VinceIP

Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes leaked, near-complete version

2011-01-23T19:05:00.000-05:00

If you've never heard of Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes, it is a fan sequel to Chrono Trigger; meant to fit in-between the events of Trigger and Cross. It's a hack of the original Chrono Trigger on the SNES. There's brand new areas to explore, new dialogue, new enemies, character portraits, and more. The game was almost finished until Square-Enix sent a cease & desist letter to the team, threatening legal action if they didn't scrap the hack. Shortly after, a 98%-complete beta version of the game was leaked online.

Recently, some guy on Reddit leaked a newer version that he claims is newer than the 98%-complete beta version. This one is basically the finished game. I have yet to get very far on it, but let me give you the scoop.

-Crono talks (he's a douche)
-Frog no longer has the medieval accent and is more true to the original Japanese Frog before U.S translation
-The new character portraits kind of suck
-There is no main character this time; everyone gets equal focus
-The writing is pretty amateur unfortunately
-Combat is pretty much the same

Generally it's a good game, but unless you're a hardcore Chrono fan you likely won't get much out of Crimson Echoes. The best part is seeing all the new areas and following the story.

So here you'll find the fully-patched rom, which you should probably play in zsnes: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=CR6ZTVXG

fully-explorable new future hhhhhnnnggggghhh

This hack is every Chrono fanboy's dream come true, mine included. Seriously. Fuck Square-Enix for being dicks and shutting this down, like they did with Chrono Trigger Resurrection. They're a pretty shitty company these days and have yet to release a decent game PERIOD in several years. Nothing but rehashes and ports. And if they don't plan on doing anything else with the Chrono series, why the fuck should they keep down the fans just trying to keep the series alive? FUCK YOU SQUARE

Lights Out - Rick Astley

2010-09-07T13:13:00.000-04:00

This should be a 2010 chart topper.

More Oblivion Screens

2010-09-05T21:08:00.000-04:00

Just because.

Oblivion Modding

2010-09-05T05:34:00.000-04:00

I've been playing Oblivion again recently and trying out a bunch of different mods, mostly graphical. Here's some screenshots of my game, modded to look extra sexy.

This is running on mostly high settings: large textures, HDR, high shadow filtering, etc. No anti-aliasing though. Oblivion makes you choose between bloom with anti-aliasing, or HDR with no anti-aliasing for some reason. I'm playing this on a 2 year old laptop. So to all the assholes that laugh at the prospect of gaming on a laptop, to you I say I politely disagree with your position good sir. Here's my laptop's specs:

Dell XPS m1530 laptop
Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 2.4ghz
Geforce 8600 mGT 256 MB
4 GB RAM

Oblivion is one amazing ass game, and even 3x as good on PC. If you play it on 360, that's fine, but you'll have to deal with the performance stutters and long load times. You're also missing out on the jaw dropping visuals that the PC version offers. The vanilla game is good looking for a 4 year old title, but when you throw in some environmental mods and texture replacements it's simply stunning. Not to mention you there's tons of new quest mods that add on entire new areas to explore and treasures to obtain. If you've never played Oblivion, what the fuck is wrong with you?

Stu Pierces The Heavens At 4 In the Morning

2010-09-01T19:39:00.000-04:00

Rap

2010-08-30T15:49:00.000-04:00

This is such a good song.

It's been awhile.

2010-08-29T16:15:00.002-04:00

Haven't posted on here in awhile. Maybe I'll work on some new stuff this evening. In the meantime, here's some cats.

Enjoy. Be sure to follow my blog to be notified of new posts! I'll follow you back.

The Pirate Bay

2009-04-20T16:40:00.004-04:00

Long Live The Pirate Bay!
Yarr!

3 PC Games You Must Play Before You Die

2009-04-10T14:44:00.012-04:00

1. Starcraft

Starcraft is a real-time strategy game made by Blizzard. It was made in 1998, so it's a little over a decade old. Starcraft literally defines the genre. There's tons of RTS games but none of them can come close to matching up. Starcraft has perfectly balanced gameplay and, for the time at least, great looking 2D graphics.

Basically you have 3 different races. Terrans (the humans), the Protoss (an advanced alien race), and the Zerg (a race of violent parasitic aliens). They're all trying to beat the crap out of each other. The Zerg want to infest all of the Protoss and assimilate them into their own race to become "perfect". The Protoss don't like that very much. Meanwhile the Terrans are all fighting each other and generally being a pain in the ass to the Protoss. The Zerg, while trying to assimilate the Protoss, have also started munching on the Terrans as well. The Protoss keep blowing up Terran planets and killing millions of people in order to kill Zerg. So the Terrans get kind of pissed off at the Protoss for that.

