Well, tomorrow morning at 8am the movers are coming to pack everything then on the 31st they are going to load it all up into their truck and take it to St. Louis. I had to do a bit of preparation in order for this to go smoothly. I didn’t get as much done as I would have liked to, unfortunately.

One of the things that I needed to get done was moving the car that has a broken on-board computer (making the engine all fucked up and stall randomly [which cost me close to $2K just to find out there was no way to fix it with out spending more money that might not even fix the problem]). The battery had died because it had been sitting in the drive way since August. With the help of my neighbor I jumped the car and was ready to move it. . .

You can see the trail of brake fluid on the first pic (left one, click on it for larger image). Basically I put it in reverse to back out of the drive way and the brakes were a little off and I was only slowing, not stopping so I threw it into park and the car stopped. Well I figured: “It must just be a little stuck or rusty. I should just drive it to the guest parking spot (because I can’t leave it in the driveway of a house I no longer rent) and if the breaks still don’t work I will just throw it into park again!”

I don’t really know much about cars.

Apparently there was a break in the break line somewhere and I was draining fluid, bad. Looking back later I could see the points where I was trying to use the break becasue the trail was thicker. Basically when I was in the parking spot and still rolling forwards, after I had thrown the vehicle into park, and after I had thrown the emergency break, I started to panic. Luckily! I was only going about 5 miles per hour, and the landing was soft. I was going to donate the car anyways, so it is not like I needed it (it still runs by the way).

You know those stories about how time slows down for people in certain situations and you can see everything really clear? Well, this is the second time in my life it had happen. I saw every drop of muddy water as it splashed up over the hood of the car. In the 2 seconds it took me to go over the edge I had a small conversation with myself about how I should have thrown the emergency brake earlier and if that didn’t work, to throw it into reverse.

It is kind of silly looking back on it now. Aside from a little (ok a lot) of mud the car is still in the same shape it was before I moved it. Sorry I wrote so much, perhaps you can get a chuckle out of a shitty-turned-funny-in-hind-sight situation.

Hopefully no one other than me made the horrible, horrible mistake of thinking that Popful mail was an RPG by Falcom that involves, yes, a postal service. This game involves no delivering of any may or receiving of any. I was so wrong it is not even funny. Popful Mail is the main female elf’s name.

There are actually quite a few Popful Mail games. The PC88 and PCE Duo version play like Wander’s from Ys (sidescrolling Ys). I really hated Wanders from Ys and am left much less interested in those versions of the game, although I will probably attempt to burn a copy of the Duo version and test it out. They were released in ‘91 and ‘94 respectivly.

PC88 Version

PCE Duo Version

After these were released Sega released the Sega CD version of Popful Mail. They handled the programming and in doing so decided to give more control to the character and made a very different game. Working Design ported the game to the US and changed a lot of the script up and increased the difficulty of the game.

Sega CD Version

I leaned in the process of getting Popful Mail working that the Sega CD does not like Memorx CDRs.

So what is Popful Mail? The extension of the Faxanadu game. Popful Mail is the bright, colorful, and easier than Faxanadu. Hell, if somone told me they took place on the same world I would belive them. I do understand that Hudson basically took Faxanadu from Falcom, and that Sega took Popful Mail from Falcom which makes me wonder. Perhaps Falcom does not know how best to make their own games.

After the release of all these other Popful Games Falcom picked up on something. They handled the SNES port of the game and made something similar to the Sega CD version. It has a completly different stage layout and the combat is more difficult, but the control that is needed in this game is in place.

SNES Version

I don’t really want to go into how good the graphics are for the Sega CD version, or how great the music is (considering I don’t really like the FM chip that the Genesis uses to create most of it), but I thought I would hint at it. This is probably one of the best finds I have made in a long time related to games. In fact I purchased the Japanese version for the Sega CD for a very reasonable price.

It is nice to be finding things hidden away inside the library of older systems. I am getting Hard Corps in the mail soon and hope that, if Bloodlines is any indication of what Konami learned at the end of the Genesis’ life span, it is another great gem I have missed.

I don’t know, this is more a journal entry than a thread, but chat away about Popful Mail. Most of my info was obtained here.

