The Coop

I uh... I don't own an MP3 player. Unless you count my PC (big and bulky, but oh so stylish as I walk about town), then I've got about five.

Engage in Jabberwock Here's a funky little game that just went freeware by its author. Imagine "Zelda", a shmup, a little RPGing, and a large breasted character to use these traits in a series of battles, and you're getting an understanding of this little game. You work your way through various dungeons, battling various types of pumpkin-like enemies, and other assorted mechanical beasts, and you try and work your way to the boss. Along the way, you get health, some items to use, and different attacks as well. There are also very simple puzzles to be solved to get further into each area (basically, big spheres to shoot and flip over). There's not a lot of reading, so that's not an issue. The game's mostly action with its blasting and dodging, so there's little Japanese to worry about. It's gotten some good feedback over the years, so you just may have some fun with it.

Thanks for the welcome guys. Hopefully you'll enjoy what I come up with, even if it doesn't make the end cut Speaking of which, where'd your project go?

Broken Thunder: Project Thunder Force VI That's right, I own the soundtrack to a game NO ONE has played

The first reviews are in for Sonic and the Secret Rings... http://wii.ign.com/articles/766/766214p2.html http://www.gamespot.com/wii/action/sonicrevolution/review.html?sid=6166173&tag=recent_updates;title;0

I figured I may as well update this. After going to that site, I downloaded SUPERAntiSpyware. Hopping into Safe Mode, I ran it. Besides the usual tracking cookies that set off every Spyware program, it detected a Trojan buried in some odd corner of my PC (sorry I can't remember the name... I think it might have been a Vundo variant or something). It got rid of the file, and a number of things have taken place... 1) Those fucking windows seem to have stopped. I haven't gotten one since I ran the scan back on 2-17-2007. 2) FireFox had been starting a lot slower for around two weeks at the time I DLed SUPERAntiSpyware. I'd done an uninstall twice before, but nothing seemed to correct the 6-7 second to start up time that the browser had suddenly began doing (where before it had only been a second or two). FireFox had also gotten into the habit of consuming 100% or my CPU resources, causing my CPU to got hot to the point of the cooling fan kicking into high gear (this always happened after I'd closed the browser, yet the program would keep running according to the task manager). Once that file was removed, FireFox went back to normal startup time and functions. So it seems the found trojan was behind all that as well. So it would seem (**knocks on wood**) that the problem's hopefully been solved. I don't know how that thing got in there, or where it came from, and that bothers me a little.

Well, I got a mysterious PM last night that pointed me in this direction. And of the tracks left, I think I'll grab "Merry-Go-Round".

True. Notice none of them ever talked about the small glitches in Capcom Classics Collection 2, or the weird issue with Joust 2's title screen on the XBox version of Midway Arcade Treasures 1. Or the huge, game ending bug in Primal Rage on MAT2 (XBox version). That bothered me quite a bit since they all said how perfect or great the emulation was. Oh, and I added a few more titles to my second list above. Remembered a few others while I was in the shower.

As dumb as it may sound, I only recommend games I've actually played all the way through (or at least well into them). I don't trust reviews all that much, as they're often all over the board when you go from site to site. So I just stick to listing games I have experience with. That's why titles like the Final Fantasies, Lunar 2 (Sega CD) and such aren't listed in my post. And speaking of which, a few more forgotten ones... -NES- Blaster Master LifeForce Gradius 1942 1943 Super C -SNES- Hagane Biometal -Sega CD- Ecco the Dolphin Ecco: The Tides of Time Heart of the Alien (Out of This World 1+2) Sol-Feace AH3 Thunderstrike -Genesis- Valis III Sagaia Insector-X The Immortal G-Loc Soldiers of Fortune Space Invaders '91 Toejam & Earl Toejam & Earl 2: Panic on Funkotron Vapor Trail Gauntlet IV Gain Ground Raiden Trad Fire Shark Skeleton Krew Blaster Master 2 Dune: The Battle For Arrakis Cyborg Justice -GBA- King of Fighters EX: Neo Blood King of Fighters EX2: Howling Blood And if you're up for some import titles (which can be played using a Game Genie)... -MegaDrive- Thunder Force IV Undead Line Alien Soldier Pulseman Super Fantasy Zone Eliminate Down Gley Lancer Monster World IV Twin Hawk (Daisenpuu)

Oh, and I forgot the European version of Zero Wing. It plays just fine on a US system.

