a streaming version in 30 frames/sec can be viewed on Youtube here. Just like the last episode of Chronsega, it will be available in HD at 720p.

This episode finds us precisely in the middle of 1989, as we cover a clutch of US NES releases from June, followed by July's Famicom releases. As I point out in the video, the popularity of the NES in the United States was nearing its peak at this time. One indication of this was the increasing number of game released for the NES. The ceaseless demand for product, combined with a huge backlog of Japanese games led to a flood of titles for the console in 1989-1990. In June 1989, for example there were around 15 NES games released, four of them US exclusives, compared to six games released in Japan that same month. Of those four games, two were crap, one was simply devoid of any interesting qualities, and the last one was Monster Party.

I've discussed Monster Party before, but it really stands out among the US-only games we've seen so far. Aside from just being really damned weird, Monster Party has a surprising amount of of blood and gore for a game with the Nintendo Seal of Approval on it. My theory? Certain big-name companies with close ties to Nintendo (such as Bandai) did not have to adhere to Nintendo's rules quite as strictly.

Monster Party is made of pure nightmare fuel.

It isn't clear why Monster Party never recevied a Japanese release. As many of you will know, a beta version of a planned Japanese verison of Monster Party was discovered several years ago. The cart has never been dumped/released to public, but we do have this video of the first level, which shows the game's original bosses were blatantly taken from popular movies.

Monster Party also has a shockingly dark ending, which depicts our hero Mark meeting a gruesome death. The developer, Human (i.e.: Bandai's "good" developer, as opposed to Tose) returned to the horror genre 6 years later with Clock Tower. It's interesting to note that Clock Tower was also heavily indebted to a western horror movie, Dario Argento's Phenomenon.

Mark's rather unsettling fate.

The other standout game today comes from a publisher with a much better reputation. Willow, from Capcom, is an action-adventure game in the Zelda mode, based on the Ron Howard/George Lucas film of 1988. The movie met with critical indifference and performed underwhelmingly at the box office, but it did receive three videogame adapations: a boring PC game from Mindscape, an solid platformer from Capcom, and the Famicom/NES game. Willow will not win any awards for originality, but from an aesthetic perspective, it easily beats the other Zelda clones we've seen so far. With its muted color scheme, and detailed, animated backgrounds, it's one of the best looking games for the console. The music is also phenomenal. Only the fact that it lacks the originality and freshness of Mega Man 2 or Bionic Commando keeps it from being top-tier Capcom.

Fantastic presentation makes willow stand out from other Zelda clones

A few other games also stand out this episode:

Dragon Ninja/Bad Dudes

The personalized getaway copter is a nice touch.

Quite frankly, if this game had been released under its Japanese title, Dragon Ninja, and all references to ninjas kidnapping president were removed, hardly anyone would remember Bad Dudes today. In the post Double Dragon/River City Ransom age, Bad Dudes seems just a little old-fashioned. The levels are completely unimaginative, and the same enemies appear over and over in every level. It does retain a certain level of cheesy '80s charm, but when you consider that Final Fight, the arcade Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Golden Axe all came out in 1989, you realize just how far behind the curve it was.

White Lion Densetsu/Legend of the Ghost Lion
Faria: A World of Mystery and Danger

Ghost Lion is not the most original game is terms of art direction.

People always complain that no JRPGs received US releases back in the NES days, yet here are two counter-examples. White Lion Densetsu messes with the stardard JRPG mechanics. You receive no experience points after battle, weapons cannot be equipped, only used in battle as items, and battles rely heavily on summons rather than other party members. Despite having an original battle system, White Lion nevertheless lifts a few of its sprites pretty much directly out of Final Fantasy.

One odd thing about Legend of the Ghost Lion is that it is reasonably well-documented online; it has a wikipedia page, vidoes on Youtube, and various reviews. Yet no one seems to mention this one important fact: it was based on a movie! Piramiddo no Kanata Ni: White Lion Densetsu was a 1988 film directed by Koichi Nakajima. The director, while hardly a household name, did have at least one other notable credit. He was the first assistant director on Paul Schrader's Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters and was somehow involved in the Ridley Scott/Mike Douglas Japanese crime drama, Black Rain. Unfortunately, I could find virtually no info on the White Lion movie.

Faria - not the best looking RPG on the NES.

Faria draws a bit of inspiration from Zelda, but also from Falcom's Ys. The hero/heroine even looks a bit like Aldo from Ys. Faria was developed by Game Arts, who we'd previously encountered as the developer of Thexder. In the 90s they would get a reputation as an RPG company, thanks to the success of the Lunar and Grandia series. Game Arts brings a puckish sense of humor to Faria, with a plot twist involving poisoned caviar and a princess who resembles a caterpillar. Another notable name on the credits is Akihiko Yoshida, a fellow who will turn up as the character designer in many of Yasumi Matsuno's games, such as Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story.

In terms of bad games, only a couple really stand out.

I've already discussed Beam Software's Airwolf, published by Acclaim. It's a sort of like a worse version of Top Gun, with the awful "land on the aircraft carrier" part replaced with a pointless helicopter landing part. It's not so much bad, as it simply lacks any distinguishing or noteworthy features. It is completely unrelated to the Famicom Airwolf of the US computer game.

Oof! Faceplant, dude.

Regular Chrontendo viewers will know of my dislike for Epyx's "Games" series. So I assume you will not be surprised to find out I didn't care for the Rare/Milton Bradly release of California Games? This is the second version of California Games we've covered -- Sega released their own version for the Master System a bit earlier. I still find the game to be totally bogus, dude.