The single player is great but that's not what makes this game what it is. The multiplayer is insanely fun and addicting. So much that Starcraft is literally a sport in Korea. We all know those damn Koreans are crazy enough as it is, but most of the population knows what Starcraft is and regularly watch professionals play the game on television. It's as big as football is in America.

)Starcraft 2 has been in the making for years. It looks great, but will it be as huge as the original Starcraft?)

Starcraft has been known to kill people, by the way.

So if you've never played Starcraft, I suggest you give it a try. Just make sure you take an hour or so break every 14 hours.

2. Myst

Myst is a first-person adventure game with beautiful pre-rendered graphics and the hardest puzzles you've ever seen in a video game. The visuals and beautiful ambient sound effects make it one of the most immersive games I've ever played. It's the kind of game you need to play in a pitch dark room with the lights off and a pair of high-quality headphones.

Myst was made by a small team of only around a half-dozen people. That's all it took to make a game back then. This game was released in 1993 for the Mac. It was later ported to Windows. To play the original today you'd need an old computer loaded with Windows 95. Thankfully this game has been ported dozens of times to different playforms; the Playstation, Xbox, and Nintendo DS to name a few.

Myst is one of my old childhood favorites. It was the first PC game I actually owned. It was one of the most popular games available when it came out. It's spawned many sequels, although many of them weren't actually made by the original Myst team.

3. Unreal Tournament

Unreal Tournament is Epic Games' famous franchise. It's a revolutionary FPS, but still underrated.

At first glance the original UT is a pretty standard shooter. But you notice the differences when comparing it to others. UT is known for its incredibly fast paced gameplay. If you ever played multiplayed Quake or even Doom, you know what I mean. The classic FPS is very fast. Most FPS games today, especially on consoles, are much much slower in comparison. Some even focus on slow stealth gameplay.

If you can get manage to play UT without getting motion sickness and puking all over the keyboard, the game is very fun. There's a standard set of weapons that are all completely balanced. You've got your standard weak pistol and powerful rocket launcher, along with your one-hit-kill close range melee weapon, the Impact Hammer. Inbetween is the Shock Rifle and Sniper Rifle which require lots of accuracy. Then there's the chaingun, biorifle, and Flak gun, all which are fast firing weapons and don't stress as much precise aiming.

The maps and customization options are limitless. You can even make complete campaign adventures to play online with friends. You can customize your character model. You can play as a male or female, a giant demon creature or a robot, or make a mod to play as a naked guy if you want. Every UT sequel has stayed faithful to the original and, for the most part, stuck with the same set of weapons and options. Unreal Tournament 3, the latest game, is almost identical to the original but with updated features and graphics. If it ain't broken, don't fix it.

(How a first person shooter is meant to be played. Fast paced and quick.)

BitTorrent

2009-04-10T00:21:00.008-04:00

What is BitTorrent?

There's all kinds of ways that major companies and individuals can share their files and media today. Direct HTTP, FTP, IRC, newsgroups, BitTorrent, the Gnutella network, the list goes on... But the one I'm most concerned about is BitTorrent.

BitTorrent is the single most underrated and misunderstood method of filesharing. Usually a typical person has no idea what BitTorrent is, but they know what Limewire is. Well here's something you may not realize. Limewire, eMule, Frostwire, Livewire, they all suck. They're mostly just useful for exchanging single MP3 files, which are always horrible quality, as well as viruses and kiddie porn.

The most popular types of files that people share are music and movies (and porn). If you've ever tried to download a movie on Limewire, it probably took about a day or overnight to finish downloading, depending on the size of the file. Even still, when you go to watch it after the long wait, you may find out it's nothing but a 12-year-old kid standing in front of his 13-inch TV with a handicam on a tripod recording the movie.

Well those days are over my friend. Imagine this. Imagine downloading the entire discography of your favorite band all at once, with a sigle click, ever song in perfect crystal clear quality. Imagine downloading a great movie you've been wanting to see. You can see it in HD quality or download a version that will fit on a CD-R. AND it's finished downloading within 2 hours. Imagine doing this day after day, without ever contracting any kind of virus or malware. That's the magic of BitTorrent.

How does it work?

BitTorrent works like this. One user will create a file, called a .torrent file. The .torrent file is uploaded to a web site and available for download. The .torrent file itself is only around 1 or 2 kb. Another user downloads the .torrent file. His BitTorrent program reads information from the .torrent file and the 2 users PC's connect with each other. One user then begins to upload a video, MP3, or anything he wants to send to the public. More people can download the .torrent and their PCs will connect to everyone else who has downloaded the same .torrent. The file will then be sent to everyone.

