Fallout 4

    One of the most anticipated games of 2015 hit last month, and unless you've been hiding in an underground bunker(or can't read a title), you know it's Fallout 4. I've been playing it constantly ever since. Last night I got the platinum trophy for PS4 and I figured now is a good time to give it a full review. I haven't seen everything in the game, there's way to much content, but I have seen most of it. And there's a lot.

    For the tl:dr crowd lets do a quick overview. On a scale of 1 to 5, I'd rate this game a really high 4. It's an incredible game but there's to many flaws to give it a full 5. That said, I still consider this a must play title.

Graphical glitches are pretty common.

    Graphics are acceptable but not phenomenal. You'll definitely know what you're looking at, and in some locations it'll take your breath away. But there's some tearing in certain places and you'll frequently have xray vision, allowing you to see inside the player and npc's. Bethesda also seemed to be unable to decide if they wanted to go with ultra realistic or slightly cartoonish. Dogmeat is an incredible rendering of a german shepherd, but sometimes he looks out of place because the landscapes have a more illustrated look to them. That's just one example of what I mean. Both the landscape and Dogmeat are really well done in their respective styles, they just bump up against each other. Which brings me to my next point..
    Bethesda went with an interesting game philosophy for Fallout 4. It's a jack of all trades, but a master of none. It's the maintenance guy who knows how to do everything but isn't a pro at anything, of gaming. You can see this everywhere in the game. It's first person enough to be a shooter but it's clearly not a shooter. It's graphics are awesome but not groundbreaking. There's tons of great content but very little really blows you away. It's a fun city builder but it's tediously implemented. And so on and so on. There's no one element that makes Fallout 4 the incredible experience that it is, but when you add them all up, it's a knockout.
    The story line is pure Fallout. Guy(or Girl, sorta) leaves vault, goes on a quest, does cool stuff in the wasteland, saves the day. Nothing groundbreaking there, but it's always worked for the series and I'm not complaining. It's also almost completely unnecessary. You could ignore the story line and still have a blast playing this game. There are some pretty great twists that I wasn't expecting but I'm not about to spoil it for you.

This is just the northwest portion of the map. The game is huge.

    The world is huge. There are places to go and explore/quest everywhere. They really did a great job fleshing out the world and making it feel alive. Traders walk the ruined highways, beasts roam the countryside, ferals hide in every shattered train car. You'll encounter gorgeous sunny days and miserable radiation storms. Distant explosions and gunfire will remind you that you're not alone in this hellscape. The only problem with this world is that I don't have a car. Hell, even a horse would have been nice in a pinch.
    The sound effects, voice overs, and music are outstanding. Bethesda really nailed it. The radio station music selections are fallout through and through. The original score for the game is breathtaking, it's the kind of song that was waiting to be created. The voice overs are much better than any other Bethesda title I've ever played. Occasionally there's a hiccup but in general they sound more natural. The sound effects kick ass, some guns buzz, some blam, some pop, they all sound unique and match what you expect the weapon to sound like. There were a few times when a sound effect loop would get stuck however. For example, I gave a companion the minigun and after an intense fire fight the noise the gun made got stuck. Really annoying.
    Content wise, the game again delivers but nothing truly mind blowing. You've got the rpg element going strong and VATS targeting really helps remove the first person shooter feel. Or ignore VATS and it's a crazy intense shooter. Hacking and lockpicking mini games are fun and add variety. There's a very minecrafty city building element to get lost in forever. There's crafting and looting. There's some challenging puzzles. A little bit of everything, and then there's the radiant quest system. It works well and always gives you something to do but it definitely feels to mechanical. While doing the radiant quests I was constantly reminded of the Elder Scrolls. Not a bad thing, but something I think they need to work on. The radiant quest system needs more variety and it needs to be molded more for Fallout.
    One of my biggest complaints about this game, is the lack of choice making and real consequences. One of the greatest things about the Fallout universe is that you have an effect on things. With Fallout 4 that seems to have disappeared. Yes you have dialog choices, but the game does everything it can to make sure that your choices line up with the story line Bethesda created. Even when you're a total jerk, it rarely messes things up. The only real difference is the dialog along the way.

    Wrapping up here, I would highly recommend this game. It pulls you in and makes you forget everything else. I still haven't played the Bloodborne dlc I purchased. Fallout 4 is buggy, and it lacks polish, but more importantly, it's incredibly fun. And fun is why we play these games. You gotta play this game!

Why Riot?

   Yesterday, April 27th 2015, the city of Baltimore exploded as riots consumed parts of Charm City. I watched a lot of it unfold online through various sites, but mostly through Google+ and Twitter. On Twitter there are a lot of posts like the following:

Lets protest for justice!!!!! HOW!? By smashing the windows of all the shops on the road.. Wait Wut!? #BaltimoreRiots
— Tom Syndicate (@ProSyndicate) April 28, 2015

Nothing sways public opinion quite like assaulting bystanders, media & police, looting & destruction of property #BaltimoreRiots #Baltimore
— Aaron Robinow (@aaronrobinow) April 26, 2015

Rioters mind set: Lets destroy and burn our city! Because when this is all over we can enjoy being left with nothing!.. #BaltimoreRiots
— Tom Syndicate (@ProSyndicate) April 28, 2015

"I'll just throw this chair through a sports bar and social justice will be restored." #BaltimoreRiots pic.twitter.com/pGCxqe8ZoW
— ShitWhitePeopleRuin (@PeopleRuin) April 28, 2015