Other games this episode:

Oishinbo: Kyukyoku no Menu 3bon Syoubu

Food journalists have a lot of run-ins with the police.

A Japanese style adventure game, based on a food themed manga. We are fortunate enough to a have a solid translation of the game by The Snark. Unfortunately, being a Tose title, Oishinbo is not of the highest quality, with lumpy looking character art and bog-standard game design. Still, how many other video games make you choose the right method for gutting a monkfish and perparing its liver?

Hissatsu Doujou Yaburi
Tenkaichi Bushi Keru Nagūru

Tenkaichi Bushi Keru Naguuru doesn't exactly have a diverse roster.

We have not one, but two fighting game/RPG hybrids this episode! Hissatsu Doujou Yaburi from Sigma Entertainment resembles earlier fighting game hybrids, such as Culture Brain's Hiryū no Ken/Flying Dragon The Secret Scroll games (see Episode 33.) Tenkaichi Bushi Keru Nagūru uses a more RPG-ish top down overworld. It was developed by Game Arts, Masanobu Endo's company, so it has the better pedigree of the two. Neither one, however, works very well as a fighting game, due to the generic characters and slow, unresponsive controls.

Shin Moero!! Pro Yakyuu
Kyuukyoku Harikiri Stadium Heisei Gannenhan

Shin Moero!! or possibly Kyuukyoku Harikiri Stadium. I forget which.

Alright, we had two RPGs, two fighting games, so why not two baseball games? Shin Moero!! is the latest in the Tose/Jaleco series known as Bases Loaded in the US. It's the third game in the series, but should not be confused with Bases Loaded 3, which was actually the US version of the fourth Moero!! Pro Yakyuu game. Not only did Shin Moero!! never get a western release, it also dropped the behind-the-pitcher camera from the first two games, and replaced with a weird 3/4 perspective view of the batter and pitcher.

Kyuukyoku Harikiri Stadium Heisei Gannenhan is another entry in Taito's baseball simulation series. Aside from the odd name, the game also features a cool 3D sculpture of a baseball player on the box art. Both games feature wall-to-wall annoying Ōendan music.

Zenbei!! Pro Basket/All-Pro Basketball

Another sub-Double Dribble basketball game hits the Famicom. This one is from Vik Tokai and Aicom, the developer of Jaleco's Hoops. Apparently Aicom couldn't figure out how to program full-court scrolling, ala Double Dribble, since Hoops featured half-court basketball and All-Pro uses a bizarre trick to avoid showing the entire court. When your player crosses the half-court line, the game freezes and the screen goes black for a moment. When everything reappears, the camera has moved 180 degrees and is now facing the other direction. This is annoying and confusing as can be.

Perfect Bowling

Even in a bowling game, they managed to squeeze in a panty shot.

A decent, if not particular exciting bowling game from Tonkin House

Igo Shinan
From Hect, an instructional Igo game. Someone must have been buying copies of this thing, since Hect released four sequels for the Famicom.

Shooting Range

Is it really a good idea to shoot the lollipop out of Frankenstein's hand?

A US only Zapper game from Tose/Bandai. It's just about the most generic Zapper game imaginable.

There were have it, another Chrontendo. Up next will be Chronturbo 4, which will carry us through June 1989 on the PC Engine.

Atari and Fruit Cakes

2013-01-21T23:29:00.000-08:00

I wanted to get just one last update in before Chrontendo Episode 46 is uploaded. I've spent much of MLK Day trying to get everything slapped together. Despite having the luxury of a three day weekend, I'm not quite finished. There were a number of other things occupying my attention: I had to get some new tires, and I also had a bit of cooking planned. Aside from day-to-day meals, I made a jar of pickles (Or rather, I started making a jar. They take a while.) But, much more exciting was baking a fruit cake.

I don't want to always be going off on cooking tangents, as I know some readers don't dig this stuff. However, I feel need to correct a common misconception that many of you may have: that fruit cake is terrible. Quite the opposite is true. A well made fruit cake is absolutely delicious. Obviously, you'd do well to avoid those store-bought cakes with the creepy red and green things in them. If you're going to use candied fruit, you should make it yourself. I whipped some candied orange peel for mine, seen here with the dates and apricots.

Side products from making the candied orange peel are peeled-but-unjuiced oranges and a very thick orange syrup. I'll have to figure out some use for the syrup.

Fruit cake ages well - the booze helps - so I made two cakes and am aging one for about a month and a half. I'll report the results to you then. The fresh one was excellent, however.

The Dord pointed out the recent news about Atari, Inc's chapter 11 filing. You've probably heard about this already. The familiarity of the name "Atari" means that most mainstream news outlets covered the announcement. While this is certainly interesting, we have to remember that this is simply the latest development in the ongoing saga of the rights to the name "Atari," which has been bought and sold numerous times. The current Atari, Inc has no real continuity with the original Atari. As you might recall from the Tengen company history we did a while back, Jack Tramiel's Atari Corporation (the guys behind the 7800, Lynx and Jaguar) ceased operations in 1996, and the name and rights were passed around a few times, ending up end the hand of Infogrames in 2003. The current Atari, Inc was originally a completely unrelated company called GT Interactive, which Infogrames purchased and renamed.