Here's a visual representation of how BitTorrent works.

So basically the more people who are downloading a file you want, the faster you will get it. It's common to download a file at speeds up to 1 MB/s (depending on how fast your own Internet connection is).

Why should I use it?

With BitTorrent you have the advantage of downloading hundreds of files at the same time. In Limewire you have to select what you want file by file. But a .torrent file comes packaged with information regarding hundreds of files.

Most importantly, BitTorrent can be a hundred times faster. It's also MUCH more secure. Getting a virus through BitTorrent is extremely rare.

Is it legal?

YES. BitTorrent itself is completely legal. In order to use BitTorrent you must go to a site that offers links to .torrent files. Since .torrent files are only a few kb large, they're completely legal to download because .torrent files are not pirated media themselves. Thus, BitTorrent sites are able to legally operate because they don't offer any illegal content to download.

There's been tons of court cases related to torrenting. It seems to me like the courts can't seem to make up their minds about how they want to handle the legality or torrents. Most lawyers and politicians don't even understand the technology and how it works, so it's hard to determine what the future is going to hold for torrents.

Obviously, though downloading torrents isn't illegal, actually owning pirated media IS illegal under any circumstance; as far as I know, anyway. Some say that it's totally legal because the original uploader is held responsible for pirating. Others say everyone accessing pirated material via torrents is liable.

I won't reccommend that you use BitTorrent for pirating media. What ever you decide to use BittTorrent for is your own business. But anyway...

How do I use BitTorrent?

First, you're going to need a program called a BitTorrent client. By far, the best one available is called uTorrent. Click the link to download the program. It's very lightweight and fast. So if you have a PC made of paper clips and rubber bands you can still use it.

After you've downloaded and installed uTorrent, you need to configure it properly. It can get a bit tricky getting it right. When you open uTorrent for the first time you'll see this screen:

(click image to enlarge)

This is the Speed Guide. You're going to need to select the speed of your connection. Click Run Speed Test and you'll be taken to a site where you can test your download and upload speed. When you find out what it is, select the proper choice from the dropdown menu. uTorrent doesn't care about your download speed; just upload speed.

After you do that you need to forward the port. This is extremely important. If you don't forward your port properly uTorrent will give you very slow speeds. Don't touch that port number. Just click the Test if Port is Forwarded button. If it isn't forwarded, follow the link to find out how. Remember, forwarding the port properly is very important.

Now uTorrent is all set up and ready to go. Now you need to find a BitTorrent site to start downloading files. Here's some:

The Pirate Bay
isoHunt
Mininova

The Pirate Bay is the largest BitTorrent site out there. So start there. When you find something you want, simply download the .torrent file and run it. uTorrent will pop up and take care of the rest for you.

BitTorrent Tips

If you're seeing slow speeds, just wait for a few minutes. It may take some time for uTorrent to connect to other users. The speed should pick up after awhile. If it's still slow make sure your port is forwarded. If all else fails, the torrent may be dead. If no one is connected to the torrent, there's nowhere to download the file. Or if just a few people are connected, you'll see slow speeds. So try to look for the most active torrents.

While viruses don't appear often, don't let your guard down completely. I use avast! antivirus software. It works great and catches any infected files as soon as they show up on my PC. Also make sure to read user comments on torrent sites before you download. If a file is incomplete or infected usually a user will post a comment about it.

After you download a torrent, if there is a readme file, ALWAYS read it. It could have important information you need to know about what you downloaded.

Conclusion

That about covers it. BitTorrent is slowly but surely becoming the most efficent and pracical way of sharing files. Even gaming companies are using it for distributing patches and games. Blizzard, for example, uses BitTorrent to distribute their high res trailers and a few games. Still, a lot of companies refuse to see the benefits of it. BiTorrent gets a bad rep due to piracy.

Top 10: Favorite NES Game

2009-02-24T18:31:00.018-05:00

The NES is probably my favorite system from my childhood. I spent at least 75% of my summers, weekends, and free time after school in my basement either watching Dragonball Z or playing my NES. I really didn't own a majority of the "greats"; I never owned Metroid, Zelda, or Castlevania. I never got to even see those games until I discovered emulators.

So here it is, my top 10 favorite NES games. Probably not what most would consider the best, but these are the games I owned and played the most.

10. Knight Rider

Alright... all things considered, this game is pretty much awful. But back then, even awful games were fantastic. I can't say much about this one because I don't remember ever getting past the first level. I'd always run out of gas just before the end and lose. How do you get gas? To this day I still don't know. Knight Rider is based off the T.V show of the same name, which I've never seen, but apparently it involves David Hasselhoff and a badass Pontiac Firebird.