Yes, because burning and looting your own neighborhood is always the most reasonable way of getting your point across. #BaltimoreRiots
— Future First Lady (@Future1stLady1) April 28, 2015

Prove you aren't a criminal by acting like a criminal. Logic. #BaltimoreRiots
— Dani Butcher (@RepublicanSass) April 27, 2015

Burn down your neighborhood and steal from local businesses to promote justice. Makes sense, right? #BaltimoreRiots
— Dani Butcher (@RepublicanSass) April 27, 2015

  That last woman is so dense I had to post two of hers. And this is just a small sample. If you search #BaltimoreRiots there are tons of tweets saying essentially the same thing. They point out the stupidity and senselessness of it all or simply ask why. Obviously this is a question a lot of white people seem to be asking. I'm hoping I can explain it.
  The problem seems to be that people are confusing a peaceful protest with a riot. They are not the same but in this case they are related.
  In a peaceful protest, a bunch of people with a common grievance get together and decide to take their cause to the streets. This usually involves organized marches, media outreach, chanting, and signs describing the problem you want solved. The key factor in all of this is organization. It's all planned, it's all organized and it all has a common goal.
  Yesterday started out as protests. However, at some pointed it turned into riots. A riot is violent, undirected, lacks little to no leadership, and has two goals. Destruction and release. Riots do not get planned, no one sits around and says "Hey, lets solve our problem by destroying our own community".
  Riots are not rational, they are emotional. Riots occur when a group of people become so disenfranchised that they simply do not care who or what they damage anymore. They don't feel they have any power or control over their situation. The only goal is to vent anger and frustration.
  In this particular situation, a man died in police custody, and virtually no explanation has been giving as to how or why he died. This isn't the first time. It's been happening quite a lot lately, so much so, that the black community feels it's intentional. There have been protests about it, there have been discussions about it, and yet here we are and it's happening again. And each time it happens, the police, for the most part, get away with it.
  Because it has continued to happen and there seem to be little consequences, there is a growing number of people who don't feel that peaceful avenues are working. They've tried communicating, protesting, and even litigation. None have succeeded. When a person has no civilized options left, lawlessness becomes the only option. They are frustrated and they're angry. Really angry. They're not thinking about this rationally. They don't care what they smash, smashing anything within reach is the point. Why? Because it emotionally vents the negative feelings that have been bottling up. Riots are not thought out solutions, they're reactions on a cultural scale.
  If it sounds like I'm defending the rioters, I'm not. Rioting is foolish, it accomplishes nothing, and nine times out of ten, it hurts the people rioting more than anyone else. However, I can completely understand why this is happening. They don't feel they have any other options and they don't care if it makes sense. They're reacting out of rage and anger. They don't care how it makes them look online, or in the media. You don't have to condone it, to understand it. If we can understand it, hopefully we can come up with solutions so that it doesn't happen again.

Bloodborne

"And so the Hunt begins again."

  The hunt began last week, and ever since then it has consumed me. All I think about is Bloodborne. I knew this game was gonna be good when I saw the previews last year. But it's nothing like I thought it would be. I expected a fun, dark, button mashing, action rpg, like Diablo. What I got was a reminder of how things used to be and just how difficult video games can be.
  I've been gaming since the early 80's and things have changed drastically since those days. Games are still tons of fun but they've gotten easy as time marches on. Checkpoints, ingame clues, selectable difficulty, are all huge these days. Not in this game. This game revels in frustration and anger. It feeds off your desire to throw the controller through the tv in absolute rage. It is fantastic.
  If you're like me, you never played a souls game. They are apparently notorious for their difficulty level. I had no idea this was the case, so I fired up the game, created my character, watched a very short cut scene, went into the next room, and died. At first I was annoyed. Then I realized that I was supposed to die here. Ok, no big deal. Two minutes later I died, again. This pattern repeated itself for two days. Yes you read that right, two days of getting my ass completely handed to me. And yet, I couldn't stop playing. Every time I died I was just a little further in the game than the previous death. Just enough progress to keep me going. The story is awesome but it's not in your face about it. Again, they give you just enough to keep you going.
  Finally, after two days, I defeated the first boss. The feeling of accomplishment and pride in finally progressing was incredible. I almost stood up and did a little dance. But that's really the part no one seems to mention. Yes the game is hard. Really hard, Mind numbingly hard. But because of the difficulty you really feel like you've done something awesome. Contrast that with a game like GTA V and you'll know what I mean. GTA is a great game, one of my personal favorites in fact, but it's not even remotely difficult. When you finish the story line it feels more like you watched a movie than played a game. Bloodborne is the complete opposite of that. Every victory in the game feels like you actually achieved something. You fought through adversity and triumphed!