If anything, the "real" Atari died in 2003 when Atari Games was closed down by its owners Midway. Atari Games had remained a living, breathing game company until that point, with old-time employees like Asteroids creator Ed Logg hanging on until the very end. Warner eventually bought the Atari Games rights. Supposedly, Warner later sold these rights to Namco Bandai, who also took over the European division of the other Atari a few years ago. Thus stuff like Witcher 2 is published by Namco Bandai in Europe.

Over the next couple days I will finish editing Episode 46. Then it's a simple matter of producing a test version, correcting any obvious glaring errors, processing a final cut, and then processing the alternate versions (mkv, etc), uploading everything to Youtube and Archive -- and then you'll be able to enjoy Chrontendo 46!

One last minor announcement: there is now a new Chrontendo FAQ found in the upper left corner, below my profile picture. There's probably not much of interest to readers of this blog. I'll be linking to it in the new video, and it will be aimed more for folks who found Chrontendo on Youtube and don't know this blog exists.

Aussie Games and Krautish Rock

2013-01-12T19:30:00.001-08:00

You will be pleased to know that Chrontendo Episode 46 is nearing completion. There is only one game left unfinished, and then it's off to editing.

Episode 46 will feature four non-Japanese releases - that is, games that were created for the US market. One of them is Monster Party, but today I wanted to bring up a different title: Airwolf.

The US Airwolf is the second NES game based on the TV show, which, as I pointed out when covering the other Airwolf game, was cancelled in 1987. It was published by Acclaim, whose prior two US-only releases were both developed by Rare. (Wizards and Warriors and WWF Wrestlemania.) For Airwolf, Acclaim brought in a brand new developer to NES, Australia's Beam Software. It's interesting that all the publishers of US-only games for the NES (Acclaim, LJN, Hi Tech, etc) were outsourcing the work to overseas companies. American development studios were apparently all too invested in PC games to consider doing work for the NES.

Airwolf is a pretty awful game. Each level places your helicopter on a map which contains a few prison camps and refueling stations. The object is simple to move Airwolf to each camp to pick up prsioners, refuel if necessary, and then move the edge of the map, thus crossing the border. Almost all the action takes place in first person perspective from inside the cockpit. The results are not exactly visually thrilling:

There is nothing at all original in Airwolf. The game handles worse than most After Burner/Top Gun type games. The sound and graphics are ugly. In the screenshot above, you can see two enemy missiles headed towards you. They are represented simply by a bunch of black dots arranged into a circle. I guess creating a series of missile sprites in varying sizes was too much work or something. You can see the map in the middle of your cockpit's display. Acclaim tried to hide how boring looking the game is with some slightly deceptive packaging: the back of the box uses mostly screenshots from the intro and various cutscenes.

Airwolf is considered to be a pretty awful game, and in the US, Airwolf is the sort of thing we associate Beam Sofware with - lame licensed games. From the 8-bit era, Beam produced Back to the Future, the JVC-published Star Wars, Hunt for Red October on the Game Boy -- the sort of games that cause Youtube videogame critics to get all worked up and starting cursing and screaming. Their most notorious release was Power Punch II, originally created as a sequel to Punch-Out!! However, the resulting game was so terrible, Nintendo refused to associate themselves with it and sold it to a third party publisher, American Softworks. Somehow, amidst all the crap, Beam managed to turn out the Genesis version of Shadowrun, so their record is not 100% bad.

Yet, Beam's reputation outside of the US is very different. As a developer for games on the C-64, ZX Spectrum, etc, Beam (AKA Melbourne House) was considered to be a top-tier game company in the UK. You can find British and Australian sources describing them as legendary and pioneering. Prior to making NES games, they did have an international hit with The Hobbit, a text adventure game. But their most famous game overseas is Way of the Exploding Fist, a blatant rip-off of Karate Champ which improves a bit on the orignal. It failed to turn many heads in the US (Beam created an unreleased NES port), but is considered to be one of THE old-school games in the UK and Europe. At the time of its release, it received massive acclaim from gamers and the gaming press in the UK. Check out this ad for some over-the-top quotes from critics.

"Spectacular, startlingly original," "virtually beyond criticism," "Fantastic sound effects, state of the art animation," "Far and away the best sports combat simulation available." It's hard to reconcile that sort of praise with the game itself. I assume it was just a matter of the Exploding Fist being in the right place at the right time. Beam ending up winning the UK's Golden Joystick award for Best Software House of the Year in 1985. As another example of how UK and US tastes differed, in 1989 that award went to Ocean Software, another company known for tons of licensed shovelware. And the 1989 Golden Joystick for best console game went to.... Thunder Blade on the Sega Master System!

Beam continued to release games throughout the 1990s and 2000s, going through a few ownership and name changes in the process. As Krome Studios Melbourne, they produced forgettable titles like Viva Piñata: Party Animals and Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Republic Heroes. They ceased to exist as of 2010.

Moving on, I have another fine piece of Prog/Krautrock for the fans of that genre out there. This is sort of an oddity, a performance by Tangerine Dream from 1969. In the 70s T-Dream became a wildly successful electronic music act, creating music from behind massive banks of synthesizers. In 1969, however, they were a psychedelic rock band consisting of guitar, bass and drums. There is already one version of this on Youtube, but it was only in 240p, so I uploaded it in better quality.