Anyway, this game looks a lot like Rad Racer. But here, you accelerate by pressing up on the D-pad, you're always in first-person view, and you have the ability to launch yourself in the air and crush helpless victims below (Bump 'n' Jump, anyone?) in addition to an arsenal of missiles and lasers. The music sucks, no one gives a damn about the story, and this game is just way too hard and frustrating. Yet, I still loved to play this game as a kid, so it gets number 10.

9. Dick Tracy

Wow, is this game hard! Dick Tracy for the NES is probably the game I wanted to shoot in the face the most. Still, I have fond memories shoving my Game Genie up its ass and pwning everything.

Though the game is so hard it's nearly unplayable, the music is absolutely FANTASTIC. It's definitely the highlight of this game. Watch the video above to see what I mean. The point of this game is to go around an extremely linear path collecting "clues" that direct you to different locations. You go on a wild goose chase until you have to decide which suspect you want to arrest. If you choose the right one you go to the next level. If not, game over. It mixes sidescrolling platform elements with a tad of thinking and logic involved.

8. Bad Dudes

The famous NES port of the sidescrolling arcade beat-em-up. This is one hard game if you don't have a friend to play with who knows what he's doing. I remember spending hours in front of this game with my friend. We eventually beat the whole thing without using cheats and it was one of the proudest moments of our lives. We were so giddy and overjoyed that we beat the game, we cried with laughter when the President asked us to grab a burger with him.

Overall, it's really just a basic but solid beat-em-up. It's of course outclassed by games like Double Dragon and River City. The music is terrific and the graphics are interesting, but my biggest gripe is the control. It's so laggy, slow, and confusing. I don't feel like I'm in control of the character.

7. Legends of the Diamond

The first baseball, no, the first SPORTS game I'd ever played. I honestly think this is one of the greatest baseball sims on the NES (and there's a lot). There's lots of real players to play as and a good amount of control. It actually feels like a real baseball game. The music and sound effects are just brilliant. You can choose between two fields, arrange your batter lineup, the angle and style of your swing or pitch, and move your players in the outfield.

Playing with the CPU is great but the real fun here is playing baseball with a friend. It can get very intense. Stealing bases and dancing your men around the outfield has put me into tears of laughter with my friends before.

6. Pinball

I believe this was the first or second game I ever played on my NES. It's so simple but incredibly addictive. Remember when everybody used to be obsessed with the Windows Pinball game and competing for the highest score was like war? Yeah. This game was pretty much the same thing to me. I was crazy about beating my own high scores.

There's not much to say about the game itself rather than... well, it's pinball. There's no music at all; just little sound effects. A unique part of this game is the different game modes and the fact that there's two layers to this pinball game. If your ball goes down the first layer, there's a whole other one down below. If you fall into the lower layer you can still bump your ball back up to the first.

5. Captain Skyhawk

This game generally gets bad reviews, but I still love it. People often complain about the graphics but when I was a kid I thought it was breathtaking! Captain Skyhawk plays a lot like a top-down view of Top Gun. The levels are extremely repetitive and not terribly clever in design, but I think this game still holds up pretty well. You can upgrade your plane after every level but it never makes much of a difference. This game is definitely not one of the hardest game in the NES library but it does take a bit of patience to beat.

4. Bump 'n' Jump

I already wrote about this one. Go check that out :).

3. Dragon Warrior

You see that beautiful box art? When I played this game, I didn't see an 8-bit arrangement of pixels walking around a screen. I saw exactly what's on the box. I was a legendary warrior, saving the princess from a horrible dragon. Dragon Warrior is the first RPG I ever played, and wow, was it EPIC. I couldn't tear myself away for a moment.

When I first played it, I had NO idea what was going on or how to play it. I wasn't the best at reading at the time so I had my dad sit down and play Dragon Warrior with me. He'd read the instruction manual and show me how to play and teach me what was goin' on. After I caught on I was obsessed with this game. I spent hours exploring EVERYTHING and constantly leveling up.

By today's standards, Dragon Warrior really is a tiny RPG that's way too slow and difficult. But this was before Final Fantasy and all the famous Square titles. It introduced everyone to RPGs and laid the foundations for what a good RPG should be. Expansive, complex, challenging, immersive, and lots of fun.