-NES- Castlevania II: Simon's Quest Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse Gargoyle's Quest II Galaga Batman: Return of the Joker Heavy Barrel Dragon Warrior Dragon Warrior II Dragon Warrior III Dragon Warrior IV Metal Storm Ghosts 'N Goblins Burai Fighter Zanac Gun Nac Guardian Legend Ninja Gaiden Ninja Gaiden II Ninja Gaiden III Tetris (Tengen version) -SNES- Demon's Crest Castlevania IV Castlevania: Dracula X R-Type III: The Third Lightning Super R-Type Metal Warriors Cybernator Sky Blazer ActRaiser Actraiser II Super Turrican Super Turrican II Super Ghouls 'N Ghosts Ninja Warriors Space Megaforce Super Metroid Sunset Riders UN Squadron The King of Dragons TMNT IV Phalanx -Genesis- Thunder Force II Thunder Force III Lightening Force (aka Thunder Force IV) Contra Hard Corps Castlevania: Bloodlines Rocket Knight Adventures Sparkster Phantasy Star II Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom Phantasy Star IV: End of the Millenium Gaiares Whip Rush Outrun After Burner II Ghouls 'N Ghosts Tinhead Ristar Gods El Viento Sol Deace Streets of Rage Streets of Rage 2 Streets of Rage 3 Red Zone Revenge of Shinobi Shinobi III Shadow Dancer Sub Terrenia Ranger X Elemental Master Shining Force Shining Force II Shining in the Darkness Golden Axe Golden Axe II Granada Strider Forgotten Worlds Flashback: The Quest for Identity Dragon's Fury Earthworm Jim Earthworm Jim 2 Beyond Oasis Battletech The Adventures of Batman and Robin Batman Alisia Dragoon Bio Hazard Battle Robocop vs Terminator Rolling Thunder 2 Rolling Thunder 3 Splatterhouse 2 Splatterhouse 3 Star Control Steel Empire Mega Turrican Turrican Phelios Midnight Resistance Vectorman Vectorman 2 M.U.S.H.A. Mystic Defender Super Baseball 2020 Lion King Aladdin Mercs Herzog Zwei Hellfire Landstalker Master of Monsters Desert Strike Jungle Strike Urban Strike Traysia Wings of Wor TMNT: Hyperstone Heist Sword of Vermillion Viewpoint -Sega CD- Sonic CD Flink Shining Force CD Earthworm Jim: Special Edition Dungeon Explorer II Lords of Thunder Android Assault Final Fight CD Dark Wizard Lunar: The Silver Star Popful Mail Eternal Champions: Challenge From the Dark Side Robo Aleste Soul Star The Terminator -GB & GBC- MegaMan Xtreme MegaMan Xtreme 2 Shantae R-Type DX Gradius: Interstellar Assault Castlevania Adventure Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge Castlevania III: Legends Metroid II Blaster Master: Enemy Below Gargoyle's Quest -GBA- Sonic Advance 3 Gradius Galaxies Iridion Iridion II Shining Force: Resurrection of the Dark Dragon Shining Soul Shining Soul II Sigma Star Saga Astro Boy Gunstar Super Heroes Metal Slug Advance Metroid: Zero Mission MegaMan Zero MegaMan Zero 2 MegaMan Zero 3 MegaMan Zero 4 MegaMan & Bass Pinball of the Dead Super Ghouls 'N Ghosts (it's a bit different from the SNES version)

Putting a song of yours there is pretty simple. First, you need someplace to upload the song to. There are quite a few places that are free, like Geocities, yousendit, and others. Just type "Free file hosting" into Google, sign up for one of the sites you find, and you'll be all set for uploading. Once you have your song uploaded, you can make a thread in the WIP forum (the "New Thread" button along the top or bottom), and post a link to that song for others to listen to (you'll get a link to the file you uploaded from the file hosting site you put it on). As for listening to the WIPs already in that forum, just go into a thread there, click on the link to a given song, and save it to your PC (right-click with your mouse, and select "Save target as" or "Save link as" or whatever your option may say).