The performers here are Edgar Froese, Klaus Schulze (who moved on to Ash Ra Temple and then a solo career in electronic music) and someone named "Happy" Dieter, whose identity remains unknown. The band performs on a rather distinctive fountain in what is actually the courtyard of a restaurant on Potsdamer St in Berlin. Sadly, this very cool looking courtyard is long gone, though the St. George Fountain still exits, having been moved to nearby Hindemithplatz. You can see the fountain as it looks today here. This particular jam is called the "Bath Tube Session" for reasons unknown to me. The film is a great look into the world of the German psyche scene of the time.

Welcome to 2013

2013-01-04T23:05:00.000-08:00

I always get a little freaked out the first few times I have type out the name of the new year. It's a little weird to think that it's really 2013. The years are really starting to sound futuristic to me. That's when you know you are getting old.

One thing we all love about Christmas is getting gifts, and this year my wife bought me something I've always wanted: a dutch oven. For those who are not big into cooking, a dutch oven is a cast oven pot with (sometimes) an enameled interior surface. They're perfect for making stews and that sort of thing. Traditionally, good quality dutch ovens have been associated with fancy-ass companies like La Creuset. Their dutch ovens are very nice, but are just a wee bit on the pricey side. However, in recent years, other companies have been producing comparable quality dutch ovens at sub $100 prices. I ended up getting a blue Lodge, which is supposedly almost indistinguishable from a Creuset in terms of performance.

I took the Lodge out for test drive by making some beef ribs braised in Guinness. The recipe is simple. Brown the ribs, add veggies, add beer, and then braise until the ribs are tender. Guinness was specifically called for in the recipe, but I couldn't help but wonder if using a better stout would have made the ribs even tastier.

The primary ingredients.

A word about Guinness for the beer-perplexed -- Guinness is one of those famous beers with a storied history, but that really isn't that great tasting. At least it isn't nowadays; everyone seems to think it used to taste better years ago. In bottled form, it comes in three standard varieties. Guinness Draught is available in probably every liquor/grocery store across the land. It's thin, weak and doesn't taste like the Guinness you remember. Guinness Extra Stout is a wee bit better. It's what I used to braise the ribs in. If you are in the US, you'll be disappointed to learn that the stuff on your local shelves is brewed in Canada. Far and away the best Guinness, if you can find it, is the beer labeled Guinness Foreign Extra Stout. This is a version of Guinness mostly made for sale outside of Ireland. For some reason, I haven't seen it on the shelves in a while. Supposedly the Foreign Extra Stout most closely resembles the classic Guinness of yesteryear.

Braise the ribs for a couple hours.

The Lodge cooks like a dream. It is literally the perfect thing to cook soups, stews, roasts, etc. I can easily see it becoming the most essential object in my kitchen. The more I look at it, the more I start feeling a little week in the knees. Is it possible to fall in love with a pot?

The recipe, if you want to try it yourself, or just learn about braising, is here. As a side dish, I made roasted potatoes, rutabaga, parsnips, and celery root.

The results - beef that falls off the bone.

My next cooking projects: fruit cake (yes, fruit cake season is over, I know) and aged egg nog! I'll keep you updated.

In video game related news - I also received my new graphics card on Monday. I popped that baby in, and once I realized I had to use 8-pin connectors instead of 6-pin, I was good to go. But, in a developement that will kill even more of my time, AMD was having a special offer -- three free games came with the card. These are Far Cry 3, Sleeping Dogs and Hitman. Also, it came with a discount coupon for... Medal of Honor: Warfighter! I won't be redeeming that one.

It's a stylish looking card, I'll give it that.

I also don't know if I'll be playing Hitman. The Hitman series always bothered the hell out of me. I am quite curious about Far Cry 3, however. I didn't dig the first Far Cry, but I understand in this one you get kidnapped, go crazy, take drugs and run around killing people? That sounds like my kind of game. Have any of you played it?

Final Post of the Year

2012-12-27T21:07:00.002-08:00

Hello, everyone. I hope the Holiday season has not left you too exhausted. Here at Chrontendo HQ, we've been pretty busy -- not only with Christmas stuff, but also Chrontendo 46.

A few quick updates today: Once the excitement of obtaining the Westvlateren 12 passed, I got around to actually drinking a bottle. And it's quite good! I planning on aging a couple bottles (note to non-beer geeks: much high quality beer improves with age, just like wine.), though at some point in the future, I hope to do some sort of Westvlateren/St. Bernardus comparison. That will be a very special episode of Beertendo.

I was surprised to spot an appearance of the elusive Chronogamer in the comments recently! His own attempt on chrongaming was the original inspiration for the Chrontendo project. I hope the dude will get back in the game soon, though currently he appears to be writing about Star Trek.

So.... on top of everything else currently going on, I've had this little distraction called Skyrim. Yes, it is sucking up time that should be devoted to Chrontendo. But can you really blame me for wanting to play Skyrim over Tenkaichi Bushi Keru Nagūru?

Seriously, just look at this crap.

To make matters worse, I've started exploring the surprisingly deep world of Skyrim mods. It's been a while since I been actively involved in PC gaming. The few big PC blockbuster titles I've played in recent years have been on consoles. So, I was a little surprised at the sheer number of impressive mods for Skyrim. And there are even a few that don't involve adding naked ladies to the game! There are plenty of those, of course; in fact the second most popular mod on the main Skyrim mod site, Nexus, is something called a "female body mod - big bottom edition." But there tons of things like high-res re-textures for the environment, improvements to the UI, some amazing lighting mods, and tons of very specific alterations such as adding insects and birds to the game world. The overall philosophy of the Skyrim modding community is pretty amusing: "We love this game! Now let's change absolutely everything about it!" Anyway, it's possible to get totally lost in this stuff, so I apologize for being so distracted this month.