2. Super Mario Bros. 3

Obviously, this game needs to introduction. I bought this game from a garage sale for a buck. I ran it right home, shoved it in my NES (which I had to smack a few times so the damn blinking screen would stop), and the rest is history. This game brought so much more depth to Super Mario Bros. SMB2 was just a disgrace to the franschise, which that game isn't on this list.

This was the last NES game I owned. I'd never even realized it existed until I saw it listed in my Game Genie code book. There were codes that mentioned different types of suits and things, and that alone made me want this game so badly. While this game kicks ass, it just never caught on with me nearly as much as...

1. Duck Hunt/Super Mario Bros.

:). The first game I ever played: Duck Hunt. Yeah, I didn't play SMB first. I was pretty much crazy about Duck Hunt when I first got my NES. I was the best around. No one could beat me at Duck Hunt! I had the orange Zapper. I honestly never saw what was so ugly about it. I think it looked pretty nice. I always thought the Zapper was the most incredibly and advanced technology on the planet. I didn't understand how it knew where I was aiming on the screen. So cool.

Somehow, I always completely ignored Super Mario Bros. Then one day I decided I'd see what that game with the picture of the man in red was about. I remember my first moments of Super Mario Bros exactly. I was in my living room. It was sometime in Spring, probably over Spring Break. It was kind of chilly out that day. It was evening, around 6:00 or 7:00. My dad was outside mowing the lawn and I could smell a really strong and pleasant smell of gasoline coming from the lawn mower. To this day, the smell of gasoline makes me think of Super Mario Bros.

I pushed the A button and selected Super Mario Bros. From my first Goomba stomp, I was addicted. Purely addicted. I loved the game so much I ran right outside to tell my dad to hurry up and come inside so he could play this new game with me. And he did come play with me. I made him give me the second controller because I wanted to play as the green guy; my favorite color.

I remember getting so frustrated because I couldn't jump over a certain pipe. I jumped but Mario wouldn't go over. That was until my dad showed me I needed to keep moving in the air by pressing right on the D-pad while I moved; that's how new platformers were to me. I never did manage to beat the game all the way through without infinite lives.

Anyway, I could go on forever. I have millions of memories with Super Mario Bros and great stories about playing with my parents, friends, and siblings. That's why this game is my favorite NES game and quite possibly my favorite video game of all time.

Barack Obama = <3

2009-01-22T21:51:00.008-05:00

Barack Obama
'08

I really think Obama is going to end up as being the most famous president of all time, even more so than F.D.R, Kennedy, or Lincoln.

I hear so much talk from people about "the first black president" blah blah; yeah, it's true he's the first black president, and that really gives him a lot of momentum, but the only thing that matters in the long run will be his ability to influence our country. And I have a good feeling we're all finally going to see some REAL change.

Seriously, look what the guy's done in just 2 days! Not only has he already signed to have Guantanamo shut down in a year, but he's also already frozen White House employee salaries in a respectful nod to the economic crisis, discussed very openly a newer concept of open source, and sided with his administration to bring back the Freedom of Information Act. He's keeping all of his promises and taking action immediately rather than just taking a break.

In other news, we've discovered that Bush's NSA has been watching us for the past 8 years without us knowing about it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that a VERY serious crime?

Barack Obama - Kicking Ass and Taking Names.

New Laptop

2009-01-02T01:48:00.003-05:00

I haven't been working on any articles for awhile, mostly due to the holidays, personal issues, and most importantly, my new laptop!

I received an amazing new Dell XPS m1530 for Christmas this year (along with Guitar Hero World Tour). Here's the basic specs:

2.4 ghz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor
4 GB RAM
nVidia GeForce 8600 GT, 256 MB
250 GB Hard drive, 7200 RPM

For a laptop, this REALLY kicks ass for gaming. It gets pretty hot sometimes and the airflow isn't terribly great, so I have to be careful when I have it chilling on my lap or using it in bed (which I do often). I had some pretty bad issues with it up until now. When I got it, it worked perfectly at first. After I closed the lid and it went to sleep, I got the BSOD after waking it. Then my laptop plain didn't boot at all. I discovered I had to reseat the RAM which simply meant I had to remove both RAM sticks and swap their places with eachother. Then it was fine. I mean, seriously, this is a huge issue. If I wasn't a tech-savvy person, I'd have to send the damn thing back and wait another week before I could use my $1300 laptop. I'd demand something extra. After that, things were fine for awhile, before the thing threw up blue screens left and right. It was ridiculous. Even in safe more, after a mere 15 minutes or so, I'd get a completely random blue screen and it would reboot.

