Steben

It wouldn't be hard for any of the current gen consoles to emulate this idea, I'd think. Just ship a pair of those glasses with infrared lights and a USB-connected IR detector (a stripped down Wiimote, essentially), and bam, there's your virtual reality setup. The only issue I see is if Nintendo has any sort of patent over the Wiimote setup. In which case, they're the only one of the big three who could do it. And then, there's still an issue of taking the kid's idea... in order for them to use his idea, they'd have to buy it from him or hire him or something, otherwise he could sue.

Question: Why do arcades suck so much in the U.S., generally? The only arcade I've ever been to that was at least partially entertaining was a Dave & Buster's in Dallas, which is a good ways away from Auburn, AL. I'd like to think that if someone actually made the investment to make a good arcade, without all the crap games people don't care about, and with a huge selection of new and classic arcade games, that it could be profitable. But maybe I'm just living in a dream world, here.

I've used Steben since sixth grade, so for ten years now. I used to have an image which explains it... but I don't think it's on this computer and I'm too lazy to make a new one. Suffice it to say, if you take a Diploma-looking font, and spell out "Steven", you get "Steben". Since sixth-graders are inherently clever creatures, someone read my name as Steben from the A-Honor Roll list and used it as an insult. Eventually, it just became a running joke, so I used it as my screen name when I got my own AOL account back in the day. By the way, how would you guys pronounce my name at first glance? If anyone ever asked me (they haven't), I'd say you pronounce it like my real name, Steven. (Because I always thought being referred to by your handle IRL sounds silly.) But most of the time I'll settle for Stee-bin. Steh-bin pisses me off, but more people pronounce it that way than I'd expect. Alternate versions of my name are StebenCC and StebenXC. StebenCC comes from my full name, Steven Craig Clontz, Jr. And StebenXC comes from what I want to change my full name to, Steven Xcraig Clontz. The X is silent. (There's a story there, but I'll refrain for now.) I've also been known to go by SXC on occasion as well. But my favorite is just plain old Steben, which is why I'm glad I secured Steben.net before someone else took it.

For Spring Break this year, three of my friends and I are going on a little road trip. We're going to drive from our college, Auburn University (in Alabama), and go to El Paso, Texas, the home of a certain Atari warehouse, where in September 1983, between ten and twenty semi-trailer trucks were filled with copies of a certain Atari 2600 game, E.T. the Extraterrestrial. From there, we'll follow the road those trucks took to a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico. It was at this landfill, twenty-five years ago, that these hundreds of thousands of Atari cartridges were crushed, buried, and covered with cement, a fate well deserved for what many consider the Worst Video Game of All Time. The documentary is the story of our journey to discover the truth behind this tragic event in video gaming history. And even if we don't find the E.T. cartridges' cement grave, we hope to at least, find ourselves. So why am I posting about this here, right now? A couple of reasons. First of all, I'd really like to showcase music from OCR artists or other people from the VG remixing scene. Due to copyright concerns, I'm not sure if I want to use actual VG remixes, but perhaps original music done by ReMixers would work well. Would anyone be interested in contributing? Also, I was wondering if anyone had any advice. My film making experience has been limited to a few short DVDs filled with sketch comedy, written and performed by members of my marching band's trombone section, to be watched on the bus during our trips to away games. Quality... is not paramount in these situations. Right now the plan is just to shoot this all on my DV camcorder, but is there any cheap way to improve the quality of my recording? And, we're planning on interviewing people on the way to our destination. Do we need to get them to sign any sort of release to use them in our film? Thanks everybody!

Short answer: yes. Long answer: Use an enemy with the help of a hazard to give yourself a boost onto the roof of the stage, right before the 3 ? blocks at the end. (highlight)

Hopefully Kirby will copy all the special moves of a character rather than just the standard special. Kirby Superstar set a precedent for Kirby having multiple attacks for each ability that I wouldn't mind seeing in Smash.

Hopefully this is all a false alarm. However, I wouldn't be surprised if they wanted to push back the US release. My theory being, they'll have time to iron out any Nintendo Wi-Fi issues with the game before producing a million or so discs. Since, y'know, Nintendo simply doesn't have a lot of experience with online gaming. But that's just my take on it.

Retailers have begun listing new release dates in early March. No word yet from Nintendo. ... .....

I imagine a 4-player match with all Olimars will be chaotic. "Hey is this my Pikmin?" When you discover it isn't, well, just remember to protect your watch.