To make matters even worse, I received my end-of-year bonus last week, and decided to use a little bit of those surplus funds to pick up a new graphics card. My current system has a decent mid-range card, but it's nowhere near cutting edge. I decided to upgrade to a Radeon 7950. I currently have an AMD card, and it was a tough choice between sticking with AMD or trying out a GeForce. It's amazing how fired up people get over their choice of graphics cards manufacturers. There are some serious AMD/GeForce partisans out there who have very strong feelings about the superiority of their brand. This reminds me of Nintendo/Sega back in the day.

In the meantime, Chrontendo 46 continues to putter along. It's actually a pretty strong lineup of games this time. We have a few lesser known, culty games that received US releases. One standout among them is Human/Bandai's horrific platfomer, Monster Party. This must be one of the weirdest damned games released for the NES. If you've never played it, expected to be a little shocked once you see some of the creepy stuff in this game.

What a cheery fellow!

For Beer Fans, the Greatest Day

2012-12-12T17:51:00.000-08:00

Today, something has occurred that I assumed would never happen. I actually have, in my possession, six bottles of perhaps the world's most legendary beer, Westvleteren 12. The beer went on sale this morning in the US for the first and probably last time.

If you don't know much about the world of beer, here's the explanation of why this is a big deal: Belgium is the Mecca of the beer-producing world. It is to beer what Bordeaux is to wine. Many, many styles of beer come out of Belgium, but one certain type is held in particularly high regard. This is the ale made by Trappist monks. Belgium has six Trappist breweries, and there is another in the Netherlands. Trappist beers are some of the finest produced, and in general are not very hard to find. The largest Trappist brewery, Chimay, makes ales that are available just about anywhere that sells beer. Every Trader Joe's around here stocks it all the time. As for the others: any really decent beer shop should sell them. If I decided right now that I wanted an Orval, Westmalle or Rochefort, I could hop in my car and have a bottle in my hand within 20 minutes.

The joker in the pack of Trappist beers is Westvleteren. It is the most sought after Trappist beer, but has no official distribution in the US, or anywhere, for that matter. The only place that legally sells it is the actual monastery - or rather the brewery's visitor center. In order to obtain a Westvleteren, you would need to perform the following steps.

Go to Belgium. Proceed to the town of Vleteren.
Dial a special phone number to order a case of beer.
Drive to the visitor center to pick up the beer.
Keep in mind that the brewery is very small, and the demand for the beer is far greater than the supply, and it may take many, many phone calls before you are able to get a case. As the brewery's website wryly notes, it will take a "lot of luck" to reserve a case.

The brewery makes three styles, but the most desirable is the Westvleteren 12, the strongest of the three. The very high quality of the 12, combined with its lack of availability, gives it a certain mystique. It has been voted the best beer in the world on several occasions. Voters on the popular beer ratings sites, RateBeer and BeerAdvocate have placed it in the first and second spots, respectively, in their beer rankings.

So Westvleteren 12 has been sort of the "holy grail" of beers. Thus it was quite surprising that the monastery had cut a deal with EU and US distributors to sell a limited number of "gift packs," each containing 6 bottles of Westie 12 and two glasses. The monastery is not supposed to make a profit on the beer; the only reason they are allowing outside distribution is that their building needs a new roof. The US distribution deal was announced last year, but the release date had been pushed back couple times - until now. Today, on 12/12/12, a select number of liquor stores in 26 states put the gift packs on sale. This momentous event was big enough to get mentions in mainstream media sources. I knew of a few local outlets that would be carrying this, so I headed out this morning to arrive before opening time.

Not pictured: the tears of joy running down my face.

There are a few nice things (but very few) about living in a large, yet uncultured town like I do. I didn't have to face down any huge lines this morning. There was a steady flow of people arriving to buy the gift packs, but no one was camping out in front of the store. In Chicago there were reports of lines starting at 4 AM, in Philadelphia, lines "around the block," and so on. A large location in Toronto sold out in 4 minutes. Checking Ebay, I see bids already passing the $400 mark on these gift sets. Also -- sons of bitches are trying to sell the empty gift boxes. Considering that only around 15000 of these packs were available in the US, its not surprising to see that kind of price inflation.

I suppose later tonight I'll actually open up a bottle and try it. Undoubtedly the experience will be a bit anti-climatic. No beer can really live up the title of "best beer in the world." Still, as a beer fanatic, a major gap in my beer-drinking experience will have been filled.

By the way, if you are curious about this beer but don't want to spend $400, here's a little secret that beer lovers know. There is a very close approximation of Westie 12 that is easily obtainable: St Bernardus Abt 12. The monks from Westvleteren gave their recipe to the monks at the nearby Abbey of St Bernardus. The two beers are often considered to taste very similar, though Westie 12 is usually thought to be a bit better.

I Might Be an Idiot...

2012-12-10T20:19:00.000-08:00

...and this video is not particularly original or creative, but I find it awesome.

It's A Bad Brains Christmas, Charlie Brown

Dr. Sparkle: Lootstealer

2012-12-06T22:43:00.001-08:00

Now that the Chronsega 8 madness is over, it's time to get back to work on Chrontendo. This episode should come out in a sometime timely fashion, barring certain "delays" (more about this at the end of the post.)