Finally, I said screw it, wiped my hard drive, and got out the ol' XP installation disc. I was sick of Vista anyway. So I had to do the appropriate research, locate all kinds of drivers for XP (because Dell won't give 'em to me), and make a customized version of the Windows XP installation (because setup wouldn't even read my hard drive). After ALL that, I couldn't get my Windows XP Wi-Fi drivers to work. So I had no Internet. The damn audio drivers wouldn't even work! In frustration I just reinstalled Vista.

Now everything is fine. No errors. No problems. Hopefully it stays that way. I figure the blue screens I was getting before had something to do with software and I blame the stupid crap they stuff laptops with before they send 'em off. When you use the Vista reinstallation disc, thank god, it leaves out all the bloating software packages that I don't want. So I got a fresh OS.

Bottom line; I love this laptop for its look and design as well as its powerful specs. But Dell also pisses me off because they shipped me a flawed expensive piece of equipment and shoved Vista down my throat with no other choice. I really, really hate Vista. It's ugly and incredibly annoying. Ask anyone; Windows XP is the best operating system, ever. If Dell would give me a nice little driver package for XP I would switch in a heartbeat.

With this powerful new laptop, expect to see some more gaming stuff from me soon. My old PC was an 11-year-old Compaq Presario, which was really meant for business rather than gaming. 474 mhz AMD K6-2 processor with some random onboard SiS 8MB video card. I remember it coming with a 4 GB hard drive and 64 MB of RAM. Yeah, those were the days.

-xp4life-

Excitebike

2008-12-21T12:43:00.013-05:00

Excitebike
for the NES

For its time, Excitebike was a substantially entertaining game that was incredibly simple yet highly addictive. Excitebike had a certain arcade-brought-home formula that added a brand new feel to gaming.

Excitebike seems to be one of the many attempts at Nintendo to have a complete collection of sports games on their console. When you buy an NES, you can do all kinds of things! You can golf, play baseball, play football, ice hockey, tennis, and now even ride dirtbikes! Wow!

The general idea of this game is just the classic beat the high score and challenge your friends type of thing. You play as a little pixelized man on a motorcycle. There's different tracks and obstacles with 2 modes of play. All you have to do is just get to the finish line as fast as you possibly can. The trick to doing so is knowing how to control the bike so you have no falls, tumbles, or bad landings. There's all sorts of ramps, ditches, and dirt that can throw you off at any moment. There's only 5 tracks though, so if you play them over and over, you start to memorize what comes up next. The more you practice, the better your time will be.

Game Mode A is playing solo. Like Time Trial on Mario Kart. You pick which track you want and go at it. Once you get bored with that, you enter the big leauges of Game Mode B. In this mode, there's other bikers racing on the track with you. You aren't really racing the bikes to the finsh line, but they add a slight bit of challenge because they can trip you up if you run into them. Game Mode B is for those who get lonely racing by themselves.

The only thing missing here is a 2-player mode. There could have been some really fun multiplayer variants here, but sadly, Nintendo didn't feel up to it apparently. I've never played Excitebike with anyone else, but I guess if you had a couple buddies you could take turns and try to beat eachother's time. I suppose that would be just as much fun.

The final mode is Design Mode; the favorite of a lot of people. You have complete freedom to build your own original tracks and race them in Game Mode A or B. There's options for all the ramps and obstacles you've seen in the built-in tracks and all sorts of fun possibilities. Of course, there is an ENORMOUS dissapointment. Once you build your dream track, you can't save your masterpiece. That's right. Turn off your NES, and your creation is gone forever. So enjoy it while it lasts! This game was released very early on in the NES's life so I guess they simply hadn't developed the technology and programming techniques for saving something like this yet. Supposedly, there was a peripheral released at some point, which I don't know much about, which allowed you to save your tracks to tapes. VHS tapes I believe. It probably wasn't worth it.

If you were, like me, one of the lucky ones to own this game on NES back in the day, you can really appreciate this game for what it is despite its simplicity. Playing this game on an emulator in this day in age doesn't do it justice. The way video games are made and the way we play them has changed drastically since 1983. Most people simply can't appreciate the classics like they could when they were kids. Excitebike really played a part in defining the genre of racing games. I've played PS2 games where you ride a four-wheeler and the angle that you tilt the analog stick will affect the way the vehicle lands after jumping a ramp. Just like Excitebike. People often forget that modern games get a lot of their concepts from the simpler days and just throw 3D graphics on top.

Thanks for reading guys. More sweet classic goodness to come!