Well, I have to say. Nintendo has finally done it. They turned me into the person who was upset with the Gameboy Pocket, then the revisions of the GB Color, then the SP then the SP2, then the Micro. . . now the DS LITE. I want one. DAMNIT, that is the worst part, I want one. I was just upset at first, but then I saw the larger image on the DSLite website and it is using the Micro D-Pad. Well it looks to anyways. The Micro has such a great D-Pad that I will jump on and most likely buy the new DS. I don’t know if I should take advantage of the situation and attempt to sell my DS used to EB Games and get the JP one. This would be before most people were selling theirs because it is only an overseas release.

I think the reason I am upset is because I know I will buy one. I already have more DS games than GBA or Xbox games. I have gotten my moneys worth from the system I have now and the screen is significantly less bright than the Micro’s.

So, complaining aside, I have been playing a lot of Ecco the Dolphin CD. I can’t play it for too long. At times it is so gorgeous that I am struck deeply by it. I know that most of this relates to the red book audio and that I am wearing headphones to play it. But I can’t get over this game. I can only play for about an hour or less though. The sounds of trapped Dolphins far below the sea get to me. The lonely nature of the game, combined with the fact that you are constantly going further underground which makes it darker, on top of the soundtrack is just too much. I think it just magnifies the loneliness that I feel from being separated from Sara. It is fantastic though.

In my post earlier today I was talking about how Mr. Toups and I got to rock out at DaleNixon’s house with Guitar Hero. Here is a video of us, please don’t externally link this because of bandwidth reasons, which is why this is also a friends only entry:
Me and Toups
DaleNixon and Toups

Let me begin at the beginning.

While spending the weekend with Mr. Toups I purchased a lot of older games (and systems) at an interesting used games and music store. The shop was not much larger than storage room and it is located in the same building as a shut down theatre with a shut down flea market next door. The parking lot which was once paved is now covered in small pebbles and rocks with only one car parked in the direction we are heading. It was eerie and run down. I was pretty sure we had made a mistake.

But we sallied forth, wallets full and spirits high. I was informed that there was a $5 copy of Dynamite Heady which Andy and I had sworn to knife fight each other for (like, for real), so at least there was at least one thing. The first items we looked at were used PS1, 2 and Xbox: either over-priced or same as other places. Nothing of any real interest there.

”What about the retro games Andy?”
“They are just kind of hidden everywhere. Dynamite Heady is in this cabinet over here…”

And there they were; stacks of moderately priced retro games. Only slightly cheaper than eBay, but no shipping and that whole feeling of instant gratification is there. The scales were leaned in my direction though as there was almost no SNES items of interest. It was like a used shop full of my childhood. Many Genesis games and NES games were stacked up about 4 ft. wide by 6.5 ft. high. There were some import Saturn games on the bottom (game of note: Enemy Zero, picked up by Toups) along with some Neo-CD and 32X games.

Just looking around this cabinet took quite a while, then I moved over to the check out counter display where an entire case of rare, older and retro game consoles are stored, this is going to take a while. I am just going to list a few items that he had, but there were even some I could not name (well, only one really and I am guessing that it was a version of the Atari VCS): Master System, Turbo Express, Turbo Duo, Odyssey 2 (boxed), 3DO, LYNX, Jaguar, Sega CDX, and other more common systems. Some he had multiples of in Wal-Mart plastic bags knotted up and stacked in a disheveled manner inside of a gray metal locker.

To the left of the counter was a poorly made ply-wood shelf that was most likely designed to hold vinyl. It was stacked deep with games for; Sega CD, Master System, and Jaguar as well as many strategy guides. Behind you were racks above the CDs holding Turbo Graphix, CDi, 3DO (mostly porn), PC and Master System games. Below the CD racks were crates of Fairchild Channel F, VCS, Odyssey 2 and Master System games. They just seemed like they were everywhere.

Now that I had a good idea of what was available I was ready to shop.

Items of note that I picked up were: Sega CDX, 32X (I received 3 32X games for free a while back), Fami-clone, New in box sealed Castlevania Bloodlines (GEN), Rainbow Islands (NES), Ristar (GEN), and Crystalis (NES). I also picked up many odds and ends games most $5 or less for the Genesis and NES. It was quite the haul.