For the time being however, I'd like to point out this rare intersection of two interests of mine: video games and linguistics. Recently, the fast-talking videogame personality Ben Croshaw/Yahtzee did one of his Zero Punctuation videos on EA's Medal of Honor: Warfighter. I really have no idea whether or not MOH:Warfighter is a good game. Croshaw didn't like it, but the odd thing about his review is that he spends the first couple minutes ranting about the name; or rather, the word "warfighter." Croshaw finds something inherently ridiculous about the structure of the word, comparing it to saying "numbers accountant," and claiming that it causes fits of laughter whenever he utters it.

I just hope he doesn't wear that hat in real lif-- .... Oh.

This review managed to draw the attention of the popular linguistics blog, Language Log, which is run by Mark Liberman of the University of Pennsylvania and Geoff Pullum of the University of Edinburgh. LL often posts about notable language issues in pop culture. Liberman points out that "warfighter," rather than being a word made up by EA, is a standard term for members of the US military and has been used by the DOD since at least the 1980s. It turns up quite frequently in government documents related to military matters. The US military needs to have a general term for members of the Army, Marines, Air Force and Navy who are engaged in combat activities. Currently, the preferred term is warfighter. These kinds of games love putting military jargon into their names, so "warfighter" does not sound at all out of place.

I suppose Croshaw can be excused for not being familiar with the word, since appears to be British (or perhaps a very pretentious American.) But his insistence that the word is somehow internally redundant is a little weird. After all, you can do of things with war other than fight it: warmonger, war profiteer, etc. Likewise, people engage in all sorts of fighting; there are firefighters and prizefighters. Some people even do their fighting in the streets. Perhaps Croshaw has heard of these street fighters? And, as one commenter on LL pointed out, other games have already used the term, such as Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter.

Also: Saint's Row: Whorefighter

Croshaw's remarks fall into the larger category of a language peeve: a word, phrase or usage that upsets certain people. Often, there is a cultural, national or class bias behind these peeves. Older people get upset when new words are introduced into the language or the meanings of existing words change. Folks who consider themselves educated (or better yet, "cultured") dislike certain popular or casual English words/phrases. Grammar Nazis haunt internet forums, trying to impose imaginary grammar rules (like "split infinitives.") Some people can't abide foreign words entering the English language -- I recall some years ago a reader's letter in my local newspaper complaining about the use of the word "tsunami." I myself peeve at times. I violently disagree with 1Up's Bob Mackey's use of "oral history" in this series (Dr. Sparkle contributed a brief and terrible entry in this article.). And if you EVER confuse "jealousy" with "envy," I WILL curb stomp you.

BTW: Language Log has a number of entertaining and informative articles on language peeves here.

In other sad news, I'm sure you are all aware that Nintendo Power has released its final issue. The cover is a nice call back to the very first Nintendo Power.

And, it yet more sad news for Chrontendo fans, a major distraction has been occupying my attention lately. After months of letting the graphics card on my computer sit idly, I have finally broken down and bought Skyrim. Don't blame me! It was $25 on Amazon! I couldn't resist. Don't worry, I will be working on Chrontendo between sessions of slaying dragons and rooting through people's dressers and nightstands. And seriously, why does everyone is this game leave food lying around everywhere? Who keeps an apple pie on the end table next to their bed?

To Watch this Video, You Need 4 Eyes

2012-11-28T19:40:00.001-08:00

Why? Because of the size.*

Seriously, Chronsega 8 is huuuuge. In more ways than one. It is far and away the longest episode yet. And it's all due to one thing: Phantasy Star II. For some reason, PS II stirred up enough vitriol in me (perhaps "vitriol' is too strong) to rant and rave for an excessively long time about its shortcomings. Hell, the PS II segment is halfway between a typical Chrontendo segment and a Let's Play.

But before I get into that, yes, Chronsega 8 is available in all its mind-numbing glory, on Archive and Youtube. As an experiment, I have put a 720p High Def version on Youtube. If you plan on watching it full screen on your big-ass monitor, this is the way to go. Purists, however, will probably still want to download the 60 fps version from Archive. Also, this is the episode where we move into the new dual format for Chronsega: half Megadrive/Genesis and half Master System.

GET READY!

So about Phantasy Star II: I'd never played the game before. I'd always heard it was one of the best RPGs ever - a game years ahead of its time. One that put its contemporaries to shame. A game so amazing that after completing it your life would be transformed forever. After watching the closing credits scroll down the screen, you would step outside, notice colors in the sky you had never seen before. The sounds of children playing in the distance would fill your heart with laughter. Suddenly, nothing in the world would be impossible for you to accomplish.Women would suddenly find you irresistibly attractive. You had become a master of your destiny -- all because of Phantasy Star II!

I hope you like massive amounts of gratuitous multi-plane scrolling.

In fact, PS II seemed a bit dumbed down compared to its predecessor and some of the better RPGs we've already seen. The combat is very simple; in fact it plays itself. You only have to hit the "fight" button at the start of each battle and your characters just attack automatically. Enemies use virtually no status ailments or special attacks. Battles are just "hit and heal." There are only three boss battles in the entire game: one about halfway into the game, and two more at the very end. The game world seems small and sort of empty; there are only a few NPCs of any importance. There is only one real side story, about a guy whose daughter is kidnapped by "scoundrels." The game just doesn't have any of the richness found in Dragon Quest III.

What it lacks in richness it makes up for in vivisected bunnies.