 
  But Bloodborne isn't just a one trick pony. In addition to the difficulty, the game is also gorgeous. The setting and scenery are some of the best I've ever seen. It does a great job capturing the classic feel of the victorian gothic motif. The levels are huge and a ton of fun to explore. I'm still going back to previous levels and making sure I didn't miss anything. The story line is interesting but it's kinda sparse. You get bits and pieces through dialog, a few cut scenes, and scenery, but it doesn't hand feed you the plot. This works in Bloodborne's favor though because it adds to the mystery of the locations and people in the game. I haven't beaten it yet, so I'm sure more will come to light.
  The game does have a few downsides, nothing in this world is perfect. The biggest problem in the game are the load times. Every time you die, or go to your safe area, you will be sitting there waiting and staring at the Bloodborne logo screen. It's at least 30 seconds long each time and it never changes. Always the same screen. They really should have used this time to showcase some art, offer tips, etc. Load times are being worked on for the next patch but until then, it sucks. Another problem I have with the game is a bit nit picky. When you kill someone, if they've started saying something, they finish saying it even though they're dead. It's silly, but it pulls you out of the zone when it happens. Another issue is the camera. Frequently during big fights something will be blocking my view, My head, a tree branch, a giant mutated limb, that sorta thing. It could have been done better.
  The only games I can compare Bloodborne to are both pretty old. It's got the horror thing going strong, and it can scare the hell out of you, just like the original Resident Evil on the first Playstation. Staying in that time space, it's incredibly difficult but rewarding, like Kings Field. You will cheer every time you reach a checkpoint. And as weird as it seems, it also reminds me of Dwarf Fortress. The games are not even remotely similar but the motto of Dwarf Fortress players has always been, "Losing is fun!", and in Bloodborne it really helps to keep that in mind.
  Overall, I love this game. It's already become a classic to me. I'll probably be playing this game for a long time. I would absolutely recommend people buy it. Just be prepared and be patient. You will die, over and over, but you will get better.

"Long ago, Old Yharnam was overrun by the Plague of Beasts and left to rot in decay and now the only voices heard there are the howls of Beasts."

Basic Fun/Taito Space Invaders - Carabiner Edition

  Over the holidays, I received two new handheld games. This is one of them. For this entry we've got the classic game Space Invaders by Taito. This version is manufactured by a company called Basic Fun, who to my surprise, are located just outside philly, like me. This version was made in 2011.
  The game came in a standard, cardboard backed, bubble plastic package. It's listed as being for ages 6+ and requires two AAA batteries that are not included. The design is very cheap but we'll get into the details further down.
  It's called the Carabiner edition, for those who might not know, basically this means you can clip it onto your pants, backpack, or whatever. The word comes from rock climbers who use carabiners to latch onto their safety ropes. I guess for a child this would be great but I just can't see myself clipping this game to my leg and heading out in public.
 

  As you can see, the exterior of the game is mostly plastic. Like I said earlier, it's rather cheap. The only metal on it is the screw that holds the battery plate in place on the back of the unit. Just above that you can see speaker holes. On the front you've got the Space Invaders logo at the top, the screen, then below it a D-pad and two buttons. This is actually very telling for a few reasons. The first is that there's really no need for a full D-pad, you can only move right and left in the game. The second is that both buttons do the exact same thing. They shoot. The only reason this would be done is to save money making the unit. By doing it this way, they can use the same plastic shell over and over for different games. This isn't the first time we've seen this on this blog. SongHai does the same thing with their games.
  In case you've been living under a rock since the seventies, in Space Invaders the objective is to shoot down endless waves of aliens who are trying to, well, uhhm....invade. On this version it's not endless though, you only fight ten waves. The original trademark for Space Invaders is from 1978, personally I mostly remember it from playing it on the legendary Atari 2600. The game was simplistic and tons of fun back then, and it still is.
  Overall, this specific unit does well. It's a great game and worth adding to your handheld collection. However, because of the build quality, I wouldn't expect it to rise in value. This unit is not on the same level as Nintendo's Game & Watch series. It's also not nearly as expensive.

Nintendo Donkey Kong Jr. Game & Watch

  It's been over thirty years since I got my hands on Nintendo's Donkey Kong Jr. from their Game & Watch series. As a small child I received one as a xmas gift from santa. I played this game constantly, always had it with me, and to this day, I'm still not sure how I lost it. I think it got misplaced when my family moved from our apartment to a town house in the same neighborhood. Really though it's a mystery, because in 1982 I was only about five years old. I could easily be remembering wrong. Anyway, enough about ancient history, let's get to the details.

Reset screen showing all possible LCD states.

  The Donkey Kong Jr. Game & Watch hit the US in 1982. It's is widely considered to be one of the best titles in the series. The unit is about four and a quarter inches long, has a dark green plastic back, white trim on the sides and a green metallic plate on the front side. The frame of the screen has the words DONKEY KONG JR. on the top and Nintendo on the bottom. The Game & Watch logo appears on the front left side and below that, a color image of Donkey Kong holding Jr on his shoulders. Jr has the key to Kong's cage in his hand.

  The back of the unit features the battery compartment, it uses two watch batteries, a metal kick stand, a serial number, a model number, and some other manufacturing information. The serial number for this particular unit is 15468549. It's model no. is DJ-101. This marks it is as being part of the New Wide Screen family of the Game & Watch series.

Back side of the unit.

  The game has ten buttons in total. On the far right side of the front, there are two buttons inset that require a pen or other such device to press them. ALARM sets the alarm clock, ACL resets the game and sets the time. Just left of those are three buttons, GAME A, GAME B, and TIME. Game a and b are difficulty settings, time shows what time the alarm is set to. Below these, there is a round JUMP button. On the left side of the front is a 4 button D pad for moving DK Jr. This is one of the earliest uses of the D pad in gaming history! Game & Watch predates the famicom and the nes by more than a year.