From the point that I had decided on all my items to the point that both Toups and I had paid took over an hour (which was about 2.5 hours total). The guy had boxes and crates of accessories all over the place and tracking down the 32X connector itself was quite the hassle, let alone all the other stuff. Then connecting all the systems up and testing them was like pulling teeth with this guy; painful and slow. I was going to ask to test all the games, but after that ordeal I figured it would be easier to use their return policy if needed. After I did get home the only issue I ended up having was that the video cord which he gave me for the CDX was for (I can only assume) a first generation Genesis (which would explain why it did not work with your composite input on the VCR and the RF did in the store). I have to use my RF adapter for now, but I am glad that I have at least that.

We then proceeded to the mall to meet with DaleNixon at GameWare. After hanging out for a bit, purchasing some games, failing to find Big O II, and then forgetting to buy Animal Crossing: WW (Toups!); we went back to DaleNixon’s house to play hours of Guitar Hero (VIDEOS TO COME TONIGHT or later if I can’t figure out how to compress the footage). Our retro haul would have to wait until later to test out.

After staying way too late, and having way too far to drive with too much to do before Toups went on a road trip in 12 hours, we departed sleepy eyed and full of Animal Crossing (we were forced back to the mall).

The next morning, full of energy, we cleaned Toups’ room and then he played his piano tribute to Castlevania. It was gorgeous, moving and awe-some. In an attempt to not be gay for the Toups, I was modest with my praise. He still had packing to do and the trunk of my car was brimming with games that demanded attention: I had to leave.

The three hours of driving gave me a lot of time to think. I unfortunately wasted it being completely absent minded or singing poorly and loudly with Beck. I had one driving (!) goal and it was to play these damn games. But first I wanted storage for them. I had all these new games that I did not have room for and I still have the ones I brought with from St. Louis and a few more I wanted to tote around that were over a year old and still not played, with some even unopened. After a bit of shopping around (which is really difficult in a city that has half of its stores closed/destroyed) I bought a large plastic bin with wheels that is designed to roll under your bed. It holds everything perfectly.

I am far too impatient. I decided to go straight home to eat rather than stop for food (I should note that I only have canned tuna and bread to eat at home). It took me 5 trips of carrying things back from the car to get everything in the house. Hell, I had bought too much. I first organized all the games I plan to take with me (for when the movers unload everything from the house and I am homeless) in the new storage bin. I then grab all the games and systems that I just got, stack them up, and begin to test each one.

After a dozen NES games and about the same Genny games I had a stack that I needed to clean and re-test. Rubbing alcohol and Q-Tips at my side, I decided to test some of my favorite games on the Fami-clone too look for compatibility problems. Most worked well; unfortunately the music in Crystalis in the overworld renders the game unplayable, and after resurrecting my Dragon Warrior cart from childhood found out I had named my hero “Nada.” What the hell? I have no idea why I named my hero that, I mean I was like 8 years old when I got it free from Nintendo Power, and I remember the first town so well that the flood of nostalgia was surreal and almost frightening, but the name confuses the living hell out of me.

After some dicking around and testing everything (they all worked) I had to decide what to play. I went with Castlevania: Bloodlines, which was not only the most expensive game, but close to the last of the Castlevania games for my “collection.” [I should note that I do not have every Castlevania game made, nor will I. Now I only have to either find my copy of Simon’s Quest or buy a new one, then buy CVIII: Dracula’s Curse.] I have played the game a few times with emulation, but I never took it seriously apparently. I mean, I had missed so many details to the game.

The music itself is sub-par with the sound effects being near atrocious. The graphics are alright though. Some of the play mechanics are outright strange and the use of gems over hearts is weird too. The things that I failed to notice most was how excessively gory this game is over its brethren. When you whip a zombie you knock off his upper torso and his lower torso will fall over spilling his guts and blood. Killing a crow will leave it to actually twitch on the ground before disappearing. The wolf boss of the first level will explode with blood, flesh and gore flying when defeated. And this is only what I noticed of the first level.

It was at this point that I remembered the odd rating on the cover of the game. It was rated GA for general audiences by the V.R.C. Having no idea how this game got such a family friendly rating I decided to look into it further. This also made perfect sense as to why the ESRB is now in place.

