namco51

This was the first game I bought when rebuilding my childhood Genesis collection. I fire it up at least once every 6 months. The music and sound effects are so iconic. The game is flawless in every...except the AI. It'll just keep throwing itself at a base day even if you have it surrounded by AAA.

I remember buying it for $30 at Target. I think it was on sale. I regretted my decision at first because it was hard to learn. But because I was bored of my other games I threw myself into it and learned it and discovered it's incredible depth and infinite replayability. Using the password system I ended up beating every mode on every difficulty level one summer. I don't 100% recall but I think you got a credits crawl when you beat the very level. I'll have to try it one of these days.

Very fond memories of good ol' Pepperouchau's adventures on the Saturn. This is where the concept of using a key as a weapon began as far as I can tell, right here in Betsy's Room. Amazing!

My earliest foggy memory of playing a game has to be Space Wars by Cinematronics. The giant refrigerator sized game was at Imperial Lanes in El Segundo, Ca. It was the only arcade game they had and looked more like a massive calculator than a game. My dad was there getting into bowling before he finally settled on El Dorado Bowl in Westchester where my real childhood arcade memories occurred.

The game was 2 players only so I was lucky my older brother was there. I remember sucking at it not knowing what the buttons did, but was blown away at how bright the vectors were and how the star in the center had gravity.

At some point after that I remember playing Pac-Man at El Dorado and eventually we got an Odyssey 2 at home and playing Speedway/Spinout. Aah, memories man.

The Nintendo doom talk happens before every console release. They either kill it and blow everyone away selling 50 to 150 million units, or just do *okay* sellling 10 or 20 million units. They have a warchest of tens of billions in liquid capital, hold the rights to incredibly valuable IP in an international market, and have carved out a nice little niche where gamers usually buy their console and most first party games in addition to one other console from Sony or Microsoft. They're not afraid to take a calculated gamble on something new, but they never go crazy with huge numbers at launch which minimizes risk and has the added benefit of causing huge demand. It's just a shame that they went so hard on Wii U's launch but not on Wii and NES Classic Edition.

On the Switch, I'm skeptical. I was skeptical with the Wii and with the DS and those sold huge, so what do I know? I pre-ordered a Wii U and 3DS when nobody wanted them but was out in the cold running around to Best Buy, Target, and Gamestop looking for Wii's in 2006. I honestly don't know whether to shit or go blind, so I guess I'll just close one eye and pre-order a Switch (or wait in line at Target on launch day)

Oh good lord, how timely is this trailer? https://youtu.be/_7zdNr7AnWI

And just a few hours after I busted my ass trying to figure out the next project! :P

@vierastalo: Thanks, just found out. I'm so stoked! Dis gun be good

Okay, seriously though. What's the next project? The Rocket League one was so good, I wonder what's coming next?

Nevermind. It's DOOM https://twitter.com/dannyodwyer/status/794524200425885697?lang=en

Miss ya big guy.

It's not "To Austin Powers" a turn it's more like "to pull an Austin Powers".

@zamolxes: I am 39 and will be 40 next month. It's not that I'm an old man yet or anything, it's that I am seeing the early trends and can extrapolating forward. I find that as time passes, the process of being able to focus on something and learn it to get harder and harder every year. I used to be able to learn every aspect of game rules, be competitive in shooters and timing based games, know all the menus of a VCR or an answering machine, learn what every menu and right-click action does in a new OS, and learn lyrics to new songs no problem.

But now as I am getting older, I find that I can't compete at all in any FPS, I can't pitch whatsoever in MLB The Show, I can't learn song lyrics no matter how hard I try, I get lost in some of the more technical menus of my wife's android phone ( I have an iphone from work and was not an early smartphone adopter), and I hate Windows 8 because they moved everything.

I am guessing that as I get older the mind has lost its elasticity and every time I want to do something on a device or a new game I kinda have to relearn it to an extent. The most painful part of any game is having to slog through it learning the level design and building a muscle memory for how to play. If you have to basically redo that every time, you're going to grow sour to it and tend not to want to do it anymore.

It's not that we get more busy, it's just that things are taking more time to learn and we have less patience now and get tired sitting and focusing for hours at a time. We tend to want to use the things we already know. I play NHL every year and play a lot of retro NES/Genesis/Arcade games because I can have a great time and don't have to relearn anything.

Shit this was a depressing reply to write. Hopefully I'm totally wrong and I'm just ADD and have too many games to play though :P