  Gameplay is very simple. DK Jr. must save his dad by making his way to the cage and unlocking it with the swinging key. This must be done four times. While maneuvering through the jungle he must avoids birds and snapjaw's or he loses a life, of which, he has three. Bonus points can be scored by dropping fruit, located on the upper level, on the bad guys. Every time you save DK, the game gets a little tougher.
  As far as retro handheld electronic games go, I can't recommend this one enough. Finding one in good shape can be difficult. Focus less on scratches to the casing and more on an undamaged screen, buttons that still have good play in them, and a clean battery compartment. Every collector should get this game. It's a true legend. Some games are older, some games are rarer, but few games are as much fun as the Donkey Kong Jr. Game & Watch.

Oculus Rift

  Over the past few days, the Oculus Rift VR system has gone from savior to demon, and all it took was for Facebook to acquire it. Full disclosure here, I am not a fan of Facebook and I've never hidden that fact. This post will obviously reinforce my personal bias.
  When I first heard about Oculus Rift I thought it was a great idea but destined to fail. I didn't see any point in helping fund the kickstarter, but I have kept an eye on the system's progress because it's something that truly interests me.
  I grew up in the 80's and 90's and virtual reality was always the distant dream of the future. We had movies about it, and there were even arcades that hosted early vr systems. They were kinda fun, but clunky, and they didn't take off the way anyone expected. But the hope and dream of a viable, home vr system, never left the thoughts of anyone who played games and grew up in that time.
  Oculus Rift brought that dream back to us, and offered it up as a reality. That's why this acquisition has caused such and uproar. The people freaking out, finally saw their childhood dreams starting to come true, and then that dream was sold for two billion dollars. Not only was is it sold, it was sold to Facebook.

 Even though Facebook is massive and used by people everywhere, it's a hated company. And for good reason. They rarely show respect for their user base, and their privacy models are joke. Facebook has been around for far less time and has somehow managed to be as distrusted and hated as Microsoft.
  The acquisition may have gone a bit smoother among the fans if it hadn't been sold to Facebook specifically. People simply do not trust them to take the system in the proper direction. The two billion will certainly help in the development but how the system will be used is now suspect. The possibilities for use in a social networking framework are endless and exciting, but not if it's tied to facebook.
 As stated earlier, I didn't fund the kickstarter, but I've always had an eye on Oculus. If it lived up to my expectations, I was planning on buying it. I've pretty much abandoned console gaming, but this would have brought me back. That is no longer a possibility, and unfortunately for Oculus Rift, I'm not alone in this position. Someone else, somewhere, will take this technology in the right direction, and they'll get our money. It's going to happen, if nothing else Oculus Rift has proven that people still want this.

Tooin

This is a track I started working on many many years ago. I finally completed it recently when I broke out all my old music gear. It was made primarily on three pieces of equipment. The Korg ER-1 rhythm synth, the Korg ES-1 sampler, and a Roland RS-5 synthesizer. Out of the three, the ES-1 was the real work horse. It handled everything except for some of the hi hats, which the ER-1 was used for, and the slow bass line, which was done with the RS-5.

I consider this track to be the best work I've done yet. It's got a lot more going on in it than any other piece of music I've created so far. I feel that while the other tracks I've made were good concepts, at the time of creating them I simply lacked the knowledge to make them really shine.

What I find most interesting is the fact that because I started it so long ago and then came back to it, my music taste has changed alot since then. If I had started this now it would be a very different composition, but I felt it was important to stay true to the original concept and complete it the way I had originally planned. The only deviation from the original concept is the slow but steady bassline. Without it the track just didn't feel like a unified piece of music.

I hope you enjoy it.

The Current State of Affairs

   I've been thinking a lot lately about the future and where my life is headed. I'm at the point where I feel like I really gotta start making some changes. Don't get me wrong, my life is good and I love it, and I love the people in it, but I'm tired of treading water. Every point of dissatisfaction keeps coming back to a basic lack of additional funds. I've got enough to get by but that's about it.
   I never feel like a can splurge and spend on something I want. The continuing cycle of bills and a mediocre pay level just repeats over and over, every month. I want more. I want to be able to spend money on holidays, vacations, or even just something nice for my wife every now and then. I can, and do, handle my responsibilities, but that's about it. And sometimes that just plain sucks.
   One of my biggest strengths and my utter weakness, is that I find it incredibly easy to be content with what I have. I feel fortunate to have people who care about me. I'm grateful I have a roof over my head and clothes on my back. But that simple contentment also means I rarely strive to get any further than my current position in life. I easily become complacent. And honestly this strategy could continue to work for another 10 or 15 years at least, but eventually I'm not gonna be able to work and then I'm gonna be in real trouble.
   I'm slowly trying to come up with a plan to fix this. I've got a few ideas already but I've never been good with implementation. I have however, found a few key things in my life that need to change in order to make any kind of meaningful advancement.

• I need a car. Most people might think this is a no brainer and can't imagine getting along without one. But it's surprisingly easier than you'd think. In my day to day life I really don't need one. I can walk everywhere I need to go. There's a grocery store two blocks from my apartment and walking to work is pretty easy as well. Not only that, but walking is basically the only exercise I get. The problem is, summertime is fast approaching and without a car, it's going to be another wasted summer. I'm tired of wasted summers. I wanna go to parks and go hiking. I wanna run off to the lake for the day. Plus if I get a car, my job market opens up immensely.
• I need to quit smoking. This is a purely financial decision. I love smoking, which is why every time I've tried to quit, I've failed. But it is seriously killing my wallet. Quitting would open up hundreds of dollars a month and it's just too much to ignore anymore. I'm planning on doing this in the very near future.
• I need to start saving some money and investing. If I want any chance of having a pleasant existence as a senior citizen this has to start soon. I've started reading up on my options and I'm working on figuring out how to make this happen.
• I need a better job. For as much as I complain about it, I really do love working in the hotel industry. The problem is, I'm not making enough and I'm almost at the pay ceiling for my current position. I've been trying to advance in the company but so far it hasn't happened. The possibility is there and my bosses like me but there are still a few things I need to work on before it happens. And if it doesn't, I need to accept it and move on.
• I need to focus more on my secondary lines of income. Online projects are pretty much my only hope here. But I need to stop getting derailed so easily. I take every little defeat to heart and give up, and that's just stupid.