Just thought I'd point out that the first few links to the soundtrack are dead. So on the off hand chance a fresh link hasn't been posted in a while... http://megatwerp.com/akumusnsf/S/Super%20Dodge%20Ball.nsf ... there's the soundtrack.

It opens up as a FireFox window. It also opens up in IE as an IE window (it did that last night). Regarding my uninstall, I deleted every folder and file that came up in a search for "FireFox" and "Mozilla" on my PC. That damned s02 page came up again after I went to that spyware page

Well, Windows Defender didn't find anything. However, I ran a program called Easy SpyRemover, and it found these... Vb.akv TR/Spy.Goldun.FN.3 TR/Spy.Goldun.EI Of course, it can't get rid of them, because you have to pay for that ability. All three are listed on AntiVir's site, yet it seems AnatiVir can't find them. I also ran Trojan Hunter, and it found one trojan (C:\WINDOWS\MSBN\setup.exe (TrojanDownloader.Zlob.566)) and removed it. However, the three above files are still there. I also checked on some of the processes via Process Library, and nothing came up as odd. Of course, Task List said the opposite for most of the ones I checked, telling me that things like alg.exe, spoolsv.exe, wdfmdr.exe and lsass.exe were trojans to be gotten rid of. Frankly, I'm at a loss at the moment. Three files (two "Medium", one "High" in threat) that nothing I have can seem to find or get rid of. AntiVir, Spybot, Ad-Aware, Trojan Hunter, and Dr. Web are seemingly clueless, and the one program that finds them, won't let me get rid of them. What fun! Here's something to give you a chuckle. When I went to DL Windows Defender and Hijack This, I got that "s02" window on both sites... and this is after installing Ad Block and No Script.

-=http://www.smartfixer.com/trial.html=- There's a fresh page that just popped up about one minute ago. I rolled my mouse wheel about ten minutes after a page on www.shmups.com forums had finished loading, and suddenly that page popped up. This is really beginning to annoy me, as I don't know where these things are coming from, or how they're getting through after all the cleaning I did.

-=http://s02.globewages.com/=- -=http://www.allwindowssoft.com/content/view/39/32/=- Lately these two pages have been popping up randomly from time to time as I browse. I have no idea what caused them. I recently did a Safe Mode spyware scan with Spybot and AdAware (which found nothing major), did a Safe Mode Virus scan with AntiVir (which found nothing), and completely uninstalled every last trace of FireFox from my system so I could make a fresh install. And yet, here they still are... popping up and officially starting to piss me off. I've gotten them over the last couple days going to IGN, Weather.com, OCR, and Filefront to name a few places. I even had the Windows one open up out of the blue while my browser wasn't open. Any idea what could be causing these two pages to show up? As a side note, there's also a third page that's popped up, but only twice so far. It's a car parts ordering page that actually looks pretty official, as it had descriptions, images, and even part numbers if I recall. Also, the first link used to be a hell of a lot longer. It came up as a completely blank, white page, with a monstrous url that ended with something like "http:%2F%2Fwww.weather.com" and some "affid" stuff, but I shortened it to the link above that simply says "It Works!".

You mean, 'Special Agent Nicolai' from Resident Evil Apocalyps. He got mauled by a dog, though. You mean Scut Farkus. He got his butt whooped by Ralphie, though.