V.R.C. stands for Video Game Rating Council which was introduced to America in 1993 by Sega. It was an in-house rating system which came about as a result of national debate over games such as Mortal Kombat, Splatter House and Pit Fighter. Many inconsistencies were noted by people but were never explained by SoA. This and the formation of the ESRB (which is an independent ratings board) led to the V.R.C. being dissolved. For the better I say. Initially I was not sure if the V.R.C. even had a Teen type rating and perhaps if there was just GA, MA and AO that GA would be the best category, but they did have MA-13 which should have been given to Castlevania: Bloodlines.

So this weekend was a great time to say the least. I uncovered some interesting games history, bought a nice amount of stuff I have been looking for, for a while and replaced two consoles which were on their death bed. I wish Mr. Toups the best of luck in Little Rock and hope I did not bore the living hell out of anyone. This kind of got out of hand in length [I have not really written anything in a while so this is likely just due to blockage and buildup.]

Edit: Holy Shit! Ralph and Clark officially in MS6!

Well I am back in New Orleans. I don’t know quite what I am doing, but I am working for someone who I previously … well, detested. Anyways, it looks like I will be filling a “critical role” so I won’t most likely be going back to St. Louis until June.

All my stuff is getting moved out of my house on the 30th and 31st. After that I don’t know where I will be living.

I can’t use the internet too much because of someone screwing things up for everyone else and everything internet related is being tightly monitored.

I. am. in. hell.

Ok, so the sale of the house went through. I am not the owner of an empty home and Sara is happy to get out of the hotel.

This means I don’t know when I will get back on the internet again. I will try to, but don’t know when I will get the chance to next.

On a ending note, Riven is really excellent.

Take care.

MystNotes
Originally uploaded by Shapermc.

A while back some of you may know that I picked up the Myst 10th Anniversary DVD edition. Mainly I got it to stick it to the man (after the anouncement of the PSP port of Myst). Yea, man, take it like that!

This is a picture of the notes that I took for the game. None are flat out spoilers (if you can even read my handwriting), so I thought that people familiar with the game might find these notes interesting/funny. The only reason I was interested in sharing my notes is because I don’t even remember the last time it occured to me to take notes for a game.

Myst was fantastic. I had never played Myst or any sequel or any Myst clone (not to completion anyways). I played most of it yesterday for about 10 hours straight and finished it off just a little bit ago. I ended up putting my headphones on and covering my head with a blanket giving myself tunnel vision of sorts. Headphones should be a system requirement for these games.

I got this game because of Ajutla (ok, and Dess) and I can only imagine how Riven is going to be. Out of my excitement for it all (and to support Cyan) I purchased the remainder of the games not included in the trilogy and had them shipped to my new house (so this means that I will have a very strong memory tied to myst no matter what the games play like, and it was on accident too. It will be the first game to ship to my house). Then I watched the interview with Rand included on this trilogy… he talks as though he had very little, to no involvement with the third game? It seems like Uru (which looks really cool, but I don’t know if I got the right one. I got the “Complete Chronicles” version) has a lot of Rand involved in it and Ubisoft developed III and IV while he was doing that.

Anyways, I guess my point is that I had always held this impression that Myst was a dumb game that many people were tricked into enjoying it. These games always looked boring and stupid, but I guess I was wrong. I am going to be envious of people who play Myst for their first time in the future (cough*psp*cough).

I just hope all these games work with my laptop… I mean Morrowind does, so they should, right?

Happy New Year to everyone. I know I have not posted anything in a while. Sorry about that.

I don’t really know where to start. A lot has happen since I last posted and I may as well just start, this may end up being long.

Remember how I was gushing about Criterion Collection DVDs? Well I now feel deceived after watching Man Bites Dog. This movie was neither good, nor bad, but it was very French. It never decided to let you in on why you were watching it or what they wanted to say and it was, emotionally, very hard to watch. I mean, I guess that it accomplished what it wanted to in that aspect, but I think it could easily just disappear from film all together. I have a feeling that a lot of High School film kids think this is a “cool” movie and that is why it made it into Criterion.

So the next day I get in the car and drive 11 hours down to New Orleans.