   That's what I've got so far. It doesn't seem like much but it scares the hell out of me. It's all so entangled that I feel like I can't get a grip on it all. But if I can accomplish one piece of it, the other pieces will become easier to manage. And now is a good time to get the ball rolling. My students loans will finally be paid off in less than a year. This is a monstrous debt that has followed me around for most of my adult life, and with it gone  I'll have a lot more income at my disposal. Major changes are coming, they have to.

Parker Brothers Wildfire Pinball

   In 1979 Parker Brothers released Wildfire, The Electronic Pinball Game. It was created by the same gentleman who created the Merlin, Bob Doyle. Wildfire runs on a whopping 6 AA batteries or optionally on a 9v ac adapter that was not included, but could be ordered through a mail in coupon offer for about 10 dollars.
   Gameplay is pretty standard pinball action. You have four flippers controlled by two buttons on the sides of the game. The button on the lower right of the unit powers up and then launches the ball based on how long you hold it down. The score is kept on a red digital screen at the top of the game. The power switch on the right allows you to choose soft or loud sound effects, but no choice for silence. The game has 3 modes of difficulty which affect the speed of the ball. Up to 4 players can play the game together.

   This game and I go way back. I don't remember how old I was but I used to own it as a child and loved it. I'm guessing I had a later model because I was only two years old in 79, and this game would have obviously been to difficult to play. I recently purchased a used one(pictured) off ebay for a very fair price. I loved this game and used to play it nonstop. I'm not sure what happened to my original, it just sort of disappeared like all my favorite games. The fact that no sound is no option makes me suspect my mom may have made this one disappear in order to maintain her sanity.

Mattel Electronics Baseball

   This is Mattel Electronics Baseball. The game was originally released in 1978. It runs on one 9 volt battery. When playing the game you assume the roll of the hitter. You press the red button for the pitch. When the ball enters the strike zone, you press the bottom right blue button to swing. If you connect, you press and hold the top right blue button to run the bases. The top left blue button is used to increment innings and check the score.
   The game has two modes of play, Pro 1 and Pro 2, you choose your game mode with the switch in the middle of the unit. Pro 2 is the more difficult of the two. On the right hand side of the game there is some kind of port, I'm not sure if it's a headphone jack or a power port for an ac adapter.

   I'm not sure why but this particular model is different than most that can be found online. It's possible that this is an 80's model and not an original 70's model. This specific unit belonged to my wife's father who has passed away. She thinks it was purchased in 1981 or 1982. 

   The major differences are the port on the right hand side, and the red button. Most models I've seen online show the red button on the right hand side of the unit, this one is on the left. I haven't found any others online like this. 

   This one has seen a lot of action and has some pretty major signs of use. The button labels are all worn off, the sides have cracks, and the case is kind of loose where the front and back face connect. However, after 30 years, this game still works and is very much playable!

SongHao LCD Game Soccer

This is SongHao LCD Game Soccer. It was made in 2011 according to the engraving on the back of the case. You play a goalie and have to block the soccerballs from entering your net. After blocking enough shots you move to the next level. This repeats 4 times before you are declared the winner.

This game shares the same case style as many others in the series that was released. The two buttons on the left side actually do the same thing, move the player left, while the large button on the right move the player to the right. I'm guessing it was cheaper to make them this way. This game was purchased at Wal-Mart for a 1.00$. 

SongHao LCD Game Basketball

This is a very simplistic and small game made by SongHao Electronic. It was made in 2011 according to an engraving on the back of the game. The object is to shoot the basketball while avoiding the opponents who have their hands in the air. After getting a certain amount of shots you proceed to the next level. After four successful rounds you win the game.  

 

This game is one of many that I found at Wal-Mart for 1.00$, They all share very similar casings and button configurations but have different stickers on the front depending on what game they are. 

Mattel Electronics Classic Football

Front facing view.

Classic Football by Mattel Electronics is a replica made in 2000 of the Football handheld electronic game originally made in 1977. The screen uses red blips to represent players. The goal is to move the ball down field while avoiding the opposing teams players in order to score a touchdown. This game was hugely popular when it originally came out and is still held in high regard by many.

Back facing view.

Year 2000 C-date

There are only a few differences between the 2000 replica and the original 1977 model. Notably the 2000 model has the words Classic Football where it originally said Mattel Electronics, And the word Football was replaced with the word Mattel under the image of the football player. The original also ran on one 9volt battery, the replica requires two AA batteries. The last significant difference is the addition of a Sound on/off switch located above the directional buttons.

The Collection Has Begun.