Last year, a new (yes new) Genesis game was released. Called Beggar Prince, it's an RPG that takes the old "The Pauper and the Prince" tale, and gives it a new spin. It's a simple RPG with a different battle system, but it's also an RPG with a somewhat unfair boss. For 90% of the game, with a little leveling up, you can kick some pretty righteous butt on the bosses. However, later in the game, you have to basically guess which or five columns to place an object in (I won't say what). If you guess right, you get to continue playing. If you guess wrong, you get to fight the guardian of that area... a blue dragon. It's attacks are simple. One normal attack, one special, much more damaging attack. Regardless of which one it does, you're taking a nasty chunk of damage by the time its turn is over. I'm not sure how many hit points it has, as I never beat it. Despite using magic on it, attacking it with a fully leveled weapon, and healing my character regularly, I just couldn't beat the thing. The only reason I moved on from this spot, was because I eventually guessed the right spot to put the object after dying several times and trekking back to that area. Nasty little spot in an otherwise pretty easy game. Even the final boss didn't give me as much trouble as this little area guardian.

Oy. So the PS3 and 360 games were handled by (in essence) "the other Sonic Team members"? I guess that explains the poor reviews (even Shadow the Hedgehog did better). But, should even the Wii game go bad, there is hope to be gained from the past... - The Sonic Advance series, Sonic Battle and Sonic Rush were done by Dimps - Sonic 1 for the Master System and Game Gear was done by Ancient (Yuzo Koshiro's company) - Sonics 2, "Chaos" and "Triple Trouble" (Master System and Game Gear) were done by Aspect - Sonic 3D Blast was done by Traveller's Tales. Even if all those companies only co-developed those games, that's a lot of outside help that resulted in some very good 8/16/32bit titles when Sonic Team wasn't the one on the job. So even though it seems unnatural for someone other than Sonic Team to be making a Sonic game, if that's what it takes to make the 3D Sonic title people have been wanting (and being promised), then so be it.

Yep. $4.99 new for my XBox. Curiosity got to me, much like what happened with Turok Evolution (also $4.99 new). I wanted to see how it was, and since renting it actually cost more than it would to just buy it...

Technical flaws, perhaps. But they're technical flaws that have been there since 1999. How many games and years does it take to fix it? They can pile on all the extra characters they want, but that just comes off as trying to bury the problems under "new options"... as if they're saying, "It's still broken in all these areas, BUT LOOK HOW PRETTY IT IS AND AT ALL THE THINGS YOU CAN DO AND CHARACTERS YOU HAVE TO USE NOW!". Like what was done with other franchises, Sonic Team needs to refocus the Sonic series... hit "reset" as it were. They need to whittle off all the extraneous stuff, and focus on getting the core gameplay right, which is something I feel wasn't quite accomplished in any of the 3D games I played. It's there to a degree, but it's not nearly at the same level as the 2D games in terms of intensity, speed and design. ... To me, Sonic is close to hitting a critical crossroads. Other companies who have handled the Sonic series seem to be able to get the formula far more right than Sonic Team at the moment. The Sonic Advance series, Sonic Rush, Sonic 3D Blast... all these games felt more like Sonic games than what Sonic Team keeps putting out (at least up to Shadow the Hedgehog, which is the last one I bought). It's getting to the point that what Sonic Team are doing their franchise, is what Core was doing to the Tomb Raider franchise. Namely, hurting it. I honestly think unless the Wii Sonic turns out to be something spectacular, it may be time to let someone else have a go at the 3D part of the series. Or at the very least, bring in some fresh blood to help Sonic Team. Sometimes when you work on something for so long, you can't see what's potentially wrong with it until you get an outside perspective. And frankly, I'm wondering if Sonic Team can see how broken parts of the latest games are. As I said, I enjoy the series. I felt the 2D games were a blast (except Sonic Spinball), SA1+2 were fun, "Heroes" had its moments (the whole team gameplay got old though), and "Shadow" is at least playable (it's not as bad as the reviews made it out to be, yet it needed a lot more work to be sure). But to be honest, there were some serious flaws in those games that needed to be worked out... flaws which apparently haven't been if the reviews to the 360 and PS3 Sonic games are to be believed.