Ha, beat to the punch. Of course it's foremost on my mind, since I'm playing through it right now. Hmm... let's see. If you're playing through these games via emulation or the Virtual Console, rather than an actual NES, then I'm a big Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels fan. But that's only if you've played the original SMB enough that the final world in that game seems easy to you. The Lost Levels will make you tear your hair out unless you're pretty skilled at platforming games. (Haha, or I could recommend Cat Mario...) Alright. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 or 3 (NOT THE ORIGINAL SWEET JESUS IT IS TERRIBLE) will do you nicely, particularly if you have a friend to play co-op with you. One day I'd like to see the Virtual Console support arcade games, because I want to play TMNT The Arcade Game in its original 4-player glory in my living room one day. But that's not NES so whatever! Dragon Warrior took up a lot of my time as a kid, but that was before I knew what a good RPG was like, so I can't really recommend it nowadays. Lots of grinding, and not much of a story. I think the original Final Fantasy isn't a bad choice, although next to modern RPGs you may still find it wanting. OH! Play EARTHBOUND ZERO (aka Mother 1). There is the official unreleased translation out there in the internets if you look hard enough. Until the endgame, where the enemy difficulty admittedly gets rather unbalanced, it's a pretty polished RPG for the time, and has a lot of the fun and quirkiness that makes Earthbound (for SNES) so endearing to us all. Hope that all helps.

Heh, I usually max it out too. Unfortunately, my roommates don't share our love for NES music, so for their sake, I moved on to the dungeon. They didn't enjoy the music anymore, but at least it was more interesting than watching me walk back and forth for 15 minutes.

I actually missed that one on this playthrough. :-/ (*looks it up*) Ah, and it's because it was in the first chapter, and I didn't even bother getting the potion in that dungeon. Anyone else familiar with the 22-heart glitch in Chapter 6? In the second half of Chapter 6, there's a Big Heart hidden in the catacombs. If you collect it, then enter and exit the dungeon, the Big Heart will reappear. You can keep collecting Big Hearts until your life meter is maxed out at 22. However, you always start Chapter 7 with 16 heart containers. So it may not be worth all the time it takes you walk to and from the dungeon ten times to max out your health. I don't remember if I figured out that trick myself, but since it was the pre-internet days when I first played StarTropics, and I didn't subscribe to Nintendo Power until much later, I guess I did.

I felt so dumb playing through the game this time, because I don't think I ever really appreciated the 1492, 1776, and 747 codes that the game references before now. Not that I didn't know the significance of any of those numbers, I just... didn't think about it?

A couple years back, I discovered that the battery in my StarTropics cart had finally given up the ghost. So, imagine my joy yesterday when I checked the Wii thread and discovered its imminent VC release. Anyway, I'm currently at Chapter 5 right now... well, whichever one has the pirate ship. I'm hoping to run through the rest today or at least by tomorrow. I remember it used to be ridiculously difficult for me, and I'd wager it's more frustrating than the first Legend of Zelda, which is the closest comparison one could make, I think. But I don't think it'd be too much trouble for me now. Also, did anyone else notice that your "yo-yo" is called a "star" when given to you by the Island Chief? I wonder what translation they used to make this VC game...

Looks like I'll finally be able to beat it again, since the battery in my original NES cart gave out, and I can't save files to it anymore. StarTropics... the most frustrating Zelda-style game I've ever played and beaten. But a lot of fun, as I recall. Who developed it, anyway?... EDIT: Ah, okay. It's first party. I wonder how they'll handle the letter aspect, though.

I think RD was thinking more along the lines of April 1st...

I'm talking about Ness, anyway. I love the character too much. Retool him all you like, in fact, I really hope they change up his special moves so he'll actually be like his character in Earthbound. (That goes double for you, Ganondorf.) Just don't pass over him completely! D-:

'Sup George. That reminds me, I need to upload "Dirty Talk" to the internets sometime. I'll post it here, don't worry. Anyway, I should be on topic and talk about things that aren't inside jokes between me and Castle... King (you could name him whatever you wanted) from Earthbound is a good choice for VG dogs, although I was sad that you only got to use him for the first ten minutes of the game.

I think I remember hearing ZSS's Final Smash turns her back into normal Samus. EDIT: Beat to the punch! D:

I'm unconvinced that you could consider Zero Suit Samus as an alternate costume. I consider her to be more of a transformation, such as Zelda/Shiek. Prediction: There will be some button combination/option that allows you to start as Zero Suit Samus, similar to Zelda/Shiek's Down+A combo in Melee.

The last OCR wallpaper I used featured OCR-tan. Whatever happened to that project?

Not so rural Alabama here, particularly when I'm at my parents' house in Huntsville. Although despite the "cow college" moniker, Auburn can't really be called the "boonies".

Rock Band and Guitar Hero 3 are good games to play through with your friends, should you like rhythm games.

(Concerning my post about Ridley's small stature in the original Metroid.) Incidentally, did they make him bigger for the Metroid Zero Mission game? I know it was a remake of the original, but I'd have to imagine that they updated the bosses a little, since they were ridiculously boring in the original game.

Besides, Ridley wasn't much bigger than Samus in the first Metroid game, so a smaller Ridley isn't unheard of.