   Ever since I was a little kid, I've always loved handheld electronic games. My dad died when I was young and one of the few things I remember about him was his love of video games. This was back in the late 70's to about the mid 80's, so his console gaming system was intellivision. He also had a few of the old Mattel Electronics handheld sports games. Baseball and Football are the two I remember him owning. This is probably why I love these kinds of games so much. I personally owned a Donkey Kong Jr. Game & Watch by Nintendo and a game called Go Sprout that was released as a promotional item for Green Giant vegetables. I had others but I can't really remember them.
   I've thought about collecting handhelds many times over the years but I never actually got around to doing it, until now. I don't know why now exactly, but I figure this is as good a time as any to start. I'll be using this blog to document and display the games I get my hands on. I'm thinking pictures, a short write up and maybe some videos of each game in action. I'll start with the few games that I already have in my possession, a replica Mattel football game and some really cheap games I found at Wal-Mart.
   I really like the Nintendo Game & Watch series but they tend to be pretty expensive, so I'm not gonna be picking any of them up anytime time soon. But I do plan on seeking them out when I have a little more cash flow or if I can get a crazy good deal. Another game I really wanna get my hands on is the Dungeons & Dragons handheld. I like the style of the late 70's early 80's games the most. Tomy Tronic and Mattel Electronics both have some really cool stuff floating around.
   So that's the basic game plan, hopefully I'll stick with it long enough to get a nice collection going. Or the A D D could kick in and I'll be on to the next project. We'll see what happens.

Pilgrimage

  A few post's back I mentioned how Lake Wallenpaupack is like my sacred place. Last night we finally had some free time and a vehicle so we made the pilgrimage north. I had checked the weather reports and things we're all clear. Cold, some clouds, and more cold. No problem that's what hats and gloves are for.

  We left the apartment and didn't really hit much traffic, but when we got to Mt. Pocono, we started noticing the streets were a little slick and there was a light dusting of snow on the ground. Not much, just enough to make it look pretty. San and I commented on it, and I mentioned I had checked the weather so maybe the snow was from the day before. 

  As we continued on it started flurrying, by the time we got to the lake it was full on snowing. Thing's were getting a little slick but still not to bad. It made the landscape unfamiliar enough that we thought we missed our turn even though we hadn't. When we finally got to the spot, the side roads were coated with snow. We slowly crept down the hill and parked the car.

  We only stayed for a little while at the lake. Most of the time we just looked out across the darkened lake and listened to the silence. It's a completely different place in the off season. No people, no boats, not even docks. I really didn't want to leave, but it was snowing pretty hard and I was worried we wouldn't make it off the mountain if we stayed much longer. 

  When we got to the car we noticed how different the snow was here. At home we get the standard wet flakes that quickly dissolve. Here the flakes looked more like rough cut salt crystals. Real big, chunky, and dry. The snow was so dry in fact that we didn't even need windshield wipers. It just didn't seem to stick to anything but the ground.

  We made our way very slowly up the hill and finally got out to a main road. We left just in time, if we had stayed much longer we would have gotten stuck. The snow was really coming down and road conditions were getting really sketchy. As we headed toward Greentown, there was one spot where the roads were horrible. 

  We were going really slow an still sliding a bit. On the left side of the street there was an emergency response vehicle and a girl with her car all smashed up in a ditch. About a hundred yards up, another car on the left was flipped, and on the right there were two vehicles smashed into poles. This was easily the scariest part of the whole excursion. 

  The snow never let up until we got past Mt. Pocono and even then we saw a few smalls bands. But for the most part it was a standard ride home after that. It was pretty crazy how fast all the snow had fallen. We were only at the lake for about a half hour. If I had known it was gonna snow I wouldn't have gone but I guess it's good we did because I think the next trip will have to wait until spring.

It's Time for a Common Human Language

   Recently Google+ entered it's open beta phase and also released a new feature that allows you to share entire circles with your circles. The result has been an explosion of circling even among average users like me. With all this circling I noticed more and more different languages being used. I've seen at least six so far. I only speak english so a lot of what some people say will be lost without translating every post and comment, which would get old real fast. And this got me thinking about something I had thought about a few years ago. Why after all this time do we still not have a common human language?

   It's become commonplace in our day to day lives to talk to people from other ends of the world. But still it tends to be only people who speak our language. On web pages and documents it's easy to translate things but it's still no guarantee that the original piece of information won't get distorted or lose some of it's original meaning. When chatting or watching a movie or listening to music it becomes even more difficult. 

   With the rise of mobile web and with more and more people on the net, now seems like a great time to start building a standard human language. Why make an entire new language? To put it simply, ego. No one is going to want a standard language if it's simply taking one of the current languages and saying, "This is the default language". If it was english, every non english speaking person would be upset their own language wasn't chosen. To keep everyone happy, or at least civil, we should make a new one.

   I think the best way to go about it would be to follow the open source crowd surfed methods often used in creating computer programming languages. Representatives from different countries would participate and come up with the basic syntax and nuances. This would allow bits of everyone's culture to be woven into the language.

   Implementation of the language once it's created would be a matter of simply promoting it and using it alongside our other languages. I think the web would be critical in this aspect, simply build it out slowly from the open source project. As it gets more popular, people can start putting it into websites and applications. Even if it's just as an option like any other language pack. If we were able to get one of the big web companies's support it would help speed up the process.

   The end goal isn't to replace our original native languages, but to create a language that sits side by side to our native languages. I think it's important for something like this happen. Not only would it help the species communicate but it would help create an important bond that could cross national and cultural borders.

   This is just a rough idea that I wanted to get out. I'm curious to hear what other people think about it. I looked around the web a while ago but didn't find much on the subject, which really surprised me.