Bump 'n' Jump part 1

2008-12-11T16:13:00.022-05:00

Bump 'n' Jump
for the NES
by Data East
(click images to enlarge)

My first ever video game console was the NES. My parents bought it for me at a garage sale for a bargain. I was only 4 or 5 back then and I'd never even heard of Nintendo. Of course this was back in 1995 so the NES-era had long since come and gone and the SNES was in its prime. I was absolutely crazy for my NES once my dad hooked it up for me. I couldn't pull away from it. With it I got some pretty good games. Of course I had Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt with the lightgun (orange version), and I had some other less popular games like Legends of the Diamond, a baseball game, and Dick Tracy.

I also had Bump 'n' Jump. It was one of my favorites. Bump 'n' Jump was originally an old 1983 arcade game release in Japan by Data East. It was ported to the NES in 1988 with better graphics, music, and an all-around better home experience. I spent hours in front of this little game, smashing cars and trying to clear all the levels I could. I don't think I ever really did beat this game; it just got too tough for me.

Instead of doing a normal game review, I decided that since I never beat the game when I was a kid, I want to see if I can do it now on an emulator. I'm going to record the footage and walk you through the game, reviewing it at the same time. Here we go.

Level 1:

The game starts as your girlfriend is being drove off in some badass looking muscle car. So you follow the kidnapper in your dinky little Hot Wheels car. The first level in the game has some pretty terrific music. It's upbeat and memorable. Jumping makes sort of a dramatic sound effect and interrupts it quite a bit, which is weird, but it's not a big deal.

The first level was pretty simple. Just keep driving until you see the flashing arrow, which alerts you that you're going to need to jump across a gap soon. You aren't supposed to jump as soon as you see the arrow; it just means that you'll see the gap coming within a matter of seconds. Usually the only way you'll die in this level is if you're jumping around and smashing other cars while the arrow flashes, you won't land in time to make the jump across the gap and you'll fall into the water. I remember I used to think that if I landed on that little rectangular stretch of land in the water that looks like an airplane runway, I could safely land and jump again. But nope, even if you hit that, you'll die.

The only other hazard is running off the road. When cars bump you, it's not a light tap; you get bumped hard. If you feel like you're getting overwhelmed by the other cars, it's best to keep hitting A and jumping, staying in the air. But as soon as you see the flashing alert, make sure you stay put and get ready.

The graphics on this level are great. They're very colorful. There's lots of detail, like the houses on the right of the road, and all the scenery between the gaps. The perspective is a bit off; the cars are the same size as the houses. But NES was never good at perspective, so that can slide.

Level 2:

Level 2 isn't terribly different from the first. This time, we're driving through a big city filled with houses, factories, and skyscrapers. It's a bit harder because there's a lot more cars on the road and the road is narrower. As you can see, instead of jumping over gaps, we're jumping over huge overpass bridges. Why are we jumping? Because obviously going THROUGH the tunnel is lame. I used to try and go through the little black tunnel openings, but you always just crash.

Anyway, there isn't much to say here. The level design is very similar to the first but with a slight increase in difficulty. The music is different and has a "big city" tune. It's not as memorable as the first level, but it's still great. I got through this level with no problems. At the finish line, you will see a very attractive and innocent female holding a checkered flag, whom you land on and seemingly crush in a violent fashion. On to the next level!

Level 3:

Alright. No more playing around. This is where it gets damn serious. This is the first level that is actually hard to beat. I had nightmares about level 3 when I was a kid. It seems to be no different now.

You start off driving down a country road with lakes and houses on the sides. Again, you gotta love the detail Data East put into this great port. The road is also red, likely due to the amount of blood this level has spilled from anyone who dares to play it. I maybe made it past this level once as a kid.

Anyway, you'll first notice this level has a lot more cars than usual. They're faster, smarter, and pay a lot more attention to their goal of running your ass off the road. The first problem you'll encounter is the extremely narrow spaces. At some points, as you can see, the lakes cut into the road and make it smaller. The grass does the same thing. The grass is apparently made of neon green steel, so if you run into it, you'll be minced like an onion. Basically, don't touch ANYTHING but the road.

For once, it's important to pick up the fuel cans in this level too. It seems to drop more quickly here. Most of the time you'll be jumping around like mad to avoid all the cars pushing you around in the narrow spaces, so when your fuel runs down, you'll need to try and stay on the ground and man it out so you can wait for a fuel can to drive over.

Level 4:

In this level we're taking a nice drive through the mountains, enjoying the fresh air, cool breeze, and trying not to get pushed into the jagged rock at 70 mph. Surprisingly, I think this level is easier than the previous one. Of course by this point I've turned on infinite lives and I've died a quite a few times, though. This level is different because of the curvy roads snakelike roads. You have to jump a lot more often because, in addition to all the cars, there's boulders and construction barriers in the middle of the road.

