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!