Help Save Your Android's Battery

  This is just gonna be a quick post so let's begin. I'm always looking for ways to save my battery charge on my android. It's a great os but it's loves juice. JUUUIIICE! Ahem, anyways, I recently found a way to really save on the battery usage. Many of you probably know that when chillin at home, your phone will run much faster on your wifi network than on 3g. This mean if I'm home I'm on wifi. Games and websites love it and play much nicer with the connection.

  Recently though I found out that every time your phone goes to sleep it stops using your wifi and starts pinging for the nearest cell tower. So while you think it's doing nothing, really it's wasting your battery. There is a solution though. I guess that's obvious or I wouldn't be writing this. Here's what you do.

1. Make sure you're connected to your wifi network.
2. Bring up your menu screen and go to Settings.
3. Go to Wireless & Networks
4. Go to Wi-Fi Settings.
5. Push your menu button and select Advanced
6. Select Wi-Fi sleep policy and choose the never option.

  That's it. Now whenever your wifi is on, it will actually stay connected and not try to revert to 3g every time it sleeps. I know this sounds easy but it really does make a huge difference. I can usually get through an entire day now with just one charge. 

  Now to make your life a little easier you may want to think about downloading a widget called Wifi OnOff from the android market. This is completely optional but it's free and I highly recommend it. All it does is make switching your wifi on and off from the home screen. Nice and simple, no menu's.

  Hope this helps someone out. It did wonders for my phone and my wife's phone, which I guess I should mention are kyocera/sanyo zio's. Out of all the battery saving tricks I've tried, this one gave me the best results.

1.8 Arrives and the people rejoiced...well, some of em.

  Minecraft 1.8 has arrived and it's been one hell of a trip. Here's a quick recap. Everyone was happily playing 1.7.3 eagerly awaiting what was being hailed the adventure update. Out of nowhere a pre-release version hit the web. Mojang chose rather than fighting the leak to embrace it and use it to find more bugs. The pre-re led to a second pre-re fixes some of these bug and delaying the official release, but not for long. Two days later 1.8 officially hit the scene. Aside from the fact that Mojang had a beta of a beta this is all pretty standard stuff. Or at least it would be in any other community.
  Video game communities are well known for having rowdy members. All our bases are belong to them. Usually this manifests in aggression towards bad games, bad companies, outsiders, the web itself, and even the players themselves. Often the only thing that escapes this scrutiny is the the team behind the game. They get attacked of course, but not on the same level as the others. This tends to be especially true in the indie gaming scene. I hate the term indie btw, I prefer underground gaming but whatever.
  Indie game companies tend to be much closer to their player base. They actively communicate with them and even frequently request feedback on how to make the game better. Because of this intimacy, the gamers themselves tend to be more polite and respectful of the game and everyone involved. They tend to thank and encourage the coders. The coders in turn tend to work harder and with more passion. Everyone wins.
  The best community I've seen so far that exhibits this kind of relationship is dwarf fortress. The game is an underground classic and to those in the scene, it's the measuring stick all other games are measured with. It's complexity and depth is matched only by the wretched ugliness of it graphics and interface. The game is dense, difficult, incredibly fun and the community loves it. They embrace the fact that with such depth you sometimes get nasty bugs. They accept the fact that with games that live in beta things can get hairy. Not only do they embrace these things they actually use the bugs to their advantage and end up having even more fun. Yes both kinds!
  No matter how bad it gets, the community in general, loves ToadyOne and continue to embrace dwarf fortress. This community may be the best in my opinion but they certainly aren't alone. Another game called Cataclysm(not the WOW add on) has the same kind of community. It's much smaller but the respect for the coder is there and so is the understanding that games are not easy to make and take time.
  Which brings me back to Minecraft. Minecraft started out like all the rest, small indie game, tight player base and a coder who has no problem talking to his community. But something about minecraft was special and it suddenly exploded onto the mainstream gaming scene. Everyone seems to love this game and with good reason. It's a lot of fun, it's easy, and it can be played many different ways. Because of this, it's captured a very large player base even though it's still in beta, and as a result has made a lot of money.
  And yet for all that minecraft has going for it, it still has the worst community base I've ever seen. They're rude to each other, they have an unreal amount of trolls, and they're ungrateful. Before we continue, I should point out there are good members, you know who you are so don't get pissed. Now back to the douchebags.
  A large chunk of minecraft's base seems to think that since they paid 20 dollars for a game, they now own Notch(the coder) and have the right to basically act like a bunch of brats. They've decided minecraft should be a 24/7 job and that it should run flawlessly. No matter what notch does, it's not good enough. The players will scream for an update and get one, and then scream that the update sucks, notch should have waited. If he had waited they would have called him lazy. This time in particular it was Jeb's fault the update was late. Turns out jeb is married and his father in law was visiting. The selfish prick actually went an spent time with his wife's dad. The nerve of him. I guess no one told him that he was a slave to minecraft and as such is not entitled to family visits.
  I'm not suggesting the game is perfect or that the developers themselves are perfect. They've made mistakes and there are bugs but there's a difference between acting like an ungrateful prick and helping find bugs and working to help build a game. Everyone that has bought Minecraft knew they were buying an unfinished game. This was never kept a secret. In addition to that, Mojang has given the players free updates, little drm, and access to the finished game when it is done. They have been beyond generous in how they offer up their game.
  In spite of the communities attitude, Notch and Jeb continue to work hard at improving minecraft and they never seem to complain about it. Maybe they realize that the ones screaming the loudest and acting the rudest are just a small percentage of the true minecraft community. A large but silent group of people who love minecraft and appreciate the effort that goes into creating it.