On the other hand, the art is pretty nice - the monsters and large and the attack animations are well animated. However, PS II is still visually tied to its 8-bit roots. It looks like Phantasy Star with bigger sprites and slightly more detailed backgrounds. You can't really blame Sega for this; after all, that 16-bit RPG "look" wasn't developed overnight. The music is outstanding: some of the best for the system. The character artwork is good looking, and box art by Hitoshi Yoneda is pretty sweet, though clearly derivative of the French comic artist Moebius. But mostly PS II just feels shallow and repetitive, like a grindy, continuous slog through a series of dungeons.

Though we did get some decent fantasy paperback style art in the US.

I don't want to babble on about this game anymore than I already have. Though you should check out the rather thorough series of posts over at the RPG Consoler.

We cover the Mega Drive releases from the system's launch in October 1988 to June 1989. Aside from PS II, we have the two launch titles, both based on Super Scaler arcade games: Space Harrier II and Super Thunder Blade. Later in the year Sega released Altered Beast, the orignal pack-in game for the Genesis in the US, and Osomatsu-kun, a Mega Drive original. Osomatsu-kun is noticeable for being the first platformer on the system, as well as the first licensed game.

Osomatsu-kun: the forgotten game from the Mega Drive's first batch of releases.

1989 brings in the disappointing Alex Kidd sequel, Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle, which inexplicably upped the Janken content. Also, Super League, a good looking Baseball game that plays just like every other baseball game we've seen. In the US, Sega tacked on names of real sports figures to their sports games, so Super League was released as Tommy Lasorda Baseball. There are also a couple third party developed games based on earlier computer games, Super Daisenryaku and Thunder Blade II. The latter would eventually become a popular series of shoot-em-ups on the Genesis, but this game is less successful than its sequels.

A crotch shot or Tommy Lasorda's ugly mug. Not much of a choice.

On the Master System end, we have six US/Europe games from Summer 1989. Far and away the best is Westone's Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap. I discussed my love of this game in an earlier post. But let me reiterate -- it's one of the best games on the system. Other than that we have a port of the Hot-B shooter, Cloud Master, a horror themed basketball game, Basketball Nightmare, OutRun 3D, Compile's Casino Games, and for some damned reason, Parker Brothers' port of King's Quest (!)

Cloud Master AKA The game where you shoot all kinds of stupid shit.

So this is how Chronsega will continue in the future. Episode 9 will lean more heavily on the Mega Drive, as the Master System enters its lean period. First though, we have some more Chrontendo. I sincerely hope that Chrontendo 46 will arrive in a much timelier fashion. A number of factors conspired to make Chronsega 8 so late; hopefully this won't happen again.

Until then, check out Chronsega 8 on Archive and Youtube.

* Reference (Probably NSFW)

Post Birthday Blues

2012-11-23T15:36:00.001-08:00

At what point in your life do you officially become "out of it?" I'm certainly behind the times in the world of videogames. Yesterday at the Thanksgiving table, some younger folk were talking about the wonders of Halo 4, a game which I know very little about and have even less interest in playing. I can't stir up much interest for Angry Birds, Kinect, or any of that stuff. For a guy who specializes in old videogames, this is all perfectly acceptable. But I still am a fan on contemporary music, so it's a bit more troublesome to find myself developing grumpy old man syndrome in that department. After all, I did work for an online music retailer for a number of years, something I've mentioned on this blog before. (I believe I wrote about having spoken to Johnny Rotten on the phone - he was calling buy some Can CDs. (Incidentally, I also sent a hard-to-find CD to Steve Jones, though I never actually spoke to him directly. I'm pretty sure it was a Silverhead record, maybe this one. Before you judge Steve Jones as a pervert based on that remarkable sleazy cover, please note that Silverhead was a pretty good 70s glam band, so Mr. Jones must have decent taste is music.))

This was acceptable in the 70s.

What triggered my current state of feeling old and in the way was a trip to a local burgers and beer place that sits next door to a musical venue. I've been to that musical venue a number of times; I even wrote about seeing Mastodon there. Outside, a huge line of people were waiting to get in, stretching literally around the block. After dinner, security was still working on getting people into the venue. It was sort of an unusual crowd, with lots of young people and older folks as well. I asked one of the venue's employees what was going on that night. "Halestorm. It's a huge show. Been sold out for weeks." "Halestorm?" I thought, "I've never heard of them. They're this popular?" I should explain that I live in a town that is not exactly known for supporting the arts, and I don't often see big crowds at these sort of things. Upcoming shows at that same venue include the likes of Trapt, NOFX, Snoop Dogg (!), and Sum 41, none of which appear to have sold out. So apparently these Halestorm guys are a big deal? There were a few folks wearing Avenged Sevenfold shirts hanging around, so maybe Halestorm is a Christian band? (Avenged Sevenfold is a Christian band, right? I would assume so with a name like that.)

There's nothing objectively wrong with not knowing who some popular but probably terrible band is. But not that long ago, I at least had a passing familiarity with terrible crap like Linkin Park or Daughtry. Now, it appears this stuff is passing me by. Maybe this is a good thing, and means fewer distractions. Or it could just be that I'm getting over the hill.

It's no coincidence that I'm writing a post of this nature the day after my birthday. Once you reach a certain age (probably some time in your 30s) birthdays become less a cause for celebration, and more a grim reminder of your mortality. However, since it was my birthday, I decided not to cook Thanksgiving dinner myself, for the first time in around 8 years or so. At least I had a day off.