Again, I just love the details in this game. There's always something to look at. The shadows of the mountians, the cute little apple trees, and the houses sitting on top of the rock. I think the setting is just perfect.

This level is a little tricky at first, but you'll be relieved when you find how quickly you'll get to the end. This level was far shorter than level 3.

To be continued!

Alright, there's four levels down. I've decided to break this up into parts, because after level 4, things start getting SERIOUS. We've only scratched the surface of this game. In the next part, we'll go through some more levels and go more in-depth about the gameplay itself. Good lord, I just hope I can make it through this game alive.

Stay tuned!

Featured GCS 1: ZZT

2008-12-10T16:09:00.011-05:00

Featured GCS 1

ZZT

ZZT is a DOS-based game creation system (GCS) made by Tim Sweeny in 1991. Sweeny went on to be the leader of Epic Games, famously known for the Unreal series. ZZT isn't an abbreviation for anything. It was just a random name Sweeny came up with to make sure that ZZT showed up at the bottom of software directories.

At first glance, ZZT doesn't look like much at all. It's a little game using simple ASCII graphics, which is something that was very outdated even for 1991. By that time VGA games were just beginning to gain strength. Since it was supposed to be a simple text editor, Sweeny apparently felt that ASCII characters were just fine. After working on his text editor for awhile, it seems he got bored with the idea and took a completely different direction. After moving the cursor around the screen with the arrow keys, he somehow got the idea to make a game instead.

After ZZT's core engine was completed, Sweeny went on to make a total of 4 games, along with a demo of ZZT's engine and a "tour" of his game worlds. He released ZZT as shareware in 1991. It came with his first game, Town of ZZT, along with his demo of the other games you could get if you paid and registered ZZT. Later ZZT became freeware.

Sweeny's games were a mix of puzzles and action sequences. They were all quite long and the puzzles got increasingly difficult. Generally, his games were well designed. Above is a screenshot of Dungeons of ZZT.

Of course, ZZT wasn't popular because of the little puzzle games that came with it. The REAL success of ZZT was due to the level editor which was built right in. In an interview, Sweeny said he was very surprised that people were so fascinated with the editor. He didn't realize it would be so popular. It was simple and easy to use. It came with a very flexible proramming language called ZZT-OOP (ZZT-object oriented programming). To the right is a screenshot of ZZT in editor mode. After ZZT became popular on AOL, users came up with hundreds of different ZZT games of all types. ZZT wasn't at all restricted to just puzzle games. There are many great RPGs, space shooters, strategy games, and more.

ZZT, surprisingly, actually gained a reputation as having nice looking graphics after a ZZTer by the name of Gregory Janson found several exploits in the editor and created the Super Tool Kit (STK). The STK took advantage of a glitch that occured when an object used ZZT-OOP to place terrain over certain text characters. The result of the glitch was different colors. Originally, Sweeny only included 7 different bright colors in the editor for some reason. The STK changed this and added several new colors. This is where ZZT gained an entirely new dimension. Some users actually turned ZZT into somewhat of a paint program. Below are screenshots demonstrating the graphical power that the STK unlocked.

Trust me, these low-quality screenshots don't do these games justice. Still, if you compare the screenshot of Town of ZZT at the top of this article with these you can really see what a breakthrough STK was. It's quite a mystery why Sweeny didn't include more color options to begin with.

Today, the ZZT community is alive, but just barely. If you're interested in ZZT, you can try out right now. Head over to z2 (www.zzt.org), the main hub of ZZT activity, and download a copy of ZZT. You can download hundreds and hundreds of games to play and even make your own. I reccommend you start out playing the featured games, my favorites being Burger Joint and Evil Sorcerer's Party.

I hope you've enjoyed this article and you now have a small glance at what ZZT is. There's tons more content I can cover, so a follow-up article will likely come soon. Comments or emails with your thoughts or criticism are greatly appreciated.

An Introduction

2008-12-09T21:47:00.001-05:00

Hi.

I'm VinceIP. This is the first time I've ever made a blog and hopefully I can make something of it. I've had the idea in my head of making a personal web site dedicated to hosting my rants about life among other things of interest like video game reviews and articles about technology and my hobbies. Making an efficent site like this usually require some PHP knowledge to create a system where I could post articles instead of hard coding the entire site with content in HTML. So I thought, why not start a blog where I can have all that done for me already?

So here I am. I plan on posting my first article tomorrow, so we'll see how that goes depending on how busy I am. I have a tendency of starting things and never finishing them so I hope that doesn't happen here.

Not that any of you care. This is mainly just a test post :).

Until tomorrow.