My Sacred Place

   Most people who know me would have no problem calling me a geek, nerd, shut in, or whatever the current fancy term is for 'guy who sits around playing with computers all day'. And for the most part they'd be right. There is another part of me however. As with almost everything in my life there is a polar opposite version of me. This part of me loves the outdoors. Hiking, camping, that kind of thing. I love forests, I love the way they look, I love the way they smell. I love the way you can feel the cool damp air crawling out a big forest when you stand at it's edge.
   The only thing I love more in the natural world than forests is water. Oceans, streams, creeks, ponds, hell, give me a big puddle and I'll just stare at for hours. Bodies of water have some kind of strange hold over me. I'm not sure what it is or why but it's there none the less. My favorite of all however is lakes, which brings us to my main point, Lake Wallenpaupack.

   Lake Wallenpaupack is located deep within the Poconos mountains of Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is a place of phenomenal beauty. People from all over come here to fish, camp, hike, boat, water ski, and much more. The lake itself is 13 miles long, has 52 miles of beautiful shoreline, and at it's deepest point is about 60ft. The lake is surrounded by large swaths of forests and smaller lakes, streams and tributaries.     When you see it first hand it's hard to believe that a place of such immense natural beauty could ever be created by man, but that's exactly how it happened.
   In 1926 PPL(pennsylavnia power & light) Corporation decided to build a hydro electric dam, over what was at time, the Wallenpaupack creek. They bought up a ton of land from local residents, and cleared the valley that held the creek. Houses, stores and everything else had to be demo'd and/or relocated. To this day there are still, some remnants under the lake of the small town that once stood. Not full houses mind you, but foundations and even some roads can still be seen by brave divers who venture below the lakes waters. At the time of  it's completion, Lake Wallenpaupack was considered a marvel of engineering and was the largest man made lake in the state.

   This is one of the places I grew up. Normal life was spent in the suburbs, but summers, and occasionally winters were always spent 'up at the lake'. We gathered at the lake house each weekend. Usually there were about 10 to 15 of us there at a time. Everyone would go out hiking or swimming all day, and then in the evening we'd have a huge communal meal. It's hard to describe the effect this had on me, but some of my fondest memories occurred here.

   Eventually, in my later teen years my mom and step-dad split up and I lost access to the lake. At first it didn't seem like that big of a deal. But after a year or so something strange started happening. I started thinking about the lake more and more. Simply reminiscing about all the good times I spent there. A little while longer and I was starting to have dreams about the lake. After that I'd start getting this weird feeling in the pit of my stomach whenever I thought about. Eventually it gets to the point where I can think of nothing else but the lake.

   This happens at regular intervals, roughly every two years or so. I try to ignore it because I live an hour an a half away and I don't drive. But the only way to stop the obsession is to go there. To be at the lake. Once I get there all I have to do sit down next to it and the feelings start to disappear. Replaced with a sense of peace and calm that I rarely ever experience in my normal daily life, I'm ADD to the core and I don't handle anxiety very well.
   I'm not a religious person, and I'm not a hippy by any sense of the word. But I can't deny that somehow this place is a sacred spot for me. It holds power over me that I can not control and must obey. It is absolutely relentless. No other location has this kind of hold on me and no other place can replace it.
   Someday if I ever get my life in order, one of my dreams is to own a home on the lake. I would love to buy the exact property I grew up on, but even if that's not possible, a new home on Lake Wallenpaupack would be the perfect place to create new memories and bring peace to my twisted head.

Google Plus - It's about damn time!

  I'm in fan boy heaven right now. Over the past year or so, after a shoddy mobile experience and a photo system that's rotten to it's core, I've slowly gotten more an more annoyed with facebook. I wouldn't say I hate it but I'm always waiting for it's replacement. And suddenly, my favorite tech company bursts onto the scene with g+.
  I was thoroughly let down by wave and buzz just became a boring feed of useless and mostly automated data. So let down that when I first heard about plus, I said fuck it, and decided not to even bother trying to get an invite. After that first night I started to hear some of the preliminary reviews and it got my attention. Now I wanted an invite and it didn't seem like I had a good shot at getting one.
  Then something weird happened, I got an email from someone in china. It was all in chinese so I couldn't read it, but there was a hyperlink and the url was in english. plus.google.com/allkindsofcodeystuff. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It was either an oops email or I just got an invite from a stranger. My gut screamed scam, but I know how to read a url and this link was clearly to a google site.
  I clicked it and it took me to my new profile page. The only problem is it was all in han, I couldn't read anything but my name. Fortunately google translate came to my rescue. It took me a while to figure out how to change my language settings inside plus. I also had to ditch all my default circles because even after the language switch, they were in han.
  So far I am loving g+. The interface is slick and the concept works. I like how easily the circles work when adding people, and I like that adding people works more like twitter than facebook. It's cool to be able to basically follow people. Pictures are a breeze but the android apps need a little work. It's still early though and google says this is just the beginning. So I have hopes.
  I really can't believe it took google this long to seriously enter the social scene. This is what wave and buzz should have been. I'm glad they got it together but I really hope it's not to late. Facebook is a beast now. It's huge and it's grown outside it's main perimeter and entrenched itself on the web. They have login and their commenting system everywhere. It's going to be very difficult to dominate them.
  As a show of support I've disabled all my fbconnect logins and I've started removing my older fb content. Nothing major yet, but hopefully soon I won't have to straddle two networks at once. I can't wait to see where things go from here.