I have been dreading this trip for a while now. My wife needed to get a bunch of stuff for starting school out of our house and I wanted to grab many game related items and box them up in their original boxes and carefully move them (I don’t trust movers to not destroy them). For a good half of the trip I could not get that damn movie out of my head.

We arrived in Downtown New Orleans at night. The city was much darker than it use to be. Half of it was almost completely black with only one or two houses with any lights on. Though it did not look like things were too destroyed, but it was dark. I needed to remind my wife quite frequently that the damage we were seeing was only what we could see in the dark. Lots of trees down, many businesses had signs blown down or completely away, lots of roofs off and a few completely missing buildings.

We get to the house around 8pm and begin to pack and clean. Everything has a health, solid layer of dust on it. A mouse has decided to make a home in our staircase, known only because of pile of eaten shavings he leaves in the cracks. Bugs have taken over all kinds of dry food including all of the dog treats. To me it is depressing and I just want to finish and leave. I really don’t want to go back on the 17th.

We pack up all the books that Sara needs for school, grab some more clothes, get my gaming stuff, and then go to bed. I try to play a little FFIV Advance, but can’t really concentrate. I migrate over to my acoustic guitar and just pluck some strings. My wife woke up much earlier than I did and loaded up the car before waking me up. At about 9am we head outside to trek home… well, what I would rather call home.

Knowing this is more than likely the last time she will be in New Orleans Sara wants to stop at a friends house to say goodbye. It is a good time for her friend too: in a few weeks she is moving to Texas. After leaving the Navy base we see, in the sunlight, just what had happen in the last four months.

As we drive out a New Year’s sign greets us reading: “Happy 2006! Help us rebuild Plaquemines Parish Together.” I don’t know how four months have passed. People move around like ants on roof tops all over neighborhoods; removing blue tarps placed by the Army Corp. of Engineers and putting shingles in their place. Traffic seems the same, but no one seems to be doing anything. It is eerie and I have only driven a mile or so.

It really seems that business took the largest beating from all this. The extravagant roofs that Popeye’s have on their buildings are all gone all over the city. McDonald’s golden arches signs that normally hang high over their shops are all gone, only the shell of metal remaining. Farm stands and gas station awnings/roof are nowhere to be seen anymore. Even Walmart is closed and empty on the inside. Things seem much worse in the light.

We visit Sara’s friend to say goodbye and we just see piles of sticks and garbage at the end of everyone’s driveways. I guess that the city went around, cut down excessive amounts of trees and branches then just left everyone to fend for themselves in getting it removed. After goodbyes are said we decide to visit the first place we lived in New Orleans which is much closer to downtown and poverty.

Things are much worse by our old house. Many buildings are just shells now. Roofs gone, all windows are gone and the doors too. Most people here are too poor to even attempt to rebuild and have old poorly constructed living spaces. Whole households of goods are just on the street waiting to be taken away. Our old house seems to have made it, but right across the street houses did not (see garbage pic above). This is not even the worst parts of the city, this is just bad.

I use to hate the people in this part of town. Where ever you would go they would look at you with contempt. I was glad to leave. When driving around you just see sadness now. No one should have to go through this kind of devastation. The military roams around freely in these areas too. Parking like regular cars, then getting out and slinging M-16’s over their shoulders like purses to go walking up and down the streets.

We stop at a drive-thru really quick to get a pop and some lunch before we leave the city and head back to St. Louis. It felt good to leave and it makes me gloomy knowing that I will have to be there for 6 more months soon. There are vehicles just abandoned everywhere on the sides of roads and under overpasses that were obviously underwater at one point. Many with their doors off, fronts crumbled in, windows broken and some even missing wheels. These are what say goodbye to you from the side of the road as you depart. Not the cheeriest thing ever.

I don’t know how I feel exactly, but it is not happy, that is for sure. It was really surreal to see things in this state more than four months after the hurricane hit. People who say that New Orleans will never be the same are right, it won’t. It makes me really sad to know that another hurricane could come in 4 months and do it to everyone all over again. Hopefully they will take the evacuation orders seriously this time.

Driving home I return to thinking about that damn movie. It was such a terrible thing to proceed seeing a place in such terrible disrepair. Perhaps it was some kind of omen.