It's a bit hard not to compare the old Sonics to the new ones, TonitoX2. What drew people into the old Genesis (and Sega CD) Sonic games, were their simplicity, their colorful graphics, their happy tunes, and the huge levels that were still easy to explore around in. You had a jump button, and that was it. A special move here or there, but in the end, it was just simply a jump button... and you always knew where it was going to send you unless you were moving very fast. That single button, coupled with the speed the series is known for, enabled you to go just about anywhere. And usually what happened in the various stages were centered around those two aspects. Sonic Team struck a balance between giving you a lot explore, while keeping the means to do so simple, and easy to use. By far the worst thing about the new Sonic games, is the utterly spastic camera. It never stays still. You can run in a straight line, and the moment an object gets slightly near it, the camera spins off in another direction... and this makes your character run in another direction. You were running along the narrow patch of ground, but now your character turned left as the camera panned to the right. The end result, is your death. This happens on the rail segments (the camera pans away so you can't see what's up ahead), the open ground (now you can't see the enemy that was coming at you), the jumping segments ("Hey! Where'd the platform go?! OH SHIIIIIIiiiii...!")... there isn't an aspect where the camera stayed in place even after you maneuvered it to get the best view. Even Boss battles and the simple act of jumping became frustrating. Speaking of jumping, this becomes an exercise in cursing, as trying to land on things is made harder thanks to the camera wandering around. What was so fundamental in the 16bit (and 8bit) 2D Sonic games, was broken in the 3D ones. Running and jumping wasn't a means to reach new areas, but a new way to kill off your character thanks to not being able to see what you were jumping up at, or falling towards, half the time. The two most fundamental aspects of the Sonic franchise, haven't worked right since it went 3D. As I said, I still enjoyed SA1 and even SA2. The 3D games have kept the colorful graphics for the most part, and they did a good job transforming the 2D characters into 3D ones. Hell, even the music manages to be upbeat and catchy most of the time. But the camera that has yet to be tamed by Sonic Team keeps screwing with everything. You can't go full steam, because you're given a hard time seeing what's ahead. And jumping around isn't made any easier, for much the same reason. The 3D Sonic games have had a huge dent put into the series' core gameplay thanks to that camera issue. We know 3D cameras can work, as even the original Tomb Raider did a better job with it. Until Sonic Team can get a handle on coding a helpful camera, their 3D games are going to continue to have issues. And until the gameplay gets honed back down to what made the original games so memorable (do we have to go digging over a huge area just to find that one item... again?), the 3D games are going to be compared to the faster, streamlined, and less tedious 2D offerings. It's not about nostalgia. It's about getting the series back to what made it a success in the first place... *Sonic- Can run and spin dash *Tails- Can fly for short distances and spin dash *Knuckles- Can glide, climb walls, and spin dash. * The goal is to go as fast as you can to the end of the level, or jump around and explore the level, reaching new areas/power ups as you do. Make that into a 3D game, with a working camera (hell, try first person if nothing else), and Sonic could finally have a really good 3D game. No quests, no being chained to a team or partner, and no digging around to find the item to give to someone to blah blah blah. Just those four simple things. They're what made Sonic fun in the beginning, and they're what needs to be brought back. Of course, these are all just my observations. I'm not stating anything as fact, but rather what I think is wrong, and what needs to happen... soon.

I thought Sonic Adventure was decent, and the same goes for "2". Sonic Heroes was a bit iffy, and Shadow the Hedgehog, while not as horrid as some reviews made it out to be, was a mistake. It's like the same game engine kept getting used over and over again, as all the games have camera issues, control issues, and lack speed to the same degree. The only thing that changed, was the graphics aspect with the newer games. Maybe it's time for Sonic Team to let someone else have a 3-D go at it. And am I the only one who actually enjoyed Sonic 3D Blast? Sure, it wasn't as fast as the previous Genesis (and later, Saturn) games, but it was still fun.

But that's just it. Playing in the rain should have made for a far more interesting game, and in the first quarter, it did. Fumbles, stumbles, bobbled catches and passes... it was good watching. But once the second quarter started, the Bears died, and the Colts just took their sweet time getting points over a three quarter snooze-fest.