Speaking of 70s glam rockers....

By the way: the final piece in the Chronsega 8 puzzle, Phantasy Star II, has been completed. I've also finished the new and sort of weird Chronsega opening title sequence. It's mostly now a matter of editing everything together over the next few days.

Yikes!

2012-11-13T21:48:00.000-08:00

Chrontendo has always gotten a fair amount of spam, but there seems to have been a serious uptick in the last few weeks. Blogger has been pretty good about blocking these in the past. But in last couple days, the Blogger spam catcher seems to have shit the bed with the lights on, and all kinds of crazy stuff is getting through., despite 100% of these comments being about cheap prescription drugs.

I'm not sure what's going on, but it's with a heavy heart that I have enabled the verification word thingy. Hopefully this will be temporary. But for the time being you'll need to type in the magic word to post a comment.

Chrontrailer

2012-11-09T18:38:00.000-08:00

The wait for Chronsega 8 has become so protracted, that this episode now has its own trailer. Yes, an actual teaser-trailer type deal has been created for this episode. As I stated a while ago, there are some big changes afoot for Chronsega, and the new episode will introduce the new Chronsega. We might call it Chronsega 2.0, or perhaps Chronsega 360, Chronsega Vista, Chronsega X, or hell, maybe we'll just call it Chronsega: The New Batch. We also roll out the stupidly fancy-looking new Chronsega logo, which will undoubtedly be improved in later episodes.

Most of Chronsega 8 is done, but one game has turned out to be long, grueling slog. But I considered this game to be "important" enough for me to finish, so I'm toughing it out. If you've watched the trailer, you can probably figure out which game I'm talking about.

The Big Winner

2012-11-07T22:35:00.000-08:00

Election Day has come and gone, and I'll admit to getting a little caught up the madness for the last couple days. I always tell myself I won't compulsively watch the election coverage on television, and this year I have once again broken my promise. Last night was a huge and total victory for a man who many people have mocked, insulted and written off as a guy who just got lucky one time. I personally had a lot of faith in him, so it was quite gratifying to see him completely and utterly vindicated. So, congratulations, Nate Silver. You were right on the money. The number crunching nerds have triumphed over the crusty old pundits.

Of all the big networks, Fox News certainly had the most entertaining coverage over the last few days. The political equivalent of the reality distortion field seemed to have engulfed the network, with various talking heads popping up on Nov 5 to explain that, yes, Romney was definitely going to win this election, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Naturally, we've been treated to all sorts of meltdowns and Twitter freakouts the last 2 days. Probably the guy who got the hardest slap on the face from reality was human carbuncle Dick Morris, a man so completely out of touch that he was predicting a huge landslide for Romney up to the last minute. Election night itself, of course, also treated us to the sad spectacle of of Karl Rove freaking out, and disputing Fox's call of Ohio for Obama. Cognitive dissonance at its saddest.

Of course, now guys like Morris are blaming Hurricane Sandy and New Jersey governor Chris Christie for creating some kind of last minute upset in the election. This seems pretty absurd, as polls indicated the likelihood of an Obama win had been steadily increasing well before Sandy. Furthermore, according to Nate Silver, the odds of Obama winning never dropped below 62%, even in the aftermath of the first debate.

Here in the crazy state of California, we still have one hotly contested US House seat in the air. Supposedly, it will be "days, or even weeks" before the final vote is decided. And, in a move that might seem pretty weird to people outside the US, we rejected a measure that required genetically modified food to be labeled as such. I guess we just don't want to know what we are eating.

Oh, yes, on my Halloween post, I thought I was being unique and special by posting that crazy "It Came in the Night" song. Surely only Kenneth Anger fans or record collector geeks know that song, right? Yet, it so happens that weirdo punk rockers The Black Lips created a Halloween mixtape for frickin' Vice Magazine. And guess what the last track was?

(Shakes fist) DAMNED HIPSTEEEERRRRRSS!!!

A Halloween Quickie

2012-10-30T21:25:00.000-07:00

Hey folks, here's our very special, spooky Halloween post! Well, it's not really very spooky. If anything, its appalling at best. All I have for you today, is a quick preview of Chronsega 8. There just happens to be a horror-themed game (sort of) this episode: Basketball Nightmare, which was apparently released only in Europe, in mid 1989. You'll get the see the new, more SMS-appropriate title sequence, as well. Long live Alex Kidd!

Also, as a goofy Halloween bonus, here's a super obscure song by the Australian 70s band, A Raincoat. Like many people, I first encountered this song via its unauthorized usage in Kenneth Anger's short film, Rabbit's Moon. Specifically, the later re-edited Rabbit's Moon from the 1970s; Anger's original version used a selection of classic doo-wop and soul songs. I can't find a good looking transfer of the orginal film on Youtube, but you can see a kind of crummy version here, if avant garde movies from the 1950s are your thing.

Anyway, the recut version of Rabbit's Moon dropped the original soundtrack and replaced it with a totally inappropriate 70s rock song called "It Came in the Dark." In those pre-Google days, people could only hear the song and wonder what the hell it was. "It Came in the Dark" is both utterly stupid and catchy as hell. I'm sure this tune was burned into the brain of just about everyone who saw Rabbit's Moon. Here's the song:

A Raincoat also released a full-length album, the poorly titled Digalongamacs, which featured the Sparks-y I Love You For Your Mind (Not Your Body)."